Using ChatGPT4
For Small Business Content Development
In Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the mantra “Content is King” highlights the idea that compelling content is a key driver for attracting and retaining website visitors, which in turn helps websites rank higher on search result pages.
Websites that offer informative, well-researched, and engaging content are more likely to earn higher visibility on Google and other search engines. Beyond attracting clicks, high-quality content fosters user engagement, encourages social sharing, and builds trust with the audience, all of which are factors that search engines consider when ranking content.
Up until now, however, great content has been hard to come by. Do you have a writer on staff, one experienced in web content, social media, and SEO? Have you hired a freelancer or an agency to create your content? Content Development is expensive! According to UPReports, the monthly cost of Social Media Content in the US lies between $800 and $5,000/month, Website content between $1,500 and $4,500 for a small site, and blog articles between $200 and $750 each.
Today, both small business owners and web agencies have a low cost genius to call upon.
Large Language Models to the Rescue
You’ve probably heard of OpenAI’s ChatGPT4 and maybe you’ve even tried it. Pretty cool, right? But you may not know all that it can do. In this article we’ll go over the basics on how to use it effectively and give you some ideas you may not have thought about.
First, what is a Large Language Model? An LLM is an advanced artificial intelligence designed to understand, generate, and interact with human language at a large scale. These models are trained on vast amounts of text data, enabling them to grasp the nuances of language, including grammar, context, and even some elements of cultural and idiomatic expressions.
GPT4 is said to have completed the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), achieving a verbal score of 710 and a math score of 690, resulting in a combined score of 1400 (higher than 95% of all test takers).
And for a mere $20/month (OpenAI’s fee for their LLM), you can ask ChatGPT4 to write anything and help you in other ways as well.
Here’s How You Do It – Prompt Engineering
The first thing we have to stress is that ChatGPT4 is a tool, and you have to learn how to use it effectively. Just asking the LLM to “write an article on best practices in plumbing” will get a result, but not always the one you want.
You have to know how to prompt the tool to get the best results. In fact, that is looking like a new career path, one called Prompt Engineering. Prompt engineering is the practice of designing inputs for generative AI tools that will produce optimal outputs.
How to Use ChatGPT4 to Write an Article
First, do use ChatGPT4, the paid version. ChatGPT3.5 is not nearly as good for serious content development.
Write your article in stages, like human writers do:
- Ask ChatGPT4 for a list of ideas on your topic of interest. It’s as easy as “Please provide a list of article ideas on how to deal with summer allergies in toddlers.”
- Pick one of the ideas (or ask for more ideas; or ask to modify one in a particular way.) i.e. “I like the ‘Top Natural Remedies’ idea, please adjust it to a listicle of ‘Top 5 Natural Remedies?”
- With the idea you want, ask ChatGPT4 to outline the article. It will do this, and then you can ask for modifications, just as you did with the basic idea. (Critical note: we didn’t ask it to write the article yet, we ask only for the outline.)
- Write the article sections one at a time.
- You might start with “Please provide a 1-2 paragraph introduction to the article as proposed.
- Once you have that, move on to each section, one at a time. “Please write a 3-5 paragraph section on “saline nasal irrigation to help toddlers with their allergies.”
- Once the article is complete, including a conclusion and call to action (for more information, give us a call at this number), then go back through for an editorial pass.
- If specific facts are mentioned, you want to manually check those online for confirmation from other sources.
- You want to make sure the article sounds like you want it to, for your audience.
That may sound like a bit of work altogether. The reality is, the process as described above is likely to be 3-5 hours work for a human, maybe more depending on length and research needed. Using ChatGPT4, you can often do the same work in less than half the time. That’s for complex subjects. Simple, 300-word blogs, you can crank out in minutes with practice.
Why Not Just Say “Write Me an Article on….”
There are reasons for doing it a certain way. For one thing, when ChatGPT4 gets past about 350 words, it gets into a range where it may hallucinate and is more likely to provide false or misleading information. Working in stages helps minimize this risk.
ChatGPT4 is also prone to sycophancy. That is to say, it treats you like the boss and comes to learn what you like and don’t like, writing things you’ll tend to agree with. Writing in sections and even different sessions can help to minimize this effect.
By default, Chat GPT4 writes in a very enthusiastic manner using a lot of adjectives and cliché phrases. “In the realm of toddler allergies, one remedy stands out!” By working in stages, you can watch for this tendency. You can also simply prompt Chat GPT4 to cut it out. Talk to it like an intern who has gotten a little carried away. The following has actually worked for me: “Rewrite the same section, toning down the language to make it less dramatic and more down to earth and straightforward. It’s a little overwrought. Tone it down a mite.”
Train ChatGPT4 on Your Industry
You can also get better results by training ChatGPT to learn your industry. Before I write an article, I ‘train’ ChatGPT with a ‘DECK’ of information on the subject at hand. Say, for example, we’re writing an article for a customer whose business is electronic recycling. Over the years, we’ve developed extensive content on the subject for that customer.
To get the best results, once I know what direction the article is heading in, I will find and copy out the customer’s existing content from several similar articles and paste it into the ChatGPT4 prompt. In doing so, I tell ChatGPT4 that “Here is a DECK of information on computer recycling. This is to be used in answering the prompts to follow.” (I would actually label what I am providing to ChatGPT4 as ‘DECK on Computer Recycling’ for example.)
ChatGPT4 will say ‘Thank You,’ but the important point is that it now has information with which to write not only expertly but more closely to the voice and patterns developed for that customer. Bottom line: better results even more quickly.
Accelerate Your Social Media
ChatGPT4 can also write your Social Media posts, including emojis and hash tags. Just ask it, for example, to “Please write a social media post on the importance of Elder Care planning. Include emojis and appropriate hash tags.” It’s that simple. If it needs to be short for X, let ChatGPT4 know; if longer for Facebook, just request what you need.
Posting great social content often is part of your basic marketing ‘reach and frequency,’ and ChatGPT4 just made it a whole lot easier.
Write Better Meta Code
If you are working for an Agency or you just understand the importance of back-end Meta Code to help with SEO, now you can train Chat GPT4 to do meta your way. Inform ChatGPT with your own DECK (on how you like meta to be written for your clients), and then just prompt it to “write meta code” for the article you’re working on.
Hint: When you work on an article, web page, or blog in the same session, ChatGPT4 will have an “awareness” of what you’ve been doing. It will know what article you’re talking about.
An Unrelated Trick I Can’t Help but Pass On
While not directly related to developing content, here is a useful trick we chanced upon serendipitously. Have you ever received a customer email or a service ticket that you can’t quite figure out. They said a lot of stuff, not all of it made sense, and you can’t quite figure out what it is they want you to do?
Well, ChatGPT4 is a language expert. Ask it to translate. A useful prompt might be: “Following is a customer email. We’re not sure what they are trying to tell us or what they want done. Can you parse out their intent and a logical course of action in response to their needs?”
The answer might not always be perfect, but you might also be surprised at how well ChatGPT4 can read difficult customers.
What Your Web Agency Can Do for You
You might think that AI is putting content creators and web agencies out of business. The truth is that those who can’t adapt may be in trouble. For the rest of us, these are exciting times. We can do more and do it more affordably than ever before.
We see opportunities to help our small business customers compete with bigger enterprises online and find new and effective ways to reach their target market. This is just the start. In 2024 we’ll be rolling out new programs that leverage AI as the cornerstone of new SEO and content development initiatives.
Call Chroma today at 724-523-3001 or Contact Us to embark on a journey of digital excellence with a local touch. Let’s build a website and a marketing strategy that reflects your business’s unique story and propels it into a future of success.
