AI in Blogging: How to Use AI and Retain Your Brand Voice

ChatGPT’s release in November 2022 started an AI-generated content craze that’s yet to let up.  After all, the selling point was pretty much too good to ignore: who wouldn’t want to generate content in seconds without having to pay anyone? Yet, it’s become increasingly clear that generative AI isn’t a magic genie in a bottle as some first thought. Instead, AI-generated content is notorious for being robotic and only containing surface-level insights. That’s not to mention all the trouble AI generative tools continue to have with hallucinations and inaccuracies.  Google has also shown dissatisfaction with low-quality AI content, as the platform began to have real trouble with low-grade AI-generated blogs populating its search results.  This prompted the now infamous March Core Update in 2024, which cracked down on low-quality AI content that aimed to manipulate the search rankings.  Having said that, Google does not have anything against AI-generated content in particular.  In fact, Google has pointed out that it values high-quality content that exhibits its E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) acronym, regardless of how it was made.  This means it’s entirely possible to generate high-quality content with the help of AI, you just need to be smart about how you do it. Also, the prevalence of AI content has caused users to crave authenticity, meaning an authentic brand voice matters now more than ever.  A survey by Stackla found that 88% of consumers now place authenticity as a key factor when determining brands to support, and 72% of those users believe most brands struggle to be truly authentic.  So, if you want to stand out in a world dominated by AI, maintaining an authentic brand voice is paramount.  In this guide, we’ll teach you how you can create outstanding content using AI that retains your brand voice, so stay tuned to learn more!  

The Top Ways AI Can Assist with Content Creation 

When it was first introduced, some assumed generative AI (GAI) was capable of creating amazing articles from scratch based on a single prompt.  They thought they’d pull up a program like ChatGPT, ask it to write the best article on digital marketing ever, and then immediately reign from the #1-ranked position on Google. Now that GAI tools have been readily available for a few years now, we know that it’s not that easy.  In fact, AI prompting has become a desired skill of its own, as it takes a lot of nuance and understanding to write prompts that yield the results you want. Many companies now employ prompting engineers to ensure their AI programs reflect their brand’s voice and values.  Also, GAI tools aren’t the best at writing entire pieces of content from scratch.  Instead, you’ll find more success with a piecemeal approach – where you use AI to assist with different phases of the writing process – instead of having the tool create an entire article at once.  In particular, AI content tools are most effective at:

• Aiding with keyword research 
• Brainstorming topic ideas, headlines, and subheadings 
• Overcoming writer’s block 
• Creating article outlines 
• Getting a first draft ready for further edits

Let’s take a closer look at each task so that you can get the most out of your AI programs. 

Aiding the keyword research process 

Chatbots and other GAI programs are extremely helpful for enhancing your keyword research process, which is always the first step when developing content that you want to rank well on Google (and other search engines).  The main advantage here is that AI tools can process vast amounts of online data related to your target audience and then suggest relevant keywords.  More often than not, these are high-potential keywords that other websites haven’t considered yet, giving you the chance to be the first to rank for them. However, you should never use AI tools to conduct 100% of your keyword research. Instead, use them to brainstorm some creative ideas, and then use an official keyword planner tool (like our free option) to vet the metrics.  Let’s view a quick example.  First, let’s use ChatGPT to generate some unique keywords for the gardening niche: It lets us know that cocktail gardens are an innovative trend gaining traction with gardeners this year, which would be an interesting topic for an article. However, let’s use our free keyword planner tool to verify if this is indeed true. Sure enough, the keywords cocktail gardener and gardening cocktails both have decent search volume and, more importantly, an upward search trend – meaning they’re both gaining popularity.  So, you could use AI to help you whip up an article on dedicating an area in your garden to grow herbs for cocktails (while incorporating the two aforementioned keywords).  This is just one simple example of how you can use AI to inform your keyword research process. 

