How I Optimized a Page Without Ruining Its Soul

It's 2025, and the internet is getting a little weird. Not that it hasn't always been weird, but increasingly it seems like everything is robotic and uninspiring, at least the results you find when doing a Google search. General knowledge is taking an extra hit with Gemini's "AI Overview" always being the first result of a search. What is the point, even?

Recently, I was tending to one of my many house plants, and it was not going well. I have a palm that is particularly stubborn and uncommunicative, so I turned to Google to try to learn about the species and what I might be doing wrong. I read through a page on the top search result, and it stunned me.

Every single one of the top hallmarks of lazy AI writing was present. Like, unbelievably present. The writing was full of all the phrases ChatGPT can't get enough of:

• "Whether you're [X] or just [Y]."

• "It's like your [Z] superhero."

• "It's not just [A], it's [B]."

So, I checked out another type of plant that I have. Same thing. It turns out, the entire site is AI-generated and very much what the haters call "AI Slop". Low-effort, zero-accuracy, soulless slop.

I'm telling this story because this problem will get much, much worse before it gets better. The big companies out there have invested so much in AI, and they intend to see a return on that investment. It's important to understand the future that we are headed towards: Your informational content likely won't be ranking at the top of general searches any time soon.

That doesn't mean that you can't show up where it matters, though, like location-based searches. It also doesn't mean that you shouldn't write or publish informational content. It's not impossible to build trust, you just need better methods than search engines to get eyes on what you've created. Lastly, it doesn't mean that AI is bad. It can be harmful, and it's certainly making search engines worse, but it is still an incredible tool when wielded responsibly and thoughtfully.

So, let's talk about how I optimized a website to maximize results on local searches without destroying its soul.

A Site Ripe for Optimization

I recently made a website for a local architect who is getting her business off the ground. Through various client meetings and questionnaires, we set goals that the site should be beautiful, breezy, and human. I made the site, then worked through a round of SEO optimizations.

I'm going to spare you the details of the basics like page titles and descriptions and discuss the on-page optimizations that I made that will improve the site's searchability when users are looking for services in their area, as well as keyword phrases that make this architecture firm unique.

Once I was satisfied with the content on the home page, I opened up ChatGPT. I asked ChatGPT to go back and suggest places where we could naturally work in SEO details: location names like Staunton, Virginia; keywords like “residential architect” or “historic preservation.”

I didn't stuff them in everywhere, nor did I use every suggestion. I did, however, introduce some wonderful changes that will improve the site's SEO for years to come. I repeated the process for relevant pages on the site.

Next up, the SEO puzzle piece that many overlook: Alt tags. Since this was an architecture portfolio site, it provides an excellent opportunity to give the bots that scrape the site a lot more information about the site owner. There were many photos, but again ChatGPT makes it simple. I provided project descriptions to the AI, and included how many photos and some information about what they contained to ChatGPT. I was careful to instruct it to be descriptive while including location information and keyphrases. The descriptive part is crucial because, while alt tags can be very useful for SEO, it's important to remember their purpose, which is to assist those with accessibility issues in navigating the site. It would be immoral and unethical to slop it up in the alt tags, please remember this. For folks with visual impairment, alt tags on your photos are the only thing that clues them in on your site's image contents. That said, alt tags are also how scraper bots get a sense of what images your site contains.

Results

With these small changes, I was able to vastly improve the site's SEO without destroying its soul. Functionally, it looks nearly identical to how it did before: beautiful, breezy, and human.

It's impossible to tell exactly where we will be with SEO in a year, two, or five. My hope is that search engines will begin prioritizing human content, but with the many billions invested in AI, I'm not holding my breath.

So, for now, here's my approach:

👉 I’m using social media to build an audience of people who trust what I have to say.

👉 I’m putting my content in blogs and newsletters, adding keywords where it makes sense, but never at the expense of my voice.

👉 I’m not counting on search engines alone. Because the way things are trending, SEO might not be about tricking Google anymore—it’s going to be about earning trust.

If you’re a small business owner or DIYer navigating this world: don’t let SEO scare you. Also, don't let it do the heavy lifting for you. Don’t chase keywords so hard you lose your humanity. Use the tools. Use the strategies. But stay human. That’s what’s going to stand out.