How to use AI to write a blog post (that isn’t slop)

Like a hammer or equal a tress dryer, AI is fair a tool. It needs to be wielded skillfully by an expert to accomplish greatness. And in a earth increasingly complete of “AI slop,” this is particularly true whenever exploring how to use AI to compose a blog post.

When using AI to compose blog posts, you can’t fair sit rear and click copy-paste and publish. You need to create a thorough brief, build an outline, outline one division at a time, and afterward edit alongside the emotion, lived experience, and discernment lone a individual can.

Despite the fame of AI-assisted satisfied creation, 62.7% of marketers acknowledge brands need additional unique, human-centered satisfied to compete. Google agrees, saying AI can assistance alongside investigation and structure, but you should fact-check and assessment everything by hand before you publish, as it can get facts wrong.

AI can create quantity, no doubt, but its norm is up for conversation — at smallest without your guidance. AI is fantastic for construction and archetypal drafts, but lone you can bring the expertise, voice, and final norm assurance that produces awesome content. And this guide volition display you how.

You’ll get a five-step procedure for creating blog posts alongside AI, human-review checkpoints, immediate templates, and tips for keeping your sound and avoiding the “slop” label.

Table of Contents

• What is AI slop? (And why you desire to evade it)
• How to Use AI to Write a Blog Post in 5 Steps
• AI Prompts for Blog Posts You Can Copy
• Frequently Asked Questions About Using AI to Write a Blog Post
• Great satisfied needs individual and machine.

What is AI slop? (And why you desire to evade it)

Generative AI is mighty and useful. It can analyze data and create materials faster than any individual could by hand, which is apt why 80% of marketers now use AI for satisfied creation in several form.

But I’d contend we’re crossing into “too much of a fine thing” district whenever it comes to generative AI, and I’m not alone. Our investigation shows that additional than fractional of marketers say AI has made satisfied innovation so uncomplicated that they are now struggling to remain out in a heavily soaked market.

AI has additionally faced concerns about plagiarism, bias, data privacy, and inaccuracy for multiple years. Add its now-mainstream accessibility, and the formulaic output has earned an unsavory nickname, “AI slop.”

AI slop is low-quality, mass-produced digital satisfied created using generative AI alongside small to no individual input or imaginative thought. (I’m certain you’ve seen the fliers.)

Users and businesses sharing it have been mocked as low-effort, unoriginal, or equal “fake.” Harsh, yes, but additionally uncomplicated to avoid.

Solution: A Blend of Man and Machine

Listen: It’s uncomplicated to get caught up in the speed and “polished” completed products that AI generates in seconds; I don’t accuse anyone. But at this point, we, as marketers and consumers, have seen adequate of its generic output to cognize we need to do better.

AI is a collaborator, not a replacement for your judgment, creativity, experience, or effort.

Now, I cognize what many of you are thinking: “Why would I do all that activity whenever AI can do it for me?” And I get it. You desire to preserve period and labor, but to citation erstwhile Director of the HubSpot Blog Karla Hesterberg: “The lone really effortless [AI] procedure produces slop.”

Producing high-quality satisfied alongside AI — satisfied that delivers genuine value, builds rely alongside your audience, ranks fine in hunt engines and answer engines, and closes qualified buyers — requires individual attempt and insight. It requires individual cognition and input to create item new and extraordinary.

I’m not saying don’t use AI. I’m saying use your accomplishment with it.

This is item we learned firsthand by adopting AI into our editorial procedure at HubSpot, and it heavily influenced the steps in this guide. Tools akin HubSpot’s brand sound and AI satisfied author were built alongside this all in mind.

How to Use AI to Write a Blog Post in 5 Steps

AI is akin an enthusiastic new intern. It’s accelerated and takes direction, but it doesn’t have your lived ability or cognition of your customer, data, and standards. The steps we portion in this guide are designed to compensate for that and justify you keep your brand voice.

Each stage has item you provision AI, a choice you make, item you get back, and a instant whenever a individual steps in, according to my decade as a satisfied publishing company and strategist.

