{"id":142933,"date":"2021-02-02T16:22:39","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T16:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/?p=142933"},"modified":"2021-02-02T16:22:39","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T16:22:39","slug":"taking-your-seo-content-beyond-the-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2021\/02\/02\/taking-your-seo-content-beyond-the-acquisition\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking your SEO content beyond the acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"well\">\n<h3>30-second summary:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The typical advice around merely improving on the content already ranking at the top of the SERP is fundamentally flawed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SEOs often limit their content possibilities by thinking of SEO content from purely acquisitional point of view.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thinking of content from a branding perspective leads to differentiation and aligns with Google\u2019s focus on topical expertise and authority.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emerging AI writing technology may not be symmetrical with Google\u2019s evolving algorithm.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have a bone to pick with the way our industry thinks about content. In general, I think we often don\u2019t appreciate what good content really is. Nor do I think we consider what should go into creating great content. Here, in specific, I want to challenge the notion that all content is \u201cacquisition\u201d content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don&#8217;t just mean landing pages, but blog posts as well. That\u2019s right, not all content should be created with the objective of getting more conversions or even more traffic to your site.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does that sound outlandish? Perhaps. But by the time you finish reading this, you might agree with me. (Although let\u2019s be honest, you probably won\u2019t).<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>SEO from a branding perspective<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I often think of SEO from a branding perspective. I know, you\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cWell, that\u2019s a crazy statement right there!\u201d. Outlandish as it might sound, thinking of <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2021\/01\/25\/business-value-of-seo-in-2021-from-revenue-generation-to-retention\/\">SEO<\/a> in terms of branding will greatly impact how you see \u201cSEO content\u201d. Why? Because in terms of mindset, content creation and branding are very similar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s substitute \u201cyour brand\u201d with \u201cyour site\u201d because your site is your brand to both users and search engines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Think of your site as your brand. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just like you think about your brand&#8217;s identity and perception&#8211;that&#8217;s how you should think about your site because that&#8217;s how it&#8217;s seen by Google.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We, as SEOs, might refer to this as your site\u2019s \u201ctrust\u201d and \u201cauthority.\u201d When you break those concepts down fundamentally, what you\u2019re really talking about is how your site is being perceived based on what it\u2019s meant to be doing (that is, its identity).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, what would the fundamental problem be with a site that offered cancer treatment advice while peddling payday loans? It would be the perception that the health advice is, at best, \u201ctainted\u201d. Even if the site wasn\u2019t \u201cseedy\u201d and offered cancer treatment advice as well as investment advice, there would be a severe lack of identity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In many fundamental ways, things like E-A-T and brand identity (and subsequently, perception) are the same thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So let\u2019s ask, if you wanted your brand to be perceived as trustworthy and authoritative how would you go about writing your content? What would your content look and sound like?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That kind of content would have to be substantial, nuanced and detailed. Most importantly, it would have to be unique. Having brand identity that is borrowed from another brand is entirely antithetical to having your own brand identity. This would apply to everything from an in-depth blog post to a product image or description. Brand identity and differentiation go hand in hand. Differentiation and nuance go hand in hand. Do you see where I\u2019m going here?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does your \u201cSEO content\u201d sound like this? Are we hyper-focused on differentiation?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quite the opposite. A lot of the basic advice you hear about writing \u201cgood SEO content\u201d is about replicating what the top-ranking sites are doing already.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The typical \u201ccontent for SEO\u201d is irksome<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The typical advice about creating \u201cSEO content\u201d flies in the face of content that has a unique identity and brand value. Namely, it often calls on folks to see what\u2019s ranking on the top of the SERP and make sure the topics that the top-ranking sites cover make their way to your content as well. Differentiation is damned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Worse, this advice is often directed to new SEOs and it\u2019s presented without a hint that there\u2019s more to the story here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Obviously, surveying the top-ranking pages and taking some ideas away is a fine thing to do. However, it does not create unique value. Skyscraper content, as it\u2019s often called, doesn\u2019t help you differentiate your content in any substantial way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For those of you who adhere to the notion of simply improving upon what currently ranks let me ask you, would you take the same approach with your brand?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Would you be happy with a brand identity that was simply a take on another brand\u2019s identity? That kind of feels a bit cheap and it isn\u2019t a truly effective branding strategy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why is your content any different?