Your Web optimization information to the ChatGPT API

ChatGPT announced the rollout of its API (GPT 3.5 Turbo) on March 1. 

I’m bullish on ChatGPT’s utility for several totally different Web optimization-related features like keyword research, local SEO, content, and link building. Having spent a lot time utilizing ChatGPT, I’m additionally painfully conscious of its limitations.

Whereas the API gained’t be a panacea (and the online interface is definitely a lot better for some duties), it will probably assist deal with a number of the shortcomings of the online interface.

This text will present you how you can maximize ChatGPT’s API with particular Web optimization use instances.

Find out how to use the ChatGPT API

To leverage the ChatGPT API, you want to have the ability to entry the API within the first place. ChatGPT’s father or mother firm OpenAI has intensive documentation for utilizing the API.

If you happen to’re trying to study extra about constructing a instrument or interacting straight with the API there’s additionally walk-through here.

You may as well use AppsScript to question the ChatGPT API in Google Sheets, which we’ll stroll by way of right here step-by-step.

No matter your method, you’ll want to start out by getting an API key.

Getting your ChatGPT API key

Upon getting an OpenAI account, you possibly can generate your API key both by following this link whereas logged in or clicking View API keys within the profile dropdown:

Then click on Create new secret key.

Copy the API key you generated.

Connecting the ChatGPT API to Google Sheets

There’s a simple strategy to join ChatGPT to Google Sheets (h/t Keith Mint).

First, create a brand new Google Sheet, then click on on Extensions and select Apps Script:

You then paste the next code (together with your API key rather than YOUR API KEY):

const SECRET_KEY = "YOUR API KEY";
const MAX_TOKENS = 800;
const TEMPERATURE = 0.9;
perform AI_ChatGPT(immediate, temperature = 0.4, mannequin = "gpt-3.5-turbo") {
  const url = "https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions";
  const payload = {
    mannequin: mannequin,
    messages: [
      { role: "system", content: "You are a helpful assistant." },
      { role: "user", content: prompt },
    ],
    temperature: TEMPERATURE,
    max_tokens: MAX_TOKENS,
  };
  const choices = {
    contentType: "utility/json",
    headers: { Authorization: "Bearer " + SECRET_KEY },
    payload: JSON.stringify(payload),
  };
  const res = JSON.parse(UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, choices).getContentText());
  return res.decisions[0].message.content material.trim();
}

Click on save inside Apps Script:

Then you should use the next perform format to use a immediate to a cell:

=AI_ChatGPT("YOUR PROMPT HERE")

As Mint factors out in his article, you can even reference a cell if you wish to have a number of cells use prompts that refer again to at least one cell (just like the title or subject of a weblog publish):

Within the instance above, I used easy prompts just like the one pictured, then created a second paragraph for this subject. (We’ll stroll by way of extra particular functions for the API shortly.) 

ChatGPT API pricing

Earlier than you begin leveraging the ChatGPT API for Web optimization duties, it’s important to grasp the pricing.

The value for the gpt-3.5-turbo API (the ChatGPT API) is $0.002 per 1,000 tokens, which is 10x cheaper than the present GPT-3.5 API.

To higher perceive what the pricing really winds up trying like, it’s worthwhile to perceive how tokens work.

ChatGPT API tokens

OpenAI has a good breakdown and a useful free tokenizer tool that will help you decide what number of tokens a selected textual content will probably be and the way the textual content is damaged down (in case it’s worthwhile to scale back the variety of tokens for a immediate or response).

Just a few key issues to remember:

• By default, the API can return a most of 4,096 tokens.
• Tokens are a illustration of how a lot textual content your immediate and response are. This can be a key issue, as longer prompts can shorten your response output.
• Textual content is translated into tokens and roughly breaks right down to round 4 characters in English.

OpenAI additionally offered this beneficial breakdown of how tokens are calculated from textual content:

• 1 token ~= 4 chars in English
• 1 token ~= ¾ phrases
• 100 tokens ~= 75 phrases

Or

• 1-2 sentence ~= 30 tokens
• 1 paragraph ~= 100 tokens
• 1,500 phrases ~= 2048 tokens

To get further context on how tokens stack up, contemplate this:

• Wayne Gretzky’s quote, “You miss 100% of the pictures you don’t take,” comprises 11 tokens.
• OpenAI’s charter comprises 476 tokens.
• The transcript of the U.S. Declaration of Independence comprises 1,695 tokens.

So when you used a brief immediate to generate a 1,500-word article, it could be lower than half a cent.

Particular API use instances for Web optimization

The API can assist with numerous the identical Web optimization-related duties because the ChatGPT internet interface, however the two have some vital variations, making some duties higher for one than the opposite.

