Your client sent ChatGPT SEO advice: Here’s how to respond

“Hi Frank, I had ChatGPT look at our SEO and it has a bunch of recommendations. Can you take care of this for us?”

We’re all getting some version of this email from clients and bosses. Responding is fraught with challenges.

How do you avoid sounding defensive or dismissive? How do you avoid looking territorial while still explaining that some of these recommendations are generic, flawed, or completely wrong?

It’s one thing to know SEO. It’s another to know how to respond tactfully when AI-generated recommendations are suddenly part of the conversation.

Resist the urge to respond, ‘ChatGPT is wrong’

It might feel good to tell them the AI output they sent is wrong and that they should leave the SEO to you. But that response usually backfires. 

It makes you sound defensive, and it shifts the conversation away from SEO and toward whether you’re being territorial.

Don’t debate ChatGPT. Show the person who sent the recommendations that you can evaluate AI output objectively and professionally.

The first step is acknowledging the effort behind the recommendations before you start evaluating what’s actually useful.

Validate the effort

Don’t jump directly into your analysis. Start by thanking them for sending it.

Most people forwarding ChatGPT output think they are being helpful. They are trying to contribute ideas, move things forward, or make sure nothing is missed.

If your first move is to attack the recommendations, they will hear you attacking the effort.

Here’s how we opened a recent client response:

• “Hi Dr. _______! Thanks for sending this over. There are a few ideas worth taking a look at. I also have some ideas on data we can give the model so it has more context. I’ll follow up with you afterward with more details.”

That response does a few important things:

• It acknowledges the effort behind the recommendations.
• It signals that you’re evaluating them objectively.
• And it gives you room to separate the useful ideas from the flawed ones later.

You’re not admitting that AI uncovered major issues you missed. You’re showing willingness to review the recommendations professionally before making decisions.

Follow up with what’s worth exploring 

Don’t lead with everything ChatGPT got wrong. Start with the ideas worth exploring first. That shows you evaluated the recommendations objectively instead of dismissing them outright.

This is where you demonstrate expertise. Don’t dismiss recommendations simply because they came from AI. Assess whether the underlying observation is valid, whether it matters, and whether it’s worth acting on.

For example, I recently reviewed AI-generated feedback on a page our team was working on.

Had a client sent this over, an appropriate response would start with something along the lines of:

• “Thanks for sending this over. I took a look and there is some room to get some more Philadelphia-relevant content/language into this page while keeping it natural. I’ve assigned this to one of our copywriters to get started.”

---

Let the sender come to the conclusion that ChatGPT is wrong

Once you’ve acknowledged the recommendations worth exploring, you can start addressing the weaker ones. The key is to walk stakeholders through the reasoning rather than simply declaring the AI output is wrong.

For example, we received an AI-generated analysis from a plastic surgeon client claiming that several competitors had “focused their SEO” around a single procedure:

“Hi Dr. ___________,

Positioning you as the surgeon in your market for a specific procedure goes beyond SEO. This is a fundamental aspect of branding and positioning that could not only drive better user signals, resulting in better rankings, but higher conversion rates as well. 

I would note that if you visit these websites, however, you’ll see that they rank well for facelift queries even though they list many other procedures. I can’t figure out why the model is claiming that their SEO is focused on facelift.

They are producing content beyond that procedure, as well:

So if you decide to go all-in on positioning yourself around a specific procedure, it doesn’t mean we can’t list other procedures on the website, nor does it mean we’d be limited to writing only about that procedure. 

It would largely direct efforts on social media, outdoor, and areas outside of SEO and the website.”

Notice what this approach does. It:

• Acknowledges the valid strategic point behind the recommendation.
• Introduces contradictory evidence calmly.
• Allows the stakeholder to recognize the flaw in the AI’s reasoning independently.

That is far more persuasive than simply saying “ChatGPT is wrong.”

Focus on improving the analysis, not debating the output

At some point, you need to explain what is really happening: AI outputs are only as good as the prompt and context they are given.

In this case, our client did not provide any context, data, or guidance. He simply asked the model for SEO recommendations for his website.

Continuing the client email:

“…the model is recommending we add procedure pages in excess of 3,000+ words:

Luckily, we already have all of these pages up, though our word counts do not exceed 3000.

I checked this against the top-ranking results for these queries and found that almost all have word counts that are much lower than this, which reflects my experience that raw word count does not drive rankings:

I think we should rerun this analysis and make a few changes to the prompt, including asking it to ignore word count.

We should also ask the model to analyze these pages against ours and point out subtopics they cover that our pages have missed, entities they include that we don’t, and how the information density of our content compares to theirs. What do you think?”

Notice the shift in the conversation. You’re not arguing about whether ChatGPT is “right” or “wrong.” You’re improving the quality of the analysis itself.

This is a much more productive conversation that positions you as collaborative, analytical, and confident in your expertise instead of defensive about it.

These emails aren’t going away. Learn how to answer them.

You’re going to get more and more of these emails from clients, executives, and internal stakeholders.

Learning how to respond to them effectively will become an increasingly important part of SEO and marketing leadership.

The challenge isn’t just evaluating AI-generated recommendations. It’s doing so in a way that:

• Keeps stakeholders engaged.
• Reinforces your expertise.
• Doesn’t consume unnecessary time and energy.

The next time you feel tempted to send AI-generated recommendations to your accountant, doctor, or IT department, remember what it feels like to be on the receiving end of them.

View the full article