Right here’s the entire course of I take advantage of 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 search engine optimisation instruments for yet one more listicle. Updating my previous content material as a result of a competitor revealed one thing new and pushed me out of the highest three.
These are essential hygiene duties, however frankly, I’d a lot fairly spend my time publishing unique analysis or sharing contrarian opinions.
So—mea culpa—I take advantage of 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.
Considered one of 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 attention-grabbing and well-written. In some instances, I really assume they’re higher than what I might have written myself.
Right here’s the method I use.
Find out about my AI writing course of on the Ahrefs podcast
Hearken to Ahrefs’ CMO (and my boss) Tim Soulo grill me about this AI writing course of on the Ahrefs podcast.
There’s numerous hype (and fear) round AI content material era, so please learn these caveats first.
This nonetheless requires ability and energy to work
In the event you’re on the lookout for full hands-off content material automation, you’re going to be upset. This course of requires the ability and steerage of a reliable content material marketer to work. It’s a instrument for use by a talented author, and never a alternative for expert writers.
90% of success comes from good subject choice
This course of works very effectively for easy informational matters, with no difficult narratives or information. I solely use AI for matters the place I’ve some passing information 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 various alternatives for folks such as you to refine and enhance upon it. My objective is to not create a inflexible course of so that you can observe, however to share a basic strategy that you could construct upon and tailor to your wants.
So with these caveats out of the way in which, right here’s the method:
I’m an enormous believer that human inventive processes are usually not as mysterious as they appear. With sufficient introspection and follow, a objective 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 observe.
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 observe. Right here’s what that appears like, mapped out in my note-taking app:
That is the end-to-end workflow all Ahrefs writers often observe: subject choice, briefing, outlining, structural modifying, drafting, incorporating Ahrefs merchandise, line modifying, including inner hyperlinks, creating metadata, and eventually, including WordPress shortcodes.
Every of those course of paperwork is formatted in Markdown and accommodates easy tips and examples. Right here’s the method for line-editing an article draft:
Many of those processes got here from present paperwork we created for our writing group and freelance contributors. However I’ve additionally referred to as on a number of further sources of data: my favourite weblog posts about good writing (condensed by ChatGPT), excerpts from my two writing and modifying programs, and precise writing samples from superior human-written articles on the Ahrefs weblog.
Subsequent, I uploaded these Markdown recordsdata right into a mission in ChatGPT.
Tasks will let you add reference documentation and set customized directions that apply to each dialog that occurs within the mission. You possibly can see these course of paperwork within the “Mission recordsdata” part:
And listed below are my customized directions for the mission (full disclosure, I used AI to assist create these directions, and I feel they’re a bit over-engineered):
You’re a senior content material strategist at Ahrefs, writing underneath the editorial route of Ryan Regulation, Director of Content material Advertising and marketing. You perceive that each Ahrefs weblog put up should be unique, insight-driven, and genuinely helpful—constructed to rank effectively, earn backlinks, and deepen reader belief.
Your job is to jot down 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 Regulation’s editorial requirements: combine sharp evaluation with unique examples, actual information, and intelligent metaphors. Communicate with readability, persona, and authority. Use robust hooks, punchy transitions, and at all times write with the objective of turning into the _definitive_ useful resource on the subject.
Roleplay as somebody who has deep in-the-trenches expertise with this subject—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 steer.
Write as in case your put up might be learn—and judged—by Ryan Regulation himself. Make it so good it earns a Slack shoutout.
All the time reference the mission recordsdata for steerage on the best way to write. Comply with the paperwork utilizing this workflow: Content material temporary -> Define -> Structural modifying -> Writing -> Point out Ahrefs product -> Line modifying -> Inner linking -> Add meta information -> Add WordPress shortcodes.
To simplify them, I’m at present looking for the “Pareto prompts”, the 20% of directions that account for 80% of the nice outcomes. From my experimentation to this point, essentially the most essential elements appear to be:
- Directions to at all times seek the advice of the mission documentation, and work by means of the method in sequential order.
- A abstract of the audience 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 further data.
I don’t like AI content material processes that depend on expert folks modifying 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 admittedly, it’s no enjoyable.
