AI technology is doing astonishing things in marketing. It’s already changing the way we think about how we live our lives, solve problems and approach the creative process.
But AI technology, specifically ChatGPT, is not going to write website content uniquely for you, and you shouldn’t rely on it (at the moment at least).
That’s even with the addition of GPT-4.
ChatGPT is a tool with jawdropping potential. Those who have learnt to master its prompts are producing brilliant results. The human-like interaction and the ability to literally ‘chat’ with it means producing content and copy is intuitive.
But you still shouldn’t rely on it to write content for your website.
Why shouldn’t I use ChatGPT for my website?
The reasons are simple. AI technology is relying on historic data when prompted.
GPT-4 is much more up to date, granted. And it produces better, richer content than its predecessors.
But it’s not going to know the secrets of your business. Or why you are positioned differently to the rest of the pack. Or why your product is better than the rest of your sector.
It doesn’t know you or your story or how your expertise uniquely positions you to tackle your clients’ problems better than your competition.
It doesn’t know any of that. And that’s what’s going to make your website stand out.
Why ChatGPT might not be great for your SEO
If we all rely on ChatGPT, we’d all have pretty similar websites (especially if we’re all using pretty much the same batch of prompts).
And if your website looks more or less the same as others in your sector, Google isn’t going to look too kindly at you.
Even if it does, how do you expect to the users reading it to understand your USP, what makes you different from the rest if you look just like them.
If you’ve magically found a gap in the market that nobody has made content about before, you might be on to a winner.
But then in that case, what’s ChatGPT going to use to write content for you!?
Where ChatGPT can help with website content
Despite the above, ChatGPT might still be able to help you write content for your website.
You can still use AI to speed up content for your website.
You just need to use it in the right way.
Say you’re a solicitor starting a new website.
You could ask AI to write you content about the different services you offer.
Let’s say you’re in family law, targeting new parents who want to get their estate in order now they have kids.
You could ask for 400 words about why new parents aged between 30 and 40 need to organise a will to secure their and their children’s future.
Et voila.
But that is not going to mark you out from the competition.
It’s got no stories about you or the connection you have with your clients.
There are no testimonials or case studies. There’s nothing about your team’s experience, awards.
There’s nothing about why you do what you do.
But it’s a start – and that might be what you need to get going!
Use ChatGPT like a thesaurus
If you’re short of ideas or can’t work out how to describe yourself, or paint a picture of what you do you – ChatGPT can help.
For example, you sell specialist Christmas trees. Ask ChatGPT for eight different words that describe Christmas trees in a magical setting. That’ll give you some ammunition when trying to think of ways to sell your product.
It’s likely to provide you with some context and phrases to go with the words too, given that it’s a chatbot at heart. So think of it like an upgrade on your thesaurus.
Don’t use AI to write your homepage content
In our opinion your homepage content is untouchable.
It’s the page where your customer gets a first flavour of you, your story, your customers and who you serve – and the irresistible offer that persuades your future customers to buy.
AI can’t know this because it’s using historic data and this stuff hasn’t even been thought of yet!
So you do your homepage – we can’t underline that enough.
Where else on your website you could use AI
One priority for a new website is building your blog content to help your new site rank in more places in search.
A few minutes ago we said ChatGPT is probably going to hurt you in search.
Well, that’s a white lie. You could use AI to speed up your blog writing.
If you’ve identified the keywords you could rank for (and you could use free-to-access AI-style tools like Answer The Public to do this) you could identify a blog title and ask AI to write the blog, if you can think of effective enough blogs.
That’ll give you plenty of ‘fat’ to edit – but it’s certainly not going to be enough to just slap on your website and start ranking.
You’ll still need to add your story to it, and craft a narrative from that content that’s unique from all the other content on that topic.
You’ll need to adapt it to your specific tone of voice, and relate it to your company and your expertise. These elements are essence of why blog writing is successful – generic content doesn’t constitute good blog writing, however fast you might be able to produce it.
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