ChatGPT is lying to you about your keyword strategy. It has zero data on keyword volume, which means you could be targeting phrases that exactly zero people are typing into a search box.
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🧰 I love me a good digital marketing tool. This week’s recommended tool is OpusClip.
A video repurposing tool that turns your long videos into short videos.
Peek inside my toolbox.
🎧 This week’s recommended podcast episode is You Might Also Like: The Tamsen Show
It’s a bonus episode on the Marketing Companion Show podcast.
I break my self promises all the time. I used to justify it by saying I changed my mind or thinking I need to give myself grace. But every time I don’t keep my promise, it tells my brain that I can’t trust myself. There’s this weird line between giving myself grace and holding my promises. I don’t think there’s anything ground breaking in this one but I did enjoy listening to the one promise tactic.
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Created by Compass Digital Strategies, the Small Business Marketing Sweet Spot offers an eclectic mix of episodes, all meant to help you find the sweet spot in your business. Each week, you’ll hear the what, why, and how’s of getting more visibility on your website for the goal of more traffic and leads, along with bonus episodes, some experiential from other business owners sharing their own sweet spot.
We talk about everything that influences creating an atmosphere around and inside you that you actually love because how you grow your business and how you move through your life are connected, and neither of them are linear.
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Do chickens need a dentist?
I was doing keyword research for a client, a dental office, and came across a phrase that had 300 searches every month.
“dentist for chickens”
I said to a friend, “Why does a chicken need a dentist?”
They replied, “It’s a dentist for people scared of the dentist.”
Oh. 🙈To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.
And makes for a great story to show This is why we need to make sure we use keywords that match what people are searching for. And sometimes that’s difficult because I can’t see any dental office wanting to use the phrase “dentist for chickens”. Plus there’s a whole woo woo side of that because we’re not chickens. There’s a fear of going to the dentist, right? But we’re not chickens.
Your content, the words on your website, has to match what people are literally typing into a search box. Or be synonymous. No matter what the platform, be it Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Instagram.
Today we’re talking about the intention behind the words on your website.
Before I get into this, I need to share that I’m wearing my proverbial splat hat… Everything today comes with a disclaimer that info could change before this even airs. And the search world is rapidly evolving.
So what I’ve been hearing lately is people using ChatGPT or another similar tool to find keywords. I heavily caution against this because ChatGPT and similar tools don’t have search volume. It’s possible they will provide you a keyword that nobody is searching for simply because it matches a language pattern or placating you because remember, it doesn’t have critical thinking.
Now I would like to think that if it’s offering up keywords, because it does pattern matching that it would seem logical that the phrase is being used. But because it’s more submissive in it’s responses vs being more critically evaluative, I just don’t trust it.
In some of my calls, there are cases where it offered a keyword and then the person would put it into their Google Ads account. And surprise, the ad isn’t performing. Because nobody is searching for it!
Many articles around intent talk about transactional (meaning someone is ready to buy), informational (someone is looking for information but not related to a purchase exactly), commercial (the step before buying, in research to buying) and navigational (looking for a specific website or brand).
A lot of small business websites make the mistake of only targeting transactionally natured keywords. And it’s rare that someone will land on your site and just buy right away. So we need to get out there befooore they are ready to buy.
So here’s the practical question: how do you figure out what your people are actually typing?
Google Search Console is free and shows you exactly what phrases are bringing people to your site already and that’s amazing.
Google’s autocomplete and the “people also ask” section in the search results will show you the words people use.
The autocomplete is where you start typing into Google and then it will show you some options to choose from, autocompleting your search phrase.
Tools like SE Ranking, Keywords Everywhere, Google Ads Planner or even just browsing Reddit or Facebook groups in your niche will give you the real words your audience using.
You could optimize an entire page around a phrase that gets zero searches a month and wonder why it doesn’t rank.
Of course there are the cases for experimenting with zero search keywords. But it’s more of an exception to the rule where someone hits gold with some phrase that seemingly didn’t have anyone searching.
The words on your website are not about YOU. The words on your website are a bridge to help your audience understand how you can help them.
The Takeaway
Don’t use ChatGPT for keyword research. Use it for ideation and direction and to help with context. But if you’re trying to get your web pages to show up for a specific phrase, ensure people are looking for it before spending money on ads or writing about it.
