By Kristine Aitchison
Author & Content Specialist
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has raised concerns among many, because of its potential impact on jobs, lack of regulation, and ethics. I must admit, as a copy and content writer, when AI dropped, I was deeply concerned about what it meant for my career. It didn’t help that several colleagues compared my role as a copywriter to the equivalent of what cobbling has now become to shoes — because of AI.
However, since then. I’ve had many conversations about it and even tried it for myself. While I can see its benefits, right now, human input is still vital, and even AI agrees.
A tool to assist, not replace.
I surveyed small business owners on Facebook to see if they would object to a digital marketer using AI to produce their content. The consensus was that AI is a tool to assist, not to replace — like the calculator is to an accountant, or the laptop is to a writer.
Nichola Meyer, Principal at the New Zealand Writers College, agrees. She says that AI is a tool that “can dramatically speed up the writing process for business writing, journalism, and social media marketing. But it struggles with wordiness, flowery language, and hallucinations.”
“That’s why the human input is vital for research, editing, fact-checking, and personalising the content.”
Ben McMahon from Be Business uses AI daily and says, “It’s a tool like any other and a very powerful one”. However, he explains that you need to know how to apply the results to a broader strategy.
He says this tool is useful because it can help you do more than what you could do without it, and most of the small business owners surveyed seemed to think so too. Many stated, that when working with a marketing professional, it’s the value and results you’re paying for, not the tools they used to achieve those results.
Speeding up the research process.
Many experienced writers and marketers would argue that if you’re relying on AI completely to write your content, you’re doing your brand a disservice.
“Boring writing has never sold products,” says Nichola.
She believes that “many writers are sneaking in time with AI, just to save time and effort.” However, she says “exceptional writing still needs a highly trained, skilled human touch to personalise the message.”
She recommends for those embracing AI; the goal should be to use the time you save on writing to polish and personalise the content to a higher standard.
“I recommend using AI only as a starting point.”
That’s how Heidi Wruck from Zesty Virtual Assistants uses AI for her social media and website clients. She clarifies that she uses it for research purposes, to gain insight into her client’s customers and industry, and their problems and pain points. By using the information generated by AI as a guide, she then creates content from scratch. AI has helped her speed up the research process.
AI and Google search.
So, will AI-generated content affect your Google search rankings? Presently, Google doesn’t differentiate between AI and human-produced content. However, high-quality content remains at the core of Google’s SEO ranking criteria. So, consider this scenario. You’ve been tasked with writing about Japan but have never travelled there. It would be impossible for you to provide a unique point-of-view that hasn’t already been covered. So, you use AI to write the content, meaning that, none of it is unique.
Now consider someone who has travelled to or lived in Japan. They also write an article, but they write about the smells, the sounds, the summertime heat on an August day. Who do you think will write the better article? Who do you think will rank higher in a Google search? I asked ChatGPT this question and this is what it said…
“Currently, Google doesn’t differentiate between AI and human-produced content for rankings. However, high-quality, unique, and engaging content created by humans is more likely to rank higher in Google search results.”
Written by Kristine Aitchison: Guest Writer & Content Specialist
Kristine is an experienced content writer, specialising in marketing and communications. Showcase your expertise with regular blog content. Visit morethanmerewords.nz.
