Use AI to write blog posts? (pros and cons of AI content writing)

What is AI?

A simple definition of Artificial Intelligence is this: AI is the part of computer science that creates and studies systems that think and act like humans.

These systems use algorithms to make decisions and perform tasks as humans would, based on the information they're provided and they have many different applications.

You use AI every day when you ask your Echo Dot to play your favourite playlist or to set a timer or an alarm. And Alexa uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyse and understand text and speech.

And as a blogger, you're already using AI, too.

For example, ProWritingAid checks your grammar and style and MeetEdgar crafts social media messages automatically for you. 

But AI can do much more for you as a blogger. 

how does AI Create Content?

AI content generator tools use GPT-3.

How does GPT-3 work?

The basic idea is that you give an AI content generating tool some text. It can be a couple of keywords, a phrase or a few sentences. 

Then you give it a command, for example: you can ask the tool you're working with to give you Blog Post Ideas or an outline for your keyword.

Here's a sample of items from PepperType.AI:

Then the AI will search for content on the internet, analyse the data and use GPT-3 to create the content for you.

And once you have it on your screen, you can copy and use the option you like and add it to your document, either by copying and pasting it to a document or by adding it to an editor included in the tool.

TWO TYPES OF AI CONTENT GENERATING TOOLS bloggers need to know

I've been looking at AI content generating tools for a while, and there seems to be two types of AI content tools out there.

AI TEXT GENERATOR TOOLS

These are the tools that write content for you once you enter some text and give them a command.

These will save you time on content creation and can write copy for articles, emails, landing pages and social media and much more.

They're like having an AI writing assistant that makes these tasks a lot easier for you.

AI CONTENT CREATION TOOLS THAT HELP WITH SEO

AI text generators do offer some simple SEO tasks, like writing and SEO description and meta description, or they will point out the keywords you can use.

But it's much easier and faster to write a blog post optimised for SEO without having to spend hours doing SEO research and looking for secondary keywords and LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Intent Keywords) when you can have access to SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) data directly in the AI content writing app like you can do with Outranking or Frase.

So, for example, you could start writing a new blog post on Outranking's or add the URL for an old blog post and follow the instructions for each section to improve your chances of ranking and compare your article with content already ranking on Google. 

How can you use ai to write blog posts?

Each AI content generator tool I've used can do lots of different tasks that will help you create blog content more quickly.

And you can start using them even before you've decided what you want to write about.

Here are some of the things they do for you:

• Blog post ideas
• Blog post outlines
• Blog post headlines
• Bullet or section expander
• Content enhancer
• Blog introduction 
• Blog conclusion 
• SEO Meta descriptions
• FAQs...

Whether you want to write the whole blog post in one go, or you're just stuck and need a hand to help you write your next paragraph, being able to use AI to write blog posts makes the whole process a lot easier.

Other uses of AI for creating content

Using AI to write blog posts is all good and well, but you can use AI text generators for more than writing blog posts?

Yes, most of them will allow you to create things like:

• Social media posts and captions
• Bios
• Ads for Google or Facebook
• Copywriting for sales pages
• Book Titles and Descriptions
• Emails
• Product descriptions
• Lyrics
• Poems
• Fictional stories
• Elevator pitches...

What are the benefits of using AI to write blog posts?

Even when you're an experienced blogger and you're a master of your blog creation workflow, you still have to go through all the steps and there are limits to how many blog posts you can create in a week. 

But is it worth it for you to use AI to write your blog posts?

Let's have a look at the benefits of using AI to create blog content:

USING AI TO WRITE BLOG CONTENT SAVES TIME

AI allows content creators to produce engaging content much more quickly than if they were writing all the material themselves. So you could save days on your blog content creation process.

For example, typically, I used to spend a day or two doing my Keyword research by hand, but by using some of the AI tools you can do this in less than an hour.

More blog traffic

First, because you're producing more blog posts than you did before, but also because if you can use Artificial Intelligence to help you with your SEO and this will help get more pages on the first page of the Google Search Results.

IMPROVED WORKFLOWS

Creating a blog post with the help of AI means that it's easier to create an outline and not miss out on important information, so you're not wasting time later because you forgot to include something, or you're stuck for inspiration and it's easier to write longer content.

It's also easier to move on to promotion tasks once you've published your blog post.

Better blog posts

I know you're a great blogger, but have you noticed that you always use the same phrases and ways of saying things?

And while it's true you can already use ProWritingAid to do work on this, having an AI text generator gives you a lot more options by enhancing or expanding your content.

Improving older content

In addition, some AI writing assistants will also help you improve old blog posts more easily by pointing out things that are missing in your posts or bits of content you need to improve on.

What are the cons of using AI to write blog posts?

Now, I know using AI to write your blog content sounds great, but are there any cons?

It doesn't always sound like a human

There are times when the AI writing tool's style is not going to fit yours.

For example, I was looking at creating some emails for technical content, but the author usually talks about it in a very informal way, so the AI was not able to replicate this.

It just came out sounding very stilted and impersonal.

