ChatGPT has become an indispensable tool for SEO professionals — but only when used with the right prompts. This guide contains our most tested, battle-hardened prompts for every major SEO task. These prompts work with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and they're the same prompts that power our premium prompt system.
ChatGPT has fundamentally changed how SEO work gets done. Before AI, many SEO tasks required specialized tools, significant manual effort, or both. Today, a well-crafted prompt can accomplish in seconds what used to take hours.
The key insight is that ChatGPT is not an SEO tool — it's a general-purpose intelligence engine. The prompts you use determine whether it behaves like a keyword researcher, a content strategist, a technical auditor, or a link building specialist. This flexibility is both the strength and the challenge: anyone can open ChatGPT, but only those with expert prompts get expert results.
In this guide, we've compiled six of our most powerful SEO prompts, each tested across dozens of niches and use cases. They represent the prompts we use daily in our own SEO work and the foundation of our premium SEO & Content Marketing Prompt System.
These prompts work with ChatGPT (GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo), Claude (Claude 3 and 3.5), and Gemini Advanced. While the phrasing is optimized for ChatGPT, the logic and structure translate across all major AI models. For a deeper dive into how prompts compare to dedicated SEO tools, see our best AI for SEO comparison.
This prompt generates a comprehensive keyword universe for any topic. Unlike basic keyword tools that just return related terms, this prompt considers search intent, content format suitability, and strategic opportunity.
You are an expert SEO keyword researcher with deep knowledge of [niche/industry].
I need you to create a comprehensive keyword universe for the topic: "[main topic]"
Please generate keywords organized into the following categories:
1. INFORMATIONAL keywords (people seeking knowledge):
- "what is" questions
- "how to" queries
- "guide" and "tutorial" searches
- "vs" and "alternative" comparisons
2. COMMERCIAL keywords (people evaluating options):
- "best" searches
- "review" queries
- "vs" comparisons
- "pricing" and "cost" searches
3. TRANSACTIONAL keywords (people ready to act):
- "buy" and "purchase" queries
- "discount" and "coupon" searches
- "for [specific use case]" queries
- "[product/service] + [location]" searches
4. LONG-TAIL opportunities (low competition, specific intent):
- Problem-based: [specific problem] + [solution]
- Audience-based: [topic] + for [specific audience]
- Year-based: [topic] + [year] + [trend/update]
- Question-based: specific questions people ask about this topic
For each keyword, provide:
- Search intent (informational, commercial, transactional, navigational)
- Priority score (1-10 based on likely search volume and relevance)
- Recommended content format
- Whether this keyword has featured snippet potential
Focus on keywords with real business value — not just high volume, but keywords that indicate genuine user intent that my content can satisfy.This prompt succeeds because it structures the AI's thinking. Instead of asking "give me keywords," it provides a framework that mimics how professional SEO keyword research works. The intent categorization alone makes the output dramatically more useful than a flat keyword list.
30-50 well-organized keywords across all intent categories, each with analysis and recommendations. The output is immediately actionable — you can go directly from this prompt to content planning.
For a complete keyword research workflow using this and related prompts, see our AI keyword research guide.
This prompt transforms keyword clusters into a complete content strategy with pillar pages, supporting content, and internal linking structures.
You are a senior SEO content strategist. I need to build a content strategy for my website in the [niche] industry.
Here are my keyword clusters with priority scores:
[Paste your keyword cluster data]
For each cluster, develop a complete content strategy:
CLUSTER: [Cluster Name]
Priority Keywords: [List 3-5 priority keywords]
1. PILLAR PAGE STRATEGY:
- Pillar page title and URL slug
- Target keyword (the cluster's highest-opportunity term)
- Recommended word count (2,000-5,000+ based on competition)
- Key sections and subtopics to cover
- Content format (ultimate guide, resource hub, comprehensive overview)
2. SUPPORTING ARTICLES (4-6 articles per cluster):
For each article provide:
- Article title (keyword-optimized)
- Target keyword
- Article type (how-to, listicle, comparison, case study, beginner guide)
- Word count
- How it links to the pillar page
- Unique angle that differentiates from competing content
3. INTERNAL LINKING NETWORK:
- How supporting articles link to the pillar
- How supporting articles link to each other (where relevant)
- Links to existing content on your site (from your existing content inventory)
4. CONTENT CALENDAR:
- Recommended publishing order
- Priority ranking (P1 = publish first, P2 = next, P3 = can wait)
- Estimated time to research and write each piece
Optimize this strategy for building topical authority — Google rewards sites that demonstrate comprehensive coverage of a topic, not just individual keyword rankings.This prompt operationalizes the pillar-cluster model that modern SEO demands. It forces the AI to think holistically about how content pieces work together, rather than treating each article as an independent effort. The internal linking specifications are particularly valuable — they ensure your site builds the deep topical networks that search engines reward.
