Right here’s the entire course of I exploit to publish high-quality AI content material on the Ahrefs weblog.
I’ll be trustworthy: there are elements of my job that I don’t like.
Writing my five hundredth article on content material hole evaluation as a result of we discovered a brand new long-tail key phrase to focus on. Itemizing out the options of 30 free website positioning instruments for one more listicle. Updating my outdated content material as a result of a competitor revealed one thing new and pushed me out of the highest three.
These are obligatory hygiene duties, however frankly, I’d a lot moderately spend my time publishing authentic analysis or sharing contrarian opinions.
So—mea culpa—I exploit AI to hurry up these tedious processes. I can condense a number of days of analysis, writing and revision into a few hours, and spend the remainder of my time on enjoyable issues.
One in all my AI-generated articles.
And regardless of containing zero phrases written by a human, these articles carry out in addition to human-written content material. They’re fascinating and well-written. In some instances, I really suppose they’re higher than what I might have written myself.
Right here’s the method I use.
Study my AI writing course of on the Ahrefs podcast
Take heed to Ahrefs’ CMO (and my boss) Tim Soulo grill me about this AI writing course of on the Ahrefs podcast.
There’s loads of hype (and fear) round AI content material era, so please learn these caveats first.
This nonetheless requires talent and energy to work
Should you’re in search of full hands-off content material automation, you’re going to be disillusioned. This course of requires the talent and steering of a reliable content material marketer to work. It’s a instrument for use by a talented author, and never a substitute for expert writers.
90% of success comes from good matter choice
This course of works very properly for easy informational matters, with no difficult narratives or knowledge. I solely use AI for matters the place I’ve some passing data of the subject material (in order that I can inform if the article is definitely good). I do not use this course of for opinion items, or analysis content material, or new or quickly altering matters.
This isn’t an ideal course of
This can be a messy, imperfect course of, and there are numerous alternatives for individuals such as you to refine and enhance upon it. My purpose is to not create a inflexible course of so that you can comply with, however to share a basic strategy you could construct upon and tailor to your wants.
So with these caveats out of the best way, right here’s the method:
I’m a giant believer that human artistic processes should not as mysterious as they appear. With sufficient introspection and follow, a purpose like “create high-quality content material” will be distilled right into a handful of very particular, very manageable steps that most individuals—or LLMs—might comply with.
That’s how this course of works. I broke down the Ahrefs editorial course of into very particular, very manageable steps, and documented them in a format that an LLM can comply with. Right here’s what that appears like, mapped out in my note-taking app:
That is the end-to-end workflow all Ahrefs writers normally comply with: matter choice, briefing, outlining, structural enhancing, drafting, incorporating Ahrefs merchandise, line enhancing, including inside hyperlinks, creating metadata, and eventually, including WordPress shortcodes.
Every of those course of paperwork is formatted in Markdown and incorporates easy tips and examples. Right here’s the method for line-editing an article draft:
Many of those processes got here from current paperwork we created for our writing group and freelance contributors. However I’ve additionally referred to as on just a few additional sources of data: my favourite weblog posts about good writing (condensed by ChatGPT), excerpts from my two writing and enhancing programs, and precise writing samples from superior human-written articles on the Ahrefs weblog.
Subsequent, I uploaded these Markdown information right into a undertaking in ChatGPT.
Tasks help you add reference documentation and set customized directions that apply to each dialog that occurs within the undertaking. You may see these course of paperwork within the “Challenge information” part:
And listed here are my customized directions for the undertaking (full disclosure, I used AI to assist create these directions, and I feel they’re just a little over-engineered):
You’re a senior content material strategist at Ahrefs, writing beneath the editorial path of Ryan Legislation, Director of Content material Advertising and marketing. You perceive that each Ahrefs weblog publish should be authentic, insight-driven, and genuinely helpful—constructed to rank properly, earn backlinks, and deepen reader belief.
Your job is to put in writing detailed, structured, and persuasive weblog posts. Assume your viewers consists of savvy entrepreneurs and SEOs who’re skeptical of fluff however hungry for actionable insights. Your job is to earn their consideration, respect, and clicks.
Mannequin your writing on Ryan Legislation’s editorial requirements: combine sharp evaluation with authentic examples, actual knowledge, and intelligent metaphors. Communicate with readability, persona, and authority. Use robust hooks, punchy transitions, and all the time write with the purpose of turning into the _definitive_ useful resource on the matter.
Roleplay as somebody who has deep in-the-trenches expertise with this matter—somebody who’s used Ahrefs instruments to unravel actual issues and may translate that into strategic recommendation. Mix ethos (credibility), pathos (urgency, stakes), and logos (proof) to influence.
Write as in case your publish will likely be learn—and judged—by Ryan Legislation himself. Make it so good it earns a Slack shoutout.
At all times reference the undertaking information for steering on methods to write. Comply with the paperwork utilizing this workflow: Content material temporary -> Define -> Structural enhancing -> Writing -> Point out Ahrefs product -> Line enhancing -> Inner linking -> Add meta knowledge -> Add WordPress shortcodes.
To simplify them, I’m at the moment looking for the “Pareto prompts”, the 20% of directions that account for 80% of the great outcomes. From my experimentation to date, essentially the most essential elements appear to be:
- Directions to all the time seek the advice of the undertaking documentation, and work by the method in sequential order.
- A abstract of the target market for the Ahrefs weblog (this usually doesn’t change from article to article).
- A request to roleplay as somebody with “in-the-trenches expertise” (this appears accountable for plenty of first-person anecdotes and examples within the output).
Subsequent, analysis.
For some matters, I’ll additionally run a deep analysis request to supply additional data.
