I Used ChatGPT to Learn SEO—Here’s How I Increased My Website Impressions by 1,188% In One Year
In March of 2024, our website had 26 clicks and just under 1,500 impressions. One year later, we’re seeing 151 clicks and over 19,000 impressions per month - a 480% increase in clicks and a 1,188% increase in impressions. We’ve already had 43 form submissions so far this year, which is a 258% increase year over year. We’ve been fortunate enough to turn some of those leads into great relationships and jobs.
I learned how to do all of this from scratch using Reddit, ChatGPT, and a whole lot of trial and error. This blog isn’t a guide from an expert—it’s a transparent breakdown of what I’ve done, what worked, what didn’t, and how you can start applying the same process to your own business, even if you don’t know anything about SEO.
Google Search Console results from the last 12 months on our website, Bunkerhillmedia.com
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you can’t really take shortcuts with SEO - it takes a lot of time, research and reading. This is a long, but really helpful step by step blog explaining what I’ve done over the last year for SEO on our website. I can promise you that if you can’t get through this blog, not only will you hate doing your own SEO you probably don’t have what it takes to get it done. Harsh but true - if you can’t get through this and commit to starting with some of these steps just invest in an SEO agency.
Visual showing monthly form submissions growth. This is over the past year. Since Jan 1, 2025 we’ve had 43, up 258% year over year.
Last April, I decided I was going to teach myself SEO. Let’s dive into how.
Outside of the basics, like making sure my page had an H1 tag, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I didn’t come from a digital marketing background, had no technical expertise, and definitely didn’t know the difference between structured data and schema code.
But I knew one thing: I wanted people to actually find our website. Not because we paid for ads. Not because we got lucky. But because we did the work to get people there and because once they made it there we knew our video production work could speak for itself - and it has.
So I turned to two of the most accessible tools I could find: Reddit and ChatGPT.
I want to be super clear here: I am still not an expert. I am not selling a course or claiming to be an SEO consultant. I'm just someone who owns a Boston-based video production company, decided to learn something new, and put in the hours. I now work on SEO 2-3 hours every day that I’m at my desk. When I’m not on set, I carve out time to make sure my site is getting stronger, faster, and easier to find.
And it’s working.
Before we dive in, I want to extrapolate on my knowledge of the “basics” I mentioned above. I did have an understanding of how to build a website with SEO in mind. Stuff like using headers, adding alt text to images, writing clear page titles. But that’s all surface-level.
You can learn those fundamentals in less than a day - I repeat, you can learn those fundamentals in less than a day. And if you’re on this blog to learn more about how to start up SEO for your website and think “well I don’t know anything, she had a head start, so I can’t do this” then you’re never going to make SEO work for you. You’re not willing to put in the time it takes. Again, my Basic knowledge is something you can learn in literally a day.
What I didn’t understand was how SEO actually works as a long-term strategy: how to build authority, how to analyze performance, how to create content that ranks, and how to evolve your site over time. That’s what this past year has been all about and I’m going to break down how I did it in this blog.
1. Get Your Local SEO / Google Business Listing Up And Running.
If you don’t have a Google Business Profile, this is step #1. Like…stop reading this blog and come back once you’ve created it. Your GBP is the most important thing you can do for your online presence and you’re wasting time not going to do that right now.
If your Google Business Listing does not look like this - with hours, photos, a phone number - literally leave this page right now and go do that.
At the center of everything we do for SEO is our Google Business Profile. This might sound obvious, but keeping it active and up to date is one of the most powerful ways we boost visibility in Boston-area search results.
Don’t know much about local SEO and how to make your Google Business Listing? Head to ChatGPT and put in this prompt: “Hey ChatGPT, can you please give me a step by step guide on how to set up my google business listing”
Every week, I log in and make updates. I upload behind-the-scenes photos, stills from recent shoots, and short clips. I post updates about new blogs, client projects, or even just cool moments from set. And I actually check the analytics to see what’s performing.
