In the ever-evolving world of SEO (search engine optimization), content creation has become vital to business growth in a highly competitive digital landscape. Writing blog posts for your business is an easy way to naturally drive traffic to your website, increase conversions, and establish yourself as an authority in your industry. But what if you struggle to come up with content ideas?
Enter ChatGPT. OpenAI created ChatGPT as an artificial intelligence chatbot capable of taking commands and assisting writers in the content creation process and other tasks. But how is this possible?
ChatGPT is a quintessential example of a so-called “large language model.” Engineers create these models to function like a human brain in that they can process a wealth of information about various topics and use the data they collect to predict the next word in a sentence.
ChatGPT’s natural language processing abilities allow it to take instructions from humans and provide responses to complicated questions.
Writers and marketers can use this powerful tool to overcome writer’s block, expedite content creation, and improve keyword research. This article will discuss how you can use ChatGPT to write your next blog post and what you should know about AI-generated content.
How to generate ideas using ChatGPT
Before we get too far, we should note that while ChatGPT is great for speeding up the process of creating quality content, you shouldn’t rely on it to write entire articles.
ChatGPT can be a valuable AI tool for creating social media posts, writing meta descriptions, developing article outlines, and finalizing keyword research. However, it is not great at writing long-form content and doesn’t have access to search volume data like Google Keyword Planner and other keyword tools that can tell you what’s ranking high on search engines.
If you use ChatGPT to create AI-generated content, only human editing can ensure the content is solid. Likewise, if you’re using it to generate topic ideas, you’ll still need to do your own keyword research to identify target keywords the bot can use. This is where search volume tools come in to give you keyword suggestions relevant to your niche.
Whether you plan to use ChatGPT to help you write a meta description or come up with your next article title, you have to learn how to give it specific prompts.
What is a prompt?
Put simply, a prompt in the context of ChatGPT is a string of human-supplied text that serves as a good starting point for generating ideas. You can use prompts to have the bot answer questions, provide article titles related to chosen keywords, or generate text based on an unfinished phrase.
The key to creating AI content is giving the bot specific tasks. Whether generating text to complete a search inquiry or writing a response to a question, ChatGPT needs a specific prompt to give you the most detailed and relevant results.
Chatbots like ChatGPT function through a large library of training data, but the volume of information is only useful if you know how to induce the most niche-specific responses.
Consider the following tips to generate interesting blog post ideas, article titles, and high-quality content using ChatGPT:
- Be precise with word choice. Avoid using words or phrases that the bot could interpret in multiple ways to generate only the most relevant blog post ideas.
- Use niche-specific keywords related to the topic. This will help you formulate blog posts that can drive more traffic to your website and assist the bot in understanding the context of your prompt.
- Be concise. One of the primary benefits of ChatGPT is that it’s a huge time saver. Given that it’s a bot and not a person, it gets the job done fast.
Examples of prompts you can use to generate a blog post
Once you’ve done your keyword research to determine what words and phrases perform well on search engines, you should have enough information to generate your next blog post idea using ChatGPT. Remember that the key to using AI tools is specificity. The bot can produce helpful suggestions, but only if you provide it with quality information.
If you’re uncertain about how to use your keyword research to instruct ChatGPT, feel free to use examples from the following to spark inspiration. Each example is either prompt-based, text completion, or a set of instructions.
- Example #1: Prompt-based – “What are the benefits of [topic/product]?”
- Example #2: Text completion – “Frequently asked questions about [topic/product/niche] include…”
- Example #3: Instructions – “Create a list of article ideas related to [topic], including [relevant keywords].”
- Example #4: Prompt-based – “What are the main pain points for [topic/niche]?”
- Example #5: Text completion – “The main benefits of [topic/product] include…”
- Example #6: Instructions – “Incorporate these ideas into an outline: [list of bullet points]”
- Example #7: Prompt-based – “How can [topic/product] help small businesses?”
- Example #8: Text completion – “[Topic/product] can improve an online store by…”
As you can see, you have numerous prompt options when using ChatGPT to help you write a blog post.
Just keep in mind that its strength lies in writing short-form content, outlines, and ideas for articles. If you want to add images or related external links to your content to help it rank better on the first page of Google and other search engines, you’ll have to do so separately.
Creating topical cluster ideas using ChatGPT
SEO experts use content clusters to optimize a website by building an internal linking practice. This means creating several pieces of content related to similar topics or covering a broad topic more comprehensively through a series of posts.
One super simple way to generate various related topic ideas is to use ChatGPT’s “keyword strategy” prompt. Simply enter the phrase “keyword strategy” into the search field. Then, the bot should give you the option to enter your chosen keyword, which will produce a table of related topics.
Generating questions about a topic
An easy way to overcome writer’s block is to answer questions regarding your service, product, or industry. You can ask ChatGPT to conjure up relevant questions by inputting the prompt: “What are the most frequently asked questions regarding [topic]?”
This method is also fantastic for SEO purposes, as potential customers may be searching for the exact questions you’re writing about.
Verifying your ideas with other tools
While ChatGPT can produce lists of keywords to some extent and help in the process of creating content for SEO, it can’t provide you with search volume data. This is where other keyword tools like Google Trends, Semrush, and Ahrefs come in handy.
You can use ChatGPT to create a list of potential topics, then use any of these SEO tools to determine which titles, topics, and keywords will perform best.
When not to use ChatGPT
Writing a blog with relevant keywords and a format that will lend itself to a high search engine results page (SERP) ranking can be challenging. This is why using AI to write blog posts has become so popular, but depending on the topic, it’s not always a good idea to use ChatGPT.
ChatGPT has a pretty impressive data bank to work with, and it can certainly help business owners write more posts for any kind of website. However, AI writing has its limitations, and it’s important to be aware of them before using it to help create your next blog.
- ChatGPT Will Avoid Sensitive Content
Although ChatGPT uses a large pool of data to respond to prompts, its creators programmed it to avoid generating content related to sensitive topics. Examples of sensitive content include the following:
- Depictions of graphic violence
- Descriptions of illegal activities or illegal substances
- Anything sexually explicit
- Content that may encourage readers to cause harm, such as instructions for building an explosive
If you ask ChatGPT about any of the above topics, there’s a possibility the bot will outright refuse to provide a response.
- ChatGPT Isn’t Aware of Current Events
If you’re writing an article for your website that relies on recent, fresh information, you may not want to rely on ChatGPT for coming up with ideas. For the time being, the bot isn’t aware of content or events from 2021 onward, so its ability to produce timely writing is limited.
- ChatGPT Has Tone Biases
One critical aspect of ChatGPT’s programming is that it has received “training” to be harmless, which makes sense, but it seems to result in the bot avoiding any form of negativity.
This feature can be a bonus in some cases, but in others, it may shift the tone of a blog post to one that’s inappropriately positive or confusing for the subject matter.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean ChatGPT can’t be useful for writing more serious blog posts. It just means you’ll need to be aware of the bot’s built-in bias and adjust your instructions accordingly.
Final thoughts: Get expert advice on AI content creation
While chatbots like ChatGPT may not be the perfect content creation tool, they can certainly make the process much faster and allow you to plan your content more effectively. Therefore, using them sparingly but strategically is key.
Still, even with handy tools like this, content marketing can be a full-time commitment. As a business owner with many other responsibilities, you may struggle to keep up with marketing-related tasks, which can hinder your business’s growth.
We hope that this article provided you some use today. At Connective, our experienced staff has the skills and knowledge to simplify SEO strategies, improve your digital marketing, and achieve conversion-friendly web design.
