I Used ChatGPT to Rank #1 in Google in One Hour

You might think that Google hates AI content because they have an entire section on it in their spam policies. But the keyword here that often gets missed is “spammy.” In fact, I think they love AI content when it’s used in a very specific way. I’m going to prove it by rank #1 in Google, surpassing some of the biggest sites in the world using just AI content. In fact, I’m going to do it in less than an hour starting… now.

Alright, so the way we’re going to rank #1 is to go after a keyword where there’s a Featured Snippet. And the only real thing you need to qualify for a snippet is to rank in the top 10 for that keyword. So let’s go and find those keywords. I logged into my free Ahrefs’ Webmaster Tools account, went to the Organic Keywords Report, and set a couple of filters to find featured snippet opportunities. And after a minute of work, I had over 7,000 keywords to choose from.

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Okay, so my game plan is to Google some of these keywords and choose one where I think the current snippet can be improved. I was going to make some minor edits to our post using content generated by ChatGPT. And so, I’m thinking like 15 minutes of work – max. And then from there it’s just a waiting game to see if Google thinks that our page deserves to rank #1. My hopes were high and spirits were even higher. But it was then that I remembered what happened the last time I tried this…

There’s a hole in my plan. The last time I tried to make small edits and shortcut my way to #1, it didn’t work. And basically, I had to rewrite an entire article in order to win that snippet, which by the way Google referred to as “epic tips.” Anyway, I obviously don’t have enough time to do a full rewrite nor do I trust ChatGPT to do a full rewrite. And more than anything else, I just really don’t want to make the same mistake again. My stress levels were on the rise. And with time ticking away and no hope in sight, it felt like I was on the express train to Fail Town.

But after a moment of success, two questions popped into my mind that would set me on the right track. Ok… so what if last time actually wasn’t a failure? But rather, I didn’t give Google enough time to give credit to those small changes I made? And what if… what if rather than optimizing for one keyword, I did it for a whole bunch until my time ran out? I’ve gotta try.

So back I went to the organic keywords report to choose my keywords. And because there were 7,000 to choose from, I made a few rules for myself. Rule #1. Our blog post needs to be a good match for the query. For example, this page ranking for “create an affiliate program” is a perfect match for the keyword. Our “Affiliate marketing for beginners” guide isn’t. So, disqualified.

Rule #2. The page that owns the snippet has to have a similar or, ideally, higher level of authority than our website. And that’s because people love to comment with things like: “This is never going to work for 99% of websites. Ahrefs has one of the highest domain authorities.” “It’s worth mentioning that Ahrefs has high domain authority.” Yeah, we do… but so do all of our competitors, including Wikipedia, which has a DR 96! And yeah… I’m definitely going after Wikipedia. We have a DR 91 in case you’re wondering.

And Rule #3. Our pages can’t have ranked recently in the featured snippet for an extended period of time. So again for Pagerank, the last time we had and held the snippet was like 7 months ago. This way, I’ll know that a sudden #1 ranking for a sustained period of time would have been because of my work, and not luck. So after 15 minutes, I’d chosen 10 keywords to go after. It was time to call in my team of writers. And by writers… I’m talking about ChatGPT.

Alright, so the first keyword I have is “marketing funnel.” And it looks like HotJar owns the snippet here and it’s clearly a definition or paragraph snippet. So I’m actually going to copy this definition and go to ChatGPT and I’m going to say: “I want to win the featured snippet for the query ‘marketing funnel.’ HotJar currently owns it with this definition.” And Paste. “This is the definition from our page.” And I’ll copy and paste that into our chat. “Now make ours better.”

And I couldn’t believe the definition it gave me… The definition is like a full blog post. No one wants to know this. This is terrible. I thought this would be a home run win. I was even planning to scale this to the 7,000 plus eligible keywords on our blog! We’d get a vertical spike in traffic, I’d share it on our website blog, and everyone would Like because they’d know that this is the place to learn digital marketing. But all my dreams shattered – from a single prompt… And a single prompt is the very reason why this didn’t work.

Okay, so I remember reading in OpenAI’s API documentation about system roles… and I can’t find the exact snippet, but just look at their code samples. They all define a system role like, you are a helpful assistant, a personal math tutor, or an HR bot, and you have access to files to answer employee questions about company policies. Now, I’m not an AI expert or an engineer, but what I think a “system role” does is it adds context and expectations to the conversation. Like what makes a featured snippet “good”? ChatGPT and I gotta align ourselves here so we’re playing from the same playbook. And once we’re on the same page, it’s only then that I can ask for a snippet optimization and expect something, maybe, decent.

So in an attempt to set context and expectations, I asked ChatGPT to tell me the different types of Google featured snippets. And the first two types were exactly what I wanted to optimize for. I decided to start with definition snippets, so I asked it: “What makes one definition snippet better than the other?” And ChatGPT outlined a checklist of criteria. Now, because I agreed with most things said, I didn’t ask for modifications or provide any further suggestions. I needed to start editing these posts because I was racing against time.

So I gave it my first target keyword, the content from the snippet, and their entire page’s content for additional context. I also told it my goals, gave it our full content, and asked why HotJar’s is better than ours based on the criteria we established before. And the justification was decent. Now it was the moment of truth. “ChatGPT, Can you rewrite my definition to be better than HotJar’s? Explain why it’s better using our 7-point criteria as support.” And with only 35 minutes remaining I saw something unfamiliar… hope.

Alright, so this still isn’t perfect, but it’s way better than what we had before and it’s actually working off a framework which I can reuse for all of the other keywords that I chose. So I’m going to fine-tune this definition with ChatGPT and then we’re going to try and blitz through the rest of our keywords. We were off to the races. I told ChatGPT to shorten our definition. I gave it some complimentary images that would be used in our post, and I asked it to use simpler language.

And while it would have been way faster to just manually edit the definition myself, I was on a mission to prove that Google actually loves AI content when it’s used to improve clarity and user experience. Alright, so I’ve done the first featured snippet and I feel like there’s some chemistry now, and so, I’m going to go and try and finish off the rest of the 9 snippet optimizations. ChatGPT and I optimized snippets for the query “PageRank,” “SEO tips,” “SEO vs. SEM,” and more. We were like two peas in a pod. And with less than three minutes remaining, it was time to call it.

Okay, so I did 9 out of 10 snippet optimizations with AI that I’m pretty happy with so all we can do now is wait. And we didn’t have to wait long. With just one day passing by it happened again… Yesss!! I got my first snippet for “SEO vs SEM”!!! and I was on an SEO high and there was nothing that could bring me down. I went to bed thinking of what might happen over the weekend. Will Google add me to their SEO starter guide page? Will they issue me a trillion dollars in stock? All I knew is that whatever was coming my way would be well deserved.

And before I knew it, it was Monday December 11th. I logged into my Ahrefs account, went to my Rank Tracker Project, and it was gone… I lost the snippet. And the whole point of this wasn’t to just win it, but it was to win and hold it for a sustained period of time. So, we are back at square one with less than three minutes of our time. I need a break…. The next day came… then the next… and the next… but nothing. I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. So as a final attempt, I went back to Google and searched for “seo vs sem” to see what could be missing.

Okay, so this is going to sound like a completely “conspiracy SEO”-type theory, but just stay with me here. So, I noticed that the SERP is still showing the old date. And that’s because I didn’t change the updated date in the post considering it was a super-minor edit. So, I think I have like three minutes left from my original hour, so I’m going to just change the updated dates to the time the posts were changed. No bumping to the top of the blog or anything.

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