Why AI Hasn't Killed Blogging (And Why You Need to Write More)

Everyone's panicking that AI will kill blogs. I know, I know. You've seen the headlines. "AI Overviews are replacing organic results!" "ChatGPT is making content obsolete!" "The blog is dead!"

Specifically, the worry is about how the abandonment of search engines will affect traffic to sites and (bottom line) the revenue at the other end of the funnel.

But I'm not panicking...and here's why: AI needs blogs to survive.

Not the terrible AI written blogs that dominated the search listings in the last couple of years. The balance has tipped in favour of real authoritative experts, giving insights from real experience and proving themselves trustworthy in a niche or field.

The balance has tipped in favour of real authoritative experts, giving insights from real experience and proving themselves trustworthy in a niche or field.

Chris Good

Spoiler alert: The blog isn't dead. It's just evolved. And if you stop writing now, you're making the biggest digital marketing mistake of 2025.

Let me explain why your blog is more important than ever...and what you need to change to make AI work FOR you instead of against you.

Just another marketplace shift

Here's what most business owners don't realise: AI isn't replacing your content. It's redistributing it.

The way I see it, the game is much the same but the marketplace has altered. Personally, I think this has disrupted Google's monopoly on the search engine listings and SME visibility and I'm not that sad about it. In my lifetime alone, the marketplace has shifted from tangible flyers and billboards and Yellow Page directories to digital equivalents, and business adapted. Before that, (yes, before my time) we were horse and cart to the market. This is just another marketplace shift and if cards are played correctly, it offers new opportunities. But, how does it work?

When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude a question, where do you think the answer comes from?

You think Claude is ruminating on his years of experience in accounting before presenting you with a "how to" list of book balancing tips?

Nope. It comes from the most credible, well-researched content on the internet. Content like... your blog posts. Or at least, it SHOULD be your blog posts.

AI models are trained on quality content . If you're consistently publishing expert answers to your customers' questions -with proper depth, research, and E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) - you become the source AI will reference.

Let's get this straight: E-E-A-T has been hugely important for a long time, within blog content -however it's not the thing that spammy or easy-win SEO companies have brought to the forefront when some spiel about headings and keywords would do. But now? E-E-A-T is an essential component of not just your blog content, but of your entire online presence.

You...your expertise... are the ranking factor . You become the credibility behind the words. The best way to establish this E-E-A-T profile is to publish content.

Translation: Stop blogging and you're basically volunteering to be invisible in the AI era.

"But Chris, What About Video? What About Reels?"

Look, I'm not saying video isn't important. YouTube, Instagram Reels, Podcasts are all brilliant for human engagement and building that Like, know and trust factor, for humans. These are my primary forms of Top Of Funnel Marketing .

But here's the thing: AI can't watch your videos and magically understand them. (Well, it's getting there, but we're not quite at Matrix agent Smith levels yet.)...it relies on the transcriptions to text and the written data, surrounding these forms of media, to ascertain the subject and meaning.

AI reads text. It crawls written content. It pulls from structured data.

Your blog is the backbone that AI uses to understand what you're about, what you know, and whether you're worth citing when someone asks a question in your industry; your blog is the best location for an author schema profile that links to your other content platforms.

So yes, make the videos. Post the reels. But, keep writing.

The Great Blog Panic of 2024-2025 - storm before the calm

I get why people are worried. AI Overviews started appearing at the top of Google results, and suddenly everyone thought, "Well, that's it then. Nobody will click through to my site anymore."

Except... that's not how it works.

AI Overviews still cite sources. They still need credible content to pull from. And guess what? If your blog is the best answer to a question, you're the one getting cited.

A few years back (and I've spoken at length about this in Episode 2 of The Digital Strategy Podcast ), everyone saw a decline in search traffic as SERP features, such as Featured Snippets and People also ask, booshed the 'number one' slot down to a page 2 equivalent. And this was certainly a big hit for many businesses.

However, it turns out that SERP features was just something new to optimise for, with two significant benefits:

1) being featured in these locations was a boost to credibility and authority for the business, and

2) traffic received from these clicks was of a higher intent.

AI overview and generated answer citations are a huge boost to credibilty for you and your brand; it's just something new to optimise for.

Here's the nugget to remember -and we saw a bit of this last year, in particular, when search engines were filled with terrible AI blogs: AI-generated answers are only as good as the content they're trained on. If all the quality creators stop writing and only lazy AI-slop remains, the whole system degrades.

We need good human content more than ever.

What's Changed: Blog Optimisation in the AI Era

Alright, so blogging isn't dead. Great. But let's be real - it's not 2015 anymore.

Stuffing keywords into H2 tags and calling it a day isn't going to cut it. AI-era blog optimisation is a different beast and I'd like to, straight-up, give you the info on what you need to focus on to get this right.