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is regurgitating what\u2019s already out there going to help your content stand out or be memorable? (The answer is no in case you were really wondering)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By the way, there is a fundamental flaw in this approach. Namely, it rests on the assumption that what is there already is the best that it can possibly be. But, isn\u2019t it entirely possible that Google would prefer content that took the topic from a totally different angle? Isn\u2019t it possible that the content already ranking isn\u2019t the best, but is simply the best Google has at the moment? What if you were to take a new approach or introduce new relevant subtopics that other pages don\u2019t? Isn\u2019t there a chance that you would rank and not those other pages?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, if you only look at content that\u2019s already ranking, you won\u2019t think about the content that people really want and need, that doesn\u2019t exist yet. That\u2019s potentially a huge opportunity that you\u2019d be missing out on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, why is this tolerated? Why do we spread the idea that all it takes is a wee bit of <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2020\/04\/10\/keyword-research-guide-using-google-keyword-planners-historical-insights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">keyword research<\/a> and some surveying of the ranking sites?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I believe it comes down to mindset. We generally think of content as acquisitional and that\u2019s a bit problematic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The problem with thinking about content as purely acquisitional<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you think of content as being purely acquisitional, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">you become blinded by the drug that is acquisition<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. When your sole goal is acquisition you\u2019re not thinking about things like:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s genuinely good for the user?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do I differentiate my content?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does my content say about my brand?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of content being acquisitional is not intrinsically problematic. Content should bring in new users, it should generate traffic, it should result in sales\u2026but it should also do more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Content should help give identity to your site. It should create relationships with users. It should lend an air of authority and expertise to your site. (We\u2019re right back at the whole <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2019\/10\/09\/interview-with-marie-haynes-e-a-t\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">E-A-T<\/a> thing again because branding and E-A-T are two peas in a pod)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, we don\u2019t live in a world of identity, relationships, and authority. Our world consists of clicks, traffic, conversions, sales, and so forth. In turn, we distort content, which in this author\u2019s opinion is not fundamentally about acquisition, into only being about acquisition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s not hard to see how a mentality that revolves around seeing what already works and replicating it came to dominate our industry. Things like identity and consumer trust, well those are \u201cmarketing\u201d concepts. What do they have to do with SEO? SEO is about traffic. Let\u2019s create content that brings in that traffic, no?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Except, I would argue, SEO is not that at all. Search engines are looking at who your site is and what it claims to be (and if the content you have aligns with that). They are judging your expertise and authority. They want to match the user with helpful content that aligns to query intent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Search engines don\u2019t care about your traffic and conversions. They care about users, much the way that a more \u2018brand-centric\u2019 outlook on SEO would care about how a user perceives a website.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>What should content be created for if not the acquisition of more sales or traffic?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So if you\u2019re not writing content for acquisition then who and what are you writing content for? I don\u2019t know, how about your audience or potential audience? (I\u2019m referring to creating content for the user, so cliche, I know.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are various <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickz.com\/five-key-user-acquisition-strategies\/264070\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">starting points<\/a> when thinking about content that serves users. One of which is thinking about yourself and your site and how the content you create represents you. Because once you do, you sure are not going to want to put out anything that presents you the wrong way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don\u2019t want to get into the whole \u201cis keyword research dead\u201d debate (it\u2019s dead, it\u2019s not really a debate). Do what you want with your keywords. I don\u2019t care about your keywords, I care about your content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your content is you. The content you have on your site is who you are to the users who visit your site. Your content is branding. There isn\u2019t a way around that. So while you\u2019ve been focused on scraping every topic and subtopic you can from your competitors, your users (can we call them readers?) are asking why your content looks and feels like every other piece of content they\u2019ve come across. Congratulations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(By the way, I personally believe search engines are most likely saying the same thing. That is, what is the real value in ranking this page over what\u2019s already there, if fundamentally, they are the same?)