This prompt analyzes technical SEO data and produces a prioritized, actionable fix plan. It's most effective when you feed it data from Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, or a crawl tool.
Act as a senior technical SEO auditor. I'm providing my website's technical data below.
CONTEXT:
- Website: [domain]
- Pages crawled: [number]
- Platform: [CMS/platform]
- Core Web Vitals status: [LCP, FID/INP, CLS data from Search Console]
TECHNICAL DATA:
[Paste crawl data, PageSpeed data, or audit export]
Analyze this data and produce a structured technical SEO audit:
SECTION A: CRITICAL ISSUES (Fix immediately)
For each issue:
- Issue description
- Which pages are affected (list or pattern)
- Why it matters for SEO and user experience
- Step-by-step fix instructions (technical, for developers)
- Expected impact if fixed (traffic or ranking improvement estimate)
SECTION B: MAJOR ISSUES (Fix this week)
Same structure as Section A, but these issues are important but not critical.
SECTION C: OPPORTUNITIES (Fix this month)
Lower-urgency improvements that compound over time.
SECTION D: CORE WEB VITALS ANALYSIS
- Current status for LCP, FID/INP, CLS
- Specific, actionable recommendations for each metric
- Expected improvement estimates
SECTION E: CRAWL BUDGET & INDEXATION
- Pages wasting crawl budget
- Crawl efficiency recommendations
- Indexation issues and fixes
Provide specific, actionable, code-level recommendations. "Improve page speed" is not actionable. "Optimize hero image by converting to WebP format, compressing to under 100KB, and adding explicit width/height attributes to prevent CLS" is actionable.The specificity requirement ("Improve page speed" is not actionable) forces the AI to produce implementation-ready recommendations. This turns ChatGPT from a general advice giver into a technical SEO consultant that produces developer-ready task lists.
For a complete technical SEO reference that pairs with this prompt, see our technical SEO checklist.
Link building is one of the hardest SEO tasks to scale. This prompt generates personalized outreach emails that don't sound templated.
You are a link building specialist. I need to create personalized outreach emails for my link building campaign.
CONTEXT:
- My website: [domain]
- My content/resource: [describe the content you want links to]
- Niche/industry: [your niche]
- Target audience: [describe who these prospects are]
PROSPECT LIST:
[Paste prospect URLs, site names, and any notes]
For each prospect, create a personalized outreach email following these rules:
1. OPENING: Reference something specific about their site or content
- "I really enjoyed your article on [specific topic]"
- "I noticed you recently published [specific post]"
- Cite a specific insight or statistic they shared
2. THE ASK: Frame the link suggestion as a value-add to their readers
- "I thought your readers would also find value in [my resource]"
- "I noticed you mention [topic] in your post — we have a comprehensive guide that dives deeper"
- "Your article on [topic] is excellent. I have a complementary resource that adds practical implementation steps"
3. VALUE PROPOSITION: What makes your content worth linking to
- Unique data or research
- Comprehensive coverage
- Practical tools or templates
- Expert insights
4. CLOSING: Low-friction next step
- No-pressure ask
- Offer to help with anything else
- Thank them for their time
CRITICAL: Each email must be genuinely personalized. Template-y emails get deleted. Mention real details from their site. Show you actually read their content.Most link building prompts produce generic templates. This prompt succeeds because it requires personalization instructions upfront ("reference something specific") and provides a framework for tailoring each email. The result is outreach that actually gets responses.
This prompt analyzes existing content and provides specific optimization recommendations — perfect for refreshing old blog posts to improve rankings.
You are an SEO content optimization specialist. I need to optimize my existing content to improve search rankings.
