Episode 58Jun 7, 2024· 14:31
How to Write a Blog Post Properly Using AI
About this episode
Are you using AI the right way? Tune into this episode and find out!
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Full transcript
00:00
Welcome to the Bloggy Friends show.
00:17
What's up my bloggy friends?
00:18
Famous Ashley Grant here and today I want to talk about how to write a blog post properly
00:22
using AI.
00:23
And I know everybody's talking about it.
00:26
Everybody's been talking about Claude and chatGPT and Writer's End and all the things.
00:30
And before you come at me, I should state that I'm a writer and make a living from
00:34
creating content every week.
00:36
I'm not team AI, but I'm not exactly team no AI either.
00:41
And hopefully by the end of this episode, you'll understand why I'm talking about blogging
00:45
with AI at all.
00:47
Because the truth is, it's here to stay.
00:49
Yes, there's a lot of lawsuits that are going on right now, but I definitely believe that
00:53
we're going to keep seeing some form of LLMs continue being in the space.
00:58
So we might as well learn how to lean into it and use it to help make our writing jobs
01:02
easier so that we can make more content and do the things that we need to do with our
01:06
websites.
01:09
And for those of you who've been living under a rock, what exactly is AI?
01:12
What is AI writing software?
01:15
Tech Target refers to AI or artificial intelligence as the simulation of human intelligence processes
01:20
by machines, especially computer systems.
01:23
By extension, AI writing software is supposed to simulate content that's been written by
01:28
human writers.
01:29
And with the use of algorithms, suggestions, and a lot of complicated computerized ones
01:33
and zeros, AI writing software should theoretically be able to take a prompt that a user gives
01:38
it and deliver text and deliver text content back to the user.
01:45
The reason it's causing such a stir though in the writing world is because it can generate
01:49
large bits of text.
01:50
I mean, I'm talking full on books in mere seconds.
01:54
And what's taking content writers hours to complete can be created in seconds without
02:00
breaking a sweat.
02:01
Of course, that's not to say that what's generated is accurate and it's also not even necessarily
02:06
great content.
02:08
However, as I've been playing with different writing tools at this point, I have to admit
02:13
it is certainly impressive that different software can spit out pretty decent content
02:18
depending on which one you're using and the prompts you're giving it.
02:22
So if we're being honest, what can AI accomplish?
02:25
I think that what AI can accomplish depends largely on your goals.
02:28
The different functions that I've seen it being used for include but aren't limited
02:32
to writing your first draft, writing your intros, writing your conclusions, generating
02:37
a list of blog topics, creating different heading and title options for your blog post,
02:42
summarizing your points of an article or a blog, generating product descriptions for
02:47
e-commerce stores, writing entire blog posts, articles, essays, poems, even songs.
02:53
So it can also be used for like writing ad copy, brainstorming ideas, answering questions,
02:59
but keep in mind that the answers you get may not be factual.
03:02
And it can even break down complicated ideas into easier to digest ones.
03:06
For example, if you're taking large bits of text that you don't quite understand, you
03:11
could put them into something like quad and it'll spit back out an easier to understand
03:16
version of that thing for you.
03:17
So you could put an essay that has been written by a college graduate into it and say, break
03:24
this down in a way a five-year-old can understand and it actually does it.
03:29
But this isn't just for the writing portion of blogging.
03:32
I've seen it used for so many different use cases, but for the purposes of this episode,
03:37
we're going to mainly focus on AI in writing because after all, this is a blogging podcast.
03:42
So let's talk about the ethical considerations of writing blog posts with AI.
03:47
They're talking about carbon emissions generated because of the computing power that AI tech
03:54
is causing.
03:55
So some people are nervous about how many computers are being used to generate these
04:00
LLMs and make them work.
04:02
And the other thing that people are concerned with in terms of ethical considerations is
04:07
what a lot of people refer to as AI plagiarism.
04:10
I spoke with SEO and copywriting expert Ryan Brock.
04:13
We had him on the show recently and I will definitely leave that episode in the show
04:18
notes.
04:19
When I spoke to him, he was basically talking about whether we like it or not, chat-shippy
04:23
tea, all these other writing programs, they're just plagiarism, period, at least in his opinion.
04:29
And a lot of other people share this opinion with him because basically the way that these
04:33
programs have been built is they scrape the internet and then they repackage it into slightly
04:39
different structure and it gives it back to you.
04:41
So no matter how you look at it, he says, it's plagiarism and it's not cool.
