Why plain language works better than keywords

Many entrepreneurs think a website gets found better if there are as many keywords as possible in the text. So people write "plumber Amsterdam, plumber emergency, plumber cheap" a few times in a row, hoping Google will appreciate that. That doesn't work anymore, and in fact it never worked as well as people thought. Google and AI assistants like ChatGPT nowadays read a text largely the way a human does. They try to understand what a page is about, what you offer, and whether that matches what someone is looking for. A text stuffed with repeated keywords reads unpleasantly for a human, and a search engine picks up on that too. What actually works Just write down what you do, for whom, and why someone should come to you. If you're a plumber in Amsterdam, write a text that explains what work you do, how you work, and what a customer can expect. Mention the places where you work in a natural way, for example in a sentence like "We serve Amsterdam and surrounding municipalities" instead of stringing those words together separately. The same goes for AI assistants. If someone asks ChatGPT which plumber is suitable for a leak in Amsterdam-East, that assistant retrieves information from websites that clearly and specifically describe what a company does. A page that only lists keywords doesn't provide a useful answer, and is therefore less likely to be used as a source. A practical example Suppose you have a page about your "boiler maintenance" service. Instead of a list of variations on that keyword, you can better explain what the maintenance involves, how long it takes, what it roughly costs, and when someone should have this done. That's useful information for a visitor, and it's also precisely the kind of text a search engine or AI assistant can work with. It boils down to this: you write for the person visiting your website, not for a system you're trying to outsmart. That person wants to know if you're the right party for their problem. If your text makes that clear, that text also does what it should do for Google and AI assistants. This doesn't mean word choice doesn't matter. It's fine to mention the services and places that are relevant to you, that helps get found on the right searches. The difference is in how you do it: worked naturally into a sentence, rather than presented as a loose list. If you're unsure whether your website still has texts written mainly for search engines rather than for people, that's a good starting point to look at. Read your own pages aloud. If a sentence sounds odd or feels forced, chances are it's also less well understood by the systems you're actually trying to reach.