Bloggers are always looking for ways to generate more engaging, higher-quality content that their audiences will love. But modern writing is difficult. Just winging it usually doesn’t work, especially in today’s algorithm-driven, SEO-based world.
That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) can help. This technology offers a raft of features to make your blog writing more competitive, relevant, and engaging.
Blogging AIs have come a long way since the days of spell checkers. Today, software is far more potent than ever before. It can take a lacklustre blog and turn it into something remarkable with just a few clicks. Tools are genuinely helpful, letting you augment posts in new ways that will thrill your readership.
With that said, many bloggers remain to be convinced. Even many years after the first products arrived on the market, AI feels a little alien.
Therefore, this post covers both how to use AI and its benefits. By the end, you’ll understand what it offers, its limitations and how to use it, regardless of your writing style.
How AI Is Assisting Bloggers
Artificial intelligence emerged in the 1940s when engineers built the first general-purpose computers. However, it lacked performance. Computer scientists understood the basic concept but didn’t have enough computing power to put it to good use.
Over the ensuing years, though, software and hardware improved by several orders of magnitude. By 2014, artificial intelligence was mainstream, and multiple machine learning-based writing apps were available.
From that point on, everything changed. Bloggers finally got tools that made their lives easier. Computers seemed to have more human-like minds than ever.
Much of these new powers come from a technology called natural language processing. Writers can now give software commands like “write a press release on Mexican food” or “conclude this paragraph positively” and it will do their bidding. It’s similar to how a client might give a brief to a human writer.
Writers can also get assistance with sentence writing. Software is gaining superior contextual understanding and seems to know when particular structures work, and when they don’t.
With that said, it’s hard to put AI writing tools into a single category. Each offers assistance in a unique way. The ecosystem is developing fast and it’s up to individual writers to decide which software is most suitable for them.
Furthermore, the software is not good enough to replace human writers entirely. All tools still require some higher-level direction from you. They can’t craft beautifully-written blogs automatically.
AI-Powered Writing Tools
Before we get into the topic of how to use AI when writing, let’s take a look at some of the top tools on the market today:
Frase
Writing a great blog is only the start of the process. For it to be successful, it needs to have SEO value.
That’s where Frase comes in. This advanced SEO tool uses artificial intelligence to tell you what you should write next to rank higher on Google. It can even do some of the work for you. Top features include:
- Creating detailed content briefs
- Researching existing results for your keyword
- Optimising answers relevant to your audience
- Pulling out notable statistics from different articles
- Generating FAQ schemas
Frase’s most celebrated feature is its content optimisation suite. To use it, type the URL of the existing content and the keyword you’re targeting. The software will then compare your post with the top twenty on Google and suggest changes. For instance, it might tell you to increase the word count, mention the keyword more times, or add extra topics. A score appears in the background, showing you how optimised your content is.
Grammarly
Grammarly launched in 2009 and has implemented rolling improvements to its core software ever since. The software now makes extensive use of AI to improve your writing, helping you craft killer blogs every time.
Unlike most other AIs, Grammarly relies on multiple technologies to assist your writing. Machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing and expert programming all play a role. The idea is to get the software to read your work as a human might and add contextually relevant and suitable improvements.
Like other AI software developers, Grammarly “trains” its systems on millions of lines of text all over the web. It also includes feedback from its human users whenever they hit “ignore” on a suggestion that it makes. Over time, corrections become more accurate and Grammarly develops into a more helpful tool.
The top features of Grammarly include:
- Tone-checking to make sure your writing is suitable for your audience
- The ability to tell whether different writers contributed to the same piece of work
- Cleaned up tangled and hard-to-read sentences
- Typo and mistake checking
- Real-time writing guidance
CloserCopy
CloserCopy specialises in improving long-form content. Developers originally targeted people wanting to write sales copy, but now bloggers use it, too.
At the core of this copywriting tool is a library of content templates for practically every form of online copy. The goal of the tool is to help businesses avoid the expense of hiring an expensive, full-time copywriter, though as mentioned above, the tool does still require a human touch.
Closer Copy has three different AIs that it uses. If you’re a blogger, you’ll want to use the BlogAI tool for:
- Multi-language support
- The ability to create your own frameworks and train the AI to your needs
- SEO optimisation for long-form content
- Insights into your writing, including its readability, keyword density, and the emotions that it generates in your audience
Jasper
Jasper is probably the leading AI-powered blog writing tool on the market. It offers users 100 per cent plagiarism-free content and promises to deliver results up to 10 times faster than a human writer alone. The goal of the software is to provide you with every kind of assistance you might need, from improving how you deliver your ideas to helping you rank higher in Google search results.