You can prosecute these steps in average tools akin Claude or ChatGPT, or in HubSpot, which offers multiple options.

HubSpot’s liberated AI Content Writer can outline blog posts, outlines, and additional inner the tools you already use. For a complete blog workflow, Content Agent builds blog posts, social content, and landing pages in your brand voice. It lives in Agent Hub, which is included in Starter, Professional, and Enterprise editions.

Now that you cognize what you need, let’s interrupt downward our five steps.

1. Gather your input.

Before you rotate to an AI satisfied innovation tool, you need the correct input. Think of these as the imaginative concise you dispatch an intern.

What inputs does AI need to execute well?

• Audience: Who is reading, and what do they already know? HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing report established that lone 65% of marketers study having high-quality spectators data. If you’re in the another 35%, commencement small. HubSpot’s liberated Make My Persona tool can assistance you diagram a audience overview in minutes.
• Goal: What should the audience study or do next?
• Primary keyword & hunt intent: What are group really asking whenever they hunt it?
• Angle: What’s your take? What makes your article different?
• Approved sources: The facts, data, and links the AI may use.
• Examples: Two or three samples of penning that audio akin you.
• Format: Word count, headings, and any must-have sections.
• The item of view. AI can summarize what’s out there. Only you cognize what you accept and have seen.
• Which claims can you rear up. If you can’t origin it, don’t ask AI to compose it.
• Data privacy: What data stays out. Don’t paste client details, personal financials, or unreleased plans into a tool your business hasn’t approved.
• A “do not use” list. Add outdated stats, competitor claims you can’t support, and any topic your lawful squad wants to review.

The “data privacy” item is value calling out. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology lists data privacy as one of 12 risks that are unique to or worse alongside generative AI. The hazard includes leaks of individual or delicate data. Check your company’s AI guideline first.

If you use HubSpot, Agent Hub runs on your CRM data. HubSpot says its third-party AI providers are contractually barred from training on your data. You additionally authority what AI can access. You can peruse how it plant in the HubSpot Trust Center.

Pro tip: Put all your accordant inputs (e.g., brand voice, business history) on a one-pager and preserve it as a template you can reuse for all post. This saves you period and maintains consistency throughout distinct editors.

Need a blog topic? Try HubSpot’s liberated Blog Idea Generator to spark ideas, afterward choice the one that fits your goal.

2. Create an outline.

An outline is the heading and talking points scheme that AI follows. Skip it, and drafts wander. Start alongside your concise of inputs. Then ask AI to rotate it into an outline. Pair all heading alongside the reader’s inquiry it answers and the origin that supports it.

Outline Prompt for a Blog Article

To get an outline you can really use, get specific. The additional ambiguity you leave, the additional apt the completed merchandise volition young female the mark.

Look at the difference between a vague immediate and a particular prompt.

The particular prompt:

1. Asks for three options.
2. Outlines what it expects from headers. Each H2 should answer a genuine question. This makes it easier for answer and hunt engines, as fine as readers, to discover what they need.
3. Attaches a origin to all section. Tell AI which approved origin supports which heading.
4. Emphasizes answers. HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing report advises answering users’ questions directly, in conversational language, alongside structured, scannable content. That said, ask AI for a straightforward answer to all inquiry in the archetypal two sentences of the section.

Try entering your topic in HubSpot’s liberated AI Content Writer and asking for an outline. Then edit the headings to equivalent your brief.

Want additional immediate ideas? Our guide to penning AI prompts shows how particular particulars guide to improved results.

3. Draft in sections.

Once you have a firm outline, you can activity alongside AI to create the chief sections of your article.

Generate division by division for higher quality.

You wouldn’t fair provision a new intern a concise and say “go,” right? You’d apt have them complete the project in small chunks to create certain they’re on the correct track. Approach A the identical way.

Draft sections one by one to addition concentration and keep quality, or equal better, outline choose sections fairly than all of them. Review all one in degree (more on that in the next section). Then move on to the next.

