“They say SEO “is dead”. So, should you ditch your SEO strategy altogether?
Google search has around 8.5 BILLION searches per day. 99,000 an hour.
So much for it being dead. Yeah right.
The people that say this. They are trying to sell you something.
Then there’s AI. And the changes that Google make to their algorithm. Which kicks people in the teeth every 3-6 months or so.
What happens if it’s only you? You’re trying to get yourself or a product out to the world using writing and a blog.
How do you compete?
Before I go into detail. I struggled with this for years (more on this in a second).
And I’ll show you my thought process that increased impressions on my blog posts by 100%. And improved click numbers by 194%. In only 90 days.
SEO Strategy That Isn’t a Strategy
I’ve been trying to master SEO for years.
My thought process is always about trying to get the best return on my investment.
Why spend hours and hours creating content on social media? Only for it to disappear in a day or two. Or in most cases, a few hours.
I’d rather put that effort into content that is “evergreen”. That will appear in the search again and again. And that I can share on social media again and again.
After lots of reading and research.
I kept coming back to the same method.
But it’s not a method.
‘Steal’ But Make It Better
A lot of the SEO “gurus” talk about things like the “Skyscraper technique”. And competitor research.
But that’s a hiding into nothing.
Because everyone is doing it.
And these big companies that already rank at the top of Google search. Have far more resources than you. Making sure that they stay at the top.
So let’s say you are building a software product for people who work in the marketing industry. This is me at the time of writing this post. (More on this later).
And you want to use SEO to get people to your site.
What the advice has been for years is: Find your competitors. Use a tool that lists their top-performing posts. Then take the top 10. Start writing your own version of each of those posts.
Here’s the kicker.
But you need to make it longer, more in-depth, and more detailed. Better images. Break it down into actionable steps.
That’s a lot of work.
If you’re starting out. How the hell are you able to do this? On top of everything else.
Well, you can’t.
Plus, I can’t stand these types of blogs
I Hate Recipe Blogs
A prime example of this is all these recipe websites.
A while back, my wife and I bought an Instant Pot.
One of these kitchen gadgets is an 11 in 1 cooking machine. Slow cooks, roasts, air frys. Also a pressure cooker.
We loved it.
What we didn’t love was trying to find a recipe for it.
Because of this method of writing longer, “better” posts. And a lot of it is Google’s fault. That’s what they told everyone they want.
Well, it makes these blogs, well, shit.
I remember searching for an “Asian-style beef instant pot recipe”.
The search returned loads of recipes. Great!
What wasn’t great was the reading experience.
No matter which result I clicked. The blog was huge. Detailing what beef is. Where Asian is. The history of the instant pot. What colour the author’s bedroom curtains are.
Give me the ingredients and how to cook the fucking thing.
Makes my piss boil.
And I blame Google.
AI Changes The Game For The Worse
As I’d said.
These big companies are at the top of Google search. They have far more resources than the rest of us.
“Ah, but AI has levelled the playing field”.
True. It helps smaller businesses and solopreneurs to compete.
But don’t you think these companies will also start using AI?
I’ve seen and used a lot of these AI blog post generators. I’m not convinced they are any good.
Either the posts aren’t long enough. Or the output is very hard to read. Something like a grade 12 and above reading level. And I’ve found to make the posts longer. AI repeats itself but says the same thing differently.
All it’s doing is creating more and more articles that are long, shit and difficult for the end user to read.
Yes, I use AI to help me write blog posts.
Sometimes it helps me come up with ideas. I tend to use AI to help me structure a blog post to help me focus my writing.
What I do is say “I want to write a 900-word post. Here’s the title. Here’s the style. Give me the sections and word count for each section.”
I then write the post myself using the AI output as a guide.
Google Changes The Algorithm
So, you’ve spent all this time writing these long-winded articles.
To try and rank above all these top-performing posts.
You’ve also started using AI to generate or help generate the content.
Then, Google releases an update to its search algorithm and it all goes to shit.
All that effort. The number of views your posts are getting, tanks. Your average position drops like a stone. And no one is clicking through to your articles.
This happened recently.
Luckily, the way I’d been thinking about my SEO strategy and writing protected me from this. I started getting better results. More on my thought process in a second.
Everyone else I spoke to. It’s like Google has reached through the screen and punched them in the face.
Why?
The Goal Posts Get Moved
Why did this happen?
Well, I don’t look too much into the algorithm changes.
From speaking with a few people who do. They stopped looking at content length as a marker. All that advice, all that effort. Gone. Disappeared overnight.