Top Jasper features include:
- Text summariser that will instantly generate content related to a keyword in seconds
- Blog post conclusion, based on the information contained in the rest of the article
- Content improver to make your writing more engaging
- Blog post topic idea tool to help you get your creative juices flowing
- Video description tool for automatically taking care of video copy
- Improved bullet point formatting
- Sentence expander tool that adds words, but not fluff, to your writing
MarketMuse
As both an AI-writing assistant and an SEO tool, MarketMuse is similar to Frase. It’s built with tech companies in mind but is also helpful for bloggers who write on similar topics. The patented AI analyses your content and then prioritises your biggest opportunities.
Top features include:
- Automated content inventory and audit to check that all your writing meets proper standards within your domain
- AI-generated content briefs that provide all the information you need to write like an expert
- Content scoring tools that help you see how your content is likely to perform as you write it
- A text editor that gives you real-time feedback on how well your content matches your chosen topic
- Automated keyword and competitor research to save time
Other AI Writing Assistants
Of course, this list of AI writing assistants is not exhaustive, but it does give you a good idea of what’s out there. As a blogger, it’s up to you to choose the tools that provide the features you need to do your best work.
Other tools you might want to consider include:
- Kafka – a random article generator that generates poor-quality articles based on your inputs
- Peppertype.ai – a low-cost alternative to Jasper and Grammarly that’s great for short-form content, but not long articles
- Rytr – an AI assistant that lets you create content in a few seconds and helps you avoid writer’s block
- Writesonic – a free writing and image generation platform that uses Canva-style tools to simplify the creating, editing and publishing of SEO-optimised articles
- Anyword – a copywriting platform that makes it easier for you to tailor your message to your target audience.
How To Use AI Writing Assistants
There are several ways that you can use AI writing tools and each of them comes in handy at different times. Here’s a rundown:
Get Ideas For What To Write
Writer’s block can be serious. You sit down in the morning in front of your laptop and expect the words to flow, but nothing happens. If you’ve got all day, it’s not so much of a problem. But if you’re on a tight schedule you need to keep, every minute counts.
The good news is this: there are plenty of AI-powered writing tools out there that help you get around this issue. These clever pieces of software scour the internet for information, finding inspiration you can use to start writing.
Note that AI tools won’t do your writing for you. However, they come with helpful features that make it easier to come up with ideas and start.
For example, some tools make it easy to rehash old pieces of work to make them more SEO-friendly. You just input the URL and then tools will generate suggestions you can follow to improve the post’s position in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Other tools can help you think up meaningful titles that serve your audience. Here, you type in a keyword and the AI will spit back a bunch of titles, ideas and templates that you can follow.
You can also use AI tools to assist in creative work. Many have semantic engines that link different topics together, letting you write across subjects with ease. Businesses use them all the time to ensure that their content fills all the available niches and search enquiries. Bloggers looking to attract more traffic can do the same.
Ultimately, AI tools get the ball rolling. They deal with “blank page syndrome” by giving you pointers and then supporting you as you write. It’s much easier than trying to come up with something new off the top of your head, particularly if you’re someone prone to writer’s block.
Tell Writing AIs Exactly What You Want Them To Do
If you go ahead and use writing AIs, you need to tell them exactly what you want them to do. Like other machines, output quality correlates with the specified input.
Most tools help you set boundaries to your instructions so that software can parse them in useful ways. However, initial settings still matter a lot.
When using these tools to generate content, make sure that you:
- Provide relevant examples of the type of content you want
- Specify the tone of voice that the AI should use
- Provide any data or statistics that you want to include
- Tell the AI what type of document you want it to write
- Input the purpose of the article
- Tell it which keywords it should use
The more information you can provide upfront, the better the results will be. High-quality instructions are key for generating decent results.
Do Plenty Of Research
AI writing tools can pull facts and figures from the internet to make your writing more compelling (a bit like how Google will pull out statistical snippets if you ask it a question). However, it’s still a good idea to do plenty of your own research. That’s because AIs have a habit of pulling out information quite robotically. Their ideas don’t always match the text.
Rather than going through AI-generated content manually, research the facts and figures you want to include ahead of time. Then insert them later, where appropriate.
While the technology is improving, AIs can provide false data. Unlike humans, they do not have powers of discretion or common sense, so you may end up with nonsense.
AIs also lack the ability to “fact check.” Hence, they can pull statistics from reputable websites and treat them as gospel, without any due diligence. Sentences may be grammatically correct but lack any real meaning. In some cases, they may be outright misleading.
With that said, AI research tools can be a huge time-saver. Algorithms extract relevant data from SERPs, negating the need to do it yourself. All you have to do is read the auto-generated text and then ask if it makes sense.
