Several years ago a friend introduced me to Ann

Smarty. He said she was a brilliant SEO and talented writer.

“You should ask her to contribute,” my friend told me.

Boy was he right. Fast forward to 2024, and Ann has written
nearly 150 articles for Practical Ecommerce, addressing
search engine optimization, content, social media, email,
and now, generative AI.

She’s a digital marketing polymath, in other words, a sought-

after speaker, a prolific author, and the founder of Smarty
Marketing, a consultancy.

Ann filed her first piece on ChatGPT mere weeks after

that tool launched. She had already poked, prodded, and
experimented, figuring out the benefits to merchants and
marketers. Many more insightful AI pieces have followed.

This ebook is curated from her terrific work. It’s 25 ways

ChatGPT can help elevate rankings, improve traffic, and
drive ecommerce conversions — compliments of Ann
Smarty.

KERRY MURDOCK
EDITOR, PUBLISHER

JANUARY 2024

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1. Generate content ideas.
Add the phrase “Generate content ideas to…” to a ChatGPT prompt. Then state your need.
Examples include:

• Spur social media shares.

• Appeal to bloggers and journalists.

• Drive organic traffic.

• Attract buyers at the top of the sales funnel.

• Engage site visitors.

• Re-engage inactive clients.

• Educate customers.

• Differentiate a product from competitors’ versions.

I entered this prompt seeking ideas to recruit physicians:

• “We are building a nationwide network of doctors to provide personalized healthcare

services. Generate content ideas to attract doctors who could join our network. Highlight
the benefits of joining a network versus an independent practice.”

2. Exclude target organic-search keywords.

I get good results when I force ChatGPT to exclude my target organic-search keyword. The
responses attract consumers who may be unaware of my client’s product and are searching for
something else.

Say a client offered peer-to-peer loans. I would prompt ChatGPT for content ideas for people
looking for loans but not necessarily peer-to-peer, such as:

• “Come up with content ideas to attract consumers looking to borrow money. Exclude the
phrase ‘peer-to-peer loan,’ as many potential borrowers are unfamiliar with this loan type.”

3. Request a format.
Include in your prompt the desired format, such as:

• Listicle,

• FAQ,

• Long-form guide,

• Step-by-step how-to article,

• Research paper,

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 • Survey,

• Interview,

• Video or video series,

• Q&A.

You can also prompt ChatGPT for format ideas. Here’s an example:

• “For marketing, I write articles, publish interviews, and create videos. Which other content
formats should I consider?”

4. Produce creative ideas.

ChatGPT follows instructions. It will offer unconventional ideas if so prompted. Try adding the
following instructions:

• “Avoid generic ideas,”

• “Think creatively,”

• “Generate original ideas,”

• “Focus on unique benefits instead of repeating others.”

5. Create target personas.

Ask ChatGPT to create user personas for your product. Then pick one and prompt ChatGPT for
content ideas for that persona. For example, I entered this prompt:

• “My company provides peer-to-peer loans. Generate a list of buyer personas we should target.”

Follow up by asking ChatGPT:

• “Create 10 content ideas to attract the ‘entrepreneurial innovator’ persona.”

6. Analyze text and provide further content ideas.

Request ideas based on your own content or competitors’. Here’s a sample prompt:

• “Suggest content ideas based on this text [TEXT].”

If you paste your own text, request complementary ideas.

7. General brainstorming.
Ask questions, ponder the answers, and generate follow-up queries. Say I own an ecommerce
site selling pet supplies. I could ask ChatGPT for linkable asset ideas. Here’s an initial prompt:

• “I own an online store selling pet supplies. Generate a list of digital assets I could create to
attract backlinks.”

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 Adjust your prompts, such as:

• “Come up with unique ideas no one has implemented.”

• “Focus on a specific link acquisition audience, such as journalists, bloggers, or Reddit users.”

• “Generate ideas for a single asset type, such as ebooks, infographics, or whitepapers.”

8. Find bloggers, podcasters, and more.

Start with a broad prompt:

• “I am the owner of an ecommerce site that sells pet supplies. List bloggers and podcasters
who interview entrepreneurs like me.”

Follow up with other prompts, such as:

• “Where else can I get featured? List all opportunities, not just bloggers or podcasters.”

