TL/DR:
If you want to be found in search and engage your audience, the key to creating your content is to BE HUMAN!
I find the role of digital marketer to be… predictably unpredictable. Our purpose seems simple – get the attention of your ideal buyer🎯. But our digital world is designed to fight for your attention. And the gatekeepers of our biggest attention marketplace (search engines) change the rules constantly with algorithm updates. What worked yesterday may not work today. At HubSpot’s Inbound, I got some great (and usable) insights into how to stay in the fight. But first…
A 😡 Rant on Today’s Content Expectations
Let’s call this the “Double Bind of Digital.” Here’s the gist:
- Write lots of content but not too much.
- Use keywords to optimize for search engines, but not too many or too few.
- Create copy that sells, but don’t be too salesy.
- Be sure it is neither too long nor too short.
- Use big bold images, but make sure their file sizes are small.
- Publish consistently, but don’t overwhelm your audience.
- Be clear and concise, but approachable and human.
- Write evergreen content but keep it timely.
- Be factual but infuse it with personality.
Simple, right?
This constant flux is why I jumped on the opportunity to take a little trip to Boston to attend HubSpot’s Inbound (big ups to our owner Jan for sending me!). It’s a 3-day slate of educational opportunities led by experts in the many dimensions of digital marketing. These folks are fighting to be on the cutting edge of our industry, and I’m delighted to tap into their learning.
One session that made the trip worth it was How HubSpot's Blog Navigates AI and EEAT (Tips You Can Use), presented by the HubSpot’s English Language Blog Senior Manager, Meg Prater, and Manager of Strategy, Amanda Sellers. If anyone is qualified to share their perspective on navigating AI in the world of content, it's these two.
Why trust them? Here’s the SEMRush Snapshot of the blog subdomain:
They’re a for-profit SaaS provider with NO PAID SEARCH and 11 million readers popping by regularly. When it comes to SEO, they know their stuff.
What’s Changed in Search? 🤔
What’s happened to search in the last two years that made this session necessary (and well attended)?
1. ChatGPT 🤖, obvi. It’s got a lot of amazing (and scary) uses, but for content marketers, it felt like an immediate and unavoidable threat to job security. Where we once competed against other humans to create content, now we’re competing with machines that can generate content in seconds—and some of it is surprisingly good (and getting better with the 01 model).2. NINE Core Updates in Google’s Algorithm. These made significant impacts on search engine results. They’re designed “to ensure that overall, we're delivering on our mission to present helpful and reliable results for searchers.” Which is really awesome as a searcher, and really frustrating for a digital marketer. The most notable being the Helpful Content Update and expansion of EEAT (more to come on that).
These changes have wreaked havoc on some content I’ve been a part of that has been kicking butt for literal years (quick brag – one piece beat the IRS on search for a keyword on taxes!). Maybe your site has taken a hit, and you couldn’t tell why. Check the timing against March of 2023. Meg & Amanda did a great job recapping their own trials and then summarizing their old approach and the pivots they’re making.
(I encourage you to dive into this blog to get their full breakdown.)
THE FOUR NUGGETS
1. In the face of AI, be HUMAN 👧.
EEAT is Google’s Search Quality Raters Guideline that “tells” us what the crawlers are going to be hunting for on behalf of their human overlords.- Expertise – quality content that meets a searcher’s need
- Experience – That comes from a place of lived experience
- Authority – From a source of high reputation
- Trustworthiness – In a way that’s not spammy or harmful
That second “E” – Experience - was the new one added in 2022. The Core Updates in the spring of 2023 are the ones that unleashed the powers of this into live search.
To ensure that the internet isn’t flooded with fake and unhelpful content, LIVED EXPERIENCE, gives us an edge over generative AI (for now).
THE TIP: It’s time to spill the proverbial tea – share the real stuff, the gritty stuff, the joyous stuff, your OPINIONS, the stuff we actually feel. And if it feels like you need to vary a little from the old AP Stylebook, loosen that tie! (Clearly, I’m trying this out here – and beside from being fun for a stringent guidelines follower – it helps you hear how I mean to say it.)
