One of the most common questions I’ve had over the last six months is ‘Have you tested any Artificial Intelligence Tools for creating content?’
Until this week my answer was “not lately”.
I have been using AI for image generation and posting my results on an Instagram account (and I am VERY impressed with the results) but after testing one AI tool 12 months ago and not being overly impressed – I’d not given Artificial Intelligence another go for writing content.
That was until this week when I was encouraged by several people to try OpenAI – which has a free trial usage.
To say that I’m impressed by how tools like this have improved over the last 12 months would be an understatement!
They are getting quite good!
I’m not someone who is likely to give up writing content myself any time soon – but I can see tools like OpenAI getting used more and more.
One of the tests I did of this tool was to ask it to write an article about how to use AI in blogging (how meta is that).
Before I did it I also asked it to write an outline for an article on the topic. Here’s what it gave me for the outline:
I then asked it to write an article on the topic and thought I’d share it below.
Everything that follows (until I make a note below that it’s me again) was generated by AI except for the formatting of subheadings. I’ve left all spelling and grammar as it generated it.
The only things I did in generating this article were:
- I wrote the prompt at the start telling it what to do
- I formatted the subheadings (it generated the words)
- In each section it didn’t generate the list of tools as examples in the first draft, so after it wrote the first draft I asked it to give examples. It generated them as lists of tools which I’ve included as the final version.
The first draft was written in 30 seconds and the adding of examples took about a minute.
Prompt: Write an in-depth article on how to use artificial intelligence for blogging.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used by bloggers to automate mundane and time-consuming tasks, such as optimizing blog posts for search engines, finding content ideas, and curating content from other sources. AI can also be used to analyze data about blog readers, discover new trends, and measure the success of content. In this article, we’ll explore how to use AI for blogging and discuss some of the benefits and challenges associated with this technology.
Blog Optimization with AI
One of the most common uses of AI for blogging is to optimize content for search engine optimization (SEO). AI can quickly analyze a blog post and suggest changes to improve the post’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). AI-powered tools can also help with link building and keyword research, two key aspects of successful SEO.
There are a number of AI-based tools that can be used to optimize SEO.
1. Moz’s Keyword Explorer: An AI-based keyword research tool.
2. Google’s RankBrain: An AI-based algorithm to determine search engine rankings.
3. SEMrush’s AI-based SEO analysis tool.
4. DeepCrawl: An AI-powered website crawler.
5. Google’s Natural Language Processing tool: Used to identify the topics and sentiment of content.
Content Curation with AI
AI can also be used to curate content from other sources. AI-powered tools can quickly scan hundreds of sources and identify content relevant to the blog. This content can then be shared with readers, helping to keep the blog fresh and up-to-date.
The following AI-based tools can be used to curate content from other sources:
1. Scoop.it: An AI-powered content curation platform that helps you discover, share, and organize content from around the web.
2. Curata: An AI-powered content curation platform that helps you find, organize, and share relevant content.
3. Swayy: An AI-powered content curation platform that helps you discover, organize, and share content from the web.
4. Curator: An AI-powered content curation platform that helps you find, organize, and share content from the web.
5. Feedly: An AI-powered content curation tool that helps you discover and organize content from the web.
6. DrumUp: An AI-powered content curation tool that helps you find, organize, and share content from the web.
7. ContentGems: An AI-powered content curation tool that helps you discover, organize, and share relevant content.
Content Analysis with AI
AI can also be used to analyze the data generated by blog readers. AI-based analytics tools can track user behaviour on the blog, helping to identify what content works best and what topics should be explored further. This can help bloggers create more engaging and useful content for readers.
Some of these AI tools include:
1. Google Analytics: Google Analytics is an AI-powered tool that can be used to analyze blog content. It can track user behavior, such as page views, time on site, and bounce rate, and can also be used to measure the success of content.
2. BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo is an AI-powered tool that can be used to analyze blog content. It can identify the topics and sentiment of content, as well as measure content engagement on social media.
3. DeepCrawl: DeepCrawl is an AI-powered tool that can be used to analyze blog content. It can identify the keywords used in blog posts and measure the success of content on search engine results pages.
4. Moz: Moz is an AI-powered tool that can be used to analyze blog content. It can identify the topics and sentiment of content, measure the success of content on search engine results pages, and suggest changes to improve the post’s rankings.