Try this flow:

1. Paste your approved concise and outline. Tell AI to prosecute it.
2. Draft the intro first. Ask for a straightforward answer in the archetypal two sentences. Edit and provision feedback.
3. Draft one H2 at a time. Include the sources for that division only.
4. Review and edit. Fix voice, facts, and stream during the division is small.
5. Ask for a tighter version. Short sentences peruse better. So do plain words.

With challenges akin copying and inaccuracy, this chunked method to penning a blog article alongside AI is value the effort.

Personally, I favor to use AI-generated copy merely as a extremely coarse example that gets my imaginative juices flowing. I edit and revise to fit my own voice, adding my first thoughts, knowledge, and examples, among another things.

You can prosecute this example workflow in Content Hub, HubSpot’s satisfied promotion software. The liberated AI Content Writer lets you act a immediate or use slash commands to create content on demand. Highlight a paragraph, and you can ask it to edit or rephrase the copy.

Pro tip: Content Agent, currently in beta, builds blog posts, LinkedIn content, and landing pages from a sole starting point. It researches competitors, pulls keyword data, and loads your brand sound before it writes. For additional on anywhere AI helps most in blogging, see our guide to AI penning tools for blogging.

But remember: Drafts written in chunks motionless need individual editing.

4. Edit akin a human.

Even your finest human-written outline shouldn’t be published without thorough editing. Trust, quality, and originality are ensured in the edit, and that goes twice for AI-assisted blog posts.

Before item goes live, have a individual squad associate check four key things:

• Facts and sources
• Originality and clarity
• Unique data and examples
• Brand voice

Fact-check and citation sources.

AI has a way of sounding additional confident, equal whenever it’s wrong.

Heck — Most tools equal arrive alongside a disclaimer akin this one from ChatGPT admitting it “can create mistakes.”

Google says this is since generative models predict a apt sequence of words alternatively of retrieving facts. So, the output can merge errors, or what we call “hallucinations.” NIST, the U.S. standards agency, lists this hazard (it calls it “confabulation”) among the 12 risks connected alongside generative AI.

So what should you do?

Fact-check and assessment all AI-generated satisfied before you publish. Here’s a regular you can use for all draft:

1. Highlight all claim. Facts, stats, names, dates, quotes, and merchandise features all figure as claims.
2. Ensure they’re connected to a current, chief source. That’s the first study, the authoritative page, or the business itself. If they’re not connected to a chief source, ask the AI to discover the sources and add them. Remove or substitute item from a secondary roundup or summary.
3. Open the nexus yourself. AI can create up URLs. Confirm the leaf is live and includes the data shared.
4. Check the date. Prioritize sources from the final two years. This helps justify the data you’re sharing is current and accurate.
5. Cut what you can’t verify. If you can’t rear it up, obtain it out.

For high-stakes topics (i.e., legal, medical, financial, or item that names a particular individual or company), add a second reviewer. People can stumble up, too, and whenever it comes to risky topic matter, it’s prudent to double-check.

Ensure originality and clarity.

Original method additional than not copied. It method your satisfied adds item new. AI-generated content, by its extremely nature, is derivative, so editing is a must to provision caller value.

Edits can be crucial for ownership, too. In January 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office stated that AI-generated output can be protected by copyright lone if a individual author contributed adequate of the expressive elements. Writing prompts doesn’t count. Creative institution and modification can, but “enough” leaves a lot of ambiguity. Ask your lawful squad concerning your particular situation.

Before you publish any AI-assisted content, run through these checks:

• Plagiarism: Run a copying check. Compare key passages alongside your sources, and rewrite item that is too close. Tools akin Grammarly and Scribbr recommendation liberated copying tools to emblem doubtful passages.
• Clarity: Cut lengthy sentences. Define terminology the archetypal period it appears. Read it aloud. If it doesn’t audio akin item your brand would say, chop it.
• Privacy: Make certain no confidential data slips into the outline (e.g., client details, personal numbers, or another delicate data).
• Accessibility: Add descriptive alt content to images, use apparent headings, and compose nexus content that makes awareness out of context.

