Writing better website content for your customers in the age of AI

We’ve reached a point where content can be generated in seconds. Enter a subject and a few requirements and, at the touch of a button, you’ll have enough material for a blog post. Structured correctly. Written in a confident, professional tone.

Most of us are using tools like this in some capacity. But the question worth asking is whether this is the best long-term approach when it comes to content on your website.

AI has made content creation too easy

AI content generation has brought some genuine benefits, particularly for people who are more ideas-led (myself included). It can remove friction, help structure thoughts, and take the sting out of a blank page.

At the same time, it has contributed to an explosion of content. Much of it is average at best, offering very little real value. A lot of this content is created with one primary goal in mind: targeting keywords as quickly as possible in an attempt to improve organic rankings.

That’s where the problem begins.

This kind of approach risks becoming a false economy.

Years ago, search engines had to deal with keyword stuffing: the practice of cramming pages with repeated phrases in order to rank higher. Over time, that tactic lost its effectiveness as greater importance was placed on usefulness, relevance, and content that genuinely helped the reader.

AI-generated content can start to resemble this same pattern. On the surface it looks polished, but often it adds little substance for the user. In many cases, it exists mainly to generate clicks rather than to answer questions or provide insight.

As a short-term tactic, it may appear effective. Over the longer term, however, it’s likely to work against the goals of a website that depends on trust, credibility, and sustained visibility.

Should you be using AI to write your content?

At present, and for the foreseeable future, there is nothing in Google’s guidance that says you shouldn’t use AI to help write your content. Its use, in itself, does not result in a penalty.

Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines.

That said, this isn’t really the point when talking about AI as a short-term tactic.

The tool itself isn’t the issue. In the same way that designers aren’t penalised for using tools like Photoshop to speed up processes that once took hours, using AI to assist with content creation isn’t inherently problematic.

What matters is the final output.

How useful is the content you’re producing? Does it genuinely help the person reading it, or does it simply exist to fill space and target keywords?

As with keyword stuffing in the past, search engine algorithms have increasingly focused on delivering the best possible content and experience for the user. The method you use to get there, whether that includes AI or not, is largely irrelevant. The value it provides is what ultimately counts.

How to use AI when writing content for your website

This brings us to the main reason for this post: how to write better content.

Using AI to assist with writing is absolutely fine. I’ve done it myself, including for this article. Not everyone is a natural writer, and many of us didn’t thrive in traditional classroom settings before ending up in technical roles. In that context, having a tool that helps structure ideas in a clear, readable way can be genuinely helpful.

This is where one of AI’s real strengths sits. It can help shape rough thoughts into more coherent arguments and help ideas flow in a way that experienced writers have traditionally developed over time.

I’m very much ideas-led. I have notebooks filled with shorthand notes, half-formed thoughts, and things I’d like to explore in the future. Turning those fragments into a well-structured piece of content, though, is often where friction appears.

That’s the point where AI can be useful. It can help move you from raw ideas to a clearer first draft and suggest ways to progress to the next stage.

The key is how you frame the tool. Think of tools like ChatGPT or Gemini as part of your wider toolkit. They should support your thinking, not dictate it. In the next section, I’ll outline some practical ways to approach that balance.

Who is this content for, and what issue does it aim to solve?

This is a relatively simple question to ask before you start writing, but it’s one that many business websites appear to overlook.

Who is this content actually for? And how does it help that person in their day-to-day work or decision-making?

This is where the purpose of a post should come from. Not from keyword targeting (we’ll come back to that later), but from a clear understanding of what the content is trying to achieve and who it’s written for.

When you start from that position, value becomes a by-product of the process. The content is more useful, more focused, and far more likely to stand the test of time. Over time, this approach helps place your website in a different space to many competitors: one built on relevance, usefulness, and authority rather than volume alone.

How to define your audience

This will depend on you and the type of business you run. In most cases, you’ll already have a reasonable understanding of your customers: their backgrounds, age ranges, experience levels, and what they’re trying to achieve.

If you don’t yet have that level of clarity, then your first task before writing any content should be to build it.

Start by thinking about:

It’s important to get this in place early, as these decisions will shape your content strategy over time.

If you write content for a generic audience, it will usually read as generic. It won’t strongly resonate with anyone who comes across it.

