What is going on? Uploading today's episode, we have famous Ashley with us, someone who we've had the pleasure of collaborating with not only through cast magic in our community, but also in other capacities as personally, I've admired the work that Ashley has done. She's been a contributor writer for GoDaddy, and she is also a content producer for RSS.com, which is a very important place in the podcasting community. And so she's embedded in all things content, blogging, podcasting. So, Ashley, please take it away. Tell us a little bit more about the story behind famous Ashley and what are you up to to be?

Oh, man. Yeah, the moniker. The moniker. It's kind of funny, but it's also a very true story that I used to work for Channel Ten down in Tampa, Florida, and I met a guy named Ron from the dawn. He was Ron from the dawn, Cesar. He was a concierge there, and he kept bumping into me at events for Channel ten. And one day he blurted it out, oh my God, the famous Ashley Grant has arrived. And it became kind of like this joke, and he kept calling me that.

And then after a little too much white wine one night, I accidentally ordered business cards with famous Ashley instead of Ashley on my card. And I was trying to make a name for myself as a freelancer. And when they arrived, when the cards arrived, I was like, oh my God, I can't return them. What do I do? And so I handed them out, and it was the first year I made full time income as a freelancer. And I was like, you know what? People are either going to laugh or they're going to make fun of me or they're going to love it. And no matter what, they won't forget. And so I just kind of kept going with it and bought the domain. And many moons later, I'm still freelancing with that moniker.

That's great. And so how did you transition into becoming a full time freelancer. And what is it you do exactly today as a full time freelancer?

The Reader's Digest version is that I've actually been freelancing since I began. I started in the writing world in 2007. My very first post went live just before Valentine's Day in the USF Oracle. And it was all about how to save money on Valentine's Day. And I remember when I got the paper and my name was in it, I was hooked. I was like, oh my goodness, I want to tell everybody all the things I'm writing. And my first paid piece was actually in the St. Pete Times.

It's now called the Tampa Bay Times, but it was the St. Pete Times. Like they had a little circular that they did called the TBT. And it was the hot, new, fresh way to get your news. And I wrote about a local restaurant and that was my first paid piece. And I was like, oh my God, I can actually get paid for my words. And just became addicted to writing about people's stories and learning all the things. I just kind of kept doing it and one thing led to another and I was working for magazines and then I was working for other newspapers.

And when blogging really became a thing, in about 2009, I bought the domain famous ashleygrant.com and I started working for Metro Mix, which was an affiliate of the Channel Ten news station. And that's when I really started getting into writing online and writing for the web. And I don't know if you remember the website about many moons ago, it existed and it was owned by the New York Times for a hot minute and I was their Tampa Bay correspondent. And that's when I really started learning how to professionally blog. And fast forward a little bit to 2014. And I started doing ghost writing and learning the other side of things about not just trying to get Internet famous, but also trying to write in a way that would get people to buy a product. And so since 2014, so, goodness, a decade now, wow. I've been writing for businesses to help them get their content out there, to help their products get Internet famous.

All of those are very different forms of writing, right? Like the reader of a newspaper is a consumer. The about the business angle, even with RSS, the audience might be podcasters, people who have an audience, et cetera. So what is your favorite form of writing? Into who? How did that evolve over time?

Oh, man. I mean, I can't say that I have a favorite because since every single day is different, it's great for my ADHD brain. It's fantastic. Because in the morning I wake up and I want to talk about podcasting. I could talk about that, or if I want to write about running, I have a running client. Just all kinds of different things are, I guess, in my purview. And so I get to play with all these different mediums and so I can't name a favorite. Today it's podcasting, but tomorrow it could be something else.

Ashley, one thing that I was going to ask that I'm really excited to kind of get into in this episode is about the characteristics of what makes a great piece of content. Right. Like you said, you've done the newspaper writing, you've done the blog article. You're helping people become, quote unquote, Internet famous. But at its core, how would you boil down a good piece of written content?