5. MarketMuse: MarketMuse is an AI-powered tool that can be used to analyze blog content. It can identify the topics and sentiment of content, measure the success of content on search engine results pages, and suggest changes to improve the post’s rankings.
Creating Content with AI
AI can also be used to generate content. AI-based tools can analyze existing content and generate new, unique content that is optimized for SEO and tailored to the blog’s audience. This can help bloggers to create content more quickly and efficiently.
There are several AI-based tools that can be used Create Content, including:
1. Quillbot: An AI-powered content writing tool that can generate original content based on a topic.
2. Articoolo: An AI-powered content writing tool that can create content from scratch.
3. GPT-3: An AI-powered content writing tool that can generate text, images, and other content.
4. Narrative Science: An AI-powered content writing tool that can generate content from structured data.
5. Wordsmith: An AI-powered content writing tool that can generate content from data and natural language processing.
6. Content Generator: An AI-powered content writing tool that can generate content from templates.
Challenges with AI
While AI can be an invaluable tool for bloggers, there are some challenges associated with using AI-powered tools. For example, AI-based tools can be expensive and may require significant resources to maintain and update. Additionally, AI-based tools can be difficult to use and may require significant technical expertise. Finally, AI-based tools may not always produce accurate results and may need to be monitored closely.
Conclusion
Using AI for blogging can help bloggers to save time and improve the quality of their content. AI-powered tools can be used to optimize blog posts for SEO, curate content from other sources, analyze data about blog readers, and even create content from scratch. However, AI-based tools can be expensive and challenging to use, and may require extensive technical knowledge. Ultimately, bloggers should consider the benefits and challenges associated with AI-powered tools before deciding whether or not to use them.
It’s me Again
While there are a few edits that I would make to that article – I think you’ll agree that it was written pretty well.
I’ve tested it with numerous topics and in most cases what it writes makes sense – but lacks a little depth. In the case above the first draft was ok but I could see it needed the examples of what the tools were – but that was fixed by asking for examples and adding them.
Maybe this could have been achieved by prompting it better at the start.
What I’ve learned about using AI for generating visual content is there is a real art to creating prompts and that to get the best results you need to test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak to get a high-quality result. Over time you get better at prompting and the images you can produce with your early prompts are good simply because you know what will and won’t work.
I’m VERY new to using this tool so suspect there is a lot more I could do with it to improve its output with a little more practice.
SHOULD we use AI to generate content?
One of the questions I’m asked is about the ethics of writing content with AI and if it is something I recommend.
There are some ethical considerations here. While I’m not across HOW tools like OpenAI generate this content, they’re using what has previously been written about the topic to come up with the content they create – drawing upon the knowledge and ideas of others.
I’ve searched for segments of the articles I’ve generated with it, and none have appeared elsewhere in the exact form – but no doubt there are similarities, and there is no way (that I’m aware of) to be able to credit the source of those ideas.
As bloggers, we have to assume that AI is scanning all of our previously written content to help others generate content.
There are some fuzzy grey areas in the legalities of this. There’s grey around these issues in the image-based AI space and who owns the copyright. I’m no lawyer, and I’m guessing this could differ from location to location, and I can only assume that there’s going to be a lot of talk about these issues in years ahead!
I won’t be using AI like this to create articles for my blogs (at least not in their current form) – BUT I could see use cases where AI will be useful for editing, coming up with ideas and optimising content etc. (as the article suggests).
I have already used some of the mentioned tools (Moz, SEMrush, BuzzSumo, and Google Analytics, to name a few.
These tools WILL impact our lives as bloggers whether we use them or not. We are entering an age when massive amounts of AI-generated content can be quickly produced, optimised and published. This means our content is going to have a lot of competition!
I know this scares a lot of writers. I spoke this week with several freelance writers who worry that their time as writers might end. While I agree that AI is going to take some of their work (and probably already is), I do think that, as human writers, we can create unique work.
We each have lived unique lives, have unique personalities, have had unique experiences and can create unique voices. We can also create unique connections with our readers in how we engage with them.
AI will become harder and harder to identify as it improves. Still, I suspect that as we live in a world where its use becomes increasingly common, people will thirst more and more for good old-fashioned human-to-human engagement.
For more help creating your own content – or for feeding into an AI content creation tool ;) – try one of my 7-day Content Sprints where I will guide and support you to create a plan and 6 new pieces of content for your blog in just 7 days.
