AI is here, and while it has generated thousands of pieces of content already, those pieces of content are still not quite up to the standard you would expect (or Google for that matter) when it comes to expertise. If your company is using AI-generated content, you may want to consider hiring a Subject Matter Expert (SME) writer to follow up and help you optimize and more importantly, humanize your content so that you do not sacrifice your position in the SERPs.
AI-Content Generation Doesn’t Understand E-E-A-T, But a Writer Does
AI creates content by pulling words together based on the prompts you provide. It can optimize content with keywords, but not in a reader-friendly way. Likewise, the tool provides outdated stats, which means you could be quoting something as much as two years old – and in the content marketing world, that might as well be 10 years. Content marketing trends come and go more than the tides, and now that Google has made it clear E-E-A-T is the standard, quickly generating content with AI and not following up with human AI content optimization is a risky chance to take.
What is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This was designed for Google’s quality search result analysis and helps feed into the infamous algorithm that every website owner is trying to attract.
While E-E-A-T doesn’t directly impact your rankings in the SERPs, it is a strong SEO factor that you cannot ignore and E-E-A-T is more likely to increase conversions, according to SEMRush, because if a customer trusts your site, they are more likely to use your service.
Examining How AI Struggles to Meet the E-E-A-T Expectations
AI content is written by a computer, and while the technology can perform tasks such as intelligence, learning, reasoning, and even decision making, there is a lot that it cannot do. From the content marketing side of things, AI lacks significantly in terms of creating personalized narration, building character, establishing trust, and even being factually correct.
Right now, ChatGPT3.5 only has data back to 2021. Asking it how many blogs there were worldwide created this response:
A simple example
As you can see, its knowledge goes back to September 2021, and worse, it didn’t even have an answer then.
In case you’re curious, there are more than 600 million blogs as of 2023.
AI doesn’t have the ability to pull statistics, and statistics build two very important components of E-E-A-T:
Authoritativeness
Trustworthiness
If you cannot prove to your audience what you are saying is factually correct, where is your authority and how can they trust you?
Easy, they can’t.
What is AI Content Optimization?
AI-generated content has its flaws, but it definitely is cheaper and faster than your average writer. That said, despite AI automating numerous processes in our lives, it cannot go unsupervised – especially when it comes to content. Instead, you need content that has a human touch, essentially human-optimized AI content, so that your message gets across and leaves a profound impact on the reader.
5 Reasons to Consider AI Optimization Done by a Writer
In most cases, you can generate hundreds of blogs for free, but you still want to optimize your content using a human. At Express Writers, we do offer human optimization for AI-generated content, and quite a few clients have used this service so far to help amplify their AI-created content without sacrificing their SERPs.
For human optimization, we recommend using our General Blog service. It is affordable, has a human optimize for SEO, rewrite for flow, add branding and personality, and most importantly, infuse your content with up-to-date statistics.
Still not sure? Here are some reasons you need to use a human to optimize your content.
Humanized AI Content Offers Personalization
AI is repetitive, robotic and has no personality, but it is a computer, so you can’t expect it to have a personality. Your marketing copy, however, and those who read it, do expect to see some personality in the words you provide.
We are overwhelmed with dozens of marketing messages, emails, blogs and social media posts each day, so you need something that stands out, and AI content cannot do that alone. Instead, it needs that human touch.
AI might automate generating your blogs for you, but you still need a human to help that piece of content resonate with your audience and offer authenticity.
AI Has Writing Flaws
AI is by no means perfect, and while they continue to learn and release new versions of AI-generation tools, they still have too much missing. AI does understand basic grammar, but the output sometimes repeats itself and doesn’t read well.
For example, I had ChatGPT3.5 write me a 100-word paragraph for a blog on “reasons to start running,” and requested it to write a catching intro.
Here is the intro it came up with:
Not awful, but also, not really catchy either. It tends to ramble, it doesn’t understand flow, and some of the text feels more like fluff/filler than something that hooks. Speaking of, where is the hook? Do you see a profound hook that makes you want to continue reading a blog based on this intro?
