Many entrepreneurs hit limits not as a result of they lack concepts, however as a result of they’ll’t execute or scale them.
Not everybody has the luxurious of builders, designers, or analysts who may also help flip large concepts into actuality. Even in the event you do, you continue to must 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 develop into “technical” even in the event you’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 big language mannequin.
I’m a lifelong marketer and non-technical individual. I all the time needed to learn to code, however by no means knew the place to start out. 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 inner product analytics—with out ready on engineers?
The reply: APIs (Utility Programming Interfaces) are instruments that permit completely different software program discuss to one another. They unlock entry to knowledge that may velocity up aggressive analysis, automation, and even constructing customized dashboards.
I used ChatGPT to learn to use the Ahrefs API to fetch my top-performing content material, observe SERP volatility, and monitor backlinks robotically. 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. When you’ve got entry to the Ahrefs API, you possibly can learn our documentation and even make free follow requests.
Easy methods to get began:
- Be taught the fundamentals of HTTP requests, authentication (like API keys), and response parsing (normally JSON). Strive Mozilla’s API information, Postman Studying Middle, 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, attempt calling a public endpoint just like the Information API to fetch the newest articles on any key phrase—helpful for content material ideation or monitoring trade developments.
- Use ChatGPT to write down a Python script utilizing requests, clarify every line, and deal with API authentication. Paste in API docs—it may possibly assist translate them into working code.
What in the event you didn’t have to attend for an analyst to drag your numbers? That’s the ability of SQL—a common language for asking questions on knowledge.
I exploit 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 exploit as a part of my weblog reporting course of. This instance selects URLs from our worldwide blogs (/es/ is Spain, and so on).
Easy methods to get began:
- Concentrate on studying SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, JOIN, and CASE statements. For a superb beginner-friendly walkthrough, attempt Mode’s SQL tutorials or LearnSQL.com’s SQL Fundamentals Observe.
- Use free instruments like Mode, DB Fiddle, or BigQuery sandbox to write down and check your queries.
- Paste your desk schema (column names and kinds out of your spreadsheet) into ChatGPT and describe what you need to measure—it would write and clarify the total 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 the way to assume like a programmer: setting circumstances, chaining steps, dealing with exceptions, and reasoning by logic flows.
Right here’s a brilliant 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 staff 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 completely different spreadsheets, creating notifications in Slack, you identify it.
Easy methods to get began:
- Begin with Zapier’s template library or Make’s visible situation builder.
- Construct a easy multi-step automation that makes use of filters, circumstances, and formatting. Zapier’s getting began information is useful in the event you’re new.
- Ask ChatGPT to map out logic flows or generate JSON webhook payloads for extra superior steps. You can even paste in present Zap or Make configuration particulars and ask it to optimize or troubleshoot them.
Apps Script (a type of JavaScript) enables 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 exploit a script that robotically fetches creator knowledge from newly printed weblog posts in our CMS and logs it to a shared Google Sheet—so I may 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 robotically 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:
Easy methods to get began:
- Be taught key strategies like SpreadsheetApp, getRange(), and triggers like onEdit(). You possibly can discover these within the Apps Script documentation or look by 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. In case you’re new to JavaScript, attempt beginning with JavaScript.information, MDN’s JS tutorial, or W3Schools JavaScript fundamentals. These will assist you perceive the core programming ideas that Apps Script depends on.
- Use ChatGPT to write down, clarify, and debug your Apps Script line-by-line.
In case you’ve ever imported e mail lists or GA4 exports, you realize: uncooked advertising knowledge is chaos.
Python’s Pandas library is constructed to scrub and rework 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 robotically reformat uncooked exports into the precise format for my month-to-month reporting.
Pandas’ knowledge frames are essential for my weblog reporting automations.
Easy methods to get began:
Having the ability to construct dashboards or charts helps you get buy-in sooner and uncover patterns that uncooked spreadsheets miss.
Looker Studio is likely one of the best methods to construct customized dashboards out of your advertising knowledge—with no need to code or use BI instruments.
Ahrefs now affords a direct integration with Looker Studio, so you possibly can pull in search engine marketing metrics like visitors, backlinks, key phrase rankings, and web site audit knowledge to construct real-time dashboards with out exporting CSVs. Which means much less handbook reporting and extra time spent analyzing developments throughout content material, campaigns, or competitor domains.
You possibly can learn to set it up on this information.
