AI is the hot topic in the tech world these days, and ChatGPT is at the forefront of many food blogger’s minds. ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, is an artificial intelligence natural language processing model that was first released in November of 2022. Even though it’s relatively new, AI technology is changing rapidly, and it can feel like a challenge to keep up!
Many content creators have concerns about ChatGPT (and other generative AI models) using their content to generate responses without credit, and about the future of food blogging in an AI world. But there are also many opportunities for using ChatGPT as a tool in your food blogging toolbox to help you create high-quality content for your readers.
Before we jump in, we wanted to address a common concern: does Google punish sites that use AI to create content? Right now, the answer is no. While Google specifies that “using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results” violates their spam policies, they are not currently discouraging against the use of AI in creating content. Google goes on to say that “however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T,” or Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust.
So now that we know that using AI tools responsibly won’t hurt your performance on search engines, how exactly can you use tools like ChatGPT as a food blogger?
Focus on Prompt Engineering in ChatGPT
One of the most important aspects of using ChatGPT as part of your food blogging toolbox is prompt engineering — the art and science of drafting prompts to increase the odds of receiving a useful, tailored response from the chatbot.
So what makes a good prompt in ChatGPT? Most importantly, your prompt should be specific and clear. An effective prompt might also include:
- A character assignment, which lets ChatGPT know what perspective it should be writing from (i.e. “Writing as a food blogger, draft a blog post title for a post about chocolate chip cookies”).
- Examples of the style you’d like it to mimic in the response (“using three examples of recent blog post titles I’ve written as reference…”).
- A request for a certain tone (fun, serious, informal, encouraging, etc.).
- A specified reading level (“written in words a 10-year-old would understand”).
- Limitations for the response (like word count).
- The intended audience for the response (email subscribers, social media followers, food blog readers).
- The purpose of the writing (to encourage readers to click through to the recipe, to sell an ebook, etc.).
If you’re not satisfied with the first response that ChatGPT spits out, don’t be discouraged! Edit your prompt, provide feedback to the chatbot, and keep trying. ChatGPT can access information and examples from your previous interactions and will use that data to refine responses in the future.
7 Ways to Use ChatGPT as a Food Creator
1. Brainstorming Recipe Ideas with ChatGPT
There are lots of different ways to find inspiration for new recipes. But if you’re a food blogger, it never hurts to have more sources of inspiration in the kitchen, and that’s where ChatGPT can help!
As of September 2023, ChatGPT has access to current information (like recent food trends and viral TikTok recipes) which could help inform your recipe development process.
We asked ChatGPT to generate “5 different recipe ideas for autumn recipes featuring butternut squash,” and we were provided with the following ideas: Butternut Squash Risotto, Roasted Butternut Squash Salad, Butternut Squash and Apple Soup, Butternut Squash Pasta, and Butternut Squash Pasta. Nothing totally mind-blowing in those suggestions, but if we get a bit more specific, we might discover a new idea.
Next, we tried the prompt “Provide 5 different vegan recipe ideas for autumn recipes featuring butternut squash and hazelnuts.” One of the suggestions was Butternut Squash and Hazelnut Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms, which sounds like it has the potential to be a delicious and inventive recipe.
ChatGPT can also be useful when brainstorming recipe variations. Include your existing recipe, as well as your desired variations (like vegan, gluten-free, or ingredient substitutions) and see what ChatGPT suggests!
2. Using ChatGPT to Overcome Writer’s Block
If you’re a food blogger, chances are that you’ve experienced writer’s block. How many different ways can one write a compelling introduction to a recipe post or an SEO-friendly meta-description? Sometimes you just want to switch things up and word things in a different way than you usually do. And that’s where ChatGPT can come in very handy!
While we don’t recommend using ChatGPT to write entire blog posts, it can be a useful tool for getting started. You can use ChatGPT to generate ideas for blog post titles, meta descriptions, certain sections of blog post copy, and your FAQ sections. Curious how this might work? Glad you asked!
We asked ChatGPT to provide a meta-description for a blog post:
Not bad, but the ideal length for a meta-description is much shorter than ChatGPT provided, so we followed up with a prompt to generate a shorter version, and included some more detail on the desired perspective and goal.
ChatGPT can also be used to brainstorm:
- Content for an FAQ block
- Blog post titles
- Blog post copy
- Recipe card descriptions
- Recipe card instructions
- Job descriptions (if you’re hiring!)