Also, eliminate average AI penning patterns by:

• Cutting the fluff. Delete additional words or generic sentences that don’t add value to the article. Keep an eye out for redundancy as well. (I’ve certainly noticed AI tends to say the identical item often using distinct words.)
• Adding specifics. For instance, substitute “many companies” alongside a named company, a number, or a story.
• Taking a stand. Add your own opinions. AI won’t do this for you.
• Varying the rhythm. Change up the declaration construction to keep things engaging and flowing naturally.
• Banning the clichés. Add a abbreviated “never use” catalog to all prompt. Some average phrases can assistance create an part easier to digest, but too many are a trademark of AI.

Add first data and examples.

AI doesn’t cognize your customers, numbers, or stories. You do. That’s why adding first-hand research, case studies, or examples to assistance AI-assisted blog posts is a mighty way to create them additional original.

Enhance AI satisfied with:

• Your own data. A study result, a client count, a before-and-after metric. This not lone gives readers item they can’t get anyplace else, but it additionally gives group a logic to nexus rear to your website as a source.
• In-house case studies and examples. A run you ran, a error you fixed, a outcome you saw.
• Quotes from experts. Use genuine people, alongside their approval and their title.
• Screenshots. Show the tool or the steps as they appear today.
• First-hand or individual anecdotes. Like in-house examples, applicable individual experiences provision your satisfied lived evidence that readers can’t discover elsewhere.

This matters for search, too. Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines emblem chief satisfied made alongside small effort, originality, or added value. Your data and examples are the added value.

Including unexpected examples is one of my favorite ways to add originality and character to my articles. I mean, arrive on: how frequently do you see Bollywood mentioned in promotion blogs?

Source

(You’re welcome, readers.)

For additional edits that create AI drafts audio human, see our guide to humanizing AI content.

Edit for brand sound and perspective.

More than anything, create certain that your AI-assisted satisfied is true and accordant alongside your brand sound and perspective.

Using tongue or sharing opinions that refuse what your brand has already established can logic confusion, and any disturbance concerning your brand’s beliefs can guide to distrust.

To assistance keep your brand whenever using AI to compose a blog post, create a sound profile. A sound overview is a abbreviated clarification of how you compose and what you audio like. Think of it as a manner guide you contain in all prompt.

Example:

Voice: Friendly, expert, plain-spoken.

Sentences: Under 20 words. Mix abbreviated and medium.

Address the audience as “you.”

Explain industry terminology or acronyms the archetypal period they appear.

Avoid: “game-changer,” “unlock,” “in today’s fast-paced world.”

Here’s how to build one:

1. Share 2-3 examples that display your brand. Choose posts that audio akin you at your finest and portray a assortment of formats. Skip item another publishing company heavily rewrote.
2. Name three to five traits that depict your brand. Then say what all looks akin on the page. For example, “friendly” power average using “you” and a small humor.
3. Set uncomplicated manner rules. Cover declaration length, words you love, and words you avoid. Add how you grip jargon, humor, and calls to action.
4. Document and preserve it. Store it anywhere your squad can discover it, and update it whenever you create the identical edit.

HubSpot’s Brand Voice learns your manner from your penning samples and generates this guide for you. After that, you can export it to portion alongside AI tools or have it automatically use your manner in supported tools, specified as Marketing Hub. You can additionally set up a brand sound using AI, afterward fine-tune its character and tone. Features can change by plan, so inspect what your subscription includes.

Source

Need a deeper dive? See our guide on AI brand sound training.

5. Optimize for hunt and AI answers.

Whether you’re penning by hand or by AI, compose for readers first, afterward polish for hunt and answer engines. Thankfully, they aren’t dramatically different. Google’s guide to AI hunt features says AI features are built on the identical center ranking and norm systems as traditional search. So, you fair need a clear, useful, well-organized post. Here’s how that looks tactically.

Structure for skimmability.

