Small businesses – or right now during the pandemic, most businesses – have to be careful of their budget and save money where possible. Sometimes it pays to pay out for better quality, and sometimes a solution comes along that can save business owners time, effort, and some green without sacrificing quality.
I saw an ad recently about Kafkai Writer, a website that creates AI-generated content for blogs, newsletters, and so forth, so I wanted to test this out. Were the articles grammatically correct and worthwhile – or at least close enough to be quickly adjusted and posted? Were they SEO-friendly? As a writer, did I need to explore other career paths?
How does Kafkai Writer work?
AI technology is a little above my paygrade, so I can’t explain the technical process behind the scenes, but essentially, you give the website or app a general topic category (for instance, business, dogs, food) and the website will use that to create an article. If you have a more specific subject in mind, you can even enter in an opening paragraph – maybe one you wrote or one from another site covering the topic you are interested in. (Supposedly, the site won’t plagarize or use that paragraph exactly – it will just use it as inspiration).
Their website claims to have “a machine-learning algorithm that can write articles from scratch. Cutting-edge technology for marketers and SEOs”, and they continue on to say that most articles will be SEO-friendly and ready to post after only a few minutes of editing.
Are the claims true?
Ha. No. My job is safe. After having the site produce 25 articles in a variety of topics, some with a sample introduction paragraph and some without, I can confidently say – this is a service businesses should avoid. You just cannot get quality content from a machine.
Some of the articles – very few, but some – may have used keywords in a way that would help a site’s SEO, but this happened more out of luck than actual algorithm and the articles are, at best, poor-quality clickbait with no actual substance, so long term, your site would likely decline in search engine rankings. Most of the articles were incoherent, and while half of those could possibly be edited into something mediocre but usable (after a lot of time, in which case someone could just write the article from scratch), others were…trash. Not even fixable. For instance, an intro paragraph about Albania produced a travel article that placed Albania in East Asia and filled it with Sikh people.
Another article, from the business category, was titled “Five Little Words That Could Change Your Life” and not only never revealed those five words, but also consisted solely of staccato single-sentence paragraphs that made absolutely no sense. My favorite line in the steaming mess was “Our clients will live the Grapes of Joy as they benefit from the heart sent from the heart and gathered from the hearts of our employees.” What does that even mean?
My Conclusion
Please, please, hire an actual content writer. Quality content can do wonders to promote a business and increase rankings for a website, and the only way to get quality content is for an actual human to write it. Maybe you want to do that yourself, maybe that’s something you prefer to outsource, but it is one area that you simply can’t skimp on.
It’s important to find a writer that meshes with your brand and your company’s voice – and this isn’t always easy. You may have to try out several writers before you find the right one, but it is worth it in the long run. Well-written, quality content will not only boost your SEO but it will also draw people back in and help them connect with your business.
Anyway, I guess my job is safe.