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Traffic and growth and conversions or however you want to frame this is not a linear equation. Driving more traffic or getting more conversions is a complex and messy endeavor. You can\u2019t just think about what is immediately in front of you. How users feel about your site and perceive your brand over time is an important part of the equation. The content your readers consume, whether it be a product description or a blog post, define you and your brand. That can determine if they return to your site, recommend your site, link to your site, mention your site, and so forth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is this not part of SEO? Because if it is, that only happens when you do things like thinking about content from a \u201cperception\u201d or \u201cbranding\u201d (or whatever you want to call it) point of view.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, thinking of your content and your site overall from a brand authority perspective naturally hones your topical focus. It forces you to create substantial content that reflects well on who you are. And as I mentioned earlier, that topical focus gives your site identity to both users (in the form of brand identity) and to search engines (in the form of, \u201chey, this site comprehensively tackles this topic over multiple posts, let\u2019s rank them for this topic across the board\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But this only happens if you step back from the acquisition mindset and think of your content from a wider and less strictly \u201ctraditional SEO\u201d perspective. This only happens when you write content that\u2019s differentiated, that focuses on quality, and that isn\u2019t about making sure you cover certain topics for the sake of covering a certain topic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I am trying to say is that content is naturally closer to branding than it is to SEO (at least SEO as many of us know it). If you don\u2019t look at your content from a branding\/perception point of view you are fundamentally missing out on what content is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That, in turn, means creating strong and quality content will be an uphill battle for you. And that means that ranking long term is also going to be an uphill battle for you, as Google continues to refine how it understands language and how it profiles sites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Succinctly, instead of asking \u201chow will this content get me more traffic?\u201d, ask yourself, \u2018\u201cHow will this content make me look to my users?\u201d. That will put you on the path to writing unique, helpful content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>GPT-3, it\u2019s a trap!<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I could end the piece here, but I have one more \u201cconcern\u201d that needs to be addressed. AI writers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do I think AI writers, namely GPT-3 will be good at writing a product description? Yes, I do. I think AI writers will ultimately do a wonderful job with something like a product description.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do I think AI writers, namely GPT-3, will be good at writing something titled, \u201cA Speculative Critique of Relativity from a Quantum Physics Perspective\u201d? Absolutely not. Do you?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As this field rapidly develops I want to issue a warning: don\u2019t fall into the trap. Don\u2019t think that you can get away with using something like GPT-3 to write a deeply nuanced and differentiated article or blog post.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, I do think people will try to do just that. Why? Because of the same acquisition mindset, I complained about earlier. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to more substantial content, an AI writer just can&#8217;t deliver the nuance and quality that you need to make a difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I see it the danger is that it\u2019s easy to get caught up in emerging technology and go all-in on it. Just remember, Google is also an emerging technology, and a lot of what it\u2019s doing in the algorithm stands in contradiction to the full-on adoption of AI written content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the emergence of AI writers might make it easier to create content, you could be creating the very content that Google does not want. And while something like GPT-3 would, all things being equal, work well on a landing page, the content it produces for a topic your blog handles may need more nuance and depth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, all of this hinges on thinking there is a world of content beyond acquisition fluff. (If you love fluff, go ahead GPT-3 yourself to death.)<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Feel the perception pressure<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do users perceive your site? How do they feel about you after reading the content on your site or interacting with your site? Thinking about your site\u2019s perception can be a pathway to creating content that is substantial and ultimately effective (and I mean from an SEO point of view).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is when we get so caught up in linear metrics that we don\u2019t even feel that pressure. When SEO content creation becomes a hustle to outrank whatever is currently at the top of the SERP it sacrifices perspective. That perspective can be the difference between being another piece of the same ol\u2019 content versus being something both users and search engines value.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">End the hustle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Mordy Oberstein is Liaison to the SEO Community at Wix.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Creating effective \u201cSEO content\u201d is all about mindset. Is the generic mindset SEOs often indulge in preventing us from creating effective content?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":142934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[75,27850,369,27916,37,28065,22,13581,28064],"content_type":[],"class_list":["post-142933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-seo","tag-content-2","tag-e-a-t","tag-evergreen-content","tag-generative-pre-trained-transformer-3-gpt-3","tag-google","tag-influencer-commentary","tag-seo","tag-seo-content","tag-seo-content-tips"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Taking-your-SEO-content-beyond-the-acquisition.png","category":"Content","timeago":"5y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142933"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=142933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}