AI SEO Best Practices: Complete Guide 2025

Background

Steven B. Marks, a member of our premium community, came to the group in November 2024 with a simple but powerful question: Should I create city pages for my client’s local SEO strategy? His client had four physical locations but wanted to target an entire state for one key service. The challenge was clear: without Google Business Profiles (GBPs) for every city, how could they capture that traffic?

The advice given was to build city-specific service pages: highly targeted pages optimized for transactional keywords like “plumbing services in Houston” or “24-hour emergency plumbing services in Houston.” This approach sparked a journey that completely transformed his client’s business.

Strategy Breakdown

1. Transactional Keyword Focus

Rather than chasing broad informational queries (which are increasingly answered by AI Overviews and GPT search), the strategy honed in on transactional intent keywords. These are the searches people make when they’re ready to buy or book, making them far more valuable.

2. Service + City Page Mapping

• Create a hub page for each city: e.g. “Plumbing Services in Houston.”
• Under that hub, build individual service pages: e.g. “24-hour emergency plumbing in Houston,” “pipe repair in Houston,” etc.
• Every service has its own page. No dumping everything onto one catch-all page.

3. Handling Duplicate Content Concerns

Many hesitate to create city/service combinations out of fear of duplication. Steven’s approach avoided issues by:

• Customizing title tags and HTML headers
• Using schema markup to signal exactly what each page covered
• Ensuring each page had unique value signals for Google

4. Indexing Best Practices

Don’t try to index everything at once. Roll pages out gradually, about 10 per week, so you don’t throw up red flags to Google. This slower pace also gives you time to check whether new pages are actually getting indexed. If you see the dreaded “crawled but not indexed” message (Google’s polite way of saying, “I read your page, I just don’t like it”), fix those issues before pushing hundreds more pages live.

5. Scaling with Automation

Creating thousands of service + city pages doesn’t have to mean thousands of hours of manual work. The process can (and should) be automated.

Why Segmenting Matters

When building at scale, resist the temptation to generate full pages in a single GPT or Claude prompt. Doing it in one shot leads to problems:

• Inconsistent word counts
• Variations in tone and style
• Higher risk of hallucinations

Instead, segment each page into structured sections and generate them individually. For example:

• context section
• Why hire us in {location}
• benefits of {service}
• FAQ section
• {on page schema}
• Meta Description

Each section is handled by a different automation node, ensuring consistent structure across all pages.

Example Build

The screenshot provided shows a real automation flow:

• Google Sheets provides the data inputs.
• Router distributes the tasks.
• Each GPT node creates one section of the page.
• Google Docs assembles the final draft.
• The output is pushed back to Sheets for tracking.

Benefits of This Approach

• Scalability: You can generate 1,000+ pages with the same structure, adjusting only the local service and city.
• Consistency: Pages look uniform while still being tailored to each location.
• Efficiency: The process is fast and cost-effective—limited only by your API budget.

With this method, producing hundreds or even millions of pages is possible without sacrificing quality or spending endless hours writing.

Results

• November 2024: Started with just 127 indexed pages.
• April/May 2025: Over 1,122 pages indexed. Phones and calendars flooded with leads.
• January 2025: Client hit 99 booked appointments in one month (not counting phone bookings). Best month ever.
• August 2025: Google Search Console shows 1,200 clicks in 28 days, up from just 600 in April 2023.
• Business Impact: Client had to hire additional attorneys and paralegals to handle demand. Filing totals for 2025 are already surpassing previous years, with months left to go.
• Zero Ad Spend: All growth came from organic traffic.

Why This Worked

1. Scalability: Hundreds of city + service combinations covered all the transactional keywords competitors ignored.
2. High Intent: Focused traffic meant higher conversions, not just vanity metrics.
3. Community Collaboration: The original idea came from sharing openly in the community, which gave Steven the confidence to execute.

Key Lessons

• Don’t lump all services into one generic “Our Services” page.
• Map out every service you want to rank for, then replicate it across every city you want visibility in.
• Transactional keywords are where the money is. Informational queries are often swallowed by AI Overviews.
• Organic traffic can outperform paid ads when structured correctly.

Final Word

What started as a question about whether to create city pages turned into a textbook example of local SEO domination. With no ad spend, Steven’s client now enjoys record-breaking growth, proving that the right content structure can scale a business faster than most people imagine.

‍

If you want to learn how to do this and get support from an active community, consider joining us at AI Ranking Premium.

With GPT‑5, OpenAI has basically simplified the whole “which model do I pick?” dilemma down to three core modes. Auto. Fast. Thinking. That’s it. But there’s nuance in how and when you should use each one. And trust me, if you get this right, you’ll save yourself time, frustration, and possibly a few grey hairs.

