Someone posted on social media about their experience writing deep and insightful articles last year and was surprised to see that the AI was leaning on their articles and referencing them. Their secret was to choose specific topics, which is a good idea.
SEO and Natural Language AI
SEOs like to write articles based on keywords, and that’s how people did it in the caveman days of SEO, over 25 years ago. Natural language processing has come a long way, and LLMs are now able to understand topics and questions in a conversational manner. So it is really outdated to continue SEO by focusing on keywords.
User behavior and what other sites and people say about the site or product are very important. The best way to influence that is with insightful content that gives users what they want and more, as often as possible.
It’s not just about understanding
The person who started the conversation indicated that they had chosen a “good enough topic” and wrote something insightful about it. That’s a deceptively simple tip, but it’s one of the key points about writing for human audiences and machines that interpret content as if they were humans.
Choosing an adequate topic is all about keeping the article focused on the topic and not letting it stray. One of the hallmarks of good writing is the willingness to remove the bits that tend to stray from the topic. This is an American style of writing, although Europeans from as far back as Charles Dickens know the importance of staying on topic so that the result is a continuous flow of interesting sentences that draw the reader to the end of the page.
Writing is an art, like painting and composing music. But you don’t need to have a degree in literature or journalism to engage users with text.
How One Got So Much Love From Claude AI
Bluesky user @danabra.mov posted about their experience writing an insightful article first called Claude AI.
He wrote:
“If you write an insightful blog post on a certain topic enough, and people link to it, you have a real chance of influencing everyone’s LLM outcome in a year or so.
I wrote some articles last year that I thought no one would read because they were too long. And now I see Claude re-writing me on those articles in a completely summarized way (and sometimes clearly referencing the post). They took exactly what I wanted the student to take!
For me it’s a relief because I was worried about a drop in interest in long form blogs and a decrease in readership. but in a sense perhaps it has increased significantly! It’s just that my student has endless patience and really wants to hear everything.”
Some Agree That Clarity Is The Key To Success With AI Quotations
The response to Dan’s post was overwhelmingly positive, with one person commenting that it gave them hope.
One person named Tyler shared that they had the same experience with the content they published which was clear.
@tylergaw.com replied:
“I’ve seen a few of my own, even with that knowledge, specific, be pulled from them and used within 6 months. Wild.”
The person who started the conversation, Dan, admitted:
“I mean yes but I think the explanation itself is enough…”
Why Is Being Direct Enough?
Based on my more than forty years of writing experience, including writing poetry, short stories, one novel, blog posts, and Search Engine Journal articles, my opinion on this matter is that focusing on clarity helps keep the work focused in a way that matches the reader’s focus. The moment an article goes off topic is when the reader loses interest and jumps away.
Having understanding is not enough. Being witty or clever is good in moderation, but in high doses it goes off topic and, in my opinion, will lose the reader. This is why anyone writing content must be willing to cut words ruthlessly to keep it focused and clear (on topic).
What Google Says About the Title
John Mueller of Google reposted Dan’s post with a comment:
“Do things that are smart and useful.”
There was one skeptic in the crowd who said the economy was taking away the incentive to put in the work.
They wrote:
“Why on earth would anyone put in the effort required right now only to be promptly ripped off, get no compensation and no credit. It has never been a hostile place to be an inventor. Economics DOESN’T WORK.”
Yes, it is true that today’s environment is hostile to creators because of AI. However, there is always a chance of success by writing about topics you are interested in because they will be of interest to someone else.
Featured image by Shutterstock/Nur Alam sabuz
