GPT4 dropped last week and after its amazing product announcement, we know it will change the world even more. But how useful is it for streamlining content ops? Now that using AI is no longer subject to blanket bans, since On 8th February, Google announced on its Search Central blog that it’s going to be “rewarding high quality content, however it’s produced“. Still, I’m not planning to use GPT-4 for writing entire posts – its outputs often lack nuance, organization, and depth. But there are some useful ways how I’m planning to use it.
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content ops for saas
1. Outlines for blog post briefs
Creating briefs for SEO blog posts (example of a good brief template here) is a long, expensive and quite honestly – exhausting process. It is necessary though if you want to maintain high quality of your posts, esp BOFU posts for B2B SaaS – when you’re scaling your content operations. Looks like GPT4 can help to speed things up a lot by creating outlines, which can be a great starting point for such brief:
Here’s an example of a blog post outline ChatGPT created for me in 1:41, based on this prompt:
Write me an outline of an SEO-optimized blog post for the topic: “The skyscraper link building – the Ultimate Guide” knowing that: 1) The primary keyword is “skyscraper link building” 2) You need to include all the H2s, H3s and H4s based on top-ranking SERPs in the correct order 3) You need to include the key talking points for each paragraph in bullet points 4) include links to any resources that might be helpful for the writer to read more about the topic for each paragraph. 5) Include Introduction and Conclusion.
It took GPT-4 1 minute 40 seconds to create *this* outline:
Title: The Skyscraper Link Building – The Ultimate Guide
I. Introduction
- Brief overview of the importance of link building in SEO
- Introduction to skyscraper link building and how it works
- Benefits of the skyscraper technique for gaining high-quality backlinks
- Resources:https://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique
https://ahrefs.com/blog/skyscraper-technique/
II. H2: What is Skyscraper Link Building?
- H3: The Concept Behind Skyscraper Link BuildingExplanation of the skyscraper technique
Three core steps: find popular content, create better content, and promote your content
Resource: https://neilpatel.com/blog/skyscraper-link-building/
- H3: Why the Skyscraper Technique is EffectiveThe power of high-quality content in attracting backlinks
Relevance to current search trends
Leveraging existing successful content
Resource: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/skyscraper-technique-works-seo/374840/
III. H2: Finding the Right Content to Outrank
- H3: Analyzing Competitor ContentImportance of competitor research
Identifying top-performing content in your niche
Tools to use for competitor research: Ahrefs, SEMRush, and BuzzSumo
Resource: https://www.quicksprout.com/competitor-analysis/
- H3: Choosing the Best Content to SkyrocketCriteria for selecting content to outrank
Targeting content with high backlinks and social shares
Focusing on content with potential for improvement
Resource: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/skyscraper-technique-works-seo/374840/
IV. H2: Creating Outstanding Content
- H3: Adding Value to Existing ContentImproving content quality: depth, accuracy, and comprehensiveness
Incorporating visuals, examples, and case studies
Updating outdated information
Resource: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/create-high-quality-content/253803/
- H3: Crafting Content That Appeals to Your AudienceUnderstanding your target audience’s needs and preferences
Writing in a tone and style that resonates with your audience
Ensuring readability and user-friendliness
Resource: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-create-high-quality-content/263701/
- H3: SEO Best Practices for Your Skyscraper ContentProper keyword usage and placement
Optimizing meta tags and headings
Ensuring mobile-friendliness and fast loading times
Resource: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
V. H2: Promoting Your Skyscraper Content
- H3: Building Relationships with Influencers and AuthoritiesThe importance of building a network in your niche
Reaching out to influencers and authorities to share your content
Tools for finding influencers: BuzzStream, NinjaOutreach, and Followerwonk
Resource: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/influencer-outreach-guide/384067/
- H3: Effective Outreach Strategies for Skyscraper Link BuildingPersonalized email outreach
Social media promotion and engagement
Guest posting and content syndication
Resource: https://backlinko.com/link-building-strategies
- H3: Tracking and Measuring SuccessMonitoring backlinks and website traffic
- H3: Conclusion
Not bad for less than 2 minutes work!
But of course – such outline would still require some work to turn it into a fully-fledged brief:
– Cross-referencing this outline with the headings of the top-ranking posts in SERPs
– Adding product-specific content into specific paragraphs – this is what AI absolutely *can’t* do as of now. If you’re writing a BOFU piece for a B2B SaaS, you want to anchor your product in the context of the keyword you’re optimizing your blog for. Even less-experienced human editors often can’t do it well. If you miss this part – you’re missing out on the post’s conversion/monetisation potential.
