10 Steps to Take to Combat AI as a Blogger

Are you a blogger or use a blog to build your business? You’ve probably heard all the talk about AI coming and Google making all these changes. And if you have, you’re probably a little bit panicked. I’ve heard the worries from friends and clients about this, so I put together 10 steps to take to combat AI as a blogger to put you at ease. These 10 steps are ones you can take today and they will ensure your blog is still gaining traffic and becoming more profitable–even in the age of AI. 

 

 

I’m hitting this topic head-on because I know you have built and spent years and years building a successful blogging platform. You’re getting tons of traffic, bringing you ad and affiliate revenue. So the thought of AI coming and someone being able to go to ChatGPT and say, “Make me a blog post that includes a top 10 cake recipes” and then get a result in 30 seconds or less can be really unnerving. 

When you’ve put in all this time and energy for such a long period of time on your blog, you want to make sure your efforts won’t get lost in the AI madness happening out there. How do you stay ahead of this type of competition? You can do it with these 10 steps to take to combat AI as a blogger. 

 

10 Steps to Take to Combat AI as a Blogger

 

 

Pro Blogger Step #1: Connect with your audience. 

In order to stay ahead of the AI competition, you need to embrace what makes you different from AI. Because you are a real person writing the blog post–and not a robot–you get to hone in on your audience and their pain points even more. 

AI can write a killer blog post, but it doesn’t know exactly who your audience is, your history with them, and the specific problems you help solve for them. At the end of the day, your audience really wants to connect. Getting advice from a real person where you know they really did try out the recipe they’re sharing with you or try on the clothes they’re recommending, etc. makes it so much more real for people and that’s what they want. 

When writing your blog posts, don’t be afraid to whole-heartedly show your personality and personal experiences in there because that is what will make you stand out and make your audience want to stay and keep reading your posts.

 

Pro Blogger Step #2: Include a video in every blog post.

Adding videos to your blog posts will massively help with your ranking on search engines. YouTube is a really great platform to post content and it’s so easy to embed that video into your blog posts. Checking this box for each post will help you cover two of the three major search engines (Google, YouTube, and Pinterest). 

Maybe you don’t have a YouTube channel yet, and that is totally OK. You could even embed an Instagram reel into your blog post and Google will recognize that as a video. Google likes when you include videos on your posts because just about everyone is searching for video content. Including those videos on your blog posts will help you rank on more searches! 

Make sure the videos you embed on your blog posts are relevant to what your post is about. You don’t want a random video on the post just to have it there. The content needs to correlate. Not only will it help to embed videos on all your future blog posts, but to update old blog posts with videos. This will improve the credibility of your overall blog, and increase your SEO ranking.

 

Pro Blogger Step #3: Get reviews for your posts.

This step is specific for food bloggers or people who have instructions e.g. tutorials. The more reviews you get on your posts, the higher rank you will get. Encourage your followers to leave a review on your posts and it can be something super quick and easy. Google recognizes those reviews and can tell which ones are real people and which ones are bots. So, the more real reviews you get the higher you will rank AND the more it legitmizes your website and that blog post.

 

 

Pro Blogger Step #4: Capitalize on trends.

ChatGPT is not up to date. This is to your advantage because any trending things going on in the world, ChatGPT will not know about it and will therefore not generate content about it. For example, Barbie and Ken will be a huge Halloween costume option this year since the movie just recently came out. This trend is something you can capitalize on in your content if it fits your niche. Otherwise, find other trending topics and see how you can join in on the conversation.

 The more you can show that you respond to things that are actually happening in the world, the easier it is to be recognized as a real person and not ChatGPT. It will also help you stay connected to your audience, which we know they love!

 

Pro Blogger Step #5: Build a personal brand and community.

You have to give people a reason to trust you and come back to you. You do this by sharing actual content from your daily life. This can be shown through your words, pictures, and videos that you include in your blog posts.

Do not use stock images. There are people who are just using random stock images and the problem with that is they’re not yours. If you are sharing a recipe or some type of tutorial, use your own images. Using your own image content will help you be known for your imagery and people can recognize it and come back for it. 

Include what you’ve been doing lately in your blog posts, include your personality, and stay true to your writing voice. This is something ChatGPT cannot do. Giving your audience a reason to trust you and connect with you is your superpower. You understand your audience so well and you know exactly the type of content that they’re going to want and love. 

 

Pro Blogger Step #6: Collaborate with other bloggers.

Collaborating with other bloggers will build your backlinks. Backlinks are when someone links back to your website. You want those backlinks to be on legit, really solid websites that are being updated regularly. 