Easy methods to 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 bear in mind: not each web site desires to be scraped. All the time verify their robots.txt file and phrases of service earlier than you begin.)
If you would like a secure begin challenge, attempt utilizing BeautifulSoup and ChatGPT to scrape publicly accessible product knowledge from the Books to Scrape demo web site, which is designed particularly for training net scraping. Attempt to extract titles, costs, and star rankings, then set up the information 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 abilities.
Books to Scrape is a web site that actively encourages scraping.
Easy methods to get began:
- Be taught Python fundamentals and set up libraries like BeautifulSoup and Requests.
- Apply scraping your personal web site to keep away from breaking something. You can even check your abilities on websites that explicitly enable scraping—like Books to Scrape, a demo e-commerce web site constructed for this goal.
- 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 firms” lists, and extracting attainable key phrases from podcast transcripts.
A handful of my novice Python tasks.
Easy methods to get began:
- Be taught primary syntax (variables, features, loops). One good spot to start out 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 completely different tables join, how knowledge sorts affect habits, and the way to construction your data for straightforward querying and automation.
These are foundational ideas that not solely make you higher at utilizing Airtable, but additionally 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 search engine marketing methods, and full 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, method again in 2017.
Easy methods to get began:
- Create a base in Airtable or desk in Notion with fields like standing, proprietor, due date.
- Construct views to filter by content material sort, creator, or due date.
- Use ChatGPT to draft formulation, counsel schema enhancements, or automate with buttons.
Pivot tables are some of the highly effective methods to research giant units of spreadsheet knowledge—with out writing a single system.
I used to make use of them a ton in my weblog reporting: to summarize content material efficiency by creator, spot developments throughout completely different content material sorts, and even discover correlations between publish cadence and visitors.
Right here’s an actual pivot desk from our latest AI in content material advertising survey. The pivot desk turns tons of unwieldy knowledge into particular, helpful analyses.
Easy methods to get began:
Regex (quick for Common Expressions) is a compact language for locating patterns in textual content. Whereas it appears to be like intimidating at first, it’s some of the helpful technical abilities you possibly can choose up—and it’s good 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:
Easy methods to get began:
- 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 write down expressions for you—simply describe the sample you need, and it may possibly generate and clarify it line-by-line.
- Be taught the place Ahrefs accepts regex.
- For hands-on guides, try Common Expressions for Inexperienced persons and JC Chouinard’s Regex for search engine marketing.
Spreadsheets aren’t simply for easy sums—they’re some of the highly effective (and underutilized) platforms for logic-driven advertising automation.
Once you mix formulation like ARRAYFORMULA, QUERY, REGEXMATCH, and IMPORTRANGE, you’re principally 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 developments, and even construct key phrase clustering workflows immediately in Google Sheets. This bizarre nested system is an important a part of my weblog staff reporting dashboard:
This type of fluency opens up enormous leverage, particularly when paired with knowledge from instruments like Ahrefs. In reality, we wrote a complete submit about it: 29 Google Sheets formulation each search engine marketing ought to know.
Easy methods to get began:
- Learn the way ARRAYFORMULA, QUERY, and FILTER can exchange handbook copy-pasting with dynamic updates.
- Use IMPORTRANGE to mix knowledge from completely 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 ability: prompting.
There’s a whole lot of pseudoscience round prompting giant language fashions (LLMs)—folks discuss it like magic spells. However the fact is, there’s a science to good prompting. It’s a technical ability that amplifies all of the others on this listing.
Whether or not you’re asking ChatGPT to write down Python scripts, clarify SQL joins, or debug a system, the way you ask determines the standard of the response. Under is an inventory of prompting methodologies gleaned from my expertise and the tutorial literature:
Easy methods to get began:
- Present grounding context. In case you’re utilizing ChatGPT or Claude, take into account importing paperwork (through Tasks) so the mannequin has entry to related examples, knowledge, or type guides. That is basically 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 purpose 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 this like I’m new” can have an effect on how the mannequin prioritizes readability and tone.
- Be taught from finest practices. OpenAI’s information and Simon Willison’s article on prompting provide nice frameworks for bettering reliability and output high quality.
Last ideas
The perfect entrepreneurs aren’t simply inventive thinkers—they’re technical sufficient to really execute, too. And now, with LLMs like ChatGPT, there’s no excuse. You may 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 abilities. So choose one in every of these technical abilities, give your self a weekend challenge, and use AI to degree up.