– Adding CTAs and images – as of now, the paid version of ChatGPT, which allows you to use the GPT4 model – does not include visual assets in the text. And these are crucial for If you have
Here’s a brief, for example:
And here’s the GPT-4 outline for the same topic:
Prompt: Write me an outline of an SEO-optimized blog post for the topic: “How to Analyze NPS Responses and Get Actionable Insights That Help Your Business” knowing that: 1) The primary keyword is “how to analyze nps responses” 2) You need to include all the H2s, H3s and H4s based on top-ranking SERPs in the correct order 3) You need to include the key talking points for each paragraph in bullet points 4) include links to any resources that might be helpful for the writer to read more about the topic for each paragraph. 5) Include Introduction and Conclusion.
Title: How to Analyze NPS Responses and Get Actionable Insights That Help Your Business
Introduction:
- Explain the importance of Net Promoter Score (NPS) for businesses
- Introduce the main goal: learning how to analyze NPS responses and extracting valuable insights
- Mention the primary keyword: how to analyze NPS responses
H2: Understanding Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- H3: What is NPS?Define NPS and explain its purpose
Link: What is Net Promoter?
- H3: Calculating NPSExplain how to calculate NPS (Promoters, Passives, and Detractors)
Link: How to Calculate NPS?
H2: How to Analyze NPS Responses
- H3: Organizing and segmenting NPS dataExplain the importance of organizing and segmenting data
Provide examples of segmentation (e.g., demographics, product/service type) - H3: Identifying trends and patternsDiscuss the importance of spotting trends in NPS responses
Explain how to use various visualization tools to identify patterns
Link: Data Visualization for NPS
- H3: Qualitative analysis of open-ended feedbackExplain the significance of analyzing open-ended feedback
Discuss text analysis techniques like sentiment analysis and topic modeling
Link: Qualitative NPS Analysis
H2: Turning NPS Insights into Actionable Steps
- H3: Addressing negative feedbackExplain how to approach and resolve customer concerns based on Detractor feedback
Discuss the importance of addressing negative feedback quickly - H3: Leveraging positive feedbackExplain how to use Promoter feedback to identify strengths and improve marketing efforts
Discuss ways to encourage word-of-mouth referrals from Promoters - H3: Engaging with Passives to turn them into PromotersDiscuss strategies for engaging with Passives to improve their experience
Explain the importance of continuous improvement to turn Passives into Promoters
H2: Monitoring and Adjusting Your NPS Strategy
- H3: Tracking NPS over timeExplain the importance of monitoring NPS trends over time
Discuss benchmarks and best practices for NPS tracking
Link: NPS Benchmarks
- H3: Continuously improving customer experienceDiscuss the ongoing process of refining and enhancing customer experience
Explain how regular NPS analysis and action can lead to business growth
Conclusion:
- Recap the importance of learning how to analyze NPS responses
- Highlight the actionable insights gained from NPS analysis
- Encourage readers to implement NPS analysis and optimization in their businesses
VERDICT: for generating outlines (not briefs!) of a blog post – it’s a yes (but will require some manual editing).
2. Ask GPT-4 to create a TL;DR for your posts
This is something I’m definitely going to use a lot, and already used on a couple of our programmatic posts. If you have been following my programmatic post journey (e.g. here’s an example of a Google Docs template to generate a post following the “Best {modifier} [company type] in [city/state/country]” pattern) – you know that so far, I haven’t figured out how to create the TL;DR section programmatically.
TL;DR is essentially a summary of the key takeaways from the post – so the reader can get the gist without spending 10 minutes reading the whole damn thing.
Cue: they don’t do it anyway! So if you write the TL;DR summary, and include CTAs to check out your product there – bingo! You’ve just massively increased your chance for conversion.
Not to mention this is what the users actually want (I’m guilty of reading just the TL;DRs of many posts on our blog…) – so it has a positive impact on the UX, and as we know – Google loves good UX on an SEO blog post…
Here’s an example of a TL;DR I recently wrote using GPT4:
This was for a programmatically generated blog post, and I knew the content – just couldn’t be bothered to sum it up in nifty bullet points. So I asked GPT4 to do it – and it did great!
Here’s how to produce good TL;DRs with ChatGPT (GPT4):
– break your post down into 3-4 chunks, depending on the length – ChatGPT won’t summarize an entire post of 4,000 words, because of the input limit. Break it based on the variables / other organizational “aspect” – e.g. for a post on “Chameleon vs. Userguiding – which is better for interactive user guides?”
The variables in this post are:
– interactive user guides
– Chameleon
– Userguiding
– Our tool (Userpilot)
So I fed ChatGPT fragments of the post related to these variables (in this order – makes sense to introduce the main criterion of comparison before comparing the two tools, doesn’t it!) and asked GPT-4 to summarize it in bullet points using this prompt:
Summarize this part of a blog post in 5-7 bullet points (unordered list). Write it in full sentences (still in bullet points) in a more conversational and human style
Here’s the output for “Chameleon”:
I then combined all three summaries into one summary.