I guess the best way I could say it is don't make it about you. Unless it's your story that you're writing about, you cannot make it about you. You have to speak to your audience. Because if you're talking about, oh, I me, that's all about me, every single time you're writing a piece of content, you need to be thinking, what is in it for them? What isn't it for your reader? Because if you're writing about yourself, then it's very clear that you don't care about what they want. And so if you're trying to write a good piece of content, something that's actually going to move the needle in your business or move the needle on your subscriber count or whatever, it's got to be about them. That's the Reader's digest version. That's what's a good piece of content. Is it something that is written for the audience member?

Yeah. So something that the readers are getting value out of. Right. That's why they're researching and ending on that piece. I'm curious, how do you balance optimizing for SEO and optimizing for value of reading? Because I look up recipes on my phone for a meal and it just starts with this whole thing about nothing that has to do with the recipe and the history of the ingredients and everything before they get me to the recipe. And it's because of SEO. And so I feel like there's a balance between, okay, well, we have to make this SEO optimized, but also we don't have to just put in so much fluff and information just to rank to the point that the reader might leave before they even get to the value part. So how do you balance those two, when you're putting your piece together, I'm.

Not going to sugarcoat it. It's not easy at all. I mean, there are times that we still get it wrong. I still get it wrong. But I have noticed that there has been a shift over the last couple of years with my clients and with the content that I produce for different people and myself is you got to tell the story first. Like tell them what they need to hear first. Then you can add the fluff, then you can add the SEO optimized stuff. But at the top, that's what they want, is they want the answer to the question that they came there for.

And that's one of the things that was kind of a benefit of whenever they were doing Google snippets and when they were really heavy into that, is that you could click the item on Google and it would bring you directly to the question that you searched. But what I have found is the too long didn't read those little comments that they put in the top of articles. Now, those are what really is driving the needle and getting people's attention because they don't care about all that fluff. That's one of the reasons that the Google helpful content update killed so many recipe blogs, right? Is because it wasn't helpful. You weren't giving them the actual answer they came there for. And so what I have noticed is a lot of food bloggers, even they're starting to remove all that fluff or put it on a different page entirely. So that if you say, I want to know how to make russet potatoes and you click how to make russet potatoes, you find that recipe. That's kind of the big thing I've noticed is that people are giving like summaries of the entire post at the top.

That way, if they get someone who comes on and they just want the answer, they get the answer. If they want the rest of it, then they can continue reading. And the other thing I've noticed is that there's a huge push for skimmable reading. So instead of just having these long paragraphs that are just a lot to write and read, you want to see those punchy headlines, those things that answer the questions really quickly, that I can skim while I'm in the checkout at Walmart or while I'm waiting for the dentist or whatever, you want to be able to give them their answers as quickly as possible. That way you can build the no like and trust factor without boring them to tears.

Ashley, I think that's such a great point. And speaking of Google and their constant updates, I think, if anything, AI has accelerated the speed at which Google wants to address that. I know they came out with an update two days ago that has aggressively gone after spam, which is relevant in AI. I know it's having massive impacts across all sorts of bloggers who have targeted traditional old practice SEO. So I think in terms of what you're saying, in terms of going for what's helpful is going to be really important. I think the other thing to point out with kind of what you're saying, Google's even taking more of their market share from blogs and trying to present it as the answer. Even if you are the featured snippet, it'll highlight more of it up top. And that leads me into my next question, which is, how do you see the blogosphere? I guess call it or evolving with AI, right.

AI obviously accelerates the pace at which you can generate content, but as someone who's both the writer has seen all the things that AI can do, how do you think about blogging and staying relevant, making sure pieces are delivering value, but at the same time driving traffic as well?