9. Generate an outreach email.

During the brainstorming process, prompt ChatGPT to create a relevant outreach email. After
listing potential bloggers, for example, ChatGPT could compose a solicitation email, starting with
this prompt:

• “Compose an email I can use to reach out to those bloggers.”

Follow-up prompts could include:

• “This email isn’t convincing. Try harder.”

• “Use a more informal tone.”

• “Come up with a more original and shorter subject line.”

• “Make it shorter.”

10. Compose customer service emails.

ChatGPT can write and tweak emails repeatedly. Start with a generic prompt, such as:

• “You are an ecommerce retail shop selling car parts. Create an email template thanking
your customers for their purchases. Target the email to probable buyer personas.”

Follow up with more prompts as needed:

• “Make it shorter.”

• “Change the tone to be more informal or friendly.”

• “Add a ‘Subscribe to our newsletter’ call-to-action that blends with content.”

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11. Produce emails for link-building.
Try these prompts:

• “Write an email to convince an employee at an external site to link to my article [ARTICLE TEXT].“

• “Suggest several subject lines for this unsolicited email that would convince the recipient to
open and read it: [EMAIL TEXT].“

12. Re-engage inactive clients.

There’s no perfect way to entice lapsed customers to buy again. But ChatGPT can generate
email ideas for re-engagement. Here’s a sample prompt:

• “You are an ecommerce retail shop selling car parts. Generate ideas to re-engage
customers who haven’t purchased for six months. For every idea, craft an email and a
social media post.”

13. Reply to positive reviews.

Saying “thank you” repeatedly on Google Local or Yelp with the same message can appear
insincere. Try this prompt:

• “Generate 20 messages to thank customers for positive reviews on Google, Yelp, and
Facebook. Make them short but different.”

14. Reply to negative reviews.

Responses to negative reviews risk annoying customers even more. ChatGPT can generate
empathetic words and thoughts:

• “Generate 15 phrases to display empathy to customers who had a negative experience with
our business.”

You could also ask ChatGPT to critique a response:

• “This is my reply to negative feedback from a customer [TEXT]. Critique my response and
offer suggestions for improving it.”

15. Analyze social media sentiment.

ChatGPT can review and organize mentions of your brand on social media via these prompts:

• “Categorize the mentions based on sentiment.”

• “Identify mentions that need replies, and then generate responses.”

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16. Create customer surveys.
Crafting an effective customer survey is difficult. The aim is to elicit respondents’ status and
opinions with a minimal number of questions. Here’s a prompt to solicit ChatGPT’s help:

• “You are an ecommerce retail shop selling car parts. You want to survey customers for their
experience with your site. Compose questions for actionable insights that generate a high
response.”

Other survey prompts could address specific situations, such as account cancellations or cart
abandonments.

17. Generate telephone scripts for conversations with

unhappy customers.
Engaging ChatGPT with hypothetical support calls is a handy training method for new personnel.
Let them prompt ChatGPT with scenarios for frustrated customers and how it addresses them.
Here’s a prompt:

• “You are a customer support person at an ecommerce retail shop selling car parts.
Generate three scenarios of why customers may be unhappy with your product or service.
For each scenario, create a telephone script addressing the unhappy customer.”

Other prompts could refer to a particular occurrence, such as recommending an inferior part or
charging the wrong price.

18. Test your team’s customer service skills.

ChatGPT can help manage support personnel and improve their skills. Here’s a prompt:

• “I manage a customer support team at an ecommerce shop selling car parts. I want to test their
customer service skills. Generate a 20-question quiz to test those skills. Include answers.“

Don’t forget to refine your prompt or ask follow-up questions as needed.

19. Identify search-engine-optimized keyword phrases

from any post.
Try this prompt:

• “Extract SEO keywords from [TEXT].”

Follow up by asking:

• “How did you identify these keywords?”

• “What is the frequency for each keyword in the text?”

• “Identify long-tail keywords in the text and their frequency.”

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 • “Classify those keywords by search intent and frequency.”

• “This is another post on the same topic: [TEXT]. Which keywords are missing based on
your previous analysis?”

• “Which of the above posts is better and why?”

• “For both posts, extract and compare keywords from subheadings. Which subheadings are
better optimized?”

