It’s no secret that Google algorithms are constantly changing and evolving. And after the “product review update” and “helping content updates,” we saw some drastic changes to SERPs, which began to doubt whether it is possible to rank on SERPs with the help of AI-written content or not.
To prove this, we decided to conduct our own little experiment.
And for this, we created two different websites in May 2021, one of them using Jasper.ai’s long-form editor (Get 10K free words on Jasper.ai), and the other one is by hiring human writer.
Both websites are designed on the same themes and plugins with necessary technical SEO done, and both websites has passed core web vitals results. To make it stand out in this competitive market, we also implemented the Silo Structure properly.
✍️ TL;DR:
Yes, articles written using AI ranks on Google. The website I started in May 2021 makes around $2,955 a month just by performing the steps we’ve shared in this guide. And yes, all in just six months of launching this website.
And this is all possible because we’ve used AI to help us writer faster and efficient, rather than solely relying on it.
Here’s a brief breakdown of what we’ve done:
Introduction & the Starting Phase
First, we started by purchasing a new domain name from Dynadot. We chose Dynadot because it’s the cheapest domain registrar with one of the most user-friendly and nicest UI/UX designs, and they also provide free Whois privacy.
And then, we hosted our domain name on Cloudways. We choose Cloudways because they are one of the best managed WordPress hosting providers, and they’re recently acquired by DigitalOcean, so you can trust their reliability and performance.
Plus, with the use of the “TheGuideX” coupon on their website, you’ll get free cloudways credit worth $30, which is more than sufficient to run your website for almost 3-months.
✍️ Author’s Note:
To speed up our website, we’ve configured Cloudflare on our website and properly implemented the SSL, cache, firewalls, and page rules for the WordPress website.
And if you’re new to Cloudflare and don’t know how to set it up properly, then here’s a guide from Kinsta showing the proper steps for configuration.
After setting up our website on Cloudways, we created a DigitalOcean based Cloudways server with a premium Intel CPU that costs us approximately $26/month.
But, depending on your needs, you can choose any other plan on Cloudways.
After we’ve done setting-up our servers, we installed the WordPress CMS on our website with the “GeneratePress” theme.
Afterward, we installed some required plugins that are most important for our website. However, to optimize the speed of our website, we tried our best to keep the list of plugins to a minimum.
Some of these plugins are;
- RankMath – for overall website SEO & technical SEO part.
- Shortcode Ultimate – for a handful of shortcodes.
- WP Rocket – for making our website blazingly fast.
- Easy Table of Contents – for creating sweat and simple TOC option in posts.
- GP Premium – for enhancing our productivity with the GeneratePress theme.
- TinyPNG – for image optimization.
- AAWP – for creating product tables and comparison tables in our posts.
- UpdraftPlus – for taking a complete backup of our website, and lastly,
- WP-Optimize – for cleaning up our database.
These are all the plugins I’m using on those websites.
Once we’ve done designing our website and installing the required plugins, the next step is to create a webmaster and analytics account for these websites.
Here’s a checklist of everything I’ve done on my website.
Make sure you’ve followed most of these tips to improve the overall performance of your website. As I’ve done the same thing, and it has taken an approximate 90-100 days for completing the whole procedure.
Content Writing Phase
After the starting phase, we’re now on the content writing part.
As you know, we have created two different websites, and only one of them uses Jasper.ai’s long-form editor for writing using AI and the other one without using any AI software.
✍️ Author’s Note:
Here we’ve used Jasper.ai to write content because this is the only tool that has passed all plagiarism detection tools.
For the 2nd website, we hired someone from the Telegram group for just $0.013 to $0.02 per word (You can also hire our experts from HeySERP’s content writing agency for writing high-quality & plagiarism-free blog posts at just $0.04/word).
Now let’s get back to the content part…
For both websites, we’ve written around 2,30,000 words of unique and well-researched content covering both tutorials and money-making posts. The average word count for these posts is around 1500-2000 for tutorials and 3500-4000 for money posts.