I think it has to be like this beautiful blend of storytelling and giving people what they're looking for. I think that what we're going to see a lot more is people trying to connect more with their audiences. They're not going to write these generic pieces that just answer the question. They want more than that, though. They do want the question answered. Like that is the primary goal of Google and any search engine is user intent. But I think if we're actually trying to build audiences and continue having people come back to your website, you've got to find a way to connect with the audience in some way, shape or form. And you have to accept that even though they're going to come to this website and just get the answer and probably leave, you still need to think about all the people that might come to it and want more than that.

And so if you're trying to actually build a community, I guess, around whatever it is you're selling or, well, in this case, sometimes it's just your writing, but whatever it is you're selling, whether it's your writing or a product or whatever, you've got to find a way to connect. That's a very difficult thing. It's something I know that I'm currently struggling with right now because I have gotten so trained because of Google to write for Google. And so it's kind of been a pullback of how do I quit saying just the answer and also show, like, hey, this is also why I'm so cool and you should keep coming back to me? It's difficult.

Yeah, that's a really good point. How are you doing it now? Is that kind of the main way in which you're thinking about adding that kind of personal relatability into the pieces? How do you balance the two of those things?

I mean, one thing that I've been doing personally is talking to other experts. Like, if I'm writing about a subject, I'm not just writing from just my perspective. I'm showing, hey, I am an expert on this. I have some ideas on this, but I also know other people that know cooler stuff and they're smarter than I am. So here's what they said on the subject. So now I'm not only showing my expertise, I'm showing other people's expertise. And so it's more than just, again, it's not about just me because if it's just about me, then you're not going to care very long. And I mean, yeah, okay.

I kind of think I'm kind of cool sometimes, and my dogs think I'm amazing. But outside of my apartment, who doesn't? Who cares about Ashley?

So, Ashley, when you're putting together your writing, I'm just thinking of the audience here. Some of our listeners, they might be the head of content for a business, and then the other side of our audience might be someone who has a personal brand and is writing content for themselves. So I want to split both of those up in terms of workflow and process. How should people who are developing their own personal brand think about their writing? Whether it's social writing, blog writing, newsletter writing, what tips do you have? Whether it's platforms or workflow stuff, what tips do you have for people who are trying to build their personal brand with writing?

I think that with personal branding, it needs to be, again, not just about you, but also your story, because that's one thing that nobody can replicate. Not any AI, not any person. Although some people try very hard to steal other people's stories, you can't steal someone's story. And so if you're trying to brand yourself as, I don't know, let's say, an Instagram expert, tell the story of how you ended up on Instagram. Tell the story of why you're using Instagram. Why are you posting? The things that you're posting make it make sense for the person who's reading it to learn more about, I guess your process, show them the behind the scenes of what goes into the things that you choose to put on your social profile, that kind of stuff. Because, yeah, you can give them all this information, but if you're trying to actually build a community, an audience, they want more than just that. So it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier.

Yeah, you need to give them the answers, but you need to give them more of a reason that compels them to keep coming back to you. To me, that's what personal branding really is.

Yeah. So a lot of people, and this may be from personal experience, too, a lot of people tell their story once they go over it, they share it once, and then they hit a wall because, well, people already heard my story and they stop repeating it. But something I noticed from the really big content creators is they reemphasize their story in every video, in every single piece of content. They tell it over and over. So what is the mindset shift that one has to get up through and over with to know people? Every piece of content has going to have a new person that hasn't heard your story and you should be reiterating your story over and over and over.

I mean, the person that comes to mind immediately is Brendan Burshard. I know his story so much because I've heard it 20,000 times, because he's told it 20,000 times. He's known in the self help industry and he had a car accident, what was it, 2030 years ago at this point? But he keeps using that same story because like you said, not every single person who comes to his page has heard that story. And so you have to kind of let go of the fact that people don't know who you are. They have no idea who you are. Even if they think they do, they don't. You know what I mean? So you have to keep telling that story because there are going to be new audience members. And here's the good thing.