Google say they want to provide the best “user experience” for people searching. (I’ll say why this is important in a minute).
They don’t care how much time, effort, research, cost, what AI tools you’ve used.
They only care about THEIR results. How it impacts THEIR business.
You need to remember this.
No one is going to help. No one is coming to save you.
Search Platforms Hate AI
One thing that Google has been vocal about. They will punish content written by AI.
That’s a good thing.
So should you stop using AI altogether? I’ll come onto that in the next section.
There are several ways to check if the content was written by AI. And it looks like Google uses these when deciding to rank an article or not.
If you don’t get past this first hurdle.
Well, there’s no point running the rest of the race.
So.
How do you overcome this and start winning with an effective SEO strategy?
Here’s what I’ve been doing for the past 4-5 months.
As I stated at the start of the article. The number of clicks through to my posts for a SaaS product of mine. Has risen by 194%, and that’s only the last 90 days.
My Simple SEO Strategy
A quick word about this strategy.
I don’t follow this for my personal blog.
For my personal blog, I tend to write what I want. To document my journey more than anything. As well as share what I’m learning.
If it ranks, amazing.
If not, ah well.
But for my products and services, I take a different route.
Here’s what I do now.
Focus On The Long Tail
I can hear you shouting, “What the fuck is that”.
The amazing Seth Godin talks about the “Short Head vs The Long Tail”, better than I ever could.
I’m not going into a full-blown definition of each. If you want you can read up on the short tail here, and the long tail here.
In each “topic”. There are a small number of keywords that get the most traffic. And is the most competitive. Known as the short head, or fat head
But the longer the keyword combination. For example, asking questions. The less volume there is, also less competition.
The crazy thing is that the number of searches is roughly the same. The short head results from one or two keywords. Is the same volume as 3 or more keywords, spread over a huge number of combinations.
How Does This Help
So, how can you take advantage of this?
Let’s take running for example.
If you search using only the keyword “running”. Nike will dominate the search results.
But what about “barefoot running shoes for men over 40”?
If you search for that, is Nike even in the results?
I doubt it.
A low search number means they won’t go near it. Less competition for you. So you want to go after as many long-tail phrases as you can. And try to be at the top of the ranking for each phrase.
Sounds like a lot of work, but you can dominate the clicks for years.
Answer A Question
This seems to be the best way to move forward on the blogs for my SaaS services.
I can’t take the credit for this.
After watching a tutorial on YouTube. On how to create great YouTube videos that rank no less.
I stole the idea for my blog posts.
The concept is to “answer specific questions”. But, the video I watched went a little further and said. “Answer stupidly simple specific questions”.
Now, you can’t always do this.
But start thinking about how you can answer a question. And start with the phrase “How To”, or “How do I”.
Because you have to think about what people are typing into Google.
Yes, people may be tying in “marketing”.
But for my marketing software product. I’m never going to rank for this phrase.
What has worked for me is to answer a specific question when it comes to marketing data. Which my software helps people with.
So I tested out writing lots of “How To” style blog posts. Like “How To Export Data From Google Ads”
Guess what?
This blog post started ranking on page two of Google search results in less than 30 days.
So much for having to wait months for things to start working.
And it continues to climb the rankings. It’s also getting a 6.46% click-through rate which is huge.
Do The Opposite
Picking the right question to answer isn’t the only reason I’ve been able to rank so high, so fast.
I’ve stopped doing what everyone else is doing.
Here is a quote I love.
“When you find yourself on the side of the majority. You need to question your position.”
What I focus on now for each blog post. Is writing as little as possible (within reason). But cram as much information into that writing as I can. And not to include anything that isn’t related to the title of the post.
Going back to my post about exporting Google Ads data. I focused on giving the information in 5 simple steps. Each step was as short as possible and used images to walk the reader through how to do it.
I also included a paragraph on understanding the export feature. As well as choosing the right data to export.
Also, a paragraph at the end detailing a few best practices
And went over everything I discussed in a conclusion at the end.
The length of the article is something like 900 words. Some I’ve written are around the 600-word mark.
Way less than what people say. “Oh, it has to be between 2657 and 3145” words long.
I call bull shit.
Use AI, But Not To Write For You
I’ve touched on this earlier in the article.
I use a few AI tools. But have stopped using the ones that write the post for you.
I’ve built up a Notion doc of prompts that I use when writing. Either they help me generate ideas. Or to help me structure a blog post, from an idea that I have had or researched.
Let’s say I’ve got this idea “How To Get Started With Barefoot Running Shoes If You’re Over 40”.