- Pitch emails for brand partnerships
3. Optimizing for SEO with ChatGPT
Search Engine Journal has a thorough, non-food-centric post about using ChatGPT for keyword research and suggested the following prompt format: “List Without Description The Top {X} Most Popular Long-tail Keywords For The Topic “{X}” for conducting keyword research on ChatGPT. We decided to put this prompt to the test for butternut squash soup!
Just as you might with other keyword research tools, you can use these long-tail keywords to iterate and refine your keyword by asking ChatGPT something like “provide 5 more long-tail keywords like X” until you have some ideas that you like.
ChatGPT does still have some limitations when it comes to keyword research, and you will need to supplement your process with a tool designed for keyword research that can provide data like search volume and keyword difficulty. When asked to provide the estimated search volume for “easy butternut squash soup recipe” on Google, ChatGPT responded with:
“As an AI language model, I don’t have real-time access to search volume data. However, I can provide some general information. Keywords like “easy butternut squash soup recipe” are quite popular as they combine a specific dish with a desire for simplicity. Recipes, especially those that are easy to follow, tend to attract a good amount of search traffic. To get the most accurate and up-to-date search volume for a specific keyword, it’s recommended to use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs. These tools can provide insights into search volume, competition, and related keywords for specific search terms.”
So while ChatGPT can provide you with a new way to brainstorm possible keywords, it is only a small piece of the keyword research puzzle (right now!).
4. Generating Social Media Captions with ChatGPT
Do you struggle to come up with caption after caption for your social media posts? ChatGPT might be able to help! Specifying the desired tone (funny, silly, motivational, etc.) is a really important step in the prompt engineering for social media captions to help match the voice you usually use on different platforms.
Bonus: ask ChatGPT to add in emojis on your behalf!
5. Using ChatGPT as an Email Marketing Tool
Just as you can use ChatGPT to help draft social media captions or blog content, it can be a great tool for brainstorming email copy and subject lines, too!
Not bad, right?! Though we did note that the chatbot added 11 emojis instead of the requested 5, which leads to our next point… As with every example in this blog post, you’ll want to edit the copy provided by ChatGPT to make it your own, but it can be very useful to have a drafted starting point to work with.
6. Improving Your Writing with ChatGPT
Do you ever wish you had an easy, free way of proofreading your blog posts before you hit publish? ChatGPT can help!
You can use the bot to check your text for grammatical errors, punctuation, or typos, provide alternate words, or make your writing more clear. Lots of clever ways to ensure that you’re writing your blog posts in an approachable style for all users!
7. Employing ChatGPT as an Education Tool
Sometimes it can be tricky to put into words a technique or process in a recipe. If you’ve chopped an onion a million times, how do you explain the method to someone who has never chopped an onion before? Enter… ChatGPT!
You can also use ChatGPT when brainstorming FAQ questions and/or answers, or to help you better understand a topic or ingredient.
This post barely scratches the surface of the functionality and possibilities of ChatGPT — we are still learning, too! — but hopefully we’ve given you some ideas for using ChatGPT in your content creation process.
Think of ChatGPT as a tool to get you started, provide inspiration, strengthen your writing, or overcome writer’s block. As a reminder: tools like ChatGPT are just that — tools! They shouldn’t be used to replace you, but they can help to enhance you (and hopefully make your life a little bit easier!)
We’re curious… are you currently using ChatGPT as part of your food blogging process? How do you use it?
These are great ideas! I recently warmed up to the idea of using ChatGPT. I’ve been using it for brainstorming. Blogging can feel so isolating. It is helpful to have “someone” to bounce ideas off of!
Love this perspective, Mandi! So glad you found the post useful. There is definitely a steep learning curve with ChatGPT, but it can be a really helpful tool!
ChatGPT is a really amazing tool to get help related to producing quality content. I have tried it to get some help generating headlines, getting ideas for the post, getting keywords, and more.
But as my personal thought, it is not good to use to generate full content, writing content in your own tone is the best way.
Well, I’m not sure, what people are doing with it.
Thank you for sharing these insightful tips on how food creators can make the most of ChatGPT. As a fellow food blogger, I appreciate the practical suggestions you’ve offered. Excited to incorporate ChatGPT into my content creation process!
So happy to hear you found this post useful! There is a bit of a learning curve, but it can make the content creation process much easier once you get the hang of it.