Understanding that may make it easier to decide which to make use of for Web optimization duties.

ChatGPT API vs. internet interface

The most important variations embrace the next:

Scale and bulk duties

If you wish to combine ChatGPT with an current utility or spreadsheet, you may want to make use of the API. 

Moreover, the API will probably be your pal if you wish to carry out a selected perform utilized throughout a number of situations (e.g., generate meta descriptions for a number of key phrases).

Superb-tuning and relationship between prompts

At the moment, ChatGPT’s API doesn’t help fine-tuning. If you happen to create a number of prompts by way of the API, they will not have a relationship. 

You may create a system message to use to a number of prompts and responses, however OpenAI has stated that these are ceaselessly at the moment ignored by the gpt-3.5-turbo API. 

This implies if in case you have a activity that requires a number of prompts and for ChatGPT to maintain the context of a complete dialog, you may need to use the online interface.

Character limits

The API has a token restrict of 4,096 which interprets to round 16,384 characters per interplay for every immediate and response. 

Character limits for the online interface can fluctuate, however usually, the immediate and response are restricted to round 2,048 characters, or 4,096. 

So for duties that require extra intensive prompts or extra vital responses, the API will probably be a greater choice. 

There are additionally extra choices for structuring prompts and duties in a manner that provides you a lengthier mixed output when you’re utilizing code quite than one thing just like the Google Sheets integration.

Pricing 

Once more, the API is priced by utilization (and presents a free trial with $18 price of tokens), and the online interface at the moment presents a free model and a $20/mo. paid model. 

Instance ChatGPT API prompts

Let us take a look at particular use instances the place you’d need to contemplate the API over the online interface.

Title tags and meta descriptions

An apparent use case the place the API is smart is having ChatGPT generate title tags or meta descriptions at scale.

You should use comparable prompts to those who work within the internet interface right here, however when you construction them correctly and lay out your spreadsheet proper, you possibly can take the primary immediate after which rapidly apply that to a number of URLs or key phrases: 

Observe that the free plan notably is fee restricted, so you might have errors the place the cells outing, through which case it’s worthwhile to delete and re-paste:

And as all the time, remember the fact that:

• ChatGPT cannot crawl the online, so it is both utilizing prior information of a URL from the coaching interval or an assumption concerning the URL primarily based on phrases within the URL to generate options
• ChatGPT’s output can usually be fallacious or deceptive and must be edited.

You should use this identical format for title tags. (I am going to have an article focusing particularly on utilizing ChatGPT to generate and replace title tags popping out quickly).

Longer content material and publish outlines

You should use the online interface in ChatGPT to create chunks of content material and descriptions fairly simply.

If you wish to make an extended article or if you are going to create a collection of outlines on totally different matters, nevertheless, it may be a clunky expertise.

The API is smoother for these duties.

First, you possibly can chunk off a publish you wrote into sections. Then line up the sections and pull your immediate down:

Alternatively, you can have ChatGPT generate a number of outlines that you simply then have a author (or writers) fill in:

Then, you can have the API write the content material one part at a time:

Once more, right here you can take these prompts, load them one after the other throughout the define (altering every immediate for the suitable part), after which simply pull the identical formulation throughout a number of outlines and have numerous textual content particular to the subsections of every publish generated.

My expertise is that this helps you keep away from token limits, and even pedestrian prompts just like the one above mixed with having ChatGPT create a top level view will generate higher content material than when you ask the instrument to “write a weblog publish.” 

Past that, you possibly can additional enhance content material high quality by doing issues like:

• Ask it to incorporate particular phrases (both since you need them on the web page otherwise you need to add inner hyperlinks for that phrase).
• Feed it statistics or quotes to work into particular sections of the publish. (That is notably useful if in case you have a subject that requires up-to-date ways and statistics, on condition that GPT-3 was not skilled on current information.)
• Tweak your prompts to output the tone and formatting you need (extra on this shortly).

And, as all the time, layer on human enhancing.

FAQs

There are a number of FAQ-related features the API can assist with.

First off, you possibly can generate an inventory of FAQ inquiries to be related to a weblog publish:

Subsequent, you possibly can have the ChatGPT API reply these (once more: proceed with warning relating to output high quality and accuracy):

Schema

You may as well have ChatGPT generate schemas for you throughout a number of pages. 

On this case, we will apply FAQ schema to the FAQs it created for us:

Convert content material to HTML

One other cool use case for ChatGPT is to transform textual content to HTML. 