And when it comes to reviews? We don’t mess around. Every single client we work with gets a Google review request. No exceptions. These reviews help build trust, improve local rankings, and show potential clients that we do great work—and that people enjoy working with us.
While I’ve been handling most of our SEO in-house, one of the smartest moves we made was bringing in Sheila Grace, an agency that helped us build a solid local SEO foundation. They made sure:
Our business name, address, and phone number were consistent everywhere online
Our service areas and business categories were accurate and strategic
We were listed across the right directories
And they handled a bunch of backend local SEO stuff I honestly still don’t fully understand—but that definitely made a difference
If your Google Business Profile is collecting dust or worse, still half-filled out - it’s time to treat it like a living part of your brand. Because it’s one of the few SEO tools that gives you control, visibility, and results without spending a dime.
2. Writing Blogs 2x Per Week…With ChatGPT
One of the first things I did on my SEO journey was start blogging. Every single small business owner that we’ve built sites for has asked us, how do we get more clients to our website and our answer was always “start writing blogs”. Now I get it - that shit works. Let me tell you off the bat there are two types of blogs you need to write:
Ones with great titles filled with keywords want to be showing up for on google.
Ones people will actually read.
Let me be clear that these are two different kind of blogs. All the blogs you write don’t need to be master pieces and please don’t let your blogs take you more than 15-30 minutes to write. which leads me to my next point - I didn’t write these alone.
I used ChatGPT to help me brainstorm blog topics, research keywords, and write full-length blog drafts. I always prompt it with context like:
“Hey ChatGPT, can you help me write another SEO boosting blog for Bunker Hill Media today? I want a blog that will rank for 'Boston brand videos' and also for it to sound like me.”
ChatGPT will then spit out 5-10 blog ideas it thinks will work well for me and then together we write it. Don’t like what ChatGPT is spitting out for you? Try harder. If you don’t like what ChatGPT is giving you, you’re not prompting it well enough and you’re not telling it enough about you and your business. I promise you if this is happening this is a you problem. Read more about how to prompt ChatGPT to work for you.
I don’t have this problem because I spent days (DAYS) talking to ChatGPT about who Bunker Hill Media is. I copied and pasted things I’ve written in the past into the chat. I copied the most important parts of our website and put it in the chat. I’ve sent it production stills so that it understands what our videos look like - things like this will be a game changer for you.
Anyway, once I get the draft, I go through it line by line and rewrite anything that doesn’t sound like me. I finish the blog, add photos and videos where necessary and make it sound like something I would have written. THIS IS IMPORTANT - ONCE I AM DONE WITH THE BLOG I then paste it back into the chat so ChatGPT and say “hey here is what I ended up posting” so can learn how I write. Over time, the suggestions have gotten better and better.
I write 6-10 blogs a month. Every post targets a specific keyword, includes a strong title and meta description, and helps me build out topical authority for video production in Boston. As mentioned above, sometimes my blogs are not as on brand - "video production company in boston-ish” and are more geared towards content I know people want to read. A lot like this one!
3. Download Screaming Frog and Read SEO Reddit Posts
One of the biggest shifts in my SEO journey came when I downloaded Screaming Frog.
It’s a tool I’d seen mentioned all over Reddit—people kept saying things like “just crawl your site with Screaming Frog,” as if that meant something to someone who’d never done it before. So, I downloaded the free version, opened it up, and had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. I asked ChatGPT to explain to me how to use it and off I went.
Here’s what I learned: Screaming Frog crawls your entire website and shows you every page, every title tag, every meta description, every image without alt text, every broken link—everything Google sees (and everything it doesn’t).
Once I got the hang of it, I started using it to:
Find missing or duplicate page titles and descriptions
Spot pages with thin content
Identify images missing alt text
See which internal links I was overusing or underusing
Export crawl reports and feed them directly into ChatGPT for analysis
It became my secret weapon. I’d download a fresh crawl, give ChatGPT the CSV, and ask, “What’s the most important thing to fix next?” That’s when things really started to click.
You should know all of these big SEOish words…I was CLUELESS ON HOW TO FIX ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS but I just asked ChatGPT for an exact step by step guide on how to fix each and every single one and just made my way through the list.
