What screen time data says about your website

Hi,

February was an interesting month. Here are three things I've been sitting with:

Let me explain.

The disorientation we stopped noticing 😵‍💫

Open your screen time settings and have a look at what apps and websites you've spent the most time on this past week. Even if, like me, you consider yourself something of an internet adventurer, chances are most of your time has been spent in very familiar territory. That's completely normal. Our brains thrive on routine and pattern recognition; it consumes considerably less energy, and that's a self-preservation mechanism, not a character flaw.

Here's what my breakdown looks like: Instagram, Messages, AI tools, LinkedIn, email, RSS feeds, and inevitably, a very persistent owl teaching me chess. 🦉

If I zoom out, that's essentially two interface structures: message boards and feeds. That's it. Most of us move between those two formats all day.

So what happens when we search for something and land on a website? The first thing our brain does is try to orient itself, locate the information, make sense of the layout. Danny Sullivan framed it well recently, and I'm paraphrasing here: visiting a website for the first time is a bit like stepping out of a train station in an unfamiliar city. A few days later, you can navigate the neighbourhood. But that first moment? Disorienting.

This matters for how we think about content and information architecture. People arrive on our websites from highly structured, formatted environments. A good experience isn't just about design. It's about making sure clarity comes first. Not every website needs to look the same. But the information someone came to find? It needs to be easy to see.

You might be thinking: sure, users first, they're human, let's be kind to those brains. But what about bots? Turns out, as Kevin Indig puts it, AI reads like a busy editor, not a patient student. It skims, it picks up confident and direct language, and it moves on. Content buried halfway down the page, hedged, or over-qualified gets passed over entirely. The pages that get cited are the ones that answer clearly, early, and without apologising for it.

Clarity isn't just good UX. It's the signal both humans and machines are looking for.

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From my desk

February has been about opening up conversations and tinkering.

On the work side: I had a lovely contact this month, sent a solid proposal for what would have been a fits-like-a-glove project: lovely folks, fascinating topic, multilingual website, lots of content to sort through. Unfortunately it won't happen. But I'm having several conversations with partners about developing joined offers this year, and that feels genuinely exciting.

On the making side: if you've been here a while, you'll know I'm a knitter. 🧶 The vest that came off my needles this month is, frankly, gorgeous! (photos and pattern info on demand 😉)

It's perfect timing for the transition into spring, which I can happily report is happening. The big fireball in the sky has been spotted in Strasbourg, finally! 🌞

I've also been doing my share of digital tinkering, testing Claude Code and Cowork, building dashboards and mini apps from all sorts of data. Workouts, newsletters and Brandon Sanderson's bibliography (I know I should read his books, but the sheer quantity is paralysing, so a bookish tracker felt like a reasonable first step). More on that in a future issue, probably.

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Work with me

I have an open slot for a Strategy Sprint in March, a focused week to bring clarity to an SEO situation that feels scattered or stalled. Particularly well-suited if you're navigating multilingual or international complexity. You'll walk away with a prioritised action plan and a clear sense of what's worth doing next. If that sounds useful, I'd love to hear from you. You can book a free assessment call directly.

Enjoy the first rays of sunshine! 😎

Cheers,

Alizée BAUDEZ

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This was originally sent as an issue of Beyond Organic, my newsletter on international SEO and AI search, on 27 February 2026. If you'd rather get the next one in your inbox than find it here later, subscribe here.