Can AI write my blogs?
Posted on 19th July 2023
Well, the simple answer is ‘yes’ and then again ‘no’.
That’s not helpful, I know, so let’s dig a bit deeper.
As with all good communications, it’s important to define your purpose and your audience.
So, the first important question is why do you want to publish blogs?
What’s the purpose of publishing a blog?
A lot have people have picked up on the idea that search engines like fresh content. A good way to provide new content online is to publish regular blogs. I wouldn’t disagree with that.
However, this raises the first problem. Publishing a blog to boost your website’s search engine results might attract visitors. Sadly, they won’t stay if they don’t find what they’re looking for. How do you feel if you choose a search result but the content isn’t interesting or useful?
Of course, you need to attract people to your site, but the true purpose is to engage with them when they get there. That means you need to deliver the three Rs. Let’s call them relevance, resonance and recollection.
To make people stop and read what you have written the content must be relevant. For the reader to feel they have received something valuable, the content needs to be meaningful and useful. To tick all your communication boxes, people should not only remember what they read, but who wrote it – you.
This brings us to the next important point – your audience.
How do you meet the needs of your audience?
Whether you’re writing a blog for a community of people who share your hobby of for your business you need to talk to them directly.
You must understand their interests, the language they use and the information they want to receive.
It can be a challenge to think of new and interesting blogs to share every month. Importantly, that’s not something AI can really help with.
Surely, though, once you have chosen some subjects, AI can save you a lot of time by writing the blog for you. There are plenty of AI blog writing tools available, so why not?
If you read articles or marketing material about why this is a good idea it sounds appealing. It’s certainly fast – testing one online platform produced almost 4,000 words in just a few minutes. For organisations that need a lot of content it will be a lot cheaper than recruiting a band of copywriters.
Most AI writers are also optimised for search engines, so your content should include trending keywords and phrases too. However, Google says it can detect AI generated content. Using automatically generated content is against webmaster guidelines although Google accepts AI-created content that is useful, valuable, and thoughtful. That’s something you’ll have to think about.
Another key point is consistency. AI blog writers are driven by complex rules or algorithms and machine learning. These allow them to collect, distil and organise information and learn from the process. Overtime they should get better at doing what they do. What they can’t do is make a judgement about whether the content is valuable to your audience. Only you can do that.
Does it sound like you?
Online content provides a bridge between you and all the people who might be interested in what you have to say. Ideally you will eventually have real, in person conversations with some of them.
It’s important to make sure the content you publish sounds like you. Your ‘tone of voice’ should reflect who you are and what you stand for.
Otherwise, it’s like a made-up profile for a dating app or fictitious online CV. Nothing but disappointment can follow when you meet in person and don’t live up to expectations. Or alternatively, you might not do yourself justice and miss valuable opportunities to make new contacts.
While you can guide some AI blog writers on your ‘brand character’, it’s still down to you to make sure your content is accurate, authentic and suitable for your audience.
What an AI blog writer can’t do
Because the intelligence is artificial there are limits to what an AI blog writer can do for you, even using machine learning.
For example, if you’re a thought leader in your industry your years of experience and unique insights are important. People want to hear about your perspective and opinions. In contrast, AI will collect and organise other people’s thoughts and comments.
When you make statements of fact in your blogs you will know they are true. All AI writers come with a health warning that the content they create could contain inaccuracies. To publish with confidence, I recommend all statements are carefully checked and verified. Ideally you’ll include a link to the source of the information in the blog. This will be good for the authority of your blog too.
Then there’s the question of authenticity. People are hungry for interesting thoughts and new ideas. They want to know what you have to say. If you aren’t passionate about writing but have a lot of opinions an AI blog writer could help. It can collate information and give you a place to start. However, you still need to spend time making that content meaningful and useful for your audience.
The alternative is to work with a human copywriter who will take time to understand your personality and style, what you want to achieve and who you’re talking to.
Don’t take my word for it
Explore some AI writing tools for yourself. Of course, there’s the one everyone’s talking about – ChatGPT. Just ask it to write you a blog about a certain subject and see what it can produce.
You might also like to look at Simplified and Rytr as alternatives.
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