Why Your ChatGPT Prompts Aren’t Working (And How to Fix Them), According to HubSpot’s SEO Team
There’s a lot of hype around ChatGPT and AI models like it. It can take a single prompt and transform it into an entirely new piece of content. It can research virtually any topic, and deliver its findings in the form of poetry, code, lyrics, and more.
And yet, when you fire up ChatGPT and feed it a prompt, it responds with something… far from perfect. It’s too broad, too long, too bland, or misses the mark entirely.
This often happens when we don’t know how to ask, in AI-terms, what we want. In other words, the output is only as good as the input. So, if you want to master AI, knowing how to write a good prompt is key.
Here, I spoke to HubSpot’s SEO team to understand the key elements of a good prompt, along with some helpful prompt writing tips and techniques.
Table of Contents
How to Write the Perfect AI Prompt
How to Write the Perfect AI Prompt
1. Envision your ideal response.
It’s tempting to load up ChatGPT and jump right into the prompt. However, Josh Blyskal, Associate SEO Strategist at HubSpot, recommends a more introspective approach.
“The first thing you should do is figure out what you want. Before I type anything, I always take a moment to envision what the final output will look like,” he told me.
He gives an example of a marketer who wants to generate a marketing plan. Instead of typing “Write me a marketing plan” into ChatGPT, she should take the time to envision what the plan looks like — how many sections it has, how many bullet points are under each section, and what information it contains.
Now that she has a better grasp of the task at hand, it becomes much easier to compose a prompt that checks all the boxes.
2. Write a specific, action-oriented task.
AI models thrive on specificity. If you feed it with vague instructions, you give it room to interpret what it thinks you want.
For example, suppose you prompt ChatGPT to “Rewrite this [article/email/Tweet],” expecting it to write something new and original. Instead, it regurgitates your original message using the same words and phrases.
The solution is to get specific and intentional with your words.
Instead of “Rewrite,” for instance, you might say reimagine, expand, simplify, or modernize. Even a small change in the way you phrase a prompt can significantly change the response.
As Blyskal points out, “A lot of people treat AI like a rigid system that can be hacked with the right words or phrases, but that’s not the case. There are no secret keywords that can guarantee the best results. It’s like playing a game of words, and you have to think intentionally about the ones you use.”
3. Set the stage with context.
You could get away with stopping at the previous step — especially if your request is fairly straightforward (e.g., “Write …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
