I recently came across a video made by a blogger who I’m not going to promote. This blogger claims to make seven figures a year blogging. They discussed AI, and I found out they take a different viewpoint from me. I’m OK with this. I’m a grown adult, and I can agree to disagree. This content creator said they would never use AI for any of their articles. I didn’t object to this part. They claim to be paranoid about Google finding out they use AI articles, and I understand this paranoia. I use AI sparingly on Rising Current for the same reason. What I objected to was this blogger saying they make spelling mistakes on purpose to make their articles look more human-written, including in their tags. This is crazy, and I felt driven to refute it.
I don’t have to be rich yet to be logical
When something doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense. It’s really that simple. This blogger proposes that other bloggers should spend time editing tags to make it clear that their writing is being written by a human. I say this makes absolutely no sense, both logically and intuitively. So even though I’m only a year into my blogging journey, I’m writing an article denouncing this logic.
This blogger is not incentivized to help you
In today’s world, so few people execute on the advice written online that most people are counting on you never checking on what works well for them. Basically, the way you make money online nowadays is by talking a lot. The problem is that some people follow your advice, possibly to their own detriment. When you’re looking at advice online. Look for incentives. I’m a random guy from a poor country with no credibility. I’m incentivized to give you advice that works.
Misspelt tags can be copied by AI
This is actually quite simple to do. You could ask ChatGPT to misspell tags for you, or generate a bunch of tags with the software and misspell them yourself. When you take the time to create misspelt tags, you put yourself in a position in which you’ve created a repetitive task for yourself. This makes no sense to do in the world of AI. You want to be doing more creative tasks in the world of AI.
The best way to fortify yourself is to create a lot of content
The more content you post, the bigger your business has a chance of being. The bigger your business is, the less likely it is to be wiped out by changes in the content creation industry. Sure, you need to promote the content you create, but without content there is nothing to promote. If you’re a young person, you should be creating content like your life depends on it in your spare time. It’s not incredibly lucrative, but it’s still the best side hustle out there as it has little overhead. Spend as much time as you can creating content, until you have something that has the potential to make you a few thousand bucks a year. Then you can do the promotional push. It’ll be a lot easier when you have enough content to outdo everyone else. Spending time playing with tags will distract you from the important tasks of content creation and promotion. Don’t shortchange yourself this way.
Are tags even that useful for SEO?
In today’s world, more and more people are starting to learn about AI and ChatGPT. This means that while you want to write for Google, you want to think about what chatbots will recommend. I think Chatbots will recommend those with a brand. For now, those are sites with a lot of written content, along with a strong Facebook and YouTube presence. This is what makes logical sense. Chatbots are being taught to scour the internet. My guess is that they will favor sites that have strong brands and are being talked about a lot. Tags have nothing to do with any of this.
Google cares about general user satisfaction, which means bigger sites will be favored
This means that you’re going to need to create more content to get your foot in the door, but once you have your foot in the door, you’re in a league of your own. This is especially true if you’re a Zoomer, but still true if you’re older. Let’s think about it in terms of wealth. Here’s a chart showing the median household net worth of people in the United States, separated by age. Keep in mind that the average household is made up of two people, so divide that number accordingly when you think of what one person should have. Notice how the median household only has $88,000 by the time they’re in their 30s? Assuming 25% of that is from an online business ($22,000), that means that only $4,400 in online profits is being made between two people. So, if you can make even $8,800 in after tax profits online, you’re doing twice as well as the average person. This is huge. It also means that you don’t need to run an incredibly profitable online business for it all to be worthwhile. You just need to work hard and make the most of your traffic.
Understanding the game is how you differentiate yourself
Knowing how little it takes for your side hustle to help you break into the top 10 or 20% of American individuals financially, it might seem daunting that there are companies like the New York Times. How are you going to compete with websites like that on the search traffic front? In my opinion, you shouldn’t try in the beginning. In the beginning you should just write articles. You’re going to want to have a massive bank of content that you can shop around. Instead of spending a lot of time on SEO, you should spend time on growing niches and learn about those. Once you learn about those, you set about the job of creating content. Once you create the content, you realize how much content you have after about 1 year. You realize that if you play your cards right, it takes as little as 2,000 views per month to pull in an extra $800. You don’t need to be an SEO genius if you’re young, hardworking, and in a high value field. It’s almost impossible not to outperform the average guy if you dedicate yourself to content creation.
Don’t fall for silly gimmicks. Just work hard and outperform your competition. It’s really that simple. Look for success wherever you can find it and win. Emulate people who are actually doing things, not those who are simply talking about entrepreneurship for its own sake. So don’t waste time misspelling your tags. It’s a losing strategy in the long run, and it’s meant to distract you. If you dedicate a couple of years to content creation, you’ll be farther ahead of the curve than you could ever imagine.
Thanks for paying attention.
