11 ways to use ChatGPT to speed up content creation
The world of AI is with us, whether we like it or not. As a copywriter and content strategist, it’s a little on the daunting side. It’s also incredibly exciting. So much to keep up with as technology shifts at such a staggering pace. And so much potential to speed up processes and deliver projects faster without, of course, compromising meaning, context or impact of messaging.
Most of us have heard of ChatGPT by now. A brilliant tool to support content creation for your business. But ‘support’ is the key word here. You have to make it your co-pilot, and you remain captain - always.
To do this, you need to first understand its limitations:
ChatGPT pulls content from other websites and sources, so the content you get isn't unique; it's a regurgitation of content that’s already published. No originality and no authenticity. The legal risks around this are unknown and will no doubt catch up with us in the years to come.
The input of information it uses is often inaccurate and so it’s essential to fact check the content it provides for you.
It doesn't fully understand the context of the content it creates yet. Without direction or input, it will fail to steer your readers' response or achieve your content goals.
While it can be great to support the creation of SEO content, it can't track or monitor a website's performance or perform the testing and analysis needed to drive successful SEO results.
It can't develop tone of voice and core messaging that’s aligned with your brand positioning. This needs human input, creativity and judgement that considers your competition, market, key strengths, and target audience.
Chat GPT-4 (the paid version) can process 8x more words than Chat GPT-3 (the free version) - so think about making the investment to get the most out of this tool.
What can ChatGPT do?
Content creation can be a lengthy process, especially starting from a blank page. One of the great benefits of AI and tools like ChatGPT is they take away some of the grunt work to help us create content faster and more efficiently.
Here are some ways you can use ChatGPT in your content creation:
Generate ideas for blog content: Type in a subject or keyword, and ChatGPT will generate a list of relevant topics and ideas you may not have thought of. However, these ideas need to be weighed against your content strategy and SEO goals to determine their value.
Create outlines for blog posts: You can prompt ChatGPT to create a first draft for you, outlining your topic, approximate word count, and the main points you want to include. The content it delivers will include an intro, body content and a conclusion. The real value then lies in the editing, and you'll need to rework this draft, strengthening the hook, key messaging and call to action.
Identify and target relevant keywords and phrases for SEO: Type a prompt into ChatGPT, such as "Make a list of keywords related to 'gym shoes' for Google search." You can even expand the prompt to include audience specifications, like "Revise the list with females 25-35 in mind." While ChatGPT is useful for keyword research, it’s not as comprehensive as tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush and Ahrefs because it doesn’t provide stats related to things like search volumes and keyword difficulty.
Generate keyword-rich content and related semantic keywords: If you have specific keywords or clusters of keywords you want to target through your content, you can include them in your prompt along with the topic and nature of your content. ChatGPT will deliver a keyword-rich piece of content, but human input is needed to strengthen messaging, structure, clarity and response effectiveness.
Brainstorm headlines and subheadings: Headers break up text, provide structure and make your content easier to read. You can prompt ChatGPT to provide a list of headlines and subheadings specific to a topic and use its recommendations to structure your content. The next step is to edit and rearrange your content to ensure the flow of information is natural and structured in the most engaging, helpful way.
Create meta descriptions: Meta descriptions appear under your website's title in search engine results. Ideally, they should let people know what to expect from your article and entice them to click through. ChatGPT will include your focus keyword and deliver descriptions within character limit (155 characters) if you provide these details in your prompt. Descriptions will likely need tweaking to align with your SEO strategy and to maximise click-through rate but can be a good starting point.
Polish rough drafts: This is especially handy if your written communication isn’t great. Simply input your draft into ChatGPT, and it will suggest edits and revisions to improve the quality of your writing. This can also be helpful for superior thought leadership and opinion pieces where you want to start an article from scratch for complete authenticity and then give it a tidy up.
Expand on existing content: If you feel your content is on the flimsy side, or you want to check there are no critical gaps of information, you can ask ChatGPT to expand on existing content. Often it comes up with additional pieces of info you may not have thought of that add depth to your content. Again, the suggestions it comes up with need to be fact checked for accuracy.
Create product descriptions: This is especially handy to reduce the time and effort of creating bulk product descriptions for large e-commerce websites that adhere to a particular formula. ChatGPT can’t match the creative flair and depth of human-written descriptions (especially if you want to integrate strong branding), but it can quickly provide factually accurate, relevant, and informative descriptions.
Craft emails and automate part of the email writing process: ChatGPT is awesome for creating subject lines and initial email drafts. Make sure you instruct ChatGPT to write an email and include any specific details that need to be incorporated in the content. Again, the content needs to be checked and revised to ensure it includes everything you want to say, communicates information clearly, and steers recipients to take action.
Generate FAQs for websites: ChatGPT is handy for generating a comprehensive list of FAQs, but they need to be fine-tuned to deliver results, depending on your goals. FAQs can be a helpful source of information to people exploring your products or services. They can also be a powerful SEO strategy, as well as alleviate enquiries to your customer care team by providing instant answers through your website.
Conclusion
By leveraging the power of AI and tools like ChatGPT, you can quickly generate ideas, craft first drafts, improve quality, build the foundations for SEO and much more. But you must always remain in the driving seat if you want your content to be of value to your business, your brand and, more importantly, your readers.
To get the most out of ChatGPT, never merely publish the content it spews out for you. Direct, rewrite and repurpose it to:
Connect with your target audience using language and tone that resonates
Promote your brand by reflecting your tone of voice, core messaging and values
Deliver something new and authentic by including insight and opinion ship
Educate and inspire people to follow and interact with you
Achieve your strategic goals (for example, signups/sales/shares)
Need support developing a comprehensive content strategy that’s aligned with your business and marketing goals? I can help.