Brainstorming ideas

Another way you can use AI to speed up the content creation process is to use it for brainstorming quick ideas. For example, coming up with enticing article headers can be a time-consuming, brain-wracking process at times. Not only do your headers have to be catchy and creative, but they also must contain SEO keywords without feeling awkward or out of place.  Since AI never runs out of ideas, you can use it to spark your creativity when trying to come up with:

• Article headers 
• Subheadings 
• Paragraphs 
• Introductions 

Continuing with the example from above, let’s say you want to write an informative article about cocktail gardens, but you aren’t sure what to title it.  You know that you want to include the keyword cocktail gardener in the heading, but it also needs to be something compelling enough to convince users to click.  Let’s see how AI can help us come up with something memorable and SEO-friendly. Voila, now we have something to work with.  If you want even more options for brainstorming, you can ask ChatGPT to provide alternatives: These are actually pretty good, but they’re a little bit long. Let’s ask it to write more headers but this time keep them under 60 characters: As you can see, continuing to prompt AI is a great way to refine the tool’s output and get closer to the results you’re looking for. After three rounds of prompts, we have some excellent titles to brainstorm with (or use outright).  This is also the best way to overcome writer’s block. If you’re having a hard time putting words together, AI will provide you with a never-ending supply of ideas to get the ball rolling in your head.  Besides headings, you can use AI to brainstorm any type of idea you need, whether it’s a specific way to phrase a sentence or the right adjective you need for a subheading. 

Developing outlines for articles 

The writing process is made 1,000% easier by working off an outline, but busy professionals don’t always have the time necessary to create them.  For instance, many digital marketing professionals have to create content briefs for their writers, a process that often gets in the way of other, more pressing tasks.  AI tools are amazing for speeding up this process, as you can create an actionable outline for an article within a few minutes using a tool like ChatGPT.  As proof, here’s one for our cocktail gardening article: . Based on a semi-detailed prompt, AI was able to put together a complete article outline for the topic, which would be perfect for a busy marketing professional. It even included a CTA (call-to-action) in the conclusion so that the article has the chance to generate leads and sales: Of course, this outline is pretty vanilla and lacks any noticeable brand voice, but we’ll get to that in a minute.  For now, it’s a suitable outline that you can tweak to add special instructions for your writer (like which service they should plug with a link in the CTA). 

Helping create a first draft for further edits 

Lastly, AI tools will help you get a first draft going that you can edit later on.  It’s imperative to not just use the first draft an AI tool generates because it will be:

• Too generic 
• Not authentic enough 
• Devoid of original insights 
• Lacking your brand voice 

Publishing AI-generated first drafts is what got a ton of websites in trouble back in March of 2024, so a round of editing by human writers is a must.  However, the convenience and ease of generating a first draft in one go can’t be understated, which is why it’s still worth using as a jumping-off point.  Here’s what ChatGPT came up with for the first draft of our cocktail gardening article: As you can see, it’s pretty generic, but there are a few usable sentences here and there (the intro sentence is particularly strong).  Also, it still reads like an outline, as each section contains brief bullet points without much elaboration: While this makes the article extremely readable, it’s thin on content and original insights. However, it makes an excellent starting point for a team of human editors, so it’s still worth having. 

Maintaining Your Brand’s Voice When Using AI 

Okay, now that we’ve used AI to knock out the basics, it’s time to add some heart to it.  What type of content should you add to AI articles to make them more valuable to search engines and users? Using Google’s E-E-A-T acronym is an extremely helpful guide, especially the first two E’s (experience and expertise).  The A stands for authoritativeness, and it refers to the strength of the backlinks pointing at a piece of content. The T, trustworthiness, is achieved by utilizing a strong combination of the other letters (experience, expertise, and authoritativeness).  Therefore, the top two things you need to add to your AI-generated content are:

• First-hand experiences 

• Clear demonstrations of your expertise 

So, for our cocktail gardening article, we’ll need to add a few anecdotes about the times we’ve grown herbs specifically for cocktails. We should also include examples of our expertise, such as recommendations for tools to use (along with some guiding words based on our own experience).  Here’s an example: “Tools of the Trade: What You Need for Your Cocktail Garden You need the proper tools if you want to grow exceptional herbs for your cocktails, something which I can attest to personally. I’ve learned to never go anywhere without my multi-purpose pruning tool, as it’s my jack-of-all-trades. Also, try and find a harvesting knife that folds up so that you won’t nick yourself with it while it’s in your pocket!” This paragraph is chock-full of first-hand experience and expertise, and it’s extremely helpful information for users who want to start their own cocktail gardens. It’s the exact type of content you need to add to AI-generated content to freshen it up and make it valuable to your audience. 