We suggest adopting a 50-50 approach. Get the AI to do some of the initial grunt work but then do your due diligence and check that its output makes sense. If in doubt, gather your own data and statistics from trusted sources.
Proofread Everything
AI writers can generate documents in a matter of seconds. However, the quality can be dubious for several reasons. Common problems include:
- Sentences that don’t make sense
- Improper use of blog or brand voice
- Incorrect data
- Irrelevant discussions or subject matter that doesn’t relate to the title
- Robotic-sounding prose that lacks a human touch
- Poor or misleading data analysis
Therefore, whenever you use AI-powered tools, proofread everything. Double-check each heading and paragraph and ask if it makes sense to a human audience.
Don’t rely on AI tools to do all the writing for you. Given the state of the technology, your audience will be disappointed.
Get AI To Edit Your Work
Where AI really shines is in the realm of editing. As a human, it’s your job to come up with ideas and structure, but then you can rely on artificial intelligence to tell you if it’s any good.
Google Docs and Microsoft Word both have in-built spelling and grammar checkers. However, these are primitive compared to many of the AI-powered edit assistants out there.
Modern systems are powerful because they learn all the time. Every suggestion you accept or reject feeds back into the algorithm, helping it to make more accurate suggestions next time. Most writers find themselves benefiting from upwards of 90 per cent of the suggestions these tools make.
AI editors can improve your writing by:
- Correcting basic spelling and grammar mistakes
- Suggesting better sentence structures that your audience will find easier to read
- Offering synonyms or alternative phrases to communicate your ideas more engagingly
- Improving your use of punctuation
- Pointing out instances where you may be using inappropriate terms for your audience
- Identifying instances of the passive voice
- Telling you when you are using a type of phrase that might not fit your brand voice
- Suggesting ways to shorten sentences to improve your reading score
AI editors make quick work of most documents. Usually, it’s as easy as clicking “yes” or “accept” for any given suggestion.
Create Your Outline
The ideation phase of writing is often quite time-consuming. It takes a long time to put together ideas and get them all down on the page. By using AI tools, you can cut down on this step considerably while improving your ideas at the same time.
Many of the AI writing assistants mentioned above, including Jasper, provide tools for creating document outlines quickly. How the software does this differs from one to the next, but the general principle is the same. You enter some basic details, such as keywords, titles and related URLs, and the AI will come up with a template you can follow that meets certain SEO criteria.
These tools are helpful when you’re struggling to marshall your thoughts. AI can nudge you in the right direction if you don’t know which topics you should cover in a particular post. Generally, apps are pretty good at knowing what audiences want to read and what interests them.
AI writing assistants also provide templates that you can simply fill out with your copy. “Long form” will interest bloggers the most, but you might also benefit from other formats. Bloggers, for instance, can use AI for email, web page writing, creating script outlines for YouTube, generating social media captions, and short-form templates. Templates help AI writing assistants define the boundaries of your writing space, making it easier for them to know which suggestions to make.
Cater To Your Readers
Lastly, when using AI tools, you should remind yourself to cater to your readers. Remind yourself that you know them better than any algorithm ever could.
Understanding your audience is critical for creating engaging content and SEO. Remember that most writer AIs use the GTP-3 prediction model. Google knows what text generated using this technology looks like and may decide to penalise you if it thinks you’re failing to provide value to your audience.
Don’t cut and paste content directly from your AI writing software. Go through it yourself and consider what it sounds like from the reader’s perspective. Is it something that you personally enjoy reading or does it just sound weird?
By catering to your readers, you’ll improve the quality of any AI-generated blog post. By all means, use AI to get the ball rolling, but don’t rely on it exclusively. That’s a recipe for disaster.
Wrapping Up
AI writing tools are becoming more sophisticated. However, they’re not perfect and they certainly can’t replace human writers – at least, not yet.
If you’re considering using these tools for your blog, you should consider the pros and cons.
Benefits include:
- Saving you time
- Improving the quality and relevance of your writing
- Boosting the SEO value of your blog posts
- Helping you generate fresh ideas
However, there are a bunch of disadvantages you should be aware of. These include:
- Poor quality output – AIs can’t write articles from scratch
- Lack of fact-checking when doing research or basic common sense
- High premiums for many services
- The steep learning curve on most products
- Cannot create all types of posts yet, such as training plans
If you are a keen writer and you want your blog to be successful, you should probably use AI tools. However, it can take several months to get to grips with how they work, their limitations, and how to use them efficiently. Therefore, tread carefully. Find productive ways to use these tools, but don’t feel pressured into implementing all their features. They’re great for helping you manage your weaknesses, but they are not the be-all-and-end-all.
