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- Building the Perfect Blog Outline with ChatGPT (Step-by-Step Guide, Part 1/4)
Building the Perfect Blog Outline with ChatGPT (Step-by-Step Guide, Part 1/4)
Tired of shitty AI quality blogs? Draft an outline first, with AI.
Jorrit van Ginkel
01 Feb
AI Marketing Machine is back. And in a legendary way.
Every Thursday in February, i will dedicate a newsletter to:
Building a fully autonomous AI blog with human-like content
Why should you care? Simply put, it's going to make your life as a content marketer way easier and more effective.
Here's what's coming up:
Feb 6: Building the Perfect Blog Outline with ChatGPT (Step-by-Step Guide), that’s this one.
Feb 13: Writing Human-Like Blogs with ChatGPT (Step-by-Step Guide)
Feb 20: Generating Engaging Images with DALL·E 3 (Step-by-Step Guide)
Feb 27: Running Your Blog on Autopilot with AI & Automation (Step-by-Step Guide)
Test our final GPT: OutlineMaestroGPT
“Blogging with AI, isn’t that a horrible idea?” Everyone. - 2024
No it’s not.
“The content is generic” - Yes, general prompts give generic content. That’s why we won’t be doing generic prompts, but very specific prompts with input from you.
“Google hates AI content” - Nope. Google loves useful content, which is exactly what we'll create.
“It doesn’t match my company and tone of voice” - It will if you guide it right. That's what I'll show you.
AI will help you save a shitload of time as a marketer. As long as you use it correctly, you will love the results. And that is exactly what I will teach you in the next 4 newsletters.
These 4 newsletter will:
Help you understand how to stretch AI to its best capabilities.
Help you make AI content that doesn’t have the shitty quality of basic AI content.
Show you the potential of AI combined with automation.
Make you a more productive marketer overall.
How to build the perfect Blog Outline with ChatGPT
Table of Contents
The goal will be to create content that stands out, not the same AI stuff everybody else creates. As AI gets more popular, the bar for good content will rise.
We’re going to use specific prompts based on what your customers need and how your company helps them. This means better control and more relevant content.
Why make an outline first, and not go straight into writing?
Very simple. We’re going for A+ quality. Writing an outline before actually writing the full blog will help you:
It gives you a lot more control about what the AI will actually write about and in which structure.
With the outline writer you can focus on getting your information right and specific.
You can prompt the writing style of the actual writer GPT way better (the more specific the job of a GPT, the better it will perform)
Especially when you’re writing about something that is very company specific or complicated, this would be a good approach.
What makes an excellent blog (outline)?
The ingredients for a good blog are 3-fold: the SEO keyword, context (company, target audience etc.) and best practices.
The SEO keyword
Keyword research is important here. Determine on which terms there is potential to rank. Use this to prompt your outline.
Context of your company & target audience
Have a clear overview of the target audience; what are their pains and gains.
Have a clear overview of the company: what do they stand for, how do they help customers, what kind of branding do they have etc.
What the next step for customers will be (the call to action).
What kind of blogging format would be most suited for this kind of CTA.
To make our life easy, we will make sure that the prompt/GPT will first ask us for this information before writing the actual outline.
The principles of an excellent blog post outline (get them from ChatGPT)
We will also need some context about what actually is a good blog post outline. For this, we of course ask ChatGPT to make an analysis with principles for an excellent blog post outline.
With some tweaking this will come out:
Quite a lot of information to consider, but should be no problem for our GPT.
The 6 Ingredients of a good prompt
Now, let’s think about how we want to work with our GPT outline writer. We want to cover the 6 ingredients for a good prompt:
Task
Context
Example
Persona
Format
Tone
Task
Let’s define what we want to do. To make it as easy as possible for us to give input, we will ask the GPT to ask us questions before it starts with the outline.
This would be good for the task:
Context
We tackled this with the questions the GPT will ask us. If you want to kick out the questions, you can paste your context into the GPT instructions. You can use a sentence like:
Consider these important points about the context for this blog post: [INPUT HERE]
Example
We won’t be providing an example to the GPT for now. It could improve results, but it’s not necessary when you provide a very good format.
Persona
To the fun part: giving our GPT a persona. Let’s ask ChatGPT what kind of person would write the best blog outlines on the planet:
“You're OutlineMaestroGPT, a virtuoso in crafting blog post outlines that ensure clarity, engagement, and depth. Your skill lies in structuring content that guides AI writers to produce insightful, well-organized, and compelling articles.”
Sounds like our guy to me!
Format
This is where we structure the output of the GPT. We make sure we get consistent outputs instead of outline’s that are all over the place. Let’s ask ChatGPT what kind of format we should get for an outline. We will ask it to template it. After some tweaking I got this:
Tone
This will also be determined by the input you give to the GPT within the questions. However for the outline it’s not too important yet. This will be way more important in the actual writer.
