Good content conveys information, but great content builds trust. AI-generated content easily passes the first test, but it struggles with the latter. It does not always come out as totally trustable out of the gate. 

Here’s the thing, though. While you should guard against spreading false information, as a blog writer you’re not held to the same standards as a newspaper, for example, in terms of your trustworthiness as an information source. But your writing absolutely has to be trustable.

This article will teach you how to build trust with your AI-generated blog articles, one of the 5 pillars of the CRAFT framework – our process for creating successful AIO content.

Read on to discover how to turn a mechanical-sounding AI-generated draft into impeccable AIO content that reels readers in and grips their attention to the end.

Note: This article covers the fifth step in the AIO process for perfecting AI-generated content that we developed here at Content At Scale. It is the last of five articles on my unique C-R-A-F-T framework that defines the AIO process. This one touches T, aka Trust-Building.

Want to learn every step involved in our C.R.A.F.T. framework? You’re in the right place. To learn more about AIO and C.R.A.F.T, read our individual guides:

• C – a full guide on cutting the fluff
• R – a full guide on optimizing your content for SEO
• A – a full guide on adding blog images and visuals
• F – a full guide on how to fact-check
• T – a full guide on how to trust-build in your content

Additionally, subscribe to our blog, watch our C.R.A.F.T. and AIO tutorials on our YouTube channel, and read this blog to understand the AIO model.

Table of Contents

Free Resources to Train Your Writers into AIO

I’ve been personally training agency owners and teams and helping them convert to the AIO way. Want these? You’re in luck – we’re giving them away.

Free Guide

We put together a full guide for AIO’s – an AIO writer’s worksprint, a job template to hire and find yours, links to our best tutorials and training, and more.

Want this awesome resource? It’s called the AIO Writer’s Worksprint. Download now for free.

Free Step-by-Step AIO Training Course

Additionally, after months of putting AIO and C.R.A.F.T. into action (over 40M words are produced each month by our users at Content at Scale, and our Done-for-You client side is another 500,000 words/month! Talk about AIO at scale 🤯 ) – we put together a step-by-step AIO C.R.A.F.T. tutorial.

Ideal for you, your writers, and any content creator ready to adapt to the CRAFT methodology and the AIO way.

Enjoy!

New to the idea of AIO and CRAFT? Read this to understand the innovation behind AIO. 

Want a written guide that has all the CRAFT steps from the YouTube video? Your wish is our content command. Step-by-step AIO writing tutorial, blog version. 

Why is It Important to Build Trust with Your Blog Writing?

People only buy from people they trust. Similarly, readers take and act on advice and counsel from writers whose writing they trust. When they trust your content, they are also likely to recommend and share it.

So, if you can’t get the reader to trust your information, your content will not accomplish its intended goals.

The challenge you have as an AIO writer is that your human readers have trust issues where AI content is concerned. I say human readers because Google may like your AI content enough to rank it.

Yes, AI content can rank. The challenge is after it ranks, people still have to read it and be informed by it enough to take the actions you want them to. Those actions require a fair bit of trust on the part of the reader.

An informed reader knows what they want, which means they read your content and go away to solve their problem. You have a problem, however, if they use your information to learn what solution they need but then opt for your competitor’s product as their solution. 

If you had earned their trust, they would take a chance on your solution. They would consider your solution simply because you have earned it, not because your product is the best. As consumers, we don’t always select products to maximize utility. We choose brands that make the best impression on us.

How to Build Trust With AI-Generated Blog Posts

AI content tends to be disconnected and impersonal. It lacks that personal touch and relatability that makes content written by one who has been there and lived to talk about it so good. 

Even though it is machine-generated, AI content can be engineered to address reader pain points and optimized to build trust and make a genuine connection with readers. 

The engineering part is you the AI writer telling the AI with your prompt exactly what to write about. The second part of building trust and establishing a connection with readers is you again optimizing the draft the AI turns out for human readers. 

Here’s how you build trust with AI content and make it impeccably better:

1. Write to One Specific Reader

Content that targets everybody impresses no specific reader. No one finds that content trustable because it does not speak to them. That one reader is a representation of your target reader, not one specific individual.

Let’s take it right from the start of the process of generating an article with an AI writer. I am assuming you have a target keyword in mind. You want your article to target people making specific searches in Google. 

That’s a good start, but you’ve got to go deeper: 

• Who are the people behind these searches? 
• What industry do they work in?
• What problem do they want to fix?
• What are their hopes and fears?
• What knowledge gaps do they have about your topic?

The article the AI generates will perform a lot better both on search engines and with readers if the prompt focuses on a specific reader. A reader whose feelings, thoughts, professional struggles, and ambitions you truly understand.

