For the past several weeks, I have been testing Jasper (formerly Jarvis), an artificial intelligence content writing assistant. As a freelance writer, I’m always looking for ways to improve my efficiency and decrease my workload. However, I wasn’t sure if an AI-generated content could really provide the same level of quality as a human writer. Nonetheless, I decided to test it out.
I will admit, there is a learning curve to using Jasper. At first, pretty much everything that I was able to get it to write was gibberish. I think that in a lot of my early attempts, I was trying to get Jasper to be the writer, rather than the writing assistant. Once I realized the difference, I began to understand that AI-generated content really is the future, particularly for web developers.
But, first, let me give you a little background.
One of the greatest pain points that many web developers face is trying to get content from their clients.
When I first began building websites back in 1999, I used to use placeholder text (Lorem Ipsum) in my website mockups … and it seemed like every single time I presented it I had to explain it to my (very confused) clients. The purpose of lorem ipsum (dummy text) is actually to allow the focus to be on the design rather than the words on the page, but it just never seemed to work that way. I never really understood why it was so hard for people to wrap their heads around it, but it was always an issue.
Ironically, I now realize how silly it was to focus on design without relying on meaningful content. Content should always be the focus … the function of the website’s design should be to support the content. As Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, says, “Copy informs design; not the other way around.” Oh, and, interestingly enough, Unbounce claims to create “high-converting landing page layouts” with “instant copy generation” … yes, they are using AI!
Anyway, while I was able to finally get my clients to see past the dummy text and approve their designs, there was still an issue with getting content from them to replace the placeholder text.
Since my contracts stipulated that final payment was not due until a website was “finished” and live, I ended up having a bit of a problem … lots of websites that weren’t quite ready to launch, and no money coming in.
It was a huge problem, actually.
So, I began writing the content myself.
And, a funny thing happened. Once I wrote the content, my clients almost immediately provided changes, and I was able to get their sites launched.
The reason? It is much easier to edit content than it is to create it from scratch.
Unfortunately, though, writing content for hundreds of clients was not realistic unless I was willing to hire (or become) a full-time copywriter … and increase my prices accordingly.
Over the years, my partner and I did end up increasing our prices (significantly), and we wrote quite a lot of content (this is an understatement) for our clients.
I do not want to go back down that road. As I blogged about previously, I am trying to find my MVP … and it definitely does not include writing endless amounts of content for hundreds (thousands?) of small business websites. (Yes, I am trying to THINK BIGGER!)
And, that’s where AI-generated content is going to shine for Websketching Websites and for other website developers.
Using a tool like Jasper, web developers can provide their clients with the start that they need to get the job done. Remember: most people struggle with writing from scratch … they do much better with some type of outline or template.
AI-generated content can be that template.
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