Since custom GPTs of ChatGPT has completely replaced plugins on 19^th March, all the users are no longer be able to use plugins for new sessions.

According to the data on OpenAI’s official blog post, there are 3 million custom GPTs has been created till January 2024, which illustrates users’ enthusiasm for custom GPTs.

Since creating custom GPTs does not require any coding skills, both individuals and businesses can easily create their own custom GPTs. The GPTs Store, as an ecosystem strongly supported by OpenAI, will definitely become a new entrance for enterprises to earn more traffic and brand awareness.

We are doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in search engines, and doing App Store Optimization (ASO) in app stores, similarly, I guess there would be a new term named GSO (GPTs Store Optimization) in the near future : )

Why Optimize Custom GPTs

Putting aside the concept of GSO, here are some data to prove the importance of optimizing custom GPTs.

1. As mentioned above, as of January 2024, the number of custom GPTs has exceeded 3 million. Although the current specific quantity is unknown, it is conceivable that there will be much more than 3 million.

2. The GPTs Store will become a new place for brand exposure. As many big brands have already created their own custom GPTs to showcase their products and services.

3. We should not underestimate the SEO traffic potentinals of custom GPTs from search engines. Based on the data from Ahrefs, they have crawled 160,000+ custom GPTs pages, and the SEO traffic carried by these pages is about 330,000/ month, and they are still rising.

4. Custom GPTs can also become a new spot in SERP for brand awareness. As shown in the screenshot below, when searching for the brand term “Canva”, the official custom GPTs ranks on 28.

As a keyword with a 72 keyword difficulty, it is really difficult to earn such a good ranking in such a short period of time.

Same thing happens to the brand term “Wolfram” (KD:93)

We have reason to believe that for some brands whose brand term KD score is not that high, the result will be much more significant.

How to Optimize Custom GPTs

Compared with the complexity and difficulty of SEO for websites, there are only a few features that we can optimize for Custom GPTs. We can easily tell from what we can do when creating custom GPTs.

Let’s take Canva’s custom GPTs as an example.

Clearly, what we can optimize for custom GPTs are as followings:

• Logo
• Name
• Description
• Website URL
• Ratings
• Sessions of Conversation 

Among them, the logo, name, description and website URL can be edited in the configuration interface of the custom GPTs.

1. Logo

I would recommend to upload the logo that consistent with your brand if you are care about brand awareness, just like Canva.

While, you could also use images that reflect the main features of your custom GPTs. For example, this custom GPTs which named “Drawn to Style” uses an image that matches what it can do.

2. Name

The custom GPTs’ name is limited to maximum 50 characters. When we search in the GPTs Store, the search result would match custom GPTs’ name as best as it can.

Meanwhile, the custom GPTs name is also appears as the Title content of the webpage.

Even as part of the URL slug: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-alKfVrz9K-canva

Therefore, the custom GPTs’ name must be considered as the most important element in GSO!

However, when we name the custom GPTs, firstly we need to be aware the main purpose of creating this custom GPTs. Is it for brand exposure or to acquire SEO traffic for our product /service in both search engines and GPTs store.

Actually, there are generally three options available:

1. Use brand name

2. Use generic keywords

3. Use a combination of brand name + generic keywords

If your main purpose is to help users to quickly find your custom GPTs when searching the brand term, it is recommended to use the brand name as the custom GPTs name, such as Canva.

If you are trying to acquire search traffic for generic keywords of your product features/service, it is recommended to use generic keywords as the custom GPTs name, such as Low-Poly Wallpaper Creator.

While If you want both, then it is recommended to use a combination of brand name + generic keywords for product features/services, such as Kayak – Flights, Hotels & Cars.

In this way, users are more likely to find your custom GPTs when searching for brand terms or generic keywords.

3. Description

The Custom GPTs description is limited to maximum 300 characters, which is basically enough for us to clearly describe the features.

Just like the rules of writing Meta Description for web pages, make sure the sentences are concise, the features are clearly described, attracting the user’s attention, and contain keywords.

Moreover, the custom GPTs description is also the Meta Description of the webpage, so it will be showed in Google search results.

4. Website URL

By adding a website url, users can better identify the brand.

We can add website links in settings, but firstly make sure that your domain name has been verified. The verification method is somewhat similar to verifying the GSC permissions of the website. You can add a TXT command in the DNS settings of the website and fill in the code provided by OpenAI.

5. Ratings

To be honest, we cannot ask for users to rate our custom GPTs, but we can politely encourage users to rate them via instruction prompt.

We can add prompt like Greet users with ***** and concludes interactions with ****** in the instructions, so that we can interact with users if they are satisfied with our custom GPTs.

Results as shown below:

6. Sessions of Conversations

Similar to the sessions to webpages, the number of custom GPTs conversations is also an indicator of users’ engagement with it. Therefore, we believe that the more frequently users use the custom GPTs (more interactions), the better ranking potential for it.

Even though it is really hard to demonstrate the impact of the sessions of conversations on custom GPTs ranking, while based on the herd effect, the more frequently used the custom GPTs , the easier it is to attract users’ attention.

Therefore, promoting your custom GPTs on other marketing channels (such as websites, social media, etc.) on purpose, it could definitely increase the number of times that custom GPTs is used.

Conclusion

Although the GPTs Store is a platform that has only been alive for around a few months, it is undoubtedly a huge potential traffic entrance for brands.

It is a place where you can get in early and secure your position easily. It’s the best time to create your own custom GPTs now!