TL/DR: Yes and no. Here are our thoughts (as content writers and web developers) about AI.
AI is becoming an unavoidable part of our digital world. No matter what the naysayers and old school business folks have to say, AI is here to stay. There are mixed feelings and differing schools of thought about integrating AI into content development, especially for websites.
One one hand – using AI can be extremely efficient. If you don’t have a writing team or don’t consider yourself much of a content developer you might jump at the chance to have AI write web copy for you in under a minute.
On the other hand – is this going to put those who have spent time dedicated to the art of writing copy out of business? It’s hard to say.
At SuCoWeb, we can appreciate both sides of the argument. While we can understand the fear and frustration that might come with letting AI do some of that work, we also understand how efficient and effective AI is as a tool and as part of a strategy.
SO– Should You Be Using AI To Write Your Content?
Our answer: it depends.
What we’ve learned about AI is that it is a great tool and resource. A wonderful starting point. From some of our own in-house experiments, specifically with Chat GPT, we’ve been impressed with the results of our prompts. It seems as though the information presented AND the format in which it’s presented is accurate, informative and readable.
Why Using AI Might Be A Good Idea:
AI can be a great starting point to gather ideas, Especially if you don’t consider yourself a writer. AI can help you organize your thoughts, come up with succinct drafts of what you want to say, and generate helpful prompts to help you start the writing process. Maybe you’re more of a list maker and you want to ask AI to format it into an informational paragraph. Maybe you have a long informational paragraph that you want extracted into bullet points. You can ask AI questions pertaining to the generics of the industry you’re in, the products you sell and the people you serve to help you create well rounded content that reflects what the internet has to say about all of it. There are endless ways that AI can help you get start creating content for your site.
When Writing Content, AI Can:
- Help you get started
- Edit and polish up content you’ve already created
- Help you write some of the more generic information
- Expand on basic and well-known information
- Help make your information more digestible
- Help your written word sound more professional
Why Using AI Might Not Be A Good Idea:
Like any tool, whether it be in websites or other trades, the person using the tool needs to be experienced and knowledgeable to do so correctly. There’s a big difference between using AI as a tool to get started and using AI as a crutch to write the content for the entirety of your website.
As AI is still fairly new, it is hard to predict what the future implications might be after copying and pasting AI content into a website. In solely relying on AI to generate your content, you would be missing the opportunity to create something truly unique for your website and your business.
Working with AI as the only content source stifles a business’ voice or personal touch. AI writes with a pretty generic tone, and for some things this might be fine; but if you’re trying to create brand recognition, authority online, and produce helpful content, AI is going to fall short. We don’t know for sure if there will be negative consequences when it comes to search engines and rankings. But from what we’ve seen and learned so far when it comes to quick fixes and easy solutions, it’s better to err on the side of caution. We’re all for using AI as a tool, but relying on AI as the ONLY way to create content for your website is not advised.
When Writing Content, AI Cannot:
- Create unique pieces of content relevant to your business
- Authentically write with YOUR voice, style or expertise
- Know and express details about your business or mission
- Talk about the players in your business
- Know your competitors the way you do
So, How Can You Use AI?
We don’t want to tell you to steer clear of AI – this technology is inevitable. The importance lies in the way that it’s used.
We suggest using AI as a guide and a tool to help you flesh out your ideas, edit your work and help you with the inevitable writer’s block. It’s important that whatever you do acquire from AI, you format in a way that fits your brand, your voice and your style of writing. It’s also important that whatever content you use from AI you include specific details as it pertains to your business. AI can come up with impressive general content about how great a coffee shop in New York City might be, but it’s unlikely that AI will know the nuances that make your coffee shop in New York City special. You’ve got to write in all of the wonderful details about your business, to make your content stand out and to make your business stand out! AI should merely be a resource, but go into it knowing you’re going to have to add a lot of flair and personality to it to shape it into the content that will be beneficial to your website.
At SuCoWeb, we are website and content pros. Creating content for your website can be daunting, but it is important if you want your website to succeed online. If this whole AI thing feels out of reach for you, you’re weary of having a robot write your website copy, or you have questions: we’re here to help! We can assist you in using AI properly, we can help you work with what you have, or we can start from scratch (no robots). Get in touch with us and let us know how we can help you.