Blog Automation: How to Save Time & Money and Grow Your Business

Have you ever wondered how some blogs seem to update their content daily, almost like they have an endless supply of ideas and time? 

That’s blog automation at work.

On average, bloggers are publishing 1200+ words per blog post and it’s taking them 4 hours and 10 minutes to manually write each piece.

But thanks to automation, you can now run your blog on autopilot, churning out fresh and engaging articles without the need for constant human intervention.

Sounds like a dream, right? 

These automated blogs utilize cutting-edge technology and smart algorithms to create, curate, and publish content automatically. 

Nearly 90% of marketing agencies believe their automation strategy has been successful, and 51% of marketing influencers consider content marketing to be the most effective implementation of marketing automation technology.

If you have been struggling to keep up with your blogging calendar, automation could be the answer. There are many content automation platforms to choose from, and your goal is to find one that fills in the gaps in your content creation process.

Creating fresh content for your blog can be a daunting task. But thanks to AI, you can now automate your blog content and still produce high-quality posts that will engage readers. By learning how to optimize AI-generated content, it’s possible to streamline the entire blogging process while maintaining quality standards.

In this article, we’ll explore how can you automate your blog content to simplify your workflow and save plenty of time when creating effective blog posts.

What is Blog Automation?

Blog automation is the process of using software tools to automate the repetitive, day-to-day tasks associated with running a blog. Automation allows bloggers to focus on brainstorming ideas rather than manually completing mundane tasks such as scheduling posts or responding to comments.

Automation can be applied to such content marketing tasks as:

• Curating blog posts from different sources.
• Writing blog posts, articles, and ebooks.
• Optimizing website copy.
• Publishing content on WordPress blogs and social media channels.
• Sending scheduled newsletters automatically.
• Collecting customer feedback via surveys.
• Running A/B tests on landing pages.
• Analyzing data from multiple outlets.
• Monitoring competitors’ activity online.

All these tasks are made easier with AI while improving efficiency across all areas related to digital campaigns.

Types of Blog Automation Tools

Here are the different types of automation tools that you can use to use to automate repetitive tasks and streamline your blog processes:

• CMS systems: WordPress, Drupal.
• Email services: MailChimp, Constant Contact.
• Content creation tools: BrandWell, ChatGPT.
• Analytics programs: Google Analytics, Adobe SiteCatalyst.
• SEO plugins: Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack.
• Social media management tools: Hootsuite, Buffer

These are just a few of the many content automation tools available that allow savvy marketers to complete digital marketing tasks with minimal effort.

6 Benefits of Automating Your Blogging Processes

The main benefit of using automated blog automation tools is increased efficiency since it eliminates manual labor. Let’s break down six benefits of content marketing automation.

1. Time Savings

When you automate content, you save a whole lot of time researching, writing, and editing your work. With AI-powered software, marketers can quickly generate content in a fraction of the time it would take to manually create it. This means that businesses have more time to focus on other tasks such as marketing, customer service, and product development.

2. Cost Efficiency

Creating high-quality content requires a significant amount of resources including staff hours and materials costs such as images or videos. When you automate content creation, you can reduce these costs by allowing the machine to take over the tedious tasks that are usually done by your in-house team or outsourced to freelancers at a premium cost.

Automation also eliminates the need for expensive hardware investments like servers or specialized software licenses which can cut down operational expenses even further while increasing productivity.

3. Better Quality Control

Blog automation tools also improve the accuracy of your work since machines are less prone to commit mistakes than humans. One fine example of this is the Grammarly app which eliminates errors in spelling, spacing, punctuation, and grammar.

Automation platforms are also good at analyzing volumes of data sets, detecting errors, and providing real-time feedback before they are published so you don’t have to start from scratch every time something needs fixing.

4. Increased Productivity Levels

Content automation helps remove mundane tasks from employees’ workloads which results in higher levels of efficiency and improved morale. Team members no longer have to spend hours doing repetitive tasks that don’t require any creativity but still consume valuable resources like electricity and WiFi.

5. Greater Reach and Engagement

Content automation also allows businesses to reach larger audiences. One example of this is social media automation which enables marketers to publish posts on multiple social networks without the need to manually log into every social media account.

Furthermore, automated systems help optimize engagement rates through personalized messages tailored specifically for each user based on their preferences and interests. This way your audience receives relevant information they actually care about – resulting in better ROI when compared to traditional methods like email blasts.