2. It’s Value NOT Volume.
We’ve spent years churning out weekly blogs that land somewhere in the 450-700 word count. They don’t all have to be gems, as long as your regular. Just keep to that schedule and you will be rewarded with exposure! But that’s led to a world flooded with lackluster content that AI is just exponentially repeating. And, like I said, we’re competing for attention in a firehouse of content. Crappy content makes it way harder for the good stuff to be found.
Neil Patel, Inbound speaker and SEO Guru, shared this shocking stat (and accurate AI image):
THE TIP: Focus on less on volume, length, and cadence of publishing. Focus more on creating value with your content and support it by infusing the Authors POV throughout. Go DEEP on your topics (but also maybe reserve 10X for special occasions – attention spans are *looks out window*…). Be human!
3. If You Want Straight Fire, Your Content Needs a Glow Up. No Cap.
For the last several years, “EVERGREEN” was the goal. Content that stood the test of time (or at least wasn’t rendered useless in the next year) was the ideal. But, those little boxes in our hands have given our brains a playground of stimulus delivery options and we are loving it (or at least our neurotransmitters are telling us it makes us happy). We get bored quickly because there might be something better on the next four inches of feed.
THE TIP: Follow the guidance of 90’s alt/punk/ska band Reel Big Fish:
Everybody does it
(Everybody does it)
And I wonder why don't you?
(Why don't you? Oooo!)
Everybody, everybody does it
(C'mon, everybody)
Maybe you should too
(C'mon)
'Cause you don't want to be left out
You wanna be cool
It's not so bad bein' trendy
Everyone who looks like me is my friend
Please don't hate me because I'm trendy
They're not gonna laugh at me again
Be trendy! What’s happening right now? What are people into? There are constant streams of data, and a million apps to analyze that data. If you’re not “into social,” that’s no excuse. You can’t ignore the thing that 5.17 billion people (86% of the over 18 world population) are engaging with.
This one is exhausting, btw, but also a little exciting. It’s what the humans are into, and you’re selling to humans, so do it!
4. The technical stuff still matters.
These previous three nuggets are all like, “Buck the system! Be real, be authentic, write enough that it touches the floor (a nod to my freshman English teacher, Bob Smith, wise as hell). Be human!” And all of that is true. BUT! The way we’re delivering that info is still running through a wire in 1s and 0s, so you must respect the rules of the road.
Just because the content style and delivery changes, the technical fundamentals remain in place – site speed, mobile optimization, structure, URLs, etc. Keep it up! And UX too. Humans will find you, but you still need the digital gremlins to be fed and happy.
Honestly, the game could all change in the next 9 months even, but for now we’re going to keep doing the best we can, and I think learning from the top in the industry isn’t a bad approach to keeping up. Think of the act of marketing like we do with yoga. We don’t do marketing. We practice marketing. Mastery is never possible.
These four pieces of guidance could literally take up my entire next year – planning my new content, auditing my old. Small but mighty, the key is BE HUMAN. Humans love/hate/want/need humans. They respond to them. They want to engage with them. No matter how much AI wants to be human, it simply can’t yet. We still (mostly) know when we’re being tricked by technology. Rely on that!
Key Takeaways
- Be Human: Authentic, personal content still resonates more than AI-generated material.
- Balancing Content Expectations: Marketers must juggle conflicting requirements—engaging, concise, optimized for search, and both timely and evergreen.
- AI & Algorithm Shifts: Changes like ChatGPT and Google's updates (EEAT) make human expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness essential.
- Prioritize Value: Focus on creating fewer, high-quality, in-depth pieces rather than high-volume, generic content.
- Stay Current: Follow trends and interests to engage audiences effectively.
- Technical SEO Counts: Site speed, mobile optimization, and user experience remain critical for search success.
- Marketing is Ongoing: Like yoga, marketing requires continuous practice and adaptation.
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