I’ll summarize this whole post in case you’re rushed. In bullets for easy reading:
- No AI never, ever. I’m writing this for myself, so it doesn’t make sense if a computer spits out articles about me, does it? I might cite a brief article, but will give credit where credit is due.
- I can’t write down to a 5th grade level. They shouldn’t be reading this blog anyway. That was a recommendation from the agency I didn’t go forward with. Another thing to make Google happy I suppose.
- The tags are used if someone, or myself, wants to find similar posts or essays. I’m not interested in key words to raise my ranking in search engines. I am an audience of 1. Don’t get me wrong, your comments, experiences and suggestions are always welcome!
- I will endeavor to keep commercial links off the site. But even some of the best sources, like Harvard Health offer subscriptions for various newsletters and such.
When the thought of starting a personal blog arose about a year ago, it forced me to take a serious look at my tech knowledge. Or lack thereof.
As I mentioned elsewhere (lets link the blog where you mentioned it elsewhere here! I bet someone might be interested to read it. Do you remember which one it was? I can put the link in for you when I post), I had been writing a WordPress blog for work the past 10 years. But my sole contribution to the website was typing something clever (it probably wasn’t) concerning the industry into a set block format.
Type, check off the preset tags, hit publish and I was done.
The layout, photos and background information was all provided, at a fairly high price, by the ad agency that handled all the advertising needs of a small business. Print, direct mail, webinars, two websites and the blog. Whatever advertising needs arose they took care of.
So in short I knew absolutely nothing. Especially not design, coding, layouts, themes, what have you. The best way to resolve this was to squander some hard earned savings and hire an ad agency. After all, if blogging and the club membership is all I have then why not. Oh, don’t forget dog food.
I managed to find a small agency, a friend of a friend, paid a 50% retainer and waited. Wrote more and waited. Once every two weeks we would talk on the phone about everything blogging. The direction took a different path than I had envisioned, going from a simple journal to a business venture. At least his direction.
I was the fool to let him change my focus, my attention shifting with every conversation.” I would get all amped up over his notion of making the site into something more than it was. I fell for the pitch.
His advice was all geared toward a money making venture, links and hits, advertising, building a base…blah blah blah.
“Google wants you to write like it’s a fifth grade audience” he mentioned every time we talked. “More keywords, more tags. More Google searches.” and so on.
Then the inevitable subject of AI always came up. “You should use AI to boost the number of posts you put up. It’s so easy, inexpensive and fairly reliable.”
I’ve had two experiences with AI besides seeing the blurb at the top of every Google search I complete. The first experience was asking Google about scarring inside the kidney. The AI summary suggested that I rub vitamin E over the scar and massage on occasion to reduce the scarring. That was brilliant.
The second was when I did one trial offer with one of the AI essay writers, who will remain nameless. A simple essay on gender dysmorphia. What I got back was horribly written. It was full of facts that seemed more like fiction, poorly organized, and not something I would ever put down as my own.
At the end of every conversation he promised to get me some questions or a survey to figure out some of my basic likes and dislikes. Layouts and design, themes, blog topics, color schemes.
Then two more weeks would roll by and nothing. Another phone call and rehash the same hash. Would it have been so hard to at least look at some layouts? But nope, better to stall and live off my dollars while they complete someone else’s work. I never knew such tactics existed, until I was told it’s fairly common.
After two months of this I was more than discouraged, so I called and cancelled the whole project. I simply used my worsening depression as my excuse. Why the heck would I even need an excuse???
In truth I didn’t want to give up with this blog, if only writing for myself.
I’m happy I didn’t just throw the whole idea into the bad idea pile and move on. It gives me focus, serves a very valid purpose, and might either be entertaining or enlightening to one other person.
As luck would have it, when mentioning all this trouble to a friend, she explained she was familiar with WordPress, web design, hosting etc. and a deal was struck!
These twists of fate. How unpredictable.