First, let’s convert our publish from textual content to HTML:

Just a few issues to notice right here:

• As you possibly can see, the headers in every part have been initially formatted with paragraph tags. I mounted this within the immediate by including, “Format the header of the part as an h2, and every other headlines on this part as an h3.”
• I wasn’t in a position to mix your complete publish (which was round 1100 phrases) into one cell to be transformed to HTML, so I needed to chunk it off and gave particular directions in my immediate for every cell to verify ChatGPT did not layer within the formatting for a complete HTML doc in each cell.
• You might also get some wonky formatting, like further quotes you did not anticipate within the output. 

As with all features of ChatGPT, preserve refining your prompts and all the time test the output.

Add inner hyperlinks

Now that we’ve got our publish in HTML, we will begin to do some cool issues with inner linking.

We will inform ChatGPT so as to add inner hyperlinks from particular phrases to particular pages anyplace within the HTML we simply generated:

If we have been making a cluster of pages, we may create guidelines particular to every web page and apply them to the related HTML.

This fashion, all the things we generate is interlinked the way in which we wish, the HTML is able to go, and the FAQ schema is added appropriately.

I attempted to create a rule that was a little bit extra sophisticated, asking ChatGPT to hyperlink phrases. Here’s what I added to my immediate:

• “Any time you see the phrases making and snigger inside 5 phrases of one another, create a hyperlink with these two phrases and the entire phrases in between them to standupexperience.com/make-them-laugh.”

Right here is the hyperlink that was added:

That is not what I requested for, and in addition, it did not hyperlink each occasion of stand-up as I requested it to.

I am going to have to refine my prompts and test my outputs.

Outreach templates

If you happen to’re reaching out to a number of locations for hyperlink outreach or visitor publish placements, you should use the ChatGPT API to create a number of outreach templates for you:

When you’ve got totally different sorts of templates, get artistic with making use of these prompts throughout totally different outreach targets.

Utilizing the online interface and the API in tandem (a.ok.a., carry your prompts)

Two issues are true:

• The API is healthier for bigger tasks and performs many prompts concurrently.
• The online interface is ceaselessly higher at getting you to a wonderful output since you possibly can shuttle with ChatGPT to provide context, assessment the output, present suggestions, and so on.

One strategy to get the very best of each worlds is to create your immediate within the internet interface after which apply it to a number of objects through the API.

Let us take a look at a selected instance from this publish. My inner linking immediate did not work through the API. It is difficult to troubleshoot through the API as a result of you possibly can’t give ChatGPT suggestions or ask why the immediate failed.

Enter, immediate era through the online!

My typical ChatGPT course of is to: 

• Give it chunks of context.
• Test for understanding. 
• Assessment the output for errors and provides it further suggestions to realize my desired end result.

To have the ability to do that for inner linking guidelines, let’s begin with the online interface to scrub up our ChatGPT immediate.

First, I need to give ChatGPT some context. (Bear in mind: ChatGPT does not learn about its personal API!) 

I need to give it details about the API, share the HTML I am beginning with, share the immediate I used, and share the output I received after which ask ChatGPT to diagnose the difficulty and rewrite the immediate for me.

Let’s examine the way it goes:

If you happen to do not pre-empt it, ChatGPT will repeatedly interrupt you to fireside (ceaselessly irrelevant) solutions and options (like an keen scholar who did not do the studying).

I copied and pasted the textual content from this page in 4 prompts, the HTML I used to be attempting so as to add hyperlinks to, the total Sheets perform I would used, and the output I would gotten.

Subsequent, I lastly shared the difficulty with the output:

After which ChatGPT mounted the immediate for me.

Nicely, it wasn’t really mounted.

ChatGPT is relentlessly well mannered even when you’re getting a bit testy, and once I shared the immediate, it analyzed it for me:

The options on HTML measurement are good ones, however I used to be nonetheless getting the error:

This time, the immediate labored!

To handle the max tokens concern, I can go to Apps Script to regulate that quantity:

Or clearly, if I am not utilizing Sheets, it is not prone to be a problem (till I hit the 4096 tokens).

Get artistic and search for options

Web optimization functions for the ChatGPT API go properly past what’s listed right here. 

If you happen to’re looking out for methods to make use of the platform and may get artistic you may discover many extra functions like:

• Programmatic options: You may transcend Google Sheets to search out thrilling and scalable makes use of for the ChatGPT API.
• Combining a number of APIs: Take into consideration the way you may be capable to use the ChatGPT API in unison with APIs like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Semrush or comparable. What issues do you need to clear up? 
• Extra environment friendly or higher workflows: Take inventory of the duties you and your crew full every day. Are there objects that ChatGPT’s API might be able to both will let you do exactly as properly however extra effectively, or to enhance your work product round?

With the current release of GPT-4, extra alternatives for leveraging the platform will seemingly proceed to crop up.