How to generate your first article (no writing skills needed)

If you can describe a job to a friend over a cup of tea, you can write a Mixo article. The AI takes whatever you give it — even rough notes — and turns it into a polished, publishable draft. You don’t need to be a writer.

This guide walks you through generating your first article from scratch.

Step 1: Open the new article form

From your section listing page, click the New Article button (or its equivalent for your content type — see Choosing the right content type).

If your section is brand new and has no articles yet, you’ll also see an AI suggestion card on the listing page with a ready-made topic and pre-filled talking points. Click Generate this article on the card to jump straight in. Otherwise, click the New Article button and continue below.

Step 2: Enter your topic

This is the only required field. You can write it as:

A title — “How to bleed a radiator”
A question — “Why does my boiler keep losing pressure?”
Rough notes — “emergency drain job in Peckham last week, roots in the pipe, CCTV survey, used Dyno-jet”

There’s no wrong way. Full sentences aren’t required. The more specific and real your topic is, the better the article will be.

The placeholder text in the field gives you example phrasings tailored to your content type — for Past Projects it might say “Describe a job you completed recently…”, for Blog it might say “A question your customers often ask…”.

If you’re stuck, click the ✦ Suggest an article topic button above the field for an AI-generated idea matched to your business. Click again for another. See Using AI topic suggestions for more.

Step 3: Choose a length

Pick one of three lengths:

Short (~500 words) — quick and punchy. Good for simple topics or when you’re just getting started. Default on the free plan.
Medium (~900 words) — the sweet spot for most articles. Detailed enough to be useful and readable in 4–5 minutes. Default on paid plans.
Long (~1,500 words) — in-depth content. Good for complex topics or competitive search terms. Uses a multi-pass generation process and takes 30–60 seconds rather than 10–30. Worth it when you have a lot to say.

Step 4 (optional): Make it more personal

This section is collapsed by default. You can skip it entirely and still get a good article — but opening it unlocks the biggest quality improvements:

Notes / brain dump — paste anything: talking points, job details, things you always tell customers, prices, brand names, what went wrong, what you’re proud of. Messy is fine. The AI extracts what’s useful and ignores the rest.
Source links — paste one or more URLs. The AI reads the pages and may cite or reference them in the article.
Photos — upload up to 5 images (JPG, PNG, or WEBP, up to 5MB each). When photos are included, Mixo uses a more powerful AI model that can actually see the images and describe what’s in them. Even one photo from a job can make a Past Projects article feel genuinely real.

For tips on briefing the AI well, see Getting better articles: how to brief the AI like a pro.

Step 5: Click Generate

Now the magic happens:

You’re taken straight to the edit screen. You don’t have to wait on the form page.
The editor shows a “Writing your article…” spinning skeleton while the AI works. This usually takes 10–30 seconds. Long articles may take up to 60 seconds.
The article title is auto-generated from your topic. It’s editable, so change it later if you want.
When generation finishes, the skeleton fills in with your article — section by section. Your draft is now ready to review and edit.

What if generation fails?

Occasionally, generation fails (usually a timeout or temporary AI hiccup). The card on your listing will show a red “Generation failed” badge with a Retry button. Click Retry and it will try again from scratch. This is rare but worth knowing about so you don’t panic if it happens.

Why is it a draft and not live?

Drafts are completely private to you. Nothing appears on your website until you deliberately press Publish. You can generate as many drafts as you like on any plan — only publishing is limited on the free plan. See Publishing your articles for more.

Things to know

Navigating away during generation is fine. The article keeps writing in the background. Come back to the listing page later and you’ll see a pulsing “Writing…” card. Click Edit when it’s done.
The topic you type and the article title are different things. The AI writes a title for you based on the topic. If you want a specific title, either edit it after generation or phrase your topic as a finished headline.
Your writing style settings apply. The tone, language, CTA toggle, and citations toggle you set in your section settings all influence the generated article. To change them, see the section’s Settings button.

What’s next

Now that you have your first draft:

Make it sound more like you — see Getting better articles: how to brief the AI like a pro for next time, or
Polish and publish — see How to edit your draft before publishing.