A human needs to go through these paragraphs and pick out what matters, refine points brought up, and here is the perfect opportunity to add an interesting fact or stat that catches the reader’s eye.
A Human Writer to Help Infuse Stats into Your Content
Stats are crucial for content. Not only do they provide backlink opportunities – yes, backlinks are still important to SEO, but they also help you satisfy the Authority and Trustworthiness requirements of E-E-A-T. When you have statistics to back up statements or claims within your content, the reader feels more confident in what they’ve read rather than just making a statement and offering no insight or high-value resources to back it up.
Offering Accuracy Checks
You can use AI to generate your first draft, but you need human eyes to go back and review the content for accuracy. As shown above, AI content tools have their flaws, and sometimes they can be inaccurate, especially when it comes to more industry-specific content. Having an SME writer review the content for inaccuracies within your niche, including the wrong use of special terminology, etc., can greatly improve the overall quality of your content.
You Need a Human for Empathy
While AI-generated content can certainly create as many pages of content as you would like, it cannot offer empathy, and that is crucial in content marketing. The reader needs to think that you are on their side, you understand where they are coming from, and you are developing a relationship with them.
AI cannot do that. Instead, you need your content to be compelling and the reader needs to feel as though you “get them,” which requires a human.
AI is a First Draft, but You Need a Real Writer to Take it to the Finish Line
Yes, AI can be a great tool for coming up with blog ideas, generating first drafts and even writing up an outline, but once it comes to the meat of the topic or even taking that content to publish status, you need a human writer.
Whether you want your content optimized or outright humanized, the SME writers at Express Writers can help get the job done. We can edit, rewrite for flow, add in your branding and optimize for search engines. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you add that human touch to your AI-generated content.
Content that connects with your audience is worth every penny.
Having a single piece of content that speaks to your desired audience, and connecting to your audiences meaningfully, often results in a higher ROI.
It is essential, whether you are a small business or large corporation, that you know how to connect with your audience emotionally, and often that requires a special type of writer to do so. Not just anyone can connect; simply putting words onto virtual paper will not do the job.
Instead, you need to know what your audience needs, their pain points, their reasons for seeking out your business, and when to offer help – timing is crucial here.
Today, we will review a few ways to create content that makes a genuine connection and how to implement it into your content strategy for blogs, web pages, and even social media posts.
Is Written Content Relevant for Today’s Audience?
The age of YouTube has certainly changed how we all interact with search engines, and often we opt for a video over a blog to learn about something, but that is not the majority. Written content, specifically blogs, is still in high demand. 77% of internet users read blogs, according to Social Media Today – so obviously, there’s a market.
7 Steps Every Company Needs to Use to Create Content that Connects with the Right Audience
Creating and maintaining a connection with your audience is crucial. Whether your target audience is B2B or B2C, you have a target audience, and you need content that speaks to them. So, how do you do that when your “audience pool” masses in the thousands?
Easy…by following these key steps.
1. Embrace Empathy
The pandemic has certainly taught us a lot and restructured the way a lot of us communicate or even work today. However, one of the biggest lessons from the pandemic was empathy. Thinking about your audience using compassion and your emotional intelligence is critical in your content.
2. Write As You Talk
You want to connect to the person reading your content. What is a better way to connect than conversation? For some reason, being conversational in blogs and even landing page content got a bad rap somewhere but shouldn’t have. Being conversational is precisely what a reader needs to feel as though you are speaking to them. The robotic, encyclopedic text has its uses but rarely is that content that is designed to create a connection. Instead, that is created to educate.
Social media posts, blogs, and sales pages need to connect to the reader, or the conversions will not happen. So, as you write out your text, think of how you would talk to a friend, explain something to a colleague, and use that as your muse when crafting your “voice” within the text.
3. Use Media
Words are powerful, but so too is imagery. You want to use different media types to help you connect with your reader. While the personal tone is equally important, include a picture of yourself in your bio on each blog, that way, the reader can picture who they are talking to.
