AI Content Creation – The Dos And Don’ts – SEOSLY

Updated: March 5, 2024.

An in-depth and highly sarcastic guide to AI content creation for SEO purposes.

Using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to create content for SEO is very tempting.

I’m pretty sure that when ChatGPT first came out, almost everyone thought they got superpowers and could create content on a massive scale.

This statement holds some truth. ChatGPT or any other LLM has the potential to speed up content creation. 

However, putting your content creation on autopilot always sacrifices quality and depth. 

Sadly, I see lots of folks still using AI in this way as if no one was watching. If I can tell from one sentence if an article is the AI puke, others can too. 

So what are the dos and don’ts regarding AI content creation if you care about your brand and reputation?

I need to confess something 

It typically takes me over a week to write a single quality SEO article.

I had a moment of thinking I could game the system when ChatGPT was first released. Creating an in-depth article within hours seemed daunting. 

I am sure that everyone has had such a moment, but some people are still living in that moment. 

My hope with this article is to provide valuable insights on how to approach AI content creation in an intelligent, effective, and long-term way. 

About AI content detection 

It is impossible not to mention AI content detection while talking about content creation with AI.

AI content detectors are tools that are supposed to tell if a text was written by a human or generated by an AI system.

But should you be using these tools? Will you rank higher if your content is detected as 100% human-written? 

Let me be a bit sarcastic at first and I promise to tone down later… 

I am so clever. I have figured out a way to rank number 1 on Google and score 100% SEO optimization in Bullshit SEO. On top of that, I made my AI puke undetectable. Look at all those AI detectors. They all say it’s human-written. And look at the hockey stick growth in Ahrefs (for one 10-word long tail keyword no one is searching for). I gamed the system. 

No, you have not. 

Did you know that the US Constitution and the Bible have also been written by AI? They should be rewritten using your method because Google will stop ranking them! Bullshit SEO says the Bible is only 25% optimized for SEO. Go fix it!

Sure. Just pay me $650. Guaranteed (bullshit) delivery in 2 hours. 

I think you get the point… 🙂

To put it less sarcastically, there are several reasons why AI content detection does not make a lot of sense.

1. Google updated its documentation on creating helpful content which now basically says you are free to create content in any way as long as you create for humans (people-first content), rather than to manipulate search engines. 

2. Even if Google were hypothetically able to detect AI content with 100% accuracy, it is unlikely that they would have the resources to do so. They are already struggling to crawl and index content. 

I will talk about Google in more detail further in this guide. 

3. AI detectors can be easily manipulated and they often get it wrong. Why? Because the premise on which they work is flawed. Check the article about the truth about AI detectors to learn more. 
4. My personal opinion: AI detectors were mostly created to earn money off idiots looking for the next shortcut instead of actually using their brains when writing content. They would rather spend hours fixing their AI puke to look like human-written instead of writing the piece themselves.

Okay, let’s dive into the dos and don’ts of AI content creation for SEO. I have some valuable tips for you!

The dos and don’ts of AI content creation for SEO

Here are some of the best and worst practices for creating AI-generated content for SEO, based on my experience and observations. 

Although I usually tend to focus on the positive, in this case, I believe it’s important to start with the negatives and highlight what not to do. 

NOTE: Again, the assumption here is is that you DO care about your brand and reputation. The don’ts will not apply to a test site you are OK to tank!

The don’ts of AI content creation

Wondering what is NOT a good way to use AI for content creation? Let me run wild for a moment. 

• Don’t use what AI has puked out as the core of your article. Bring something unique and valuable to the table. Remember that AI is only puking out what it has already seen millions of times. 
• When writing an article, avoid asking for the entire piece in one prompt. For example, instead of saying “Write an entire article about how to do an SEO audit,” break it down into smaller, more specific prompts, based on your core input.   
• Don’t forget to proofread and fact-check the content your AI tool has created. The chances are it contains hallucinations. If you are not an expert on the matter you are writing about, hire one. Don’t publish the “raw” article on a site you care about and where your reputation is at stake. 

• Don’t try to fake your E-E-A-T with AI. People can tell it from a distance. 
• Don’t start any serious article with “In the rapidly evolving digital landscape” (and the like) unless you want to make your readers puke. 

• Do not plagiarize your competitor’s content by using AI to paraphrase it and then publishing it on your website or LinkedIn as unique or parasite SEO articles. This is not a good practice.
• Don’t believe what AI is telling you, no matter how convincing it sounds. It is a great liar. 
• Don’t leave those fluffy, empty, and overly-hyped sentences ChatGTP likes to write in your final text. ChatGPT in particular, if it is not given clear directions, will tend to write in this way. For concrete and to-the-point writing, I prefer Claude. 
• Don’t try to build your credibility and brand based on purely AI-written articles. You will only make a fool of yourself. 
• Don’t forget about copyrights! Have you read the terms of use of LLMs you are using? Below is the screenshot from the terms of use of OpenAI.

• Don’t forget to use your human brain while using LLMs. This is probably the most important rule. 

