Hello, I’m Guray Web Pro, and today we’re talking about content production. I normally record a voice memo when I write, but my current environment isn’t great for recording, so I decided to type this one out instead.
I use AI to help organize my thoughts and format my writing, and that’s been the most freeing development in content creation for me. That said, content ownership shouldn’t be handed over to AI. It’s excellent at formatting, but it falls short when it comes to generating content from scratch. In today’s AI summary driven SEO landscape, where EEAT matters so much and the line between signal and noise is razor thin, having AI write an article from nothing just doesn’t make sense to me. What AI is genuinely useful for is formatting and organizing your thoughts, and I want to walk you through the method I use so you can apply it yourself.
Picking a Topic
I start by choosing a topic, something people are actually searching for and curious about. In the past I would have told you to run it through Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Planner, or similar tools. But I think leaning on keyword volume is a habit we need to move away from. Search queries are getting more specific by the day, something you’ve probably noticed in your own searches, since you’re likely asking Google and other AI tools more complex questions now than you used to.
Because of that, I’d recommend a middle ground strategy: keep an eye on trending queries in Google Trends, but also think about the detailed, specific topics people in your field might want to read about. Above all, define a target audience and speak to at least one imagined reader. For my own blog, that reader is someone just starting out, or someone trying to move their business online and figure out how internet marketing works. When picking a topic, I think about what that person needs. I imagine what I’d want to tell myself if I were starting out online today, or back in 2015 or 2016 as a student who hadn’t gotten into this yet. I also read freelance and contract job listings almost every day, which gives me a firsthand look at the kinds of needs and struggles small and mid sized businesses around the world have, and I write about those.
From Voice Memo to Draft
After doing a bit of preliminary research if needed, I record a voice memo. Ten to twenty minutes is usually enough, sometimes less depending on the topic. Talk about it the way you’d explain your work to a friend, the same way most of you already do on Instagram or other social platforms. From what I’ve seen, writing that sounds like natural speech tends to perform better, so relax and speak about your own expertise. Remember, your expertise is the new material you’re bringing into the digital space, that part is entirely yours, so speak freely. Even if you contradict yourself here and there, don’t worry, the AI will smooth that out during formatting.
Turning Speech Into Subtitles
Next comes CapCut. You can even record your voice memo directly inside the app. I get a lot of value out of CapCut Pro, its speech to subtitle accuracy is genuinely impressive. I record my voice memos through CapCut for that reason, though you don’t need the Pro version to do this. Before I had Pro, I used to copy the subtitles over one by one into Word or Google Docs, which took maybe five to ten minutes at most. But if you’d rather skip that hassle, and think you’ll use the video features too, Pro is worth the investment.
Formatting With AI
Once you’ve exported your subtitles, paste them into your favorite AI tool. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all work well, though each one brings its own tone to the table, so I’ll share the exact prompt I use.
Normally you might just say “format this text,” but you’ll end up with something that reads like a Buzzfeed clone. I don’t enjoy reading that kind of writing myself, and I’m not confident it holds up for SEO or avoids sounding like duplicate content, so all that effort would go to waste. Instead, I go step by step and format the piece with as little interference to the original content as possible. Feel free to skip any part of the prompt you don’t need, or combine it however works for you.
I start with “transcribe this text,” and you can translate at this stage too, for example “transcribe this text to English” or “transcribe this text to Spanish.” Knowing the target language helps with proofreading, but it’s not essential anymore, translations are solid enough for blog writing.
Next I ask it to “remove redundant sentences, words.” This cuts down on the habit we all have of repeating the same idea while talking or drafting, and it tightens the writing without changing the substance.
Then “add titles where needed,” since I usually haven’t written headers for the piece yet. This adds subheadings wherever the topic shifts.
Now for the things I don’t want. “Don’t use em dash.” It’s grammatically correct, but I don’t think anyone was really using it online before 2022 or 2023, so I block it to make sure my writing doesn’t read like it came from someone sipping cold brew through a paper straw at Buzzfeed, or from a GPU. I honestly don’t even know how to type em dash on a keyboard.
“Don’t use listicle.” All three models default to numbering everything, probably a habit picked up from viral social posts. I don’t want to see another bullet pointed slide deck or document, we already sit through enough poorly written, bullet heavy presentations in meetings or university courses as it is.
So the final prompt is:
Transcribe this text, remove redundant sentences/words, add titles where needed, don’t use em dash, don’t use listicle
Add more formatting instructions as you need them, but this base prompt keeps the writing feeling human and true to your original content.
Publishing
Copy the result into your blogging platform of choice, WordPress, Ghost CMS, Wix, Blogger, and you’re set. If you want an image, try “find me a featured image for this,” or generate one outright. My favorite image tool lately has been Envato’s Spark. If you get the yearly Envato Elements plan, it comes with ten tokens a month. For a title, try “give me a long tailed SEO friendly title for this,” which tends to produce a very polished, magazine style headline.
Final Thoughts
Happy blogging. Consistency is the most important part of content marketing. The digital world is also more evergreen than we tend to think, a short form video only gets promoted on a platform for a limited window, but a genuinely useful article on your own site can keep sending you traffic for a much longer stretch of time. Your effort isn’t wasted, trust that. Keep writing about your service or your chosen topic, and within six months to a year you’ll look back and feel far more confident and comfortable with where you’ve landed.
I’m Guray Web Pro. If you have any questions about digital work or an IT career, reach out through the WhatsApp button on my site. You can find more of my writing on my blog. Thanks for reading.
Recent Comments