4. Picture the Ideal Reader
Just like you want your reader to picture you, you need to picture them. You know your target audience – if you don’t, that’s an entirely different topic – so now you can picture one member from your target audience as you create your content. Pick them from the crowd, and pretend you are conversing with them. When you picture yourself talking to a real person, rather than them reading what you have written, it helps you be more conversational. You aren’t lecturing a group of students at the university – just an intimate conversation between two individuals.
5. Put Yourself in the Reader’s Shoes – Address their Needs
You can’t truly connect if you aren’t in your reader’s shoes. What are their dreams? Fears? You need to know their pain points to bring them up in the copy and almost catch them off guard. You want the reader to sit there thinking, “Yes! That is me!” and not just going through the motions. The more connected they are to the writing, the more likely they are to take action you request at the end of the page – whether it is a contact, submitting email addresses, etc.
You need to show that you can relate to their problem, then strike with the solution. If you don’t build up a relationship on mutual understanding first, you cannot offer a mutually acceptable solution.
Often, copywriters will come out of the gates swinging. They don’t hit that pain point and instead just start talking about the solution while touching here and there on the issue it solves. That doesn’t grab a reader and keep them hanging on for the ride. Instead, they see that you have a solution, make up their assumptions, and bounce.
So, instead, build up the rapport first, then offer your solution. Take the reader through your journey, showing your understanding and relativeness, then add your solution and call to action. If you offer the goods right from the start, you will lose the chance to build a relationship with your reader first.
6. Work with the Emotions You Want to Pique in Your Reader
Picture your reader’s emotions as they go through your text.
If you aren’t getting a reader to laugh at a joke, ask yourself if you would have laughed. Would you cry at the same instance of emotion? Would you yearn for the same solution as profoundly as they?
Allow yourself to feel something, express it, and create that connection. You may be surprised at how willing people are to reach out to you when you occasionally open yourself up in your content, whether it is sharing a personal experience, a humbling moment, etc.
7. Avoid Third Person
The third-person POV does not connect with the reader. After all, if you read something in a third-person point-of-view, do you feel like you are being spoken to? Often a person will say “the person” rather than “you,” which makes you feel like they are speaking about someone else more than talking to you. So, why would you use a similar POV in your content?
Creating content that connects is more than just striking emotions, you need to pick the right words, especially the right POV. A good combination of first and second will help a lot – you can share a personal experience while addressing the reader’s needs. Essentially, include them in your conversation even if they read it 5 years later.
Do You Think You’re Ready to Connect with Your Audience in a Meaningful Way?
We have given you a few tips and tricks for adding more “connection” to your work, but now it is time to practice. Ensure you are researching your target audience, from their typical likes, dislikes, behaviors, generational differences, etc. Then, start working on your conversational tone, speaking to them as if they were your buddy hanging out, drinking coffee, and enjoying a casual conversation.
It takes practice to connect with your content, but it is not an unlearnable skill. Test the waters by tossing pieces that break away from what you usually do and see how they perform. Then, refine your technique, see how readers interact with your content and adjust as necessary.
Before you know it, you will be a writer who connects with the right audience to drive the conversions of which others can only dream.
Express Writers has a team of stellar wordsmiths that know how to hit on that conversational note and connect with your audience. From social media to landing pages to your next blog post, our writers can write as if they are talking to your target audience and help boost conversions so your business thrives on its blogging investment.
You’ve waited a few days, and you finally received your copy.
You’re excited to get moving on with your project, open up the document, and realize that the tone is not correct, the keyword wasn’t used as you wanted it to, or the direction of the blog itself didn’t go the way you had hoped. You filled out the input form, so you know you had requested specifics for this piece, but you don’t feel the writer nailed it.
Now, you have to send it back for a revision.
You can feel a sense of annoyance creeping up as you click “Request Revision.” While you might think revisions are terrible, you are missing out on seeing the incredible value of requesting a revision.
Clicking that button has just improved your investment in your content.
How so?
Four Benefits of Requesting a Revision from Your Content Writer
Revisions are a good thing.
Let me say that one more time…revisions are a good thing.
It does delay your project another day or so, but you are investing in your writer, brand, and project by requesting a revision.
Let me show you how that is…
You are Not Revising It Yourself – Saving you the Time and Hassle
Yes, you could save a few days by revising it yourself.
