Today I want to talk about ranking an AI-written article on the first page of Google in just 4 days.
I decided to share more strategic processes with you, and this is what they will look like. I’ll share results I’ve had, the strategies I implemented and why I did it. Hopefully, you can do the same or something similar in your business and get traffic to your blog, more customers, or whatever it is that your final goal is.
AI content for bloggers.
I know many of you are skeptical about it, but it’s usually because you haven’t done your research, haven’t heard from other expert bloggers, and haven’t actually given it a chance.
Because the case with me is that I was also skeptical and I stayed away from it for a long time, but then I started hearing everyone in the industry saying positive things about it, using it to create content for their blogs, starting niche sites, specifically so they can create a lot of content using AI. And it was giving them results.
No one knows how long that can continue, because pretty soon most of the websites online might be AI-generated, but that doesn’t mean yours can’t be quality.
Google takes AI blogs seriously since its recent update, and it gives them a higher chance of ranking than before. But I know that it’s hard to believe it before you actually see results. So that’s why I’m here today, to inspire you to give it a try and keep working on ranking your content.
Why I Began Creating AI Content for LRS
I said some time ago that I only create content using ChatGPT for one of my niche sites and not for Let’s Read Success, my main blog, but things have changed.
Literally, the industry changed in a few months, since last year. The most important thing was that Google algorithm update I mentioned, where the biggest search engine online treats AI generated content in the same way that it does content created by humans.
The simple argument for that is that both can be quality and both can be crappy. Many blogs started by people are for the sole purpose of making money, promoting something, not giving value, and just it’s not what the Internet needs more of. There is plenty of that.
In the same way, it’s possible that you use AI to help you out with your content, you edit it, add your personal touch, connect with your audience, and you can literally create the most valuable blog ever.
So why should we rule this out when there’s so many opportunities?
The biggest benefits are that it saves us time, it can do research much better than us and much faster, and we can use it in so many different ways.
So I started using it for Let’s Read Success – just to come up with blog post titles, to create a draft for an article, to create a list of ideas, or to add a separate section to an article like an FAQ section, because ChatGPT is really good at that, and just in little ways in which I can upgrade my content or generate new articles.
But eventually I started creating whole articles, and I can edit them a lot or a bit, depending on how much I want to change. But the thing is, Let’s Read Success is a big website. It covers many topics.
I don’t have a team of writers, and now ChatGPT is finally allowing me to produce more content in no time. Not just less time, but no time. I feel like I have a team of writers, but without paying anyone. The end result is the same. At this point, even if I make just a few changes to the post, and I use a tool that detects AI-written content, it can’t really detect it.
I’m not trying to deceive anyone. I’m not hiding the fact that it’s created with ChatGPT. The goal is different. The goal is to rank the content, get people to the page so they can subscribe to my list, or read more articles eventually, so they can trust me and like me, and just become a loyal reader.
The key reason why I will stick to it is that the end result is quality, and it’s actually better than if I would have written it myself.
Especially for things like, well, I just created a post on 100 blog post ideas, 40 tips for beginner bloggers, 300 blog name ideas, etc.
It was going to take me hours and hours to come up with these, and the list was not going be that good, but the best chat gpt app can do it in one minute, and it gives you original content.
Could you be left behind if you don’t get on the AI wagon?
Of course, it really helped me that all the people in the industry are positive about it now. I see them using it on their blog. I also noticed on other big blogs that I was following that their content sounds more like it’s AI generated.
Nothing bad about that. Just now I can recognize it, now that I’m more familiar with ChatGPT. It’s just becoming the norm in the industry, you know? I can even say that if you’re not doing it, you might be left behind.
This is not to say that there is any pressure involved, or you need to keep up. No. If you can produce enough original content for your blog, great.
You don’t need to write and publish more than one post weekly. That’s totally fine. But here we’re talking about the specific blogging goals of actually growing your traffic quickly, monetizing it, and just growing your business, and running a bigger site, not a small blog.
