The rise of Artificial Intelligence has changed how we create content forever. It is faster and more efficient than ever to get words onto a page. However, there is a major trap that many creators fall into: thin content.
Thin content refers to pages that have little to no value for the reader. It is content that feels hollow, repetitive, or robotic. If you want your website to grow and keep visitors coming back, you must learn how to use AI as a tool rather than a replacement for human thought.
What Does Thin Content Look Like?
When you ask an AI to write a full article without giving it specific guidance, it often produces a “generic” result. You might notice these red flags:
- Circular Reasoning: Saying the same thing in different ways just to meet a word count.
- Lack of Real-World Examples: The AI describes concepts in theory but fails to provide personal stories or specific case studies.
- Predictable Structure: Every paragraph starts with similar transitions like “In addition” or “Furthermore.”
- Outdated Information: AI models have a cutoff date for their knowledge, meaning they might miss the latest trends in your industry.
Strategies to Add Depth to AI Writing
To avoid the “thin” label, you need to layer your own expertise on top of the AI’s draft. Here are the best ways to do that.
1. Inject Your Personal Experience
AI has never been to a meeting, felt a product in its hands, or solved a customer complaint. Use the AI to build the skeleton of the post, but add your own stories. For example, if the AI writes about “how to save money,” you should add a section about the specific budget app you used last month and why it worked for you.
2. Use Specific Data and Quotes
Thin content is often vague. You can fix this by adding hard numbers, recent statistics, or quotes from experts in your field. This grounds the article in reality and gives the reader something concrete to remember.
3. Ask Better Prompts
Instead of asking “Write a blog post about fitness,” try a more detailed prompt. Ask the AI to “Write an outline for a fitness guide specifically for busy office workers who only have fifteen minutes a day.” When you give the AI a specific persona and constraints, the output becomes much more targeted and less generic.
The Human Touch: Editing and Fact-Checking
Never publish an AI draft without a thorough review. AI can “hallucinate,” which is a fancy way of saying it can confidently state facts that are completely false.
Read your post out loud. If it sounds like a textbook, it might be too dry. Add some personality, a bit of humor, or a unique point of view that goes against the common grain. Search engines and readers alike value “Information Gain.” This means you should aim to provide information that isn’t already found on every other website on the internet.
Focus on the Reader’s Intent
Before you hit publish, ask yourself: “Does this article actually solve the reader’s problem?”
If a visitor lands on your page looking for a solution and only finds a collection of generic sentences, they will leave immediately. High-quality content is helpful content. Use AI to brainstorm the questions your audience is asking, but use your brain to provide the most helpful, detailed answers possible.
By following these steps, you can use AI to speed up your workflow while ensuring your blog remains a high-quality resource that people trust.
