how are people being an seo writer in 2026?

the shift in the last couple of years is that writing to a keyword count stopped working, a lot of that got buried under AI text. what still works: search the phrase, read the top three, note what they all cover and what they all skip, then write the direct answer in the first paragraph and headings that match the follow-up questions. put in one thing from actual experience that the others don't have. if numbers are going the wrong way on existing posts, check whether the intent of the query changed (people now want a tool, a video, a list) rather than assuming the writing's the problem.