ChatGPT. By now, we’ve all heard the name. Over the last couple of months, this AI platform has taken the online world by storm, and not only has it gained massive popularity, but it’s continuing to improve.
For anyone that’s missed out, ChatGPT is a chatbot developed and built on OpenAI’s GPT-3 model. Basically, it’s an AI tool that can generate answers and outputs for you based on simple (or complex) commands. At first glance, it might just seem like a fun tool to play around with, but in reality, it’s much more powerful – especially when it comes to generating online content.
From writing a complete article to generating code for a website, ChatGPT has a lot of capabilities … and it’s becoming more powerful by the minute. Because OpenAI’s model works off user input, the more people use it, the better it becomes.
So what does this mean for the online world?
Its implications could mean a lot, but time will tell. What I’d like to focus on in this post is how ChatGPT (and more broadly, AI) has had an impact on content creation, specifically content agencies. Let’s dig in.
What Does ChatGPT Mean for Content Creation?
One of the biggest questions right now is how will ChatGPT (and other AI tools) affect content creation and how we view content?
As of right now, it’s tough to predict how far it will go, but it is causing disruption in the industry. With the right commands and inputs, ChatGPT can write an article or blog post from start to finish – although it’s not perfect.
While everyone has an opinion, there are really three viewpoints on how it will affect online content:
1. ChatGPT will become the norm for content creation
This theory assumes that AI will become powerful enough to be able to completely generate all content online – meaning every website will use it and the majority of content creators will become irrelevant. All online content will be AI generated and completely automated.
A bit of an extreme view in my opinion and there are a lot of factors at play that would most likely prevent this from occurring (i.e. Google’s search results, limits on AI capabilities).
2. ChatGPT will never take over human-written content
This theory assumes that although AI has some neat capabilities and features, it’s just a fad. Human-written, original, and unique content will always come out on top and ChatGPT (or any other AI tools) will never be able to hold a candle to it.
Again, this is another extreme viewpoint and usually comes from the die-hard content creators that have been around for longer. Personally, I believe AI is around for the long-haul and it will affect how online content is created, but how much … that’s yet to be determined.
3. ChatGPT will become an important tool for content creators and websites
This is less of an extreme and much more aligned with what I think will happen. AI isn’t new – it’s been used by companies for years. Alibaba uses AI to predict what customers want to buy, Amazon uses it with its Alexa products, and Facebook uses it to automatically interpret user posts.
When it comes to content, it’ll become a great tool in our arsenal for content creators and websites to make themselves more efficient. Let’s assume this theory and talk more about how content creators and agencies can adapt in this changing ecosystem.
What Does ChatGPT Mean for Content Agencies?
AI is going to grow and so will the ways it’s implemented in our day-to-day lives. That means businesses, and specifically content agencies, will need to adapt, or well … die.
Content agencies’ main fear with the presence of ChatGPT is a) their services will become irrelevant and b) they will lose clients. The two actually go hand-in-hand.
Although it’s still early days, personally I don’t think content agencies have anything to fear with AI – in fact, they should be implementing new procedures around it in ways that can be used to continue creating original, human-written content. There are also going to be (and already are) limitations on how much AI will actually affect online content and rankings. Let’s dig into this first.
The Role of AI Generated Content in Search
The first time I saw ChatGPT generate an entire article using only a few commands, I was speechless … until I read the content.
The production value wasn’t anywhere close to a human-written piece of content, which made sense. OpenAI generates outputs and content based on what’s currently indexed online, and although this can provide a ton of great information around a topic, the structure, originality, and perspective often lag behind.
The value of a piece of content is what’s always going to matter – not how quickly or how much of it can be generated, or the amount of information that can be included. This isn’t just a theory … it’s exactly what Google has outlined under their guidance policies regarding AI.
On February 8th, Google issued a statement around how their search algorithm affects AI generated content. You can read Google Search’s Guidance on AI here, but I’ll address the key points and my takeaways below.
Summary: Google’s Guidance on AI Generated Content
- Google has and will continue to reward high-quality content that demonstrates E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness), specifically through last years implementation of the Helpful Content System
- Using AI (i.e. ChatGPT) to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of their policies (emphasis on “primary purpose”)
- Not all use of AI or automation is considered “spam” or against their policies (i.e. sports scores, weather forecasts). The appropriate use of AI is not against their guidelines.
- There are already systems in place to address and prevent poor quality content or misinformation from taking over search results
My Takeaways:
Google is placing more emphasis on E-E-A-T than ever before
Any website owner or content creator knows that E-E-A-T is an important part of Google’s search rankings, but it seems that with the vast implementation of AI tools like ChatGPT, this is going to become more important than ever before. Why? Simple: E-E-A-T is a great way for Google (and readers) to understand and verify where and who their content is coming from, whether or not it’s original (i.e. did a human write this), and how accurate the information is (i.e. can I trust this).
Google even directly states “however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities of E-E-A-T”. Reading between the lines, what this means is they’ll continue rewarding content that’s valuable to readers – and that “value” is derived from their E-E-A-T policies.
Using AI for content creation is acceptable, but there are limitations on how to use it
Google emphasizes a few times that using AI is not against their policies, however using it with the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings is. I’m emphasizing this specifically because Google is not against AI or automation – nor should they be. It’s been used in the past and can assist in generating useful and valuable content to readers.
In other words, if you’re using AI to generate high quantities of content to rank for a specific keyword, or stuffing in semantic phrases and keywords to manipulate search, or generating poor quality content with misinformation (i.e. not valuable content), then it is against their policies.
