Last night, I had a hankering for homemade bread. The kind you make from scratch from the same basic ingredients humankind has used forever: water, flour, salt, yeast. That is all you need to make that fragrant, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, home-baked bread.
Unless you are a seasoned baker or a sourdough starter enthusiast (they give their starters actual names for chrissakes), you will need a recipe. A real recipe to make your apartment smell like someone has, at a time when everything imaginable can be bought from a store and ready-to-serve, actually gone through the trouble of baking bread.
So into the world wide web I went, in search of the perfect recipe. After a couple of Google searches that contained the terms “easy”, “for beginners” and “fool-proof”, I finally found a recipe I liked. It looked delicious and French bakery-ish, yet demanded very little effort. No-knead bread, the headline said. Perfect.
I patted myself on the back for finding a recipe that produced artisanal-looking results without even having to knead, which I hate. Sore arm muscles are too much effort for a baked good, I’m sorry.
I clicked the headline to open the blog post, salivating at the gorgeous photos the author had taken of the finished product. The writer described the topic of the post in lengthy detail, which was fine and usual.
I noticed that they had used the phrase “easy homemade no-knead bread” several times within the first two paragraphs. It looked a bit odd but hey, we all need to give offerings to the SEO gods, right? So onwards I scrolled, wanting to find the actual recipe.
But instead of the instructions, I had to make my way through a barrage of strange headlines. “6 reasons why you should make no-knead bread”, “how to make no-knead bread” and “the easiest way to make no-knead bread”, again followed by detailed descriptions of these topics.
All this mumbo jumbo that nobody will read was peppered with a ton of photos, making the scrolling even a lengthier process. I then, finally, found the little ole’ recipe I came to look for in the first place. That’s a whole lot of scrolling to find the actual recipe for the darn bread.
It was clear that the author had done some keyword research. As a result, they wanted the post to include every possible variation of every search term that mentioned “no-knead bread”. Sure, this might improve the post’s performance in the search results a little, but what the writer neglected was the actual reader. This is a bit ironic of course, because what is the point of a blog if not to give something of value to your readers?
With this overflow of search engine optimized filler fluff, you will achieve one thing for certain: make your readers annoyed AF.
After my initial encounter with SEO-obsessed blogging, I have run into this same pattern countless times. Even by big-name bloggers, the same ones I used to admire and look up to. So many have sacrificed their authenticity and unique voice to please the search engines.
It is a strange experience to read this pre-chewed sop that is not written to inspire, motivate or educate an actual human being, but to feed an algorithm. You vaguely, but certainly, get the feeling that you are not the one who should be reading this, that you are not who this piece of writing is for.
These writers are alienating their real readers by trying to climb higher in search results. Did they think we would not notice? When you reach the fourth paragraph that repeats the same three search terms and describes all possible scenarios you could ever think of relating to the topic of the post, it becomes embarrassingly clear what the real purpose of the post is. And it is not to give value to the reader.
So if you might be a blogger reading this, I plead to you. Put the human first. You will not regret it.
If you keep producing content that is relevant to your niche and actually give something of value to your readers, you can’t go wrong.
But crafting your posts for a search engine will cause many visitors to leave your site frustrated, some for the last time.
That has already happened with a couple of my former go-to sites. I am looking for a recipe and think about going to their site to get it. Then remember that nowadays I will have to wade through all that silly garbage to find that recipe. So I go to a blog that speaks to me instead of an algorithm.
In the end, a human who likes you can tell about you to their friends, buy your stuff, subscribe to your newsletter, and follow you on social media.
Can an algorithm do that?