1. GPT5 Model Selection

Auto

Auto is like the GPS of GPT‑5. You tell it where you want to go, and it decides the best route. If your request is simple, it’ll quietly send it through Fast. If it senses complexity, it’ll switch to Thinking without you lifting a finger. It’s smart. But sometimes it’ll overthink a “what’s the capital of Chile?” type of question and route you to Thinking. Slightly annoying, but that’s just how OpenAI optimised GPT‑5 to balance compute efficiency.

OpenAI has been pretty upfront about this: one of the big pushes with GPT‑5 was to cut down on server strain while giving us better reasoning capacity at scale.

Fast

This is your go‑to for 99% of tasks. Quick answers, brainstorming, simple copy. If you’re drafting an email subject line or asking it to summarise a short text, Fast is perfect. It’s built to be responsive – you’ll actually feel the difference. In many ways, this is a little bit what GPT‑4o felt like: snappy, fast responses that made everyday tasks flow smoother... except now its smarter.

Thinking

Thinking mode is where GPT‑5 flexes. It’s slower, yes, but with a massive 196k token context window (about 4x GPT‑4o’s). Use it when you’re doing deep strategy work, coding problems, or anything with multiple moving parts. The trade‑off is speed, but the payoff is accuracy and depth.

Legacy Models

Missing your old friends GPT‑4o, 4.1, o3? They’re still tucked away. Go into Settings → General → Show additional models. Flip that toggle, and you’ll see them under the “Legacy Models” dropdown. Not essential for most people, but nice to have in case you want to compare outputs.

2. Tools You Actually Need to Know

Here’s where GPT‑5 goes from “chatbot” to “Swiss army knife.” These tools are what make the Plus plan worth it.

Add Photos & Files

Upload up to ~20 files at once. Docs, spreadsheets, PDFs, even images. This turns GPT into a multi‑modal assistant, it can read your PDFs, analyse your data, or even look at a photo and give insights. Super useful for research and SEO workflows (think uploading a CSV of keywords or a competitor’s brochure).

Search

Search gives GPT real‑time internet access. Officially, it’s powered by Bing. Unofficially, some SEOs testing the responses claim it’s pulling Google results more often than not. Either way, the point is: this is your way to cut hallucinations and get fresh data.

*Important side note* more and more sites are blocking AI crawlers (Cloudflare being the biggest culprit). So don’t assume GPT can access every corner of the internet. But when it works, it’s gold.

Deep Research

This is not just “search but slower.” It’s a Plus‑exclusive mode that basically turns GPT into your AI research assistant. Instead of a quick lookup, it actually performs multi‑step searches, not just scanning the top answers, but digging deeper into related areas, following interesting leads, and going further down the rabbit hole until it collects all the useful information. It’ll then spend 2–30 minutes combing sources, asking you clarifying questions, and producing a fully cited report.

Limits: ~25 deep research sessions/month on Plus. But that’s plenty if you save it for the big stuff – competitor analysis, market research, or building the foundation for a new content campaign.

Agent Mode

Think of Agent Mode as hiring an AI intern who also knows how to use a computer. It can:

• Browse sites like a human (click links, fill out forms).
• Run code in a terminal.
• Pull data into spreadsheets.
• Generate slide decks with charts.
• Even generate leads.

The key difference: unlike normal GPT where you guide every step, an Agent executes multi‑step workflows autonomously. You stay in control (it’ll ask permission before big actions), but this is the closest thing to an AI employee. And just to be clear, OpenAI isn’t the only one with this kind of autonomous agent tools like Manus or GenSpark offer similar functionality. Personally, I like having everything under one subscription, but it could be worth testing those out too since they bundle in other useful tools.

Canvas

Canvas is my personal favourite. It’s basically a Google Docs‑meets‑GPT editor where you and the AI can write side‑by‑side. Instead of GPT spitting out text in chat for you to copy, it edits inline, with suggestions, highlights, and even “track changes” style edits.

It’s a game‑changer for:

• Blog drafts
• SEO content refinement
• Code debugging
• Client deliverables
• Creating simple but useful HTML apps you can embed in your site

You can even throw a meeting transcript in there and have it convert it into a structured, sharable HTML report.

Create an Image

Built on OpenAI’s GPT‑4 image model (a huge upgrade from DALL·E). It handles text in images very well which used to be the Achilles heel of AI art tools. Great for social graphics, blog headers, or quick visuals when you don’t want to fire up Photoshop. That said, whilst this is an incredible AI image tool, in my opinion it’s by far not the best. If you want images that are almost indistinguishable from real photos, you should check out Flux from Black Forest Labs or Google’s new Nano Banana generator. At the end of this section, I’ll drop three images below from three different image generators with the same prompt: GPT‑4o, Flux, and Nano Banana. This way, you can make up your mind about which one you like better.