Aligning AI content with your brand’s personality 

Next, you need to ensure that the final product reflects your brand’s unique voice and personality, which will require some tweaking both from AI and your human writers.  For example, I could have included specific instructions for brand voice when prompting ChatGPT to create content for the cocktail gardening article, but I kept it generic for demonstrative purposes.  Currently, most GAI tools are able to create content in a variety of different tones and voices, which makes it easier to stay faithful to your brand when generating a first draft.  Here’s an edited version of the intro to the cocktail gardening article that’s written in a more lighthearted tone intended to appeal to a younger crowd: This would be more in line with your brand voice if you were catering to a younger audience that spends a lot of time on social media.  However, and this is a big however, you should always do a round of editing with human writers to ensure your brand voice is 100% accurate.  An AI tool will never fully understand your brand, and it can never truly speak for you. That’s why it’s crucial to add your own spin on everything that you generate with AI to remain true to your brand’s image. Remember, customers crave authenticity in today’s AI-dominated age, so do your best to add genuine insights to your content. 

AI Content vs. Human-Written Content: The Pros and Cons 

Now that you know how to achieve the best of both worlds by merging human writers with AI tools, let’s quickly examine the pros and cons of only using one or the other. 

AI content: advantages and disadvantages 

As far as perks go, AI-generated content is all about saving tons of time and money. You can generate content with AI tools in literal seconds, which is invaluable for saving money and getting the most out of your time at work.  AI tools are also powerful ways to boost your own creativity by providing candid suggestions for headers, topics, sentences, and paragraphs.  On the negative side, AI tools aren’t able to provide first-hand experiences or original insights, two things that Google deems necessary to achieve high-quality content.  Also, AI is limited in its ability to express humor and emotions, both of which are important for connecting with your target audience. 

Human-written content: advantages and disadvantages 

Human-written content is basically the opposite of AI-generated content. On the beneficial side, content created by humans is often authentic and contains original insights (as long as the writer knows what they’re doing).  Human writers are also far better at expressing humor and other emotions, making it easier to connect with audiences on a deeper level. This can foster strong brand loyalty amongst customers, so it’s crucial not to lose the human touch.  The downside is that humans can’t create content at the lightning-fast pace that AI tools can. Humans are also susceptible to writer’s block, which can make content take even longer to create. 

Case studies: real-world examples of success with AI content 

Before we wrap up, let’s look at a few instances where companies hit the sweet spot and found great success with AI-generated content.  A Danish news outlet (TV 2 Fyn) discovered that the AI-generated headlines they were using resulted in a 59% increase in its click-through rates (CTR).  They achieved this by using AI to generate headlines and then A/B testing them against human-written headlines. Once again, they used a combination of human and AI writing to achieve great results.  The financial company Bankrate has also found SEO success using AI-generated content. For instance, this article on contribution margin is transparent about the fact that it was generated by AI and then edited by their publishing team to ensure quality: That didn’t stop it from ranking in the #2 organic position for a relevant keyword, though: These are two real-world examples that prove you can achieve impressive results by using GAI tools in your content creation process. 

Achieving the Right AI-Human Balance to Achieve Lasting Success 

We’ve gone over a ton of stuff, so let’s recap:

1. Mass amounts of AI-generated content have caused users to crave authenticity from brands. 
2. Google does not have anything against AI-generated content, only content that’s low-quality. 
3. AI tools are best for brainstorming ideas and creating outlines. 
4. You should add first-hand experiences and original insights to AI-generated content to improve its quality and ranking ability. 
5. Don’t forget to edit each piece and add elements of your brand voice to maintain consistency with the rest of your content.

Do you want to achieve the perfect balance between AI-powered efficiency and human ingenuity? Don’t wait to try out AI Content Plus, our service that pairs the speed of AI with the creativity of our expert human writers! Also, feel free to get in touch for a free consultation to discuss potential solutions for all your SEO needs.