META MEDIUM
Why Do We Bother With SEO Titles and Descriptions?
Somebody gotta ‘splain this to me
An editor at a pub here once very politely asked me if I’d like to update the SEO title and description on a story I had submitted. I can’t remember how I replied, but probably along the lines of “Nope, don’t care.”
My feeling was that it’s extra work and I’m not good at it, so screw it. Let the chips fall as they will.
Lately I have haphazardly been doing that extra work. This change of heart was brought on by a sudden thought: what if Medium uses those words to help decide how much initial exposure a post gets? Is my laziness hurting me financially?
Yeah, well, if so, it sure wouldn’t be the first time.
So my next thought was “Where’s the harm?” Man, there’s a thought that has brought people a lot of trouble over many eons of history! Never mind that; I plunged ahead anyway and started using ChatGPT to help me compose these little search engine helpers. I’ve been doing that for a few weeks now.
Then I had an Awful Thought. You know, the thought that makes your stomach queasy, the “Oh, crap, what if…” thought. The kind that stops you in mid-sentence, or leaves your finger hovering over the keyboard and your brain numb.