Once you have a clearer idea of who your audience is, you can begin to align the tone and language of your writing with what they’re actually looking for. When those elements match the person the content is aimed at, it becomes much easier for them to connect with and engage in your content.

For example, my own target audience is local business owners and web design in Inverness. Many of them are early in their journey, or looking to move themselves onto the next stage. They don’t have the budgets of large organisations and are often looking for clear, honest advice they can realistically act on themselves.

Knowing this helps me focus the content I write. It’s not about technical detail for its own sake; it’s about creating informative posts that people can return to and use as their business develops.

Choosing subjects that actually help your customers

I’ve been in this position before. You want to generate traffic, and it can feel like the best way to do that is to create content that targets specific keywords or the current hot topic.

While this can return some results, how long those results last is often questionable. Ultimately, search engines reward quality. Keywords still play a role in helping content get discovered, but over the longer term, content that is well written and genuinely useful to its audience is far more likely to stand the test of time.

That’s why choosing the right subject is an important step you shouldn’t skip.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of producing “10 best…” style lists. There are already countless examples of these across the web, and it’s difficult to add anything meaningfully new. Instead, focus on subjects where you can provide genuine insight, experience, or clarity.

This is where thinking back to your audience becomes important. If you’ve already defined who you’re writing for, the next step is to start thinking like them.

Ask yourself:

There’s sometimes a concern that this approach gives too much away. In practice, it tends to do the opposite. Sharing knowledge openly helps build trust and demonstrates depth of understanding, which is often what potential customers are looking for in the first place.

To use this post as an example, my core audience is local businesses, particularly those based in Inverness. Many of these businesses are small, established operations looking to improve what they already have rather than start again. Quite often, they’re given unclear or conflicting advice, or only gain access to useful information once they’ve paid for it elsewhere.

This post is about removing some of those barriers. It’s intended to give people practical tools to get past the next hurdle. If that leads to positive outcomes, that’s a good thing. Their business improves, they may get in touch to discuss future work, they might recommend your services, and over time the content continues to attract the right kind of traffic because it remains genuinely useful.

Where AI fits into the writing process

This is the point where it can be useful to bring AI back into the process. Not to write the content for you, but to help you explore the shape of it.

At this stage, AI works best as a way of pressure-testing an idea. You can use it to sense-check whether a subject has enough depth, to explore different angles, and to identify gaps you might not have considered.

This is a good time to ask for things like:

You don’t need to spend a huge amount of time here. The goal isn’t to refine wording or polish sentences, but to get a clearer picture of how the subject could be approached based on your business, the audience you’re targeting, and the problem you’re trying to solve.

If an idea struggles at this stage, that’s useful information. It may mean the subject is too broad, too shallow, or not closely aligned with your audience. If it holds up, you’ll move into the writing phase with more confidence and a clearer sense of direction.

Write the content using your own experience

Once you’ve gathered that initial feedback and you’re comfortable with the subjects and structure you’ve identified, the next step is to write.

At this point, it’s worth stepping away from the chatbot and letting your own words take over. This is where your experience and understanding of the subject matter come into play.

Don’t worry if the first draft feels rough or if the flow isn’t quite right. That can all be refined later. For now, the focus should be on getting your thoughts down and answering the questions your target audience is likely to have.

Draw on real examples, situations you’ve encountered, and the patterns you’ve seen over time. These are the things that add depth and context, and they’re difficult to replicate without genuine involvement in the subject.

There’s been a tendency to offload this stage entirely to AI. While that can produce something passable, how effective the content is with little or no personal input will often determine whether it truly resonates or simply blends into everything else already out there.

Using AI as an editor, not as your ghost writer

Once you have a completed draft, this is a good point to bring AI back into the process and ask it to review what you’ve written.

Chatbots can be highly opinionated if you let them be, which is why it helps to set some ground rules upfront. Make it clear that you’re looking for feedback in the role of an editor: identifying areas that could be improved, sections that might benefit from clarification, and points where ideas could be expanded.

Without a small set of boundaries, chatbots can begin to drift away from your original point, or introduce language and phrasing that simply isn’t you.

At this stage, the kind of assistance you’re looking for is usually around clarity and structure. Are there areas that feel rushed? Are there points that could be explained more fully? You’re not asking for a rewrite, just considered feedback, in much the same way a traditional editor would approach the task.

