Last Updated on September 4, 2023 by Alex Birkett
It appears that the future is here.
Artificial intelligence (AI), namely generative AI, is revolutionizing what it means to be a content marketer.
- AI text generators can help content writers and marketers craft engaging blog posts that are tailored to their audience.
- AI image generators can help you create images for long form content, cover images, and other art.
- AI content optimization software helps you create briefs and optimize for search engine rankings.
Really, every part of content marketing has been touched by AI.
In this post, I’ll cover my exact process for using AI writing tools to generate roughly 10X the amount of content I produce.
- How Does AI Blogging Work?
- How to Use AI Tools for Blogging
- 3 Tips for Leveraging AI Blog Tools
- The Exact AI Blogging Process I Use to 10X Content Production
- The 5 Best AI Blogging Software
Editor’s note: don’t mind me, but I’ll pop a few affiliate links in the piece. Won’t affect which tools I mention (I always talk my favorites, anyway), but if you click and purchase, I get a small kickback. Carry on.
How Does AI Blogging Work?
AI blogging is a broad category that encompasses AI writing, research, image generation, and any other way that machine learning and artificial intelligence has improved the content creation process.
Generally speaking, the tools used to write blog posts work by using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms — a type of machine learning — to generate ideas, topics, and even entire blog posts that are tailored to your target audience. AI blog writing tools like Jasper and ChatGPT are popular in this category.
The pace of innovation in artificial intelligence is rapid right now; there are new AI writing tools coming out every week, and AI is touching many other areas of the content creation process.
All said, though, these tools are designed to help you become a more effective marketer. They don’t replace content marketers. Rather, they augment your capabilities and help you get greater throughput and results.
The specific algorithm underpinning the technology can differ, but many of them are built on top of OpenAI’s models. At this point, GPT-3 is the popular model, but soon that will be GPT-4 and beyond. ChatGPT is also a popular interface for generative AI.
There are also a variety of image models, from DALL-E to Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and more.
How to Use AI Tools for Blogging
There are many use cases for AI beyond simple blog writing. A few ways AI blog tools help me include:
- Speed up keyword research and content planning
- Generate blog post ideas
- Create content briefs
- Write content
- Improve existing written content
- Edit content
- Optimize content to rank in search engines
- Repurpose content
- Generate images and artwork
1. Speed up keyword research and content planning
AI research tools can save you time by quickly producing keyword ideas. They’ll also help you identify related topics and other content opportunities that may not have been immediately obvious.
Tools like Keywordinsights.ai help you do keyword research in minutes and cluster your keywords automatically. This previously took hours if not days.
2. Generate blog post ideas
AI-assisted content generation tools like Jasper can produce ideas for blog posts or even entire articles. All you have to do is give them a topic, and they’ll come up with related topics and questions that could be explored in an article.
3. Create content briefs
Tools like Frase, Clearscope, and Surfer speed up the content outline process, letting you research existing content written on similar topics. This helps you understand what you need to include in your content so that it’s comprehensive and engaging.
4. Write content
Tools like Copy.AI and Jasper can generate blog posts from scratch, helping you to produce more content faster without sacrificing quality. Even if you don’t use all the outputs verbatim, writing blog posts with the assistance of these tools helps me produce way more content.
5. Improve existing written content
One of the best use cases for AI is to improve existing written content. Tons of tools help you with this, including all purpose AI copywriting tools like Jasper and Copy AI.
But there are other tools like Wordtune and Quillbot that help you rewrite portions of your blog posts.
Other tools like Grammarly and Hemingway give you guidance on style and grammar.
6. Edit content
Further, AI tools can help you with editing your content. AI-assisted editing tools like AutoCrit and ProWritingAid scan your writing for grammar, spelling, and any other type of mistake. I like to use these tools to help me rephrase my content as well, using different tones and styles.
7. Optimize content to rank in search engines
AI content optimization tools like Surfer and Clearscope help you optimize your content for search engine results and voice search.
These tools can help you quickly get the data you need to make sure that your blog posts are optimized for the right keywords and phrases. This is an important part of SEO, and AI tools make it much faster and easier.
8. Repurpose content
One of my favorite use cases for AI blog tools is to repurpose content into different formats like Instagram captions, LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, and more.
9. Generate images and artwork
Finally, AI tools like DALL-E and Midjourney can generate images and artwork to accompany blog posts. This is generally a slow manual process that can be automated with AI.
3 Tips for Leveraging AI Blog Tools
While we’re all still learning about how to best incorporate these tools into our creative toolkit, I do have a few pointers before you get started:
- Use the write tool for the job
- Prompts matter
- Don’t rely too much on automation
1. Use an Algorithm That Fits Your Content Needs
Not all algorithms are created equal. Some algorithms focus on generating data-driven content (AI blog writer tools) while others specialize in creative writing tasks like developing stories or creating original articles. Choose an algorithm that fits your specific needs, whether it’s a general-purpose algorithm or one designed specifically for bloggers or content writers.