For us at Content At Scale, a challenge that we get out of bed to solve every day is ‘how to scale content creation’. The high cost and time investment it takes to scale content creation is the business problem our product is designed to solve. 

Importantly, we know who is facing this challenge – affiliate marketers, business owners, and agency owners who want to scale content creation at a manageable cost. This is the reader we write for when we blog.

2. Put Yourself in the Reader’s Shoes

In the same way marketers design their offers with their buyer personas in mind, your prompt must identify your ideal reader so that the AI knows who it’s writing for. In essence, you want to put the AI in the reader’s shoes.

Ask yourself what questions your reader would ask that are related to your main topic or target keyword. These are the questions you want the AI to answer. But where do you find these questions?

Google your target keyword and check the SERP for the ‘People Also Ask’ carousel. Some of the questions Google pulls up for the PAA carousel are what your readers are asking. Answer these questions directly in your article and you will not have to work as hard to earn their trust.

Your prompt is the additional context in the Content At Scale app. You don’t have to add it because the machine can generate a draft with just the keyword, but adding it focuses the draft on the main points you want the AI to write on. 

3. Use an Outline

An outline focuses your thoughts and guides your writing. It does the same for an AI writer. Using one is even more important for long-form articles for which staying on topic can be a challenge. A well-outlined article follows a logical structure, which shows the reader you are committed to solving their problem.

Thankfully, with Content At Scale, you don’t have to manually create an outline. The AI automatically generates one for you. We call it a brief. You can even edit and customize the outline by adding more subheaders if it misses some important points.

Your article will be ready a few minutes after you hit the Create Content Now button.

4. Make a Promise You Can Deliver On

Most of your readers will be organic traffic from Google. If you rank number 1 for your target keyword you have the advantage of being the page Google trusts to recommend to its users. 

But the SERP has other pages your reader could also choose to click on and read, especially if the titles for those pages are more enticing. So to get the click, you use persuasive language to write your SEO title. 

Be careful, though, to not promise with your headline what your article cannot deliver. Review the title the AI generates to make sure it actually promises something. People don’t click unless the title promises them something tangible.

The title is one part of your article you want to take your time with. But while you want the article’s meta title to promise something that’s enticing enough to get the click, you should only promise what the article can deliver. Don’t be vague, either. 

Of course, you should include the target keyword in the title as that also encourages clicks. Your title will also attract more clicks if:

• It has a number.
• Includes a power word.
• Is specific and written for the user.

If after scanning the article the reader finds out they have been duped, you’re losing their trust, FAST. This article you’re reading promises 11 tips on how to build trust in AI content and that’s what you get. You knew what you were getting when you clicked because it clearly shows that it is a how-to guide.

5. Talk to the Reader Directly

As a writer, you are technically broadcasting a message because the reader can’t talk back in real-time. It’s a monologue, but that does not mean you cannot make it sound like a dialogue. 

Imagine yourself casually talking to the reader over a cup of tea. In their place, put your friend. As you go through the AI-generated draft, look for instances where the AI talks in the third person and does not address the reader directly. 

You don’t want to talk about yourself too much, but the reader must know you are offering yourself as the teacher, advisor, or solution provider. At the same time, make it clear you are in conversation with the reader. Use ‘you’ and ‘your’ more than you use ‘they’ and ‘their’. Use ‘I’ and ‘we’ to sound more supportive and hopeful.

“Good writing is good conversation, only more so.”

― Ernest Hemingway

Your content makes a stronger impact when you write conversationally. One way of doing that is to ask questions, even rhetorical ones. Other tips to write more conversationally include using active voice, using contractions, using simple words, and writing short sentences.

6. Use Plain, Accessible Language

The reader is not interested in how smart you are or how strong your vocabulary is. All they want is for you to solve their problem, and they will freely open themselves up if you make your information digestible.

One way you can make it easy for readers to access your help is by using language that they understand. Avoid overly formal language as it can come off as pretentious. If you communicate information in a clear manner, your message will get to more people. 

Avoid all jargon, even if it means you fail to get your point across as accurately as you would like. Substitute technical language for universal, everyday language. Where possible, borrow the language of your audience.

If you find yourself pulling up the Power Thesaurus, let it be because you are looking for a simpler word than the one you have in mind. Those simpler words prevent potential misunderstanding of your message due to language and literacy barriers.

7. Use Personal Stories to Humanize the Draft

When people read your AI content, you want them to feel like they are talking to a person, not a machine. One way of doing this is by weaving personal stories into the article. 

You will have to manually add your personal stories to the draft because the AI can’t cite personal stories. Your lived experiences are the one thing that you have that the AI does not. Make use of any personal stories that fit the article to humanize it and make the content more relatable.

AI writers use pre-existing information to create content. So while the content is well-researched, it is not as unique. Blending in personal stories helps add uniqueness and dumbs down traces of AI, making your draft read more original.

