Blogging can be exhausting. Take it from someone who has spent nearly a decade blogging and has wasted far too much time staring at blank pages, willing the words to come.
And while the idea of relinquishing control to AI may still make some writers bristle, AI is an undeniably powerful tool for blogging. Whether you’re looking to use AI to draft entire blog posts or to finesse your writing, AI is useful for practically anyone looking to start a blog.
With all that said, there are several things you need to know about using AI to write your blogs. I am by no means suggesting that you let AI run your blog for you. Rather, AI can act as a good stand-in for a creative partner, serving as your second pair of hands and your second set of eyes.
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When should you use AI to write your blog posts?
No matter what type of website or blog you're building, AI tools have the potential to save you copious amounts of time when it comes to brainstorming, writing, editing and optimizing your content.
AI is especially handy if you need to turn out a high volume of content on a consistent basis. Again, you shouldn’t rely on AI to run your entire content marketing strategy without supervision, but you can use different kinds of tools to help with research or to write long-form content.
For example, if you've got several topics lined up and a clear vision of the outlines, AI can swiftly turn your ideas into full-fledged articles—or at least get you 75% of the way there. Rather than starting a blog from scratch, you can use your AI draft as a starting point; you can focus your energy in editing and filling in any knowledge gaps.
The aim is to enhance efficiency without compromising the quality and authenticity of your content. Make AI your ally, but keep your hands on the editing wheel for the best results.
However, AI isn’t a one-trick pony. It can do far more than simply draft your content. Let's explore all the ways you can use AI to enhance your blogs.
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Google and AI written blog content
First and foremost Google is looking for content that is helpful to the user reading it. This can, in theory apply to both AI and human generated content. Content must be informative and engaging, regardless of how it's written. These are not necessarily unique to human content, well edited AI generated blogs can also be useful.
While AI can generate content that is factually accurate, it may lack the nuanced understanding and authenticity of human-written content. Google recommends a balance and an emphasis on human oversight of anything AI written, with added context, creativity and a personal touch if necessary. This should include fact checking and might also include experience from a writer or editor in relation to the topic.
Also according to Google guidelines, content that is purely generated by AI without human contribution, should be labeled as such for full transparency to readers. Google prioritizes content written for humans, not algorithms and this is true, whether the content is human or AI generated. Creating AI content to manipulate search engine results is considered against Google's spam policies.
How to use AI to write your blog posts
One of the best qualities of AI is its versatility. You can use AI to automate or refine several steps of the content production process, including (but not limited to) the following steps.
01. Generate your blog topic ideas
If you’re blogging as a beginner—or even if you’re a seasoned blogger—AI can help to brainstorm topics when you’re in a pinch. But avoid cutting corners at this stage. You’ll still want to do thorough keyword research, even after you’ve consulted your favorite AI tool for ideas.
In my experience, tools like ChatGPT and Bard offer great thought starters. You could feed it prompts like:
Please give me 10 blog ideas that I can write about on [topic]
Please list a few blog ideas related to [keyword]
What are some trending topics around [topic] in the summer?
What are some trending topics among [target audience]?
You’ll want to double check that the headlines you get in return match the actual intent and interest of your blog audience. SEO research tools like Semrush can help on this front; you can use these blogging tools to identify related keywords and check out the organic competition on search engine results pages (SERPs).
02. Research your topic
Research can eat up a lot of time. And while we strongly warn against relying on AI-generated research (many tools pull from older data or have been spotted citing fake data), it can give you a place to start.
Bard, in our testing, has an edge above ChatGPT 3.5 in this respect. You can ask Bard things like “Can you provide a list of recent blogging statistics and cite their source?” to receive a helpful quick list of stats. However, we can’t stress this enough—you’ll want to check each source and stat for accuracy and freshness.
Another way to use AI for research: You can ask AI to summarize an exhaustive research paper or an interview transcript. AI can help to pull out key information or describe a highly technical piece in layman’s terms. Just make sure to always attribute the original author, plus check that the summarization is accurate.
03. Construct outlines
With a single prompt, you can ask a tool like ChatGPT or Bard to produce a rough outline for your blog post. Or, you can use AI to generate insights to inform your own brief by asking for common themes or frequently asked questions around your main topic.
Now, bear in mind that the outline you get is often not the finished product. You may find that your outline includes irrelevant sections that won't provide much value to your target reader. You are the expert in your field, so make sure to apply a discerning eye when reviewing any AI-generated blog outlines.
04. Write your content
AI probably gets the most praise for the hours of time it can save you when writing content. It can take the first stab at writing your drafts. At this stage, the key is to provide as much information you can, including the blog post template that you want it to follow, blog formatting specifications, your target voice, tone and other brand writing guidelines.
You can also share several samples of your previous work to train AI blogging tools on your writing style. However, you’ll always want to review content; as good as AI content may sound, it can often sound redundant or flowery, or may include off-brand or inaccurate claims.
Pro tip: In Wix, you can download an app from the Wix App Market like Bettertext to help craft long-form content that’s personalized to your needs.
05. Serve as your proofreader
When it comes to editing your content, plugins like Grammarly and ProWritingAid can scan your content and highlight grammar issues, spelling errors or opportunities to improve your writing.
Keep in mind that these types of tools can be somewhat rigid and misunderstand the context of your writing. Certain text where you've gotten more creative could be flagged as errant because it doesn't follow grammatical laws. To this end, take suggestions with a grain of salt and treat each one on a case-by-case basis.
Within Wix, you can additionally use the SEO Assistant to check that your post meets basic SEO standards (i.e., check that it includes alt text, your focus keyword and a meta description) and even use AI to create your title tag and meta descriptions. Or, you can use tools like Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant for even more recommendations on the readability and originality of your content.
