Since ChatGPT was released to the public in November 2022, it’s been ground zero for tens of millions of people to experiment with AI in all kinds of areas, from copywriting to programming.
But some of its greatest potential—and greatest challenges—can be found in long-form content writing.
ChatGPT excels at producing large quantities of short-form ideas on the fly, like headlines and meta descriptions.
But if you ask it to write an entire blog post for you, without giving it a framework, it’ll struggle mightily to provide an output that isn’t repetitive and unoriginal.
That’s why most successful paths to ChatGPT content writing rely on these strategies:
- Take a step-by-step approach
- Use prompts
- Revise and add your voice
Sure, you can ask ChatGPT to “write a 1200-word blog post on how to play the ukulele”—and it’ll comply. But unless you’re satisfied with boilerplate content, you’re in for a lot of editing.
The more methodically you approach this process, the more original your output will be and the less editing you’ll need.
Below, I’ll take you through my recommendations for a step-by-step path to guide ChatGPT toward an excellent first draft.
Using ChatGPT To Start Writing
One of the biggest benefits of ChatGPT happens right at the start of the writing process:
You never have to face the dreaded blank page again.
Instead, AI allows you to approach your first draft as more of a mechanical process than a creative one—allowing you to save your creativity for later, when you edit and layer in your own perspectives.
Here’s what the process looks like:
- Generate topics
- Write headlines
- Incorporate SEO
- Create outlines
- Write with prompts
Generate topics
Let’s stick to our ukulele example.
ChatGPT does a superb job of helping you skip the brainstorming stage and get straight to work. Just let it know what you need (“ten long-form blog post ideas about playing the ukulele”).
You can then refine your search by selecting the ideas that stand out to you and modifying the prompts to meet your specific needs.
Headlines
I’m going to go with the topic “5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Learning the Ukulele.”
Once you’ve chosen your topic, it’s time to refine your headline. This is already a strong headline, but I want to see if there’s anything better.
The typical way to do this is to simply ask ChatGPT to generate a few additional headline options.
Let’s take that to the next level by using the following prompt:
Write 5 fascinating, interesting, and SEO-optimized headlines for an article about common mistakes to avoid when learning the ukulele.
This helps nudge the AI toward giving you more clever responses than it would otherwise:
These are much better.
My front-runner so far is “Don’t Let These 5 Ukulele Mistakes Ruin Your Learning Experience” because of the pain points it hits. (Although I’ve got to admit I’m tempted by the alliteration of “From Frets to Frustration”).
Let’s try one more prompt that hones in on our audience:
Write a list of 5 headlines for an article about common mistakes to avoid when learning the ukulele. Optimize the headlines for SEO and make it interesting to beginner ukulele players.
Now, we’ve got a compelling list of optimized headlines to choose from.
Remember, the headline is a huge part of the success of your content—and it also represents the promise you’re making to the reader.
The headline you choose isn’t just window dressing. It has an impact on the direction of the rest of your piece. For example, “The Essential Guide to Ukulele” implies a grander scope than “5 Ukulele Mistakes Every Beginner Should Know.”
SEO and keyword research
ChatGPT is a great SEO starter resource. While it doesn’t have access to the latest keyword volume data, it does understand what keywords similar articles focus on.
To use ChatGPT for SEO and keyword research, start by inputting a general topic or keyword. ChatGPT will generate several different ideas for you, including relevant keywords and phrases that you can use in your content.
For example, it can generate long-tail keywords that can inform how you structure your article:
Generate a list of 10 long-tail keywords for an article about mistakes to avoid when learning the ukulele, written for beginner ukulele players.
It can also simplify the “grunt work” of SEO, like writing alt text or meta descriptions:
Write a list of 5 alt text options for an image of a person playing a ukulele.
Write an SEO-optimized meta description for an article about mistakes to avoid when learning the ukulele. Use 160 max characters, including spaces. Optimize it for the keyword ukulele mistakes.
Outlines
So, you’ve got your topic, your headline, and some keywords you want to incorporate. It’s time to generate an outline.
ChatGPT makes this easy. Just input a general topic or keyword and let the model generate possible outlines. You can select the ideas that stand out to you and remove those that don’t.
As always, the more information you provide, the better your output will be. Make sure to nudge ChatGPT toward including the keywords you know will help your article rank, and the questions you know readers are asking.
Here’s a simple outline prompt:
Write an outline for a 1200-word blog post titled “Don’t Let These 5 Ukulele Mistakes Ruin Your Learning Experience.” Make sure to cover keywords like playing tips for beginner ukulele players, proper finger placement on the ukulele for beginners, and tips for tuning your ukulele as a beginner.
This gives us a detailed outline that incorporates each of our keywords and puts us on the path to meeting our target word count.
There are a couple of tweaks you’ll want to make to optimize your outline.
First, formatting. Most content writers want their outlines organized into headings, but ChatGPT often defaults to bullet point outlines instead. Just add the following to your prompt:
Format using headings (H1, H2, etc)
You’ll also want to take this time to review the outline carefully and make sure all the content included is relevant. This will save you time later since you’ll be using the outline to generate your first draft.
Write with Prompts
Now that you have your outline, it’s content writing (or content prompting) time.
For some content teams, this is where they hand the process over to humans. ChatGPT has already saved you plenty of time on topic generation, keyword research, headline brainstorming, and outline creation. The decision of whether or not to hand off to a writer at this stage has a lot to do with how specific your brand voice is and how complex the topic is.
I would argue that most, if not all, types of content would benefit from a prompt-generated first draft before editing, layering in personal experiences, and adjusting the brand voice.
Prompting your way to a first draft ensures you’ve got a base layer of topic “essentials” built into your article, so you can focus your creativity on adding your unique voice and turning the overall article into something unique and memorable.
