We’re Using AI to Write Blogs, and So Should You

If you’re like most small business owners, you wear a lot of hats. You’re the CEO, the CFO, the CMO, and the janitor all rolled into one. And, if you’re trying to do it all yourself, you’re probably not doing any of those things as well as you could be. That’s where AI comes in. We’re using AI to write blogs, and it’s saving us time so we can get more done.

More and more business owners are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help them with their content marketing. AI can help you write better blog posts faster, giving you a leg up on the competition. Here’s how we use AI to publish quality blog articles faster than we would on our own.

Sourcing Ideas

First, you need to decide what topic you want to write about. A good blog article brings value to the reader by solving a problem for them or giving them the information they’re looking for.  So in order to choose your topic, you really have to start by asking yourself: “What does my audience need?” Brainstorm a list of things your audience wants to know about. One easy way to do this is to use the predictive algorithm at Google search or YouTube search.  Another option is to go to Quora.com and look at the types of questions people are asking there, with regard to your topic.

Generating Content

Once you’ve decided on a topic for your article, you can feed that topic into the AI program you’re using.  These programs will often have a keyword field, as well.  By putting in a keyword, the program knows to make sure that keyword gets used at a certain frequency in the content it generates so that the article is more search engine friendly.

The key to getting content out of an AI writer is what’s called “prompt engineering.” The program needs guidance, and only you can provide that guidance.  By feeding the program helpful prompts, you’re shaping the outcome.  More detail, more guidance, is better.  So the key is to think structurally like a writer and move through the “formula” of writing an article with specific cues.

For example, you might tell the AI, “write an introductory paragraph that promotes the idea that knitting has mental health benefits.” Then you might have the AI generate three more paragraphs, each focused on a health benefit of knitting that you are already aware of.  Finally, you tell the program to write a conclusion paragraph encouraging more people to take up the hobby of knitting.  You knew the “path” you wanted to take, and you generated the prompts, but the AI wrote the sentences.

Once you have those sentences, you can go through and look for what ideas need to be taken further and fleshed out more.  You fill the gaps and expand the ideas with your own knowledge of the topic.  When you’re using AI to write blogs, it’s like the AI creates momentum for you, and you just keep it rolling.

Editing

It’s important to recognize that while AIs can write sentences quickly and efficiently, it doesn’t mean everything they produce is factually accurate.  It’s still up to you to fact check the content that gets generated and make sure it has integrity.

You’ll also want to review the content and assess its “voice.” All writing has a tone to it, and it’s better when your content reflects the tone that you want to represent your company and brand.  Today’s AI writers can actually write for humor and be playful, or they can stick to a professional tone.  The tone shouldn’t really change during the article, so that’s one thing you should make sure you’re proofreading for and correcting if necessary.

We just recently started using AI to write blogs here at Ramsay Media.  We never have the AI write the article all by itself.  We look at it as a way for us to get ideas faster and develop our writing more efficiently, and the AI we use has definitely been delivering, in that respect.  We’re finding that we can consistently produce articles in about half the time that it used to take us to write them on our own from scratch.  That’s a huge difference!

If you want to save time on content creation, and you know that having articles on your website is important for Search Engine Optimization, you should consider using AI to write blogs. With AI’s help, you can easily come up with topics that people are actually searching for and craft well-written posts that answer their questions.

If you don’t have the time or the desire to learn how to properly run an AI program, but you know you still need articles for your site, think about outsourcing your content needs.  We love helping companies get the content they need.  You can schedule a discovery session at your convenience.