Google isn’t going to outright ban AI content
Although it might seem like a simple solution, it’s not the right one. Automation and AI have been used to assist in generating great content online and will only continue to do so as technology advances. The goal is to prevent spreading poor quality and misinformation and reward content that is useful, helpful, original and satisfies E-E-A-T.
Think of it like rules in sports – let’s use basketball as an example. When the sport was originally created, there weren’t many rules. But as the sport progressed, more rules had to be implemented to keep the quality of the sport high – this also creates a more even playing field. For example, the 24 second shot clock was introduced in the 50’s to prevent teams from holding on to a possession if they had the lead. Google is creating an even playing field, but still allowing advances in technology to have its place.
How Can Content Agencies Adapt to AI and ChatGPT?
So here’s what we know:
- AI tools, like ChatGPT are here to stay and growing at a rapid rate
- Google has implemented policies to prevent low quality AI generated content
- But, Google is NOT banning or penalizing AI or automation unless it’s used to manipulate search rankings
What can content agencies take away from this? Well, it helps alleviate the fears we brought up earlier – AI probably won’t make content agencies irrelevant. However it still might affect how many clients they work with or how they work with them.
In other words, agencies need to adapt. But how? You don’t want to run the risk of content being penalized by Google search, nor do you want your brand associated with low quality content. And obviously you don’t want to get left in the dust or lose clients to AI tools.
If the proper procedures are implemented, neither of these things have to happen. There are so many great ways to implement AI and automation without it affecting your bottom line.
Here are some ways we, at Content Refined, are implementing new procedures to adapt to the changing environment.
Implementing SME (Subject Matter Expert) Services
Since we know that Google will be placing more emphasis on E-E-A-T, that means so should content agencies. This is why we’ve begun launching a new SME service for all our clients.
An SME is a subject matter expert – this means someone with experience, knowledge and expertise in a specific field. An SME offers not only knowledge into a specific topic, but also authority for a client’s website. They’re able to provide valuable information and opinions on a topic that we know is coming from an authoritative source.
Our SME services include:
- Content that is reviewed, proofread, and edited by one of our SME’s
- An author byline
- SME image, bio, and link to their socials
Pricing for the SME service varies depending on the subject matter and scope of work required, but is between $0.20 – $0.30 per word. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our SME service page below.
Find Out More About SME’sImplementing AI Procedures for Brief Creation
At Content Refined, we’ve been using AI tools to help optimize our content creation procedures for years. These tools can help us format and structure content properly, tell us what semantic keywords and phrases we need to be using, give us the relevant headings and FAQs for an article, and provide a summary of competitor research.
With ChatGPT and other OpenAI models advancing, we’re able to become even more detailed with our brief creation process, offering specific outlines, keywords, and summaries for our editorial team to work off of. This is a perfect example of how to use AI without getting penalized by Google or other search engines.
We’re also offering this brief creation to our clients! If you have an editorial team, but don’t want to spend hours creating briefs, our keyword research and brief creation packages are a great fit for you!
Here’s what it includes:
- Topic ideation and relevant keywords for your niche
- Title, meta description, and suggested word count
- Relevant resources
- A detailed outline, including headings and subtopics to cover
- Relevant FAQ’s
- Supporting key terms and phrases to help rank for depth
Check out our Keyword Research and Brief Creation page below!
Find Out More About Brief CreationUsing AI to Track AI Generated Content
If you’re scratching your head after reading that, don’t worry, it’s not a typo. Yes, you can actually use AI tools to help determine whether or not the content you (or your writers) are writing has been generated by AI or sounds like it has.
Tools like Originality.ai can help you do this very easily. Originality.ai has worked with AI experts to develop and train their own AI to predict if any of the popular AI tools (GPT-3, GPT-2, GPT-NEO, GPT-J) were used to create the content. The success rate has been shown to be 94%+ accurate!
We know that Google aims to penalize any content generated with the primary purpose of manipulating rankings in search results, which means ensuring your content is not only valuable, but original as well, is important. That’s exactly why we at Content Refined have implemented this procedure with our entire editorial team.
Try out Originality.ai yourself for free below!
Try Originality for Free!Implementing AI-assisted Content to Better Understand Your Niche
When you’re starting a new site or diving into a new branch of topic clusters within your already existing site, it can be hard to know where to start. Although site owners have a good idea of how they stack up against their competitors, fully understanding how Google ranks your articles can be difficult. Sometimes the best strategy is to find a topic cluster and throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. However, that can be time-consuming and require a lot of effort and resources, which not everyone has.
That’s why we launched Rocket Content – a writing service using AI to help assist in writing quality, SEO optimized content for your site. Rocket Content is an easy and inexpensive way to create large batches of content and see how they stack up against the SERPs. Then once your content is indexed and starts ranking, you can go back in, revise, edit, and continue to build off your topic clusters.
If you’re interested in learning more, you can reach out to Rocket Content here:
Check Out Rocket Content Here!Wrapping Up
AI and tools like ChatGPT are most likely here to stay. Finding unique ways to implement AI into your services or content creation procedures will not only keep you ahead of the curve, but also make you more efficient. Hopefully some of the insights I’ve shared here will help, but the best advice I can give is to go test it out yourself! Test out new AI tools, keep in touch with relevant trends around AI, and always be sure to check any updates on Google’s policies to see how they’re responding to it.
