Preserving character in a world of keywords and AI
Today I was making sure my own website had enough search terms sprinkled through it for Google and AI to understand what I do. Somewhere along the way, I'd slipped out of the top five results for "Freelance Copywriter Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland" and, while I was tweaking my own copy, I found myself thinking about a couple of clients I'd recently helped.
Their websites had gone in the opposite direction.
In the pursuit of search rankings, the copy had become so saturated with SEO that it barely sounded human anymore. Every paragraph had more buzzwords than a strategic planning conference with free coffee. It ranked. It said all the right things. It just didn't sound like anybody you'd want to spend time with.
That's what I'm starting to think of as Brand Drift.
It's the insidious process of your business sounding a little less like itself every time you publish something. The danger is that nobody notices it's happening, because every change feels like a small improvement.
There are two things causing more Brand Drift than anything else at the moment: AI and SEO.
I use both most days. I was using both on my own website this morning. Neither deserves the blame. They only become a problem when we stop questioning what they give us.
By all means, tell AI the subject. The audience. The word count. The tone. The style. The reading age. The tense. The format. The keywords. The call to action. Tell it everything you want it to do.
Then spend just as much time telling it what you don't want.
Don't use the words "genuinely" or "deeply". Don't write like a LinkedIn motivational speaker. Don't say, "It's not about this, it's about that." Don't talk about your customer's "experience". Don't over-explain. Don't use jargon your customers would never use. Don't use m-dashes. Don't use Oxford commas.
The things you tell AI to leave out are often just as important as the things you tell it to put in.
AI doesn't create insight. It predicts what usually comes next.
Left alone, that means it naturally drifts towards what looks familiar. Familiar becomes common. Common becomes wallpaper. Before long, businesses that started out with completely different personalities begin sounding strangely alike.
SEO nudges us in a similar direction.
Open five construction or healthcare services websites and you'll quickly notice the pattern.
Different logos. Different photos. Surprisingly similar words.
The phrases that perform well get repeated. Competitors borrow from competitors. Before long, everyone is trusted, customer-focused and committed to excellence. Different businesses. The same voice.
We've become so focused on helping people find our websites that we've forgotten to give them something worth reading once they get there.
Good web copy has always had two audiences. One is Google and AI. The other is Dougal.
He's deciding whether you're worth a phone call, an email or five minutes of his day. He isn't comparing keyword density. He's deciding whether you sound like the sort of business he wants to work with.
Google helps people find you.
Your character is what gets you chosen.
