Turn Claude 4 Into Your Own Personal SEO Assistant

June 18, 2025

•

min read

Traditional SEO tools are falling behind. Google is evolving faster than ever, and if your tools aren’t keeping up, your rankings will slide. But what if you could build your own SEO assistant? One that knows your site, your competitors, and gives you crystal-clear, data-driven answers?

Yep. I’m talking about Claude 4 + Data For SEO + a lightweight MCP integration that turns Claude into an SEO strategist with live data access.

Here's how to set it all up from scratch. No dev skills needed.

What You’ll Need

Before you start, get these tools ready:

Claude for Desktop – Mac or Windows: Download Claude
Node.js – Runtime for installing dependencies: Download Node.js
Data For SEO account – Use this link to get $1 credit (goes a long way): Sign Up
VS Code – Free code editor to tweak one config file: Download VS Code

‍

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Install Claude + Node.js

Start by installing Claude and Node.js on your computer. Simple next-next-finish installs.

2. Sign Up for DataForSEO

Create an account, grab your login email and wait for your API password (it’ll come via email). You’ll need both soon.

3. Launch Claude Desktop

Open Claude on your Desktop, log in, and go to:

Settings → Developer → Edit Config

This opens a config file in your editor. You'll paste this 👇 snippet of code here that connects Claude to Data For SEO via the MCP (multi-call plugin).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dataforseo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "dataforseo-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "DATAFORSEO_USERNAME": "your_user_name",
        "DATAFORSEO_PASSWORD": "your_password"
      }
    }
  }
}

Paste the code, then replace the placeholder email and password with your actual API credentials from Data For SEO.

CTRL + S to save. Close the editor.

4. Restart Claude

Quick-restart Claude. Now under the Search and Tools tab, you’ll see a new integration: Data For SEO.

Click it. Welcome to your new SEO command center.

‍

Time to Test It

Ask Claude something like:

“How many keywords is [yourcompetitor.com] ranking for? Give me the top 20, and their backlink summary.”

You’ll need to allow API access the first time, but then it remembers. In seconds, you’ll get real search volume, estimated traffic, backlink counts, domain authority, and more.

Not AI guesses. Real, live data.

‍

Video Installation Guide

‍

Share this post

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:

Open ChatGPT and click your profile icon.
Select Customize ChatGPT.
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.

Cynic

Robot

Listener

Nerd

‍

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.

‍

GPT‑5’s New Personalities: How To use them

Discover GPT-5’s new personalities, Cynic, Robot, Listener, and Nerd, learn how to set them, when to use each, and why Cynic’s blunt honesty is a game-changer for productivity.

So GPT-5 is here, and as usual, the internet has split into two camps: people who love it, and people who think it’s the worst thing to happen since autocorrect decided to “fix” your texts. Honestly, I think a lot of the hate comes from people not using it correctly. I’ve just spent seven days reading, watching, and pushing GPT-5 to its limits, so here’s the straight-to-the-point guide you actually need.

1. Unlock All the Hidden Models

When you open the model selector, you’ll probably only see:

Auto
Fast
Thinking
Pro (if you’re on the $200/month plan)

If you scroll down to "Legacy models," you might spot GPT-4o. But here’s the thing: there’s way more available.

Here’s how to unlock them:

Go to Settings
Open the General tab
Toggle Show additional models

Now, under GPT-5, you’ll see Thinking Mini, which is fantastic for copywriting and lighter creative work.

Which one should you use?

Auto: GPT will pick based on complexity. Simple = Fast, complex = Thinking.
Thinking: Better for complex, multi-step reasoning.
Fast: Cheap, efficient, and surprisingly good. Great default.
Thinking Mini: Like Thinking, but lighter and faster.

OpenAI’s routing system tends to pick the cheaper (Fast) option if possible. You can always start a chat with Thinking for context, then switch to Fast to save time and credits.

And yes, if you’re still emotionally attached to old favorites like GPT-4.1 or GPT-3.5, they live in the Legacy models section. OpenAI brought them back after a very vocal backlash.

2. Play With the New Personalities

GPT-5 now lets you pick a built-in personality. At first, I thought these were a bit of a gimmick, but the more I use them, the more I realize they’re surprisingly useful:

Cynic: Snarky, blunt, and great for no-nonsense feedback. My personal favorite.
Robot: Zero small talk. Just gets to the point. Perfect for coding or rapid drafting.
Listener: Supportive and empathetic. Weird to say about an AI, but some people genuinely use it for emotional support.
Nerd: Excited, thorough, and detail-obsessed. Perfect for learning something in depth.

Switch them up and see which fits your workflow. I’ve found Cynic is great for constructive criticism, and Robot is a huge time saver.

You can access all these personalities by going to the Customize ChatGPT.

3. Use the Canvas Feature for Apps and Dashboards

Canvas is GPT-5’s built-in interactive workspace. You can:

Build games
Create data dashboards
Make interactive reports

You can share these with anyone, even if they don’t have a ChatGPT account. This makes it a goldmine for lead generation, imagine sending an interactive report that doubles as a pitch.

4. (Gimmick Alert) Change Your Highlight Colour

It’s cosmetic, not functional, but you can change your GPT interface accent colour to blue, green, yellow, pink, orange, or purple. It’s the kind of feature Apple would hype up as a major release, even though it won’t make GPT-5 any smarter. Still, it does make the workspace feel less sterile.

5. Use the Prompt Enhancer to Fix Bad Prompts

If GPT-5 isn’t giving you what you want, stop blaming the model. Prompting is just communication, and bad prompts = bad results. OpenAI’s Prompt Enhancer (available in the Playground) takes your vague or poorly written prompt and turns it into something far more specific.

