Here’s the thing.
Being a content writer can be very rewarding. For those who relish the art of crafting words and conjuring up engaging content that hooks the reader in good and proper, then it’s pretty much a dream gig.
But it’s not always the easiest of jobs and sometimes the words simply won’t flow. For instance, you might spend hours staring at a blank Word doc trying to come up with that killer opening line, yet all you can muster from the far corners of your brain is ‘Here’s the thing’.
Let’s face it, as openers go, it’s not exactly a world beater.
Thank heavens for ChatGPT. There. I said it. My name is Anna Heathcote, I am a content writer and I love ChatGPT.
‘But…but…it’s WRONG! It’s CHEATING! It’s a CRIME AGAINST THE PEN! WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE RANKINGS?!’.
These are the exact words I had swirling round my head when I first dipped a tentative toe into the world of AI chatbots. However, what I thought would be a dance with the devil has actually turned into quite the beautiful friendship – the Robin to my Batman, if you will.
AI and rankings: a balancing act
The topic of AI content and search engine rankings is a thorny one. It’s true that Google doesn’t want to promote spammy, samey, low value content on its platform, but we’ve heard directly from the horse’s mouth that AI-supported content won’t automatically get punished on the SERPs. As long as your blog or article prioritises E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) and you’ve ticked all the SEO boxes, your rankings won’t necessarily suffer as a result of using ChatGPT to support – not replace – your original, authentic copy.
“Those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce ORIGINAL, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.”
How can ChatGPT help content writers?
Firstly, if you’re churning out 100% AI-written copy then you’re obviously not doing yourself – or your audience – any favours.
But you’re not daft, you know that already. So, let’s look at the different ways you can implement it into your content writing without compromising creative integrity or originality.
- Use it to create a basic structure: ChatGPT can help you get off the starting blocks, mapping out the bare bones of a blog or article. You can then build upon this initial framework, creating your own individual, high-quality piece of content.
- Ask it to suggest rewrites: I think most content writers have read back a self-penned paragraph and winced at the clumsy syntax or overuse of ‘then’, ‘and’ or ‘that’. Here’s where you can ask ChatGPT to suggest alternative wording. Sometimes it’s worse, but often it’s better, and can help your content flow just that little bit more smoothly.
- Teach it to write like you: Did you know you can train GPT to emulate your style and tone? By providing samples of your writing, including specific phrases, tone and structure, you can guide it towards closely mimicking your individual style. Just make sure you keep refining your prompts…the more generic the input, the equally generic the output.
- Speed up your research: If you write for different clients, you’ll inevitably need to research a range of different subject and topic matters which can be incredibly laborious and time-consuming. One nifty trick is to paste an article into ChatGPT and ask it to give you bullet point summaries of the key points. This can help you get the info you need more quickly without having to wade through entire articles (side note: It's handy for extracting general information, but probably not best practice when researching legal, medical or financial subject matters).
- Make waffly content more concise: ChatGPT is not just about coming up with more content. Sometimes you may need a helping hand to condense existing copy, making it more focused, slick and user friendly. Check out the example below:
Final thoughts
ChatGPT caused a lot of handwringing in 2023 with many fearing it would be the final nail in the coffin for me and my fellow content writers. But, having used ChatGPT for a year now, I am pretty confident that when it comes to the written word, the nuance and depth of human output will always trump that of a robot.
Just remember to keep viewing ChatGPT as a valuable tool in your arsenal, rather than a crutch you can’t do without. It’s an assistant, a muse, a trusty sidekick to give you a gentle kick up the backside when writers block strikes.
And – hey – maybe ‘here’s the thing’ isn’t that bad an opener after all, because here you are, still engaged, reading this blog to the bitter end.
That’s the thing.