But how much time did you save, really?
You outsourced your content for a reason – because you didn’t have the time to write it yourself. So, why are you revising it yourself?
Instead, you need to let the writer that crafted your content do the heavy lifting – that is why they offer revisions.
Take advantage of those free revisions and send your piece back. While you wait you can get started on ordering your social media posts and your email copy for the blog post you are waiting to launch, while our team fine-tunes things for you.
No matter what, you have saved yourself time. You are not spending 30 minutes, an hour, or maybe a few hours reworking your content. Instead, you have that done for you free of charge as part of your initial order fee.
You are Working with Your Writer to Get that Tone/Style/Niche Perfect – Which Pays for Itself in the Long Run
At Express Writers, we aim to have you work with the same writer, not just for this project but for all projects for that specific brand.
Every time writers work with you, they learn more about your preferences, nuances, preferential stylistic needs, etc. These are things embroidered in your mind, but your writer needs to learn them to continue using them in future content. If you don’t request a revision, how will your writer know what you prefer them to do on the next order?
What comes easy to us only sometimes translates well on paper. When you fill out an input form, what you see as a “casual” content tone might not be what a writer views as casual. When there is room for interpretation, there is room for something to be “off” slightly.
That is why there are revisions – so you can help the writer better understand what you meant in your input form.
You are Finetuning Your Wants and Needs (Some You May Not Have Realized You Had in the First Place)
When you complete an input form, you convey what you want right down to the preferred style/tone, but as we said before, what you may think is “casual” is not how the writer interprets it. Or, you might request that a blog be written more academically, only to realize that doesn’t jive with your tastes.
Revisions help you finetune what you actually want in your content because sometimes it takes seeing content that needs to be corrected to realize what you need to get it there and find what your style is.
Sometimes you think your style is more “encyclopedic,” only to realize it is not after you see what that type of content is. We don’t want you stuck with a piece of content that doesn’t suit your style, so we offer the opportunity to revise and refine.
You are Ensuring that the Final Product is Right – and Future Orders Will be Right from the Get-Go
When you have a project that was a home run, you can request that same writer on future projects. If you work alongside that writer via revisions to fine-tune your content, future orders will go much smoother. The writer might hit it out of the park the first go around on assignment #2 – even if the first assignment required a few rounds of revisions before it was right.
That is why we aim to have the same writer work on your same brand or projects – so that everything they’ve learned about your brand from those revisions is applied to future content.
Not only will the writer be more on point, but you will notice that turnaround times decrease. Your writer no longer needs as much time to create your content because once they see the title, topic, and keywords, they know what you intended for them to create, and they don’t have to spend as much time researching background information to create it.
You benefit from having an in-house writer without the hassle of managing them.
You’re working alongside them to fine-tune your content today so future orders are much easier and more efficient tomorrow.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Revisions
Simply requesting a revision is not enough. You want to ensure that when a project goes back, it returns to you right.
When you request a revision, here are a few tips for getting the most out of it:
Be Specific About What’s Right and What’s Wrong: Saying “it is wrong” doesn’t point the writer in the right direction. So, be specific here. Let them know what was right and what parts specifically were wrong so they know a) what parts you do like to incorporate similar style into future pieces, and b) how to revise them and what to avoid in the future.
Be Positive and Helpful: Positivity can go a long way. You are working with this writer side-by-side to create your expertly crafted content. So, keep the feedback positive. You can always give constructive feedback, but as long as you keep it positive, it helps foster a strong relationship with your writer.
Record a Loom: Video revision requests are fantastic! Not only does it add a tone to the feedback, but you can go over the video, share your screen and the document and talk about what you need to be corrected. Not only does it help put it into perspective for the writer, but saves you the hassle of writing out the revision request. A 1-minute video could save you 30 minutes writing it all out.
Leave Feedback in the Doc: If video recording isn’t your style, consider opening the doc and leaving comments inside instead. You can comment on specific sections of the document you want to be changed so the writer can revise based directly on that rather than a large revision note where they have to find the sections in the document you may be referring to.
