How to Use AI Like a Boss to Write Your Blog

Did you know companies with an active blog get 55% more website visitors? That could boost your e-commerce earnings significantly.

We all know that we’re supposed to create content frequently for our websites, but let’s face it, doing this well can be a very time consuming. Most e-commerce entrepreneurs that I speak to want to prioritize content creation. But it seems to drop to the bottom of their priority list every week as “more urgent” work comes up. Can you relate?

This article will show you how to create very high quality content in a fraction of the time using ChatGPT to give you a helping hand in your content creation.

But listen, if you just let ChatGPT write all your blogs for you, it is going to backfire. Search engines do not want to serve up spammy, poorly written content to their users. They want high quality content with your unique perspective, not some generic automaton perspective.

I don’t use ChatGPT to write this newsletter for that reason.

To make ChatGPT work for you, you need to get good at leveraging it as a writing tool. The skill to master is called AI prompts. Master this and you’ll be on your way generating high quality content that’s great for your customers.

This guide explains how to use a prompt called the RICCE Framework. By the end, you’ll know how to write better blogs using ChatGPT.

A Quick Word on ChatGPT Prompts

Let's start by quickly establishing what ChatGPT prompts are and why they matter.

Anytime you input something on the screen below, you’re giving a prompt to ChatGPT.

The writing you get back from it will only be based on the words in your prompt because ChatGPT is a machine that doesn’t have any additional context for what you’re trying to accomplish. It also doesn’t have any memory. So it may try to fill in gaps on its own when it doesn’t have enough information and this can lead to some pretty sad writing results.

The point is that prompt quality equals writing quality. 

So, the better your prompts are, the better writing you get for your blog. This is why it’s worth taking the time to learn prompt frameworks like RICCE. They’re the key to unlocking the full power of ChatGPT for your e-commerce blog.

What Is the RICCE Framework?

The RICCE framework is one prompt you can use to get better blog posts back from ChatGPT. RICCE stands for:

• Role

• Instructions

• Context

• Constraints

• Examples

You essentially give ChatGPT information covering each of the five points to give it a more well-rounded idea of the type of content you want back.

Using the RICCE Prompt

Now you can put RICCE into action. Here’s a repeatable process you can follow to create new blog posts with ChatGPT.

1. Tell ChatGPT Your Plans

ChatGPT works best when you treat it like a new employee or someone who has no idea about your business or what you need them to do — so be specific and tell it how you want it to show up for you. Like this,

I'm going to tell you to write me an article for my e-commerce blog based on the RICCE framework. In the next five prompts ask me to give you the elements of the RICCE framework: Role, Instructions, Context, Constraints, and Examples

You’ll get something like this in return:

2. Define Each Part of RICCE

Now you can give ChatGPT the information it needs to get to work on your blog post. That means defining each part of the RICCE framework based on the type of article you want to create.

For this example, let's play the role of a digital entrepreneur selling artisan tea via an e-commerce shop. The goal is to get ChatGPT to write an article about how different types of tea can help with various health and wellness concerns.

First, you need to give ChatGPT its role. You can think of this as the persona it’s assuming as it works to complete your request. You want it to be written from “your” perspective, which in this case means a tea expert who wants to teach people about tea's medicinal benefits. 

Here’s what that looks like in ChatGPT:

You can see that it follows your earlier instructions and waits to get all of the RICCE information before proceeding.

Next, you need to provide Instructions and Context. These let ChatGPT know what it’s about to do. You can be as detailed as possible. Remember this article is going to be more valuable with YOUR perspective on the topic. So infuse that perspective into your instructions and context. For example in the prompt below I’m being specific with the number of words and how to handle citations. In the Context prompt I’m infusing my point of view by telling ChatGPT about my history with the business. I’m also telling ChatGPT what kind of impact I want to have on my readers.

Here’s what it looks like:

The more detailed you are, the better your results should be. 

Now you're onto Constraints. You can think of these as additional rules ChatGPT must follow while writing the article. For example you can provide instructions on the number of words or the length of each sentence or the type of language you want it to use. Constraints are a powerful way to tailor the article for your audience.

Now all that’s left to do is give ChatGPT some Examples. If you’re using GPT 4 you can provide a link to other blog posts that you’ve written and ask GPT to emulate your style. Or you can provide examples of articles from other sources.

3. Tell ChatGPT To Write the Article

Now you're finally ready to tell ChatGPT to take all of the information you’ve given it to write the article. 

Here’s how the example turned out (external link to the example).

4. Make Edits and Revisions, if Necessary

If you skim the sample, I think you’ll agree that it’s pretty good. But it didn’t do a good job of citing external resources. Now you have to play the role of the Editor in Chief, don’t let GPT get away with cutting corners!

Here’s my interaction:

In the next iteration, GPT fixed added the required citations.

In my experience you can get about 70% to 90% of the way to a high quality content using the RICCE framework. But AI isn’t there to replace you, it’s there to help you. Once you’ve gotten the article most of what you want from ChatGPT, clean it up, add more of your style and make it yours in post-AI edits.

By adding the finishing touches with post-AI edits you’ll create work that’s truly your own, worthy of your reader’s valuable time, and that fits neatly into your broader brand image and marketing strategy

Leverage Your New Blogs To Get More Sales

RICCE turns ChatGPT into a powerful tool for writing new blogs. The next step is to make sure your blog and your store is SEO optimized. Use Plug In SEO (our sponsor) to help you get more traffic from search engines by installing it in your Shopify store today.