Some additional helpful tips for the prompt:
Add “Take a deep breath, now do this step by step.” at the end.
Bribe it a bit: “I’ll tip you €100 if you get this right.”
Include “You MUST” and “You will be penalized” (sounds horrible, but everything for the results, please don’t kill us later)
The full prompt for you to copy paste
You're OutlineMaestroGPT, a virtuoso in crafting blog post outlines that ensure clarity, engagement, and depth. Your skill lies in structuring content that guides AI writers to produce insightful, well-organized, and compelling articles.
You must write an outline for an excellent blog post. These are the steps you should exactly follow to come to the best results:
1. Before you start writing, you need to consider important input. Ask your human counterpart these questions:
- SEO Keywords: on what keywords should the content be focused?
- Target Audience Overview: Can you describe your target audience, including their demographics, key challenges, and what they value most in products or services like yours?
- Company Profile and Branding: What are your company's core values, unique selling propositions, and how do you typically engage and assist your customers? Additionally, how would you describe your company's brand personality and voice?
- Call to Action (CTA) Strategy: What is the primary action you want your audience to take after engaging with your content, and how do you plan to measure the success of this CTA?
- Effective Blogging Approach: In your experience, what blogging style and format (including content themes, length, and frequency) have been most effective in resonating with your audience and aligning with your CTA?
Wait for you human counterpart to respond with the relevant information. Then continue to step 2.
2. With the relevant information start writing an excellent outline for a blog post.
3. Ask your human counterpart specific questions about the outline to determine if the quality is good and if there is any specific steps or info missing. Wait for an answer
4. If there is feedback, write a new outline with the specific points in mind.
Respond in this format:
H1: [Insert Blog Title Here, < 60 Characters for SEO Optimization]
H2: Introduction
- Brief summary of the blog's main content.
- Incorporate primary keyword.
- Bullet point: Key information and angle of the article.
H2: Main Content Section(s)
- Bullet point: Important topics and information to be covered.
- Note: Number of sections (2 to 20) varies based on topic depth.
- For each section:
- H3: [Subsection Title]
- Bullet point: Important topics and information to be covered.
- Note: Include internal/external links with relevant anchor texts where applicable.
H2: Conclusion & Call to Action
- Summarize key takeaways.
- Show how the reader can take action that would help solve their problems with the specific CTA.
- Engage the reader with a closing thought or question.
SEO and Meta Title
- Google Meta Title: [Insert Meta Title, < 60 Characters]
- Google Description : [Insert Description, < 155 Characters]
- Bullet point: Keyword targets for SEO.
Depth of Content and Word Count
- Aim for a word count between 150 to 200 words.
- Bullet point: Ensure comprehensive coverage of the topic.
Additional instructions:
- Incorporate lists or bullet points to enhance readability.
- Plan for short, concise paragraphs and sentences for clarity.
- Don’t respond anything outside of this format. Only followup questions for the user to give better feedback. No guiding sentences or disclaimers.
Now start with step 1. Take a deep breath and do this step-by-step. I’ll tip you €100 if you get this right.
Your prompt is done.
You can use this in individual chats on GPT 3.5 (would not recommend, but it’s free)
If you have ChatGPT 4, you can build your own GPT or use mine:
Building your own OutlineGPT
We’re going to put the complete prompt into a GPT. This will make it easy to access and use in the future. It will also give you the ability to share it with the world or just your team.
After this you can fill in the name, description, prompt etc. On the top right you can publish the GPT to your team (if you’re on the teams plan).
Next week - Write Human-Like Blogs with ChatGPT
We will tackle a prompt/GPT that will build your writer.
It will write based on your blog post outline.
It will use the right tone of voice.
It will give you a publish ready blog.
Be on the lookout for these newsletters coming weeks in February on Thursdays:
Feb 6: Building the Perfect Blog Outline with ChatGPT (Step-by-Step Guide)
Feb 13: Writing Human-Like Blogs with ChatGPT (Step-by-Step Guide)
Feb 20: Generating Engaging Images with DALL·E 3 (Step-by-Step Guide)
Feb 27: Running Your Blog on Autopilot with AI & Automation (Step-by-Step Guide)
Thanks for reading. My last request: help me make this newsletter better by taking 1 minute to tell me about your struggles with AI. So in the future I can help you even better.
See you next week.
Are you excited about this process but just don't have the time or know-how to get it off the ground?
No worries, I can help you! I’ll build a custom app for you to control your blog with AI. All tailer made for your company, by me.
A super easy-to-use interface that lets you monitor and control the AI like a breeze.
You'll be able to turn simple keywords and ideas into full outlines, articles, and images, all with a few mouse clicks. Plus, you can easily tweak and get new versions based on your feedback.
You can upload new articles to your website in a snap, whenever you feel like it (as long as it works with your platform).
Sound good to you? Fill out this form and I'll be in touch to explore all the possibilities with you.
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