How To Create Longform Content 3-4x Faster Than Normal Humans

Ahoy, Digital Writers!

Meet Write With AI friend (And Cyborg):

Jacob McMillen

Jacob aka The Cyborg Writer is a 12-year copywriter and content marketer. He’s written content that has ranked #1 for hyper-competitive search terms like “consulting”, “copywriter”, and “A/B testing”, and he’s helped freelance writers reach $10k, $15k, and even $20k per month via his Write Minds community. 

And today, we are bringing you a special post from Jacob that we’re sure you’ll enjoy.

Here’s Jacob:

How To Create Longform Content 3-4x Faster Than Normal Humans

Greetings Earthlings,

I’m going to teach you how to use AI to create longform content 3-4x faster than you ever could without AI.

And I’m going to introduce you to a “free” (assuming you have ChatGPT PLUS) tool that makes incorporating everything I’m about to teach you ridiculously easy.

But first, let’s quickly review why you might want to create longform content in the first place.

• SEO: In 2024, longform blog posts are the minimum requirement to rank for competitive search terms.

• Branding: longform content like books, in-depth thought leadership essays, and educational email sequences have a deeper impact than shortform.

• Instructional design: effective instruction is almost always delivered via highly structured longform content, even when broken into smaller pieces.

When longform content is done at a high level, it’s extremely valuable to businesses. To give you an idea of just how valuable it is when applied in the right contexts:

• I was paid an average of $5,000 per longform blog post in 2022.

• I’ve had a blog post drive $10k per month to one of my own businesses.

• I’ve had numerous blog posts drive a measured six figures for clients.

When GPT4 came out in March of 2023, I realized I would never write longform in the same way I had before, and more importantly, this tech opened up the door for writers who would normally struggle with longform to knock it out of the park.

2 Ways AI Has Changed The Longform Writing Game

The first and simplest way that AI has changed the longform game is structure.

1. Structure

Longform requires more advanced structure than typical writing.

When you write a strong Twitter thread or LinkedIn post, you really only need two things: a strong hook and a point that delivers on the promise of the hook.

Hook + worthwhile idea

That idea can be as short or as long as you want it to be.

There’s really no advanced requirements. The same isn’t true for longform. You pull people in with a strong promise, usually delivered through the headline. And then you need to keep the reader’s attention for anywhere from 2,000 to 40,000 words.

That’s a lot harder, and one of the unique requirements here is an incredibly strong structure.

Fortunately, AI is better at structure and outlines than 98% of writers.

If you hop into the base version of ChatGPT right now and ask it to create an outline for a blog post on flexible dieting, it’s almost always going to give you a great initial outline. 

2. General Knowledge

The second way that AI has changed the longform game is in its ability to deliver on-point “general knowledge” commentary on most topics.

Let me explain and illustrate this concept with a story.

If I was having dinner with a friend and they asked me to explain what I do for a living, it would go something like this.

First, I would need to explain a lot of core concepts:

• What is copywriting?

• What is freelancing?

• Why do businesses hire random people selling their skills as a service?

This is what I call “general knowledge” information.

If you asked 10 different copywriters about this stuff, we’d all answer more or less the same way. And depending on the friend’s career background, this could occupy anywhere from 25-75% of the conversation. But these topics wouldn’t make up the entire conversation, because I’m a real human person... not Wikipedia.

There would also be questions like:

• How did you get into this field?

• How did you land your first client?

• Do you enjoy it?

• How much money do you make?

• What are you working on right now?

This is what I call the “Point of View” information, and if you asked 10 different copywriters about this stuff, we’d all have completely different answers.

This is the type of stuff that makes content interesting and worth reading:

• Opinions and hot takes

• Stories and anecdotes

• Unique details and insights

But here’s the thing.

Point of View content can’t exist in isolation.

My friend isn’t going to ask about how I ended up in copywriting until he first understands what copywriting is. General knowledge information creates the context for Point of View content to make an impact. You always need both when writing longform.

And this is where AI has changed the game.

AI can instantly deliver ALL the general knowledge content in any given piece, giving you more time to focus on adding Point of View content.

Let’s look back at the first three subheaders from the flexible dieting outline:

1. Understanding flexible dieting

2. Benefits of flexible dieting

3. Implementing flexible dieting

Those first two sections are general knowledge information. 

If I’m a freelance writer, ghostwriter, or subject matter expert creating content for a business, I would normally need to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours writing those sections (it tends to take a LOT longer for subject matter experts).

And what would I get in the end?

The same content that every other blog post has on those topics.

So I’ve invested 30 mins to 2 hours just to get to the same baseline as everyone else.

Unless I use AI.

In two clicks, I can have both of these sections written.

Now, this next part is what separates the masses trying to one-click AI into business outcomes... and the small percentage of writers and subject matter experts actually getting business outcomes.

Let’s think about who would be creating an article like this in the first place:

• A personal trainer who uses flexible dieting to help their clients hit fitness goals

• A fitness supplement company teaching people how to reach their fitness goals

• A fitness SaaS product teaching people how to reach their fitness goals

Let’s imagine we keep one-clicking our way through the rest of the sections... or use an AI tool designed to write ALL the sections for us in one click.

What does an AI-only article really accomplish for you?

Who would want to read it?

The answer is nothing and nobody.

It’s worthless.

Now let’s try something else.

When we get to the implementation section, we write out real first-hand stories of personal training clients who have used flexible dieting to finally get their eating habits in check, drop weight they’ve been struggling to drop for years, and reach their fitness goals.

We show before and after photos.

We talk about the specific problem-foods that each client cut out, and more importantly, the foods they didn’t need to cut out and were able to continue enjoying thanks to this different approach to dieting.

If this is a SaaS company, we show screenshots of our fitness app that they used to track calories and monitor their weight change over time.

If this is a supplement company, we talk about how our supplement worked hand in hand with this dieting approach to accelerate results.

In short, we include a bunch of extra stuff that makes this content exceptional — that permanently separates it from every other article that has or will be written on this subject.

And here’s the kicker.

With AI, you get to spend 100% of your time budget on Point of View content.

Instead of spending 50% of our time just writing out the same baseline context that every other article has, AI let’s just instantly generate it, so we can spend 100% of our time focusing on the stuff that truly makes content exceptional.

As the Star Wars fans among us would say:

This is the way.

Okay, now that we have all that nonsense out of the way, let’s walk step by step through how to use my custom GPT to create your longform content 3-4x faster than you ever could before.

How to create longform content 3-4x faster than you ever could before with the Longform Blog Cyborg

If you aren’t aware, a “GPT” is basically a plugin for ChatGPT that changes how the tool is used and what it outputs.

If you have ChatGPT Plus, click below to get the longform GPT immediately, 100% free, and then select the opening prompt at the bottom “Help me write a longform blog post”.

We are going to walk through this in 6 steps, so at the end you’ll have a longform post.

Here’s the cyborg: