🐝 The Sting
Learn AI in public. Embrace the ridicule. Ship daily. Share experience and results. Measure.
Things built: 15 People watching: 7 Cashflow:-$147
🤖 🧠 Learning
Figuring out the next thing I want to learn with AI and share in Embarrassing AI. A week to freestyle. Day four (or is it five?!).
Today I made Google shake its money maker.
I was off somewhere on the interwebs learning how to write better prompts using a framework with the acronym G.C.A.O. (Goal, Context, Action, Output Format).
Because the first example given was something SEO related I remembered that I’d been wanting the 🤖 to give me some advise on my newsletter’s SEO. Growing the newsletter is something I’m going to be focussing on this coming month.
I spent today implementing the changes my chat with Gemini revealed would give the most bang for my buck. They are both here in the email but more significantly on the landing page (more in 🍯 🦡 Building).
Typically I would prompt something like:
What kind of Meta Descriptions do I need to improve the SEO of my newsletter?and then let the conversation evolve towards what feels like useful information.
Instead I use the G.C.A.O. framework to prompt like this:
I want to increase the SEO of my newsletter so I rank #1 in google search results. My newsletter is about learning to use AI from the perspective of an absolute beginner getting slowly better through practice and trial and error. I publish short, daily updates during the week, and longer reflective posts during the weekend including subjects that are not always AI related. Give me optimized meta descriptions so that I can compete with top ranking newsletters that are also published as blog posts on this topic. Provide these in a numbered list from most powerful to least effective.For extra spice I decided to give Thinking with 3 Pro a whirl. Holy cow those credits run out quick. But to be honest I got an incredible response, basically telling me I am not and can not compete with leading AI newsletters because they are news aggregators and that’s not my jam.
Instead it suggested a series of meta tags, from which I selected one Gemini called zero-to-hero. I love Zelda. What got me the most though is that it deepened the conversation without being prompted to do so, telling me that the real thing that is going to make SEO difference is making sure my H1 Header on my landing page is 🔥.
What followed was 2 hours of really productive SEO tweaking.
I ran the same initial prompt in the Gemini fast model and the answers were close, but not as much finesse, a little more generic and more obviously working off a template for what can only be a very common question.
🍯 🦡 Building
What did I ship today?
Improvements to the newsletter template and the landing page.
Template
The logo at the top (visible only in the web version) had its file name renamed and a description added to get more SEO mojo.
The header of each newsletter will now be partially dynamic and the sub header has been tweaked, as well as the preview text.
Added an improved signature.
Landing Page
Here’s a link. It used to be generic and lacking in any kind of description of what the newsletter offered to the reader. That’s better now.
I’m sure there is more I can do to improve the site.
🤑 Selling
Here you’ll find either things I’ve made with AI or affiliate links to tools I’m using.
Whispr Flow - smart speech to text - you and I both get a free month when you sign up.
Beehiiv - used to make this - you get a free month and 20% off for three months, I get a nice little kickback
Netlify - free web hosting for your projects - No kickback for me on this one
Emergent - vibe coding platform - you get extra credits and so do I when you sign up
Last Word.
Frameworks can be cringe but like templates, they help to simplify repetative processes rather than demanding the brain damage of reinventing the wheel every. single. time.
Making daily progress,
Bram Fellow Beginner & Chief Mistake Maker
P.S. Did I do something totally backwards today? Or do you have a better prompt for this? Hit reply and tell me. I’m here to learn just as much as you are. (I read every single email).