As an alternative, I desire to front-load the entire human enter at first 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 accommodates:
- The goal key phrase, with easy instructions for on-page optimization.
- Working title, supplied primarily to make sure the article matches the right search intent.
- Key factors to incorporate, like private anecdotes or examples, deep analysis findings, or attention-grabbing and distinctive angles I’d just like the completed article to cowl.
- Subtopics to cowl, generated by our content material optimization instrument, AI Content Helper. I use it to analyze the SERP for the target keyword, extract page content from top-ranking articles, and create a list of important subtopics our article needs to cover to be competitive with existing articles.
- Ahrefs products to mention, particularly any specific or unusual Ahrefs use cases that ChatGPT might not suggest on its own (like mentioning our new MCP server or social media scheduling tool).
When I hit enter, ChatGPT heads to the next stage of the process: creating a bullet-point article outline, based on my content brief.
Do optimization tools actually work?
If you’re wondering whether content optimization tools are worth the hype, here’s Louise from our blog team including 65% visitors to an article utilizing our content material optimization instrument, AI Content material Helper. They work!
From right here, I turn out to be an editor. I immediate ChatGPT to progress by means of the levels of the workflow, studying and offering high-level suggestions as I go.
ChatGPT first generates a bullet-point define based mostly 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 move and construction of the article, and ask ChatGPT for any structural modifications I need—like utilizing a unique copywriting framework for the article introduction.
After I’m proud of the define, I ask ChatGPT to maneuver to the drafting stage. Right here, I swap to ChatGPT canvas in order that I can depart easy in-line feedback on the article, in the identical method I work with my group (though I’m extra useful and well mannered when modifying actual folks).
I learn the article, and depart feedback as I go:
Sidenote.
Consensus means that Claude is healthier for long-form writing than ChatGPT, however ChatGPT Canvas is why I take advantage of ChatGPT as a substitute of Claude.
I typically make the identical kinds of feedback (they usually’re similar to the feedback I’d depart for a human author):
- That is too imprecise, be extra particular and reduce the weasel words.
- Embody an actual instance for example your level.
- Appropriate this improper concept.
- Trim (or develop) this concept.
- Simplify this and make it beginner-friendly.
ChatGPT responds immediately, so even when any single response isn’t good, I can in a short time nudge the writing within the route it must go (so long as I do know what “good” seems like). As a result of I’m already proud of the construction—we reviewed that earlier, through the outlining section—it doesn’t take lengthy to get the article publish-ready.
After I’m proud of the draft, I ask ChatGPT to progress by means of the ultimate levels 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 further performance. These are very tedious to insert manually, however ChatGPT does a fantastic job at following my documentation and including them within the right locations.
- Generate 10 inner hyperlinks to related Ahrefs weblog posts. ChatGPT is fairly good at integrating these hyperlinks, however it hallucinates lots of the URLs. I plan to enhance this step by offering an inventory of precise URLs, with descriptions, for the AI to select from.
Fortunately we now have Web site Audit to robotically catch damaged hyperlinks.
Importantly, photographs are nonetheless one thing I add manually. Most of our articles depend on screenshots, customized graphics, or graphs based mostly on actual information, and generative AI is less than the activity.
(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).
After 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—effectively zero. AI content can and does rank highly.
But it’s still a good idea to monitor your pages and see how they perform, relative to human-written content.
I use Ahrefs Portfolios feature to track all of our AI-generated articles and quickly see their keyword rankings, backlinks and estimated organic traffic. Here’s one article, looking healthy:
And I use Ahrefs’ Web Analytics for traffic sources and on-page metrics. Here’s my AI-generated guide to LLMs.txt, generating a respectable 17,200 pageviews with a 72.3% bounce rate…
…and earning traffic from a healthy mix of sources, including social, email, and AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini:
Not bad for a vibe-written article.
Final thoughts
This is not a magic, zero-effort process for creating search content—but it is a process for speeding up the “hygiene” parts of my job and freeing more time for fun, skilled content creation.
Crucially, I still read, review, edit, and approve every piece of content published on the Ahrefs blog, whether it was written by a person or generated by ChatGPT. Using AI is no excuse for publishing shoddy content.
Can you spot my vibe-written articles? Let me know on LinkedIn.
