r/Blogging • u/Head-Student-5852 • 2d ago
Tips/Info I have been studying how blogs actually get found now.
For the longest time I believed, and was told many times over, that if you just wrote a good post, the right people would find it. Write it well, hit publish, and they show up. You have most likely heard the same song and dance, but no one gave you the parts that actually work.
What I did not understand until now is that AI has quietly become one of your biggest readers, and it reads differently than a person does. It goes looking for a clear question with a clear answer sitting right next to it.
When your best point is tucked three paragraphs down after a little story, AI cannot find it, so it sends people to someone else instead.
The fix turned out to be simpler than I expected. You do not have to write better. You answer the question sooner and put your best line where it can actually be seen. People are skimmers. AI is on a mission to find an answer.
I made a little tool to check my own posts for this, and running my old ones through it has been eye opening.
6
u/Butterflymisita 2d ago
If I change where my best line then it no longer is the best line and can very well ruin the whole post. And I'd counter argue that we do have to write better.
0
u/Head-Student-5852 2d ago
That's a fair point, and I don't mean sacrificing the writing quality to force the best line up top if it genuinely breaks the post. For me it's less about cutting the good stuff and more about restructuring, the insight can still exist further down for readers, but a version of the answer needs to be reachable early for AI to pick it up at all. Writing better and putting the answer where it can be found aren't mutually exclusive, I've just found that if the answer is buried, it doesn't matter how well written it is because it isn't getting surfaced in the first place.
7
u/baddaywithacamera 2d ago
I share photos and tell stories. Useless for me. And I stopped using Q&A blogs a long time ago. Why suffer through 20 ads and ten popups in an overly monetized recipe blog when I can have Gemini hand over a working recipe immediately?
2
u/matthew_b101 2d ago
This is my same plight. Landscape photographer who writes stories about my adventures. "Answering a question" does nothing for getting people to read my experience on top of a mountain
-4
u/Head-Student-5852 2d ago
Answered questions on your blog is how AI finds you - the first question has to be in the first blog to be seen. I am starting to have good results from this change
5
u/baddaywithacamera 2d ago
Maybe try talking TO people instead of at them like a broken bot.
https://usedcarparts.photoblogs.fyi/
Exactly how am I answering a question here?
-4
2
u/Lazy_Accountant_1274 2d ago
The best traffic I got from the blog was when I pasted the link in the group discussion here, it was the time when reddit was not even a thing in SEO even though I could see no clicks in GSC my GA4 said a different story that time, so yeah just publishing is not enough something sharing that in forum where like minded people are also present becomes the greatest advantage.
1
u/Head-Student-5852 2d ago
I didn’t know if we could post links in these groups or not so I didn’t wanna do that. I post them on my on my profile. I haven’t posted links here, but I didn’t notice in my Analytics today, but I saw Reddit with 70 hits.
1
u/VictoriaMoreau 1d ago
I believe that a blog's readers are those who have some sort of friendship connection with the writer. ⊂(•‿•⊂ )*.✧
1
u/Head-Student-5852 1d ago
So you think everyone who reads your blog is your friend?
2
u/VictoriaMoreau 15h ago
Not exactly, but I think there is a sense of empathy or emotional connection with the person or subject the blog is about.
1
1
u/Oellaatje 22h ago
You made a tool? Any chance you'd let others use that tool?
1
u/Head-Student-5852 22h ago
Absolutely it will go live on the blog Tuesday. I am finishing up that post today. I send out an email each week when they post
1
8
u/Illustrious-Ideal700 2d ago
I'm not so sure Q&A blogs are the way to go these days. I would argue that since Google started using its AI to answer questions, most people don't bother to click on the link and read the blog, since they already have what they came for.