There you have it. Need I say more?
With that in mind, below are some prompt workflows I’m almost afraid to give away because they have been so helpful for me in producing REALLY strong content.
There’s a huge difference in the value of AI-assisted content depending on the approach you take.
Sure, you could provide a prompt like “write me a sales page optimized for HVAC services near me” and you might get something that looks halfway decent.
But if you want something that truly stands out and has a much better shot at ranking, try the following process:
Before Your Outline (Architecture & Research)
Use AI to generate a strong content template.
- Create an outline for a page aimed to rank for KEYWORD, look at the top 5 results in Google to compare. Include and call out ideas, takes, resources that are novel, that no one else has done. Identify any and all intentions that someone might have searching for this keyword.
- What are all possible intentions for my target keyword?
- Give me personas for the type of people you believe would search for this keyword.
- Provide me with data sources that might help this piece and include links.
Content Construction (Research and Development)
Use AI to help you construct (not just write top-to-bottom) a piece of content.
After reviewing and refining what was provided (ex: telling to omit or expand on certain info):
- With all of this information in mind, create a content brief for me to work with. I want this to include the headings and a brief explanation of what should be written within each section. Make sure to include any Frequently Asked Questions that show up for the primary keyword, and consider what the top 5 results in Google include, but also be sure to add something different or novel that is highly valuable to the searcher.
- Using this brief, what can I provide in this article that is truly novel? Do you think this brief offers truly valuable information and/or an approach that no one else has provided? Please defend your answer. If you can’t, help me to find it.
Review the content brief and ask for any refinement (edits, additions, etc.) before moving to:
- Write a piece of content following this content brief.
ChatGPT will create and may ask if you’d like some additional resources. Use as necessary.
- How do I make sure that I’m delivering on the intent and answering the need of the searcher as fast as possible?
Editing & Validating (Quality Assurance)
Use AI to ensure the piece matches the brand, writing style, and offers the best the search engines have to offer.
At this stage, you can add all of the following and more prompts at once if you’d like:
- What am I missing from this piece that others include in the top results?
- Check this piece and tell me where I could have stronger headings. Be critical.
- Check this piece and tell me where I have written something that could or should be accompanied with an image, a chart, or a table.
- What makes my piece unique? Is there anything? Be extremely critical.
- Where are useless lines and filler phrases, words, sentences that don’t add anything important?
- Tell me why you don’t think this will rank for KEYWORD, be extremely critical.
Some responses from ChatGPT here are long. It’s easiest to draft the edits you want in the field as you scroll through them.
Keep in mind that this is no silver bullet. I’ve seen it work great for some keywords and less than awesome for others.