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Tips and Tricks for AI Writing

Getting the Most Out of AI Writing: Tips and Tricks

Navigating through all the different AI writing tools can feel a little daunting.

With this field being so new (and potentially helpful), we wanted to make sure that you’re prepped with my tips and tricks on how to pick and use AI writing software effectively.

As an editor and writer, I’ve spent hours testing out the best AI writers and have compiled my notes for you here.

Best AI for Short Form Content

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CopyAI

  • Good for social media, ads, and product descriptions
  • Pre-built templates
  • Only provider with a free plan

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Best AI for Long Form Content

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Content at Scale

  • Highest quality AI output we have seen (minimal editing required)
  • By far the best AI writer for long-form blog content
  • Single-click output - no learning curve

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How AI Writing Works – GTP3

How AI Writing Works

AI writing software is basically a combination of GTP-3 and machine learning models. Programmers feed the AI a massive amount of content from across the web to “learn” from. Then it reconfigures that megaton of information based on the description (or keywords) that you provide the AI writer, how many words you want the text to be, and the templates that the programmers created for the AI.

From there, it produces your article, product description, ad, or even email.

What Are AI Writers Used For?

What Are AI Writers Used For

AI writing tools help content creators scale up the amount of content they create. It’s like a writing assistant who bangs out content within seconds. Now, it’s not always great, human-like content, but with some editing, it can definitely lighten your writing load.

Most content creators use AI writing tools to write the things they’re not always fond of or perhaps don’t have time for. The typical array of content includes Facebook ads, cover letters, blog articles, content briefs, and many more. With 66% of bloggers using AI to create “How-To” content.

 

How to Choose AI Writing Tool

How to Pick AI Writing Software

Before sitting down to test out some of the AI writing software, take a moment to really plan out how you’re going to use this software as well as how to measure the effectiveness of AI-generated content for your business.

Here are a few questions that I would ask myself:

What are the gaps in my writing tasks?

The answer will look different for everyone. But you need to first analyze which writing tasks are falling by the wayside and create a list with two headings Short-Form Content (under 1,000 words) and Long-Form Content (over 1,000 words).

If you’re struggling to keep up with or produce items like ads, product descriptions, emails, or blog intros, you’ll want to add those to the Short-Form Content. If you need blog articles as a whole, you’ll want to put that under Long-Form.

What type of content do I want to create?

Now that you know where your gaps are, you can start to see what you’re actually going to use the AI writing tool for, which translates into how many words you’ll need to purchase from the AI writing company.

Look at your list from the previous question, and be honest about how many items you plan to write per month as well as the average length (in words) of those items. The table below has an average word count for a few examples short- and long-form content to give you a frame of reference.

Content TypeAverage Word Count
Product Description300 - 400
Email50 - 125
Content Brief50 - 100
Facebook Ads15 - 18
Instagram Captions22 - 25
Short Blog Posts500 - 800
Long Blog Posts1,200 - 2,500

As you can see, the long-form content is going to eat up word count fast. Make some rough estimates for how many words you think you’ll use in a month. Round up. Some AI tools are pretty stingy and count words against you even if you change your mind after selecting them.

Which AI Writing Tools Should I Test Out?

The biggest determining factor in which tool to use depends on how much long-form content you will need.

If you merely struggle with blog intros and have a ton of content briefs, social media posts or ads, you can get away with a short-form friendly AI writer like Mentum [review] or Frase [review] (which is great for content briefs) with a template for blog intro. However, if you want the flexibility to write an entire blog post, you’ll want to test out something like Copy.ai [review], Jasper [review], or Writesonic [review].

Knowing what types of content and how many words you’ll need per month will help you narrow down the field quite a bit. It’s also super helpful to look at my reviews for each of these services to see which ones look the most promising. You can also read our comparison of Jasper vs ChatGPT in case you're not sure which of the two to go for.

Which AI Writing Tools Offer Free Trials?

Time to have some geeky fun and start testing out the different AI writers.

Many AI writing tools (like Copy.ai, Writesonic, and Mentum) offer free trials. Others offer a money-back guarantee.

Personally, I’m not a fan of giving my credit card out or being charged before I test any kind of software. My philosophy is that if the company is confident in the quality of its product and thus my desire to purchase the product, then it’ll let me test the service out without requiring my credit card.

