August 19, 2026 blogging tips 🕑 5 minutes read

Bodega Bay California

Write for people. Optimize for robots. Is there a bigger SEO blogging challenge?

Write like a human for humans.

Optimize like a robot for the algorithm.

People respond well to human-generated content. Sounding robotic turns off folks. Imagine your ideal reader. Picture yourself chatting with this individual before writing content. Connect. Bond. Communicate. Build a loyal blogging community.

Writing for people by chatting like a person earns credibility. People sense that a real person runs the blog. This is more important than ever given the AI slop polluting the web.

The Biggest SEO Blogging Challenge

Now the tough part arises.

Some bloggers claim that writing for people ranks posts without optimizing for SEO. I made this claim in the past.

But I changed my tune.

Most bloggers who offer that guidance achieve strong topical authority. Google ranks their less technically-optimized posts based on a proven track record. Sorry; you will probably not be able to get away with that.

Make the people and the robots happy.

This is not easy because naturally working in key phrases without sounding awkward is no small feat.

The Google algorithm is a thing not a person. Communicating with a thing requires you to speak a different language, in a sense.

The algorithm responds to robotic thinking or highly literal thought processes.

For example, dropping the anchor text, “Click Here” for your eBook makes zero sense to the algorithm if you want to rank for a niche keyword. No one wants to rank for “click here” but the algorithm takes you at your word in a literal sense. I want to rank for “blogging eBooks”. I rank on page one for that term from position five to one.

How?

I use the anchor text “blogging eBooks” to point to a link listing blogging eBooks. The Google algorithm needs pure relevance between anchor text and link content for you to potentially rank content. Far more goes into ranking but this is how most bloggers – including the old me – make optimizing mistakes.

A robot reads “click here” anchor text pointing to a link listing blogging eBooks and sees zero relevance. Ranking for a “blogging eBooks” search becomes virtually impossible in this scenario.

What About Humans Who Click Based on Your “Click Here” Copy?

Some humans may click through to your eBooks based on the “click here” copy.

But far more humans – and heavily targeted people at that – find your blog on page one of Google unless you already built a massive, highly loyal tribe through multiple marketing channels.

How can you get the best of both worlds?

Do you want to learn more about how to blog successfully?

Click Here:

Blogging eBooks by Ryan Biddulph

But is it the best practice to use exact anchor text?

I read conflicting advice on this one.

However, the results ranking before Blogging From Paradise Dot Com for “blogging eBooks” are:

Amazon
HubSpot
Medium
Reddit

I compete with the heavies for this search term. I am doing something right.

At least for this exact search term and anchor text match, the Google algorithm prefers an exact match since I almost always use “blogging eBooks” for my anchor text.

I have patiently built topical authority for the blogging tips niche based on publishing long form blog posts.

But the algorithm requires you to establish pure relevance for your blog to rank on page one.

Think Like a Robot to Optimize Effectively

Optimize for robots. Think like a robot.

Drop internal links only to highly relevant posts. Google wants every link to be closely related. Build a spider web consisting of similar posts. Rank by ensuring that all links live in the same neighborhood.

SEO Blogging Challenge: Why Is This Difficult to Do?

Writing for humans like a human involves patiently developing one skill.

Optimizing posts like a robot involves patiently developing a different skill.

Becoming highly skilled in multiple areas challenges anyone.

I write my ass off to blog from the heart. Readers appreciate my rough and ready approach. My content seems relatable if nothing else.

I only recently began to genuinely optimize some posts for Google. Developing this different skill feels uncomfortable to me. I find it challenging because I need to:

slow my mind down
patiently follow a set of SEO steps
focus on the technical aspect of blogging

to invest my blogging time wisely.

Even if some posts do not align with a specific term – doing so could sound highly unnatural – I do my best to maintain full alignment. From the blog post title, URL slug, headers and early post mentions, peppering a phrase throughout content without sounding repetitive or robotic is not easy.

This is the challenging aspect of driving Google traffic. You cannot sound like a robot or people and Google will ignore your blog.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is not much of a thing anymore because Google cracked down on this bizarre practice cyber eons ago.

But back in the blogging day, no finer example of writing like a mindless blogging robot existed.

Imagine if I titled a post: 10 Blogging Tips for Beginners

Picture if I began the post by mentioning the phrase “blogging tips for beginners”:

within the first three paragraphs
awkwardly via an H1 header
painfully through an H2 header

Most bloggers avoid flat out keyword stuffing these days.

But some struggle with writing naturally for humans while integrating critical optimization tips.

Work in keywords for the algorithm to rank the post.

Write like a person for people to sound natural for humans and literal for the algorithm.

How Do You Cultivate this Skill?

Follow these practical tips:

write 500 words daily online or offline to find your blogging voice
write a post as if you were chatting with friends
write your first draft for people
edit your next draft with SEO-optimization in mind
follow an SEO check list to remember the essentials
maintain full relevance from the blog post title, URL slug and at least an H1 and/or H2 header
cover only one blogging niche to establish topical authority
build a personal brand to humanize (aka un-roboticize) your blog

Treat blogging like an art form; especially the SEO side of things.

Conclusion

Picture yourself talking to people.