I’m not going to dive to far into this but reading posts on SEO reddit is really helpful. You can also ask a lot of questions there - the community is super helpful!
4. Asking ChatGPT "What Should I Do Next?"
Use ChatGPT like an SEO coach. For example, I’d ask:
“What should I do today to improve my rankings? How can I fix this error on my website? Where can I find the exact location on my Squarespace website to fix this meta description?”
While in the beginning it was mostly just blogging, creating content for my website it started to expand from there. It gave me suggestions like optimizing metadata, creating internal links, and checking site speed. I started feeding it data from tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console. I’d copy-paste crawl reports, list out my low-click queries, or share which pages were underperforming—and it would help me prioritize what to fix or optimize next.
This kind of iterative process helped me build momentum fast.
Even now, I treat SEO like a long-term client. I keep a notes doc with ongoing to-dos: blogs to write, schema to implement, backlinks to try and get, and pages that need love. It never really ends, but that’s part of why it works.
5. Optimizing the Basics: Images, Meta Descriptions, Page Titles
I never even thought about things like alt text, page title tags, or meta descriptions before I started with SEO. Now they’re baked into my workflow.
Every time I post a blog or update a service page, I:
Write keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions
Add descriptive alt text to every image
Use headers and subheaders that reflect search intent
ChatGPT helps with all of it. For every single one of my pages and images I’ll ask ChatGPT, “Can you write me a title tag, image description and meta description that includes this keyword?”
And you’d be surprised how much those small pieces matter. When every page on your site is optimized from top to bottom, Google starts to pay attention.
6. Schema Code (AKA Structured Data for the Win)
Schema was one of the most intimidating parts of SEO for me. I didn’t even know what it was until ChatGPT explained it.
Now, here’s how I do it:
I tell ChatGPT what page I want to optimize (like my homepage or a service page)
It asks me a set of questions: What’s the page URL? What’s the video title? What’s the description? What’s your address?
I feed it that info, and it generates clean, validated JSON-LD schema for me to paste into Squarespace
We’ve now added schema to:
The homepage
Contact page
About Us page
Our Work page
Individual service pages
Blogs with FAQs
We even created a running list to track which pages have which schema types—from LocalBusiness to FAQPage to VideoObject. Every time we do this, it helps Google understand what’s on our site. We’ve even gotten rich results for videos and FAQs.
Once the code is in, I always test it using Google's Rich Results Test to make sure it’s working. If something looks off, I tweak it and run it again. That test has become my go-to checkpoint for making sure Google is seeing things the way I want it to.
And the best part? We built it all from scratch.
Please, please don’t read this and think “Well I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about,” and get discouraged. I literally didn’t know what any of this meant until I had ChatGPT explain it to me. If you can copy and paste and answer a few questions, you can do this too.
What’s Next: Backlinks (and Maybe an SEO Agency)
The last frontier for us is backlinks. It’s the hardest part, honestly.
We’ve submitted to directories, tried to get featured on partner blogs, and built internal linking strategies—but we know that to really scale, backlinks are the key.
We’ve talked many times about hiring a professional SEO team to build out backlink outreach and dig deeper into analytics. The only reason we haven’t done it yet is because we’re proud of how far we’ve gotten on our own.
But we’re open to it. We know what kind of partner we’d need. Someone who understands what we’ve already done, who could take this foundation and go deeper. Someone who wouldn’t give us a boilerplate audit, but would actually care about the nuance and voice of our site.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this year of doing SEO the long way, it’s that intentionality matters.
You don’t need to be an expert to make progress. You just need to show up consistently, ask smart questions, and be willing to learn. That’s what worked for me.
And if I can do it? So can you.
You Made It To The End! Congrats!
Here is your first step - sign into ChatGPT, copy this blog into a chat and say “Hey ChatGPT! I want to improve my SEO like this person did. Please read this blog and tell me how I can take my first steps to Improving SEO on my website (insert website here). Ask me any information you need about me and my company and let’s start this thing!”