During the keyword research part, we’ve saved the important keywords along with their LSI keywords, which are easy to rank. And we know, if we properly use those keywords our article, then it will definitely give a positive response. So, we’ve implemented all the required LSI keywords and other terms in our article to make it more user and search-friendly.
And for doing so, we’ve used tools like SurferSEO, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Trends, and KWFinder. This whole process of content writing, optimization, proofreading, and editing took us almost 4-5 months to complete.
✍️ Author’s Note:
If you’re using AI tools like Jasper, ShortlyAI, and Rytr.me, you need to ensure that the generated content is 100% original. For checking plagiarism, you can use websites like Quetext.
And publishing content without checking for plagiarism can cause serious issues to your website’s ranking. It’s because I’ve seen over 20% plagiarism in content generated using these tools. So make sure there are no plagiarism issues present in your article.
But, you can do it much faster if you have a dedicated team or if you work full-time.
During this phase, we’ve also added an internal linking structure to our website by linking our old blog posts to the new ones. This will help distribute link juice and improve our website’s overall SEO.
And to automate this process, you can use a plugin like Link Whisper.
But, I would still recommend doing it manually to get the best results.
In addition, you also need to use websites like Canva and Unsplash to create eye-catching images for your blog posts. This will help attract more visitors to your website, enrich your content, and help in increasing the website’s dwell time.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, try to publish an article every day or every two days to maintain good momentum.
On these two experimental websites, I have maintained a frequency of publishing an article every two days, which helps drastically increase the keyword positions in Google. And whenever I check Ahrefs’ keyword movement of my website, I see my keywords going UP and UP, and every day there are MANY NEW KEYWORDS that my website is started RANKING for.
But, make sure the quality of your content is good enough before hitting the publish button.
Now, you might be thinking, what’s next after content writing?
The answer is simple…
Start promoting your content on social media and start building backlinks…
The Backlinks Phase
After assigning content to the writer and writing content using Jasper, the next goal we’ve is to build tons of links for our websites.
And as you know, building links manually is a lot of tedious work, so I’ve assigned these works to my team. Plus, I’ve to hire some agencies for building quality links for both of my blogs.
Here I’m sharing the type of links I’ve built for my websites;
- Profile Links
- Asked Questions in Forums & Comments
- Comment Links
- Free Guest Posting Sites
- Web 2.0 Sites
- Link Exchange, and
- Outreaching
In case you don’t have time to build links on your own, you can still hire our team of experts at HeySERP to build links for your business, or you’ll find tons of professional SEO agencies on Google who can help you build quality links.
Here’s a type of link we’ve built for these websites;
When building backlinks for a website, there are a few important factors to consider in order to ensure the links are effective and contribute positively to the website’s SEO efforts.
And these factors are;
- DR > 50
- 50% Links to HomePage
- 20% on Information Posts, and
- 30% on Commercial Posts.
In addition to these factors, there are a few other things to consider when building backlinks. One important consideration is the relevance of the linking website and the anchor text used in the link.
Along with these, we’ve built both nofollow and dofollow links to maintain a natural link profile. As a link profile that is too heavily skewed towards dofollow links or a single source of links can look suspicious to search engines and may result in penalties or lower rankings.
These are all the things we’ve done so far, and the website is still booming on the SERP.
Result – AI vs. Human Written Content
The manual website was growing steadily – but we’ve seen rapid growth on our experimental website built using AI in the starting 6-8 months.
But if we compare the 12-14 months of data, we see significant growth in the website created without AI content. And the website created with AI content is heavily fluctuating. Despite that, I’ve made more than $30,000+ from the website with AI-written content in the last 12-13 months after spending approximately $5,000 on the domain name, hosting, software subscriptions, and backlinks.
And it’s clear that the website created with AI content was still able to generate significant revenue. This suggests that there may be a place for AI-generated content in certain contexts, such as when speed or quantity is a priority. However, for content that requires a more personal touch or a higher degree of creativity, human-written content may still be the best choice.
