How I saved a writer from chatGPT and got their business back

[markp]

An established writer I know in the past week lost 90% of the business she has built up over the past few years with a strong customer base with many customers deciding to use chatGPT. I’m sure many freelancers on here understand the stress when you have the rug pulled from under your feet and don’t know what to do.  She was in a dire position where she was thinking and considering very dark thoughts.

This is how I helped her get all her customers back. I strongly suggest paying close attention to this and stop being scared that ChatGPT is taking your business away.

Since chatGPT took all the customers, I used it to get them all back. What I did was to devise a strategy to give the customers reasons not to rely on it to write content.

I got her to arrange zoom calls with all her (ex) clients from early Friday morning, and we spent all day on and off calls to the early hours of Saturday morning. What I determined to do was show that chatgpt does not provide the content customers need and will in fact do the opposite.

Below is what I did and yes I engineered this and wrote this out while on calls to customers and yes it was stressful as well as a lot was at stake.

I'm not going to put down the full transcript of calls, but she called customers over zoom and explained to them that chatgpt is not a replacement for human writers using a script I wrote then I took over and did a screenshare showing a live interaction with chatgpt like below and yes everyone knows I worked on fiverr.

This is what I did:

 

 this is basically saying different users may get the same or very similar content and importantly the structure and points would be similar. For anyone not aware this is one of the ways in which google detects rewritten and spun content. Even if it passes checks with tools like Grammarly. if the paragraph and structure of the content is the same or very similar and even sentences are rewritten this does not mean Google is going to see the content as unique. plagiarism tools are just the starting point with Google. Not the end point.  I made this clear to each customer and showed them examples. then I went to this

this reinforces what was stated previously subtle differences mean nothing if the content is bland and the structure of the content is obvious enough that it is being generated by chatgpt (or other tools) the point here being content is not providing value or showing any experience of the topics to google and is not going to rank and I have proved this which I will come to.

 

this is what I was using the other questions to engineer. Once the customers saw this, many were already at the point of changing their minds. content generated using standard prompts has a high degree of being considered duplicate content, and the very last sentence reinforces this by stating the content needs to be high quality and original and offers value. Ive yet to see anyone doing this without considerable work (time) in the form of prompt engineering to the point you might as well write the content yourself due to the time taken.

At this point its clear what the answer is. if you just use this to generate content, it's not going to rank in the search results at all.  you are either going to have to spend considerable time on prompt engineering to get useful content or add substantial value to the content yourself, and if you do use the content as is it's not just google you have a problem with, but with your readers, if the content does not bring any value your traffic and rankings are going to decline.

What the writer agreed with the customers was the following. ( these are not 5$ mumbo jumbo articles)

articles are always well-researched and show experience with the subject matter with an appropriate writing style and nuanced as well.

references are included in the content where statements are made (facts provided by chatgpt can be manipulated or out of date)

there were other requirements but this is the gist of it.

there is no way chatgpt is going to replace a good technical writer anytime soon (that was one of wifes jobs). there is no way its going to replace a writer who is capable of doing proper research and providing value on a topic.

Anyone who just rewrites content, spins it or just knocks out bland and meaningless content is going to find themselves in a lot of trouble.

Will using nothing but chatGPT generated content on a website cause issues.

the answer to this is yes. I have tested this since December and you can see what happened below. this is data from google analytics.

 

when I started testing on this website the traffic was (past tense) at 1500 users a day and increasing. after posting two articles generated by chatgpt traffic plummeted. To stop this I posted several well-researched articles, and traffic came back up again. Over the past two months I have tried several variations on this using chatgpt as the main part of the content. traffic is now down to 650 visitors a day. unless you add plenty of value and original content of your own pain is on the menu.