Write from that perspective.

Optimize content for Google after completing the first draft.

Think like a robot.

Work key phrases into content naturally.

Develop this skill to rank on Google consistently.

Your Turn

How do you conquer this SEO blogging challenge?

What practical SEO tips can you share with our community?

Trevor Warman says:
August 19, 2026 at 7:58 pm

Structure your blog like a spiders web. with the HOME page as the centre.
You could have a Budget Travel Hacks section which acts a hub page/feeder page for all posts categorised as travel hacks. link between the travel hack posts and also back to the hub page.

The SEO or Meta Title should be 50 characters in length otherwise it will get cut off. This should tell Google or Bing (dt forget this forever 2nd in line guy) what the post is about.

The h1/page title needs to lure the reader in (without sounding like an Instagram post ie clickbaity)

Add a meta description of around 150 characters.

Gemini does a pretty good job of suggesting better seo and h1 tags. Just paste in plain txt to remove the formatting (watermarks).

the keyword if you are targeting them, and you should, needs to appear in the:

SEO
H1 title,
URL
Meta Description
1st paragraph,

near the front as possible.

Make everything sound human. Do not keyword stuff!!!

Target keywords with a KD of less than 30 (for a blog with DA of 25 or less). as well as targeting low-competition keywords known collectively as low hanging fruits. You won’t beat the BBC or CNN for single keywords like LONDON, thats why you see so many weird clickbaity titles around.

6 things to do on a dry day in London before the tube starts running.
7 things to do in London when it’s been raining for 7 days on the trot
10 things to do in London when there is a hose pipe ban

Add h2 title tags as sub titles and h3 as sub headings

As Ryan talked about, make the anchor texts meaningful.

Since I have now put my Travel Hacks eBook on Gumroad, I am adding a link from all Travel Hack Blog posts, but i mix up the anchor text:

Travel Hacks eBook
Available on Gumroad

something like that.

Dont try to beat the system. the latest SEO hacks only work for a while.
parasite SEO is a thing. Becareful!!

Don’t make a title How to beat the algorithm in 2026 when the post is about growing vegetables!!

Thats my penny’s worth of SEO tactics that wont get you blacklisted!! and hopefully some traffic. but you can’t guarantee nothing.

Reply to this comment

Trevor Warman says:
August 19, 2026 at 7:58 pm
Structure your blog like a spiders web. with the HOME page as the centre.
You could have a Budget Travel Hacks section which acts a hub page/feeder page for all posts categorised as travel hacks. link between the travel hack posts and also back to the hub page.
The SEO or Meta Title should be 50 characters in length otherwise it will get cut off. This should tell Google or Bing (dt forget this forever 2nd in line guy) what the post is about.
The h1/page title needs to lure the reader in (without sounding like an Instagram post ie clickbaity)
Add a meta description of around 150 characters.
Gemini does a pretty good job of suggesting better seo and h1 tags. Just paste in plain txt to remove the formatting (watermarks).
the keyword if you are targeting them, and you should, needs to appear in the:
SEO
H1 title,
URL
Meta Description
1st paragraph,
near the front as possible.
Make everything sound human. Do not keyword stuff!!!
Target keywords with a KD of less than 30 (for a blog with DA of 25 or less). as well as targeting low-competition keywords known collectively as low hanging fruits. You won’t beat the BBC or CNN for single keywords like LONDON, thats why you see so many weird clickbaity titles around.
6 things to do on a dry day in London before the tube starts running.
7 things to do in London when it’s been raining for 7 days on the trot
10 things to do in London when there is a hose pipe ban
Add h2 title tags as sub titles and h3 as sub headings
As Ryan talked about, make the anchor texts meaningful.
Since I have now put my Travel Hacks eBook on Gumroad, I am adding a link from all Travel Hack Blog posts, but i mix up the anchor text:
Travel Hacks eBook
Available on Gumroad
something like that.
Dont try to beat the system. the latest SEO hacks only work for a while.
parasite SEO is a thing. Becareful!!
Don’t make a title How to beat the algorithm in 2026 when the post is about growing vegetables!!
Thats my penny’s worth of SEO tactics that wont get you blacklisted!! and hopefully some traffic. but you can’t guarantee nothing.
Reply to this comment
- Ryan Biddulph says:
  August 19, 2026 at 11:42 pm
  Excellent SEO guidance here.
  Amidst the highly practical optimization advice, bloggers need to follow the basic rules versus trying to fool or beat the system. Not gonna happen. Google is the Online Goliath. Endless resources. Super smart employees. Influence beyond belief. Stick to the fundamentals. But know that guarantees do not exist.
  Nobody can predict if a post will rank or not. But we can create helpful content consistently. Optimize posts. If some rank, great. But when some never rank it makes sense to drive organic traffic through multiple channels as a safeguard.
  I work a heavy volume but focus on:
  – X
  – Facebook
  – LinkedIn
  – Blue Sky
  along with genuine blog commenting.
  Traffic flows through these strategies whether or not Google sends folks to my blog.
  Thanks again for the excellent comment Trevor.
  Reply to this comment

SEO Blogging Challenge: Write for Humans Optimize like a Robot