20. Conduct semantic analysis.

Semantic analysis extracts meaning from text by understanding the relationships between words
and their context. Google uses semantic analysis to assign organic rankings. You can prompt
ChatGPT by asking:

• “Create a semantic analysis of my competitor’s content: [TEXT].”

Get suggestions for what articles you should include or focus on. A helpful prompt is:

• “Extract semantic concepts and entities from [TEXT].”

To understand why a post is not ranking well for a query, ask ChatGPT to compare semantically
a higher-ranking page to yours:

• “Compare the previous article to [TEXT]. Are they semantically close?”

Request a comparison table:

• “Compare the previous two articles and create a table listing common and missing
semantic concepts and entities.”

21. Improve your content.

Improving your content could help the page to get featured in Google’s organic search results
and rank in “People also ask” boxes. Start by asking:

• “Analyze this article [TEXT] and generate Q&As, takeaways, and an editable comparison table.”

22. Repurpose content for followers and encourage them

to read the full versions on your site.
Try this prompt:

• “Create a shorter version of [TEXT] for Linkedin and Medium that entices followers on
those platforms to click through and read the original.”

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23. Generate click-worthy posts for social media.
Try this prompt:

• “Create 10 posts from [TEXT] for Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, and Twitter that entice
followers to click the link to read the article.”

It can even add hashtags when prompted. You need only to add the URL. Prompts can result in
ChatGPT losing the request and offering a summary or analysis instead. In these cases, follow
up with shortened, direct requests.

24. Keyword optimization for organic search.

Try these prompts.

• “Organize these keywords by intent [KEYWORD LIST] and create a table as output.”

• “Assign search intent to each keyword: [KEYWORD LIST]. Add several intents if applicable.”

• “Group these keywords by topic and subtopics [KEYWORD LIST]. Create as many groups
as needed, but use each keyword only once.”

• “Create an article structure from these keywords [KEYWORD LIST].”

• “Create an SEO-driven content plan using these keywords [KEYWORD LIST]. Include
several closely related keywords within a single article topic, but use each keyword only
once. Use the table format for the response.”

• “List 20 semantically related terms for each search query [KEYWORD LIST].”

• “Entity optimization: Which related names, places, and entities should an article on
[KEYWORD] mention?”

25. Optimize content for organic search.

Try these prompts:

• “Which additional keywords should I use in this product description [TEXT]?“

• “Generate a product description based on these specs [SPECS] and this target keyword
[KEYWORD].“

• “What is missing in this content for this keyword [KEYWORD], text [TEXT], and target
audience [AUDIENCE]: [CONTENT TEXT]?“

• “Based on these target keywords [KEYWORDS], break this article into sections using HTML
subheadings. Use target keywords in the subheadings [ARTICLE TEXT]. Plus, create an on-
page table of contents using those subheadings as HTML anchors.“

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 • “Optimize this title [TITLE] for organic search rankings, clickability, and focus keyword
[KEYWORD]. Suggest several options.“

• “Create an SEO content brief based on these queries: primary keyword [KEYWORD],
secondary keywords [SECONDARY KEYWORDS].“

• “Create a bulleted outline of an article based on this target keyword [KEYWORD].“

• “Create a meta description for this article [ARTICLE TEXT] and focus keyword
[KEYWORD].“

• “Suggest trustworthy research studies, with citations, for an article on this keyword
[KEYWORD].“

• “What is my listicle missing for this keyword [KEYWORD] [LISTICLE TEXT]? “

• “Why does my competitor’s article rank higher than mine in Google search results? My
article: [ARTICLE TEXT]. Competitor’s article: [ARTICLE TEXT].“

• “How can my article be improved for SEO, grammar, and depth [ARTICLE TEXT]?“

• “Generate a video description for this topic [TOPIC] and for this focus keyword
[KEYWORD].“

About the Author

Ann Smarty is the founder of Smarty Marketing, a boutique
digital marketing agency based in New York, and Viral Content
Bee, a social media promotion tool. Ann’s search engine
optimization career began in 2010. She is the former editor-
in-chief of Search Engine Journal, a contributor to prominent
search and social blogs, and a frequent speaker at Pubcon
and many other digital marketing events.

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