Now! Don’t forget to add internal links to relevant articles and CTA to try out your tool into your TL;DR.
Tip: if the ‘combined’ TL;DR is too long, you can ask GPT4 to summarize it, say, in only 10 points:
Prompt: Summarize this text in 10-15 bullet points, in a human, conversational style, without losing meaning of any of the points below: Interactive user guides improve onboarding and feature adoption.[add the TL;DR you want to summarize]
❗ now, always do read the output – ChatGPT (even GPT-4…) sometimes come up with things that weren’t even in the prompt…
To avoid such boopers, you can also do the same using Wordtune: this tool allows you to both summarize and paraphrase the text. Wordtune uses a different language processing model (HAIM) so it bypasses GPT-based AI detection algorithms (if you fear Google might object to too much GPT involvement):
VERDICT: for generating TL;DRs from a blog post – it’s a yes (but will require some manual editing and careful attention).
3. Use GPT-4 to create comparison tables for your BoFu Tool Comparison posts
Comparison table enhance user experience on your blog and increase the chance your user is *actually* going to read the content of your post and walk away with the conclusion that your tool is the best.
Here’s an example of such table from one of our posts, made by our graphic designer:
The issue is, these are pretty challenging to make and you need a graphic designer in the first place. What if you don’t have one on your team?
I tested if ChatGPT could come in handy in that case.
I used the same post as for the TL;DR – Userguiding vs Chameleon – which is better for interactive user guides? – and the previously generated TL;DR – to ask GPT-4 to create a comparison table for me.
This is the prompt I used and the output I got:
Prompt:
Based on the text comparing the 3 tools below, create and fill a comparison table (in HTML) entitled “Userpilot vs. Userguiding vs. Chameleon for interactive guides” with the following header rows: 1) Tool 2) General Tool Description 3) Pros 4) Cons 5) Pricing. Start from Userpilot. Here’s the text you can use to fill in the table: [I inserted the TL;DR here]
GPT-4 Output:
The table was good, but didn’t look too pretty:
…so I asked it to style it:
Prompt: Style it differently: make the border lines solid, make header rows in #eb7c9b and font bold. Rearrange the order of tools to be 1) Userpilot 2) Chameleon 3) Userguiding
Here’s what the output looks like now: Ooops.
It doesn’t look that much better, but it did change the order of the tools. But to be fair, I didn’t give it the right prompt. Let’s ask it *again*:
Prompt: use this color: #eb7c9b for header row, make the border: 3px solid, make the row lines 1 px solid
And it failed again:
VERDICT: for generating comparison tables from TL;DRs from a blog post – it’s a yes – but you won’t be able to style it without knowledge of HTML and CSS anyway.
4. Use ChatGPT to fill in your programmatic SEO database – “Use case” database (the more ‘generic’ paragraphs for each variable)
As you remember, I’m generating some posts (“programmatic posts“) using Google Sheet templates and linked databases also in Google Sheets:
The “Use case” database contains a list of keywords that are used in posts like “Best tools for {use case}” or “{Tool1} vs. {Tool2} – which is better for {Use case}” – you can find examples of these templates on this Patreon as well.
The keywords tend to be quite generic, so why not use GPT-4 To generate them?
I first tried to see how it would perform for KW “no-code growth” – I wanted to generate content for “What is {no-code growth” and “Why is {no-code growth} important” database entries, in HTML (as the entries are then uploaded straight to the code editor in the blog.)
These are the prompts I used:
1) What is no-code growth? Provide a definition in one paragraph, formatted in HTML. write it in the context of B2B SaaS, and growth here means “Product-Led Growth”
2) Now write a paragraph on why is no-code growth important? Give me 1 introductory sentence and then the reasons in bullet points – format it all in HTML. Write in a friendly, informal style – this is for a blog.
It did pretty well!
I’d still touch it up a bit (manually – unfortunately it’s not possible to rewrite HTML code in Wordtune:
Now, you can generate entries with GPT-4 and paste them manually, or generate the responses directly in your database (=Google Sheet). Unfortunately, I don’t have GPT-4 developers API access (you can apply for it here), so I can only do it using “da-vinci-003” model or “gpt-3.5-turbo”.
👉 btw. I explained in more detail “How to use ChatGPT inside your Google Sheets Progammatic SEO database?” in this post, but here’s a quick recap:
– 1. Install GPT for Sheets plugin on your GoogleSheets
– 2. Enable the plugin in your sheet database + paste the API key
– 3. Go into Extensions, then GPT for Sheets > and then:
1) Enable GPT functions
2) click on “Set API key”
…and paste your API key from OpenAI account there.
– 4. 3) Now test your chat GPT on a copy of your Template Sheet (which you can make here)
❗ make sure you’ve enabled the extension on this sheet as well!