If people like what you're putting out there and they've already heard that story, then they're just going to skip it to get to the rest of the content that they're after anyway. So don't be afraid to just kind of be a broken record and tell the same joke you already told 20,000 times. Tell the same story, whatever it is, because that's what drew people in in the first place. And so if you kind of start abandoning that, it's like, well, what happened to this person? I thought they were known for this, and suddenly they're just trying to sell me a product or get me to read something else. You want to keep showing people why they're showing up, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes total sense. I love that. And I think that's a good segue into the business side of things for corporations and businesses. Some of them might go too much to the other extreme, which is very transactional or not care about or not share the story at all. And it's funny how both of these worlds are blending now, where you see founders creating a lot of content and that being the channel of growth for the business, because corporations have realized in businesses, stories sell better than anything else. And so what are the sort of the core elements of the companies that you see that best do content? What do they value the most? And what are some of the core pillars in their content that makes it work versus a corporation that might just be trying to get traffic and SEO and that is the only thing. And we're just going to go after keywords.

Of the clients I work with, and some of them I have NDAs with, so I will not say their names, but of the clients I work with, the ones that are doing the best and hitting it out of the park with their content are the ones that aren't trying to make the sale. And I know that sounds counterintuitive because most of the time all you're thinking about in business is, well, how do I move the needle? How do I make more money? But if you're caring more about the transaction than the person who's buying it, you've already lost them. And so that's kind of the big thing I'm seeing, is that they have to talk to the user or the end person, whoever it is, about what it is that they're actually there for. Because again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier. What's in it for me? What's in it for the person who is reading the content? And they can tell if all you're trying to do is get them to that checkout page. It feels sleazy, it feels spammy. What they're coming there for is not just, okay, how do I buy your product? If I want to buy your product, I'm going to buy your product, but I want you instead. Tell me how to use your product.

Tell me why it matters. Tell me why you started it. Tell me all the reasons that this is the only solution that's going to fix my biggest pain point, and then I'll care about the rest of it. And then I might buy.

Yeah, I mean, what's really interesting as well is I think castrogic is like a tool, and this is very biased, of course, but castrogic is a tool that is enabling new ways in creating content in the sense that back then it was like, all right, here's the keywords. Now let's write the content, et cetera. But Castmagic can allow companies or individuals now to say, well, let's look at all of the existing media we have. How can we use that? What you've already said, and it comes from an authentic place of content whose intent wasn't necessarily to get sales or go after a keyword, and it's already created and can be leveraged and repurposed into those ways. And so we know, you know, how to leverage podcasts, existing media, et cetera, for writing content. So how have you leveraged preexisting media, whether it's from an organization or an individual, to create new content and facilitate the creation of new content?

Well, I mean, I'm going to answer that a little bit out of order, I think. I want to first say that I became a Castmagic customer because you guys were actually fixing a pain .1 of the things I do is I write show notes for some of the clients that I work with. And so I loved the fact that you solved a problem and you didn't sugarcoat it, you didn't make it all crazy, didn't have a bunch of content that was talking about, oh, this is why you need to buy it. It was just, this is the solution. Go buy it. It just was very easy to understand. Trying to go back to your question, I think that the big thing I'm seeing is if you're going to have a piece of content and you want to use it to make another piece of content, using something like cast magic is awesome, especially if it's like, it's got to be audio, of course, because that's how castmagic works. But what's awesome about it is that I can take a long form piece of content and turn it into all kinds of digestible pieces, something that people can read whenever they're scrolling at the checkout.

Or I mentioned the dentist office earlier, but wherever you are, you can scroll through stuff because you can take whatever it is you've created, put it into cast magic, and then create all these amazing pieces of content. And so I think that leveraging that is a great way to save time because you already have all these amazing things that you've said. Why reinvent the wheel. It kind of goes back to the Brendan Bashard analogy. Like, he told the same story over and over, but he's telling it so many different ways. Take the amazing piece of long form content you created, whether it be a YouTube video or a Facebook live, or heck, even a meeting you had internally with your own people, put it into a program, and then spit out some awesome content that you can then turn into other pieces of digestible content. Did that actually answer your question?