Approached this way, the process becomes collaborative. You haven’t offloaded the work or generated something in five minutes. Instead, you’re actively shaping and refining content to better match the needs of your target audience.

This also ties back to the idea of authenticity. When your own experience and judgement remain at the centre of the piece, the content feels more useful and more credible. It reads as something grounded in real understanding, rather than something assembled purely for output.

Back up your claims

By this stage, you’ll likely have refined your content based on editorial feedback. The next step is to support the points you’re making.

It’s easy to reference an idea, statistic, or example without backing it up, leaving the reader to take it on trust alone. That doesn’t particularly help either side. The reader doesn’t get the full context, and the original source of the information receives no recognition.

Search engines, among other things, use links and citations to understand context and credibility. While not every reference you include will directly benefit your website in terms of authority, it serves another important purpose: it shows that you’ve taken the time to research the topic properly. That signal of care and diligence matters to both readers and search engines.

This doesn’t mean littering your content with citations. Instead, focus on backing up key claims where it adds clarity or confidence. If you’re making an assertion that shapes your argument, that’s often the right place to reference a reliable source.

So what makes a good source? Official documentation, trusted news outlets, or well-established commentators with a track record in the subject area. In the UK, organisations such as the BBC are often cited because they are not funded by advertising and operate under strict editorial standards.

Using well-known resources helps readers build trust in the claims you’re making. They spend less time questioning the source itself and more time engaging with the information being presented. Familiar, credible sources act as a shortcut for trust, allowing readers to focus on the substance rather than the legitimacy of the reference.

It’s also important not to choose a source simply because it supports your position. If others aren’t making the same claim, or if the evidence is weak or unclear, that’s something to approach with the same scepticism your readers would if those claims were left unchecked.

You can use AI to help identify potential resources, but this is an area where caution is especially important. AI tools are known to hallucinate, producing sources or examples that sound plausible but aren’t accurate. If AI suggests links or references, always read them yourself and verify that they genuinely support the point you’re making.

As a real-world example, earlier this year (2026) a UK police force was found to have used AI-generated information to list incidents involving football fans as justification for banning them. The issue was that one of the matches cited as evidence never took place.

The takeaway is simple: always check your sources. Whether you’re using AI or traditional research methods, treat both your work and your readers with respect by ensuring the information you present is accurate and properly supported.

Does this still match your audience?

Now that the main content has been written and reviewed, it’s worth taking a step back and asking a simple question: does this still match the original intent and audience?

With longer-form content, it’s easy to drift. Ideas expand, examples multiply, and before long you can find yourself slightly off course. This is a good moment to involve your “editor” again and sense-check whether the content still serves the audience you originally defined.

At this stage, alignment checks might include:

For me, that means asking whether the piece is clearly aimed at local and small businesses. If someone from that group came across this content, would it immediately feel relevant to their situation? Would the language, examples, and level of detail resonate with where they are right now?

I’ve deliberately kept keyword research out of this stage. Once keywords take centre stage, it’s easy to shift focus away from people and towards algorithms. There are plenty of tools that can help with keyword research later, but at this point the priority is ensuring the content works for the reader first. Refinement can always come afterwards.

That doesn’t mean keywords have no place at all. Including a small number of relevant terms, used naturally, can help search engines understand the topic you’re covering.

If you’ve already set up tools such as Search Console, you may have visibility into the terms your site is currently appearing for. If there’s a phrase you’d like to strengthen, it’s perfectly reasonable to include it where it fits organically. The key is that it supports the content, rather than reshaping it.

Creating content that lasts

It’s a more involved process, but it leads to far stronger content than the generic approach of asking AI to do all the writing and then editing it to fit. Working this way ensures authenticity remains at the centre of the content, with AI supporting the process rather than dictating it.

This approach is also easily repeatable. Over time, individual pieces can be tied together into content clusters, helping readers find related information in one place rather than jumping between disconnected sources. The goal is to create something that feels genuinely useful, not just a brief stop on the way to an answer elsewhere.

Done consistently, this gives your content real staying power. Instead of producing posts that lose relevance within weeks, you’re creating material that can be refined, expanded, and built upon over years. That stability benefits both your website and the people using it.

Speak to MBD today about improving the performance of your business website.

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