I’ve been beta testing SurferSEO’s new AI writing assistant and I’m mind-blown what it can do (it generates the whole blog post from a single keyword in a few minutes!). But it’s still not producing content that matches the quality of the top-ranking posts written by a subject matter expert. So in this post, I wanted to compare the outputs and see how we can adjust the AI-generated post to make it sound more…well, human like.
I took the keyword “resource page link building” and generated a post using SurferAI.
Then, I looked at the top-ranking result, which for me happened to be this ahrefs blog: https://ahrefs.com/blog/resource-page-link-building/
Here’s what I found:
Step 1: Compare intros. Remove fluff. Improve Time-To-Result.
Let’s first look at the intros to both articles. They are quite different on the first glance, but why is the “hand-made” one better?
Human written intro:
AI written intro:
As you can see, the human-written intro is better as it:
– provides stats to back up its claim why Resource Page link building is worth reading about (= if it’s so popular 24% of SEOs use it = there must be something to it!)
– it lists the benefits of Resource Page link building and hence why Resource Page link building is so popular (= further encouraging the reader to check out how to do it) – because it “works”, “is scalable” and “is fairly easy”
– explains what the article will provide in first person, speaking on behalf of the Subject-Matter expert.
This makes the text more credible.
❗ What I’m missing here is the actual explanation of what Resouce Page Link Building really is. I’m finding it annoying that most blogs don’t include the definitions in the intro at all (probably in the hope of
Now, let’s look at the AI generated intro:
–> This is the classic “blog intro” that is not really providing any value, and is consists pretty much exclusively of tired catchphrases:
“Are you looking for the ultimate guide for X?” (yes, obviously)
“Then you have come to the right place!” (no sh*t Sherlock).
“In this comprehensive article, we will explain everything you need to know about this popular strategy for gaining valuable backlinks.” (you don’t have to say what this article is…)
Now that we compared the two, we know what would be needed to improve this introduction to make it better:
– Add definition of resource link-building tactic
– Add why it’s important – add the benefits of this tactic for SEOs (+ some stats to back them up.)
– Shorten the introduction and remove fluff
– Say that the article will provide a detailed guide on how to use the Resource Link Building tactic
Let’s see how chatGPT would handle the request to improve this intro with this prompt:
That worked pretty well! Now let’s more on to the body of the articles.
Body paragraphs
Let’s look at how the two articles differ in terms of body paragraph length, content score, heading, and paragraph structure:
The Ahrefs Human written article:
– 73 content score
– 2091 words
– 18 headings (avrg. 116 words per heading)
– 84 paragraphs
– 19 images.
Cf. AI-written post:
– 84 content score
– 4,268 words
– 28 headings (152 words per heading – 31% more words per heading than the Ahrefs paragraph)
– 76 paragraphs
– 9 images
Conclusions so far:
The AI-generated content is a lot more verbose.
The Ahrefs article has 31% less words per paragraph than the AI generated one.
Let’s look at the headings and compare the content in a bit more detail:
Ahrefs headings:
What is resource page link building?
Why does resource page link building work?
How to build links from resource pages
1. Find relevant resource pages
2. Vet the pages
A. Filter and eliminate using metrics
B. Manually review the remaining pages
3. Reach out and suggest your resource
Tip 1. Respect their preferred contact method
Tip 2. Email the person responsible for the page
Tip 3. Tell them where the link should go
Tip 4. Point out broken links on the page
Tip 5. Don’t pay
How to find even more resource pages with ease
1. Search the backlink profiles of sites with known resource page links
2. Search for listicle resource pages
3. Search for pages with resource sections
Final thoughts
AI-generated content headings:
Short Summary
What Is Resource Page Link Building?
Benefits Of Resource Page Link Building
Increased Visibility
Improved Brand Credibility
More Targeted Traffic
How To Find Resource Pages
Google Search Operators
Backlink Analysis
Listicle Resource Pages
How To Vet Resource Pages
Check Domain Authority
Analyze Content Quality
Evaluate Anchor Texts
Crafting The Perfect Pitch
Establish Rapport
Personalize Your Message
Acknowledge Their Work
Outreach Strategies
Pros & Cons of Resource Page Link Building
Things To Avoid When Building Resource Page Links
Helpful Tools
Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
As you can see, the AI generated content included a lot more sections than the human-written content, including summary, benefits, pros and cons, what to avoid, helpful tools and FAQ.