6. Higher SEO Scores

Last but not least, automated content management improves your SEO score with its ability to generate unique keywords per post or article written. When combined with other tactics such as backlinking, content automation creates opportunities for your work to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Content automation is designed to expedite and streamline the generation and distribution of content for online businesses. So how does content automation work?

Levels of Blog Automation

Light automation is the most basic level of blog automation. This type of automation requires minimal input and effort on your part, but it can still help you save time and energy in certain areas.

Examples of light automation include scheduling blog posting at specific times or setting up an RSS feed for your blog so that readers are automatically notified when new content is posted. You may also use automated plugins to create a backup of your blog articles or set up email notifications when someone leaves a comment on one of your posts.

Medium automation takes things one step further by automating more complex tasks like content curation and SEO. For example, you can use tools such as Hootsuite to schedule multiple social media posts on different social media platforms all at once. This eliminates the need for manual posting every time you want to share something with your followers.

Additionally, there are many SEO plugins that can help optimize the technical aspects of an entire blog post. These include title tags, meta descriptions, and other important elements that determine ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Heavy automation involves running software programs that automate the entire blog post from beginning to end with minimal human input. For example, the brand growth software BrandWell can generate long-form content based on keywords entered into the system – taking away the need for manual writing completely.

Moreover, AI chatbots are becoming more common among organizations as a way of interacting with customers rather than hiring human customer service reps. These chatbots comprehend natural language processing (NLP) instructions given by users which enables them to answer questions correctly.

Real Examples of Automated Blogs

Here are some real examples of automated blogs:

The Associated Press

The AP uses a system called Automated Insights to generate sports and financial news articles. The system uses natural language generation to turn data and statistics into readable news stories like this:

Since partnering with Automated Insights, The AP has increased its earnings reports per quarter from 300 to 3,700 articles.

Bloomberg

Bloomberg employs an automated blogging system called Cyborg to quickly generate market updates and financial news based on real-time data. The company has also developed its own GPT-3 model that can assess whether headlines are bullish or bearish for investors as well as suggest headlines based on a short blurb like the one below:

The Washington Post

The Washington Post used Heliograf to create stories for the 2016 Rio Olympics and has now expanded to cover election results, crime, real estate, and financial announcements. Here’s how these AI updates looked on Twitter:

Forbes

Forbes utilizes an automated content creation platform called Bertie to assist its writers in generating draft articles and headline ideas. While not entirely automated, it helps with content suggestions and streamlining the writing process.

Reuters

Reuters employs an AI-powered system called Lynx Insight to write brief news stories, particularly in areas such as corporate earnings reports.

The Guardian

Guardian Australia publishes news stories written an automated system called ReporterMate. The bot takes a dataset and a story template and turns it into a news story with minimal human intervention.

Buzzfeed

Buzzfeed announced that it was using OpenAI’s ChatGPT to create content, including its highly popular quizzes and travel guides. This has led to a 200% increase in its stock prices.

Weather.com

The Weather Company, which includes Weather.com and The Weather Channel, is powered by IBM’s forecasting engine that uses AI to integrate input from nearly 100 forecast models around the world — making it easy for users to access the latest weather information.

Flipboard

Flipboard employs automated algorithms to curate personalized news feeds for its users, based on their interests and reading habits.

Google News

News aggregation websites aggregate news articles from various sources using automation to provide users with a comprehensive overview of current events.

BrandWell

Our blog at BrandWell has close to 900 articles that are 80-90% written by AI and 10-20% humanly optimized. These include blog posts, case studies, quarterly reports, product announcements, and industry news — and every single one started as an AI-written draft, including what you’re reading right now. 🤯 (Want to scale your content like us? Find out how.)

These examples demonstrate the diverse applications of automation in the blogging and news worlds. Automation continues to play an increasingly significant role in content creation, distribution, and user engagement across the digital landscape.

It’s important to note that while these blogs use automation to some extent, they often combine it with human curation and editing to maintain quality and accuracy. Automated blogs are powerful tools, but they still rely on human oversight to ensure that the content meets professional standards and remains ethically sound.

How Can You Automate Your Blog Content?

Automating the blogging process allows you to easily produce high-quality blog posts. If you are curious about how to automate blogging, or if it’s even possible, here are two ways to do it.

1. Write Blog Articles with AI

AI writing tools are great for finding content ideas that you want to write about on your blog. These platforms provide a convenient way to search through thousands of high-ranking sources online and identify interesting stories that can be employed as references or inspiration for your blog post.

