Writing Online 2.0 – Search Engine (Un)Optimisation
In a blog post published back in April, Joost de Valk, founder of WordPress SEO plugin, Yoast, mentioned something that really got me thinking. The article was titled The unintended consequences of making SEO “for everyone”. It questioned the quality of the online content we’ve all been mindlessly pumping out.
In trying to democratize SEO, we also helped shape habits that led to a web full of “optimized” content, not all of it valuable.
Joost goes on to mention the traffic light system within Yoast. This is the part I related to most. I’m 100% guilty of writing exclusively for the green lights of joy.
We turned SEO into a checklist. Our traffic light system, meant to encourage good habits, became a finish line. People wrote to get the green light. They optimized, published, and moved on. Sometimes they were writing with purpose. But sometimes, they were just filling in the blanks.
Joost sold the company to Newfold Digital back in 2021, which is, most likely, part of the reason he’s now free to express his personal concerns with the plugin.
I use Yoast on both of my own business websites, as well as all of my client’s sites. It’s served me extremely well over the years. More often than not, hitting a full house of green traffic lights does, indeed, produce significant ranking improvements. But at what cost?
Au naturel Vs completely unnatural
If you’ve ever written optimised content, you’ve probably become accustomed to keyword research, focus keywords, transition words, readability scores and inclusive language. For example, you’re not allowed to write words like insane any more, for fear of offending somebody.
So, how does all of the above affect your writing? Well, it leads to a really quite bizarre modification of how you’d usually write. Ever wondered, that doesn’t sound like me? Or, why am I including these words that I’d never normally use?
I know I have. It’s far from natural. But, to a certain extent, it serves a purpose. SEO is how I acquire pretty much all of my new clients and customers. It’s also one of the services I offer, although only on a local scale. With that said, we’ve slowly drifted into a sea of sameness, when it comes to written content.
Most highly optimised content is nothing other than a conversion tool. For this reason, the articles often bombard the reader with distractions, pop-ups, CTA’s, affiliate links and ads. In a word (or three), they’re annoying AF.
Switching it up
This is an extreme example, but here on my personal site, I’ve opted for a completely different setup to any of my other websites. It’s extreme in the sense that I don’t really need it to rank anywhere.
My blog posts and pages aren’t optimised for anything other than sharing my work and thoughts. This was a conscious decision, primarily based on wanting to enjoy writing again. A return to curating words with a deeper meaning.
Of course, you could argue that, in this instance, I don’t need an SEO plugin at all. However, as WordPress doesn’t include settings for even the most basic requirements (title tags, meta descriptions, etc), I’ve been using an absolute corker of a plugin.
Modern SEO Without the Bloat. No clutter. No confusion. Just a simple, lightweight SEO assistant that helps your site rise in the rankings.
Yoast → SureRank
The first tool I swapped out was Yoast. Again, I’m a big fan, but writing in the way I am here would only result in a barrage of red traffic lights.
Instead, I thought I’d give SureRank a try. This is a much more modern SEO plugin with a cleaner interface. It works behind the scenes, as well as allowing you to customise title and meta tags.
The best bit about the plugin, though, is its suggestions. While they’re incredibly useful, some of them don’t apply to this website. With Yoast, you’d then be stuck with the red lights of doom. With SureRank, you can simply dismiss the suggestion.
This is a much cleaner, calmer way of implementing some very basic SEO settings, without it becoming intrusive or distracting.
Grammarly → LanguageTool
In much the same way as optimising your content changes how you write, Grammarly has been spurting out some peculiar suggestions of late.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for a decent alternative for a while now. LanguageTool is currently covering all bases, plus it’s open source. There’s a free version which I’m currently using, or a premium upgrade for £59.90 per year.
Receive tips on how to improve your text while typing an e-mail, a blog post, or just a simple tweet. Whatever language you’re using, LanguageTool will automatically detect it and provide suggestions. To respect your privacy, no text is stored by the browser add-on.
So far, I’ve not had any ridiculous suggestions of how to rephrase your sentence so that it sounds like someone else wrote it. Rather, a simple highlight every time I spell something wrong, or miss a comma, etc.
No images, no rules, no CTA
Lastly, with the aim of sustaining the motivation to write, I opted for text only blog posts. Creating tailored images or graphics often adds an extra layer (or barrier) between writing and publishing.
Additionally, the frequency and length of said blog posts will be whatever feels right at the time. It’s much more tempting to log in and write when a post can be as long or short as you want it to be.
One of the most refreshing aspects, however, is writing without any intention. No focus keyword, no social sharing buttons, no ads, no affiliate links, no call to action. All of which, we’ve become accustomed to with (over) optimised content across the web.
Writing from the soul
It feels good to be writing naturally again. Somehow, optimising everything for search engines has drained the life and soul out of the articles we’re producing.
While optimised content (when written tastefully) has its place on the web, we’re missing out on everything that makes writing fun. No rules, no traffic light system, just honest, thoughtful and expressive words.
A personal blog, it turns out, is the perfect space to take everything you know about SEO, and do the complete opposite. Give it a try. You might even find you enjoy writing again.