If that’s your goal, then ChatGPT can become your best friend. I’m talking more and more about that inside our membership for bloggers, Fearless Bloggers. This is actually where I first shared the results of me ranking an AI-written article.
Members also asked questions. I answered them, because that’s what we do there. We start topics, we discuss, we engage with each other.
Based on their questions, I’m now going to create some posts about it and hopefully trainings in the future. It’s just a big topic.
It’s one of the main topics I’ll be covering there together with SEO, Pinterest, content marketing, blog traffic, and so on. So if it’s something you want to learn more about, or if you want to get direct access to me and ask all the questions, or share your results in the membership and get feedback, you can check it out.
You can just join for a month and see if it’s for you.. There is nothing to lose. Here’s the link.
The AI-written article I ranked in 4 days
Now, let me talk about the AI-written article that I managed to rank in such a short time. I hope this can be proof that this could work for you, too. That search engines have nothing against AI-generated content, as long as it’s quality, unique, which it usually is, and as long as it’s part of a well-optimized blog, because it’s not just about that single page.
It’s about all the other pages on your site, how they’re interlinked, also about the external links, and every single element that is part of your blogging strategy.
So, on December 29th, I published an article on Let’s Read Success titled 100 Journal Prompts for the New Year [2024 Journal Ideas]. It’s like two titles in one.
In just four days, it was already on the first page of Google. A week later, it was on position number 15. It also ranked on the first page for the terms Journal Prompts for the New Year and 2024 Journal Ideas.
The timing was also good, because that’s exactly when people interested in that topic would search for it. And the fact that it ranked for many versions of the main keyword phrase is great. I got a total of over 1,300 page views to the site over the course of two or three weeks.
Now, it’s been some time, so I’m not tracking it anymore. I don’t think it’s getting that much traffic anymore, what I’m talking about is back then.
I’m definitely going to update this AI-written article every year, so I can give it another chance to rank better.
Also read: How Casey Botticello Built a Portfolio of Blogs & Scaled an AI Site to $25K/Month
How I optimize it
The way I use ChatGPT in that case is to first create the list of journal prompts. They’re in different categories. Then I ask ChatGPT to create the introduction and then the conclusion. Also a small section at the end on how to use the new year journal prompts.
I optimize the article very well by including the main keyword phrase, synonyms, adding internal and external links, adding a Pinterest image, a featured image, linking to it from other posts.
Once I publish a post, I go to Google Search Console and on top you can just paste a URL from your website and it shows you whether it’s indexed or not yet, or if there is an error and it’s not currently indexed.
In any case, you can just click a button there so that Google can crawl it again and give it a better chance of ranking. But I do this for every new post on my site because this way it really can index the page in just a few hours.
Otherwise, it can take a day or even two. The sooner it’s out there in the search results, the sooner you start ranking it.
I’m looking at my analytics now and on January 1st, I got nearly 300 clicks on the AI-written article from search engines, which is awesome.
The other AI post I ranked quickly
Many other days it got between 50 to 100 clicks. The same thing happened with another AI-written article I published earlier that month, which contained a list of journal prompts for January. I published it on January 3rd, which is technically a bit late, but that’s fine, that’s when I came up with the idea.
By January 15th, it was ranking on the 7th spot for the keyword phrase January journal prompts, which is the main keyword I targeted.
As you can guess, there is one month of the year for this type of content to go viral and that’s January. So for the rest of the month, I did my best to increase the article’s chance of ranking and so it can do better on Pinterest by sharing different pins targeting related keyword phrases, such as January journaling ideas, January journal prompts, and so on.
What’s the takeaway?
These two examples show us a few important things. AI-generated content can rank quickly and it can rank well. A seasonal content topic plus SEO is a great combination.
The January journal prompts article didn’t even get the attention it deserved on Pinterest, so this is just the result from search engines. But it could also have a viral effect on Pinterest and that will lead to many more page views and Google boosting the post in the search results even more. That creates a viral effect and you can get traffic to it for months, or for a whole year, or every year during that month.
What’s best is to publish articles like that one, two, or even three months in advance, to pin them a lot, to give them the chance to rank in search engines and to answer the needs of the people who search for these topics in advance, because not many do it in the last moment.
