When the original iteration of this article was first published, ChatGPT had just hit the market, and we were all a bit shook.

It was supposed to take our jobs, transform marketing as we know it, and ReVoLuTiOnIzE how we search for content.

Fast-forward a year, and that has yet to happen. Not yet, at least.

Turns out, most of these tools are kind of weird and wonky (and sometimes problematic). But that doesn’t mean that things haven’t changed.

Despite the heaps of bad content that’s flooded the web, AI has gotten a lot better. In fact, I even changed the title of this article from Why AI Content Marketing (Probably) Won’t Help You Rank because…

AI content tools do have the potential to help you rank. 

In this piece, I’ll explain AI content tools, how Google feels about them, and how we use them here at Siege to create great content.

How To Create Premium Content with AI

If you want to rank #1 for something, you must create the best content for that topic. And because AI can’t create something completely original, it needs your help.

Here’s how to make the most of AI content tools:

  • Give your AI tool good data: AI can’t find everything you need to make a high-quality post, but once you have the data, you can ask AI to help you interpret the data. It’ll spot trends, dig up important stats, and even conjure up some key takeaways.

  • Create an outline using AI: AI can understand general SEO best practices and apply them to an outline for an article you’d like to write. Letting AI draft a quick outline can save you time and create a solid foundation to build from.

  • Have a brainstorming session with AI: Whether you’ve got a case of writer’s block or just need some fresh ideas, AI can help. While you may get many useless ideas, sometimes it comes through with a gem you may have never considered on your own.

  • Use AI to check your grammar: We all make mistakes, and AI can shave off a lot of time in the editing process. But make sure your editor gets the final say.  A human editor will be able to know when to let something that’s technically wrong slide …. right, David?

So, how does AI actually help? Well, here are some quick tips and example prompts you can use to make sure it’s doing what you want it to do:

When you ask an AI tool to do anything, add as much context as possible. Make sure it knows your goals, your brand, and your writing style. This will ensure consistent messaging throughout your content.

For example, instead of saying, “Create an outline for a piece of content about AI”…

Try this:

“Create an SEO-optimized outline for a piece of content about AI that is engaging, informative, and educational for a non-technical audience. Make sure to focus on how AI can benefit businesses and everyday people, and provide real-world examples of AI in action. Use a conversational tone and keep it concise, with each point no more than two sentences long.”

Now, if you have a complex task, break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. This will help the AI understand what you need from it.

Instead of having your AI tool write the outline in one go, for example, focus on the headers first and then build it out from there. 

Like this:

“Before proceeding with the full outline, write all of the headers. Make sure the order makes sense and that each header follows SEO best practices. The list of headers should be comprehensive and include any and every topic relevant to this piece.” 

If you disagree with something, give it feedback. You can’t expect AI to get everything right in one go. Let it know what you like and don’t like and make suggestions for how it can improve.

Let’s continue with the outline example:

“Remove the header ‘Trust in everything AI does’. This does not align with our idea that every piece of AI-generated content needs to be reviewed by a human. Be aware of AI shortcomings as we continue adding to this outline.” 

Ok, I know that sounds like a lot, and AI isn’t doing as much heavy lifting as you were probably hoping, but it’s for a good cause.

The Pitfalls of Generated Content

So why can’t you simply tell your favorite AI content creator to write a blog post?

I’ll show you:

An image comparing the differences between human-generated copy and ai-generated copy

Maybe that example is a little extreme. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m human, so if I really focus, I can nail that whole conversational tone, right?

Let’s take a deeper look here and dissect what makes my writing human and AI writing not.

Voice And Tone Matter

As you read this, think about how it might sound.

The pauses. The cadence. The tone.

AI hasn’t grasped the nuances of human language. It’s built on great big data sets, and while it can spot patterns with natural language processing, it doesn’t feel anything. That’s super important when you want a piece of content that engages readers.

Anyone, man or robot, can spew out an informative piece of content that satisfies the absolute bare minimum that Google wants. And you know what? It may even get you to the first page if it’s not flagged as spam.

Better yet, look at the SEO heavyweights like Neil Patel or the team over at Search Engine Journal. 

They have a voice. And reading their content actually feels like …. you’re engaging with the content.

That’s what turns a good blog post into a great one.

For comparison, here’s what happens if I ask Gemini to write in a casual tone:

Gemini writing in a casual tone

It’s definitely giving “fellow kids” meme vibes, right?

Gemini AI content marketing tool giving 'fellow kids' meme vibes

AI Content Is Limited To Fragments

AI content writing tools create content by scraping the web for relevant posts and then stitching it together so that it’s vaguely readable.