Ok, so now – what did I do? I created a Programmatic SEO database and created the prompts to generate some of the generic paragraphs for each variable (general description, why is it important, what are the types, benefits of X, why does one need tools for X, and what are the key features of these tools).
Then, in the output cells, I pasted this formula: =GPT(C3,$A4,0,100,”gpt-3.5-turbo”)
Here’s how the formula for filling in programmatic SEO databases works:
Now, I just need to drag the formula horizontally to fill in the remaining cells:
Again, it did *pretty well* – I wouldn’t use the output outright, but if you have a *large* volume of use cases you wanna cover, or you’re building an affiliate site – this can save you tons of time:
VERDICT: for general paragraphs in the “use case” database, such as “definitions”, “why it’s important”, “how to improve” etc. – it’s a yes (but will require some manual editing).
5. *DO NOT* Ask it to fill in your programmatic SEO database – a “tools” database
(But if you do have the Developers’ API access, you could probably use it based on selected existing content + a prompt listing all the columns you want to fill)
No, where it flopped: the tools database is *a lot* more difficult and time-consuming to fill than the use-case database – you’re probably not surprised by this.
Knowing how one tool is different from another typically takes some hands-on empirical experience with the tool.
But what’s killing me is that I’ve already created *tons* of comparison posts based on actual experience after signing in to trials…and now finding the relevant paragraphs across 1200+ posts is a proper nightmare.
I wanted to see if ChatGPT would allow me to do that. I started from listing the columns I want to fill to save my GPT-4 query limit:
1. What is [tool] (General Description)
2. What are the pros of using it?
3. What are the cons of using it?
4. What is the pricing of the tool?
5. Positive review of the tool
6. Negative review of the tool
7. How can this tool be used for user onboarding?
8. What are these tool’s analytics features?
9. How can I collect user feedback with this tool?
My prompt included URL sources (which unfortunately the GPT-4 model within ChatGPT can’t read yet – so I only confirmed; but again – if you have the API access, you could probably do it!)
The output was very generic (like most content in SERPs…) and either didn’t include key differentiators, or included downright wrong information.
VERDICT: for tools database, it’s a definite no. We need to remember that GPT doesn’t think, doesn’t have experiences, and can’t read and mindfully interpret our content. It just predicts the next most likely string of tokens. This is not enough to provide in-depth analyses of key differentiators between different tools at this stage.
6. Can I use Chat GPT (GPT-4) to create a video script for me (so you can embed it in your blog)?
Now, I have this task on my weekly to-do list: I need to create a script for a few videos based on an annual report I have. Can chatGPT do it for me? Yes it can:
Prompt: Create a video script for me based on this fragment of an industry report:
[fragment of the report]
Why videos are important for your SEO content?
Google loves interactive content. Adding videos to your blogs, especially under the TL;DR section, can potentially boost your position in SERPs. But creating edited videos from scratch is hard and time-consuming.
But what if you produce videos by asking GPT-4 to summarize and then produce a video script from the TL;DR of you blog post, and then use AI tools like Pictory or Synthesia to produce the video? 🤔 Let’s see if that would work!
Let’s create a video on “How to improve product adoption rate”
STEP 1: Take a TL;DR from your blog post on that topic, e.g. https://userpilot.com/blog/improve-product-adoption-rate-saas/
Put it in ChatGPT with the same prompt as before:
It requires some touch ups so the AI tool doesn’t include the metatext in the video 😬
Now go to Pictory and choose “Text to video” (you can also choose “link to video” and compare results – they have a free trial so that shouldn’t be too expensive – maybe you don’t need that script at all!)
This is how it looks:
It takes Pictory a couple of minutes to create a video:
And voila – it did a pretty good job: it even took the right visuals e.g. for the product adoption rate from some stocks:
Pictory video creation
Now let’s see how it does from the URL alone: again, Pictory takes a few minutes to ramp up:
Ok, I’d say Pictory’s script from the URL is (surprisingly, I must admit) better than the one generated by GPT-4 from the TL;DR:
But then the final output had a ton of stock footage that just didn’t make sense:
VERDICT: for generating scripts for humans to record, it’s a yes. For generating whole videos from URL without any editing – it’s a not. I’d love to still explore what I can do with Pictory to edit this video.
Conclusion from this thought-experiments:
In sum, I’d happily use GPT-4 for:
– summarizing content, like for TL;DRs for posts
– creating comparison tables for BoFu blog posts comparing several variables, e.g. tools
– writing blog post outlines (but not briefs)
– filling in generic use case database entries, like e.g. metic definitions, why is the {variable} important, how to improve it, what are the benefits of…{method, tool type}, what are the key features of a {tool type} – even directly in the database, using GPT-3
– generating video scripts
What I wouldn’t use it for:
– filling in programmatic databases featuring tools
– writing whole posts
Hope you found this post useful! Let me know how you use GPT-4 for your SEO content/ content ops!
