I'm Shahid Maqbool, the founder of SEODebate, and I'm excited to share my experiences with using AI-assisted content on our platform. With 13 years of experience in SEO, I understand the value of high-quality content and how search engines prioritize valuable content.
This knowledge has been instrumental in our efforts to create content that resonates with our audience and performs well in search results.
Over the past 8-9 months, my team has been leveraging AI technology to create high-quality content for our audience.
As a result of this, we have been able to produce a significant amount of valuable content for our audience. However, we are now facing a new challenge and are eager to see how our content performs in search results and whether our investment in AI technology pays off.
This case study will examine the performance of AI-assisted content in search results and explore the impact of AI on our content creation process.
History
In April 2022, my team began the content creation process with human-written content. However, I soon realized that our content lacked consistency in brand tone and voice. I was also intrigued by the hype surrounding AI tools.
This led us to explore Jasper, a platform that utilized the GPT-3 model, which was considered the best at the time.
As time passed, we became aware of ChatGPT (launched on 30th November 2022), a powerful language model that could assist us in creating content but not necessarily writing it entirely.
Our primary focus remained to add value to our content, and we found ChatGPT to be a useful tool for achieving that.
In February 2023, Google Search released guidelines regarding AI-generated content, which motivated us to accelerate our content creation process with the assistance of AI. My team started using GPT-4 after its launch on 14 March 2023.
We have been careful about ensuring the quality and making sure that we did not compromise on it during this process. We added value to our content as much as possible.
Our website is live now. We are now expecting a new challenge - the potential impact of AI-assisted content on search engine results pages.
This is something that we need to consider as we continue to refine our content creation process with AI assistance and make decisions about the tools we use.
Why AI assistance was needed?
I encountered challenges in content creation due to limitations in my writing team. Despite following company guidelines, my six writers struggled with inconsistent tones and a lack of cohesion in their work.
Moreover, being the only reviewer responsible for identifying technical errors and ensuring the delivery of valuable output, the process was considerably slowed down, causing delays.
To address this issue, I decided to get assistance from AI tools to adjust and match the tone of the articles, considering the changed tones of the writers.
My team generated a total of 300 human-written articles that were adjusted to match the tone and voice of our brand with the assistance of AI tools like Jasper and ChatGPT.
It is important to note that our intention was not to deceive search engines but rather to create better and more valuable content that enhances the user experience.
That is why, our content was initially generated by humans, and then AI was used to adjust the tone of the articles and add value in accordance with Google's E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) guidelines.
We ensured that our content was aligned with industry standards and guidelines while prioritizing user satisfaction. Throughout the entire process, my team has been diligently adhering to all guidelines to ensure that our content maintains the highest standards.
Finally, I made sure that the information is gathered from reliable sources, including Google, included quotes from Google officials and added other useful information to enhance the credibility of the content.
Our firm focus remained on providing valuable and engaging content to our users, with the ultimate goal of delivering a superior user experience on SEODebate.
How we used Jasper and ChatGPT to get assistance with content creation?
My team followed a rigorous process to create high-quality content.
First, I conducted thorough research to identify relevant topics. Then, I reviewed and proofread the initial drafts to ensure they met our standards. My writers began working on specific topics and creating content.
Next, I collaborated with an AI specialist who optimized the content for search engines and improved its overall quality.
After that, I checked the content for technical mistakes and ensured that it was valuable and of high quality. I made it a point to ensure that every article offered solutions to problems and aligned with our vision and mission.
Finally, I handed over the content to our admin team for uploading. By following this process, I ensured that our content was well-researched, well-written, and optimized for search engines, providing value to our readers and helping us achieve our goals.
We utilized Jasper and ChatGPT 3 in our content creation process to adjust the tone of our human-written content. However, after the launch of GPT-4 on 14 March 2023, we started using it.
I collaborated with my AI specialist to add value by providing missing information, fixing incorrect details, and including references, quotations, tweets, and other relevant elements.
We used human-written content adjusted with AI to make it user-friendly and informative, which complied with Google's helpful content guidelines.
This process helped us create high-quality content that aligned with our brand's tone while providing value to our audience. By using AI assistance, we ensured consistency in our content, which was essential for building trust with our readers.
We ensured that our content adhered to Google's guidelines and provided valuable information, engaging experiences, and user satisfaction.
We used AI for assistance, not for just dumping content on the web. After completing this process, we discovered Google’s new AI guideline (8, February 2023) that confirmed we were heading in the right direction.
These guidelines reinforced the importance of creating valuable content that aligns with our brand's tone and provides solutions to problems.
However, it's important to note that relying solely on AI-generated content may have potential drawbacks, such as a lack of creativity or originality. That's why we did not entirely depend on AI-generated content, but used it as an assistant for our human-written content.
This approach allowed us to deliver comprehensive, engaging, and valuable content to our users while mitigating the limitations of relying solely on AI-generated content.
Why do I believe that AI-assisted content is different from completely AI-generated content?