Prompt: High-angle over-the-shoulder photo of a person, showing the back of their head and shoulder. Their smartphone is in focus, displaying an Instagram post on the screen with the words "AI image generation." The background is softly blurred to emphasize the phone.

‍

Study & Learn

This is more niche. Essentially GPT builds custom study programs. Perfect if you want to learn a new skill (SEO, coding, algebra homework for your kid). If your kid asks for help with algebra or quadratic equations, stuff you’ve totally forgotten, you can definitely use this tool to get you out of the pickle. Not something every business owner will use daily, but it’s there...

3. Customisation & Settings You Shouldn’t Skip

Here’s where you turn GPT from “a tool” into your tool.

• Custom GPT profile: Add your name, role, and tone. More importantly, use the “traits” field to set shortcuts. Example: prefix with C for concise one‑liners, L for long‑form detailed answers. Total time‑saver.
• Memory: Toggle this on. GPT will remember how you like things done, your writing style, even recurring workflows. You can edit or delete memories anytime. I think this is really the kind of unsung hero of all the GPT settings. The more memory and things that GPT remembers about you, the more personalised your ChatGPT experience will be. Yes, it can feel a little scary having an AI remember so much, but the deeper you go the better it gets. Think of it like Apple’s ecosystem effect: once your iPhone, AirPods and MacBook all work seamlessly together, it’s tough to leave. Same here, the more GPT remembers, the harder it is to imagine switching to another app.
• Connectors: Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Notion, Canva. Once hooked up, GPT can fetch info and act directly in those apps.
• Personality features: GPT‑5 also lets you set a personality style. You can make it more formal, friendly, cynical, or even playful depending on what suits you best. This goes beyond shortcuts – it actively changes how the model frames responses, almost like giving it a new voice. For example, a ‘cynic’ personality will give you blunt, witty replies, while a ‘coach’ might be more encouraging and structured. This is brand new in GPT‑5 and worth experimenting with. If you want to go deeper into this, we've created a detailed guide on GPT-5's new personality, which you can check out here.
• Data control: Disable “Improve the model for everyone.” Otherwise, you’re giving OpenAI consent to train on your data. Especially critical if you’re in law, healthcare, or finance.
• Voices & Themes: More cosmetic, but advanced voice mode is actually fun if you like talking to your assistant instead of typing.

4. Best Practices (a.k.a. Don’t Do Dumb Stuff)

• Use Fast by default. Only switch to Thinking when you’re tackling strategy or complex analysis.
• Don’t waste Deep Research. Save it for competitive research or market deep dives, not “what’s the best pizza topping.”
• Lean on Canvas. If you’re drafting or editing, don’t settle for chat bubbles – put it in Canvas and collaborate properly.
• Treat Agent Mode like a junior hire. Give it clear tasks, review the outputs, and never let it run wild with sensitive stuff.
• Stay organised with Projects. For ongoing campaigns, group your chats, files, and settings in one place. Keeps you sane.

‍

FAQ

1. What’s the difference between Fast and Thinking modes in GPT-5?
Fast gives you quick, snappy answers (like GPT-4o), while Thinking takes its time with deeper reasoning and a much larger context window.

2. Can I still use older GPT models like GPT-4?
Yes. Toggle Show additional models in Settings and you’ll see legacy models like GPT-4o, 4.1, and mini versions in the dropdown.

3. How is Deep Research different from normal Search?
Search pulls quick results from the web. Deep Research runs multi-step queries, follows leads, and produces a fully cited report — perfect for competitor or market analysis.

4. What can Agent Mode actually do for my business?
It can browse websites, fill out forms, run code, generate reports, or even schedule meetings — essentially acting like a junior AI employee under your supervision.

5. Is Canvas just for writing?
Not at all. It’s for writing and coding. You can refine SEO drafts, debug scripts, or even build simple HTML apps you can embed on your site.

‍

GPT‑5 arrived in August 2025, and while everyone was busy drooling over bigger context windows and slicker multimodal reasoning, a quieter but far more human feature slipped in: personalities. Yes, your chatbot can now choose a mood. Or, more accurately, you can pick which mood you want it to wear.

This update isn’t a gimmick. Personalities change the way GPT‑5 speaks, reasons, and interacts. No more copy‑paste politeness or “always‑sunny” tone. Instead, you can pick something that matches your task, or your tolerance for small talk. In my own experience, Cynic has quickly become my favorite. It’s blunt, sarcastic, and will tell you what you need to hear without buttering you up. That small twist makes using GPT far less sterile and much more productive.

What Are GPT‑5 Personalities?

