Will Google automatically penalise you for using AI-generated content? No.
Especially with their announcement that they will be releasing their own AI software, Bard, to the public mid to late February 2023.
Here’s what Google says about using AI-generated writing when it comes to harming search engine rankings:
‘Our focus on the quality of content, rather than how content is produced, is a useful guide that has helped us deliver reliable, high quality results to users for years.
Focusing on rewarding quality content has been core to Google since we began. It continues today, including through our ranking systems designed to surface reliable information and our helpful content system. The helpful content system was introduced last year to better ensure those searching get content created primarily for people, rather than for search ranking purposes.’
But be careful! It’s not all roses…
‘Using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies.’
So what can you do to ensure you’re not penalised when using AI-generated content?
‘As explained, however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.’
So if you are creating your content with the help of AI, you must make sure it’s meeting the EEAT standards. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, AI software is fine for filler content, but you really want to be doing all of the following to help appeal to search engines and your audience.
Make the content your own
You can do this by adding in personal anecdotes and case studies and really expanding out the text with examples of your own. Make sure you include examples that have actually happened in your real life or in your business life. Because, at the moment, the software can’t replicate that.
Add recent statistics
To stand out from other AI-generated content, consider adding statistics, quotes, and data that are recent. At the moment, chatGPT can’t access data after 2019. So you can set your content apart by adding in statistics from the past couple of years. And it’s good practice anyway to try and add statistics to back up your messages using data from the past 12 months anyway. And on that note, it might be worth you going through old blog posts and updating them with recent statistics, links and resources now. Did you really think you were going to read one of my blog posts without getting homework? As if!
Create a tone of voice guide and use it
One of the things about AI-generated writing is that it can often sound like a machine or robot. So one of the things that I’ve been doing with my content— and with my clients’ content— is deliberately making it sound more human-like so that it stands apart from the rest of the generic content that exists out there. And also ensuring that it talks more closely to their target audience.
Before you start blogging or creating a website, I recommend creating a tone of voice document that you will always adhere to. If you’ve already started, it’s never too late to create this tone of voice document, or style guide, as it can be a really handy reference tool to go back to and pluck out words that you will use in your content.
Plus, it really guides the language and style that you use time and time again. It takes some of the guesswork out of having to plan how to write something. Again, giving you a distinctive voice and sets you apart from the generic content that will soon hit many blogs.
One of the easy ways I am able to be so prolific when it comes to my blogging and copywriting clients is that I use voice dictation to take down my key messages and write paragraphs for me. This gives the dual purpose of being able to produce content relatively quickly. Plus, it writes it in my unique voice because it’s so easy to talk in my natural sounding way, using everyday language.
You might like to try this hack next time you write a blog post. And who knows, this actually might be a quicker way for you to write rather than getting generic content from AI and having to basically edit it from scratch. As a professional writer, I often find it takes just as long to edit a piece of work as to write it from scratch. And with voice recording, it’s done in literally a matter of seconds.
Editing
Always ALWAYS edit your content so that it sounds like you and it has personalised dialect and nuance in it. You would be crazy just to cut and paste any AI-generated content straight into your blog or website without editing it within an inch of its life.
Rewrite it so that it sounds like you, your business or your brand because audiences are not dumb! They will know generic copy straight away and will zone out and won’t pay attention to the important stuff that you’re trying to tell them.
Make sure that you check any AI-written stuff for plagiarism and spellcheck your work.
Don’t forget that you need to add your SEO factors to the content as well to actually start ranking. It’s not enough just to have this content written for you.
Want to learn to write better than software ever could? Join BLANK TO BRILLIANT now.
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