HERE IS MY CURRENT CONTENT:
[Paste the full text of the article or page]
TARGET KEYWORD: [target keyword]
CURRENT RANKING: [current position, if known]
COMPETITOR URLS (top 3 ranking pages): [paste URLs of top-ranking content]
Analyze my content against the top-ranking competitors and recommend:
1. TITLE OPTIMIZATION:
- Current title analysis
- 3 optimized title variations that include the target keyword
- Which variation has the best CTR potential
2. META DESCRIPTION:
- Current meta description (if any)
- 3 optimized meta descriptions with keyword inclusion and CTA
3. HEADING STRUCTURE:
- Current H1-H3 analysis
- Recommended heading changes and additions
- Which competitor headings I should incorporate
4. CONTENT EXPANSION:
- Topics or subtopics I'm missing that competitors cover
- Questions the content should answer for featured snippet targeting
- Related keywords I should add naturally
5. READABILITY:
- Current reading level assessment
- Paragraph and sentence structure improvements
- Transition recommendations
6. INTERNAL LINKING:
- 3-5 existing pages on my site that should link to this content
- 3-5 pages on my site I should link to from this content
- Anchor text recommendations
7. STRUCTURED DATA:
- Appropriate schema markup for this content type
- Key properties to include
Provide specific, implementable recommendations — not general advice. Show me exactly what to change.The structured output matches exactly what an SEO would do when optimizing content: title, meta description, headings, expansion, readability, internal links, and schema. By providing competitor URLs and the target keyword, the AI can perform a gap analysis that reproduces what a professional SEO auditor would do.
Schema markup is critical for rich snippets and enhanced search results, but writing it manually is tedious. This prompt generates production-ready JSON-LD.
You are a structured data specialist. Generate complete JSON-LD schema markup for the following page.
PAGE TYPE: [Article | FAQPage | Product | LocalBusiness | HowTo | Recipe | Review | Event]
PAGE DETAILS:
- Title: [page title]
- URL: [page URL]
- Description: [page description]
- Publication date: [date]
- Last modified: [date]
- Author: [author name]
- Publisher: NexusPrompts
- Main image URL: [image URL]
[Additional details depending on page type, for example:]
For FAQPage: Provide [number] questions and answers
For Product: Provide price, currency, availability, brand, reviews
For LocalBusiness: Provide address, phone, hours, geo coordinates
For HowTo: Provide step-by-step instructions with [number] steps
Generate the complete JSON-LD script tag that I can paste directly into my HTML head section. Include:
1. All required properties per schema.org specification
2. All recommended properties for maximum rich result eligibility
3. Correct syntax with no trailing commas
4. The script tag wrapper
Also include:
- A brief explanation of where to place this in the HTML
- Any validation steps I should take (Google Rich Results Test)
- Tips for customizing this for future pagesSchema markup requires following a specific specification exactly. This prompt provides all the context the AI needs to generate valid, complete markup. The instruction to include validation steps also ensures you catch any issues before deployment.
The six prompts above are powerful on their own, but they represent just a fraction of what's possible with a comprehensive prompt system. A complete SEO prompt library should cover every stage of the SEO workflow:
The SEO & Content Marketing Prompt System delivers all of the above — 151+ prompts across 10 categories, plus 5 mega-systems for complete workflow automation. It's the system we use ourselves and the same prompts featured throughout our guides on SEO prompts for ChatGPT, keyword research prompts, and AI SEO analysis.
Use code LAUNCH30 at checkout for 30% off. The system is a one-time purchase with lifetime access and updates — no subscription fees.
Yes. All prompts in this guide have been tested across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. While the phrasing is optimized for ChatGPT, they work well with minor adjustments on other models.
ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) provides access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo, which produce significantly better SEO outputs than the free GPT-3.5 version. For professional SEO work, Plus is strongly recommended.
Replace bracketed placeholders like [niche], [topic], and [keyword] with your specific information. The more context you provide, the better the outputs will be.
The prompts here are individual examples. The premium system includes 151+ prompts organized by category with cross-references, workflow guides, mega-systems, and Claude-specific versions. It's a complete system rather than a collection of examples.
AI outputs vary. If the first response isn't perfect, try rephrasing your request or breaking it into smaller steps. The premium system includes troubleshooting tips for each prompt category.
Get the complete SEO & Content Marketing Prompt System with 151+ prompts in 10 categories, plus 5 mega-systems for end-to-end workflows. Designed to work alongside your favorite SEO tools.
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