If you're a content creator, you've probably wondered if artificial intelligence (AI) content creation tools are worth your time. After all, AI content creators promise to help you save time and create high-quality content. But do they really deliver on those promises? Let's take a look.
How Do AI Content Creation Tools Work Internally?
Generally speaking, AI content creation tools utilize technology like GPT3 to analyze a set of data and then generate results based on that data. For example, let's say you're using an AI tool to generate ideas for blog posts. The tool will likely access a database of past blog posts, analyze their content, and then suggest topics that are similar or related to the ones found in the database.
Using tools like Jasper AI and others, you can even create images and visual art with AI. They're leveraging technology like DALL-E internally, but we don't have to worry about how those work (it's way over my head, to be honest).
In some cases, AI content creation tools can even independently produce entire pieces of content. This is typically done by taking a set of data (e.g., a dataset or training set) and then using that data to generate results that match or approximate the data in the set. For example, if you were to feed a training set of text into an AI tool, it could generate its own text similar in style and tone to the text in the training set.
Pros and Cons of AI Content Creation Tools
There are both pros and cons to using AI content creation tools. Conversely, AI content cration tools can help you save time by doing most of the heavy lifting regarding topic identification and article outlining. They can also help ensure that your content is well-organized and relevant to your target audience.
Here are four other benefits of using AI content creation tools:
1. Save Time by Automating the Brainstorming Process
Creating ideas for new blog posts, articles, or even social media posts can be time-consuming. However, with AI tools, you can speed up the brainstorming process by automating it. For example, AI tools are available that will let you input a broad topic and then spit out multiple angles on that topic that you could write articles about.
For example, you can use Jasper.ai to overcome writer's block:
This can save you hours of brainstorming time and help you quickly come up with fresh ideas for your next piece of content, and I use it heavily in my email marketing and blogging process.
Here is one example from Jasper giving me various ideas for content around my Get Your First Sponsor course:
2. Generate Content That is Optimized for SEO
If you want your content to rank well in search engines, you need to ensure it is optimized for SEO.
Luckily, there are AI tools that can help with this as well. For example, some AI tools can analyze your competitors’ content and determine their target keywords. Armed with this information, you can then optimize your own content to have a better chance of ranking well in search results.
Creating skyscraper content is a common SEO strategy and has been covered for ages, e.g., by Digital Marketer. Using AI content creation tools, writing these long-form articles became much easier. Yet, you still have to think for yourself. Don't assume that AI content creation tools save you from thinking for yourself.
With SEO, writing useful content matters most (you need to have a content marketing plan). AI content creation tools will only assist in doing that. You still have to double-check facts and statistics, sentence structure, and the logic outlined in the article to create SEO content that'll rank.
You still have to follow the common SEO process, even (or better "especially") when using AI content creation tools:
1. Do Your Keyword Research
Keyword research is one of SEO's most important—and often overlooked—aspects. To create truly optimized content for SEO, you need to understand which keywords are most likely to be used by people searching for businesses like yours.
There are several different tools that you can use to do keyword research; our personal favorite is Google AdWords Keyword Planner. All you have to do is type in some potential keywords, and AdWords will show you how many people are searching for those terms monthly. This can be a great way to get some ideas for what kinds of content to create.
2. Write For Your audience First, Search Engines Second
Once you've done your keyword research and have a list of potential topics to write about, it's important to keep your audience in mind as you create your content. Write each piece to provide value and solve a problem for your reader, not just cram in as many keywords as possible. Not only will this make for better content overall, but it will also help you avoid getting penalized by Google for "keyword stuffing."
3. Structure Your Content Using Headings and Subheadings
After you've written your post or article, take a step back and look at the overall structure. Is it easy to read and navigate? Are the main points clear? If not, consider adding some headings and subheadings (using H2 and H3 tags, respectively) to break up the text and make it more scannable. Not only will this help improve the user experience on your site, but it will also give you another opportunity to include relevant keywords throughout your content.
4. Incorporate Visuals Whenever Possible
People love visuals! Adding images, infographics, videos, or even just bolded text can help break up chunks of text and make your content more visually appealing—and more likely to be shared on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Just remember to always optimize your images by including relevant keywords in the file name and alt text fields; this will help ensure that your visuals show up when people are searching for them online.
