Many entrepreneurs hit limits not as a result of they lack concepts, however as a result of they will’t execute or scale them.
Not everybody has the posh of builders, designers, or analysts who might help flip massive concepts into actuality. Even if you happen to do, you continue to have to compete for time and assist with the remainder of your organisation.
However instances have modified. AI instruments like ChatGPT make technical studying radically extra accessible. It’s now attainable to turn out to be “technical” even if you happen to’re a humble author, social media marketer, or model strategist—as a result of all of us have entry to a affected person, succesful technical tutor within the kind of a giant language mannequin.
I’m a lifelong marketer and non-technical individual. I at all times needed to discover ways to code, however by no means knew the place to begin. I bounced off half a dozen coding programs, till I realised that ChatGPT is the right trainer and troubleshooter. Now I can name APIs, write easy scripts, and automate elements of my workflow:
If I can do it, you possibly can too.
Ever wished you might pull stay knowledge from instruments like Ahrefs, social platforms, or inside product analytics—with out ready on engineers?
The reply: APIs (Utility Programming Interfaces) are instruments that permit totally different software program discuss to one another. They unlock entry to knowledge that may pace up aggressive analysis, automation, and even constructing customized dashboards.
I used ChatGPT to discover ways to use the Ahrefs API to fetch my top-performing content material, observe SERP volatility, and monitor backlinks mechanically. We break down the way it works in our Ahrefs API information.
Use the API button in Ahrefs to get a way for a way API requests are structured. You probably have entry to the Ahrefs API, you possibly can learn our documentation and even make free follow requests.
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Study the fundamentals of HTTP requests, authentication (like API keys), and response parsing (normally JSON). Strive Mozilla’s API information, Postman Studying Heart, or RapidAPI’s newbie tutorials.Strive your first stay request utilizing Postman to hit a easy endpoint, like fetching climate or headlines. For further follow, strive calling a public endpoint just like the Information API to fetch the most recent articles on any key phrase—helpful for content material ideation or monitoring trade traits.Use ChatGPT to put in writing a Python script utilizing requests, clarify every line, and deal with API authentication. Paste in API docs—it could assist translate them into working code.
What if you happen to didn’t have to attend for an analyst to tug your numbers? That’s the facility of SQL—a common language for asking questions on knowledge.
I take advantage of ChatGPT to assist write SQL queries that pulled weblog submit impressions, clicks, and common place from Google Search Console—damaged down by URL and date. Then I used these insights to prioritize which articles to replace and re-promote.
(This works nice alongside a full content material audit course of.)
One among many SQL queries I take advantage of as a part of my weblog reporting course of. This instance selects URLs from our worldwide blogs (/es/ is Spain, and so on).
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Give attention to studying SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, JOIN, and CASE statements. For a wonderful beginner-friendly walkthrough, strive Mode’s SQL tutorials or LearnSQL.com’s SQL Fundamentals Observe.Use free instruments like Mode, DB Fiddle, or BigQuery sandbox to put in writing and check your queries.Paste your desk schema (column names and kinds out of your spreadsheet) into ChatGPT and describe what you wish to measure—it’ll write and clarify the complete question.
Sick of repetitive duties clogging up your day? Learn to automate your most mundane, repetitive duties, and you may liberate your time for extra thrilling issues.
Automation platforms like Zapier and Make allow you to construct “if-this-then-that” logic throughout all of your advertising instruments—with out touching code. It’s technically “no-code,” however don’t be fooled—it nonetheless teaches you assume like a programmer: setting circumstances, chaining steps, dealing with exceptions, and reasoning by way of logic flows.
Right here’s an excellent easy Zap that syncs adjustments in our grasp content material spreadsheet with spreadsheets for every of our worldwide blogs—on this case, notifying the Japanese advertising crew that new articles are prepared for localization:
I’ve used Zapier for 100 various things: managing contact kind submissions, triaging leads, triggering editorial workflows for content material, syncing knowledge between totally different spreadsheets, creating notifications in Slack, you title it.
get began:
Begin with Zapier’s template library or Make’s visible state of affairs builder.Construct a easy multi-step automation that makes use of filters, circumstances, and formatting. Zapier’s getting began information is useful if you happen to’re new.Ask ChatGPT to map out logic flows or generate JSON webhook payloads for extra superior steps. You may as well paste in current Zap or Make configuration particulars and ask it to optimize or troubleshoot them.
Apps Script (a type of JavaScript) helps you to create automations and integrations inside Google Sheets.
You need to use Apps Script to ship automated e-mail summaries, archive kind responses, merge knowledge from a number of Sheets, or set off Slack alerts when new knowledge seems. I take advantage of a script that mechanically fetches writer knowledge from newly printed weblog posts in our CMS and logs it to a shared Google Sheet—so I might observe who was publishing what, with out chasing down teammates or manually copying knowledge.
