The Problem:
A solo entrepreneur was facing significant challenges in managing their blog content creation while also running their business. Like many small business owners, they had to wear multiple hats, managing everything from sales to marketing. Creating blog posts, a cornerstone of their content strategy, had become an immense time sink.
The process of writing a single blog post involved extensive research, writing, proofreading, image creation, and uploading it to their WordPress site. On average, a 1,500-word blog post took anywhere from 4 to 10 hours to produce. With a goal of publishing one blog post per week, they were spending around 364 hours per year solely on blog creation.
This equated to £36,400 annually if they valued their time at what they charged their clients. Given the increasing demands of running the business, the entrepreneur simply couldn’t keep up with the time commitment required for consistent content creation. While they explored external services like FatJoe.com, the high costs and incomplete offerings made them less viable.
The challenge was clear: the entrepreneur needed a way to produce high-quality, SEO-optimised blog posts without sacrificing so much time and energy.
The Solution:
Recognising the importance of the blog posts as the foundation for the entrepreneur’s broader content strategy—including platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube—we knew the solution had to preserve quality while drastically reducing the time commitment. Human intervention would still be necessary for certain aspects, but much of the process could be streamlined using AI and automation.
We created a comprehensive content generation system using a variety of tools, including Make.com, Airtable, Ahrefs, ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, and Perplexity. Here’s how the solution worked:
- Content Planning: We began by researching and generating categories and topics for two years’ worth of blog posts. This ensured a clear content roadmap.
- AI-Assisted Drafting: Leveraging AI, the system automated the research and drafting process by comparing AI-generated content against top-performing articles in the same space. This initial draft included all the necessary SEO keywords (selected by AI from a predefined list), as well as internal and external links, eliminating the need for manual keyword integration.
- Editing & Proofing Automation: The AI also proofed the content, flagging any necessary edits. This ensured that by the time the draft reached the client, it was polished and included all relevant keywords, links, and formatting.
- Client Review & Featured Image Creation: The client would review the draft, making any personal changes or additions. After approval, the system automatically generated a featured image and uploaded it to Canva, including suggestions for text to add to the image.
- WordPress Integration: Once the client completed the featured image, the system converted the Google Doc into a WordPress-compatible format and automatically uploaded the content to the client’s site. The AI also generated SEO titles and meta descriptions, leaving the client with only the final review and scheduling tasks to complete.
This end-to-end process—from generating a draft to uploading to WordPress—was designed to streamline content creation while maintaining high quality.
The Outcome:
The automation system reduced the time required to produce a single blog post from up to 10 hours to just 15 minutes. The client was able to save approximately £34,000 per year in time costs, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their business. This also opened the door for increasing the frequency of their blog posts, providing a path to even greater business growth.
Beyond time savings, the entrepreneur saw an increase in consistency and SEO performance. With AI ensuring the inclusion of the best keywords and strategic internal and external links, each post was well-optimised for search engines, helping to drive more organic traffic to the business.
Looking forward, the client was excited about the next stage of automation, which would take the blog content and transform it into LinkedIn articles, podcast scripts, and YouTube scripts, further amplifying their reach across multiple platforms with minimal effort.
