Personal Sites, Connections, and 11ty
I was recently listening to an episode of the JS Party podcast where they had Zach Leatherman on to talk about 11ty going independent.
It was a fantastic conversation. They delved into several topics, the most important of course being his push to help keep 11ty independently supported.
But one of the conversation points that stuck out to me was about AI and SEO.
To me, the whole point comes back to do we want to make content for algorithms and computers to slurp up or do we want to make genuine connections with people and grow community that way. To me there’s just so much better return on investment with trying to make connections directly with people rather than worrying about how your page ranks with Google. ... I would rather make connections with people online so you can grow a community that way.
You can listen to the whole clip here.
But I feel Zach’s take is spot on. I’d rather make connections based on people than worrying about what the “almighty” search algorithm says. All too often it seems like content is getting “dumber” just to do better with SEO. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been liking the personal site renaissance. Seeing more people writing and connecting online through personal sites and blogs is such a nice thing to witness.