Now, I may have an idea of what I want to talk about. But I need help refining the structure.
What I would do is ask an AI tool to come up with the structure for the post. Stating how long the post should be for the word count (currently I aim for 900 words). And it should give me a word count for each section.
Once I’ve got the output. I give it a quick review to make sure I’m happy with it. And that I can add the content that I have in my head.
Then I go about writing it.
Make It Easy To Read
I’m not going into detail here.
What I do with my posts is to aim to write the entire thing at a grade 3 reading level or below.
To help with this I use the Hemmingway Editor.
It’s a great way to write the post in one go. Then use the “Edit” feature to make sure the reading level is as low as possible.
It’s OK if you can’t hit grade 3 or below every time.
What I’ve found is some posts have complicated information in them. So it has to have some reading difficulty in it. That’s OK.
Aim as low as possible for the content you’re writing.
Focus On Quantity Not Quality (That Comes Later)
There’s a course I took years ago. During the lockdown of 2020.
It introduced me to a concept called Lean SEO.
You can do all the competitor and keyword research you want. But it doesn’t mean you’re going to start ranking or getting clicks.
The course suggested creating lots of content.
3-5 very similar pieces. Then, after 30 days, review the results. If you get traffic, great see if it’s enough to then create lots of “sister” content to get even more traffic.
This is what I did after the “How To Export Google Ads Data” started ranking.
I created a lot of similar posts showing people how to export data. From all sorts of different platforms.
5 of these posts are now in my top 10 pages. Getting more traffic and clicks than the other 85 posts I’ve written. (There are 96 published articles on that blog).
Also, the quality of your writing will only get better from sheer quantity.
You can take as many online courses. Or writing lessons as you’d like.
But you’ll only improve by doing the work. I know this only too well. I’ve taken countless courses on writing and copywriting.
My writing and search rankings have only improved. Because I’ve committed to writing and publishing every day.
I’ve written more articles in the last 3 months than previous 3 years.
And the results speak for themselves.
Futureproof Your Blog Writing With This SEO Strategy
So how can this help future-proof you from AI and for changes to Google’s search algorithm?
Well, I’ll be honest. I can’t say with 100% certainty it will.
But the results I’ve been getting over the last 3-4 months. In the middle of an AI revolution. And with one of the biggest changes to Google search algorithm EVER.
Well, the traffic from Google searches on my 3 websites went up.
All when everyone else, and I mean everyone I spoke to. Or saw posting online had seen a huge drop off in impressions and clicks.
They were losing their minds.
Complaining that their world had ended.
So, what’s the answer?
Focus On The Reader
May sound simple.
But Google’s statement of. “Provide the best user experience for people clicking the results” won’t change.
The way they think about doing that will.
And the way people will consume the content will too.
Most people get distracted and end up clicking for hours at an end.
Our attention span has gone.
Unless we see what we are looking for. Or entertained, rewarded by the content.
So, what about my business articles?
The main way to do this is to answer a question. Help them with something they are struggling with.
But, do it in a way that is as short as possible. Pack as much helpful information in there. And present it in a way that is easy to consume way.
And it seems to be working.
Google is starting to show my articles. People are clicking and consuming the content.
What happens is Google checks to see if people linger on your posts and read to the end of the article.
If they do. Regardless of how long the article is. Google likes this. Google will reward you.
It’s a win-win for both parties.
Conclusion: A Futureproof SEO Strategy
AI has changed the game when it comes to blog posts and SEO Strategy.
Like it has with most things.
But, there’s a pushback. And it can impact you.
Google hasn’t liked this and has made massive changes. And will do it again if they deem its needed.
So, how can you protect yourself?
How can you make sure that your effort in writing blog posts gives you results for years? Is evergreen?
Well, the “SEO Strategy” that I’ve seen results with is:
- Try and help the reader as much as possible
- Make the article as short as possible.
- Give as much information as you can, as long as it relates to the title
- Use AI, but only for ideas and structure
- Make it as easy to read as you can
- Focus on quality. Quality is downstream of this
- Focus on the reader.
Google and other search engines will always want to do what’s best for the people searching. Then themselves.
Write the best article you can. Given the resources you’ve got. In the shortest number of words possible. In the simplest language, you can.
This seems to be working for me.
And I seem to be able to stick to it too.
I hope this helps.
Oh, one more thing. If you find this article interesting? I’ve written another post about how I’m thinking about marketing the SaaS product I mentioned in this post. Check it out: How I’m Putting Constraints Into Marketing My SaaS