Poorly defined prompts are one of the biggest reasons people fail to get good AI outputs. In fact, research shows that improving prompt clarity can boost task accuracy by up to 30% (Stanford HAI). Use the enhancer and you’ll instantly see better results.

Bottom line: GPT-5 is incredibly capable, but only if you unlock all the tools and actually use them. Stop treating it like a magic trick and start treating it like the power tool it is.

‍

Ai tools

GPT-5: The Real Guide to Getting the Most Out of It

GPT-5 is powerful, but only if you stop treating it like a magic trick. Unlock hidden models, try personalities, and use the tools properly.

The Contradiction at the Heart of SEO

I think the main problem with SEO is that everyone is right and wrong at the same time. Just roll with me for a sec.

If you've been dabbling in SEO for a few weeks or over a decade, you’ve probably noticed something weird: for every 'rule' or strategy, there’s always someone online saying the opposite. SEO is full of contradiction. It’s like an ongoing oxymoron factory.

“Backlinks always work”... except when they don’t.
“Google penalizes AI content”... but not always. (They give out one of the best LLMs for free, but you’re not supposed to use it on your own site? Sure, makes sense.)
“Wix websites are bad for SEO”... except the ones ranking #1.

Why Both Sides Are Telling the Truth (Kind Of)

It's not that one person is right and another is wrong. It's that someone found a strategy, like PBNs, and it worked for them. Then someone else gives it a go and nothing happens.

Why? Because the variables are endless.

Person A might be in a niche outside YMYL, in an area that’s easy to rank for. Person B might try the same approach in a saturated niche, selling health supplements, already dominated by major players. Naturally, it flops.

Google Isn’t Always Honest Either

To make it worse, Google doesn’t exactly tell the full truth. What they say you should do to rank isn’t always what actually works, a fact made obvious by the 2024 leaks. So while they publish guides and courses, I wouldn’t call them hard rules. They're more like loose suggestions. Soft recommendations at best (if that).

Staying Relevant in the Mess

So how the hell do you stay relevant as a business now?

I've boiled it down to a few things that have actually worked for me, strategies that are keeping me cited in Google AI Overviews, GPT search, and Perplexity.

1. Be Open-Minded, Just Bring a Sack of Salt

You’re going to see people sharing “game-changing” strategies that 10x’ed their traffic. First instinct is to dismiss it. That’s fair. Most are too good to be true.

But be open enough to dig deeper. That mindset alone helped me discover strategies still pulling in traffic today. Like building basic HTML web apps: ring size calculators, tax quizzes, stuff I initially thought was ridiculous. But if you hit the right use case, it’s free traffic for life.

That said, take every SEO tip with a massive grain of salt. Even this one. Test what you can. Trust your own data.

2. The Fundamentals Still Work

People ask me if we teach "GEO" or "LLMSEO" in the community. My answer? We teach the fundamentals, and then show you what’s working right now. The reply I sometimes get: “Oh... I’m not really into SEO, I just want to do GEO.”

That’s like saying, “I want to learn butterfly stroke but not how to swim.”

You need solid fundamentals to get traffic from AI search. These engines pull their sources from page one. Not page five. Not even page two. Remember the old joke?

"Where do you hide a dead body? Page two of Google."

Basic SEO Fundamentals That Still Matter

On-site SEO:

Clear website structure
Solid internal linking
Minimal errors
Well-placed, focused keywords
Fast loading times

Off-site SEO:

Active social media profiles
Backlinks and local citations
Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools

Content:

Meet search intent (focus on transactional + informational)
Every service/product should have its own page.

Please, for the love of any deity you respect (or fear), do not cram all your services into one page. You’re setting yourself up to rank for nothing.

3. What’s Working in AI Search Right Now?

First: Believe Me... or Don’t

This next bit comes from real testing, not theory. We’ve shared it with over 500 agency owners and businesses in our AI Ranking community, that helps, supports and teaches how to rank in the ai search enginges. It works... for those who actually do the work.

a. Strong SEO Fundamentals

Already covered that one above.

b. SEO Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore

To quote the legend Neil Patel: SEO is turning into Search Everywhere Optimisation.

You can’t just optimise for Google. You need to be the trusted entity across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest. Not just because they’re indexing posts now, but because authority is built on presence.

We had one guy in the community with a serious YouTube presence, 120k subs, in a brutally competitive niche (calisthenics). We helped him build a 200+ page site fast using AI and smart structure. Within 3 months? Traffic exploded. Why?

Because Google already knew him. His online reputation transferred to his website.

‍

I’m not saying this is easy, but I’m saying it matters.

c. Tactics That Might Help in AI Search

Add an llm.txt file to your site’s root folder. Is it proven? Not yet. But if it might help, and it takes one click in Yoast... why not?
Get on Bing Webmaster Tools. GPT Search is powered by Bing. Submit your sitemap and stay in the game.
Use proper Schema (Structured Data). Speak the language LLMs understand. Don’t rely 100% on plugins, test your pages manually using Google’s schema tester.

I have a few more strateiges in the youtube video below you can take a look at.

d. Write for Citations, Not Just Rankings

You don’t just want to be the top blue link. You want to be the source AI pulls from.

How to Write for Citations:

Answer the question right under the heading.
Use bullet points.
Offer a unique angle backed by experience or data.
Create a YouTube video on the same topic (LLMs love multimedia).

e. Change How You Think About Data

Clicks are down. That’s reality. But don’t panic.

Focus on appearances and conversion rate instead. Those two metrics will tell you whether your brand is becoming a trusted source.

As for tracking AI search traffic, it’s still messy. Most tools (even new ones like Ahrefs' AI reports) kinda suck. For now, filter platform-specific traffic in Google Analytics to see where it’s coming from and what it’s doing.