How to Write Website Copy with AI – A Step-by-Step Workshop

July 25, 2025

Writing with AI assistance starts the exact same way as writing anything else – with planning.  

I spend hours and hours every week writing website content using AI. People, in fact, pay me to do it…so I’m going to walk you through the complete workflow I use from planning all the way through editing and give you a glimpse inside the “real intelligence” I use to manage my AI programs so you can get set up with a process that actually works then morph it into your own. Because as one of my clients put it recently, “if you’re not using RI with your AI everything you make is going to suck.” And nobody wants that, right? 

First, let’s talk tools and establish some broad parameters on how to use them.

AI Rules of Engagement

Recommended AI Tools for Different Tasks

I don’t use just one tool for everything. I find that some tools outshine others for specific tasks.

• ChatGPT: Good for outlining and general tasks (but tends to rewrite everything)
• Perplexity: Excellent for research (provides citations and credible sources)
• Claude: Best for actual writing (remembers context, makes targeted revisions)

Talk to AI like it’s a person and manage it like an intern.

My AI programs are so human to me I’ve even assigned ChatGPT and Claude a gender. Somehow they’re both males. While Perplexity remains gender neutral for reasons I really can’t explain.

Your first task is to figure out what you want and give them specific instructions – don’t be vague about it. Then just let AI do its thing until you get to the editing part, because that’s where you really need to jump back in and make decisions. 

Give AI constraints, like “hold this information for future requests” or “don’t make stuff up, only use what I gave you.” Because Claude especially will just take off on a task like my puppy after a deer. And then I just have to sit and wait for him to complete the task before telling him to delete what he just did. One of my friends says she thinks “ChatGPT makes things up just to please her”. And I think Claude is guilty of doing the same thing. Funny enough though, Claude will admit when he’s jumped the gun and apologize 😂.

So be curious and ask lots of questions. I regularly ask:

• Do you think this REALLY appeals to my target audience? It feels flat.
• Is this information in the right order? I’m getting lost in the middle of it.
• Did you just make that up? I didn’t tell you that!
• Did we miss anything? Or do you think we covered it all? Is there anything else you think we should include?

Organize information systematically since AI can’t always remember across chats.

If you have access to a knowledge base, use it. But also create a document for notes and resources you’ll need on repeat throughout the process.

• Save the AI prompts that work in this document so you don’t need rewrite or remember them to reuse them
• Keep any paragraphs you really like to use as examples
• Include the tone suggestions for easy access
• Link to other documents you’ll use often like template docs or buyer personas

What AI needs to have to write your text

To write effective website copy for your business, ChatGPT says it needs “both strategic and practical information to create engaging, goal-driven content.”

Ultimately you need to tell AI:

1. Who you are as a company
2. Who you’re trying to connect with, a.k.a. your target audience
3. What you want to put on your website

Fun Fact – you can use AI to document all those things and we’re going to talk about how to do just that. But before I jump down that bunny trail, I want to explain the best way I’ve found to collect the information. Because sitting down and writing down everything you need for AI to write purposeful website content isn’t for everyone. If you hate writing, then you probably hate ANY writing, even the planning kind. And if you’re one of those humans you would just scan this post, roll your eyes, tell me to go jump in the lake and decide to settle for crappy AI robot text instead. And that’s NOT what we want.

My Go-To Method for Saving Time and Maintaining Authenticity

• If you choose to write you do not have to write in complete sentences or thoughts
• The information you provide doesn’t need to be organized from the start, it can just be a stream of consciousness, AI can organize it for you
• You can ask AI to do the prep work for you for each step, ask it create interview questions based on your content needs
• Record yourself answering these questions naturally, use tools like Otter or Zoom to transcribe while you answer the questions
• Pretend you are geeking out with a colleague who really loves to talk about your business, it’s ok to ramble and tell stories or go into intricate detail, don’t censor yourself!
• Upload transcription to AI to use to create your content
• Then give AI specific instructions on what you want it to do with your transcript (we’ll get to those in a moment!)

