I use AI to generate content, and AI-generated content often has patterns that Google rewards you for not having.
Every piece of AI content goes through a five-step checklist before I publish it. This is that checklist.
Step 1: Read it out loud (3 minutes)
Print the content or open it on your phone. Read it aloud, slowly, as if you were recording a YouTube video.
What you're listening for:
- Sentences that sound unnatural. AI likes a perfectly even cadence, and people don't talk that way.
- Hedging language: "Arguably," "It could be said," "Perhaps." These are AI fingerprints.
- Repeated words or sentence structures. AI does this more than people do.
- Sections that feel abrupt or disconnected from each other.
If you hear problems, flag them. You'll fix them in Step 4.
A typical example of the kind of sentence to catch:
"In today's fast-paced digital world, the importance of SEO cannot be overstated, as it enables businesses to gain visibility and drive meaningful engagement."
Read that aloud and it sounds robotic. People don't write like that.
Better version: "SEO works. It drives traffic. Without it, your competitors will beat you."
Step 2: Skim for banned words (2 minutes)
These are words AI uses far more often than people do:
- delve, tapestry, landscape (metaphorically), robust (non-physical), comprehensive, nuanced, paradigm, synergy, holistic, streamline, cutting-edge, pivot, optimize (as a verb for non-technical things), reimagine, elevate (metaphorical), navigate (metaphorical), harness, foster, catalyst, leverage (verb), unpack, deep dive, at the end of the day, needless to say, it's important to note, moreover, furthermore
Find them and replace them with plain words.
Another typical one:
"We need to leverage our digital landscape to catalyze meaningful engagement."
Translation to human: "We need to use our website to reach people."
Step 3: Check for evidence (5 minutes)
AI generates claims that sound plausible. Verify them.
Say a draft includes this: "Studies show that 73% of users will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load."
Do you recognize the study? Can you find it? If you can't find a credible primary source, delete the sentence.
AI doesn't make these up maliciously. It generates something that sounds right based on its training data.
This is the step I take most seriously. In the content engine I designed at the agency where I lead SEO, it's a claim ledger: every factual claim is traced to a source before a human sees the draft. On one batch we measured first-pass accuracy at 97.78% (14 errors in 633 claims), and we report that as an upper bound, not a guarantee. Even a careful system got about one claim in 45 wrong on the first pass. That's why this step never gets skipped.
Your checklist for Step 3:
- Any statistic: search it (Google "73% page load" + your source)
- Any quote: verify it's real
- Any tool comparison: did you actually test the tools or did AI invent the comparison?
- Any claim about what "most" people do: is there evidence?
Delete unverified claims. Add citations for important ones.
Step 4: Add specificity (10 minutes)
AI content is often correct but generic. Add specific details:
- Real numbers from your experience
- Specific tools you've tested
- Specific examples of clients or situations
- Specific mistakes you've made
Real example of AI content vs. edited content:
AI version: "Keyword research tools are useful for identifying search opportunities."
Edited version: "I use DataForSEO for keyword research because it's API-first. My personal content pipeline pulls keyword and trend data from it for under $3 a month at full cadence. I'd recommend it if you're doing API-based research. If you just need a dashboard, stick with Semrush."
The edited version is specific and takes a position. The AI version is accurate and tells the reader nothing.
Step 5: Check the outline (5 minutes)
AI often structures content in templates. Check if your actual outline makes sense.
Common template AI uses: 1. Introduction with context 2. Three body sections 3. Conclusion that restates intro
It works, but it's boring.
Better outline: 1. Start with a problem or insight (no setup) 2. Explain the context that matters 3. Show three specific things 4. End with a question or new thought (not a restatement)
If your AI post follows the template too closely, restructure it.
Real example of restructuring:
AI version:
- Intro: "Keyword research is important for SEO"
- Body: Tools, methods, benefits
- Conclusion: "Keyword research is important"
Restructured:
- Intro: "I built an AI agent that does keyword research. It finds opportunities I'd miss manually."
- Body: How it works, what it found, why it matters
- Conclusion: "The real value isn't the speed. It's the consistency."
The speed round
If you're short on time, do a faster version:
1. Skim for banned words (1 min) 2. Check for one unverified claim (2 min) 3. Add two specific details (3 min) 4. Read the conclusion aloud (1 min)
That takes 7 minutes and catches the most common problems. It won't catch everything, so don't make it your default.
What you're actually looking for
The core audit question: Does this sound like it was written by someone who did the thing, or someone who knows about the thing?
AI can write about keyword research, but it can't write about your keyword research, and the second kind is what ranks.
So the thing to check is whether the draft sounds like lived experience. If it doesn't, fix it in Step 4 by adding the specifics only someone who did the work would know.
Automating the checklist
A checklist only works if someone actually runs it, so I've built mine into the pipeline.
My personal content pipeline has a pre-publish gate that scores every draft for unsourced claims, derivativeness and staleness before anything is published. When I pointed it at 68 older AI-written articles I'd been planning to publish, it rejected all 68.
And because reviewers get tired too, the review packets in the content engine I designed at work carry planted defects. If a reviewer approves a packet without catching them, we know the review didn't really happen.