All you have to do is input the keywords you want to rank for and let the software write your blog post. In less than five minutes, BrandWell will have your 2,000-word blog post ready for proofreading! Since it has a built-in plagiarism checker, you’ll never have to worry about poor quality or duplicate content.

Plus, the app allows you to automatically publish curated articles directly to your WordPress blogs with just a few clicks.

2. Repurpose Existing Material

Repurposing existing material is another way to produce automated content without starting from scratch. Repurposing means transforming an old post into something new — like turning a blog post into a video script or updating outdated lists with fresh data.

For example, if you wrote a long-form article last year about how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing marketing strategies, consider creating a short video this year discussing the same topic with updated statistics and insights from industry experts. Or you can take that high-performing article, enter its URL into the BrandWell app, and get a fresh blog post based on that.

Here are some of the ways you can repurpose your content with BrandWell:

Automating blog posting can be an efficient way to conserve effort and time, and with the right tool, you can still maintain a good standard of quality while creating content at scale.

Automating Posting Schedules

Maintaining a regular publishing pattern is an essential element of any successful content marketing strategy. Blog automation and social media automation can help ensure you consistently publish fresh content for your readers.

Here are some tips on how can you automate your blog content, social media content, and posting schedules.

Set Up an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar helps you plan out the topics and frequency of your posts in advance. This ensures that you have enough time to create quality content as well as avoid duplication or gaps in coverage.

To get started, simply create a spreadsheet with columns for post titles, dates scheduled, authors, and distribution channels.

Publish Social Media Posts on Multiple Channels Simultaneously

Social media automation through tools like Hootsuite or Buffer makes it simpler to manage numerous accounts and publish social media posts simultaneously.

These apps allow you to set up a library of pre-scheduled social media posts so that they go live at designated times without the need for human intervention.

They also provide analytics data so that you can track performance over time and refine your strategy accordingly.

Take Advantage of Free Plugins

For WordPress posts, there are a host of automation options that can help streamline the posting process right from the WP dashboard. Here are some of the most popular plugins for automating content creation.

• Jetpack’s Publicize: Automatically publishes new posts on social media platforms.
• WP Scheduled Posts: This allows precise timing for publishing your latest blog posts.
• Revive Old Post: randomly refreshes older content from the archives to engage readers.
• BrandWell: Publish blog posts automatically straight from the text editor.

Thanks to content automation software, marketers can save valuable time while ensuring consistent high-quality output across all channels – essential ingredients for blogging success.

Optimizing your blog posts is the next step to ensure that your audience finds them in search engine results.

Optimizing Your Blog Posts

Optimizing your latest and existing blog posts is a must if you’re looking to expand the reach and exposure of your content.

Researching keywords and phrases to target is the first step in this process. Keywords are terms that people use when searching for content online, so it’s important to choose ones that accurately reflect the topics of your blog posts.

Keyword research tools like Google AdWords can help you find relevant terms with high search volume. Once you have identified some suitable keywords, incorporate them into your post titles and meta descriptions as well as throughout the body text of your post.

Crafting engaging meta descriptions and titles is also key to improving SEO performance.

Your title should be concise yet attention-grabbing. Include one or two of the main keywords you identified earlier to give readers an idea of what they can expect from reading your post.

The meta description should provide a brief overview of what’s covered in the article while incorporating some additional related keywords. Try not to exceed 160 characters since longer descriptions may get cut off on search engine results pages (SERPs).

If you’re writing your blog post with BrandWell, you will see all these optimization elements on the sidebar which serves as your SEO checklist while you’re fine-tuning your article.

Improve Readability with Visual Content

Including visuals in blog posts is a must, as they help to diversify the written content and make it more attractive. It can also be used to illustrate ideas and enhance posts with multimedia content.

Here are some tips for leveraging visual content in your blog posts.

Constructing infographics and charts is the best way to illustrate data or complex topics that would take too many words to explain. When creating these visuals, be sure to use high-quality images, relevant icons, and easy-to-understand labels so readers can quickly understand what they’re looking at.

Include keywords throughout the infographic or chart that will help boost SEO rankings when users search for related terms on Google or other search engines.

Embedding videos into your blog post is another great way to add visual interest while providing additional information about the topic at hand. Videos should be engaging and provide value like teaching viewers something new about the subject matter.

Make sure you optimize them for SEO by including relevant keywords in titles, descriptions, and tags. Don’t forget to add subtitles for your hearing-impaired readers.

Best Practices for Automating Content Creation

SEO content generation is a crucial aspect of any successful digital marketing strategy. By creating high-quality, SEO-friendly content, you can attract organic traffic, improve search engine rankings, and engage your target audience. 