People skim; so do hunt and AI systems. Make your article uncomplicated to scan by:

• Putting answers first. Include clear, straightforward answers in the beginning lines of a section.
• Using apparent headings. Google says readers mostly favor pages organized into sections alongside apparent headings.
• Incorporating organized data and schema.
• Keeping paragraphs short. Two or three sentences are easier on the eyes, particularly whenever study on mobile.
• Using lists and tables whenever the satisfied has steps or comparisons.
• Adding helpful visuals. High-quality images, videos, charts, and another ocular hiv can assistance run residence your messages and additionally add assortment to your content.

Litmus is a awesome example of skimmable formatting in action.

On-Page SEO Prompts

AI is a helpful aide for small, repetitive SEO tasks. Ask it for options to edit for:

For a deeper walkthrough of hunt intent, structure, inner links, and measurement, see our guide to blogging for SEO.

Publish.

You’ve drafted, edited, and optimized for getting found. Now it’s period to publish. Check your final boxes in four chief steps.

1. Do a final check. Read the entire article once, commencement to finish, as a audience would. Look for sound slips, vague claims, and damaged links, and edit as needed. Then verify the basics:

• The article opens alongside a straightforward answer.
• The title, meta description, and URL equivalent your chief keyword.
• Every stat links to a reputable, chief source.
• Images have exact captions and alt text.

2. Decide on disclosure. Some teams add a abbreviated note on how AI was used in their penning process. Google says sharing how satisfied was created can provision readers helpful environment and set expectations. Check your business guideline and local rules first. (See the FAQ below.)

3. Publish & measure what matters. In HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing report, measuring ROI was the top challenge, cited by 33% of respondents. So, keep it simple. Pick three numbers that indicate your goals. A fine baseline to consider:

• Search visibility: impressions and clicks in Google Search Console. Google additionally offers a generative AI achievement report there that shows how your satisfied appears in AI features.
• Engagement: Time on page, scroll depth, and hovering.
• Conversions: clicks on your call to act and the leads that follow.

HubSpot can display many of these in one location alongside its marketing analytics. To see how your brand shows up in AI answers, try the liberated AEO Grader or HubSpot AEO, currently in beta.

4. Learn from all post. Keep a abbreviated immediate log:

• Which prompts gave you usable drafts?
• Which edits did you create again and again?
• What did your reviewer catch?

Turn those reiterate edits into new rules in your sound profile. Your next outline volition commencement nearer to being done.

Ready to put this process into action? Try HubSpot’s AI Content Writer to outline your next post, afterward prosecute the five steps complete to create it yours.

AI Prompts for Blog Posts You Can Copy

Below is a sequence of prompts that activity alongside HubSpot’s AI Content Writer and most another AI tools. Replace everything in [brackets] before you send, but recall that any you get rear is fair a starting point.

All AI-generated satisfied needs to be reviewed alongside a individual contact to provision distinctive value and accomplish your long-term hunt and revenue goals. This is particularly true whenever using community immediate templates, as AI tools mostly create the identical results for the identical inputs.

Every immediate needs your audience, your goal, your approved sources, and your sound profile. Without them, you’ll get generic results. So, contain this obstacle before you commencement example anything:

Audience: [who they are and what they already know]

Goal: [what the audience should study or do]

Approved sources: [paste links or notes. Use lone these.]

Voice profile: [paste your sound profile]

1. Brief Creation

Using the particulars above, create a one-page concise for a blog article concerning [topic]. Include the reader’s chief question, the angle, a two-sentence straightforward answer, an outline alongside H2s and H3s, and the approved origin that supports all section. Flag item the sources don’t support.

2. Outline

Give me three outline options for a [word count] blog article concerning [topic]. Each H2 must answer one audience question. Put the straightforward answer first. Don’t add sections that the approved sources can’t support.

3. Section Drafting

Write the division titled “[H2 heading]” in [150-250] words. Use abbreviated sentences. Use lone the approved sources. Mark any assertion that needs a origin inspect alongside [CHECK].