Some Tips for Avoiding Unnecessary Revisions
Sometimes, revisions aren’t necessary, but there is a communication breakdown between what is in the input form and what the writer creates. These can be avoided, in 90% of their cases, by implementing these tips:
Fill Out the Input Form Entirely: Input forms might seem tedious, but each question is there to pull as much information out of you as possible so that our writer has everything they need to get it right the first time. So, do your best to complete each field. If you are unsure, you can always leave a note you are unsure about and let the writer decide. The more specific you are with your preferences, tone, style, and the do’s and don’ts for your content, the easier it is for the writer to write to your expectations.
Know Your Topic (or Get a Professional to Help Define it): If you aren’t sure what topic or keywords to use, we highly recommend using our content strategy service. Our writers are not strategists, so they cannot research keywords or create topics on the fly. Instead, we leave that to our in-house strategists trained to find high-volume, low-competition keywords, then create click-worthy headlines that hit high on the AMV scale.
Read Your Topic Research before Approving: If you order topic research, there will be a lot of information in the spreadsheet when it comes your way. Make sure to review it carefully. You’re not just approving a topic and keyword – an explanation section goes over everything included in your blog post or web page. Make sure all the details there align with what you want in your content and your brand’s style. We often get revisions because the information was added that shouldn’t be, but it was in an approved content strategy – so the writer was just following what they were told. It is always best to review it thoroughly and ensure every component is correct before approval. If it’s not? Just ask for a revision from the strategist so that it doesn’t go to the writer with information you don’t want included.
Don’t Forget Examples: In our input forms, we ask for examples of content you love. Why? Because nothing helps a writer nail a preferred style or tone more than a physical example to review.
Request an Outline First: If you need clarification on the direction you want for your blog, ask the writer to submit an outline before the actual content. The writer will draft the title, subheaders, and some information they plan to include, then you can see if the blog is following your desired style and the information you wanted to see included. This also saves you from having an entire piece rewritten – and the writer from having to scrap something at 2,000 words versus a few lines for an outline.
Have We Removed the Stigma of Revisions Yet?
Revisions somewhere along the road in content land got a bad rap, and we don’t know why.
To us, revisions are great! They are an opportunity to get your content right and mean that you are training your writer to work on your content in the future without any hiccups.
We all have an idea of the perfect piece of content in our head, but no one else knows what that is – revisions help us bring that vision to life with the help of a writer so that you get the content you had intended to receive the day you placed your order.
At Express Writers, all of our content orders include two free rounds of revisions up to 14 days past delivery. Don’t be afraid to click that button and request a revision. Instead, embrace it and think of the time, money, and hassle you just saved yourself – and the long-term investment you just made in a team of writers that will continue to provide you with great content.
Order your next piece of content with Express Writers and see for yourself the power of revisions and providing your writer with feedback. Not only does it help you get the content you want, but it also helps you ensure you’ll get that content again the next time you order with us!
A craveable, delicious, delightful blog post isn’t much different from a pastry.
As long as you follow the recipe, steps included, you will create a post your readers are hungry to devour – and might even return for more.
The good news is you won’t make a special trip to the grocery store to get started on the perfect blog post. Everything you need is in your virtual pantry – you just didn’t realize it.
Writing a blog post, especially in today’s competitive market, is intimidating. Once you break it down and understand the ingredients, however, you can whip up these readable bits on the fly and stay up with the trends for the future of blogging in 2023.
So, What Do You Need to Craft the Perfect Blog Post in 2023?
The future of blogging has certainly changed. What worked last year doesn’t necessarily apply today. Therefore, staying up on the latest blogging and SEO trends is essential so that you know what Google expects – and, more importantly, what today’s reader wants.
The Perfect Blog Recipe
Before you start to type, you want to make sure you have the following essentials ready to add to the mixing bowl:
1 click-worthy title
1 attention-keeping introduction
A pinch of creativity
A few cups of informative, scannable subheaders
A splash of succinct body copy
A handful of authoritative research and your expertise
1 part formatting
1 delectable conclusion
A dusting of enthusiasm for the topic
A garnish of passion for your niche
Putting it Altogether – How the Future of Blogging will Change How You Use These Ingredients
As you can see, the ingredients haven’t changed, but how and when you use them has.