What would you use chatGPT for 

its good for coming up with titles for content. if you want to come up with a catchy product or page title it can give you some ideas to work with along the lines of " generate 5 titles for XYZ" same for product descriptions on amazon, shopify etc . what you want to avoid is having products with the same descriptions as everyone else (Google reasons). its really good at creating tables for excel. Its ok for drivers for hardware (my job a lifetime ago) and ok for providing simple code in python or c# or creating webpages in html.  in my opinion you cant really use it for anything complex as far as coding is concerned and definitely not for debugging anything. if you want to come up with ideas it's pretty good but needs some good input from you. For example if you need a script for a youtube video or podcasts. As far as writing Fiverr gig descriptions and titles are concerned im not going to get involved in that. With the latest releases, there are options for tone and writing style, but there is no way the output is enough to replace a good human writer.

 

 

 

[theratypist]

Thanks for sharing Mark! I do believe different users will get similar content and the structure (and points being shared in that structure) would be very similar. 

On ChatGPT:

A few days ago, there was a forum user posting "tips" or it was more like an explanation of common knowledge on Fiverr (context was if levels were important in relation to quality). 

It was not so much the point being relayed by the post that bothered me but I could easily tell it was AI generated.

I used ChatGPT using the same "question" the user included in the title. Funny enough, for the first few iterations/generated text, I found out while the words were not exactly the same the content per sentence was quite similar. For example, the second sentence (of the original post) talked about levels, in the other iterations (the ones I generated) it still talked about levels in the same light, but with different words. The more iterations you do, the paragraphs then get rearranged but basically the whole foundation/point being made by the content is the same. 

The other posts made by said user in the forum were misspelled, and did not reflect at least the consistency and coherence of that one post. I wanted to respond to the user's post but I didn't have energy to do so that day.  

Well, at least my experience has found some use in support to your thread!

AI helps you know what's already out there and will speed up a lot of things (like giving you an overview on a topic you do not know). But AI will need new content to generate from, which will come from.....humans with a brain, with creativity, with a touch of emotions (and all the other humanly touches that is needed). 

Edited February 22, 2023 by theratypist

[markp]

On 2/21/2023 at 9:57 PM, theratypist said:

I used ChatGPT using the same "question" the user included in the title. Funny enough, for the first few iterations/generated text, I found out while the words were not exactly the same the content per sentence was quite similar. For example, the second sentence (of the original post) talked about levels, in the other iterations (the ones I generated) it still talked about levels in the same light, but with different words. The more iterations you do, the paragraphs then get rearranged but basically the whole foundation/point being made by the content is the same.

this is how google will detect the content. The same method is used to detect duplicate content. there is a google whitepaper on how they do this (for duplicate content) . It doesn't matter what you put it through to get it to pass plagiarism checks if the structure is the same Google will recognise it, if you just use what is generated. I just wonder if people on here are doing this and using the content generated as is. I think anyone who is using chatgpt should be made to state it in their delivery, even if their service does not specifically state it is being used. 

On 2/21/2023 at 9:57 PM, theratypist said:

AI helps you know what's already out there and will speed up a lot of things (like giving you an overview on a topic you do not know). But AI will need new content to generate from, which will come from.....humans with a brain, with creativity, with a touch of emotions (and all the other humanly touches that is needed). 

 this is the best use at the moment and the content does need to be fact checked as it has data up to the end of 2021 and it is unable provide correct answers based on prompts  about anything beyond this date. It may try even if you give it a url and ask it to summarize the content it will give you a summary based on what is in the url, not the content of the page or just refuse to do it .All it is doing is giving you information it has. it cannot give you creativity and even though google bard does have internet access, unlike chatgpt, the content provided still needs to be fact checked and does return errors. Google have asked their own employees to train it and correct errors. 

Its no good being a luddite and running around shouting dont use it, it the sky is falling. Using it in your workflow is a good idea. using it exclusively for any solution without any creativity or value,input or fact checking from your side is a bad idea.

[breals]

@my_guy  Have you just replied on a thread entitled 

How I saved a writer from chatGPT and got their business back

With chatGPT?

Seriously???????

Edited February 22, 2023 by breals

[theratypist]

1 hour ago, breals said:

@my_guy  Have you just replied on a thread entitled 

How I saved a writer from chatGPT and got their business back

With chatGPT?

Seriously???????

