The SEO Strategy That Still Wins
Google has rolled out a number of updates to Search recently, further integrating AI into the way people search and find information. Naturally, marketers have rushed to find out what’s changed. Cue the adjustments in strategy and some experts stirring up panic as they look to the coming changes.
Despite these updates, the timeless strategy that wins is this:
Personable, human-written content is still king.
In an age when companies can generate 10,000 generic articles in a day to win their niche, people ultimately still choose the articles, photos, and videos that they relate to: the things made by people. Google tries to dictate, predict, and often successfully rewire how people surf the internet. But the one thing they cannot deprogram out of humans? The desire to connect to real content and real people.
The novelty of AI-generated content has worn off, and the vast majority of people are sick of seeing hundreds of pieces of trash content vomited out of a soulless generating machine.
That’s why, when you make thoughtful, quality content, it still wins the SEO (search engine optimization) competition.
Your heartfelt, thoughtful design, articles, and art win because they stand up like a lighthouse in the midst of the gray ocean of AI content our feeds, searches, and online shopping have become. Unfortunately, they have been lost in the sea of content, but these SEO updates are working to correct that.
The SEO game will continue like it has for decades. A new promising trick will always arise, plus a new tool with another subscription. But keyword-stuffed articles, backlogs of AI-written content, and awkwardly phrased FAQs designed to catch SEO queries will always fall behind real, human-made content. Because all the tricks can fool search, but people will still choose the real thing. For now.
While I’m not opposed to AI, it’s missing a key feature of human interaction: context. LLMs can give good responses, but their answers are based on probabilities, not on understanding everything that went into that decision or situation. Starting and ending with human input is key when using AI. Using it as spellcheck or for basic design ideation yields vastly different results from “design a logo for a roofing company” or “write me an article about the problems of AI in SEO.”
AI works in the creative world as long as it’s a tool and not the creator. Because we, as humans, have the privilege to create things, and we don’t have to give that ability to technology that fundamentally cannot understand what it’s making.