We will break down each portion of this recipe so that you know how to mix it all in and get your readers to come back for more.
Creating Your Title
By far one of the most essential ingredients!
Your title sets the stage for what the reader can expect, even determining if they ever get past the SERPs to read your blog.
Spend time on this stage of your recipe. In fact, whatever you title it as your “working” title, be prepared to come back and rework it until it is just right later.
Don’t hastily toss forth the first title you have in mind. Instead, let it sit and rest, and the flavors meld together. Think of title creation as a slow, steady simmer rather than a rapid boil.
A good title mixes intrigue and information and is not too long.
Yes, Google says there is no limit, and the length of your title will not influence your search engine results. Instead, it affects whether or not someone will click on it. The first 60 characters matter the most – so make those count even if you have a 100-character title.
Whatever you do, don’t over-sprinkle in the keywords for your title – not only will it kill your readability factor and turn off any enthusiastic taster, but it will turn away Google too.
Roll Out Your Introduction
Your introduction supports your title. So perhaps you may not create it until you have solidified your intro – and that’s okay.
An introduction requires time and patience. While you will mix up something short, sweet, and enticing, you will also want it to rest a few hours before you revisit and rework it again. While adding a keyword to the introduction is essential, ensure it is not the highlighting flavor.
An introduction gives readers just a taste of what else is to come, but the full flavor doesn’t explode until the end. Of course, if your introduction isn’t tasty enough to keep reading, the end doesn’t matter much.
So, take your time, rework it after the entire blog is done, and ask yourself, would I eat this up?
Never Forget the Power of Creativity
Too many recipes lack creativity.
Think of those five-star restaurants – are they working with “vanilla” recipes used over and over again?
Of course not.
They are hashing out something unique that stays with their branding but still tantalizes the tastebuds.
Never leave out a pinch of creativity in your content – all of your content. Creativity should be tossed in from the start; if you can’t taste it, add more.
Start Rolling Out Subheaders
Subheaders help your reader scan and understand what they are about to digest. They should go in an even flow, make sense, and inform.
Ideally, subheaders are introduced every 300-500 words max (there’s nothing wrong with adding them in fewer words as long as the words in between pack a powerful punch). Subheaders are a great place for optimizing with secondary keywords but don’t overdo it.
Time to Mix in Your Body’s Copy
You have a working title, and you’ve rolled out the subheaders. Now comes the time to mix together your blog’s body.
But before you add anything, do your research. You may be an expert in your niche, but that doesn’t mean you won’t need resources to back up what you say. Today, using authoritative, high-quality links is still a must-have for any recipe. Search Engine Journal states that every site needs credible, authoritative, and trustworthy content – and a reader can’t take you at your word without some citations.
As you mix up that copy, make sure to spice it up enthusiastically. Nothing turns a reader away more than negativity. So, likewise, be as passionate about your niche as you want your reader to be as you create your blog – if you are not excited about it, why should they be?
A few other things to keep in mind while you mix up your body’s copy:
Optimize Gently. Optimizing your content is like working gluten. Too much, and it’s gotten too chewy, stiff, and undesirable. Yes, keywords matter in 2023, but how and where you use them has changed.
Focus on Your Brand’s Authority. What Google praises more than keywords are brand authority and trustworthiness. Ever heard of E-E-A-T? Nowhere in that acronym is keywords. What is, however, is expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness.
Be Unique. Today, readers are overwhelmed with choices. You won’t stand out in the crowd if you are the garden variety. Personalization is important.
Focus on the Reader and Not on Google. Yes, Google matters, but the person you are talking to in your blog post is not a search engine but a reader. Center your content’s quality, information, and focus around the reader; you’ll win them every time. Focus on keywords and search engines, and your recipe falls flat each time.
Arrange Your Formatting
No matter where the future of blogging goes, one thing is sure: the wall of text is never coming back.