Apps Scripts additionally work in Google Docs. Right here’s a easy script that I run to mechanically add WordPress shortcodes into my completed drafts. ChatGPT wrote the script in about ten seconds flat, and this protects me about ten minutes per article draft:
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Study key strategies like SpreadsheetApp, getRange(), and triggers like onEdit(). You possibly can discover these within the Apps Script documentation or look by way of examples on GitHub to see how actual tasks are constructed.Construct a script that sends e-mail alerts or fetches knowledge from one other Sheet. When you’re new to JavaScript, strive beginning with JavaScript.information, MDN’s JS tutorial, or W3Schools JavaScript fundamentals. These will provide help to perceive the core programming ideas that Apps Script depends on.Use ChatGPT to put in writing, clarify, and debug your Apps Script line-by-line.
When you’ve ever imported e-mail lists or GA4 exports, you recognize: uncooked advertising knowledge is chaos.
Python’s Pandas library is constructed to scrub and remodel that chaos into clear, structured insights. It’s a Python library that makes it straightforward to filter, clear, and reshape spreadsheet-style knowledge.
I’ve barely scraped the floor of the Pandas library, however I already use it deduplicate rows, normalize UTM parameters, and mechanically reformat uncooked exports into the proper format for my month-to-month reporting.
Pandas’ knowledge frames are essential for my weblog reporting automations.
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With the ability to construct dashboards or charts helps you get buy-in sooner and uncover patterns that uncooked spreadsheets miss.
Looker Studio is without doubt one of the best methods to construct customized dashboards out of your advertising knowledge—without having to code or use BI instruments.
Ahrefs now presents a direct integration with Looker Studio, so you possibly can pull in website positioning metrics like visitors, backlinks, key phrase rankings, and website audit knowledge to construct real-time dashboards with out exporting CSVs. Meaning much less handbook reporting and extra time spent analyzing traits throughout content material, campaigns, or competitor domains.
You possibly can discover ways to set it up on this information.
get began:
Join Google Sheets, GA4, or Ahrefs on to Looker Studio. Comply with this information to get began.Create visualizations like bar charts, pie charts, and time collection with calculated fields.Use ChatGPT to assist write Looker formulation, mix knowledge sources, or troubleshoot damaged charts.
Want structured knowledge from web sites that don’t provide APIs? Scraping public pages is one possibility—whether or not you’re gathering occasion listings, job boards, or weblog metadata at scale.
(Simply consider: not each web site desires to be scraped. All the time test their robots.txt file and phrases of service earlier than you begin.)
If you’d like a secure begin venture, strive utilizing BeautifulSoup and ChatGPT to scrape publicly accessible product knowledge from the Books to Scrape demo website, which is designed particularly for working towards net scraping. Attempt to extract titles, costs, and star rankings, then arrange the info right into a spreadsheet for evaluation. As a result of the location is constructed for studying, it’s a secure and accountable place to sharpen your scraping expertise.
Books to Scrape is a website that actively encourages scraping.
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Study Python fundamentals and set up libraries like BeautifulSoup and Requests.Observe scraping your personal website to keep away from breaking something. You may as well check your expertise on websites that explicitly permit scraping—like Books to Scrape, a demo e-commerce website constructed for this objective.Ask ChatGPT to generate scraper scripts, clarify the logic, and deal with pagination or user-agent headers.
You’ve in all probability seen that I like Python. Python is the spine of tons of cool workflows—it’s the way you go from spreadsheets and handbook processes to actual automation.
Studying any coding language is clearly a giant ongoing dedication, however even a small quantity of fluency can allow you to construct very cool issues.
With assist from ChatGPT, I’ve automated duties like exporting weblog efficiency knowledge from Google Search Console and visualizing it for my month-to-month content material report, downloading favicons for my “high corporations” lists, and extracting attainable key phrases from podcast transcripts.
A handful of my beginner Python tasks.
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Study primary syntax (variables, capabilities, loops). One good spot to begin is Replit’s free 100 Days of Python, which mixes bite-sized classes with hands-on coding workouts proper in your browser—no setup required.Use os, csv, and re libraries to automate duties like renaming, cleansing, and categorizing.Ask ChatGPT for Python scripts tailor-made to your workflow and have it clarify the code.
Whereas Airtable and Notion are no-code instruments (therefore “non-technical”), they assist clarify how relational databases work: how totally different tables join, how knowledge varieties affect conduct, and construction your info for straightforward querying and automation.
These are foundational ideas that not solely make you higher at utilizing Airtable, but in addition dramatically enhance your spreadsheet sport and prep you for extra superior instruments down the line.
I’ve used Airtable specifically to construct light-weight CRMs, programmatic website positioning methods, and whole content material administration methods, able to monitoring briefs, drafts, publish standing, and efficiency.