If you stumble across writing that sounds rigid or hard to read, you can always use AI to re-generate the copy and give you other ways to word your content.
What are some of the best AI tools for blog creation?
There are several but some worthy mentions include:
Jaspar
Chat GPT 4 with DALL-E
Gemini 1.0 Pro
Writer
Ethical considerations to keep in mind when using AI to write blog posts
As excited as we are about AI’s advancement in blogging, you can probably sense our caution above. Let us explain: while AI can speed up your content creation process by taking a lot of the grunt work off your plate, it’s not something to apply blindly.
The main issues with AI content is twofold: the output is dependent on what data it can draw from, and the content it delivers might not meet your editorial guidelines.
Since tools like ChatGPT pull from what’s already out there, you'll find that they piece together answers from its database. This may result in content that feels rehashed or somewhat stale.
This is why you need to edit any and all AI-generated content to protect your blog, plus avoid being penalized by Google. Google’s guidelines state that content must be helpful, whether or not it has been made with the help of AI.
If Google notices that your work has been cobbled together with AI without any unique angle, your site could potentially be marked as spam. That’s a big risk, especially for small business owners trying to build their online presence through blogging.
If you’re just building up your site from scratch, you'll need to dedicate time into finessing your approach to using AI for writing blog posts, since AI isn't great at generating content that demonstrates domain expertise for specific industries. For some complex, specialized fields, you'll need to give AI a huge helping hand because it can't grasp these topics as well as you can. This means its output won't be that helpful to your target audience.
Due to these limitations, here are a few things you should be wary of with AI-produced content:
Plagiarism: It’s possible for AI to write an entire blog post that closely mirrors your competitors' content. It's important to differentiate your article as best as possible with original research and content. You should also be careful not to accidentally taking credit for another author’s research or ideas, as this may be easy to do if you haven’t taken the time to carefully review AI-generated content.
Accuracy: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, himself has been spotted saying, “I trust answers generated by ChatGPT least than anybody else on Earth.” AI has recently been caught “hallucinating” facts about companies, sites and specific topics; fact-checking is absolutely essential to avoid a situation in which you might be propagating false information.
Questionable authenticity: When AI is used to produce content, a question lingers—is the output genuinely yours? The ethical dilemma here lies in the potential erosion of personal voice and style. It's essential to retain your unique touch to make sure that your readers can relate and engage with your content.
Lack of innovation: Is utilizing AI for content creation viewed as pioneering, or does it reflect a lack of original input? To that end, you’ll want to avoid becoming over-reliant on AI or depending on it to form a unique opinion on your behalf. AI can spit back opinions already shared by another creator, but it does not substitute for original (or, at times, sensible) thinking, especially in the context of sensitive or controversial topics.
Biases: As language learning models are trained based on their dataset, they may inherit biases in the data that can lead to skewed and unfair perspectives when writing. You need to stay vigilant for these biases that may result in unfair language or assumptions, however subtle, and edit your work to maintain equality.
5 essential tips for editing AI writing
In case we haven’t said it enough, all AI content must be reviewed by a human to make sure it’s up to code. When reviewing generative AI created text, heed these tips.
01. Edit for brand voice and consistency
Sometimes, no matter what prompt you give your AI tool, it will still sound robotic. While the content may be free of grammar and spelling errors, it might not be the easiest to read or sound like your normal writing voice.
During editing, make it a point to adjust the language to make it sound more like you. Do not sacrifice your brand voice for AI-generated text that might sound smart or “just fine.” Make sure your message is clear and matches what you usually say—and how you usually say it.
This way, your audience will still feel connected to your brand, which isn’t just important for retaining readership but is also important for being able to monetize your blog in the future. Your blog must remain personable and unique to your brand.
02. Review for accuracy
AI is really good at writing convincing points and, at times, backing it up with phantom facts. If you've asked for AI to generate content with research or facts, make sure you double check any statement for accuracy. Validate all links and references that support your content's arguments, and check that everything is understood within the right context.
03. Check for redundant or superfluous statements
Review content to make sure that there aren’t any empty, filler words or redundant statements. In other cases, you may find that the content doesn’t flow in the way that you’d prefer.
You'll need to work through each sentence and paragraph, making sure they follow a logical order and clear expression. As you get better at refining your prompts, you'll hopefully need to spend less time editing your work in this way in the future.
04. Eliminate bias and stereotypes
As noted earlier, as LLMs are trained based on a dataset, they may inherit biases in the data that can lead to skewed and unfair perspectives when writing content.
Keep an eye out for these biases in the form of unfair language or assumptions, and edit your work accordingly. If you spot the same types of biases cropping up in your AI-generated blog posts, you may need to refine your prompts to specifically avoid writing in a certain way.
05. Optimize for SEO and readability
Verify that your content uses your keywords naturally through your content and is structured in a way that is easy for your readers to follow. Use bulleted lists, break up large paragraphs or summarize content as needed to deliver a good reading experience. Ensure that your content isn’t too thin—but rather, provides enough information to fully answer your readers’ questions.
FAQs for using AI to write blog posts
What are the benefits of using AI for blog writing?
AI can serve as a great writing aid for the following reasons. It can help to:
Clear writer’s block: Stuck for ideas? AI can spark inspiration, helping to overcome writer’s block and put pen to paper to get started.
Create content quickly: Speed up all areas of your writing process from research to editing, allowing you to produce content efficiently.
Think of keywords and topics: AI can suggest relevant SEO keywords, offering personalized suggestions for topic ideation.
Analyze SEO factors: Certain tools can help to examine missing keywords, readability and keyword density, ensuring optimal SEO optimization.
Suggest content improvements: Automatically check for grammar errors and misspellings, and elevate your content using AI’s insights into the readability of your content.