If you’ve not already read my post about how I planned to use AI, as a little experiment, I’d suggest reading that one before this one. If you have, or if you just want to see the results, read on! This post is a month later than planned because I wanted to have a proper think about these results, and I plan to do another update in six months on this.
What was I using AI to do?
I decided to use AI for three things, and those haven’t changed through this three month experiment. I’ll break down the three areas, what I asked ChatGPT (including the exact prompts I used) and what I thought of the results.
1. To develop content ideas/post titles, in a similar style to the content I already produce, with a bit of a twist
I used the prompt ‘I am a travel blogger who shares content on trips I’ve taken. Popular posts with my readers are ’48 hours in X city’ ‘is X city worth visiting’ and ‘the complete guide to X city’. With this in mind, please provide me with four ideas of other posts my readers should like’ to get some new content ideas, based on content I already write that my readers enjoy. This gave me the below ideas;
“X City on a Budget: How to Experience It Without Breaking the Bank”
I have written this sort of content before, but not for a while. My post about seeing Hamburg for under £200 was from 2019, and my Cheapflights challenge, detailing how I did a weekend in Dublin for two people for under £350, was one of my favourite ever collaborations.
I travel on a budget anyway, and I had a post go live in mid January covering how much a travel blogger spends in a year. My recent post on how much I spent for a week in Marrakech seemed to go down well (although it wasn’t a how to see the city on a budget, but it was a similar sort of style) and I enjoyed creating it, so I think this idea is a good one for me. It won’t work for every city, and it’ll be a lot of research, but I could do it for cities I know well. Chat GPT nailed it with this suggestion and I’ll definitely do more of these style posts.
“Best Neighborhoods to Stay in X City (and Why)”
This is a great idea, but wouldn’t work for Inside Laura’s Head. I legitimately do not care where I stay, I go for cheap and cheerful with the amenities I need (usually a decent kitchen and a washing machine) and near a tram or bus stop. Other than that, I don’t look at areas, my partner often pays more attention to this side of our trips and nine times out of ten he chooses where we stay, after checking I’m happy with it. Good suggestion, but not my style.
“What I Wish I Knew Before Visiting X City”
I have done some content like this before, like my everything you need to know before visiting Marrakech post, but I don’t do them often and I don’t put enough information in there. I’ll be working on improving previous posts like this, and creating really good ones, for more unusual cities. Another great suggestion.
On the back of me hitting my visit 40 countries before I turn 40 target, I’m planning this style of content for some of the more unusual places I’ve visited, that people tend to have not been to. Again, I’ll link to content written below, once it’s written.
“X City vs. Y City: Which One Should You Visit?”
I’ve never considered this sort of content. I do visit some places that are similar (like the Balkan countries, the Baltics, or the more famous cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Prague and Copenhagen) so I could definitely do this justice.
Having considered the sort of topics I could cover in these posts, I have a list of posts I want to write later this year, once I’m a bit more caught up on some other content. I think this was a really good suggestion.
2. Asking AI where to share my content to get it seen by new eyes, and improve my page views
It shouldn’t matter how many people read my work, but to make Inside Laura’s Head a success it really does. Promotion is something I know I should do, I see the benefit of it on the rare occasion I do it, but I just don’t prioritise it. Part of that is knowing where and when to promote, so I was hoping for some good suggestions here.
I used the prompt ‘I run a travel blog, www.insidelaurashead.com. I don’t promote my posts currently. I want to increase my pageviews by 200% within the next six months. Where should I be promoting my posts, how often, and using what sort of information?’ I was hoping this would be detailed enough to get a fairly strategic response I could then build on.
ChatGPT told me to use Pinterest, using Canva to design my pins and then pinning 1-3 per day, promoting posts that bring value to readers, like my complete guide posts or posts sharing how much I spent in a destination. It also suggested I join relevant facebook groups and answer people’s questions on there, sharing my links where relevant but not spamming. An email list was a third suggestion.
I have used Pinterest a tiny bit previously and I did see an increase in traffic, so I’ve started doing this and so far, so good. I can’t see an email list working for me at this stage and I’ve not yet started on the travel facebook groups, so expect a further update post on the traffic growth side in around 6 months.
3. Asking AI how to choose keywords that will rank well for my posts
This is a very big topic and I couldn’t possibly cover this for the whole blog, so I decided to start with posts that are doing well already, like my complete guide to Gdansk post. Chat GPT identified that I was ranking pretty high (third) for the phrase ‘complete guide to Gdansk’ which isn’t a surprise given that’s what I was aiming to rank for, but is reassuring that I know a little bit about what I’m doing here! It gave me a list of suggested similar but non completing long tail keywords to use, and at the time of writing this post I’m implementing them.
When I initially wrote my post about using AI to help with my blogging for three months post, I envisaged having a lot more time to work on this through October, November and December than I did, so, honestly, I can’t really say how well this experiment has worked at this point. In the interests of transparency I wanted to get this update done anyway, and I’ll commit to a further update in six months time, mid June, when I should really be able to see how well using AI has helped me here. Hopefully readers find this mid way update useful anyway, I know I’ve found writing it really helpful.
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