That means it can only create something that already exists in one form or another. Oftentimes, when it’s slapped together, it doesn’t feel like a single piece of fluid content.

Ever seen the movie Chappie? It’s about an innocent robot whose genius creator tries to instill wholesome moral teachings, but the robot is stolen by a quirky pair of gangsters looking for trouble.

Throughout the film, the robot, Chappie, adopts different traits from both of its teachers. I’ll save you the synopsis, but you can notice a little of this in these AI content writing tools.

Because they pull info from anywhere and everywhere and then Frankenstein it all together, you may end up with a piece of content that’s a little bit wholesome computer wiz and a little bit criminal underground.

Even worse, there’s no guarantee that it’s original — this comes with its own problems.

Design Is Everything

We love our designers here at Siege. We genuinely couldn’t do this without them.

Design is a huge part of creating content that ranks.

Our design strategy begins as we’re outlining a post. We chat with designers throughout the entire process, sharing ideas to hone in on exactly the visualization we feel a piece of content needs to take it to the next level.

Sure, AI can “design,” but you’ll still have to tell it what to create. Plus, the end result can be a little weird, to say the least.

An image showing two illustrations of human design vs. AI design

Now just imagine trying to tell it to create an infographic showing marketing statistics.

AI Kills Creativity

Listen, AI is great. It plays a key role in our daily lives. From traffic lights to Google searches, it’s everywhere. But overreliance on AI can take the spark out of life. No one wants Siri to manage every aspect of their existence, after all.

You need spontaneity and creativity. This is something AI just can’t offer.

Creative content isn’t just fun to read. It’s also fun to write.

There is a lot that goes into our content ideas here at Siege. In fact, we’ve created a whole methodology we like to call V.I.N.E.S. to keep content creative and interesting.

Make creative content by looking to video, images, news, experts, and social for inspiration.

V.I.N.E.S. is our out-of-the-box research method. In short, we scour the web for:

  • Videos
  • Images
  • News
  • Expert commentary
  • Social media

This helps us create content that readers are actually looking for. And enjoy the process of doing it!

AI regurgitates what’s already out there, so when Google sees more of the same, why would they rank it higher than what’s tried and true?

To drive meaningful results, you need to build meaningful traffic. And that comes from out-of-the-box thinking. Unfortunately, AI content is very far inside the box.

And while AI pulls content from all over, it can’t compete with content built from research across multiple mediums.

Do you think AI is looking at Etsy shopping trends to create a post about bachelorette party gifts? We’re willing to bet it isn’t.

Google Is Smart

And its AI is probably better than yours.

Since 2022, Google has been on a mission to put human-created content first. It’s rolled out thousands of updates, performed countless quality tests, and tuned its ranking algorithms to remove unhelpful content.

What does that mean? Since AI-generated content can only take from what already exists, it can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said.

That, in addition to its complete lack of voice and creativity, means Google can spot AI content pretty easily.

AI-generated content simply won’t pass the AI sniff test. And it’ll probably get penalized.

Google wants content that engages users and adds value.

Quantity Isn’t Always a Good Thing

AI content marketing tools might help create a ton of content quickly. They may even generate some decent short-term results, especially if you’re targeting lower-difficulty terms.

But that isn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, high publishing volume may even hurt your traffic in the long run. Although our data below doesn’t reflect AI-generated content, it does reflect low-quality content — resulting in similar outcomes.

A graph showing that high publishing volume of content can hurt long term

Why?

Well, it won’t attract links, and (perhaps more importantly) readers won’t engage with your content. High-quality content will keep readers on the page for longer, showing Google that your content is actually helpful. A burst of lower-quality content that users might not engage with, however, will show Google just the opposite.

A call-to-action that promotes and offers a download to Siege Media and Clearscope's 2023 Content Marketing Trends report

AI Content Marketing Tools Do Have Some Benefits

So we’ve been pretty harsh on AI content, but AI content marketing tools do have some benefits.

They can spot grammar mistakes you may have missed, improve the readability of your content, and even help cure writer’s block. But they’re not a substitute for human creativity.

If you insist on using AI content marketing tools, take a look at these dos and don’ts first:

Do:

  • Use AI content tools to help identify gaps in your content strategy. AI can help you quickly research topics and suggest potential titles for your blog posts, articles, or other content.
  • Take advantage of AI’s ability to help you with grammar and spelling mistakes. AI tools (mixed with the expertise of a copy editor) can help you catch major spelling and syntax errors.
  • Use AI to test out different ideas before committing to a certain strategy or approach. AI can provide insights into what’s performing well in the market, so you don’t have to experiment too much on your own.
  • Invest time into learning how AI works and what it can do. The better you understand AI, the more you can get out of it.