At SEOdebate, we used Jasper and ChatGPT for our content creation process, but we didn't rely entirely on AI-generated content. Instead, we used AI as an assistant to adjust the tone and voice of our brand.
I believe that AI-assisted content is different from the content that is completely generated by AI. AI-assisted content involves collaboration between human writers and AI tools, which retains human creativity and originality while benefiting from the efficiency of AI tools.
In contrast, completely AI-generated content lacks the human touch and may not fully capture language nuances and user preferences.
Moreover, I understand that AI-generated content may contain plagiarism without any additional information, which is why my team didn't solely rely on it for the content creation process. We used AI as an assistant to complement our human-written content and comply with quality content guidelines.
To ensure that our content provided value to our audience, my writing team manually wrote all the articles and then used AI as an assistant to adjust the tone to match our brand voice.
My team also added value to the content by providing missing information, fixing incorrect information, and including references, quotations, tweets, and other valuable additions.
I believe that fully AI-generated content is distinct from AI-assisted content due to its lack of human touch and potential for plagiarism.
That is the reason our content creation process involved a combination of human creativity and AI-assisted (Ai’s) efficiency, resulting in high-quality content that added value to our content while maintaining our brand's tone and voice.
In a case study on AI content generation conducted by Rahul Bhatia, it was found that humans outperformed AI.
However, in our case study, we will investigate whether AI-assisted content generation can yield different results.
What is the challenge now?
We are currently facing a challenge regarding our content creation process that involves the use of Jasper and ChatGPT to adjust the tone of our human-written content.
Upon checking our articles using originality.ai, we discovered that almost all of them are showing up with an AI detection score of 90-100%.
This has raised concerns about how Google will perceive these contents, given the claims made by originality.ai about it being 100% AI-written.
Attention: Please be aware that this content has also been generated with the assistance of AI technology, in conjunction with human input. It is important to note that it is not entirely AI-generated, it mainly contains human contribution.
To address this issue, I have decided to observe the performance of our AI-assisted content for the next 3-5 months and see how it performs in search results.
I want to see the impact of our approach, where we added value by manually writing all the articles and then using AI as an assistant to adjust the tone of our content to match our brand voice.
My main concern is to comply with Google's guidelines for quality content and ensure that our content is perceived as valuable and authentic by our audience. Therefore, I am closely monitoring the performance of our content to ensure that it meets quality standards.
If I find that our content does not perform as expected after 3-5 months, we will plan to rewrite all of it without AI assistance. However, this will have a major impact on the credibility of all AI-assisted content creation tools that we are currently using.
How did we set ourselves apart from others?
Before utilizing AI in our content creation process, I conducted extensive research to ensure that our content is unique and valuable. I have noticed that many other companies are sacrificing the quality of their content just to achieve a 0% AI-generated score from tools like originality.ai.
However, we have not compromised on the quality and continued to add unique and valuable content with the assistance of AI.
I believe that the use of AI in content creation should be embraced, as long as it adds value and maintains the quality of the content.
We are committed to providing valuable content while utilizing AI tools for assistance to enhance our content creation process.
Expected results & plans
My plan is to assess the performance of our AI-assisted content by tracking its impact on search rankings over the next 3-5 months. I will closely monitor the search rankings of the content to determine whether AI-assisted content is beneficial in terms of search engine optimization.
There are two possible outcomes to this experiment.
A positive outcome would be if our AI-assisted content ranks well in search results, demonstrating that AI tools can be used responsibly as per Google’s guidelines to improve content creation.
On the other hand, a negative outcome would be if our AI-assisted content doesn't rank well in search results, get deindexed, or is removed by Google - suggesting that relying on AI tools for content creation may not be as effective as we initially believed.
In case the experiment fails, we have a contingency plan in place to redo all our content without AI assistance. Because if Google does not give significant importance to AI-assisted content, then there is no need to use it.
Therefore, if our primary goal is to make our brand discoverable through search engines, there may not be a need to rely heavily on content created using AI assistance. Conversely, if we do not want to solely rely on search engines for our brand discovery, then AI can be used for content creation as desired.
However, this decision will leave a significant impact on all AI-related content creation tools we are currently using and question their credibility. It will make us and others think that even if AI tools are used for assistance in content creation, they may not be as valuable as they claim to be.
Results will be updated in this post after every 30 days
Final Thoughts
This case study showcases how AI-assisted content creation can enhance content consistency, tone, and quality while adding value and meeting search engine guidelines.
While AI can streamline the content creation process and provide valuable insights and suggestions, the human touch is critical in bringing a unique perspective and voice to the content.
My SEOdebate team under my supervision employed AI tools such as Jasper and ChatGPT to generate high-quality content that fulfilled Google's criteria and provided useful information to users.
So what is next?
I am planning to closely monitor the outcomes of our AI-assisted content creation process and will provide updates accordingly.
My hope is that our experiences will benefit us and others who are using AI as an aid in creating valuable content that meets Google's guidelines. Ultimately, only time will tell how successful my efforts are!