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