Why does this method produce authentic content? 

Because you are at the center of it. Whether you’re providing information by typing a stream of consciousness or recording yourself talking and uploading a transcript, you are using your words, thoughts and vocabulary. So your website content ends up sounding like you. A HUMAN. Which is what you want. Because people like you! And we want them to feel like they’re meeting you when they read your website. And starting with your words is the easiest way to make that happen.

Document your business details.

AI has to know you before it can write about you. If you have an existing website you can start by giving the following prompt to ChatGPT:

Then your task is pretty easy, read what ChatGPT tells you. Document what you like so you can give AI instructions to emulate those things. Also note what you want to change so you can tell AI not to do it.  For example if it says the tone of your current text is “Formal, technical, authoritative” but you want it to be “Warm, casual, caring”. Make note of that to include it in the instructions for AI when it writes you the content for pages. 

Pay attention to verbs and adjectives used in content you like. Or upload text you like and ask AI to make a list for you. You can do this with any content you like from ANY website, not just your own, your competitors or just another company or organization you admire and resonate with.

Keep all your notes in a document that you can easily reference or upload so you don’t have to remember all the information and can easily copy and paste when writing your page content.

Here’s the Monica edited outline of business details ChatGPT suggests you supply.

Documenting Your Target Audience

I like to start by using AI to create customer avatars or buyer personas for the project I’m working on. It helps me wrap my mind around who I’m trying to connect with and also creates a resource to use throughout the process that AI can refer back to when writing each page of the site.

Start by brain dumping what you know about your audience and let AI fill in the gaps. 

Tell AI specifics about what you sell and what makes you different from everyone else out there. Break down the demographics and psychographics of your customers. Explain what types of businesses or customers you serve well or want to work with more often. And don’t forget to include any pain points and buying objections you hear often. The more specific you get here, the better your AI is going to be at making decisions about what to say in your content later on.

Use the Buyer Personal Outline list as an idea generator

Review the buyer persona outline list and use it as an idea generator, telling ChatGPT or Claude the things you know off the top of your head. Then if you have time, have a conversation about the things you might not know to learn more about your audience. 

Be curious:

• Ask why people seek out a company like yours?
• What their buying considerations are and what’s most important to them?
• What types of information they might need to have to make a buying decision?
• What might hold them back from making a buying decision?
• Ask it if you missed anything, or does it see any gaps you might not have thought about?
• What tone of text do you suggest using to best connect with my audience?
• Tell it who you’re trying to connect with and ask if AI thinks the tone of your current content is working.
• Ask AI to review your site and suggest messaging that would better connect with your audience.

I gather all this up and take it to Claude and ask him to format it into a buyer persona. Then I save it all in a Google Doc and create a project for the client in Claude and link it in the knowledge base so Claude can use it later when writing the pages.

And in the end I give a prompt coupled with the buyer persona outline like:

Content Strategy and Structure

Deciding What Goes on Your Pages

It really helps to start this step by reviewing your competition. Patterns are powerful. You want to emulate the patterns you see on competitors’ sites so your website is easier to use and share similar types of information on your site as your competitors so buyers can compare apples to apples. You may also find gaps in competing websites that you can use to your advantage. 

Easy to understand businesses can use Perplexity

If you have an easily identifiable business then you can use Perplexity to analyze the websites of your competitors and look for patterns. For example, I gave Perplexity the following prompt:

It gave me a detailed answer for each of the items I asked for with a comparison table and overview 🤯. 

Here’s an example of the output.

But not all types of organizations are as easy to review. 

If you’re in a less identifiable type of business you’ll need to do a more manual review of competitors’ sites. Don’t worry I made you a checklist! 