That said, you do need to experiment with prompts to make sure you’re getting an output that works for you. Let’s review a few options for article prompts. (I recommend prompting only one section of the article at a time).
Expand the below into a 250-300 word blog section. Write from a first-person perspective, and speak directly to the reader using “you”. Tone: friendly, casual. Ask questions to transition between paragraphs. Use contractions (like you’re instead of you are).
Note: When I say “expand the below,” I’m referring to the fact that I’m pasting a portion of the outline into ChatGPT so it knows what to expand.
My thoughts:
Generally, I like this output. The friendly tone is the right choice for this kind of article, and the fictional personal anecdote is a good placeholder for dropping your own in later.
But what if I want the concepts to be even simpler?
Here’s a prompt to make your output ultra-readable.
Expand the below into a 250-300 word blog section. Tone: friendly, casual. Write from a first-person perspective, and speak directly to the reader using “you”. Use contractions (like you’re instead of you are). Write at a 5th grade level. Use clear and simple language.
Notice how it avoids complicated words and simplifies the concepts involved.
Remember that ChatGPT is pulling from the hundreds of billions of words it’s scanned in order to come up with this output. But if you want it to use a specific source, you can. Just add additional information to your outline and tell ChatGPT to “use the below as your primary source.”
ChatGPT can also easily generate an introduction and conclusion for you—but to avoid boilerplate text that puts readers to sleep, you’ll want to be clever with your prompts.
For example:
Introduction
Write a 200 paragraph article introduction for an article about [topic]. The introduction should be a maximum of 200 words. Make it highly engaging, interesting, and with a hook in the beginning.
Conclusion
Write an interesting conclusion for an article about [topic]. The conclusion should be a maximum of 300 words. Briefly summarize the article with a list of 5 bullet points. Make it concise.
Challenges
If you’ve played around with ChatGPT enough, you’ve seen its limitations firsthand:
- No authentic perspective
- No consistency in voice
- Repetitive content
- Recycled ideas
While every content writer would love a “one-click” solution to an amazing article, that doesn’t exist yet—even with ChatGPT.
One of the main challenges with using ChatGPT is the risk of producing content that is repetitive or unoriginal. This can happen if you rely too heavily on ChatGPT-generated prompts and ideas, without adding your own unique perspective or voice. To avoid this, it’s important to review and revise the content that ChatGPT generates, adding your own thoughts and insights to make it more original and engaging.
Remember the audience you’re writing for. Will they be hooked on what you’re writing? If not, you need to go back to the drawing board—experiment with using different prompts, or spend more time editing and layering in your own experience and anecdotes.
Persuasive ChatGPT Content Writing Prompts
While ChatGPT can’t entirely replace your unique human insight, using the right prompt can give you the structure and foundation needed to speed up the writing process dramatically.
Much of content writing is designed to educate readers and/or persuade them to take action. The following advanced ChatGPT prompts are designed to take your writing to the next level by adding a dose of persuasion.
To use the prompts below:
- Replace AVATAR with a description of your avatar.
- Replace PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION with a description of your product or service.
- Replace TOPIC with the topic you want, ACTION with the desired action you want them to take (i.e. purchase, click, opt-in, etc.), EMOTION with the emotion(s) you want people to experience.
Educate
- Write a XXX word article that provides valuable and relevant information to AVATAR and persuade them to take ACTION on PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION.
- Write a XXX word article that educates AVATAR on a specific TOPIC and persuade them to take ACTION on PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION.
- Write a XXX word article that clearly explains the features and benefits of PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION to AVATAR and persuade them to make a purchase with a strong call-to-action.
- Write a XXX word article using the Rule of One framework that focuses on one main TOPIC IDEA, one main TOPIC MESSAGE, or one main ACTION in order to make the content more effective and memorable.
- Write a XXX word article using the Inverted Pyramid framework that starts with the most important TOPIC DESCRIPTION and then moves on to less important TOPIC DETAILS, so that readers can quickly get the main points.
Pain Points
- Write a XXX word article that speaks directly to the needs and pain points of AVATAR and persuade them to take ACTION with a sense of urgency and strong offer.
- Write a XXX word article that addresses the pain points and needs of AVATAR and show them how PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION is the solution they’ve been searching for.
Storytelling
- Write a XXX word article that tells the story about PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION and how it has helped AVATAR achieve their GOALS / OUTCOMES in a relatable and engaging way.
- Write a XXX word article that tells the story about PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION and how it has helped AVATAR achieve their GOALS / OUTCOMES in a relatable and engaging way.
Trust Building
- Write a XXX word article that establishes trust and credibility with AVATAR by highlighting the successes and testimonials of previous customers who have used PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION.
- Write a XXX word article that showcases the value and benefits of PRODUCT / SERVICE DESCRIPTION to AVATAR and convince them to take ACTION with social proof and credibility-building elements.
ChatGPT Points The Way, But You Decide
I was struggling to come up with a metaphor for how ChatGPT helps the writing process, so (of course) I asked ChatGPT.
At first, it gave me a couple of tired metaphors: a treasure map, the foundation of a house. But after some prompting, I got an output that rings true to me: a GPS system.
I think this is the right way to look at it.
The advent of GPS systems means that there’s no reason to ever be lost again in a new city. You’ll always have a path to your destination.
Similarly, with ChatGPT, there’s no reason to ever be “lost” while writing again. With a few prompts, you can have an outline to follow and a rough draft to work from. But you need to decide what route to take and where to stop. You decide the priorities, and you guide ChatGPT along the way.
ChatGPT and similar AI content writing tools are only getting more powerful, and the strategies to get the most out of them frequently change. Get more from Bionic Marketing and discover how to use AI for more clicks, conversions, and cash.