Ultimately, the decision of whether to use AI or human-written content will depend on the specific goals and needs of the website owner, as well as the resources available to them.
Our Thoughts on Using AI Tools
The debate over whether AI or human-written content is better is a complex one. While AI tools can certainly help streamline the content creation process and produce high-quality content quickly, there is still a distinct advantage to having a human touch.
Human writers can add a level of creativity and emotion to their writing that AI tools simply cannot replicate. Additionally, human writers are able to incorporate their unique perspectives and experiences into their writing, which can make the content more relatable and engaging for readers.
And what matters is the quality and authoritativeness of the content that you’re delivering to users.
If you’re providing great information and solving people’s queries, you’ll rank on Google regardless of whether a human or AI writes your content. But always remember not to depend on AI for everything.
For example, you can use AI to generate topics and ideas for your content. But I wouldn’t recommend using AI to write the entire article as it won’t be able to understand the user’s intent behind their search query and provide an appropriate answer.
Therefore, we believe a mix of AI and human-written content will give the best results in the long run. So, it’s always better to use AI as a supplement to your content marketing efforts and not as a replacement.
And always remember, a car takes you from point A to point B…
But it is the driver (human) who decides when to stop, take a turn, and how fast or slow to drive.
Similarly, AI can help you write your content faster… but it can never replace the human brain when it comes to understanding the user intent and providing an appropriate answer through your content.
Risk & Benefits of Using AI Tools
Now that you know how AI can help us write content quickly. So, let’s take a look at some risks and benefits of using AI content on our website…
Write Content in No Time (Benefits)
One of the most significant benefits of using AI tools for writing content is the speed at which content can be produced. With the help of AI tools, businesses can churn out a vast amount of content in a matter of hours or days, which would have taken weeks or months for a human writer to produce. This is especially useful in industries where speed is of the essence, such as news media and content marketing. AI tools can help businesses keep up with the constant demand for new and fresh content without sacrificing quality.
Moreover, the speed at which AI tools can produce content also enables businesses to scale their content marketing efforts. As more and more businesses are looking to expand their online presence, creating high-quality content at scale is becoming increasingly important. With the help of AI tools, businesses can create a significant amount of content in a short amount of time, allowing them to publish more frequently and reach a wider audience.
Your Website Can Get Penalized by Google (Risk)
While AI tools can certainly help businesses create high-quality content quickly, there are also some risks involved in using these tools. One of the most significant risks is that your website may get penalized by Google. Google’s algorithm is designed to favor high-quality, original content and penalize websites that use duplicate or low-quality content. Unfortunately, some AI tools may generate content that is not unique or high-quality enough to meet Google’s standards.
If your website is penalized by Google, it can have a significant impact on your search engine rankings and online visibility. This can lead to a decrease in organic traffic and, ultimately, a decline in revenue. It can take a significant amount of time and effort to recover from a Google penalty, so it is essential to ensure that any content you publish is high-quality and original.
Helps You Write Better Headlines (Benefit)
Another benefit of using AI tools for content creation is their ability to help businesses write better headlines. Headlines are one of the most critical elements of any piece of content, as they can make or break its success. With AI tools, businesses can analyze data from their previous content and their target audience to generate headlines that are more likely to capture their audience’s attention and encourage them to click through to the content.
AI tools can analyze the content’s topic, length, and tone to generate headlines that are catchy, informative, and optimized for search engines. They can also analyze the headlines of competitors’ content to generate more effective headlines that stand out from the crowd. By using AI tools to generate headlines, businesses can save time and effort in the content creation process while ensuring that their content is more likely to be read and shared by their target audience.
Furthermore, AI tools can also help businesses test and optimize their headlines over time. By analyzing the performance of different headlines, businesses can determine which ones are most effective and make changes to improve their future content’s performance. This can lead to higher engagement rates, increased traffic, and ultimately, better business results.