To speed up this process I use Loom to record my screen while I review the sites and say anything I want to remember out loud. Loom transcribes everything I say and I paste the transcript into Claude to analyze and pull out patterns between competitors’ sites. Document what you find in a Google Doc or similar program so you can upload or copy and paste it for AI to use as reference later.

As you review competitor sites, if you like the way their text sounds you can share it with AI to use as an example for the tone you want your text written in. 

Request outlines first – don’t let AI jump straight to writing

I write each page by starting a new chat and discussing the page with AI. Determine the goal for each page so you can share it with AI and it can keep it in mind as it’s suggesting an outline and writing content for the page:

Your page goal might be:

• To overcome buying objections and give buyers what they need to know to make a buying decision.
• Establish our company as a trusted advisor.
• Motivate customers to contact us.
• Optimize well in search engines.

ChatGPT Prompt

Along with this prompt upload your buyer persona or target audience document and paste in the information about your competitors’ sites. 

Claude Prompt

If you’re using Claude you will need to refer back to those documents by name from the knowledge base so he can find what he needs to do the task.

And as always, be curious. If anything feels out of place ask AI to explain its reasoning for content suggestions.

Once you have your page outlines…

You need to gather the information to allow AI to flush them out. 

1. Find all the stuff you have to build the content for your pages like brochures, proposals, existing website text, annual reports, employee training materials, anything goes!
2. If you’re missing information, want to supplement or easily fill in the gaps, create interview questions from the outline you just created (again ask AI to do this for you). 

Creating Page Templates

Overview Page Template

Have you ever noticed how all the pages in a good website have a rhythm? You start to just know where things are going to be? Yup. This document helps make that magic happen. To save time in editing later I create a page template with instructions to supplement the page specific outline for all content in the site. I outline any instructions for AI that will keep the pages in the site feeling professional and consistent. I refer back to this document each time I ask AI to draft a page of content. These instructions include:

• Determine writing perspective (first person, company name usage, etc.)
• Instructions for vocabulary and use of company name or acronyms 
• Establish consistent brand voice guidelines
• Include specific formatting instructions including examples for AI
• SEO page title directions
• SEO page meta description directions
• How to format titles (all caps, sentence case, when to use punctation)
• Title length
• When to use bulleted lists
• How long I want key content that’s located on each page but not identical on each page to be. For example: a consistent call to action in the footer, a sub title introducing each page or a paragraph introducing each page
• Page length goal
• Where to find the documents outlining the brand tone, target audience and other supplemental information

Similar Structure Page Template

You can also save soooo much heartache by creating a template with specific instructions for pages that share a similar structure like services pages:

• Create a document that uses the same text styles as your AI program and copy it for each page to ensure consistency
  • Use built in heading structure, it copies out to the site and will improve ADA compliance and SEO:
    • H1 (only one of these usually the page name)
    • H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 (Avoid skipping forward)
• Develop standardized outlines for similar page types (like service pages)
  • What you want out of each paragraph like tone, length and content
  • How you want it formatted, headings, bulleted lists, etc
  • Buttons and button text
• Template elements might include:
  • Service name and tagline
  • Competitive advantages
  • Customer testimonials (you can upload them in a separate document and ask AI to pull one that works well with the content)
  • Featured projects
  • Contact information
  • Timeline and process
  • A check list to review and complete after each page to make sure you got everything

Editing and Refinement

Now the magic happens. Tell AI to write your content. I write almost all my website content in Claude so my prompt would be similar to:

Then read the output. And since you did all the prep work, you should be nodding your head and thinking “yes!!!”

If it feels right then you’re on the right track. If it feels off, ask for it to explain its reasoning or source its content. If it feels like the information is made up…it probably is. Ask if it made stuff up. Claude always admits when he makes up stuff. Don’t just accept data as fact. Ask for a source or to go over to Perplexity to find a credible source of similar information.

Interact with AI like any other team member.

