With the launch of ChatGPT and other AI-driven writing tools, the two main questions that bloggers have been asking have been:
- Am I (as a human being) still going to be needed?
- Should I quit writing and have ChatGPT (and the like) write content for me?
I am not going to be one of the skeptics who will keep saying “nah, human writing will always be better as machines have no feelings blah blah blah.”
The reality is, ChatGPT can write content better than an average human being. If we assume that the better of us go to college, you will be amused to know that ChatGPT can write better essays than an average college student can.
And from what I’ve seen shared and done, ChatGPT can be empathic and creative. Just look at the email it composed to explain to a child that Santa doesn’t exist and he (the child) has been lied to:
Could someone without feeling have written anything like that?
It appears they can.
In fact, ChatGPT will feel the feelings you tell it to feel, and it will write in the style you tell it to write.
This is not to say, I am telling you right now to quit writing and start creating ChatGPT prompts. What I am saying is that you need to be doing both.
Let’s start with what AI cannot do for us, bloggers…
ChatGPT cannot write from its own experience and expertise
It is not yet clear if Google is going to penalize web publishers for using AI for content creation (they claim they only frown upon “spammy” and “excessive” uses of it but God knows what that means).
But they do have some solid documentation allowing us to understand what they are looking for in a web copy. For example, their product review guidelines explain that Google seeks to reward content that is based on either first-hand experience or expertise (or both).
Google’s Quality Rating Guidelines (PDF) go into these standards even further by introducing the E-E-A-T acronym which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Going back to ChatGPT, yes, it can write a great copy (and is likely to be able to produce even better quality with each update) but it is still relying on other people’s knowledge (thousands of web documents it was using to get better).
In other words, ChatGPT repurposes other people’s content, without contributing anything new. What it misses (and will miss in the future):
- Its own first-hand experience
- Its own expertise (through dealing with that topic)
- Its own funny/touching stories, achievements, and failures.
And that’s what Google and your human readers want, need, and continue to love.
Additionally, Google does confirm that it is working on algorithms that will be used to detect non-human content. We don’t know how successful they will be (provided AI-generated content is becoming undetectable), but it is a good idea to err on the side of caution when it comes to Google’s warnings.
So keep writing your own content. No one is going to be able to replace you.
And yet, it doesn’t mean AI cannot make our blogging careers easier, more successful, and more productive.
How to use AI to become a better blogger
In fact, there are countless ways AI can help make your blog better. Here I’ll just list a few of those but feel free to experiment and discover more:
1. Generate generic text
Prompt ChatGPT to:
- Generate FAQs on any topic (and even provide FAQ schema code for that)
- Create definitions
- Write meta descriptions
- Generate YouTube video descriptions
- Create an article conclusion
- Write perfect press releases
TextOptimizer has a solid AI integration allowing you to generate semantically optimized content based on a single question. This is a great way to create detailed FAQ pages:
2. Create content structure
Ask ChatGPT to:
- Break your existing article into sections and use H2/H3 subheadings to name each section
- Create an article outline for you to use as direction or hand to your writer
- Cluster your keyword list by intent and topic for you to know which keywords to combine within a single piece of content
3. Ideation and inspiration
- Ask it what to write
- Prompt it to generate questions for your future influencer’s interview
- Ask it to list items to include in your listicle
- Give it your listicle and ask which items are missing from it
- Request it to create a video or podcast script
Here’s ChatGPT coming up with a series of articles for me to create out of one single keyword:
4. Routine work
- Ask it to write an email to another blogger (according to a necessary style)
- Ask it to write Instagram captions or break your article into 20 original tweets
- Ask it to code (Schema!)
There are many more ways to use ChatGPT for SEO and email marketing.
It’s all about the prompt
Your ChatGPT content will be as good as your prompt is. It cannot guess what you need, doesn’t understand sarcasm or irony, and will do exactly what you ask. So make your prompt very detailed.
A good prompt should include:
- Voice: “Act as a professional SEO” or a specific person or your own
- Its default voice: It is like Wikipedia (very neutral)
- Audience: Tell it which audience you are targeting
- Tone, e.g. educational, casual, funny
- Context: What you need it for
- Instructions: Provide main points, summary, etc.
- Format: Ask it to use bullet points, use headings, Tweets, clickbait, etc.
Conclusion
If you are writing your content based on your unique personality (which is usually a combination of experience, humor, and fears), and your readers love you for that, ChatGPT will never replace you. If you are a thorough blogger publishing useful content, use ChatGPT to improve your content.
AI is here to stay. In fact, it has been here for a while! It is used for much more than content now, including customer support (e.g. chatbots and IVR), brand identity (name, logo, etc.), video generation, and more.
We are witnessing the future now. Let’s ride this wave together!
