Productivity

Write a Helpful Article That Answers a Reader's Question ✍️

Ben Dixon

Ben Dixon

— 2 min read

Hi, Ben here.

Short social media tips are great for engagement, but sometimes your audience has a question that needs a more detailed answer. Writing a full blog post or article can feel like a huge task, but it's one of the best ways to build trust and help people solve real problems.

This is where you can use AI as your research assistant and first-draft writer. You provide the question, and it helps you structure and write a comprehensive, helpful article.

This recipe will show you how to take a single question from your audience research and turn it into a full, well-structured article.

What You'll Need

  • Tool: Anthropic Claude (Its large context window is great for longer articles)
  • Time: 10-15 minutes
  • Difficulty: Medium

Step 1: Choose a Question to Answer

Look at the list of questions you discovered in our audience research recipe. Pick one that deserves a more in-depth answer.

Let's use this great question from our gardening club example:

  • Question: "How do I improve my soil without spending a lot of money?"

Step 2: Copy the "Magic" Prompt

This prompt is more detailed than our previous ones. It asks the AI to act as an expert blogger and to create a full article outline first, before writing the article itself. This gives you more control and results in a better-structured post.

Copy this entire block of text:

Act as an expert blogger with a friendly, encouraging tone. My audience consists of complete beginners.

I want to write a helpful article that answers a common question from my audience.

First, create a simple outline for the article. The outline should include a short intro, 3-4 main points, and a concluding summary.

Once I approve the outline, you will write the full article based on it. The article should be easy to understand, practical, and around 500 words long.

The question to answer is: [Paste the question here]

Step 3: Use the Prompt in Claude

  1. Go to the Claude.ai website.
  2. Paste the "Magic" Prompt into the chat box.
  3. Replace the [Paste the question here] part with the question you chose in Step 1.
  4. Hit Enter.

Claude will now give you an outline. It might look like this:

AI's Outline:Intro: Acknowledge that improving soil sounds complicated and expensive, but it doesn't have to be.Point 1: Start a Compost Bin: Explain how free kitchen scraps can turn into "black gold" for the garden.Point 2: Use Natural "Weeds": Talk about using free resources like grass clippings and fallen leaves as mulch.Point 3: The "No-Dig" Method: Briefly explain how leaving the soil undisturbed can improve its structure over time.Conclusion: Summarize that improving soil is a slow but rewarding process that can be done for free.

Step 4: Approve the Outline and Get Your Article

This outline looks great! All you have to do is reply to the AI with a simple message like:

"That outline is perfect. Please write the full article now."

The AI will then write the complete article for you, following the structure you approved. You'll get a well-written, helpful post that directly answers your audience's question, establishing you as a trustworthy source of information.

Alternative Tools for This Recipe

  • Google Gemini: Also excellent for this two-step process of creating an outline and then writing the article.
  • ChatGPT: Very good at creating well-structured content and following detailed instructions.

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