Risk of Using Copied Content (Risk)
Another most significant risk of using AI tools for content creation is the potential to produce copied or duplicate content. While AI tools can help businesses generate content quickly, they may also produce content that is too similar to existing content on the internet. This can result in penalties from search engines like Google, which penalize websites that use duplicate content.
When websites are penalized for using copied content, it can have significant consequences. It can lead to a decline in search engine rankings, a decrease in traffic, and ultimately, a decrease in revenue. Additionally, if the website continues to produce copied content, it may be removed entirely from search engine results, making it difficult for customers to find the business online.
To avoid these risks, businesses must ensure that any content they publish is unique and original. They must carefully review any content generated by AI tools to ensure that it is not too similar to existing content. This can be done by using plagiarism checkers and carefully reviewing the content’s structure, language, and tone. By taking these steps, businesses can minimize the risk of penalties from search engines and ensure that their content is high-quality and original.
Get Rid of Writer’s Block (Benefit)
Another benefit of using AI tools for content creation is that they can help businesses get rid of writer’s block. Writer’s block is a common problem that many content creators face, where they struggle to come up with ideas or find the right words to express their thoughts. This can be frustrating and time-consuming, and it can slow down the content creation process.
With AI tools, businesses can overcome writer’s block by generating content ideas and providing suggestions for improving existing content. Some AI tools use machine learning algorithms to analyze data from previous content and identify patterns that can be used to generate new content ideas. Others use natural language processing to suggest improvements to existing content, such as better word choices, more compelling headlines, or more engaging calls to action.
By using AI tools to overcome writer’s block, businesses can save time and effort in the content creation process while ensuring that their content is high-quality and engaging. They can also reduce the stress and frustration that often come with writer’s block, allowing them to focus on other important aspects of their business.
Creates Unnatural Sounding Content (Risk)
Another significant risk of using AI tools for content creation is that they can create unnatural-sounding content. While AI tools can generate content quickly and efficiently, they may not always produce content that sounds like it was written by a human. This can be a problem because readers may find the content difficult to read or unengaging, leading to a decline in traffic and engagement.
AI-generated content can often lack the human touch that makes the content relatable and engaging. The tone and style of the content may be inconsistent, and the content may use phrases or terms that are not commonly used in everyday language. This can make it difficult for readers to connect with the content and may even turn them away from the website altogether.
To avoid this risk, businesses must ensure that any content generated by AI tools is carefully reviewed and edited by a human. This can help to ensure that the content is relatable, engaging, and easy to read.
Recommended AI Writing Tools
After the beta launch of GPT-3, we’ve seen enormous growth in the market, and nowadays, we can literally see hundreds of tools for creating automated tools.
Some of them are mature, while others are still in the beta phase. And with this rapid growth, I’m sure you have this doubt about which tool you should select. Right?
Therefore, I’ve curated this list of tools that I personally use in my projects, and these tools are:
- Jasper.ai (most recommended)
- Rytr.me (mostly for re-writing and improving sentences in your content)
- ShortlyAI.com (recommended for newbie bloggers who have limited budgets.
Jasper.ai is indeed the best of all, and I especially liked their recent “One Shot Blog Post” template. It helps you create blog posts instantly!
Get 10K free credits on Jasper.ai!
Wrapping Up!
In conclusion, both human and AI content have their own strength and weaknesses, and it’s important to consider the specific needs of your business when deciding which option to choose. AI tools can generate content quickly and efficiently, helping to overcome writer’s block and improve the quality of existing content. However, AI-generated content can sometimes lack the human touch that makes content engaging and relatable.
On the other hand, human-written content can be more engaging and creative, allowing businesses to connect with their readers on a deeper level. However, it can also be more time-consuming and expensive to produce, and it may not be feasible for businesses with limited resources.
And if you ask me, I would recommend using a combination of AI and human-written content together.
Now it’s time to hear from you…
Have you used AI content on your website?
If yes, what was your experience? Share your results (good or bad) in the comments below.
And if you’re thinking of using AI-written content on your website, let us know what’s holding you back. I’ll help you overcome those objections.