5. Don't Forget About Your Title Tag and Meta Description!
Once you've created all this amazing content, double-check you're taking advantage of all available opportunities to optimize it for SEO! This includes ensuring that each page on your site has a unique title tag and meta description.
These brief statements appear under each listing on a search engine results page; they should be concise (under 155 characters) yet descriptive enough to entice someone to click through to your site. Remember: Your title tag should always include your target keyword(s), and each site page should have its unique title tag/meta description combo.
Get Insights Into What Your Audience Wants to Read About
It’s important to understand what type of content your audience wants to read so that you can give them what they’re looking for. With AI tools, you can get insights into the types of topics that are most popular with your audience so that you can create content around those topics.
The thought process is as follows: Since AI content creation tools analyze the Internet and are trained by specific copywriting frameworks, their features to come up with new marketing angles or topic outlines can be incredibly helpful for finding out what could resonate with your target audience.
Additionally, you can take some or all of these steps to do more audience research and not just rely on AI content creation tools:
1. Use Google Analytics
If you have a website, chances are you’re using Google Analytics. This platform provides a wealth of data that can be incredibly useful for understanding what your audience is interested in. You can use data from Google Analytics to see which blog posts are getting the most traffic, what keywords people use to find your site, and where your traffic is coming from. All of this information can help determine what topics to write about next.
2. Check out social media
Social media is another great way to get insights into what your audience wants to read about. See which posts are getting the most engagement and look at the comments to see what people are saying. You can also use social media polling features to directly ask your audience what they want to read about.
3. Send out surveys
Another option is to send out surveys either through email or using a platform like SurveyMonkey. This allows you to directly ask your audience questions and get feedback on what they want to see more of from you. Just make sure that you keep your surveys short and sweet; no one wants to spend hours filling out a survey!
4. Look at competitor content
If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, take a look at what your competitors are writing about. This can give you some inspiration and help you understand which topics are being talked about the most in your industry. Just make sure that you don’t copy their content; come up with your own unique spin on things!
Speed up the content repurposing process
AI tools can also help you repurpose old pieces of content into new formats or update them to be current. For example, if you have an old blog post that is outdated, an AI tool can help you quickly update it and turn it into a brand-new piece of content.
Additionally, if you have a video or podcast episode that is doing well, an AI tool can help you transcribe it and turn it into a blog post or article. The voice recognition inside Descript is insanely good - just to give one example. Check out this video where I removed 166 filler words in a minute.
Here are three reasons why content repurposing is so important:
1. Reach a Wider Audience
When you repurpose your content, you're essentially giving yourself a second chance to reach your target audience—and maybe even expand that audience. Let's say you published a blog post last year that didn't get as much traction as you would have liked. Turning that blog post into an infographic or video can introduce your ideas to a whole new group of people who consume information differently.
2. Increase Engagement
Repurposing your content can also help increase engagement with your brand. When people see that you're constantly putting out fresh, relevant content, they're more likely to come back for more. What's more, by repurposing your content in different formats, you can appeal to different types of learners. Some people prefer to read blog posts, while others prefer watching video or listening to podcasts. By covering all your bases, you're more likely to capture—and keep—someone's attention.
3. Boost Your Bottom Line
Last but not least, repurposing your content can actually help boost your bottom line. Creating new content from scratch can be time-consuming and expensive. Repurposing existing content costs a fraction of what it would cost to create something completely new—and it can often be done with minimal effort. In other words, it's a win-win!
Should you use an AI content creation tool, or will it ruin your reputation?
That depends on your needs and preferences. If you're looking for a way to save time and create well-organized, relevant content, an AI content creation tool may be worth considering. However, if you want a tool that can write complete articles on its own, you're out of luck.
I don't think AI content creation has reached a level where you can simply copy and paste the generated content. Even tools like Jasper, though trained by the world's smartest copywriters and marketers like Jon Benson, don't write content that is good to go out of the box.
Resources like The AI Author give you a headstart and can massively reduce the learning curve for AI content creation tools.
AI platforms are just tools - if used correctly, they will massively improve your content marketing processes.
You might be surprised to learn that about 50% of the words in this article and the entire structure were created using Jasper.ai. I generated the baseline and then refined, tweaked, and expanded the content where necessary. That allowed me to write this entire article in just 25 minutes. Not bad if you ask me - and it doesn't make the content less helpful or actionable. In my opinion, that's how AI content creation tools should be used.
