Explore how AI is transforming the future of blogging.
Learn the challenges and opportunities AI presents, and discover practical strategies for bloggers to adapt, stay creative, and maintain authenticity in an AI-driven world.
IE 414: How AI Is Shaping the Future of Blogging: Stop or Adapt?
The Rise of AI in Content Creation
The rapid rise of AI that we are seeing in content creation has become something that many, many bloggers are concerned about as well as business owners, because as a small business owner, you are creating content in order to attract an audience and you need to understand how AI is impacting that.
What I really want you to make sure that you take away from this is that AI is not replacing you.
I don’t care, if you are a blogger that has been doing this for 15 years and you feel like they are stealing your content, they are not stealing your content, they are using it in a different way and it is not going away.
You have to be able to adapt.
You have to stop doing traditional blogging for pageviews.
This is very, very impactful and true for my food bloggers, my DIYers, my craft bloggers, that have not niched and are staying very broad and have done keyword research and have just gone after terms that are going to bring the pageviews without thinking about how are you setting yourself up as the expert to be able to offer those people a reason to get onto your email list and to buy products and services that you own.
We have to stop relying on affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and ads.
We have to start thinking of ourselves as business owners that are finding a way to have their own product or service.
One of the biggest things that we are seeing is the rise of AI in content creation.
You should be using these AI powered tools to help you speed up your process of your writing.
We’re not allowing AI to write for us.
We are using it to spark creativity, to act as an assistant that could be in the room with us or think of them as a traditional VA.
Someone that you would say, here’s what I want you to do.
What are your thoughts on this?
Provide me with an outline for this article.
Do the keyword research for me, whatever it might be.
The AI needs to be looked at as that assistant, and it should be helping with the research aspect of the content that you were creating.
How AI Is Disrupting Traditional Blogging
Volume vs. Quality
What ends up happening is many of it is low value, low quality, not the best information.
Those are not the bloggers that have been around for years, most likely are not the people listening to this episode that are using AI in this way.
SEO and Algorithm Shifts
What AI is impacting the most is because of the SEO and algorithm shifts.
Many people have been talking about how they are seeing that google is hitting them with an algorithm and they are losing their pageviews, they’re losing their traffic, and they’re losing their ad income because of it.
What Google is attempting to do with the algorithm is for you to be able to set yourself up as that expert.
That is the purpose of that algorithm.
You have to stop trying to create everything for everyone and niche yourself and figure out what you are going to specifically educate your audience about and create content within that purpose.
No longer can you create a food blog that Has all different recipes from Italian to Thai to Cuban.
If you’re going to do that, it has to come underneath an umbrella of you’re creating recipes around the world.
That’s how it falls underneath and how they can learn all these different aspects of cooking through culture.
That’s where you’re showing you’re the expert.
If you are randomly throwing up recipes that are not niche and are just are all over the place, this is not going to work for you anymore blogging is not going to be a benefit for you.
The Challenges AI Presents to Bloggers
Threat to Originality and Authenticity & Ethical Concerns
The big thing that I want to make sure that we understand is that AI can present challenges for us because there’s ethical concerns as far as whether or not the content that is being created is being pulled directly from AI, and then is being shown as stealing the content from others.
There was recently an article published in the New York Times about how AI is replacing the content creators.
It is an actual campaign that is being run by Raptive that is trying to show that AI takes the content and unfairly is competing with us.
Should Bloggers Stop or Adapt?
What I need you to understand again with this is that, yes, that is what they are doing, but in order for you to be able to address this you have to adapt and be able to continue to move forward with your business.
You have to go back and make sure that you have a personal brand strategy, within that personal brand strategy, you have to figure out what you are educating people on.
Niche yourself as that expert.
I know many women get uncomfortable with thinking, I’m not an expert.
I do all the things.
I have all these interests.
For years you have heard me say you have to niche your site.
It’s because people need to know what they are getting from you.
They want to get onto your list because they know you and the personalization that you are creating for them.
They see you as that niche educator that’s going to be able to walk them through all of the gluten free recipes that they could possibly want.
If you are creating gluten free vegan and then all of a sudden you have other recipes on your site that are not gluten free, it’s very confusing to them.
They’re not going to get on your list because half of your stuff doesn’t make sense for them.
This is where that personal brand strategy has to come into play.
You also need to make sure that you’re focusing on creativity.
The aspects of which you can tell a story, your tone that you are going to provide your people with.
How are you going to make yourself, your voice different than everyone else’s that are out there?
And then also making sure that you’re still using SEO.
SEO is not going away.
Yes, algorithms are hurting what we traditionally looked at as SEO because we were going after keywords that would bring in traffic.
Here is the one thing that I know people are going to get upset by and I’m going to say it.
If you are blogging to continue to get traffic, you need to stop.
Your business isn’t going anywhere.
It’s not a business.
You are simply a blogger and that is all that you are.
You’re not offering a product, a service, something else in which you are solving the problem for your audience.
You either need to adapt and figure out what you are that expert or educator in and create content specific to that audience.
The algorithms that we have noticed with Google are hurting those that are not showing themselves as an expert.
You have to make sure that your about page truly shows how you are the right person to be talking about a specific problem.
You have to be able to show that.
That is how Google is deciding whether or not you are authentic.
Whether you are the person that should rank for content because you actually know the answers.
That’s how they’re going to determine it.
You have to adapt to this and figure out if ad income isn’t going to be the same as it was before.
How can I create a product or service that is going to solve a problem for the audience that I am looking to attract?
You have to niche yourself and know who you are specifically talking to.
Practical Tips for Adapting to AI
Use AI as an Assistant, Not a Replacement
Here’s some practical tips for adapting to AI.
I want you to start using AI as that assistant.
Being able to ask for an outline.
Get research information.
What are questions people are asking?
Double Down on High-Quality, Long-Form Content
You have to be able to really start to double down on high quality, long form content.
Start making sure that your content not only has your creativity.
Explain everything step by step on how they can do it.
Being able to put your opinions into your content is going to be a way in which you show that you are a person that gives people an opportunity to connect with you.
Build a Personal Brand
You have to make sure that you are building that personal brand.
You have to have a strategy for which you are connecting with people.
It starts with understanding your positioning and knowing who your audience is.
You do not need a million followers.
You need a hundred people that you solve a specific problem for.
You can have a business with a hundred people where you make a hundred thousand dollars in a year.
If you have those hundred people and each of them buys something, that’s Value of 100 from you, that’s 100, 000.
Start thinking about how can we really make sure that we are getting those true audience, that true people that want to continue to come back to you and are going to refer others to you.
You have to stop thinking of yourself as a pageview chaser.
For those of you that are service based businesses, you absolutely want to make sure that you are using the AI tools to help you research and create your content and use the tools that are available to you to speed up your process.
Blogging is easy.
Content creation is a way in which to get found.
I have a podcast. That is how all of my content creation starts, but the podcast gets turned into a blog post because I still own that and I can still benefit from SEO by having the blog post.
I’m offering opportunities for people to get onto my list within my blog posts.
Please do not look at AI and think that it is replacing you.
It’s only replacing you if you don’t adapt.
It’s that simple.
Use the strategies that you have been told.
You can go back and there’s so many episodes on this podcast about personal branding and making sure you stand out in how to do it and how to grow an email list with the ideal audience in mind.
I have been screaming this from the rooftops probably for five years now about needing to grow your email list with a specific problem in mind that you are solving for them so that you can then go and create a product or service that they will then buy from you.
It is absolutely necessary for you to survive and to thrive.
If you are doing this already, you know that this is continuing to work.
It is only going to continue to help your business.