Here are some best practices for SEO content generation:

Keyword Research: Start by conducting thorough keyword research to identify relevant and high-traffic keywords related to your topic. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to discover valuable keywords that align with your content topic.

Focus on Quality: Prioritize creating high-quality content that offers value to your readers. Search engines favor content that is informative, well-researched, and provides solutions to users’ queries.

Write for Your Audience: Understand your target audience and write content that addresses their needs and interests. Tailor your writing style and language to resonate with your readers.

Use Long-Form Content: Long-form content (1,500 words or more) tends to perform better in search engine rankings. It allows you to cover topics comprehensively and provides more opportunities to target relevant keywords naturally.

Strategic Keyword Placement: Incorporate your target keywords strategically throughout your content. Place them in the title, headings, subheadings, introduction, conclusion, and naturally within the body of the article.

Optimize Meta Tags: Write compelling meta titles and meta descriptions for your web pages. These tags should include relevant keywords and accurately summarize the content to encourage click-throughs from search engine results pages (SERPs).

Use LSI Keywords: Include Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords, which are related terms and synonyms of your main keyword. This signals to search engines that your content is comprehensive and relevant to the topic.

Mobile-Friendly Design: Ensure that your content is mobile-friendly as more and more people access Web content from their mobile devices. Responsive design and fast-loading pages are essential for good SEO.

Internal Linking: Include internal links to other relevant pages on your website. This helps search engines understand your site’s structure and improves user navigation.

External Linking: When appropriate, link to authoritative external sources that support and enhance your content. It signals to search engines that you are providing valuable information.

Regular Updates: Keep your content fresh by updating and republishing older articles with new information or insights. Search engines tend to favor up-to-date content.

User Engagement: Encourage user engagement through comments, social sharing buttons, and interactive elements. User engagement is a positive signal for search engines.

By following these best practices, you can create SEO-friendly content that not only ranks well in search engines but also resonates with your audience — leading to increased traffic and better online visibility. 

Remember, SEO is an ongoing process so continually optimize and refine your content to stay ahead of the competition.

Best Practices for Automating Image Creation

People are naturally attracted to pictures. In fact, 65% of humans are visual learners.

Including images in your blog article will increase its chances of catching your reader’s attention and enticing them to read further.

Some of the most popular AI image generators are DALL-E 2, Bing Image Creator, Dream by WOMBO, Craiyon, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney.

Automating image creation can save time and resources while maintaining visual consistency and quality. Here are some best practices for automating image creation:

Define Image Templates: Create a set of image templates that align with your brand guidelines and visual identity. These templates should have fixed elements, such as logo placement, color schemes, and fonts, ensuring consistency across all automated images.

Use Design Tools with Automation Features: Choose design tools that offer automation features, like Adobe Photoshop with actions, or web-based platforms like Canva that allow you to create templates and apply them to multiple images effortlessly.

Dynamic Data Integration: Utilize automation tools that can dynamically incorporate data into your images. For example, if you create social media graphics for blog posts, you can automate the process of adding post titles, author names, or dates.

Batch Processing: Automate image creation by using batch processing. This allows you to apply the same design elements to multiple images simultaneously, saving time and effort.

Data-Driven Infographics: For data-heavy visuals like infographics, use tools that can automatically convert raw data into visually appealing graphs and charts. This ensures accuracy and consistency in data representation.

Responsive Design: If your images will be used across different platforms and devices, ensure they are created with responsive design principles. This way, they’ll adapt well to various screen sizes and orientations.

Image Resizing: Implement automation to generate image variants of different sizes for various purposes, such as social media thumbnails, blog post featured images, and header banners.

Image Naming Conventions: Establish a clear and organized naming convention for your automated images. This makes it easy to search, identify, and manage them in your image library.

Cloud Storage Integration: Connect your automation tools with cloud storage platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox to store and manage your automated images efficiently.

Test and Review: Regularly review the output of your automated image creation process to ensure it meets your quality standards. Make any necessary adjustments to the templates and automation settings as needed.

Backup and Version Control: Maintain backups of your image templates and regularly update them as your branding evolves. Consider using version control systems to track changes and revert to previous iterations if needed.

Human Oversight: While automation is beneficial, it’s essential to have human oversight for critical visual assets. Designers should review and approve automated image outputs to ensure they align with the brand’s aesthetics and messaging.

By following these best practices, you can streamline your image creation process, maintain brand consistency, and free up valuable design resources for more creative tasks. Keep in mind that while automation can handle repetitive tasks, the human touch and creativity are still essential for creating exceptional visual content.

