Stop focusing on robots (and start talking to humans)

Your traffic is down. Your click-through rates are dropping. Your content isn’t landing the way it used to. And the advice you’re getting? Optimise for robots more. Write for AI overviews and LLMs. Hack the algorithm. Use these specific keywords. Structure your headers *exactly* like this. Feed the damn machine. And the machine keeps changing its mind. 

Meanwhile, your audience is getting tired. They’re scrolling past content that feels… samey, flat, or like it was written by committee, or worse, by a single prompt to a bot. It all sounds professional. Polished. Yet completely forgettable. 🥱

People can feel the difference. They might not be able to articulate it. But their nervous system knows. They skim. They bounce. They don’t truly engage because nothing in it feels *real*.

There’s no person behind it. No experience. No rough edges that come from actually thinking something through.

As well as the words, it’s the energy behind them. Content that was rushed out to hit a publishing deadline feels different to content that was written from a clear-headed place. When someone’s actually taken the time to think. To get quiet enough to work out what they really believe.

You can feel it when someone wrote something because they had something to say. Versus when they wrote it because their content calendar said “blog post due Tuesday.” It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. The energy behind marketing, and even the business itself. (More thoughts on this to come!). 

The bubble is going to burst

For years, the marketing playbook was clear: create content. Post consistently. Optimise for search. Play the algorithm game.

And it worked. For a while. But now anyone can generate a (terrible) blog post in 30 seconds.

What cuts through today is when brands sound like a real person. When they share an actual example from their work. When they admit something didn’t go to plan. When you read it and think “oh, they’ve actually done this.”

That’s what builds trust. Not perfect keyword density. Not following some formula. Just… being human enough that people can tell there’s someone real behind the words.

Why trust matters more than traffic

Here’s something most marketers don’t talk about: only 3-5% of your market is ready to buy at any given time.

That’s it. 3%.

And most marketing focuses entirely on capturing that 3%. Getting in front of them right when they’re searching. Ranking for the perfect keywords. Showing up in the LinkedIn feed. 

But what about the other 97%? They’re not ready to buy yet. They’re still learning. Still figuring out if they even have the problem you solve. Still building trust with the voices they’re paying attention to.

But what most businesses forget is that the 97% is always watching 👀. They’re reading your content. Seeing how you show up. Deciding whether you’re someone worth listening to.

Eventually, they become the 3%. And when they do, who do you think they’re going to call?

The company that fed them generic AI content optimised for robots? Or the one that actually helped them think through their problem? The one that sounded like real humans who knew what they were talking about?

Trust is built over time. By showing up consistently. By being recognisably *you*.

And you can’t do that if all your content sounds like everyone else’s.

What happens when you keep just chasing the algorithm

Let’s talk about what actually happens when you go all-in on the “optimise for robots” approach.

At first, it feels efficient. You’re pumping out content. Ticking boxes. Maybe you even see some traffic bumps.

But then the algorithm changes. Again. And suddenly what worked last month doesn’t work anymore. So you adjust. You optimise harder. You produce and tweak more and more. You’re constantly reacting to the latest SEO update, the newest best practice, the thing everyone’s talking about in the marketing groups.

And somewhere in all that, you lose your voice.

Your content starts sounding like everyone else’s because you’re all following the same playbook. Your audience can’t tell you apart from your competitors. Everything blurs together.

Worse? You stop enjoying it. Writing becomes another basic task.

And your audience feels that too. They can tell when you’re just going through the motions.

Meanwhile, you’re spending more to get less. More ad spend to make up for organic reach that’s tanking. More tools and subscriptions to try and game the system. More hours testing marketing ideas that don’t move the needle.

This is the hidden cost nobody talks about: the slow erosion of what made your business interesting in the first place.

So what does this look like in practice?

What’s the difference between content that feels hollow and content that lands?

You don’t need to reject all AI tools completely. They’re helpful for organising your thoughts, speeding up the boring bits, and checking grammar etc.

But here’s the line: the AI can’t be doing the thinking for you.

When you hand over the authorship or when you just feed it a prompt and let it generate the content, you’re not pulling from your experience anymore. You’re pulling from its training data. Basically, from everyone else’s ideas, rehashed and smoothed out.

