Long time bloggers - what are you doing differently now?

[u/qinxiesays]

I've been blogging on and off since 2010 - longer if you count LiveJournal days - and a lot has changed in that time. Alongside SEO considerations, I think the biggest change to how I blog is what's worthy of coverage in the age of search algorithms and AI.

So I'd love to know from long time bloggers, what are you doing differently now that you didn't five or ten years ago?

[u/hetneoslinks]

Biggest change for me is what I don't publish. The "what is X" explainer used to be free traffic, now it's the first thing an AI answer eats, so I skip it and write only the stuff that can't be scraped out from under me -> what happened when I actually ran the thing, with the boring numbers attached.

The other one is pruning. Some months I merge or delete more than I publish. Thin old posts that never earned a visit seemed to be dragging the rest down on my sites. Might be niche-specific, but it's held up twice now.

[u/RankLord → u/hetneoslinks]

Oh, that's interesting... I've read that it's generally good practice to remove old posts that bring no traffic. But interested to learn from first-hand experience - does it help anything? I don't publish daily, rather once or twice a month, so don't have many articles, so still think if I shall remove "thin" posts...

[u/Flashy_Tomatillo2278 → u/RankLord]

I'd rather update them. New keywords, changes in your text, those kind of things, and experimenting, instead of just deleting them

[u/qinxiesays → u/hetneoslinks]

What do you see as content that can't be scraped? 

[u/SleeplessScribbler]

I've been around since 2006/2007. My voice and confidence grew so I branched out into more fiction and different themes, which I wasn't sure anyone would find interesting but they do.

I look at the stats and they liked that post, clicked on the tags and get stuck into reading the others.

I am a lot more consistent posting 4x days a week and even when I don't, they read and search the old stuff or re-read the new.

[u/onreact]

I mostly update existing evergreen content by now.

Thus I rarely publish new posts.

10 years ago I still tried to publish regularly.

[u/wayowayooo]

I’ve only been blogging for the last 5 years, and just started my own site within the last 1-2 years. Our niche is cruising.

I’ve been focusing on things that AI can’t really replicate. This includes personal stories and more specific advice tailored to niche topics!! Seems to resonate with the audience.

We are making about $1,500 per month, last month was $2,500 (our best yet!)

[u/qinxiesays → u/wayowayooo]

Nice! Is that advertising or affiliate? Or maybe a mix? 

[u/wayowayooo → u/qinxiesays]

That’s all advertising! We’ve also started an Amazon affiliate and Viator affiliate, which has made about $600 since starting in July. Not too bad!!

[u/baddaywithacamera]

Got pissed off with all of the software options available, wound up using AI to create a CMS just for photo bloggers and that's all I use to post now. Also went the self-hosted route so I'm saving money, not fighting with server resources, and have much greater control over bots. Optimize sites for AI now, don't bother with SEO at all. It's dead IMO.

[u/vivaciousvipin]

Integrating AI into my writing workflow but also ensuring that it doesn’t eat my personality lol

[u/easyedy]

I also update my evergreen posts and try to make them fit the new SEO landscape with AI. It's a different world, and I don't publish as much. I believe it's key to be personal and not hold back opinions in the blog post.

[u/yihuaxiang]

I draft with the title field empty. If the second paragraph is just restating a definition, I stop, because that is the post an answer box already covers.

What changed from ten years ago is I start from a decision: what I tried, the number, and what I would not do again. The keyword gets added after, if it still fits. And if an old post is the one people already land on, I update that instead of publishing a cousin of it.

[u/Flashy_Tomatillo2278]

I wouldn't consider myself long time blogger in that sense, but it's been at least 3ish years or so with my current blog, adding its predecessor, it could be 10ish years.

Anyway, back then I didn't keep an eye on image optimization, Search Engine Optimization, url slugs, keywords and so on.
I'm still learning, but it feels like I'm doing far better now than back then

[u/EumelaninSol]

To go around AI is creating a community on FB. I literally just posted that in here. Some sort of community or space that is active— you’ll find the people who do not WANT AI advice but real human advice or community.

[u/grapegeek]

I started in 2009. I mostly publish on Substack now. My regular blog has seen a continuous drop in traffic because of AI overviews. Substack is picking up the slack.

[u/qinxiesays → u/grapegeek]

I'm on Substack too but I see the two as having different functions for me. Substack more train of thought stuff and blog better researched 

[u/grapegeek → u/qinxiesays]

Substack can be many things to different people. I’m in the food niche and it’s booming for recipe sharing and general food writing.

[u/zvaksthegreat]

I stopped and got real job

[u/LongjumpingSlip]

Back in the days of Twitter, the real Twitter, not the fake one, you could share jokes or images to drive traffic, hoping that people would stick around on your site. In hindsight, that was a fucking terrible miscalculation; now, you can’t drive traffic that way anymore, and you have to start from scratch to build a proper, fucking solid SEO strategy based on high-quality, long-form content.

[u/henripacheco27]

I produce more

[u/PeepSoWP]

One durable shift is to optimize for a body of work and a relationship with returning readers, not just isolated search visits. A practical approach is to publish fewer one-off posts, use more recurring formats and topic clusters, update or merge older pieces, and give each article a useful next step: a related post, newsletter, or genuine discussion question. Search still helps discovery, but replies, direct visits, saves, and repeat readers say more about whether a blog is building an audience. In an AI-heavy search environment, first-hand examples, experiments, original data, and strong editorial judgment are also harder to replace than a generic explainer. Disclosure: this comment was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by us.

[u/Small-Spring5262]

Actuellement, je n’écris plus d’articles (c’est l’ia qui s’en charge au travers d’une app, de l’intention de recherche à l’écriture en passant par les images. Mes sites sont plus optimisés. Mon travail actuellement est concentré sur la recherche de nouvelles niches et je lance plus de sites rapidement et plus beaux en 2h max sur mon téléphone. C’est incroyable