What is the most important SEO strategy for writers? Bing Chat tells me 5

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

I was looking for information published here on Medium on the most important Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy to optimize for. That’s because I find so many SEO Strategies that SEO experts (I still need to verify that) write about without demonstrating how it’s done in a working website. Sometimes, I find those tips confusing, as I encounter new terms.

Given the so many options, I thought that maybe, focusing on the most important one would save me time and headache. And of course, deliver the goods — more quality and organic traffic.

For example, one of the recommendations as a good SEO practice is to network with individuals within your interests. I can’t always do this as I know this takes time to build.

Also, I’m not really comfortable talking with people I don’t know for the sake of building links or having them spread the information that I produce.

I don’t know but it’s just me.

I could not bear myself selling something when I’m not really a good sales agent. The reason why I’m a writer is that I’m mainly an introvert — even online.

If indeed networking is the best way forward, then perhaps I’ll just abandon my repugnance of having to communicate with people I am not so familiar with.

In reality, I’m not a very social person who finds comfort in the midst of a lot of people.

But that’s just me.

My point is that we can still share what we know through our writing, without being too open about it. I still value my privacy as what Subtle Fame writer Scott Stockdale wrote about.

The Most Important SEO Strategy

Back to the most important SEO strategy that Bing Chat gave me.

Initial answer

The chatbot gave me five. I enumerate them here without the description as anyone working on SEO optimization could easily understand the strategy:

1. understand the search intent,
2. keyword research,
3. create quality content,
4. optimize on-page SEO elements (meta tags, image alt text, internal links), and
5. making the website user friendly (fast, easy to navigate).

Optimizing my blog for speed gave me this output in GTMetrix.

As Bing Chat is a chatbot that relies on data it was trained on, it has to draw its “knowledge” from authorities on the subject. So, it gave the following four references:

• Ahrefs
• Your Writer Platform (a blog)
• Rock Content (another blog)
• Search Engine Journal

I assume these references are SEO authorities, so I would believe them as they are recognized by Bing Chat or the ChatGPT chatbot that gained a lot of funding to develop.

But I was just asking for the MOST important SEO strategy. Why give me five?

So, I clarified that intention with my answer to the reply given to me by the chatbot.

I mean, the most important one. Just one, I said.

There can’t be most if there are so many.

So, the chatbot answered me. But of course, I can’t copy the exact answer because I once asked if I’m free to copy and paste the answer and it said No.

I wonder why. Is it still in Beta?

Well, that’s Bing’s business. I’m just asking.

The more accurate answer

Bing Chat told me that if it is given the option to choose one, which I did, it says CREATING QUALITY CONTENT is the most important SEO strategy for writers.

That’s what actually what I want the chatbot to tell me.

Writing quality content is the KEY and here are its justifications:

1. even if your site loads fast, you use relevant keywords, among others, IF the content does not provide value to the readers, search engines wouldn’t want to index it, and
2. SEO’s intention is not to please search engines, but to provide value to the readers.

That just makes sense.

I said the same thing in Reddit, and one of the old-time members (as I’m relatively new member of five days) replied to my detailed answer on SEO that creating quality content is NOT an SEO strategy.

That means, then, that Bing Chat and me are WRONG.

I don’t believe it. A strategy is your unique combination of approaches to reach a particular goal. If it works for you then you just have to repeat it again and again.

So why worry about all those OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES when what the readers need is QUALITY CONTENT coming from you. Write in the best way you can with the prime intent of

1. educating the reader,
2. answering their questions in the best way possible, and/or
3. giving them tips to live their lives better.

If what they want is an answer to their simple question just like I just did, then reader curiosity has been satisfied.

I stopped asking Bing Chat and ended the conversation by saying:

Thank you for your very informative response.

And it just answered me with the generic:

You’re welcome. I’m glad… I’d rather not repeat that.

So, let’s focus on what are the attributes of a QUALITY CONTENT. I’ll write about that in my next post.

By the way, I emphasized the importance of website security as one of the best SEO practices in my post yesterday on SSL.