The Authenticity Wars - SEO Strategies In The Age Of AI 🤖

SEO was always one of those things that made me cringe every time I heard the phrase. I always envisioned cramming keywords into content just for the sake of their existence on the page. Endlessly looping phrases like “Denver web development” or “WordPress Development Denver web dev” are unnatural and meaningless. This practice inevitably left site visitors with information that didn’t convey anything useful.

Luckily these days authentic content that genuinely serves your audience’s needs inherently ranks higher and performs better than the keyword-stuffing days of the past.

The Dark Ages 😨

Since the dark days of keyword stuffing and aggressive backlinking, SEO and the algorithms that drive the machine have evolved to prioritize content relevance over keyword frequency. This is such a welcome change from how aggressively agencies were working to game the system, trying to outsmart Google to rank #1 for “Denver web development design Denver web agency”. A notable shift occurred with the introduction of Google’s RankBrain. This AI algorithm works to understand search queries and deliver relevant results by analyzing how users interact with the search results themselves, and learn from that interaction. Before RankBran, this was done manually by developers and prompted (virtual) riots anytime the algorithm changed.

After learning about this change, and understanding that RankBrain increases or decreases the importance of various SEO metrics based on the keyword, I became slightly more satisfied with the state of SEO. It’s a step in the right direction to serve results based on relevancy rather than keyword density. It also forces us to generate content that is genuinely useful and engaging, which results in a better experience for the end user.

What is Authenticity? 🤷

I did a little research for this post trying to find examples of truly authentic content, which by the way, is becoming increasingly more difficult in the age of ChatGPT (I’m guilty of using AI to write content from time to time because god damn is it hard to organize the thoughts in my brain into words on a page). But I came across Tim Urban’s site [Wait but Why]and started reading. Apparently like 20 minutes have passed since I stumbled across the site. I wanted to stay there, and keep reading because the content was genuine human experience and commentary. This is something that’s lost in our industry all too easily. We worked hard at House of Giants to tailor our voice, and we get complimented on it almost every time we speak to a prospective partner. Using your genuine voice in your content, no matter how boring the subject matter may be, is going to be increasingly important to encourage people to stay on your site and engage with you and your business.

Black Hat SEO 🎩

I would have much rather used a fedora emoji for this section if one existed. In any case, if you’re not convinced by my heartfelt call to action about authenticity, then maybe the scared straight approach is a better one for you. Since the SEO grifter became popular ten-ish years ago, search engines have become wise to the games that were being played. These days keyword stuffing, excessive backlinking, cloaking, link farms, and content automation are all events that search engines like Google are getting better at detecting. Some SEO companies will employ varying levels of these strategies to give a quick, seemingly authentic boost in rankings for their clients. Proving their success they take their payment and run. Over time, as these strategies get picked up by Google, a site that employs these doomed strategies may face drastically reduced visibility and overall credibility. There’s no doubt that if you care about your business, you care about the perception of your business too. Users can tell when content isn’t genuine, and that has an effect on your reputation.

Let’s Find Authenticity Together 💬

I challenge you to find genuinely authentic content sources. What makes them successful, what makes you want to keep reading? Share them with us. The more automated the world gets the more we digress from the awe of the infinite community that the internet promised us. Let’s encourage writing that resonates with us all so we can learn how to be more authentic ourselves.