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Let's talk about SEO.
More than a month after a source handed over thousands of pages of internal Google documents to SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin, the significance of this leak is still being debated.
Rand and others continue to analyze the results based on search engine optimization documents that provide insight into how Google ranks content for search.
It's an admirable achievement, but I still stand by my initial assessment that SEOs and marketers know Coca-Cola's secret recipe, but they lack the quantities of each ingredient.
And it can be a big bucket of nothing. Search algorithms will continue to change, and the recipe may be out of date if you optimize your content based on these “secrets.”
Here's an SEO lesson to take away: Your content programs are racing for the No. 1 position. But in this race, your program is not the car (Google and other search options are). It's not the driver (the searcher). It's the track.
And you compete to be the first choice for every car and every driver who wants to get from one place to another in the most reliable and comfortable way.
And that’s why you shouldn’t make SEO the focus of your content strategy.
Watch out for SEO strategy potholes
Many companies launch content marketing programs because they believe it will help them rank higher in organic search results. When their target audiences are searching for potential solutions (or so the thinking goes), they will come across the brand's content and decide that it offers the most value.
However, if you rely on being found in search, you must focus on content that attracts attention rather than building trustworthiness. And that creates an inherent pressure to create content that aims to rank rather than content that aims to lead, entertain or inform.
At the same time, optimizing content for organic search traffic has become more complex over the past decade. The quality of competition, the sheer volume of content, the growth of paid search advertising, and the introduction of AI dashboards have made first-page space more expensive to acquire and more difficult to maintain.
Now retired SEO expert Arnie Kuenn used to joke, “The best place to hide a body is the second page of Google results. Nobody goes there.” And that’s still true.
Studies from the era of continuous scrolling have shown that 88% of clicks go to the first three positions – and only 4% of clicks go to result six.
Yet I still see organizations use the classic SEO-first approach when building the case for a content marketing program. For example, two of my clients recently expressed frustration with where they were in launching their new content marketing program.
Each of them had asked their digital agency to figure out how best to implement their content marketing program. In each case, the consultants sent back a 30-slide presentation laying out the business case for content marketing, talking about search terms, keywords and snackable content to answer every question they could think of.
Yes, the year 2010 called and wants its strategy back.
To be clear: I am aware that there are digital agencies whose work goes far beyond my pay grade.
But these slides illustrate the problems with this all-too-common argument for starting a content marketing program. First, SEO has arguably never been a good foundation for a content marketing platform. Second, changes in content discovery fundamentally change the content marketing equation.
Lesson 1: Google doesn’t care
Spoiler alert: Google is not (and never has been) interested in helping you build an audience for your brand. In fact, Google has always been interested in you helping it build an audience. That's why Google designed search to make results as mass-compatible as possible, making ads that include what the searcher is looking for more attractive.
Keep this lesson in mind as AI answers appear in more search results.
If you think Google wants to show the most trustworthy answer to a search query, you're wrong. The search giant wants to show the answer that makes money.
What exactly that looks like is still pretty vague at the moment. But there's one thing you should know: Google will happily use your content to train its AI – and then monetize the results in a way that doesn't serve your interests.
AI summaries and standard search results have this similarity. Neither is designed to return the highest quality answer. They are designed to aggregate (or prioritize) the highest average of answers. And both are designed to generate more and more searches.
As I said before, if you focus on thought leadership and trust as a differentiator, you won't spend time creating content on frequently asked questions (FAQs). Instead, you'll focus on delivering what I call the rarely given answers (RGAs).
For example, if we had used search volume as the basis for deciding whether to launch a platform on “content marketing” in 2009, we probably would have decided against it. (Spoiler: We didn’t consider search volume.)
Look what we would have missed. As the chart shows, in 2009, interest in the term “content marketing” was at 9. By 2017, it had risen to 71.
You should know more about your audience than Google does. When designing a new content marketing platform, you should be aware that Google search was (and still is) helpful in understanding the zeitgeist of popular topics and terms. But it's not so helpful in understanding what your audience will be interested in tomorrow.
Lesson 2: Google is still not there for you
Content discovery is changing the way audiences interact with digital content, and Google doesn't want that to happen on any channel other than Google.
If you feel like search results are getting worse over time, you're not alone. Recent research has shown that Google search results have become less useful. And AI overviews didn't fare well in their debut, offering unreliable advice on eating rocks and putting glue on pizza.
These poorer results don't mean that Google is getting “dumber.” The company needs to balance the quality of the data/content it puts at the top of the SERPs with content that can be monetized most effectively to provide the best experience.
If Google only had to optimize for one of these things, the results would be much better.
The sheer volume of digital content means that comprehensive information searches are less efficient and useful, which is why search platforms, social media and other major content providers are focusing on content discovery.
Think of content discovery as “content recommendations without asking.” The discovered or recommended content is provided without an explicit request.
Think of the TikTok phenomenon – the algorithm quickly learns what you spend your time doing. This way, it can deliver you value (and videos) based on your behavior, rather than what you explicitly ask for.
Thought leadership resource centers, websites, and e-commerce platforms are increasingly making content suggestions based on customer intent, demographics, and other first-party data.
Content discovery in search means that answers are displayed on the results page. As you've probably noticed, searchers don't have to click through to your content. They get the answers right on the SERP.
This content may be wrong today. Tomorrow it will be better. And next week it may be better than yours.
Remember: Google isn't trying to help you build an audience for your brand. They're using your content to help their brand.
Content marketing starts with a focus on being the best racetrack
Bottom line: If you're looking to start or change a content marketing program, don't build your case around acquiring an audience through search. Those days are over (if they ever existed).
Yes, you still need to learn about SEO and understand how the evolution of search toward content discovery impacts your content distribution. And I'm not suggesting you stop using SEO best practices, especially as they evolve for content discovery.
But remember: your content program is not the race car or the driver. It's the track.
Don't get caught up in a battle for the best, longest, or even most keyword-rich answer to a common question. Instead, strive for connected content experiences that answer the questions and get to the reason behind the question.
For example, a search query for a business software program can evolve from “What is the best CRM system?” to “Show me a demonstration of what a good CRM system can do.” A search query for a restaurant can evolve from “What are the best Mexican restaurants near me?” to “Tell me when the best Mexican restaurants have seating for two on a Monday night.”
The goal of future content-based experiences will not be to answer simple questions, but rather to provide answers and solutions before the questions are asked.
And don't just take my word for it. Google co-founder Sergey Brin put it this way over a decade ago: “My vision was that you would get the information you need when you need it. You wouldn't have to search at all.”
Simply put, the future of search will eliminate the need to search.
In other words, you won't design a better race track by looking at the engineering of the cars. Instead, look at the drivers (your audience and customers). Then build the roads that will take them to the finish line.
Updated from an article from November 2022.
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Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
