7 Ways AI Has Transformed the Content Writing Industry

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is nothing new. The term itself was coined back in the 1950s, while the concept has been in literature, particularly the science fiction genre, for a couple of decades already.

AI is more than just a thing of fantasy in our digital age. Most of the online platforms we use each day are AI-integrated already without us even noticing it. Ever wondered how Facebook manages to know the exact kinds of ads you’ll like to see in your feed? Or how it’s now possible to draw a technical flowchart without even lifting a finger?

It’s all AI. Today, we want to look at AI in the content writing industry. How this new tech advancement has revolutionized the content writing industry these past few years.

Recent statistics point out that 56.5% of CMOs use AI, particularly in content personalization. Meanwhile, 33.9% use it in content optimization.

Today, we’ll talk about the ways AI has transformed how we create new written content and develop new content ideas.

Plagiarism Checker

Visual.ly

The most basic tool that every content writer needs is a plagiarism checker. Don’t get us wrong. We also believe that most word combinations have been written already. We can only do so much to create unique articles, given the massive amount of content that gets published every day.

However, this shouldn’t give anyone a reason to copy completely written articles so brazenly. It is never okay to use another person’s hard work to your advantage, especially without their consent.

We also understand that there are times when we are simply not aware that the specific combination of words you came up with has been written already. Unfortunately, this honest mistake doesn’t make any difference.

Both instances are deemed “plagiarism” cases online. That’s where plagiarism checkers come in.

Most plagiarism checkers have begun with the same technology powering search engines. AI integration simply made these online tools more automated and proficient.

Fun Fact: AI plagiarism checkers rely heavily on cloud computing to make their algorithms more efficient. That said, most tools require machine learning and a steady stream of input to refine the technology further. That is why there are many free tools that you can find easily over the internet.

Grammar and Sentence Structure Checker

Here’s a tool that’s a little bit more advanced than a simple plagiarism checker. You are probably familiar with using a basic spelling and grammar checker, as most word processors have one as a feature.

These tools are getting more advanced, though, and now include sentence structure checking. Grammarly, for example, is our favorite. We consider it the best grammar checker and use it with almost all of the content we write. We’re even using it as we write this article.

There are other similar tools out there, such as Ginger Grammar and Hemingway. Feel free to explore them all.

Factors To Consider

It’s best to find one that matches your writing needs and preferences. You might also want to consider the following factors:

A grammar checker must be flexible enough to work with your preferred word processors and not the other way around. After all, getting used to a new writing software is more challenging than using a new grammar checker. Grammarly, for instance, can be used in-browser, on Google Docs, and MS Word.

Do not underestimate the value of this feature. It’s particularly helpful when you’re finding synonyms to minimize redundancy and paraphrasing existing posts to develop new ones.

Finally, most of these tools are limited to a single user per account. While this may be more than enough for some of us, students and beginner content writers will find it more affordable to share a premium plan with another user.

Content Paraphrasing Tools

According to Forbes, there are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day. Meanwhile, another survey reports that WordPress users produce 70 million new posts each month.

Big websites that cover multiple topics need to publish a new post at least one to two times per day for each topic. That’s a lot of content!

It’s also important to note that most news websites don’t even need to create completely unique articles each day. After all, they can’t make up stories.

They have to report what’s already there. Thus, there really is no surprise that there is a huge demand for content paraphrasing.

You are probably familiar with the old paraphrasing programs of the past. Most simply rearrange sentences and replace certain words with synonyms, enough to “trick” plagiarism checkers. However, the resulting articles are awkward and substandard at best.

Hence, most marketers still resort to hiring content writers tasked specifically to paraphrase existing articles. It’s a great job for beginners looking into building their writing experience. On the other hand, hiring writers to paraphrase posts can also be unnecessarily costly.

Fortunately, AI technology has significantly improved content paraphrasing tools. The best programs out there produce work that can rival actual content writers. Most of all, many of them can paraphrase articles in seconds, cutting not just expenses but also turnover times in half.

AI Article Generators

You might be wondering, “But what about new content?” You might be surprised to learn that there are AI article generators already. In fact, according to another article published by Forbes, there are notable websites that use AI to generate new content already, like The New York Times and Associated Press.

Even now, many of the ad/sales copies on social channels like YouTube and Instagram are generated by AI tools. Take YouTube, for instance, recent statistics show that people watch hundreds of minutes of ads per day on the platform. Such numbers are not sustainable if we relied on humans alone to create content. But with AI tools, ad copy creation becomes an automated process, making it easier to generate tons of copies.

Sure, the results are currently very “robotic”, given that most of these tools use a specific formula to create articles. Experts predict that we will see more creative AI-integrated tools, though. This is possible through the use of natural language generation technology or NLG.

What Is NLG?

In a nutshell, it is a type of AI technology that learns languages. The program can then wield it according to the prescribed use, such as speaking or writing. It is the same technology that allows AI assistants like Alexa and Cortana to communicate with us. In essence, AI article generators work the same way, only this time, they write their messages down instead of speaking them.