Yeah, I think so, Ashley, as a follow up to that, and this is something we were talking about offline, but could you explain kind of the reason that you might want to repurpose your content with AI from a writing perspective, rather than just generating random generic content from chat?

GPT?

Absolutely. The biggest reason is it's your content, it's your words, it's your voice. And so if you go to a chat GPT or a clod or a word hero or whatever your favorite AI tool is, if you're just asking it to spit out something random, it's going to spit out something generic. It's the same stuff that's been shown on every single website that you're already looking at. I mean, yeah, unfortunately, right now, a lot of AI companies, or not AI companies, but a lot of blog companies are using AI to just pump out content like crazy. And yes, right now, in the short term, they are getting rewarded for it. I just read an article a couple of days ago, this guy produced 20,000 pieces of content using chat GPT. Awesome.

Great. He's getting a quick win, but later, his website is not going to be relevant. It's just going to be considered another piece of spam that no one cares about. And so if you're using the same things that other people are already saying, we've all heard that we're all bored with it. And so the more that people are using AI generated stuff, that's not an actual authentic voice. People can tell, man, they know. And so if you're using something that you actually said, it's your words, and it's just something, a tool that's taking your words and repurposing it, and I think that's so much more authentic than AI plagiarism.

Yeah, and Ramon, I know you've got something to say, but just adding to that, like that Google update that we talked about, that literally just came out. It specifically targets what you're talking about, which is like spam based content. And not only that, they basically came out and said that not only will we ding the content? We're going to basically ding any other content that's coming from your domain. So I know people have been waiting and seeing some really great progress in the short term by going to these SEO writers and drafting a whole bunch of random sort of content. But I think one of the things that's unique about using your own content is if the information source comes from a conversation like you and I are having, we use AI to repurpose and extract the knowledge that we're discussing in there. That's unique. That's like unique. And that's only something that the three of us have from this conversation.

It's not just picking, I think was the word you used, AI plagiarism, when you're just like going to chat GBT and saying, write me something random. Ramon, did you have something?

Yeah, no, what I was going to say, it's also like not everyone's search intent when they are googling or looking for something is necessarily to get an answer to a question or a data point. Whereas, for example, Chad GPT might be really good at something that is very data driven. But another reason why people look things up is to see other people's opinions and compare their point of view with other people's point of view. Which is why you see so many Google turns have the word Reddit at the end. It's because they don't want a computer to tell them. They want to see people who have lived that experience and see it from their point of view. And it just reminds me a lot with the music industry, with AI music, it's like there is something to art that you know is real and that has an emotion attached to it. When it's a song, when you hear a song and you're like, oh, man, it feels like this person has lived my life.

I think the same is with written content, which it's always just going to need a core in terms of authenticity from a place of experience. And if you leverage your existing media, it's yours. There's no penalizing what you said or your existing content. I also think what's cool, an interesting way I use castmagic as well, is I use it for other people's content too, but almost in a collaborative way to extract something I've been thinking about. And then I hear someone put it in words in a video and I run it through cast magic to try and sort of distill the thoughts. So, yeah, I'm excited, obviously, about what we're doing.

Yeah, 100%. And Ashley as we kind of wrap up here, this was a super fun conversation because we covered everything from the foundations of writing. What makes a good piece of content, what's going on with SEO, how to use AI when you write, what to do, what not to. You know, I'm sure we could talk for hours, but if anyone wants to find you, find more about your writing, find more about the content you like. Where can our audience connect with you? Why don't you shout out your socials?

I'm famous Ashley Grant everywhere. I mean, yeah, there's different variations of it, but in the bio, if you just at least search famous Ashley Grant, you'll find me.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on uploading. We had a blast and can't wait to see what other pieces of content that you're drafting up.

Yeah, I'm doing a lot of experimenting, so we'll see what happens next. But thank you so much for having me.

Thank you, Ashley.