Don’t:

  • Rely solely on AI content tools without any human input or oversight. AI is only as good as the data it is given, so AI content tools should always be double-checked by a human.
  • Use AI to replace creative work entirely. AI can provide insights and help steer your content creation in the right direction, but AI cannot replace creativity or storytelling skills.
  • Forget that AI has limitations. AI isn’t perfect, and it’s important to remember this and adjust accordingly when creating content with AI content tools.
  • Jump into using AI without doing your own research first. AI tools pull from information across the web, but if you’ve spent even five seconds on the internet, you know that not all of that information is reliable.

An image showing the dos and don'ts of AI content marketing tools

What Are Some Of The Top AI Content Marketing Tools?

There are a ton of AI tools out there, and they all come with some pretty big promises. And while we don’t use AI content marketing tools at Siege, there are a few that we think are interesting.

OpenAI

OpenAI unleashed the beast with ChatGPT.

It’s no longer just a basic chat tool. It’s a customizable, integrated, and powerful tool that can do anything from creating a blog post to coding an iOS app.

One of the biggest updates over the past year was the introduction of Custom GPTs.

They’re so cool, in fact, that I’m going to let ChatGPT tell you about them:

Open AI content marketing tool describing custom GPTs

OpenAI is even having an influence on Big Tech itself.

Microsoft is going all-in on integrating ChatGPT across its products. That means AI-powered content suggestions within Word, email drafts in Outlook, and formulas in Excel.

It’s even brought ChatGPT to Bing. Yeah, that Bing. That weird browser that came preloaded on your last Windows machine.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t flawed.

Here are some things to consider when using ChatGPT:

  • Plausible but factually incorrect outputs
  • Rigid and presumptive responses to more open-ended inquiries
  • Overuse of some phrases

It’s also worth noting that there are already other AI tools popping up left and right that aim to detect whether or not AI wrote a piece of content. So, while it may be one of the most advanced and exciting AI tools to date, it’s not quite ready to replace humans completely. But it could be a great resource to speed up and add to your natural creativity and flair.

Gemini

So, you may have heard of Bard. That was Google’s first attempt to compete with Microsoft’s big AI bet.

It didn’t go so well.

After a major $100 billion fumble in Bard’s demo, Google took its AI ambitions back to the drawing board and eventually rebranded a new tool called Gemini.

And it’s actually quite good.

I guess it’s only fair that I also let Gemini tell you about itself:

Gemini AI content marketing tool describing itself

As you can see, it’s kind of like ChatGPT. But, Gemini uses real-time data while ChatGPT is limited to information before April 2023.

Is it better than ChatGPT?

Gemini AI content marketing tool describing whether or not it is better than ChatGPT

Grammarly

Microsoft Word has had spell check for as long as we can remember, but Grammarly takes it to the next level.

Grammarly is an AI-powered tool that can help you edit and proofread your content quickly and (mostly) accurately. It also provides suggestions to improve the quality of your writing and even ensure you didn’t accidentally plagiarize any of your copy.

There is a free version and a paid version. The free version is pretty basic, tagging only the simplest mistakes, while the paid version costs $144 per year and provides suggestions to improve readability, clarity, and delivery.

An image showing an example of Grammarly AI content writing tool

While Grammarly is pretty sophisticated, it’s not perfect, so be sure to double-check its suggestions if you do decide to use it.

Hemingway Editor

The late, great Ernest Hemingway had a knack for keeping things simple. And with Hemingway Editor, you can channel your inner Ernest.

The free app can help you edit your copy for clarity, readability, and brevity. It’s a straightforward tool without any bells and whistles. It does one thing, and it does it well.

All you need to do is copy a piece of content into the app, and it will show you the content’s readability and where you can improve it.

Take a look:

An image showing a screenshot of Hemingway AI content writing tool

So, Is AI Easy-Mode For Content Creators?

Of course, we’re averse to AI content tools here at Siege. They’re in competition with our business model. But we’ll be the first to acknowledge that they could be helpful if you use them correctly. And at the rate things are developing, it would be silly not to acknowledge how important these tools could become.

AI content marketing tools can save time, spot errors, and improve the quality of content. But it’ll be a long time before they replace human writers.

At Siege, we take serious pride in our content, and good content is built on creativity, not cutting corners.

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