Ever start with a clear idea for your blog post, only to end up with an AI-generated mess that misses the mark entirely?

Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence with AI writers. There’s always a high tendency for it to go off on tangents and stray from the main point. It’s like it has a mind of its own!

But what if there was a way to harness the power of AI while ensuring your content stays laser-focused on your intent?

Introducing SurgeGraph, the Longform AI writer that puts you in control of your content.

In this article, we’ll share powerful tips on how to use SurgeGraph to generate content that matches your vision, every single time.

1. Define Your Content Goals

Every great piece of content starts with a clear objective. In SurgeGraph, we call this your content goal – the specific purpose or desired outcome of the content.

By defining content goals, you guide the AI to meet specific objectives and ensure that your content aligns with its intended purpose.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s say you’re crafting a blog post for first-time homebuyers.

First, you could clearly state the general purpose of your article:

“Provide a helpful guide that includes tips and advice for first-time homebuyers looking to buy a house”

Then, you can outline key points that should be covered in the content:

“Go over budgeting, getting pre-approved for a mortgage, and navigating the home-buying process”

Pro tip: If you’ve specified content goals, we recommend checking the “Generate a completely customized outline” box in the Generate Outline step to ensure better adherence to the content goals.

Examples of Content Goals

If you need some inspiration, below are some content goal examples for different types of articles:

1. Informative Tips

Content Goal: Offer a comprehensive guide for first-time homebuyers, covering essential topics like budgeting, mortgage pre-approval, and navigating the buying journey.

2. Thought Leadership Article

Content Goal: Discuss the importance of storytelling in building strong brands, showcase examples of successful brand storytelling campaigns, and provide practical tips for incorporating storytelling into marketing strategies.

3. Explaining Concept

Content Goal: Define the gig economy and its key characteristics, explore the factors driving its growth, discuss the opportunities and challenges it presents for workers and businesses, and examine its implications for the future of work.

4. Step-By-Step Guide

Content Goal: Offer step-by-step instructions for building a website, including choosing a domain name and hosting provider, selecting a website building platform, designing the layout and structure, adding content and multimedia elements, and launching the website for public access.

5. Travel Guide

Content Goal: Showcase underrated spots in New York City that offer unique experiences, highlighting hidden gems and lesser-known attractions to inspire readers to explore beyond the typical tourist hotspots.

2. Narrow Your Focus with Long-Tail Keywords

Broad keywords cause the AI to try to cover too many topics at once, which increases the chances of it going off course. So instead of choosing broad topics as your target keyword, think specific and narrow it down.

For instance, you can choose long-tail keywords, which are detailed phrases that pinpoint what one is looking for. This helps SurgeGraph understand your intent better and generate content that’s laser-focused on your intended direction.

Below are some examples of broad vs. specific keywords:

3. Specify the Document Title

Target keywords are crucial, but sometimes they’re not enough to ensure laser-focused content. While they help, they can be broad and leave room for misinterpretation.

Hence, you can specify the document title to provide more context and guide the AI towards staying on topic.

For example, imagine you want a family-friendly travel guide for Michigan. Using just “best places in Michigan” as your target keyword might lead to irrelevant results (think casinos or nightclubs!). However, a clear title like “10 Best Family-Friendly Destinations in Michigan” instantly tells the AI the specific focus.

4. Choose The Appropriate Settings (Tone of Voice, Point of View, Creativity, and Readability)

Next, ensure that you choose the right settings before generating the outline and content. This means adjusting the tone of voice, Point of View, creativity, and readability levels.

Think of your target audience. Are you writing for seasoned investors seeking financial advice? Then, a formal or authoritative tone might be fitting. But if you’re targeting fashion-savvy millennials, perhaps a conversational style would resonate better.

To get the best results, you have to understand the preferences of your target audience and what kind of writing style resonates with them – the current top-ranking pages are a good source of reference to see what works best. Also, feel free to experiment with different settings to see which one gives the best output.

5. Exclude Irrelevant SERP Pages OR Generate a Customized Outline That Disregards The SERP

An important thing you need to know is that SurgeGraph relies on data points (topics, keywords, etc.) extracted from top-ranking pages to generate your content.

This means that the content you generate is significantly influenced by the SERP. But sometimes you might have a different direction in mind than what the top ranking pages are doing, hence the mismatch.

There are two ways to circumvent this:

 1. Exclude Irrelevant SERP Pages

The first option is to remove specific SERP pages from influencing your content.

You can do this by clicking on “SERP Settings” in the Generate Outline stage, toggle off pages you don’t like, and then hit “Save Changes”.

Doing this will effectively exclude topics, keywords, questions, and links extracted from the excluded pages.

2. Generate a Customized Outline

The second option is to check the “Generate a completely customized outline” box. What this does is completely ignore the top pages on the SERP when generating your outline. Instead, the AI will come up with an original outline with zero influence from the SERP.

We highly recommend doing this if you’ve specified some custom content goals as outlined in the first item, as this ensures better adherence to your content goals. By ignoring search results, you ensure your content stays laser-focused on your own vision, not just generic industry topics.

6. Craft A Custom Outline

Another effective way to get better intent-matching content is to use a custom outline – an outline you crafted yourself. Doing this essentially allows you to ditch the pre-generated outlines and chart your own course.

To do this, during the Generate Outline stage, simply toggle the Custom Outline feature, and then input your desired headings (H2, H3, H4).

The best thing is that it requires minimal effort, because you only need to specify the main headings or topics of the content. The rest of the information like the talking points will be magically generated by the AI. Of course, you can also opt for more control by filling in these information yourself in the Edit Outline stage.

7. Invest Time in the Outline

We can’t stress this enough, but investing time in the outline stage goes a long way in getting a final piece that checks all your boxes.

After the outline is generated, make sure to review it to ensure it aligns with your intended direction. If needed, you can make the necessary adjustments. For instance, do a thorough check of the headings and topics to see if there’s any deviations from your initial plan.

Remember, a few minutes spent refining your outline can save you hours of rework.

8. Review and Refine The Content

Finally, make sure to read the generated content. Check that it aligns with your intent and intended message. This way, you can make the necessary edits to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of your content.

If you see any part that does not quite hit the mark, you can easily tweak it by using the Rewrite, Simplify, or Expand functions. Better yet, you can use custom instructions through Expert Command for more detailed finetuning.

Pro tip: Incorporating personal experiences or insights is really effective in increasing the authenticity and relatability of your content. It’s an opportunity to infuse uniqueness into your content, setting it apart from the generic materials out there. Take advantage of Expert Command to expedite this for you!

Generate Intent-Matching Content Now

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can create content that not only aligns with your intent but also resonates with your target audience.

So, ready to write intent-matching content? Start with SurgeGraph today: https://surgegraph.io

FAQs

1. I have followed all the steps in this article, but my content still does not match my intent. What do I do?

Although the tips outlined in this article are effective ways to ensure intent-matching content, the final result relies on various other factors as well. We also need more information to be able to help you further. If you encounter such issues, please write to our customer support team at help@surgegraph.io so we can take a closer look.