But in this case, it was just a last minute idea for me, so I just went for it. I’m definitely going to be creating more similar AI-written articles with journaling prompts. One for each month of the year, but also more general ones, such as journaling ideas on a specific topic or for an occasion. They’re going to be optimized for keywords and can do well both in search engines and on Pinterest.
In fact, I already did one with journal prompts for February and one for March. And it doesn’t mean each of them will go viral or will get any traction, but that’s the good thing about blog content. In the next year or a few months from now, for some reason, if it’s a more general article, it can go viral and it can get the attention it deserves.
You can’t just publish an article and let it stay in your archives. No. You have to go back to it, update it, republish it, share it on Pinterest over and over again, maybe sometimes add more content to it or update a section, because Google loves fresh content and that doesn’t necessarily mean newly published content.
Same goes for Pinterest. That’s why I say the ideal blog traffic formula is SEO plus Pinterest.
Final words
I showed you how AI-generated content can work, how it can still provide value and satisfy the user intent, which is what Google cares about the most. That means I create content relevant to the questions people ask in search engines, all the topics they search for, and I give them exactly what they need, which is my job as a blogger, right?
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me about it. I would love to discuss that topic further.
You can check out the AI-written article with the New Year Journal prompts if you want to study it, just see how I optimized it and use it as a reference for your content.
I would love for you to join us inside the membership, Fearless Bloggers, because a lot is happening there.
Earlier this month, I published my January income report. Many blog metrics were up and I shared plenty of screenshots with members. This time, I also added an accomplishment section to talk about the ways in which I got out of my comfort zone and the things I want to celebrate, as we so often skip that part in business and focus on what we haven’t achieved yet.
But in a nutshell, I hit a nice milestone for the blog traffic of Let’s Read Success, my monthly ad revenue, the traffic of my niche site, and also its Pinterest account, which is doing very well due to a few viral pins. I also shared some personal updates and my goals for February, because there is just so much growth happening right now. I really think it turned out to be a motivational and strategic piece of content.
Also, I created a whole new section inside the membership last week. It’s called Collaborations, and it was inspired by my chat with one of the members who was looking for bloggers to feature. Now, there is a section inside the membership where you can ask others to be featured on your site or include them in a roundup post, invite them to your podcast or to publish a guest post or do a guest post exchange, or any other form of collaboration that you can think of.
I will also be posting there occasionally with some nice opportunities for members.
Now I just finalized the video training in which I share all about two collaborations I did with brands back in December. I take you behind the scenes and in my email box, literally, where all the negotiations happened.
I show you what the brands were, how they approached me, how we negotiated the terms, what they paid me, and the content I created for them. So if you ever wondered how sponsored blogging actually works, this 30-minute video will answer many of your questions. I’m actually going to publish it later today.
And inside the membership, whenever you have questions, you can leave comments on posts, you can post yourself in the open topics or chat with me directly via the chat box in your member dashboard.
This is who I am now. I run a membership for bloggers that is slowly growing and I couldn’t be happier.
The way I feel about my business now is exactly what I dreamed about a year ago. Also, this is the first product I’m co-creating with you guys. Members give me feedback and inspire me to create new sections, to start new topics, or to add different interactive elements, because it’s a community after all.
Also, I’ve never revealed it all in my business before and now I do it for the people inside Fearless Bloggers. Two weeks ago, I published a post showing the daily traffic of Let’s Reach Success in the top posts and pages.
Another post is coming this month on how to create blog content with ChatGPT. As you saw, I do that. I make it quality and authentic. I rank it high in a short period of time.
So I have a lot to say about ranking an AI-written article already and members requested that topic. I can continue talking about it for hours, but I’ll leave you with that. If you’re curious what’s happening there and you’d like to check it out, here’s the link again.
I want you to know that I see myself not just as the founder of the membership, but also as one of the members. I share my wins there and start discussions and it brings me an extra layer of humility in my business. I’ve said it before that there is no place for ego in business and last year I worked on that a lot.
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