How I Create (Images for) My Blog Posts
I recently received a reply from Robert on Mastodon about my blog post on how far I've come:
@yordi Great post! Is it hard to generate the images you use? If you feel like and got the time, maybe you could do a post about it. I think they look cool. 😎
With the upcoming "July Reply" theme, I thought it would be the perfect time to answer Robert's question through a blog post and share how I create my posts and images.
First things first: I don't use AI to write the initial draft of my blog posts, but I do use it to enhance them. I use a custom GPT on ChatGPT I made, called Blog Post Polisher™. It's like a supercharged spelling checker. It fixes spelling mistakes and awkward sentences, while keeping my writing style intact. It also helps with meta descriptions and suggests post titles.
If you use another AI-tool or don't want to use the Blog Post Polisher, you can achieve a similar result. In this case, you do need to write a prompt yourself instead of using the pre-trained prompt from Blog Post Polisher.
Something like: "You are a professional blog post writer. Rewrite the following blog post so that spelling- and grammar mistakes are corrected. Do not replace any words with more fancy ones and keep the writing style the same."
Workflow
Here's a step-by-step look at my blog post workflow:
- Write the First Draft: I write the initial version of my blog post in English (with Dutch being my native language). Sometimes I just type out my thoughts quickly, other times I think more carefully about my words.
- Polish with AI: I copy and paste the first draft into the Blog Post Polisher and let the AI do its magic. I review the result and make any necessary edits. Usually, the AI's suggestions are very similar to what I wrote, with just a few tweaks.
- Generate Images: I ask the Blog Post Polisher to generate an image for my post. I use prompts like "Generate a black-and-white, cartoon image for this blog post" or "Generate a unique image in a different style than the default."
- Set-up the Post: I copy the final text into a new Bear blog post.
- Set Meta Description: I use the AI's suggestion as a starting point for the
meta_descriptiontag in Bear blog. - Set Meta Image: I upload the generated image in the Bear blog post editor and use the resulting URL as the
meta_image. - Set Tags: If the content of the blog post matches one of the tags I've used before, I add those to the new post as well.
- (Optional): Sometimes I include the image in the blog post text as well. The main purpose of the image is to serve as the
meta_imageto ensure it shows up instead of my default blog image when the link is shared on social media.
This workflow is optimized for Bear blog but can be adapted for other blogging platforms.
P.S. if you did not sign up for July Reply yet, you might want to!