The custom outline feature can be found in both the Bulk Writer and Penny Arcade.
Use the custom outline feature when you need to write many blog posts that share a common outline structure.
While there are a million use cases, let’s study an example using the custom outline feature for recipe blog posts. Usually a recipe blog post can follow a similar subheading structure regardless of the recipe itself.
Introduction to Custom Outlines
Here is an example of a custom outline:
History
Common Ingredients
Recipe
Cooking Tips
Final Thoughts
Whether the blog post is titled “Ultimate Guide to Tacos” or “Ultimate Guide to Barbeque Ribs”, that outline structure could work.
Here’s how it plays out…
In the Bulk Writer, for the article “Ultimate Guide to Tacos”, the AI will then write about the history of tacos. It will then write about some common ingredients in tacos, list a taco recipe, provide some tips when cooking tacos, and end with a section called final thoughts.
The article will finish writing, then ZimmWriter will move onto the next article in the queue: Ultimate Guide to Barbeque Ribs.
It will write about the history of barbeque ribs. It will then write about some common ingredients in barbeque ribs, list a barbeque rib recipe, provide some tips when cooking barbeque ribs, and end with a section called final thoughts.
The article will finish writing, then ZimmWriter will move onto the next article in the queue… (imagine 998 more article titles)!
Pretty cool, huh?
Now just a few itsy bitsy things to keep in mind:
- H3s must have followed an H2
- H4s must have followed an H3
- Double dashes should not have a space in between. Just press the minus key on your keyboard twice and you’ll have made an H4.
Basics of Custom Outline Variables
Everything you just read was the blue pill. Want to live in happy land with no worries? Stop reading now.
But if rocket fuel flows through your veins and you live for excitement, then let me give you the red pill and open your eyes to the world of custom variables.
Let’s start simple…
History
Common Ingredients
Popular Recipes
– Recipe #1{list}
– Recipe #2{list}
– Recipe #3{list}
Cooking Tips
Final Thoughts}
- Prompts the AI with the article title + up to 1,500 words of global background information + supplied subheading to contextually rewrite the subheading to give you a more topic-specific subheading, helping with SEO. But as with anything, YMMV.
- For example…
- For an article titled “Ultimate Guide to Tacos”, using History{optimize_title} may cause ZimmWriter to rewrite the “History” subheading to something like “History of Tacos”.
- For an article titled “Ultimate Guide to BBQ Ribs”, using History{optimize_title} may cause ZimmWriter to rewrite the “History” subheading to something like “History of BBQ Ribs”.
- Now what’s really cool is this also works when you think outside the box… For an article titled “Ultimate Guide to Pizza”, using Recipe #1{optimize_title} may cause ZimmWriter to rewrite the “Recipe #1” subheading to something like “Recipe #1: Margherita Pizza”.
- You could even use this for a listicle… such as “How to Get into College with Bad Grades” and “Tip #1{optimize_title}”, “Tip #2{optimize_title}”, “Tip #3{optimize_title}”, etc. Just be aware that you will be limited by the AI’s knowledge (unless you’re doing this with background information). So you might end up with repetition in your list.
- The {optimize_title} uses whatever AI model you select to write your article. So the combination of Davinci or GPT-4 combined with URL background information in the Penny Arcade can start to get a little expensive if you’re not careful.
Additional Tips & Information
- The custom outline overrides the # of H2 setting in the Bulk Writer and Penny Arcade
- The custom outline also overrides the “only use the # of H2 as a recommendation” in the Penny Arcade
- For a subheading, the order of the custom variables does not matter when combining them for one subheading so… “Recipe #3{optimize_title}{list}{yt}” will have the same outcome as “Recipe #3{yt}{list}{optimize_title}”
- Using auto-keywords is NOT recommended when the outline element is very ambiguous. However, it’s better when using {optimize_title}.