Here's what actually matters now:

1. Let the Robots In (Yes, Literally)

First things first: Check your robots.txt file.

If you've blocked AI crawlers (looking at you, paranoid website owners -myself included), you're essentially telling AI, "Please ignore me completely." Most website setups (and I myself have done this for most client websites) block all bots, aside from specifically important ones, such as those from SEO services like SEMrush or -of course- Googlebots.

You now need to allow AI bots on that list.

Common AI bots you should allow:

• GPTBot (OpenAI) - this is the one that's training the future GPT models.
• Google-Extended (Google's AI training)
• CCBot (Common Crawl)
• Anthropic-AI (Claude)

How to check: Go to yourwebsite.com/robots.txt and make sure you're not blocking these bots.

If your robots.txt file looks like this:

User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: /

You're basically putting a "Do Not Enter" sign on your front door and then wondering why nobody's visiting. You do not want Chatgpt getting stopped by Darren the bouncer: "If your name's not down, you're not coming in".

2. Create an llms.txt File

This is the new kid on the block, and most businesses have no idea it exists. It's not actually regarded as official protocol, but it is an emerging convention that's really gaining traction: enough that SEO plugins like Rankmath have added features to implement it.

An llms.txt file is a simple text file you add to your website root that tells AI models exactly what your site is about, who you are, and what content you want them to prioritize.

Think of it as a cheat sheet for AI. Instead of making the AI crawl your entire site and guess what's important, you're saying, "Hey, here's the good stuff. Pay attention to this."

What to include:

• Your business name and what you do
• Your expertise areas
• Links to your best content
• Your author credentials

Example:

# Chris Good - Digital Growth Strategist > Helping service-based SMEs build lead generation systems ## Key Topics - Digital strategy for small businesses - Lead generation - SEO optimization - Website conversion ## Best Resources - /insight/what-is-lead-generation/ - /podcast/ ## Contact - Website: chrisgood.online - LinkedIn: &#91;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-good-b3702715/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-good-b3702715/</a>]

How to create it: Simply create a text file called llms.txt and upload it to your website root (same place as your robots.txt). Or, install Rankmath and turn on the llms feature.

This is one of those "takes 20 minutes, helps forever" tasks. Do it.

3. Structure Your Content for AI Snippets

AI loves clean, well-structured content, quite similar to the structures favoured by Featured Snippets and People Also Ask. Here's how to make your blog posts AI-friendly:

Use clear headings (H2, H3) that are questions or statements Instead of: "Overview" Use: "Why Your Website Isn't Generating Leads"

Break information into scannable sections AI (and humans) prefer content that's easy to parse. Use:

• Short paragraphs (2-4 sentences max)
• Bullet points for lists
• Bold for key takeaways
• Subheadings every 300-400 words

Answer questions directly and early Emphasise the main point early. If someone asks "What is lead generation?", answer it in the first paragraph. Then expand with details , examples, and nuance.

AI models are looking for clear, authoritative answers. Give them that upfront, then add the depth.

Include examples and analogies AI loves context. Instead of just saying "lead generation is important," explain WHY with real scenarios. At the time of writing this, I'm preparing a podcast episode about when an SME owner should hire a professional versus doing it themselves. I elaborate on a point about managing a lead generation pipeline yourself, with an analogy:

"It's like deciding your business needs water, so you're going to be the plumber and lay all the pipes yourself. Sure, you COULD learn it... but if it doesn't work, your entire business shuts down."

See? Memorable, clear, and... AI can pull that as a useful explanation. It's important that I write that up in the shownotes, instead of leaving that nugget in the podcast audio, don't you think?

4. Nail Your Author Schema (This Is A Big One)

Here's where most businesses completely drop the ball: Author schema and consistency.

AI doesn't just want to know WHAT you wrote. It wants to know WHO wrote it and whether that person is credible. It does this by looking at your entire online profile to establish your presence in an industry and obtain key stats in relation to your involvement and -get this- expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness.

In the same way that your NAP should be consistent across directory listings and Google Business Profile, your author schema should be present and consistent across every profile you have on an any platform and related to any content. So...easy peasy, right?

What is author schema? It's structured data (code) on your website that tells search engines and AI who the author is, their credentials, and how to verify them.

Why does it matter? Because Google and AI models use this to determine if you're a real expert or just some random person churning out content. Your blog posts will have an Article schema which includes an Author field. This needs to point to a consistent identity.

If your blog posts don't have proper article to author schema—or worse, they're inconsistent (sometimes "Chris Good", sometimes "Chris", sometimes "C. Good")—AI has no idea if you're credible.

