AI: Threat or Benefit to Writers
Artificial Intelligence SEO Software from a Writer’s Perspective
So, you’re a writer.
And every day you strive to put into words something that will be of help to readers.
Something that will inspire others to move towards their dreams. Something important that will be taken as worthy enough to be remembered.
Simply because you were born with a talent. The talent that Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. call “significance.”
The Significance of Being Significant
In their book NOW Discover Your Strengths, Buckingham and Clifton say significance is a talent where “you want to stand out. You want to be known. In particular, you want to be known and appreciated for the unique strengths you bring.”
In other words, you like the feeling you get when you’re bursting with pride, when people admire you because you are so talented. Because you are smart and thought-provoking. Because your razor-sharp stories are tear-jerkers.
Yet we live in a world where it’s harder than ever to become that writer. For there is so much competition. These days everyone seems to want to be a writer.
The Perfect Stay-at-Home Gig
For writing has been often extolled as ‘the perfect stay-at-home gig.” It’s been said to be “the path to riches.” Because “anyone can do it.”
Yet the truth is hard to hear. It’s hard to disengage from the belief that writing is an easy way to ‘cash in.’
It’s hard to face the truth, the reality that unseen troubles and hardships are just normal pieces of the writer’s gig.
Simply because writing for readers is complicated. Not merely because you have to know who your readers are, know exactly who you are talking to. But also, because what you have to say must be related in some way to what a specific reader wants to know and hear. Related some way to what a reader is experiencing so you are able to help them.
And additionally, you also have to say what you have to say in such a way that ignites a fire in the reader to read more than just your headline.
Attracting Readers using SERP
And even if that is a cinch and you are able to inspire readers to read all the way through to the very end of your piece, the biggest question of all is …
How do you get readers to even see your headline in the first place?
For there are millions of websites with new posts published daily. As well people blasting emails (often multiple emails) at everyone all throughout the day.
So, to acquire readers, I’ve been studying SEO, search engine optimization. That’s where you select certain keywords, or keyword phrases for what you’re writing about. And you use those keywords to ‘hook’ search engines so they promote your piece of writing on page one of Google’s SERP, search engine results page.
And to do that you have to write something that is significant to the specific intent of a searcher.
But as I was researching more about it, I came across something that was, quite frankly … disturbing.
Are Writers Just Chasing Windmills?
I came across a marketer who was promoting AI … artificial intelligence software that creates highly targeted content aimed at getting on page one of google … and was succeeding.
This was, at first thought, very scary to me as a writer. Because if computer generated copy is ranking on Google, where does that leave us ‘human’ writers? Are our dreams of becoming successful, well-read writers just as fruitless, and as pointless, as Don Quixote’s chasing windmills?
I love writing. One of my other talents, according to Buckingham and Clifton, is “communication.” They say this talent is where “You like to explain, to describe … and to write.” They say “Ideas are a dry beginning. Events are static. You feel a need to bring them to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid. And so you turn events into stories and practice telling them.”
They explain that the goal to keep in mind is that any piece of writing, whether it’s “an idea, an event, a product’s features and benefits, a discovery, or a lesson — [is for it] to survive.” You do that by attracting readers’ attention to you and then you “capture it, lock it in.”
They explain further that your desire to communicate by finding the perfect way to say something, using a precise word, a picturesque phrase, and dramatic word combinations is the reason people are drawn to what you write.
They add, “Your word pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act.”
Good Writing’s Not Enough
But it’s simply not enough to be just a good writer. Even though that’s what keeps drawing me back to the computer, back to my word processor, back to rhythmically tapping on my keyboard.
Back to trying to prime those words, images, and thoughts from deep within me that might be of value to you as well as to many others.
And even though that’s the human quality that readers are really looking for, it’s still not enough to do the job of capturing reader’s attention alone. Even when the emotional impact those words have on people by drawing them into a story and arousing their desire to solve a problem, to seek a solution, or answer a question is almost magical.
And that magic builds momentum by actively guiding with intentional camaraderie anyone anywhere they’re led.
But writing isn’t the total answer to being heard in the modern world.
Artificial Intelligence May Be the Next Step
And I never knew that — until now.
I never thought I’d also have to burst out of my writer’s bubble and become uptight about ranking in search by being transparent.
I never suspected I should be user-friendly to rouse serious traffic. And even believe in the urgency of rising stats that are bestowed upon the trendsetters.
For times have changed. Whether things have changed for the better or not remains to be seen. But the truth is, marketers have a distinct advantage over any writer who thinks all that’s necessary is telling a rousing story so people will automatically find you.
Yet artificial intelligence may be the next step to doing that. For marketers today know their stuff. They have artificial intelligence on their side. And you don’t argue with a computer.
Instead, you change its programming. Or find a way to make that programming work for you instead of against you.
Or you just simply buy into AI and work with it to find ways to promote the human aspects of writing. And burst with pride because you’re benefiting from unhuman resources as you storyboard … and survive the threat.
Then surviving and thriving in an extremely competitive world ain’t quite as hard. Because you take advantage of, and benefit from, the use of artificial intelligence that’s the new trendsetter in town.