My Stance on AI for Blog Writing

As a blog writer, I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room: AI for blog writing. What do I think of it? What are the limitations and benefits of AI? Do I use AI to help me write blogs? Do I believe it steals jobs? We’ll get into it all.

My First Impression of AI for Blog Writing

When AI exploded in 2023, I, like many business owners, was scared of how it would impact my job. I AM a blog writer, after all. With so many people claiming AI was going to take jobs, I started to believe it myself. And that’s a terrifying feeling. I worked so hard on my business and put in so many hours, only to be replaced by a robot overnight?!

A client requested that I play around with ChatGPT when it first launched, and I refused. I put it off for weeks because I was so resistant to the idea of using it to write content for clients. I eventually sucked it up and signed up for a free account. I spent a total of two minutes in the tool and came to these conclusions:

• It produces crap content. 
• It’s hard to use.
• I can do way better. 

It’s embarrassing to even tell you that. I try to be open to new ideas, and I am, for the most part. I want to do what’s best for my clients; I just didn’t think AI was it.

The truth is: I felt threatened.

I didn’t like that it could do my job at a basic level. I mean, it can pump out content way faster than I can. And that was only the first public launch of AI. What would it become?

I was also in the beginning stages of relaunching my business, so I was lowkey panicking. Did I just invest all the time, energy, and money into a business that’s going to be nonexistent and irrelevant in a few months?! Years if I’m lucky?!

But, I realized that I offer a unique talent AI can’t replicate. And that’s what I’ve modeled my whole business and content strategy around. 

I infuse personality and SEO to create blogs for humans. The balance of both is what allows me to write custom blogs for each of my clients. I don’t think AI can write a blog with the unique brand voice all businesses have. 

AI Limitations

AI does still have some limitations business owners should remember. Back to the point of personality and tone of voice, even after hours of training AI, it makes mistakes with those areas of the brand because it isn’t human. It doesn’t fully understand emotions and how to convey them via written communication. Maybe someday it will be better at it, but I’m still not impressed by AI in that sense yet.

Not to mention, Google has straight up said fully AI-written content will be ranked lower because it doesn’t see it as valuable. “Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines. This means that it is not used to generate content primarily to manipulate search rankings, which is against our spam policies.”

It’s cookie-cutter content that doesn’t have the reader in mind. Fully AI-written content doesn’t create helpful, people-first content, and remember, Google is in the business of serving humans the content they’re searching for. If a piece of content written by AI doesn’t serve humans, Google isn’t going to show it. 

Now, Google doesn’t penalize you for using AI. It just doesn’t want the ENTIRE article to be written by AI. You can definitely use AI for parts of your blog as long as you tweak it to match your brand and make it helpful and valuable for searchers.

My Updated Perspective on AI for Blog Writing

I think AI can be a useful tool to assist business owners in writing blogs and other forms of content. It can certainly help with brainstorming, outlines, and headlines for blogs.

However, I DON’T believe it can replace blog writers. I know that sounds SUPER biased, but ask anyone who invests in blog writing. They know the value blog writers can bring versus publishing content from AI. 

Many business owners I’ve talked to (not just my clients) value blog writers. They know AI could give them more content for free, but the amount of time they would spend editing it to fit their brand and personality isn’t worth it to them. They would rather have someone get it right the first time. 

Plus, like, women supporting women, amirite?

How I Use AI for Blog Writing

I mainly use AI to help me with ideation. My brain is limited and biased. I like to see what AI comes up with to spark new ideas for me. 

Of course, I always check what AI gives me against SEO tools like Ubersuggest. I don’t blindly take the advice of AI. I want to make sure the blog ideas it gives me make sense for the client I’m writing for. I check for relevant keywords related to the idea and how likely my client is to rank for that term. 

I sometimes use AI to help me create blog outlines. It gives my thoughts some structure and helps to have a starting point when I sit down to write a blog. I cherry-pick what I want to use and add my own ideas, too. 

Speaking of, I also use AI to help me learn about my client’s industries. I’m not an expert in everything, but I need to understand the topic enough to write a comprehensive blog about it. I do my own research, but it’s helpful for AI to give me a quick overview. 

I know AI is still a bit of a touchy subject. There’s still a lot of fear and anxiety around the tool and how it will impact not just business owners, but the whole world. AI isn’t going away. We as business owners need to learn how to ethically use it to our advantage. 

I hope this article gave you a new perspective. Even if you’re nervous about AI, I encourage you to experiment with it. I was scared, too, but you have value to bring to the table. Just like AI for blog writing isn’t going to replace me, AI isn’t going to replace you.