It's not a Fiverr forum thread without random stuff popped in. "Thanks for your valuable information" would have been better 😆

Edited February 22, 2023 by theratypist

[catwriter]

1 minute ago, theratypist said:

"Thanks for your valuable information" would have been better 😆

I guess that ChatGPT answers are the new "Thank you for your valuable information. I appreciate you" posts.

[create_with_ben]

ChatGPT seems to be stalking me. It's the reason I haven't created any gigs on Fiverr yet, as I'm trying to formulate a writing strategy that will be as GPT-immune as possible. At this point, I'm gravitating toward offering creative writing services, op-eds, and GPT-generated article fact-checking and revising. 

What I can say on the GPT front is be afraid. Be very afraid. In the iGaming industry in Malta where I hail from, we've been using GPT (not chat) since 2020 to create the bulk of our digital marketing collateral. Not solely GPT. We, of course, still keep real writers on the books, but at this point, we are recruiting fewer and those writers are really just editing GPT-derived content to make it more relevant for 2023 audiences. Do we suffer at an SEO front? No. Sorry. At my company, we had to halt all Visa transactions in December for a day and took a huge nosedive in daily takings and onboarding of new customers. Literally, every piece of damage containment marketing collateral that we put out after was largely derived from GPT.  It needed to be. It's fast. The next day, we didn't have a problem. 

As a writer myself, this is why I'm now looking to go freelance or upskill in another field within iGaming,

Basically, AI can pull your job from under you if you are a writer, artist, or similar creative. I can also promise you that right now, there is a GPT spider-like piece of code crawling this and every other forum post out there on the Internet tasked with learning how to be more personable and human-authentic.

The battle is on!

This is why I'm gravitating to creating more creative writing-styled gigs. All my own tests with Chatgpt prove to me what should be obvious to everyone. The one thing it lacks is imagination. Perhaps with GPTchat, we'll actually see a market dynamic flip that sees creativity become cool again, after a decade or two where savvy writers who should have been authors just became senseless drones for behemoth marketing machines like the company I still work for.

Who knows?

BTW this post was all written using GPTchat.

Only Joking. 😅 It really wasn't.

 

Or was it.....

 

[donnovan86]

21 minutes ago, create_with_ben said:

GPT-generated article fact-checking and revising. 

That category is already overcrowded and there are barely any sales. Source: I am a writer too.

[saadatique]

Hello everyone, I hope you all are doing amazing. 

I am just wondering if the work is slow these days? Specifically the Blog Post and Website Content Writing work. Because, I am in the rankings and still not getting enough orders as I used to. I am a TRS and I have got the Fiverr's Choice Badge as well. But, still struggling to get new clients. 

Is it because of AI tools these days? Please share your valuable feedbacks on that. Or, is it a high time that I move myself to another skill, which I am already working on. Thank you so much in advance. 

[fastcopywriter]

I've been testing ChatGPT and I'm extremely impressed. 

You can ask it to write a funny radio or TV commercial, jingles, poems, essays, blogs, even a story of a bird falling in love with a worm. 

However, ChatGPT won't write 100+ page books, and there are restrictions regarding to violence, blue subjects, etc. 

ChatGPT can also answer questions about jobs for introverts, direct flights to X, even what stocks do well in a recession. 

I think it's a great tool.

Right now I'm using it to write cover letters that incorporate my resume and the job description, I'm extremely impressed. It's a huge time saver. 

[uk1000]

1 hour ago, fastcopywriter said:

However, ChatGPT won't write 100+ page books,

Maybe it could if you broke it down into chapters and it did a chapter or a few pages at a time (or however much the limit is), giving it info about what has happened previously.

Edited March 15, 2023 by uk1000

[mikelewis487]

I feel the pain of lost business. For the first time in six years, I have no backlog and very little inquiries. I suspect it is a combination of AI, the economy (Most of my clients are business-related) and the extraordinary number of sellers in each category, many selling way below what I can offer.  
I think ChatGPT is perfect for websites interested only in traffic. It's easy for it to produce a fact-filled (if you can trust it), white bread-type article with key words, etc. At the same time, the technology will continue to improve, so complaining about it is blowing in the wind. I'm trying to use it to replace the time-consuming, non-creative aspects of my work, hoping that I can find that happy medium between volume and price. If anyone has a better solution, I'd like to hear it.

