ChatGPT SEO Best Practice: Writing for Humans and Machines | BrandRadar
October 10, 2025
October 10, 2025
Back in 2023, SEO felt almost like a formula. You optimized for keywords, added a few H2s, and your job was done. But today writers aren’t just writing for readers and search engines anymore. They’re writing for AI visibility and algorithms that evolve each quarter, and ChatGPT SEO has become far more complex than most assume.
When ChatGPT answers a query, your article may never appear as a blue link. Instead, your work could be summarized, rephrased, or ignored entirely. A recent SEMrush study, 2025 found that visitors coming through LLM-generated answers are worth 4.4x more than traditional organic visitors, meaning missing out isn’t just a ranking issue, it’s a revenue issue.
Focusing on ChatGPT SEO is not about abandoning traditional SEO. It’s about learning how to write for humans and machines simultaneously. In this guide by BrandRadar, we’ll explore best practices that help writers like you future-proof your work.
There are countless sources speaking about the differences, and to put it simply: Traditional SEO is built around rankings. You target keywords, optimize for clicks, and track positions on page one. But generative search is built around answers.
Here’s what makes it different:
And it's not always a positive turntable either. A study by Search Engine Journal (2025), found that AI Search Sends Users to 404 Pages Nearly 3X More Than Google. ChatGPT mentions 2.38% lead to error pages whereas Google leads to 0.84% broken links.
In the midst of all kinds of information and how-tos, one can easily get swayed and miss the actual purpose of content generation, which is writing for Humans - the ultimate audience. No brand survives on machine-readability alone. That means clarity, authority, and trust should never be sacrificed.
Our experts summarised the top factors that writers should keep in mind when writing for humans in the ChatGPT SEO space.
Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing. ChatGPT, Search engines and Humans now reward natural, clear writing. That means content originality is important, but the delivery matters just as much. Use a conversational tone, short sentences, and logical flow, as if you’re explaining the concept to a well-informed peer who values clarity over jargon.
Humans connect with stories and relatable scenarios, it’s how we process information. A case study, a real example, or even a short analogy makes information stick. A stat shows the “what,” but a story shows the “why.” For instance, if you’re in healthcare technology, instead of saying “AI improves patient outcomes,” which is already a proven fact, share how a hospital reduced readmission rates by 20% after using your AI-powered predictive analytics tool as a story. Suddenly, the abstract idea becomes tangible, memorable, and persuasive.
Writers should reference credible data and fresh sources in order to convince AI crawlers on the quality of content they produce. As much as consumers like reading stories, they also look for proof to believe them. Trust is difficult to build when your statements are mere personal opinions.
Dense walls of text lose both human readers and ChatGPT. Use tables of contents, subheadings, bullets, and highlights so information is easy to scan. Readers skim, and so do machines. A study in 2025 found that people typically spend less than 15 seconds on a web page, with only 55% of page views receiving this attention. This means people only read about 28% of the words on a web page.
Now for the other side is machines. ChatGPT and AI assistants don’t “read” like we do, they look through, segment, and map relationships. Writers who understand this can give their content a technical edge all while providing a refreshing human reading experience.
With BrandRadar’s content engineering expertise, here are the top 4 ChatGPT SEO factors to keep in mind when writing for machines.
Topical clusters are great, but over-disintegrating topics can be a disaster if you're not giving each piece semantic depth. If your article is about “Best Skincare Clinics in Bangkok,” also touch on related terms like “Bangkok dermatologists,” “aesthetic treatments,” “laser skincare options,” and “cosmetic procedures in Thailand.” This not only adds semantic richness for generative search systems but also answers the broader set of questions users might have around the topic.
Schema markup, FAQs, how-to steps, and comparison tables feed machines structured knowledge. According to 2025 studies by LSG and Schema.org Foundation, brands using full schema implementation saw 37% more citations in AI-generated answers and 24% faster re-inclusion after core updates.
Ensure product descriptions, author bios, and metadata are clear and consistent. AI systems rely on patterns. A mismatched job title or outdated date stamp can confuse engines.
Cite reputable sources in your industry domain and research pages that support your content statements. Machines weigh citation quality heavily, just like humans do. And make sure to revisit all your past content and replace broken links so that AI crawlers know your content is up to date.
Managing all of these can be troublesome. That’s where tools like BrandRadar help, ensuring your content remains consistent, semantically rich, and optimized for both human readers and generative engines. Instead of juggling multiple platforms or second-guessing AI visibility, you can now monitor your brand on AI platforms and build digital strategies more effectively.
It’s a fact that some content forms perform better than others when it comes to AI search visibility. Those content that are easy to parse and refer tends to get traction from LLM crawlers.
These content forms are;
One of the biggest challenges for writers today is that traditional rank tracking doesn’t apply to generative search. AI visibility measuring KPIs have shifted. If AI Overviews or ChatGPT never cite you, you won’t show up even if you’re No 1 in Google. That’s why AI visibility monitoring is essential.
BrandRadar provides a holistic 360-degree AI visibility monitoring for your brand and SEO strategy, ensuring you don't miss any opportunity or make any errors when optimizing your platforms. These include:
And this matters: Deloitte (2024) reports that 74% of advanced GenAI initiatives deliver ROI, but only if visibility is tracked and optimized. Otherwise, your AI strategy is flying blind.
Think GEO, not just SEO
It’s true that SEO continues to dominate search traffic, Google and Bing still account for over 90% of desktop search traffic, and traditional search engines get roughly 34× more visits than current AI chatbot tools. But things are rapidly changing. According to a study in May 2025, AI-referred sessions jumped 527% in just five months from January to May 2025 across 19 GA4 properties.
Back then, SEO was about search engines. Today, GEO is about all generative systems. This is why writers must make sure to strike a fair balance among the three key factors which are;
For instance, a press release written today should not just be media-friendly, it should be machine-readable, with structured product descriptions and embedded schema so AI can easily parse and cite it.
If you ignore ChatGPT SEO, you risk becoming invisible in the AI space. Competitors who optimize for generative engines will slip into consumer conversations while your content sits unnoticed. Over time, that visibility gap piles up, and it’s not just about traffic, it’s about relevance. If AI isn’t citing you, your audience may never even know you exist.
ChatGPT SEO is no easy feat, but it’s not alien to SEO writers. Humans want stories, clarity, and authority, machines want depth, structure, and consistency, and marketers want visibility across both.
If you're stuck in the SEO-GEO crossroad wondering which next steps to take, BrandRadar is here for you. Sign up with us for free and try out our advanced Generative Engine Optimization tool!