Think about your blogger friends and how you could create a collaboration with each other. The holidays are coming up, so there are lots of things you could do right now to help build each other’s backlinks. Maybe you link to each other’s holiday recipes, favorite holiday decor, holiday outfits, etc. Depending on your niche, decide on what type of collaboration would be fun to do and make it happen.

Having this collaboration is a win for all parties because it’s building the backlinks for you and your friends (which Google adores) and you are able to serve your audience in a really fun way.

 

 

Pro Blogger Step #7: Clean up your SEO.

Keeping your website nice and clean will help so much with your ranking. Cleaning up your site is something you should be doing every 2-3 years. Google and other industries are always changing, so you want to make sure your content stays up-to-date and coincides with what these search engines provide. 

One thing AI is actually really good at is the technical side of SEO. If you want to keep up with AI in this aspect you have to get good at this as well. One thing to make sure of is that your site is not lagging. How long does it take for your blog post to load when someone clicks on your link? Most people will not wait even 5 seconds for a page to load. And your site shouldn’t take that long to load anyway–if it is then your site is probably not cleaned up. 

If your website is running slower than you’d like, there are a few things you can check on in order to speed up your loading time. Maybe your ads make your site too clunky, or you have too big of images on your posts. Perhaps you have some plugins that aren’t working out right now. Take a look at all of these things and see what your site needs.

If you want to rank high, you have to write for SEO. This means you are going to be very intentional about your keywords. You may even need to do some keyword research and find keywords that are used enough in searches to help guide you on what type of content to write about. 

Your keywords and being intentional about the ones you use will change everything for your website. Having keywords is what will actually help your content show up for people when they search for it.

 

Pro Blogger Step #8: Have short, descriptive headlines & URLs. 

Every single headline you write should have a keyword in it. And make sure to never put a date in your headline. Putting a date or a year in the title keeps your content from being evergreen. You want your blogging content to last as long as possible because it is designed that way. I still have blog posts that I wrote years ago and I’m still making money from them. Keeping the dates out of the title will help it seem up to date and I’m sure there will still be valuable information in the post years later as well. 

Click HERE to get my FREE guide that includes 131 hooks/headlines that will draw your people in AND rank in SEO. 

 

Pro Blogger Step #9: Make your site super user-friendly.

While your content may be top-notch, have the best-tasting recipes, or are super passionate about what you’re sharing, that doesn’t mean you will rank the best on a Google search. The blog posts that rank the highest are the ones that nail SEO. 

And part of having killer SEO is having a really clean, user-friendly website. Does your site freeze up when you’re scrolling through it? Is it hard to find certain topics through a keyword search? Do ads make the posts super hard to read and decipher what content is actually yours? 

You want to keep up with regular maintenance on your site, so it will always be running smoothly for your users. When people come to your site and it’s beautiful and working super well, they will stick around and that’s exactly what you want. (If you want some help with the design part of your site to freshen things up, I have some templates for you HERE that you can choose from!) 

 

Pro Blogger Step #10: Have a blog strategy.

I feel super passionate about this one. You need to have a blog strategy. Period. And it needs to be completely different from your Instagram strategy because they work in totally different ways. For instance, Instagram content can grow really quickly, but blog content takes a bit more time for it to get views. 

With that being said, if you publish a blog post that has to do with the holidays you want to post it 6-8 weeks in advance. If you wait to post it a couple of days before the actual holiday, you will have missed the mark. People are searching for holiday content way in advance because that’s when they are thinking about it, planning for it, etc. That’s when the search volume will be the highest and you want your post to be a part of that timeframe. 

Having a strategy and doing the research will make all the difference when it comes to the reach you’ll have on your content. If you are just posting content because a few people in your audience asked for it, then you are only serving those people. While this is helpful to them, this is not a sustainable strategy for your business. 

If nailing down a strategy seems impossible or you have no idea where to begin, let my team help you. We will get everything set up for you and help you along the way. You will be the most strategic you’ve ever been and you’ll be blown away by the results. Check out how we can serve you HERE. 

 

 

10 Steps to Take to Combat AI as a Blogger 

I can’t wait for you to commit to these 10 steps to take to combat AI as a blogger. This is a really big opportunity for those who are paying attention to get ahead of the curve here. There are going to be people who are not paying attention to the changes AI and Google are making and they are going to fall behind. But not you. 

Do the work on your website to keep it cleaned up and ready for the changes ahead. Complete these 10 steps and you will be in a really good place where AI won’t even have a chance against you. Your content and business will thrive more than it ever has before. If you want more tips and strategies for running and growing an online business, make sure to follow me on Instagram @iammichellegifford!