The dos of AI content creation 

If used properly, AI tools can increase your effectiveness and productivity. I believe you can be a better SEO with an AI SEO assistant helping you every day. 

Here are several dos regarding using AI for content creation for SEO. This list is – of course – in no way complete: 

• Use AI to brainstorm ideas for content creation. I cannot imagine a better tool for brainstorming than LLMs. I think you should try brainstorming with ChatGPT, Claude, Bing Chat, and Gemini. Each one is a bit different and has its pros & cons. For brainstorming, ChatGPT is my preferred tool. 
• Consider using LLMs to enhance your language skills, increase clarity, and improve readability. Personally, I find Grammarly to be an excellent tool for achieving this, especially when writing articles in Google Docs. In fact, a significant portion of this article was refined with the help of Grammarly. However, the original content was created solely by me, using my own human brain.

• If you want to learn about prompt engineering, there are many beginner courses available that can teach you the basics of how to prompt LLMs. This will help your AI tool to hallucinate less and write what you want it to write. As someone who has experienced the frustration of AI not understanding what I want it to do, I highly recommend learning these skills. Open AI has a free ChatGPT prompt engineering course. 
• Before asking your preferred chatbot to write an article or a part of it, make sure to provide all the necessary information. Most Language Model AI assistants now have the capability to upload documents. If you want to create a blog article that is in line with your site’s topic and style, you can upload a file containing example articles with the preferred tone of voice and information about your company. This will allow your AI tool to refer to it when writing your article.
• To create a high-quality article, blend your unique perspective and experience with the contributions of your chatbot.
• LLMS are incredibly useful for generating article summaries or TL;DRs. In that respect, LLMS are huge time and money savers. 
• You can use artificial intelligence to optimize a specific piece of text for a particular keyword. For instance, you may request your AI tool to rewrite a piece of text and include the target phrase in it, without making significant changes to the original text. On-page SEO optimization can be more effective when using LLMs, provided that you have read and understood all the “don’ts” mentioned above.
• You can leverage the power of AI to create descriptions and titles for various purposes such as page titles, YouTube video titles, meta descriptions, or descriptions of any kind such as product descriptions, video descriptions, and more. Using a tool like GTP for Sheets can be helpful in this regard.
• Using AI to create notes based on podcast/video transcripts allows for repurposing content into different formats such as blog posts, social media posts, and podcast notes.
• Creating FAQs using relevant keywords and H3 headings at the end of articles can significantly improve SEO and can be generated using AI tools like LLMs.
• You can use your favorite chatbot to write engaging social media posts or emails. Here my preferred choice is Claude as well. 

• Be transparent about the use of AI in content creation when necessary and consider the ethical implications of generating content at scale.

What Google says about AI content creation

Fortunately, Google has been quite transparent regarding how it treats AI content. Here is what Google says about content creation with AI:

• Google aims to reward original, high-quality content demonstrating expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), regardless of how it is produced.
• Using automation or AI solely to manipulate search rankings is considered spam and violates policies. Google’s spam fighting systems will continue evolving to address new threats.
• Not all AI content generation is spam – automation has long been used to create helpful content like sports scores, weather forecasts, and transcripts. AI can power new creativity and serve as a useful content-creation tool.

• Google takes a responsible approach to new technologies while maintaining high standards of information quality and helpfulness.
• Creators should focus on producing original, people-first content that demonstrates E-E-A-T qualities. Updated guidance explains evaluating content on “Who, How, and Why” dimensions.
• Poor quality content is an existing challenge. Google has sophisticated systems and approaches to address poor-quality human and automated content.
• Misinformation and contradicting consensus are addressed regardless of source. There is an additional emphasis on signals of reliability for sensitive topics like health, civic, and financial information.
• SpamBrain and other systems analyze patterns and signals to identify spam, including from automation.
• Google does not categorically penalize or ban AI-generated content – appropriate automation use is not against guidelines. Using automation or AI solely to manipulate search rankings violates policies.
• Creators are advised to ensure AI-generated content meets quality standards – but quality issues apply to human-generated content too.
• Bylines, authorship and origin disclosures should be accurate to avoid misleading users – but AI authorship itself does not warrant penalties.
• Google has sophisticated systems to detect ranking manipulation and spam from any source without unfairly penalizing other content.
• Consider accurate bylines and disclosures where readers would reasonably expect details on who created content and how. Useful when someone may think “Who wrote this?” or “How was this created?”.
• Listing AI itself as the author in bylines is not recommended. It is better to clearly disclose AI involvement to readers.

Make sure to read Google Search’s guidance about AI-generated content for full information.

AI content creation FAQs

This is the actual application of one of the best practices regarding AI content creation. 

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Final words of sarcasm 

I am happy to see you managed to get to the end of this article. I hope you find it helpful and you learned something new from it. 

I am interested in learning how you use AI for content creation for SEO. What are your dos and don’ts regarding this? 

Feel free to add your comments or submit your dos and don’ts here in this form. I will be happy to update the article with your tips and quote you.