So, although I could use it as a starting point, I still needed to rephrase and adapt the whole thing so it sounded like the person I'm working with.

AI Can't do everything

There are some types of content that AI content writing software cannot do for you.

For example, if you're writing a tutorial or a guide with all the steps to do something, it's not going to come up with all the points you need to add to your outline. They still have to come from you.

The AI tool will produce so many points based on text it's found on the Internet, but it will not give you everything you need because its output text is limited to so many characters.

AI content writers can get things wrong

Artificial Intelligence is not perfect and it can get things wrong in some cases.

So don't use AI indiscriminately to write blog posts where the accuracy of the information is paramount such as in healthcare niches.

You feel like you're cheating

 Is it ethical for you to use AI to write your blog content?

Personally, I'd say say yes, because I am using a mix of my own content and AI generated content.

So it's not like I just shove everything that comes out of the AI generator into a post and I take care that the information is correct.

character or word count Limits

One serious issue, in my opinion, is that there's a limit for both the amount of text you use for your input and the amount of text you get in return.

 So you can only work with a small number of sentences and the text the AI creates for you might also appear truncated at the end.

So you have to be very clear on your outline and make sure YOU include all the points you want to talk about.

FAQs about Artificial Intelligence Writing Tools

IS AI GENERATED CONTENT GOOD ENOUGH?

Most AI generated content is readable and it's grammatically correct, but is it good enough?

Would you notice if a paragraph was written by Artificial Intelligence or by a human?

The truth is that it depends, the more technical or specific the niche, the harder it is for the AI to get things right and create varied and engaging content, though some tools allow you to choose the voice or the tone.

But, as I said earlier, I think general niches would fare well.

Most importantly, though, it also depends on the tool.

There are some AI content writers that produced content that was unusable for me, but they seemed to perform OK for other niches.

So give them all a try and find the best one for you.

CAN Ai text generators make mistakes?

Yes, they can. 

In theory, AI can give you the wrong information or information that's not true, yes. They can also give you biased information based on what the information they find online.

But it also depends on how you use it.

You need to learn how best to use each of these tools so they work for you.  And you still need to know what you're talking about.

But if you're an expert in your field or are doing your own research, you should be able to deal with this.

DOES AI GENERATED CONTENT WORK FOR ANY TOPIC?

If  you hear anybody that tells you that AI can generate blog content for any niche, take it with a pinch of salt.

It seems to work well for general niches, but it won't be able to come up with a recipe for a food blog. And it won't be able to write content for the most technical and complex niches (because it doesn't know when things are wrong and because of the character limitations). And the results are sometimes very wishy-washy and won't match the quality of your own content.

Also if you have a field where there are lots of opinions, it doesn't know which ones are right. 

But here's where I find using a tool that helps you analyse SERP data helps. Because you can check for yourself if the sources are reliable and you choose the headings and the sections.

Are AI writing tools expensive?

Well, what you need to look at here is how much time you spend writing content for blog posts without AI and then see how long it takes you to write it.

Think about the impact being able to write blog posts optimised for SEO and other content more quickly can have on your page views, and also on your ad, affiliate marketing and digital products income.

What would it mean for you if you could write 3-5 blog posts in the same time it takes you to write one?

But let's look at it a different way. How much would it cost you to pay a content writer to write an article for you?

I get $250-$500 per article here in the UK. And that's just one article.

And I know that getting somebody from the Philippines to do your content writing is cheaper than paying somebody in the UK or the US, but what if you could write 10 or 15 articles for the same amount of money you pay for one?

Wouldn't it be worth it?

Can AI write an entire blog post from scratch?

Yes. Some of the tools will help you write a blog post from scratch by giving you blog post ideas for your niche and helping you work through the whole blog post writing process.

But the quality of the whole thing will depend on the tool.

But it's up to you as to how much content from the AI tool you want to use.

Use your judgement.

What about copyright?

AI content generators do not copy blog posts.

They scrape the Internet and based on the information they find and how they've been programmed, they create original content for you.

But if you're worried about this, you can use an AI content writing assistant with plagiarism detection tools or if your tool doesn't do it use ProWritingAid.

How quickly can you create a blog post when you use AI writing software?

It depends on several factors, to be honest:

• How difficult the niche is.
• Your style and how much work you need to do to make it suit your style.
• The type of content you're writing. Is it a listicle, a tutorial, tips, or an in-depth guide?
• The tool you're using. Some are better than others (either because they're easier to use or because of the quality of the generated content) and the results vary.
• Whether you're using the tool to write the whole thing or you just want to use it as an assistant.

Conclusion

Whether you want to use AI to write blog posts or not is something only you can decide.

You'll have to see if the pros of using AI for blog writing outweigh the cons for you and your blog, but I find the idea that you can do more work in less time extremely attractive.

And provided you use AI to complement your own content or to help you when you're stuck, I think there's a place in my blogger's toolbox for AI content writing apps.

What about you?

Let me know in the comments if you think AI could help you become a better blogger.