We expect that there will be varied opinions about AI-generated poetry, novels, and other forms of literature. Content writers might also feel anxious that they might get replaced in the future. Only time will tell.

Readability Analyzer

The most common complaint that users have against AI-influenced content is how awkward and robotic they may sound. We have also mentioned these issues in passing above.

Don’t get us wrong, though. Even human writers can produce such content.

The problem is, it doesn’t appeal to human readers. Instead, most of us prefer natural-sounding and conversational articles, much like the tone we want to achieve in this article. We want articles that sound warm and friendly over cold and formulaic.

To make matters worse, the quality of content will determine how many online visitors your website will attract一a factor that is crucial when you’re trying to grow your business online. That is where readability analyzers come in handy.

As the name suggests, a readability analyzer is a tool to determine how your content may sound to the readers. Different readability formulas like the Raygor Readability Graph and Gunning Fog Index are available, depending on the type of literature you want to analyze.

The most popularly used, though, is the Flesch Reading Ease scoring system. It ranges from 1 to 100, with 100 being the highest.

Most content writers aim for a score of 70 to 80. It’s a score that should be easy to understand for the average reader and challenging enough to keep an adult’s attention. You’d want to score higher if you’re writing for academic purposes, though.

How Are Articles Scored?

The Flesch Reading Ease scoring system is based on two factors:

• Word Length: Longer words with more syllables are usually considered more complicated than shorter ones with fewer syllables.
• Sentence Length: Much like how words get scored, shorter sentences are considered easier to read than longer ones.

Some of the AI-integrated writing tools we listed will already come with a readability analyzer as an added feature. There are standalone readability analyzers as well for writers who don’t need other tools and services. We prefer to use these than built-in analytical tools as they are typically more advanced and thus, produce more accurate results.

Optimizer Checker

Suppose you have checked that your article is not plagiarized. You have also determined through various writing tools that it is free of grammatical and spelling errors. Each sentence is also well-structured, and you have checked that it has a good readability score.

Everything looks to be in place for human readers. What now?

The next step is to ensure that search engines can read your content accurately. The problem is, humans and search engines don’t exactly process the content the same way.

Optimizing written content is a complex art. It’s more than just stuffing your post with keywords. In fact, doing so can even penalize your website and end up with your content ranking even lower on result pages.

No wonder an average guest post service can be quite costly. After all, guest post writers ensure they produce high-quality and fully optimized content that even the most reputable websites would want to publish.

The main challenge is to learn how to write similarly excellent articles without breaking the bank. Fortunately, you can use an optimizer checker instead to gauge how SEO-friendly your article is.

You need to make sure that your chosen tool is AI-integrated, though. Otherwise, a regular tool will just count your article’s keywords for you.

Factors That Determine Optimized Content

Just to give you an idea, here are the top three factors that most search engines, including Google, consider when they’re determining the value of an article or web page:

The main objectives of search engine companies are to help online users locate the content that will answer their questions or add value to their lives. Hence, they do care whether your article is nicely written or not, or whether it contains truthful, quality information or just filled to the brim with fluff.

Your article must at least be free of basic grammar and spelling mistakes. No one enjoys poorly written content, not even search engines.

Grammarly

This is where keywords come in. They help search engines determine which content to include in their results. This leads people to think that they can get away with keyword stuffing.

Interestingly, search engines are also equipped with AI now and can actually recognize syntax nuances already. As mentioned, keyword stuffing can even get you penalized.

Reverse Image Text

Most of the content we’ve talked about so far is published online. What about those published before the dawn of the world wide web? Well, most of them are painstakingly digitized daily.

Do you have similar content that you want to digitize and publish on your website? You can always hire an encoder to type your document for you, but why not use a reverse image text tool instead?

Also known as an image-to-text converter, it is a tool that can turn images into text. Using it will allow you to save money and accomplish the task in a snap. This tool is used for old books and will work well in converting scanned documents and photos containing written information.

Recent Instagram statistics have shown that there’s a growing relationship between blogging and Instagramming. As an IG vlogger or an influencer, it’s going to be tough reproducing every content uploaded on your IG as textual content on your blog pages. But with an image-to-text conversion tool, transforming your image content into textual content just got easier.

Again, you’d want to make sure that your chosen tool is AI-integrated since not all have fully upgraded their programs yet. AI-equipped reverse image text tools are more accurate in their conversion. Most of them can also autocorrect words that are difficult to distinguish and create a cohesive and comprehensible text.

To Sum Up

If you think that only finance and communication tools use artificial intelligence, then you’re terribly mistaken. There are numerous AI-integrated tools specifically designed for content writing.

Grammar checkers, readability analyzers, and optimizers are just a few online tools that use AI technology to produce smarter and more accurate results. In fact, current trends suggest that we may be looking forward to a future where AI will produce most online content.

For now, we can take advantage of the capacity of our current technology and check out the tools that we have featured. After all, these tools have already been transformative enough to change the landscape of content writing itself.

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