04:46
And he went on to say that by scraping other people's content, you're not providing any
04:50
new value to anyone.
04:52
And that's not how you build trust factor if you're trying to establish yourself as
04:56
a thought leader.
04:57
And it's one of the big reasons that right now one of the big things we're seeing that's
05:00
actually getting populated on Google is real use cases, real experts that are talking about
05:06
things they have done that are working in their industries.
05:09
So where you used to be able to get all these listicles about 10 ways to make a guy want
05:14
you or 10 ways to make a cake or take a cake mix and make cookies, like all these different
05:20
things, all these listicles are now being replaced by people that are experts in their
05:25
field talking about what they're doing in those fields.
05:29
And those are the things that are starting to ring faster and more, especially after
05:33
Google's useful content update.
05:35
They are not diminishing AI and they're certainly not, I wouldn't say they're penalizing people
05:43
that are using AI.
05:44
They did definitely walk back on that saying they will not penalize websites.
05:48
However they will give the websites that are giving more content, better content, useful
05:54
content, higher rankings.
05:56
So it'll be interesting to see what happens in 2024 and beyond with all of this content
06:01
that has definitely been AI written.
06:03
And people can tell, let's be honest.
06:04
People can tell that it's happening and it has similar sentence structure.
06:09
It has similar sentences even.
06:11
Sometimes it'll have certain words.
06:13
Like I was just reading an article on Medium Today that certain words make it obvious that
06:19
your text is written by AI.
06:21
This article was written by, I'm going to totally butcher this guy's name.
06:24
It's James Presbitero Jr., I believe.
06:27
I'll leave a link to that in the show notes as well.
06:32
Basically the seven things that he says make it obvious you are using AI are words like
06:38
transformative or foster, tapestry, a tapestry of, this is about, all about, think of X as.
06:46
And the example he gives is think of influential blogs and forums as your digital mentors.
06:51
So it's all these words and phrases that we're starting to see over and over again.
06:56
Like one of the things that I'm seeing that keeps popping up is the word coincidentally
07:01
or if a sentence starts with the word by.
07:04
Like by using this program you can have all your dreams come true.
07:09
Whenever you see a sentence like that, it's a red flag to me that it's probably been written
07:12
by AI.
07:14
And so I just think it's interesting that the more we look at the different articles
07:18
that are being written, you can kind of tell that they're AI written.
07:23
And there's even programs that will tell you if it has been AI written that you can plug
07:26
it into like your copy leaks or there's all kinds of different programs.
07:31
I'll have to put them in the show notes, but the big one I've been seeing lately is copy
07:34
leaks.
07:35
And it's kind of fascinating that even though we all know it's being used, it's still being
07:40
used.
07:41
So back to how to use it properly.
07:47
So let's talk about SEO considerations if you're using AI writing tools.
07:51
If you're writing blog content, can you make it rank in search results at all?
07:57
And based on all the research I've done for this episode, yeah, you can, but there's a
08:02
major caveat.
08:03
You have to add a lot more to the post that's being generated with AI before you can ever
08:07
hope to rank with it.
08:08
In other words, if you just copy and paste the content that's generated from your favorite
08:12
AI writing solution into WordPress or whatever CMS you're using, no, you probably won't
08:17
rank well for it.
08:19
But if you take that piece, that base piece, and you improve upon it, make it much better,
08:24
yes, you can rank with it.
08:26
And here are the steps you need to take an AI-generated article and get it to rank, if
08:31
that's your goal.
08:32
First thing you'll do is you'll research the keywords, whether you're using SEMrush
08:35
or WriterZen or AATrust or whatever it is, start researching all of the keywords that
08:40
you want to use.
08:42
You shouldn't generate a single bit of text until you have done a thorough keyword research
08:46
session.
08:48
While you're researching these keywords, consider your ideal customer or your ideal reader and
08:51
what they're actually going to be looking for that will ultimately lead them to your
08:54
page.
08:56
Consider the questions that they are asking and the pain points that they are looking
08:58
to solve and how your product or service can solve them.
09:03
Next I want you to come up with your article ideas.
09:05
Go to your favorite AI writing solution, whatever it is, and add a simple prompt.
09:09
For example, let's say you are a personal trainer and you're trying to get more clients
09:13
in Scottsdale, Arizona.
09:15
So we're going to assume that you're trying to rank for best personal trainer in Scottsdale.
09:20
In this case, your prompt could be something as simple as give me 10 article ideas for
09:24
the best personal trainer in Scottsdale.
09:27
From there, I want you to generate an outline.