Original graphics are top performers for marketers, making them worth the investment. Source: Venngage

Best Practices for Automating Video Creation

91% of consumers want to see more video content from brands. But video creation can take up to several hours or days, depending on the length of the video and the complexity of the presentation.

Fortunately, you can now create amazing videos within minutes — thanks to AI video generators.

By automating video editing, text-to-speech, and animation, AI accelerates the video creation process, saving valuable time for content creators.

Traditional video production can be expensive, requiring skilled professionals and costly equipment. AI video generators reduce your costs by automating many aspects, making video creation more accessible for businesses with limited budgets.

AI-generated videos can also include features like closed captions or sign language interpretation, making content more accessible to those with disabilities.

Here are some best practices for automating video creation:

Define Video Templates: Create a library of video templates with standardized intros, outros, text overlays, and other design elements that align with your brand. This ensures consistent branding across all automated videos.

Choose the Right Video Creation Tools: Select video creation tools that offer automation features and align with your specific needs. Look for platforms that provide templates, animations, and easy customization options. Some of the popular AI video generators on the market are Pictory, Synthesia, DeepBrain AI, InVideo, Veed.io, and Synthesys.

Automate Editing Processes: Use video editing software that supports batch processing, enabling you to apply the same edits, transitions, and effects to multiple video clips simultaneously. These tools can automatically compile video footage, add subtitles, and even suggest visual enhancements based on the content.

Automate Video Rendering: Use cloud-based rendering services to automate the rendering process, especially for longer or high-resolution videos. This helps save time and ensures a smooth workflow.

Utilize Stock Media Libraries: Integrate access to stock media libraries with your video creation platform. This allows you to easily include high-quality images, videos, and music to enhance your videos.

Script and Voiceover Automation: Use text-to-speech technology to automate voiceovers for certain types of videos. However, be mindful of the voice quality and tone, as it should align with your brand’s personality.

Mobile-Friendly Design: As mobile video consumption continues to grow, ensure that your automated videos are optimized for various screen sizes and orientations.

Remember that while automation can significantly streamline video creation, it is not a substitute for creative input and human oversight. Designers and content creators should still play an essential role in conceptualizing, strategizing, and reviewing video content to ensure it resonates with the audience and achieves the desired objectives.

Source: Oberlo

Automating Blog Writing with BrandWell

If you want to speed up blog writing without worrying about plagiarism, grammatical errors, or bad syntax, then BrandWell is a worthy investment.

With BrandWell, you can generate a long-form blog post within minutes, which can 5x-10x speed up content creation and significantly streamline your processes.

BrandWell automates your entire content marketing process, including:

• Generating a list of keywords that are relevant to your seed topic.
• Automatic blog generation.
• Automatic metadata generation.
• Topic report generation.
• Optimizing the article for SEO, with a convenient optimization tab with a list of secondary keywords and an on-page SEO checklist.
• Automatically adding a table of contents, click-to-tweet links, and takeaway boxes.
• Plagiarism scan.
• AI detection.
• Optimization audits.
• Publishing directly to WordPress or Shopify.

FAQs on Blog Automation

Does marketing automation really work?

According to Forrester Research, companies generate 50 percent more sales-ready leads at 33% less cost through marketing automation.

And Focus Research says 75% of businesses that run marketing automation can see a return on their investment in just 12 months, while 44% of companies do it within six months.

How do you automate content?

• Decide what you want to automate.
• Use a content workflow process.
• Write your content using AI.
• Share your content across social media.
• Pay to promote your content.
• Automate your email newsletter.
• Connect various content marketing platforms.
• Find out how your content marketing is performing.

How do I automate my blog posts in WordPress?

1. Decide how often you want to publish.
2. Determine the best posting time.
3. Write your blog post.
4. Publish.

Can you use AI for blog posts?

Yes, AI can be used for blog posts. Content marketing and SEO strategies often require large amounts of content to be created quickly. AI technology can help automate the process by providing tools that generate text based on keyword research.

With the help of AI writing tools, marketers are now able to focus their efforts on other tasks while producing high-quality content at scale.

Conclusion

Automating blog posts with a brand growth tool like BrandWell can be an efficient way to update your website with fresh content while saving time and resources. Once you grasp the basics of how can you automate your blog content, producing original content at scale for your readers becomes simpler.

With the right strategy in place, automating your blog content will help maximize the visibility of your blog articles while increasing engagement.