For too long, creating B2B or B2C content was really quite lame: find a keyword with high volume and low competition, answer a basic question in a basic way, shamefully scatter some keywords everywhere, and copy most of the ideas from the existing top 10 search results.
It was the Dark Ages of the SEO Content Marketer. And for a while, it worked wonderfully.
Today, in an era where AI can generate a competent, well structured, 1,000-word informational article in ten seconds, that way of working has finally kicked the bucket. Generic, “SEO-optimized” content has become a commodity that search engines – and human readers – are no longer bumping into just because it’s always there.
While this approach to content has never been our style, we’ve started running more resolutely in the opposite direction. We’re publishing opinionated, culturally grounded pieces about the topics that matter to our audience, from sustainability to ethical AI.
This puts us in an odd situation. In the age of AI, you’ll often hear moaning about the loss of website traffic. Not here – our site’s busier than ever. We’ve realised the paradox of modern SEO is that the best way to do it right now is to stop doing it. If you want your website to survive in the age of AI content – it’s better to start behaving like a digital publisher.
Here are five pillars of making that shift and how today’s content publishing is different.
1. Follow curiosity over keyword volume
The SEO Marketer: Dogmatically sticks to tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush. If a topic shows “0 search volume,” then that’s not worth the time.
The Publisher: Trusts intuition based on what’s happening, right now.
If you only write about things people have already searched for thousands of times, you are guaranteed to be late to a chaotic conversation and you won’t get heard. Publishers operate on a journalistic instinct: “If I find this fascinating, weird, funny, or concerning, then other people will too.”
When you write to satisfy a personal curiosity – ignoring the tools – your writing contains more passion, deeper insight, and more unpredictable connections. What’s more, the modern internet is driven by algorithms that make discovery more serendipitous. What people end up seeing isn’t just because they went out looking for it and the keywords matched.
If you overlook keywords and create something good, people will still find your content in a variety of ways – but less because of keywords and more because of an affinity that carried them there. What you’ll find is you’ll get more traffic with this approach.
Akepa example: one theme we explore on the blog is ethical AI. Following the torrent of news about the existential threat from AI, one of our writers was curious about exactly how and why AI could wipe us out, beyond the vague warnings. The resulting post is now one of our top blogs from organic search, without any keyword research, because other people were wondering the same (and it’s hardly a topic that fits an AI summary).
2. Have a strong editorial point of view (POV)
The SEO Marketer: Writes to appease the widest possible audience. Publishes articles titled “What is Anthropic Claude?” or “Top 5 Ethical AI Companies.”
The Publisher: Writes something with more depth to it. Takes a stance, challenges the status quo.
AI writing tools are programmed to calculate the average, which – in theory – suits more customers. This translates into neutral, safe and boring. To stand out, humans should stop writing like automatons and write like people under pressure, with opinions – willing to call out industry nonsense and challenge prevailing narratives. Especially when those prevailing narratives are often controlled by powerful interests and deserve to be smote.
This also connects your inbound marketing to outbound marketing activities that go beyond SEO, like outreach. If you are pitching your content to other websites, newsletters, or industry peers, an insipid “how-to” guide goes straight to the trash – and frankly deserves the bin. But when you have something original to say, doors open.
Akepa example: plenty of our content could be considered a little controversial. That tone has brought links but it also helped Akepa achieve high-quality coverage when we’ve pitched our content to leading journalists using PR outreach platforms like snov.io.
3. Embrace cultural context and references
The SEO Marketer: Keeps things literal and structured for SEO and GEO wins, overlooking the messiness of the real world.
The Publisher: Connects the topic to culture, history, human psychology, current events, without fear of being pretentious.
If you settle for a straightforward list of features or definitions, you are competing with AI overviews and you’ll lose.
A publisher’s job is to connect the dots. It’s better to anchor mundane theoretical concepts in the messy reality of 2026 – late-stage hyper-capitalism, climate change, geopolitical arms races, and so on. This contextual web is what modern search algorithms, and neural networks (those of both AI and human brains) recognize as human content that’s valuable to read. If words are grounded in a sanitized simulation of the world we live in then what are they even for?
By grounding your content in the chaos of shared existence, you’re adding a golden touch that AI can’t match: experience.
Akepa example: the post on the AI threat we mentioned earlier, featured a slice of Stanley Kubrick and a dash of Donald Trump.
4. Choose richness over “readability”
The SEO Marketer: Dumbs down vocabulary to appease SEO apps (like Yoast) that demand tiny sentences and by-the-book transitions.
The Publisher: Writes for an intelligent audience using a recognizable voice.
If you write to get a green light on an SEO plugin then you’re in danger of patronising your audience. You might as well forget the readability score. Writing for smart humans means using rich vocabulary, biting metaphors, and the oscillating rhythm that humans are known for. This level of writing is even more important in the age of AI Slop, where search-engine updates are penalising fluff and rewarding personality.
Akepa example: just read any of our recent blog posts. Some are better than others but we’re not frightened of a judiciously applied big word or a meandering rant – in our own distinctive vocabulary that’s cut from how we speak.
5. Consider your brand lens & “Information Gain”
The SEO Marketer: Writes about a trending topic just to capture traffic, even if it has nothing to do with their core business.
The Publisher: Looks at trending topics through the lens of their brand’s expertise.
Google’s algorithms may now reward “Information Gain” – content that adds new insights to a topic rather than just repeating the consensus, as AI does. Google hasn’t confirmed or denied this but owns related patents and such an idea aligns with recent algorithm updates.
How to take advantage? One way to do this is by taking a relevant global story that you’ve got an opinion on and refracting it through your specific niche.
Akepa example: on our blog we only write about our niches. When we do go a little off-piste we make sure to relate those posts to ethics or sustainability. And by questioning established information within posts, we’re adding new takes to the debate.
Still, it’s easier said than done
Despite the proliferation of AI slop, perhaps we’ll thank AI for the smite to crappy SEO content that ended up with a huge profile. And also the blow to the bad habits that a lot of people developed because that junk worked.
Nevertheless, getting out of those habits and becoming more like a publisher comes with its own set of challenges. Beforehand, the barriers were technical; about knowing the esoteric arts of SEO. Nowadays, it’s more about getting back to the creative and cognitive work of publishing content that’s worth reading and reaches beyond the basic information. To do that, there’s a need to bring an enthusiasm for words and stories into your life. Maybe it’s about welcoming that back.
Relying on AI to mass create articles won’t work either. That’s just replacing the old garbage with the new. This is a task for humans and nothing less but remember to maintain perspective: don’t expect to become The Guardian or The New York Times after a few weeks. We happily admit that our own content isn’t amazing but we do try and we hope these tips will help your attempts too.
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