GPT‑5 offers four presets, Cynic, Robot, Listener, and Nerd. Each is more than a coat of paint. They shape how the AI chooses words, structures replies, and balances empathy with precision.

• Cynic: Dry humor, snarky edges, practical over polite.
• Robot: Stripped of emotion, factual and to the point.
• Listener: Empathic, reflective, almost therapeutic.
• Nerd: Obsessed with detail, loves examples, enthusiastic.

They’re part of a broader personalization push that also includes memory, user bios, and even custom UI themes. This isn’t just cosmetic. It’s OpenAI acknowledging that style matters as much as accuracy.

‍

How to Set GPT‑5 Personalities

Switching personalities is thankfully easy. On desktop or mobile:

1. Open ChatGPT and click your profile icon.
2. Select Customize ChatGPT.
3. Choose your Personality from the dropdown (Cynic, Robot, Listener, Nerd).

Alternatively, you can pick one at the start of a conversation by clicking the sparkle icon next to the model name. Keep in mind that personalities apply only to new chats. If you start with Cynic, that chat will stay Cynic forever unless you reset it. You can always revert to the Default personality.

Which Personality Should You Use?

Different personalities shine in different scenarios:

PersonalityBest ForCynicCutting through fluff, reality checks, quick decisions. Think strategy sessions or when you’re sick of AI pleasantries.RobotTechnical work, debugging code, analyzing spreadsheets, data crunching. Anything where tone is a distraction.ListenerDrafting sensitive emails, brainstorming during stressful moments, or tackling anything emotional. It reflects and affirms instead of lecturing.NerdDeep dives, research, learning, planning. Ideal for exploring complex topics or asking for structured, example‑rich output.

In my workflow, Cynic wins hands down. It’s refreshing to get advice without sugarcoating. The snark is a bonus, it feels like a colleague who can be both helpful and slightly amused at my mistakes.

‍

Pro Tips & Best Practices

Personalities don’t override GPT‑5’s core abilities. The reasoning, multimodal input, and massive context window still matter more for heavy tasks. But the way the model communicates changes dramatically.

• Match the tone to the task. Use Robot for crunching numbers, Listener for writing HR emails, Nerd for research, Cynic for strategy.
• Expect updates. OpenAI has already promised to make GPT‑5 “warmer” without losing its professional edge. Translation: Cynic may get even sharper, Listener may get even softer.
• Combine with UI personalization. Memory, user bios, and custom colors make personalities feel more integrated. The AI stops being a generic box and becomes a tool that fits you.
• For developers. If you’re using the API, you can mimic personalities by adjusting parameters like verbosity and reasoning_effort to steer tone and depth.

My Experience With Cynic

I’ll admit it: Cynic hooked me fast. The first time it told me, flat out, that my idea was garbage, I almost laughed. Not because it was wrong, it wasn’t, but because finally, an AI wasn’t scared to tell me the truth. No hedging, no over‑apologizing. Just honesty with a hint of bite.

Cynic is particularly good for brainstorming and critical review. When you’re too close to your own work, it feels like having a brutally honest colleague. It doesn’t care about your feelings, which, ironically, makes it far more useful than an overly polite assistant. The snark makes it memorable, too. That unexpected change in tone can jolt you into looking at your work differently.

Conclusion

GPT‑5 isn’t just another “faster, smarter” upgrade. With personalities, it finally gives users control over style, not just content. Choosing the right personality can sharpen tasks, soften conversations, or simply make the AI more enjoyable to use. And if you’re like me, you’ll quickly find that Cynic, sharp, honest, and a little cheeky, becomes your daily driver.

Personalization isn’t optional anymore. You can ignore it and stick with Default, but then you’ll miss out on what makes GPT‑5 actually feel different: an assistant that works not only with your tasks, but also with your temperament.

‍

Frequently Asked Questions About GPT‑5 Personalities

1. Can I switch personalities in the middle of a chat?
No. Personalities are set when you start a new conversation. If you want to change, you’ll need to start a fresh chat with the new personality.

2. Do personalities affect the accuracy of GPT‑5’s answers?
Not really. The underlying reasoning and multimodal capabilities stay the same. What changes is tone, style, and the way responses are structured.

3. Are personalities available for free users?
At launch, they’re mainly available for paid tiers like Plus, Pro, and Team. Free users may see limited or delayed access depending on OpenAI’s rollout.

4. Can I create my own personality beyond the four presets?
Yes. You can type in a custom style description like “casual and witty” or “formal and concise,” and GPT‑5 will adapt its voice accordingly.

5. Which personality is best for professional settings?
It depends on the context. Robot is safest for technical work and reports, Listener is strong for team communication and HR‑related writing, Nerd is perfect for research, and Cynic—if your coworkers can handle blunt honesty—can be great for strategy and critique.

‍

‍