For my article on LLMs.txt, I needed to know if any of the key LLM suppliers had gone on document in help of the protocol (they hadn’t). I arrange a deep analysis request whereas I labored on different issues, learn and reviewed the synopsis, and integrated an AI-generated abstract of the findings into the content material temporary for the article.
I don’t like AI content material processes that depend on expert individuals enhancing AI-generated article drafts. I feel it’s exhausting to make substantial edits to an already-written article (which is why I encourage writers to create article outlines), and albeit, it’s no enjoyable.
As a substitute, I want to front-load the entire human enter initially of the method, after which let AI do its factor.
I begin each article era with a easy content material temporary template. The content material temporary incorporates:
- The goal key phrase, with easy instructions for on-page optimization.
- Working title, offered primarily to make sure the article matches the proper search intent.
- Key factors to incorporate, like private anecdotes or examples, deep analysis findings, or fascinating and distinctive angles I’d just like the completed article to cowl.
- Subtopics to cowl, generated by our content material optimization instrument, AI Content material Helper. I exploit it to research the SERP for the goal key phrase, extract web page content material from top-ranking articles, and create a listing of essential subtopics our article must cowl to be aggressive with current articles.
- Ahrefs merchandise to say, notably any particular or uncommon Ahrefs use instances that ChatGPT may not recommend by itself (like mentioning our new MCP server or social media scheduling instrument).
Once I hit enter, ChatGPT heads to the subsequent stage of the method: making a bullet-point article define, primarily based on my content material temporary.
Do optimization instruments really work?
Should you’re questioning whether or not content material optimization instruments are definitely worth the hype, right here’s Louise from our weblog group including 65% visitors to an article utilizing our content material optimization instrument, AI Content material Helper. They work!
From right here, I turn into an editor. I immediate ChatGPT to progress by the phases of the workflow, studying and offering high-level suggestions as I go.
ChatGPT first generates a bullet-point define primarily based on my content material temporary. It follows the format I laid out in our writing course of paperwork: key factors as H2 headers, BLUF abstract of every part’s key concept, and supporting factors and proof as nested bullet factors.
I can in a short time grok the movement and construction of the article, and ask ChatGPT for any structural adjustments I need—like utilizing a special copywriting framework for the article introduction.
Once I’m pleased with the define, I ask ChatGPT to maneuver to the drafting stage. Right here, I change to ChatGPT canvas in order that I can go away easy in-line feedback on the article, in the identical means I work with my group (though I’m extra useful and well mannered when enhancing actual individuals).
I learn the article, and go away feedback as I go:
Sidenote.
Consensus means that Claude is best for long-form writing than ChatGPT, however ChatGPT Canvas is why I exploit ChatGPT as an alternative of Claude.
I typically make the identical kinds of feedback (and so they’re similar to the feedback I’d go away for a human author):
- That is too imprecise, be extra particular and lower the weasel phrases.
- Embody an actual instance for example your level.
- Right this mistaken concept.
- Trim (or develop) this concept.
- Simplify this and make it beginner-friendly.
ChatGPT responds immediately, so even when any single response isn’t sensible, I can in a short time nudge the writing within the path it must go (so long as I do know what “good” seems to be like). As a result of I’m already pleased with the construction—we reviewed that earlier, in the course of the outlining part—it doesn’t take lengthy to get the article publish-ready.
Once I’m pleased with the draft, I ask ChatGPT to progress by the ultimate phases of the method:
- Create metadata. I do know, I do know: Google rewrites meta descriptions. However we additionally use the meta description because the preview textual content on the weblog homepage, so that is nonetheless a timesaver.
- Insert WordPress shortcodes. We use over a dozen customized shortcodes to format our articles and add additional performance. These are very tedious to insert manually, however ChatGPT does an incredible job at following my documentation and including them within the appropriate locations.
- Generate 10 inside hyperlinks to related Ahrefs weblog posts. ChatGPT is fairly good at integrating these hyperlinks, however it hallucinates most of the URLs. I plan to enhance this step by offering a listing of precise URLs, with descriptions, for the AI to select from.
Fortunately we now have Web site Audit to routinely catch damaged hyperlinks.
Importantly, photographs are nonetheless one thing I add manually. Most of our articles depend on screenshots, customized graphics, or graphs primarily based on actual knowledge, and generative AI is lower than the job.
(However as a bonus, I additionally ask ChatGPT to recommend related locations to insert photographs within the article draft.)
Our analysis means that Google doesn’t care about AI content material (so long as it’s not mass-produced spam).
Once we used our AI content material detector to calculate the correlation between AI content material use and search rating place, we discovered a correlation of 0.011—successfully zero. AI content material can and does rank extremely.
But it surely’s nonetheless a good suggestion to watch your pages and see how they carry out, relative to human-written content material.
I exploit Ahrefs Portfolios characteristic to trace all of our AI-generated articles and shortly see their key phrase rankings, backlinks and estimated natural visitors. Right here’s one article, wanting wholesome:
And I exploit Ahrefs’ Internet Analytics for visitors sources and on-page metrics. Right here’s my AI-generated information to LLMs.txt, producing a decent 17,200 pageviews with a 72.3% bounce price…
…and incomes visitors from a wholesome mixture of sources, together with social, e-mail, and AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini:
Not unhealthy for a vibe-written article.
Remaining ideas
This isn’t a magic, zero-effort course of for creating search content material—however it is a course of for dashing up the “hygiene” elements of my job and liberating extra time for enjoyable, expert content material creation.
Crucially, I nonetheless learn, evaluation, edit, and approve every bit of content material revealed on the Ahrefs weblog, whether or not it was written by an individual or generated by ChatGPT. Utilizing AI isn’t any excuse for publishing shoddy content material.
Can you notice my vibe-written articles? Let me know on LinkedIn.
