5 Reasons to Use a Human Content Creator Instead of AI
In today’s business writing landscape, the most common mistake I see is companies overvaluing AI copywriting. On the surface, an AI writer is less expensive and more efficient than hiring a skilled human content creator. However, many businesses fail to understand how damaging an AI article writer can be for search engine optimization (SEO), conversion rates, and more.
While overreliance on AI copywriting is a relatively recent problem, it’s similar to an issue that plagued the industry when I first started my career. Back then, many business owners would cut corners by hiring overseas writers for pennies on the dollar. Today’s obsession with AI copywriting is merely the latest iteration of this same mistake.
Why should you use a human content creator instead of an AI writer? Let’s discuss some of the most impactful differences between hiring a reputable website content writer and using an AI content generator.
1. AI doesn’t tell engaging stories.
When you use an AI writer, there’s one overarching trend regardless of the subject matter. AI copywriting is repetitive, stiff, sterile, and impersonal — savvy readers can spot AI-generated content from miles away. It’s not interesting or engaging, and it simply isn’t any good at telling stories. In short, it writes boring copy that no one likes to read.
If you know what you’re looking for, it’s effortless to tell when content was generated by an AI article writer rather than a skilled human content creator. One of the most obvious tells is that AI copywriting doesn’t include contractions.
It uses “do not” instead of “don’t,” “will not” instead of “won’t,” “I am” instead of “I’m,” “it is” instead of “it’s” — the list goes on and on. While that’s fine in small doses, the complete lack of contractions in AI copywriting results in content that’s every bit as robotic as the machine that wrote it.
This repetition extends to the phrasings used by an AI writer like ChatGPT. For instance, in my time using ChatGPT, I’ve noticed that it’s weirdly obsessed with the phrase “dive into” and will use it repeatedly in everything it writes.
It also dramatically overuses cutesy and corny phrasings related to the subject matter. A few months ago, a client had me edit several pieces of content composed by an AI article writer, including an article about starting a gym business.
The content was littered with dozens of phrases like “let us do the heavy lifting,” “build your business muscles,” and “improve your company’s financial fitness.” Enough with the cheesy fitness metaphors already — we get the idea!
2. An AI writer doesn’t create truly original content.
AI copywriting models are incapable of creativity. While a skilled content creator or blog writer can generate new ideas and express them in a unique voice, an AI article writer will simply parrot what it’s seen before. All it’s doing is copying existing content in a way that passes plagiarism checks.
An AI writer also lacks nuance and context, as current AI models like ChatGPT don’t understand these concepts. A reputable website content writer can help readers comprehend complex subjects by framing them against more familiar backdrops. Meanwhile, AI copywriting reproduces emotionless lists of facts without contextualizing them to help the reader.
The combined lack of originality and nuance is a big part of why AI-generated SEO writing often fails to drive conversions even when it generates clicks. Readers can easily become frustrated by the absence of authenticity and the less-than-helpful nature of the content, clicking away from the site before ever reaching the checkout.
3. AI can’t help you strategize.
Content strategy is one of our most popular services at Strandberg Media Services. In addition to SEO writing and content editing services, we can help you plan keyword research, blog topics, email campaigns, and more. When you hire an expert content creator, you get much more than just a basic blog writer.
If you use an AI writer instead, the only service you’ll get is the writing itself — and, as we already discussed, the quality of AI copywriting is typically quite poor. In a way, this point ties in with the one above regarding AI’s lack of creativity.
An AI article writer has no idea what kind of content would best serve your business. It only writes what you tell it to write, and even then it’s just a rough approximation of what others have already written on the subject. If you truly care about your company’s SEO writing — and turning those clicks into conversions — your best bet is still hiring a reputable website content writer.
4. AI copywriting has a limited database and unreliable info regarding current events.
If you’ve ever used ChatGPT (or similar tools), you probably already know how limited its knowledge base is. Until September 2023, ChatGPT had no information about anything that’s happened since 2021, so everything it wrote was at risk of being instantly outdated.
This problem was “solved” when OpenAI announced that ChatGPT is no longer limited to the info in its database — it’s now able to browse the internet, allowing it to provide information on more recent events. However, this presents a new and potentially even more harmful problem.
The issue is that ChatGPT can’t fact-check the information it finds in its web searches. Unlike the verified data in its core database, ChatGPT blindly gathers post-2021 information from the internet, where falsehoods, misinformation, and basic inaccuracies run rampant.
Long story short: If you care about having accurate, factual information in your content, you should rely on the skills and expertise of a reputable content creator instead of pinching pennies with an AI article writer.
5. Google’s SEO algorithm penalizes sites with too much low-quality content.
A friend’s business — we’ll call it Company X — fast-tracked itself to the top of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) by buying other sites in the same service niche and importing all of their content to its website. In the short term, this strategy worked, as the Company X website saw improved SEO rankings. However, there was a major problem lurking around the corner.
Google is constantly refining its SEO algorithm, and one key focus in recent iterations is the devaluing of sites with high quantities of low-quality content. While some of the content Company X added to its site was decently written, much more of it was unedited, low-value copy from an AI writer.
This strategy backfired when Google released a significant update to its algorithm, which focused on devaluing pages with lots of poorly written copy. Company X tumbled down SERPs, falling from near the top of results pages to being buried several pages deep.
They eventually course-corrected by purging page after page of low-quality AI copywriting, finally recovering their previous SEO rankings after several months. In the end, they wasted an enormous amount of resources fixing an issue they could have avoided if they had hired a reputable website content writer in the first place.
Trust Strandberg Media Services to be the content creator and strategy partner your business needs.
I’ll be the first to admit that AI copywriting has come a long way in the last few years. In 2021, I spent a good chunk of the year training an AI writer for one of my clients, and the technology has advanced considerably since then.
Back then, AI copywriting often lacked even the most basic grammatical cohesion, and there’s no way anyone would have used its content for business purposes. Perhaps, if AI copywriting models can somehow fix all of the issues discussed in this article, they’ll be viable for use by serious businesses in a few more years.
For now, using an AI article writer comes with a laundry list of shortcomings compared to hiring a skilled content creator. AI can’t strategize, it’s incapable of creativity, it’s factually unreliable, and it writes stiff, boring content.
If that sounds like a good fit for your company, by all means, use AI copywriting. If you take your SEO writing seriously, reach out to Strandberg Media Services today and learn about all we can do for your company.