If you are writing for a brand, your personal stories as the AIO writer may not be appropriate or relevant. But even your brand has personal stories. Stories like how hard it was to get proof of concept and those first few customers that launched you as a business. Use those stories to humanize your AI drafts.

8. Show Empathy, Not Sympathy

Readers go to Google to find solutions to their problems, not sympathy. They do not want you to feel sorry for them. What they will appreciate from you is empathy – showing them that you understand their thoughts and feelings.

Your ability to show empathy goes back to the point we made earlier about putting the AI in the reader’s shoes. Empathy shows the reader that you really get them, which establishes a strong connection between you and them. 

Don’t be afraid to infuse some emotion into the content. It shows there is a human being with feelings on the other side of the screen. Open yourself up a little, share the odd joke, and write as you would talk to a friend you care about. Yes, you should be professional, but be authentic too.

9. Don’t Generalize, Stick to Facts

Generic language is what marks wishy-washy blogs from impactful articles that reel the reader in and hold their attention for the whole piece. Content that does not contextualize and use facts insults the reader by suggesting that they don’t know what they are after.

You get the reader’s trust when you help them solve their problem. Use facts and examples to back up your points and make your advice more actionable. You can use personal examples and even fictitious ones if it helps you get your point across.

The problem with AI is that it does not know what it does not know. It will always write something, even if it’s not factual.

Your AIO writing task includes identifying areas where the AI wrote something that can’t be substantiated and where it didn’t share any critical information. Sometimes the AI will repeat something it has already said, phrased differently. That is fluff that you should chop.

In place of the repetitions and generalized points, put facts, statistics, and quotes from experts in your space. You will have to research these. Even better, highlight your facts with bold letters and links to the original sources. Use block quotes to highlight your quotes:

Using quotes and statistics in your writing shows you’re widely read and have researched thoroughly. Linking to credible external resources shows that your content really is about the reader. When you link out your internal links also don’t come across as overly promotional. 

10. Don’t Tell, Show

People and brands that talk about themselves too much are not very likable. When you do that it is easy to beat your chest and tout your achievements, which can come off as showing off.

So take the focus away from yourself and put it where it should be – on the reader. More specifically, quickly get on with the business of solving the reader’s problem.

The quickest way to share your solution is to show it. Of course, you can explain it, but that can take too long. And the reader may not understand it. One way of showing instead of telling is by using visuals. 

In this post, you have already seen how we do that with screenshots of our AI writer. Most of these screenshots have arrows, highlights, and annotations to make it easier to know how to do specific things with the software.

11. Proofread

Poor grammar, typos, and misspellings reflect badly on the writer. It shows you as sloppy. It begs the question, if you are sloppy with grammar, can you be trusted with facts?

While the AI writes well and has built-in Grammarly, its content can sound robotic and it does occasionally miss minor details. Proofreading allows you to pick up and fix these issues.

“The ear, not the eye, is the final editor.”

Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Another helpful trick is to read the draft aloud. It particularly helps to identify unnatural language that a proofreading app might miss.

Key Takeaway: To effectively build trust when writing blog posts, it’s important to understand your target audience, research relevant keywords and create content that is valuable and solves problems. Writing in the language your readers understand also helps to simplify your AI content and make it more accessible.

FAQs – How to Build Trust with Readers

How do you build trust in writing?

You build trust in writing by being consistent, clear, and honest. You also gain a reader’s trust by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise with accurate information that can be verified and by showcasing the value of your work through meaningful examples and thoughtful analysis. 

Engage your audience through meaningful dialogue, communicating in a way that resonates emotionally and authentically.

How do you build trust in a conversation?

Writing is a conversation, so the same rules that work for building trust in spoken dialogue apply to writing. Showing the reader that you respect them by not talking over them, empathizing with them, and showing a deep awareness of their struggles will help you earn their trust.

How do you build rapport with readers?

The best way to build rapport – or establish a close bond – with readers is by being more human, which is particularly key with machine-generated content. You also build rapport by being truly helpful – generously sharing information that helps readers solve their problems.

Publish Impeccable AIO Content At a Manageable Cost

You are not going to generate leads for your business or sign up more subscribers by churning out bland, soulless AI content that is published without human oversight. You may save money but you will not gain the readers’ trust, nor win their hearts.

Make your AI articles sound less like writing and more like conversations by using the tips we have shared in this article. That’s how you build readers’ trust in your ideas, teachings, and solutions. 

Use the draft the AI generates as a baseline that you can polish into trustable content that informs, educates, and converts by following our AIO model. 

You have been reading our guide on how to build trust with AI-generated articles. Read up on the other four pillars of the CRAFT framework here, here, and here.