2. Prompts matter
You should also customize your results as much as possible by providing input such as keywords or topics that you want included in your post.
Basically, the output is only as good as your prompt. If you play around with the art tools this is apparent, but also, no tool is going to write articles for you without any of your input and direction.
3. Don’t Rely Too Much on Automation
While automated blogging can be helpful, it shouldn’t be used as a crutch.
Even with the best algorithms, there will still be some level of human input required to create a high-quality post that resonates with readers and drives traffic to your site.
Plus, what is scarce (human intelligence) becomes valuable. Once everyone has access to AI tools, you’ll need to find a way to differentiate your content through experience, voice, quality, data, or other unique artifacts.
The Exact AI Blogging Process I Use to 10X Content Production
I personally use Jasper, Frase, and Surfer as my blog writing toolkit (plus Ahrefs and Keywords Everywhere for keyword research).
Watch me write a blog post using AI writing tools here.
First, I choose my keyword. I can’t go into the full content strategy approach here, but here’s a post I wrote on that. My content creation process is judiciously planned.
Once I have my keyword, I pop into Frase to build a blog post outline. It does this by analyzing the top ranking blog posts for the keyword:
While it doesn’t dictate my final outline, this gives me a bird’s eye view of the SERPs so I can include some of these headlines and talking points in my draft.
I only look at this blog outline as a suggestion. I use it to inform my content, but when I create blog posts, I wrap up all of my own insights and experience. AI is helpful, but it’s not almighty.
Frase also has a writing assistant that’s quite good, but I don’t use it. I use Jasper, as it’s the most powerful tool I’ve used for creating content.
The first thing I do with Jasper is use their One Shot Blog Post template to see how much of the article I can get written right away. It won’t write the entire blog post for me, but it might get me 20% of the way there (and getting started is the most important thing for removing writer’s block and getting past the blank page).
Usually, I write long form content. This requires a ton of effort, but check this out. I’m able to get about 400 good words out already.
I’ll then add all my additional headlines and sections to the draft in Jasper.
I then create a Surfer SEO report (which is integrated with Jasper) to guide my content production, and the rest of it is a combination of Jasper (my AI writing software) and me (human writers ain’t going anywhere).
As I’m writing, I might use a command or have Jasper help me finish a sentence.
But in the end, it’s important to remember that AI blogging is there to support you and guide your content production process. It won’t do everything for you, but it can be a great tool for getting through those moments of writer’s block or helping you make sure your blog post is optimized to rank on Google. You gotta add your own brand voice to stand out anyway.
^Jasper wrote that paragraph for example.
Jasper also integrates with Grammarly, which is nice because I’m a guy that maeks a ton of grammar mistakes.
😉
The 5 Best AI Blogging Software
- Jasper
- Copy AI
- GrowthBar
- Frase
- Surfer
1. Jasper
I’ve mentioned this a ton already, but Jasper is a powerful AI blogging assistant that helps you create high-quality content quickly.
It’s designed to help you generate blog posts, articles, and web copy faster than ever before. This is possible by using AI technologies such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML).
You wanna get the Boss Mode plan if you can.
2. Copy AI
Copy AI is an advanced copywriting tool that uses artificial intelligence to generate engaging and SEO-friendly content.
It’s based on templates, whereas Jasper has more of an open editor (it’s like Google Docs). This is great for beginners, but can be limiting if you want edge cases (for example, Copy AI isn’t going to be the best for creative writing)
3. GrowthBar
GrowthBar is an AI-powered blogging & SEO platform that focuses on helping you grow your blog.
Its AI technology allows you to get more out of your content by optimizing it for SEO, automatically formatting it for various devices, and analyzing data to improve reader engagement. It also includes keyword research and backlink analysis features.
4. Frase
Frase is an AI-powered content creation and optimization platform.
It’s designed to help you create content faster while making sure it’s optimized for search engines. Its AI algorithms can generate blog post outlines, suggest titles, optimize content structure, and analyze competitors’ posts.
5. Surfer
Surfer is an SEO optimization tool that uses AI to help you optimize your content.
It can analyze competitors’ blog posts and provide insights on what topics are already popular, which keywords are being used, and how to optimize your own content for better ranking on Google.
This helps you create content that’s not only optimized for search engines but also engaging and informative.
Conclusion
AI blogging is a great way to save time and generate quality content quickly without sacrificing accuracy or relevance to your target audience.
However, while automated blogging can be helpful, it shouldn’t replace manual research or writing entirely—there will always be some level of human input required in order to create high-quality blog posts that resonate with readers and drive traffic back to your website.
By taking advantage of powerful AI tools while also investing time into manual research and writing processes, you can maximize the effectiveness of all aspects of your blog writing process.