Today’s reader doesn’t have the patience. Today’s reader prefers the amuse-bouche rather than traditional hors d’oeuvres. They want all of the flavors in a quick little nibble rather than having to enjoy it in a few more bites.
UX planet estimates that readers only take in about 20-28% of the body.
To increase the amount read, make it pretty – after all, we all eat with our eyes and not our stomachs.
Ensure you have an excellent mixture of:
H1, H2s, and H3s to break up the chunks of the body
Sprinkle in bulleted or numbered lists to get to the point
Add images to keep the reader’s attention on the page
Top it Off with a Conclusion
Your conclusion is where you drive action. The reader has stuck with you until the end, so this is an essential piece of content to deliver. Just as with your introduction, keep the conclusion short and sweet. Nothing over-the-top, nothing out of character. Just end the blog on a tasty note with a solid CTA that tells your reader where to go for their next meal.
Let it Rest before You Do the Rest
If you are self-editing your blog posts, you’ve mixed, mashed, sprinkled and dashed, but now it is time to let it rest. A good four to six hours is all your blog post needs before it is picked up again.
Come back refreshed and ready to cut out the fluff, trim the fat, remove unnecessary ingredients in your copy, and add a few more splashes of your brand’s unique voice where it seems suitable.
You’ve Followed the Recipe – Now What?
You’ve followed the recipe, but it is not quite time to plate it.
Before you plate your dish and send it out, you want to make sure you have social media posts and your email newsletter ready to fire off the second your blog goes public. Share across your favorite social media platforms with the same enthusiasm as you did in your piece!
Crafting great content is a lot like creating a great recipe. Not all of us are natural-born chefs, but we don’t have to be. While the future of blogging continually changes, one thing that will never change is the power of hiring talented people to craft your delicious content.
While AI can share the workspace with a traditional writer and editor for content marketing, there is one thing it cannot do – SME content creation.
The only genuine SME (subject matter expert) out there in your niche is, well, you – and the talented freelance writers out there that know your field just as well as you.
More importantly, Google knows it and expects to see that in your content.
What is AI Content Generation?
It seems like almost daily another AI content generation tool is launching.
Some are free, others are paid, but are any of these tools able to truly replace a genuine expert? TechTarget lists 36 AI generation tools in their 2023 guide, and while there are loads of tools to choose from, they are all based on the GPT-3 model.
AI content generation is content that is created by a platform utilizing the GPT-3 model. The content is generated and while marketed to be “new,” it really is not. Think about how AI generators work.
Generative AI tools take keywords, themes, and even voice/tone preferences, and it works to generate a blog, web page, or even a social media post, but it is not creating them out of thin air or using any expertise in the field to offer unique opinions and insights.
Instead, AI generates your content by pulling information from the internet. It searches and scours the thousands of web pages and blogs already out there to piece together information and generate copy.
But, AI Doesn’t Understand What it is Creating….
While it is fascinating to watch AI work, AI has no clue what it is writing. It is solely based on an algorithm pulling data based on your input.
Only a Genuine Industry Expert Knows the Content for their Industry
AI is incredibly fast and can write a blog post quicker than any writer, but because of its limitations in terms of understanding and having any expertise in the niche, it is not a specialist.
Here is where you may hit a speed bump or two, if you are using AI generation for your content marketing:
Let’s Talk about E-E-A-T and How AI Falls Short for Industry Professionals Seeking SME Content Creation
In Google’s February release, they mention guidelines for using AI generation in your content, and make it clear that they reward high quality regardless of how it is produced (whether human-made or AI-generated).
Many took that as a green light to go ahead with AI, but that is not what Google conveyed.
Let’s go back to the double update released in December 2022 when the extra “E” was added to the E-A-T standard, making it now E-E-A-T.
Image Source: Google Update, December 2022, Page 26
What was that extra “E” for?
Experience…
Trust is crucial with Google. Some websites may fall short of the bar, no matter how experienced, professional, or even authoritative they are if they don’t have the reader’s trust, and one example given from Google within their update reveals the most consequential sentence that websites need to pay attention to:
“…the content creator lacks adequate experience” means they will have a low E-E-A-T score.