And that’s what people feel when they read it. It’s not YOUR opinion. It’s not what YOU’VE learned from actually doing the work. It’s just… a remix of what’s already out there.

Here’s what I’ve noticed in my own work:

When we create content from interviews, recordings, pull from webinars, or even a quick list of key bullet points where experts actually talk through their thinking, it comes together completely differently. There’s texture to it. Specific examples. The way someone phrases something when they’re actually thinking it through. (Thinking it through is the key part!)

Compare that to: “Write me a blog post about [x topic]” and hitting generate.

One takes effort. You have to do the thinking, listen to what the experts say, pull out the good bits. Notice where someone got animated or specific. Shape it into something coherent, unique, and human.

The other takes 30 seconds.

But that effort shows up in the final piece. People can tell when content has been touched by human thought. Even if it’s a bit rough around the edges. (Actually, especially if it’s a bit rough around the edges.)

And here’s the other thing: the intention behind it is different.

When you’re just trying to game the algorithm or just promote your brand, your goal is to produce volume, show off your product, hit the right keywords, get indexed, and rank.

When you’re writing from actual thinking, your goal is different. You’re trying to help someone understand something. Share what you’ve learned. Build trust over time.

One approach is chasing robots. 🤖 The other is talking to humans. 🫶

So how do you actually do this?

How do you create content that’s grounded in your thinking without spending hours staring at a blank page?

Because I know what you’re thinking: “This sounds great, Kezza, but I don’t have time to transcribe and review hour-long interviews for every blog post.”

And you’re right. You probably don’t.

This stuff takes time. Real time. Not the “generate a post in 30 seconds” kind of time, but actual human effort.

• Recording yourself talking through an idea and then transcribing it, pulling out the good bits, shaping it into something coherent? That’s an hour or two of work, minimum.

• Going through client calls or webinar recordings to find those moments where someone explained something really well? You have to listen to the whole thing. Make notes. Figure out what matters.

• Starting with your actual opinion instead of a generic prompt means you have to think first. Sit with the topic. Work out what you actually believe about it before you write a word.

And honestly? Most founders don’t have time for that. You’re running the business. You’ve got client work, team management, strategy to think about.

But here’s what I’ve learned after 20+ years doing this: that human effort is exactly what makes content work.

The rough edges. The specific examples. The texture that comes from actual thinking. That’s what cuts through the noise.

So when we work with clients, this is what we do. We interview you. We ask you to share your opinions on recent industry events. We sit in on calls. We pull from the webinars you’ve already run. We find the places where you got specific, where you had an opinion, where you told a story.

And then we shape it. We make it coherent. We tidy it up without losing your voice.

But the thinking? That stays yours.

The change that’s coming

Here’s what I’m seeing: a split is happening. On one side, you’ve got people churning out content because they’re supposed to. Because the calendar says so. Because someone told them they need to post three times a week.

On the other side, you’ve got people who write because they have something to say. Who’ve actually thought about it. Who are grounded enough to know what they think before they start typing.

And audiences are starting to notice the difference.👀

Not consciously, maybe. But their body knows. They feel it when something’s real versus when someone’s just going through the motions.

Your nervous system is smarter than you think. It picks up on things before your brain can articulate them. The flatness. The lack of presence. That feeling of “this could be anyone talking.”

And as more people tune into that feeling, they’re going to start gravitating toward the voices that feel real. The ones who aren’t trying to sound like everyone else. The ones who have something actual to say.

This is where the opportunity is.

Not in producing more content. Not in optimising harder. But in being one of the few voices that sounds genuinely human.

In sharing your real thinking. Your actual experience. The things you’ve learned from doing the work. Content that comes from a grounded place, not from panic or obligation.

That’s what people are starting to crave. Original thinking. Real opinions. Content that wasn’t rushed out to meet a deadline but actually took some thought.

The algorithms will keep changing. The platforms will keep changing the rules. AI tools will keep getting better.

But the one thing that won’t change? People wanting to connect with other actual people.

That’s not going away.

So you can keep chasing the latest hack. Or you can build something that lasts.

Content that sounds like you. That comes from what you actually know. That helps people think, not just click.

That’s the work we do. And if you’re tired of the hamster wheel, if you want content that actually builds trust instead of just chasing traffic, let’s talk.