09:29
Using one of the prompts that whatever your program of choice gives you, generate an outline
09:34
for the post and in this case, we'll use something like 10 reasons to hire a personal trainer
09:38
in Scottsdale, benefits and results.
09:41
And again, you can go to any writing solution you like and prompt it to create an outline
09:45
for that specific topic.
09:47
From there, write the post.
09:49
Now you could technically keep reprompting into your writing software of choice and address
09:55
each of the points that were given to you in your outline and you could create a pretty
09:59
decent article that actually looks kind of good.
10:03
But the better option is to write the post yourself and address each of these outline
10:07
ideas, adding in real examples and testimonials from people that you've worked with that show
10:12
off your expertise and your authority on the subjects.
10:15
Because remember, Google is all about eat right now.
10:17
They want your expertise and your authority and that you're a subject matter expert on
10:22
whatever it is you're talking about.
10:24
Next you're going to go back and refine and optimize your post.
10:27
So you're going to edit it and make it even better.
10:29
Do things like add an FAQ section to include more of the keywords that people are looking
10:33
for.
10:34
Don't keyword stuff the post.
10:38
However, don't keyword stuff the post.
10:42
However, don't keyword stuff the post.
10:48
And then you're going to include some images that are optimized with proper alt tags and
10:51
descriptions.
10:52
Don't forget to compress your images before you load them into your post so you can increase
10:56
your, I'm sorry, so you can decrease your page load time.
11:01
Then I want you to break up larger paragraphs into easier to read shorter paragraphs.
11:05
You have to think about adding subheads and making it easier for a skimmer to read your
11:09
article because you want to include stuff that someone who's standing in a checkout
11:13
at Walmart or Target can just flip through on their phone and get the gist of what it
11:17
is you're trying to say.
11:19
Then you'll include things like links to authoritative sites, links to your own blog posts that expand
11:24
on the ideas that were presented in the post.
11:27
And don't forget to create a solid meta description that tells the search engines exactly what
11:30
your post is about.
11:32
So that's kind of the Reader's Digest version of how you're going to use AI properly.
11:37
Notice nowhere in there did I say you actually should take it, write it, ask your software
11:44
of choice to write it, and then just publish it.
11:46
If you just do that, yeah, okay, you're going to have content on your website and you'll
11:50
be able to constantly be able to update your website.
11:53
The problem is you're not going to have good content.
11:56
It's going to be obvious.
11:57
Everybody's going to start seeing that we're all using the same phrases.
12:00
So instead, use actual use cases, actual things that build up your expertise, authoritativeness,
12:07
and your trustworthiness.
12:09
And trust me, if you focus on what it is the person who's ultimately going to read your
12:14
article wants to see rather than just, oh, I need to get content out this week, you're
12:19
going to have a much better chance of getting ranked on Google or whatever search engine
12:23
you like than you would with any other method.
12:26
And Demand Jump, Ryan Brock, who works for Demand Jump, he says that he recommends writing
12:31
around 16 posts that are centered on that same subject so that you can rank higher than
12:36
your competitors.
12:37
He refers to this as a pillar-based marketing campaign, and it's very similar to HubSpot's
12:41
topic cluster's way of writing.
12:43
And that involves writing long-form content about several subtopics that are all related
12:47
to one central topic.
12:49
So in this case, you could go back to step two of the how to use AI and come up with
12:56
more article ideas and maybe write about all of them that are all related to whatever topic
13:02
it is that you're trying to rank for.
13:04
So I hope this was helpful.
13:05
I know it was a lot, but I hope that in using these ideas, you can maybe make friends with
13:11
the AI overlords, but still have original content.
13:15
Because yes, you can use AI to make it easier on yourself to do things like brainstorming
13:19
and coming up with headers and meta descriptions and content briefs and email subjects and
13:23
all the things.
13:24
But don't just take whatever it is that AI gives you and hit publish.
13:29
Because we've all experimented with it, I'm sure.
13:33
I know that I've seen Neil Patel has done it, the guy from Fat Stacks Blogs, Nish Pursuits
13:38
has even done it.
13:39
There's been so many different creators that are trying to see how they can use AI effectively.
13:45
And I've been playing with it too, just to see what would happen.
13:48
And the reality is that things that are ranking better are the things that I either wrote
13:51
myself or that I added my own human element to, to be able to actually tell a story rather
13:58
than just pump out more content.
14:00
So like I said, I hope this was helpful.
14:02
Until next time, may your page views be high and your bounce rate below.
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