[bedan2016]

State of orders from writing gigs: Has AI impacted you?

How are your content writing gigs performing? Are you getting many orders as before? Is AI like ChatGPT hurting you?

[connorkh]

Interesting topic, I don't know for sure, maybe someone in the writing field can give a better answer, but I believe it will get affected, but as this job gets affected other jobs will emerge which writers can benefit from like AI content verification and editing.

 

[bedan2016]

23 minutes ago, connorkh said:

Interesting topic, I don't know for sure, maybe someone in the writing field can give a better answer, but I believe it will get affected, but as this job gets affected other jobs will emerge which writers can benefit from like AI content verification and editing.

 

Which niche are you in and how are things there?

[fastadking]

I've had writing gigs on Fiverr for 11 years. Orders and messages are the slowest I've ever seen. A global recession and free AI may be a perfect storm that has snatched many of the buyers who need writing. Especially the smarter buyers who can figure out how to use GPT for good results. 

[amazon_fba_13]

Yes, it affected terribly.

[morganeditor1]

Not a writer per se, but I'm in copywriting and I've already had several buyers ask me if I use AI. My greatest concern is that the mere existence of AI has the potential to throw a level of suspicion on any written content that you deliver - short of filming yourself writing, how can you definitively prove your content is human-made? There are some AI-checking websites out there, but they're not perfect.

[zeus777]

I'm not a writer, but I do offer translation.

I am quite glad to be able to say that FOR NOW my orders are not going down.
For certain topics I guess AI can do a somewhat of a decent job, but when it comes to translating spoken sentences/conversations, they suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I haven't had people specifically ask me if I use any AI, but I'm sure someone is gonna ask me that soon.

[theiconwriters]

It has affected me significantly. I will soon sell my car to run family errands, and God knows, what will be next!! 

[bedan2016]

On 6/8/2023 at 2:45 PM, fastadking said:

I've had writing gigs on Fiverr for 11 years. Orders and messages are the slowest I've ever seen. A global recession and free AI may be a perfect storm that has snatched many of the buyers who need writing. Especially the smarter buyers who can figure out how to use GPT for good results. 

True. I have been here for 6 years and never experienced the current situation.

[looseink]

I had a regular off-platform client of mine I've been working with for years before I joined Fiverr recently request I run a series of FAQs (intended for several of his websites) through ChatGPT and tweak where necessary. Well, I ended up rewriting EACH OF THE RESPONSES to the questions I fed into the AI program. Granted, that was just three months after ChatGPT was launched. I would imagine things are better if it is actually doing the "deep learning" we've been promised.

 

I also had a non-client suggest that AI would kill my business. There has been a dip in work, but I am still writing almost daily. 

 

I also suspect we will see Google penalties coming out eventually on content that is strictly AI-generated and I have seen mention of such restrictions already in place in several online platforms.

[donnovan86]

On 6/17/2023 at 1:30 AM, looseink said:

I also suspect we will see Google penalties coming out eventually on content that is strictly AI-generated and I have seen mention of such restrictions already in place in several online platforms.

I agree, manual writing won't go anywhere. What CHATGPT and other AI writing tools will do is remove a lot of the bad gigs from Fiverr that were usually spinning any existing text. Now people can receive a similar result for free. Quality writing is not going anywhere. I agree, AI hit me too, but I am still writing and will continue to do so. However, this shows that having a secondary or third source of income is not just extra money these days, it becomes a necessity 🙂

[vickiespencer]

Interestingly, in this discussion about AI-generated content affecting our gigs, a post more than likely using almost half A-generated content pops up. 🤭

Out of respect for the poster will not name names. 😉
 

Edited June 19, 2023 by vickiespencer

[vickiespencer]

6 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

Out of respect for the poster will not name names. 😉

The poster's post is gone, and I did not report it! Interesting. 🤔