4. Voice Rewriting

Rewrite the paragraph below in my sound profile. Keep all fact the same. Don’t add new claims. Cut filler and cliché phrases.

[paste paragraph]

5. Fact-Check Planning

List all actual assertion in the outline below: stats, names, dates, quotes, and merchandise features. For all one, inform me what benevolent of chief origin would verify it. Don’t verify item yourself.

[paste draft]

6. Meta Descriptions

Write five meta descriptions of about 150 characters for a article titled “[title]”. Use the chief keyword “[keyword]” once. Promise lone what the article delivers.

7. Internal Links

Below are my outline and a catalog of connected posts alongside URLs. Suggest up to five places to add inner links. For each, provision the sentence, the post, and descriptive anchor text. Only propose links that really assistance the reader.

[paste draft]

[paste connected posts and URLs]

Use these prompts strategically and tissue them out alongside your own first thoughts. For additional on penning prompts that work, see our guide on how to compose AI prompts.

Pro tip: Save your finest prompts in a shared doc. Add notes on what all one is fine for. Your entire squad volition get improved results, faster.

Frequently Asked Questions About Using AI to Write a Blog Post

Will Google penalize AI-written blog posts?

Google hasn’t explicitly stated that it penalizes AI-written content, but its norm standards and spam guideline on satisfied abuse at measure mark mass-produced pages that add small value for users, despite of how they’re made. Using AI to create many pages without adding value is one of its named examples. Publish helpful, accurate, edited posts, and you’re on the correct flank of that line. For more, see Google’s guidance on generative AI content.

How should I disclose AI assistance?

Start alongside what readers would discover useful. Google says sharing how a part of satisfied was created can provision readers helpful environment and established expectations. For example, obtain “We used AI to assistance outline this post. Our editors reviewed and fact-checked it.”

Laws are additionally changing. The EU AI Act’s transparency rules under Article 50 took consequence on August 2, 2026, and shield AI-generated content published on matters of community interest, alongside an elimination for content that receives individual assessment or editorial authority and is attributed to a individual or organization. Whether these rules use to you depends on your satisfied and audience. Ask your lawful team.

Which parts should humans continually review?

All of it. But these parts need additional care:

• Facts and stats: Trace all one to a chief source.
• Quotes and names: Confirm who stated what, and their title.
• Product and pricing claims: Check them against the authoritative page.
• Voice and tone: Does it audio akin you?
• Data privacy: Remove any client or confidential details.
• Metadata: Title tags, meta descriptions, organized data, and alt text. Google says to assessment these, too.
• Final approval: One named individual signs off.

How do I halt AI hallucinations?

Unfortunately, you can’t eliminate AI hallucinations, but you can decrease the risk. Give AI approved sources and inform it to use lone those. It may not continually listen, but do your due diligence. Draft in small sections. Ask it to grade any assertion that needs checking. Then verify all fact yourself.

Hallucinations happen since generative models predict apt words fairly than recover facts, as Google explains. NIST lists confabulation among the key risks of generative AI. Human assessment is the safeguard.

Can AI create images or charts for the blog?

Yes, AI can assistance create visuals, propose layouts, or rotate your own data into a chart. But never ask it to invent numbers. Build charts from data you can document, and note the origin in the caption.

For AI-generated images, add exact alt content and inspect the tool’s use terms. Google additionally recommends adding image metadata whenever generating satisfied alongside automation. Then assessment all ocular the way you’d assessment any another part of the post.

Great satisfied needs individual and machine.

I can’t say it enough: AI is a tool. It’s a mighty tool, but a tool nevertheless. A hammer can’t build the house, and AI can’t compose a awesome blog article on its own.

Use AI for monotonous things akin broad info, structuring, outlining, and small repetitive tasks. And preserve the activity that matters most for your people: distinctive expertise, lived experience, and discernment. That’s what readers desire additional of, and it’s what AI can’t fake.

Ready to try it? Start example alongside HubSpot’s AI Content Writer, afterward create all term your own.