For example, if the content creator reviews a restaurant, but never ate at the restaurant, they are not experienced or trustworthy, which means they have a low E-E-A-T to Google.
Let’s break it down further by looking at each component of E-E-A-T.
Experience
Experience, in Google’s eyes, offers another level of dimension they can use when evaluating content. Content must demonstrate it was assembled with a degree of experience – after all, a reader will value a person’s content more if they have life experiences on the topic and they are not basing it exclusively on research.
AI has no experience with your topic. Let’s take a look at divorce law, for example.
You want to write a blog for your law firm on the latest guideline changes for calculating child support, but you will find a few speed bumps along the way using AI to do so:
AI typically doesn’t access the latest data – so it may not even know or find the latest guidelines for calculating child support. Worse, it could create a blog on outdated guidelines that it notes as “updated.”
AI has no actual understanding of handling child support cases. AI hasn’t had to calculate what a child support payment would be based on your state, the local laws, or the parent’s income. It has definitely never filled out the child support worksheets – but you have.
If you go off the premise of why “experience” was added by Google, you can see why AI might not meet the mark. AI is not an attorney or a financial expert, and therefore, there is no SME content creation happening when you use AI to draft your blogs.
Expertise
SME content creation comes down to one important factor: credibility. A person without qualifications should not be writing a topic out of their realm of expertise. Period.
Why?
Google is unlikely to rank a website with content not written by a credible source over a website they know has content written by a believable source.
In areas where a subject matter expert is required, such as healthcare, Google has a higher level of scrutiny than things based more on personal opinion and less on facts.
Authoritativeness
Authority means you have proven you belong in the niche your website represents.
Sure, backlinks to relevant and authoritative sources will help build that authority, but only so far. If you only have quality backlinks, but don’t meet the other areas of E-E-A-T – well, you don’t have much to go on.
There’s not much more to say there. Authority is a building block, and it requires more than one block to finish your foundation.
Trustworthiness
Now, we’ve already covered where AI falls short for SME content creation, but the biggest area you are going to see harmed by the use of AI is “trust.”
Readers need to trust the content they read, and the website publishing that content, and Google has made it clear what they expect.
In fact, Google has made it evident that a website should have a clear owner, and that owner is responsible for that site.
When you are in industries that require an expert, such as legal, finance, technology, etc., the reader needs to know that a genuine SME is writing that content – not AI.
In Google’s policies update (modified March 14, 2023), they made this clearer.
In Section 2, Google notes that content distributed online cannot misrepresent the provenance of where it was developed. Meaning, if your content is AI generated, but you claim it was written by an SME, you’ve violated that AI use policy.
Likewise, impersonating an individual that is respected in the industry can be equally detrimental to your rankings. Such as using AI to create fake author bylines or even entire author profiles.
One area to pay particular attention to is Section 2c, which states that any misleading claims of “expertise” in sensitive areas, such as finance, legal, healthcare, etc., is a direct violation of of the AI use policy.
No one is going to trust content that is not written by a genuine expert in these delicate fields. While it is tempting to skirt that and just create an expert to back up AI-generated content, Google has made it abundantly clear it will not be tolerated.
Bottom Line: Flaunt Your Expertise with Genuine SME Content Creation
If you don’t have the knack for the written (typed?) word, that’s okay.
Just don’t turn to AI to create it for you.
Instead, seek out content agencies that hire genuine subject matter experts in those unique industries so that you are receiving content from a person that knows what they are talking about. They have degrees, work experience, and years of expertise writing in those niches.
While AI is permitted, Google has made it abundantly clear that they expect E-E-A-T to rule over it all, and that means if even one component of it is missing, you are risking your website’s rankings.
Let’s face it – after all of this time, we all know how hard it is to bounce back once Google has lost interest in your website. So, it is best to avoid ever reaching that point.
The team at Express Writers understands the importance of genuine SME content. We have a team of subject matter experts ranging from medical to healthcare to finance to legal and more. When you have a distinct niche, you need a team of writers that can provide your website with high-quality content and meet the demands of Google. Reach out to our team today and check out our SME content creation options, or visit the shop and order your first piece of SME content.