How to Measure Effectiveness of AI-Generated Content

Now that you have your plan for which content you’ll create and which AI writing software you’ll use, you need to have benchmarks in place beforehand to make sure you’re getting the kind of returns you wanted to see or where you can improve the process.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of AI Writing Tools

Getting the Most Out of AI Writing

After testing out the best AI writing tools, I started to find areas that I could see others struggling with and perhaps some pitfalls. Below, there are a few tips for working with and humanizing AI writers.

Editing

You will absolutely need to do editing. At this point, no AI is producing human-quality output. So no, writers won’t be losing their jobs any time soon.

What the AI writer will give you is a text that cuts the time spent on writing down to mere seconds. It won’t be perfect, and it might sound stilted. At times, the text sounded like someone whose second language is English wrote the text.

For that reason and others, you want your in-house editor to bring it up to your standards. This can also help with Google thinking your content is generated by human writers.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

There is an old coding adage that summarizes using any form of AI: Garbage in, garbage out. In other words, the software is only as good as what you and the programmers put into it.

For your part, you want to make sure you use several strong longtail keywords, phrases, or even sentences (depending on what you want the AI to produce). The better quality and quantity of input you have, the better your output will be, which means you’ll have to spend less time editing.

Factcheck and Plagiarism

AI writing tools are nothing more than fancy programs. (We’re not talking about Skynet here.) It’s still a computer program that will just spit out what it’s “trained” to do. Having said that, I’ve found major issues with paragraphs in blog articles. In the Frase review, you’ll find questionable and cringeworthy output (also known as AI hallucinations). In another article from Copy.ai, I learned that AI writers aren’t great at math (typical English major problem). I’ve questioned the accuracy of some of the content across multiple platforms. Plus, given how prolific false information is on the web these days, it’s something for editors to be aware of.

Because of how AI-generated content is created, the risk of plagiarism is high. Only Jasper offers a plagiarism checker. These issues underscore the real need for editors to go behind the AI-generated output and check for both credibility and plagiarism.

Options Are Your Friend

Whenever you tell the AI writer to create an email, for example, some AI writers will give you multiple versions of an email to choose from. And then some only give you one version.

If you’ve seen my walkthrough videos and read the reviews from Copy.ai or Frase, you’ll know that I appreciated having multiple versions to choose from.

My reasoning is simple. If I take an extra minute to find the option closest to what I believe my readers will find useful, then I will spend less time and resources on editing and rewriting later.

Having more options to choose from ultimately helps save me time and allows me to get the most out of my money. Having to rework an entire blog section is not only a waste of my time but also my money.

For example, Writesonic generates multiple versions of a blog article’s outline (which is great), but it doesn’t allow me to pick which version of a paragraph I want. Copy.ai will let me customize my article from the beginning rather than just giving me an entire article that I might not be happy with and will need to either regenerate a new article or just edit and rewrite until I’m satisfied.

Now, if you need a ton of content quickly and don’t mind the work on the backend to bring it up to standards, then having an entire article in 30 seconds will definitely suit your needs.

This balance is one of those areas you need to consider when looking at which AI writing tool will work for you.

Final Tips and Tricks for AI Writing Tools

Overall, picking the right AI writing tool can feel a bit daunting at first. However, with a bit of forethought and planning, you will not only find the software that’s the right fit for your needs, but you will also be able to capitalize on your investment.

Check out our list of the best AI detectors to make sure your content won't get penalized by Google. Also, consider these AI rewriters to help pass detection.

Best AI for Short Form Content

CopyAI Logo

CopyAI

  • Good for social media, ads, and product descriptions
  • Pre-built templates
  • Only provider with a free plan

Get Started for Free

Best AI for Long Form Content

ContentAtScale Logo

Content at Scale

  • Highest quality AI output we have seen (minimal editing required)
  • By far the best AI writer for long-form blog content
  • Single-click output - no learning curve

Get 20% Bonus Credits Every Month

Frequently Asked Questions

Can AI writers replace content writers?

No, you will still need good content writers to produce human-quality writing.

Is the content from the AI writing tools edited?

No, you will definitely need to have your in-house editor bring the AI-generated text up to your standards.

Are there free trials for AI writing software?

Yes, there are. Copy.ai, Writesonic, and Mentum are some of the AI writers that have free trials.