Right here’s an instance content material administration system we constructed for our advertising company, means again in 2017.
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Create a base in Airtable or desk in Notion with fields like standing, proprietor, due date.Construct views to filter by content material sort, writer, or due date.Use ChatGPT to draft formulation, counsel schema enhancements, or automate with buttons.
Pivot tables are probably the most highly effective methods to research giant units of spreadsheet knowledge—with out writing a single components.
I used to make use of them a ton in my weblog reporting: to summarize content material efficiency by writer, spot traits throughout totally different content material varieties, and even discover correlations between publish cadence and visitors.
Right here’s an actual pivot desk from our current AI in content material advertising survey. The pivot desk turns tons of unwieldy knowledge into particular, helpful analyses.
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Regex (quick for Common Expressions) is a compact language for locating patterns in textual content. Whereas it seems intimidating at first, it’s probably the most helpful technical expertise you possibly can choose up—and it’s excellent for entrepreneurs drowning in messy knowledge.
I’ve used regex to scrub UTM parameters, extract domains from referral URLs, filter URL lists to search out simply worldwide subfolders, validate e-mail codecs, and even pull key phrases from content material briefs. It’s particularly helpful for filtering in Ahrefs: Web site Explorer and Web site Audit each settle for regex queries:
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Strive free RegEx testing instruments like Regex101 or RegExr, which spotlight matches and clarify the logic.Begin small: match e-mail addresses, isolate URL slugs, or clear marketing campaign tags.Use ChatGPT to put in writing expressions for you—simply describe the sample you need, and it could generate and clarify it line-by-line.Study the place Ahrefs accepts regex.For hands-on guides, take a look at Common Expressions for Newbies and JC Chouinard’s Regex for website positioning.
Spreadsheets aren’t simply for easy sums—they’re probably the most highly effective (and underutilized) platforms for logic-driven advertising automation.
Whenever you mix formulation like ARRAYFORMULA, QUERY, REGEXMATCH, and IMPORTRANGE, you’re mainly writing light-weight code. It’s structured considering, modular logic, and knowledge manipulation—all with out touching a programming language.
I’ve used superior formulation to automate month-to-month reporting dashboards, analyze search visibility traits, and even construct key phrase clustering workflows instantly in Google Sheets. This bizarre nested components is a vital a part of my weblog crew reporting dashboard:
This sort of fluency opens up enormous leverage, particularly when paired with knowledge from instruments like Ahrefs. In truth, we wrote an entire submit about it: 29 Google Sheets formulation each website positioning ought to know.
get began:
Learn the way ARRAYFORMULA, QUERY, and FILTER can substitute handbook copy-pasting with dynamic updates.Use IMPORTRANGE to mix knowledge from totally different Sheets.Strive REGEXMATCH or REGEXREPLACE to scrub up messy UTM parameters or flag branded key phrases.Ask ChatGPT to assist clarify formulation, debug errors, or optimize sluggish Sheets.
Let’s wrap-up with a meta talent: prompting.
There’s a variety of pseudoscience round prompting giant language fashions (LLMs)—folks discuss it like magic spells. However the reality is, there’s a science to good prompting. It’s a technical talent that amplifies all of the others on this listing.
Whether or not you’re asking ChatGPT to put in writing Python scripts, clarify SQL joins, or debug a components, the way you ask determines the standard of the response. Beneath is an inventory of prompting methodologies gleaned from my expertise and the tutorial literature:
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Present grounding context. When you’re utilizing ChatGPT or Claude, take into account importing paperwork (by way of Initiatives) so the mannequin has entry to related examples, knowledge, or type guides. That is primarily a light-weight model of RAG (retrieval augmented technology).Use structured prompts. Body your request with sections like: overview, examples, what to keep away from, and desired output format. This helps the mannequin motive extra clearly and ship constant outcomes.Use delimiters to separate content material. Enclose code, pattern knowledge, or reference textual content in triple backticks (“ ‘) to keep away from confusion and enhance output formatting.Lean into emotional tone when acceptable. Language like “you’re a world-class Python tutor” or “I’m actually caught—please stroll me by way of this like I’m new” can have an effect on how the mannequin prioritizes readability and tone.Study from greatest practices. OpenAI’s information and Simon Willison’s article on prompting provide nice frameworks for enhancing reliability and output high quality.
Remaining ideas
One of the best entrepreneurs aren’t simply artistic thinkers—they’re technical sufficient to really execute, too. And now, with LLMs like ChatGPT, there’s no excuse. You will have a 24/7 tutor, debugger, and strategist in your pocket.
Don’t simply ask AI to do issues for you. Ask it to show you. That’s the way you construct actual, sturdy expertise. So choose one in every of these technical expertise, give your self a weekend venture, and use AI to degree up.