While Macaw is designed to generate high-quality articles from just a keyword, the output is not always exactly what you had in mind.
In those cases, Macaw gives you the tools to drill down even deeper and guide the article generation flow.
We'll cover the different methods available in Macaw to improve output quality and steer Macaw to create the exact content you have in mind.
Review Generation Settings
The most critical factor that impacts article quality is the information in your Generation Settings.
These settings act as the 'brain of Macaw'.
A collection of the unique information that Macaw understands about your brand.
Macaw uses this information throughout the article creation process to tailor language and draw context.
Take a look through each tab in your Generation Settings to make sure that the information is accurate and correctly reflects your brand
Note: Macaw isn't limited to this information, it also researches topics on the web to draw context when writing articles
Set a custom prompt
If you find that an article output isn't exactly what you had in mind, you can regenerate with feedback by providing a custom prompt to Macaw covering what should be corrected (we provide 1 free regeneration with every article).
While providing feedback before an article is an obvious use case, you can also set a custom prompt before an article is generated.
Method | Use case | Example |
Setting a custom prompt before generating an article | Pre-define information for Macaw before you've used article credits. | Copying and pasting an external article for reference or providing specific instructions around language or topics to focus on. |
Setting a custom prompt after generating an article | If there's an issue with an article, your custom prompt acts as feedback for your regeneration of the article. | Feedback to correct language or highlighting information gaps.
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There are three ways to set the custom prompt
1. Sidebar within Article view
2. Article details modal for quick access from the article table
3. In the feedback input when regenerating an article
Note: Your regeneration feedback is your custom prompt
Review Brief and Outline
If you want to drill down even deeper, you can get complete control over an article's output with the Content Brief and Outline.
The Brief and Outline act as the foundation of an article. Just like a human content writer following a content brief and outline, these are 'the instructions' that Macaw follows when writing.
Rather than the typical process of AI writing, where you generate content, and then correct issues manually with edits, making changes to the foundation of an article is much easier and faster.
Note: Brief and Outline is automatically created by Macaw based on research of an article keyword. Making changes are optional.
Within the Brief and Outline you get control of the following:
Element | Description | How it works |
Keyword search intent | The intent of the reader when searching for the article's selected keyword. This is based on the highest-ranking pages currently for the keyword. | Changing the search intent will influence the direction of the article. |
Article narrative | An overview of the narrative Macaw should follow when writing the article. | Not to be confused with the outline, the narrative acts to guide the outline creation with a cohesive story of key beats. |
Target word length
| This is the length of words the article will try to hit while writing. | Macaw sets a number of sections based on the target words. |
Questions to cover
| An outline of the questions and topics that will be covered in the article, as well as how Macaw will answer. | These are created based on common questions and answers in top-ranking pages for your article's keyword. |
The stepped flow
To get the very highest quality, there is an approach you can use to step through all the stages of generation manually, reviewing each step to guide the process closely.
This is not typically required, but if you want to spend the time to improve output you have the option. Let's go through the flow.
How Macaw Generates Articles
First it's important to understand how Macaw creates an article.
Macaw generates articles in a linear process, starting from the input of a keyword.
Title Generation | Macaw first researches the top results for your keyword understanding the titles uses and the context of the keyword to create an appropriate title that is likely to rank for your target keyword. |
Content Brief Generation | Macaw then reads the top results for the target keyword, and conducts additional research on your site and online sources to construct the content brief which acts as the 'basis' of the article. This includes:
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Outline Generation | Following that, Macaw uses the information in the content brief to create an outline of the article. The outline contains the article section titles along with a description of what should be discussed in each section. It's important to note that although there is additional research in the outline generation the content brief plays the the biggest role in the output of the outline. |
Article Generation | Finally, Macaw generates the article itself drawing from the outline as the guide for each section, while also referencing the brief questions and answers and narrative flow to create the article. As it writes, it's constantly looking to your website and existing context to find relevant information to aid in the writing process. |
This generation flow is important to understand because it's actually possible to step through each stage one-by-one while only using a single article credit. Allowing you to review and make changes to the output before Macaw progresses to the next stage.
How to generate an article in a stepped flow
Start by creating an article as a draft
Click New article in to top right on the Article tab
Enter your keyword
Select Add as Draft and continue
Now the first stage of the flow is complete and the article is generated
Make any edits to the article title now, as this will have some impact on future stages.
Now we'll continue the flow by using generation options to generate the article in stages:
Click Generate on your drafted article
Expand Generation options and only select Generate brief
Note: You can add a custom prompt at this stage to share context or guide Macaw. This is the same input as your Feedback when regenerating an article, but allows you to add it before the article is first generated.
Now the article will begin the first stage of generation to create the content brief
To review the content brief, click Article details and navigate to the Content brief tab
Now you can review and make changes the brief before continuing to the next step
Once you're happy we'll create the outline
Navigate to the Outline tab and click Generate outline
Now you can review the Outline and make any changes that you need
Note: In the outline you can reorder sections, add new sections and edit section descriptions.
Section descriptions act as the specific instructions for the section. However as sections are written, information from the brief will also be used to influence the section, such as the article narrative and questions to cover.
Once you're happy with the outline it's time to finally generate the article
You'll notice that the Generation uses only 1 credit throughout the whole flow.