Let’s see how they are different from the human-written Ahrefs article.
The first H2 compared: What is resource page link building?
Both Ahrefs and the AI-generated content have the same heading as the first H2. But what follows is quite different:
– Ahrefs offers a crisp definition of resource page link building tactic and a visual example of a resource page:
It’s literally 3 sentences, written in a very simple language!
- What is resource page link building
- What is a resource page (visual – example)
- How to get links from a resource page
Meanwhile, the AI content waffles on for several sentences:
A lot of that content is:
- obvious fluff
- non-sequiturs
- repetitions
Now, would chat GPT rewrite this paragraph to make it more cohesive and remove the fluff, repetitions, and non-sequiturs?
Here’s the prompt I used:
Rewrite this paragraph to make it more cohesive and remove the fluff, repetitions, and non-sequiturs. Focus on what is resource page link building, what is resource page, and how to build links using them. You’re writing a blog for SEOs. Write in a straightforward, simple language.
…and this time, it failed miserably: ChatGPT doesn’t know what ‘fluff’ is and what ‘repetitions’ are either:
I did a better job by simply removing the parts I’ve identified as “fluff”, “non-sequiturs” and “repetition”:
This didn’t affect the content score as you see, but reduced the wordcount and improved readability.
Let’s look at the next few paragraphs:
Again, the benefits section in the Ahrefs article is extremely short. It’s much longer in the AI-generated one but actually, the benefits are logical – they just need a bit of a trim:
Let’s see how GPT-4 can do this time with the following prompt:
Shorten these few paragraphs and rewrite them for clarity, coherence and consiseness: Benefits Of Resource Page Link Building
This time, it did pretty well:
Core – the “How to” instructions:
Now let’s look at the core of the article – the instructions on how to build links from resource pages:
On the first glance, the listed methods of acquiring resource page links make sense.
But there are some problems with the instructions generated by AI:
- The instructions would have been more actionable if illustrated with an image
- Some instructions are not actionable enough to follow altogether
- Some instructions are detached from the context of the topic of the article, and simply describe the tactic “in general.” This compromises coherence of the whole text.
Fixing this is a lot of work. Let’s see if ChatGPT can do that:
Explain how to use Content Explorer feature in Ahrefs for resource page link building. “Ahrefs users can speed up the search for listicle resource pages by using Content Explorer, running an “In title” search, and filtering for pages that match criteria such as DR 30+. “
This makes the instructions a lot more actionable. Illustrate them with images and you should be fine:
Now, let’s have a look at the outreach-related paragraphs.
Compared to the human-written content, the AI outreach tips are not actionable, and – again – contain some non-sequiturs that have to be removed:
The original outreach tips aren’t particularly great in this article either, but at least they don’t contain so much fluff and non-sequiturs:
To sum up:
Top-quality human-written content vs. AI content:
- tends to be more concise (over 30% fewer words-per-paragraph than in this AI-generated example)
- doesn’t contain fluff, repetitions, and non-sequiturs
- is more coherent – because AI is generating content based on general probability rather than the context of the article, it can still produce ‘bloopers’ where e.g. a sentence makes sense on it’s own or in relation to the heading of that paragraph, but not in relation to the content of the article.
- includes more actionable instructions that are specific
- includes images that are necessary to understand the instructions.
To improve AI-generated content:
- Enhance conciseness: Trim excess words and maintain a clear, succinct writing style, aiming for a 30% reduction in words-per-paragraph compared to the AI-generated content.
- Eliminate fluff and repetitions: Remove unnecessary information, redundant phrases, and repetitive sentences to improve readability and focus on the main points.
- Ensure coherence: Carefully review the AI-generated content for any inconsistencies or irrelevant sentences, and revise them to align with the context of the article.
- Provide specific, actionable instructions: Replace generic statements with precise, actionable steps that guide readers in performing tasks or achieving goals.
- Incorporate relevant images: Include images that help readers understand instructions, visualize concepts, or highlight important information. Ensure images are appropriately placed and complement the written content.
Ironically, this last paragraph was generated by AI 🙃
The verdict: fixing AI-generated content still takes a lot of time, but I’d say it cuts the editing time in half. And we’re talking about a tool that’s still in beta here 😬 so I’m positive in a couple of months, AI will be able to generate really good “starter” article drafts.
