You know what it feels like to spend hours on a piece of content, publishing it – and then getting crickets.
Damn. Anyone who creates content have surely experienced that. It's not a nice feeling.
And guess which industry experiences this the most? That's right – the SEO industry. Thousands of SEO content marketers write content, that nobody reads. Then they start looking for shortcuts, found generative AI and used it to create content at scale.
Well that all ends this month, my friend.
Google is putting a stop and purging AI-generated SEO content. This week's Marketing Monday is about Search Engine Optimization.
Let's goo!
In this Marketing Mondays issue:
- Google ain't chilling. They be killing.
- 3 SEO opportunities.
- SEO tools you need.
Google's killing generated SEO content
Google is making changes to its ranking algorithm. Changes include:
- Reducing low-quality, unoriginal results.
- Killing scaled content.
- Abolishing site reputation abuse.
- Expired domain abuse seen as spam.
Let's dive in.
Low-quality, unoriginal results.
Webpages that are made for search engines instead of people will be hit.
For example, you want to rank for "good road bicycles". So you buy a domain name named goodroadbicycles.com and write SEO content, titled, "10 Good Road Bicycles You Must Know".
Yep, you're going to get hit hard by Google.
Killing scaled content.
When generative AI became a thing, some marketers began generating and publishing web SEO content on scale.
At first, it worked. Their site started ranking. But very quickly (and now confirmed by Google), scaled content is going away. Google sees them as spam.
Why? Mainly because AI-generated content can contain lots of factual errors. And more importantly, it isn't unique and original.
Site reputation abuse
This is when a third-party posts low-quality content on a high-reputation website.
Sort of like, you publish an online casino review on a reputable economics website like The Economist to gain ranking benefits.
Such content will mislead visitors.
Maybe you'll wonder. Why does this happen? Well, that's because some websites accept money from third-party websites for guest posts.
As an owner of a music production blog, I get a lot of these "paid" requests too. Here's one of them:
Expired domain abuse.
This is an old tactic where you'd buy an expired domain that was known to have lots of backlinks and repurpose it to boost search ranking. This used to be a golden strategy in SEO – but is now considered spam.
Interesting stories & ideas 💡
- Keep going, keep going, keep going. – Casey Neistat
- How to grow a brand with interviews.
- 2024 social media algorithm guide by Hootsuite
- And the difference between a logo & brand, as explained by Seth Godin below:
The opportunities in SEO 💡
Is SEO still worth investing in? Yes, but you need a different strategies. Here are 3 of them:
1- Focus on experiences
Everyone can create a piece of content, titled "Juicy roast chicken recipe". But only you can create one that's based on your point-of-view and experience. That makes your content – unique.
Stories will be the way to win in SEO these days. Also why we focus on stories at Daily CMO.
2- Build a brand
SEO can be a hit or miss.
A better investment is to build a brand that people know, like and trust. People search for "Nike" not "best running shoes" when they want to buy a pair of Nike.
Is your brand known enough that people intentionally search for it?
3- Create content for what people want to find.
Many businesses (especially the B2B guys) tend to create content for the sake of SEO.
If you're in the business of CRM softwares – you probably don't want to create a content titled "Top 5 Best CRM softwares". "Best CRM Software" is probably a highly competitive keyword as well.
Instead, think about who searches for CRM softwares.
- What problems do they face?
- What would they be searching to overcome these pain?
- How do you solve their pain?
For example: A salesperson who's having customer retention problems might search for "How to retain customers". And that's the content you should be creating.
We're 10 days away! 🐾
SEO Tools for Success 🔨
I was chatting with April Cheong, SEO Strategist of Growth.Pro – a 20+ man SEO agency that charges a minimum retainer of RM8,000/month.
I asked, "What SEO tools do your agency use?". And he gave me his list:
- Ahrefs – A tool for link building, keyword research, rank tracking and site audit.
- Semrush – Alternative tool to Ahrefs.
- Google Gemini – For content ideas. Not to generate content at scale.
- Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, etc.) - Most of the work is on sheets.
- Slack – To manage the team.
- WhatsApp – To manage clients. But with a strict no-messages after work hours policy.
My first reaction was, wow, that's not many tools! But hey, if that's what a 20+ people big SEO agency uses, why do you need anything else fancy?
Video of the week 📹
This is the story of how Mike, grew PTT Outdoor, a camping and hiking equipment E-Commerce store from his kitchen table to a 7-figure business.
A lot of marketing and building good products that people want is listening to your customers. - Mike Chu
Our pick of the week 👌
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