How to optimise your author schema

Consistent author name across ALL platforms

• Your website
• LinkedIn
• Google Business Profile
• Social media
• Guest posts

Pick ONE version of your name and stick with it everywhere. (I use "Chris Good" - simple, consistent, no fancy middle initials or variations.)

Author schema markup on every blog post

This is the technical bit. Your website needs to include structured data that looks something like this:

{ "@type": "Person", "name": "Chris Good", "jobTitle": "Digital Growth Strategist", "url": "https://chrisgood.online", "sameAs": &#91; "https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-good-b3702715/", "https://twitter.com/yourusername" ] }

The author part of the article schema is the important part, which will state that you are a Person, with a Name and then point to a URL; this URL should be an 'author page', such as on your website, which will include a full Person/Author schema, which looks much like the example above.

If you're on WordPress, plugins like Rank Math (don't use Yoast) can help you add this automatically, but it is limited; I suggest a manual code addition. If you're on custom-built sites, your developer needs to add this.

Pro tip: Use Google's Rich Results Test to check if your article/author schema is working: search.google.com/test/rich-results

Build your author profile page

Have a dedicated "About" or "Author" page that:

• Lists your credentials and experience
• Shows your expertise areas
• Links to your social profiles
• Includes testimonials or proof of authority

This page becomes your "digital CV" that AI can reference when deciding if you're worth citing.

FREE AI Optimisation Audit Checklist

Get this easy to use audit checklist with helpful tips and links, straight to your inbox, so you can optimise your online profile for AI today.

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If you're on WordPress, plugins like Rank Math (don't use Yoast) can help you add author schema automatically, but it is limited; I suggest a manual code addition.

Chris Good

The Author Consistency Problem

Let me be honest: when it comes to my own website or digital presence, I've been like the cliché plumber who has a broken toilet at home. I've been quite haphazard about my 'personal brand online presence' with lots of employed or white-label work and -even worse- mixing my brand across different target markets...and it has taken a lot of work recently to tie it all together and get it polished. But I'm not the only one.

I recently audited a client's website - an accounting firm who'd been blogging on various platforms (including their website) for at least three years. Quality content, good insights, improving organic traffic (since I've taken over the content), but no purposeful author schema to be found on the actual website . Still, Wordpress has some native author info to incorporate, and although that does not create the author schema code , it should still be consistent.

When I checked their author bios across platforms, it was a mess. Here's an equivalent example:

• Blog posts (previous to my involvement): "Webadmin." (Yep, the marketing company had used their own profile as the author...I know!)
• Blog posts (since my involvement): "Sarah Mitchell" (made up name)
• LinkedIn: "Sarah Mitchell"
• Google Business: "S. Mitchell Consulting"
• Guest posts: "Sarah Mitchell-Jones"

To AI, these looked like FOUR DIFFERENT PEOPLE. All her authority was fragmented across multiple identities - or some items were all but anonymous content.

Our task, should she choose to prioritise this, is to establish a consistent identity of "Sarah Mitchell" across all platforms. Only then can AI connect the dots.

Your homework: Google yourself. Check every platform. Are you consistent? If not, fix it. Today.

What Happens If You Don't Adapt?

Look, I'm not here to scaremonger. But let's be honest about what's happening:

Scenario 1: You keep blogging the old way

• AI can't crawl your site properly
• Your content isn't structured for AI consumption
• Your author credibility is fragmented
• Result: Your competitors who DID adapt get cited. You don't.

Scenario 2: You stop blogging altogether

• AI has no new content to reference from you
• Your expertise becomes invisible to AI-powered search
• Your competitors fill the void
• Result: You become irrelevant in the one place your customers are increasingly going for answers

Scenario 3: You adapt

• AI can easily crawl and understand your content
• Your author credibility is rock-solid
• Your blog posts get cited in AI-generated answers
• Result: You become the go-to authority in your niche, even when people don't visit your site directly

Which scenario do you want?

The Unexpected Upside

Here's the thing nobody's talking about: This is actually GOOD for small businesses.

Why? Because AI levels the playing field.

In traditional SEO, big brands with massive budgets could outspend you on backlinks, domain authority, and content volume.

But AI doesn't care about your domain authority score. It cares about who's the best source for this specific question.

If you're a boutique accountancy firm in Manchester and you've written the most helpful, expert content about tax optimisation for small construction companies, AI will cite YOU over some massive national firm with a generic blog post.

Your expertise + proper optimisation = visibility . Regardless of budget.

That's powerful.

The Bottom Line

AI hasn't killed blogging. It's just raised the bar, just like the "Helpful Content" updates in Google's search engine algorithms.

The businesses that will win in the AI era aren't the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest websites. They're the ones who understand that authority + visibility + consistency = getting cited.

Keep writing. Structure it properly. Make AI work for you.

If you found this helpful, share it with another business owner who needs to hear this.