Now remember, AI is not an all seeing magical black box you can’t question or manage. Provide feedback to your AI programs just like you would any other employee or intern. Don’t just accept whatever they spit out and call it good. Be curious, ask questions, and don’t be afraid to tell them when they’re doing it wrong.

Be directive about your revisions – don’t just say “make it better.” Tell AI exactly what’s wrong and what you want instead. Point out specific problems like “this paragraph is too wordy” or “you’re being redundant here.” Ask AI to explain its choices when something feels off – I regularly ask things like “Do you think this REALLY appeals to my target audience? It feels flat” or “Did you just make that up? I didn’t tell you that!”

Common AI Writing Problems to Fix

Wordiness and Fluff

ChatGPT and Claude tend to get wordy and “markety” –  they love to pile on the fluff. And it can feel good to see your company represented in such lovely words…and it can also feel detached and unbelievable all at the same time. You don’t want your content to feel too good to be true, you want it to feel like you.

Poor Readability 

I always ask myself: “Is this hard to read?” Because if it’s hard for me to read, and I’m getting paid to read it, then nobody else is going to want to either. AI loves to write lots of words and it can have a tendency to produce walls of text unless directed to do otherwise. Direct it to break up large groups of text and run on sentences. Replace them with bullet points, add some subtitles, and bold your keywords to keep it interesting.

Generic Language 

AI can often take the easiest path – copywriters do the same thing. Every page starts with “At [Company Name] we…” ***SIGH*** don’t let it get away with that. Tell it the statement feels like any other website, and to rewrite that statement to feel more like your brand tone. Ask AI to go back to your transcript and pull out specific examples or stories. Claude is really good at this!

Once you get a page really sounding like you want it to ask AI what your tone is. Or ask it to write its OWN instructions to recreate the same tone and feel of text in a page. Then put those into your template documents so it can write great text faster!

Flow

Ask AI if the information on this page is actually organized from most important to least important. The programs, unless explicitly instructed to do so, don’t often consider this. You can combat it by reorganizing your outlines first before writing. Or just ask and then ask it to reorganize the content for you. But make sure to proof read it once it’s reorganized because it won’t by default re-write the transitions if it’s not directed.

Accuracy

Sometimes AI just forgets whole sections. It thinks the content is in there but it’s not. In those instances I ask it to include a paragraph about what it forgot and if Claude still insists the information is in the artifact (that’s what it calls the documents it makes) I ask him to put the content from that section in the chat because I can’t see it.

It can also make things up…so if it feels weird then it probably is.

Redundancy

Both Claude and ChatGPT love to repeat themselves. Sometimes it’s two sentences right on top of one another and other times it’s whole paragraphs.There can be some positive things about redundancies, if the first statement didn’t connect with someone, maybe it’ll connect the second time. But if it feels repetitive and the page is feeling long and it’s not as easy to read because of the redundancy then remove them.

Remember, you’re the manager and AI is just the tool. 

If Claude jumps the gun and starts writing before you’ve given him all the information, tell him to stop. If ChatGPT rewrites your entire page when you only wanted one sentence changed, call it out. These programs work better when you give them clear boundaries and expectations, just like any other team member..

AI-assisted writing can be incredibly powerful, but only when you maintain control over the process. 

The planning and organization we’ve talked about – knowing your audience, outlining your content, gathering your materials – that’s way more important than which AI tool you’re using. It gives you the reasoning you need to make decisions about your text AND it gives AI what it needs to write it. 

The more intentional you are about what you’re asking AI to do, the better your results are going to be – instead of just throwing prompts at it and hoping for magic. Success comes from treating AI as a collaborative partner that can help you work faster and more efficiently, but it’s not a replacement for your strategic thinking and your authentic voice.

At the end of the day, your website visitors want to connect with a real human – you. AI can help you get your thoughts organized and your content written, but the strategy, the personality, and the “real intelligence” behind it all? That’s gotta come from you. And when you combine your brain with AI’s capabilities, that’s when you create content that actually converts those precious website visitors into real customers.