Thank you to this week's partners –– Navattic and Superside.

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Your SEO strategy will never differentiate your content or your brand.

One year ago I wrote that.

It was part of a LinkedIn post about how creating content that builds trust and credibility matters so much more in building a brand people are loyal to and buy from than the keywords you do (or do not) rank for.

I believed it then and I believe it even more so now.

We all have access to the same data from the same tools.

When I wrote that a year ago I was referring to SEO tools––Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Search Console, etc.––that marketers base their entire content strategies around.

If we’re all drawing the same conclusions from the same data, how can we be different?

Now, however, that line takes on additional meaning as AI tools begin to flood the market which makes it even easier to create the kind of uninspired content I was referring to in the first place.

Your typical educational “how to” listicle will soon be commoditized. Any sized team will be able to churn out that kind of content quicker and more cheaply than ever.

With just a few prompts, we’ll all be able to identify which keywords to target, outline a post, and “write” it.

Your SEO strategy will never differentiate your content or your brand. Today even more so than last year.

So, what will?

I have some thoughts…

What could matter, as a business, more than getting found?

For one, building the type of brand that people go and search for to begin with.

The kind of brand where people say, “forget the rest of the search results, I’m going straight to [insert your brand here].”

This won’t happen through commoditized SEO content going forward. For the reasons mentioned, it won’t differentiate your brand the way it might have in years past.

Now, these things will matter as much as, or more than, visibility.

Trust

Trust is built through empathy and shared experiences.

This is why (most) siblings are so tight. Or soccer teammates. Or fellow line cooks during the dinner rush at your favorite restaurant. Or classmates bonded over a terrible professor.

They get me.

Or, We get each other.

Are you creating the type of content that would elicit this type of response from your audience?

It’s going to matter so much more when, to the average person, it’s going to seem like everyone is publishing the same educational, keyword-driven content.

How will you know who to trust?

It’ll be the ones that people see themselves in. The ones who go beyond surface-level “how-tos” and share their own personal experiences, points of view, challenges, and how they’ve navigated this terrain before.

In years past, we’ve collectively focused on us getting found. Now, we need to focus more on them feeling seen and understood.

People trust a tour guide that’s traveled the route hundreds of times before.

But we’re not tour guides, and they’re not tourists. So there’s an imaginary line between us.

But the fellow travelers we bond with along the trail? That’s where bonds are formed and trust is forged.

You trade stories on preparation. Share tips on the must-see parts of the trail. Strategies for tackling the most challenging parts.

Be less tour guide and more partner along the trail.

When it’s all said and done…

We get each other.

Credibility

Everybody wanna be a media company but nobody wanna be a journalist.

Well, for both media companies and journalists, credibility is the ultimate currency.

Have it? It’s the competitive advantage you need to break through the noise.

Lose it? It’s virtually impossible to earn back.

With educational how-tos on their way to being commoditized, people will need something in order to help them differentiate brands from each other.

Credibility will be a big one.

Things that build credibility:

• Competence: You produce high-quality work.
• Consistency: You’ve produced high-quality work over a long period of time.
• Integrity: Your work is honest and transparent.
• Selfless: Your work is not self-serving, and instead, exists to help others.

Brands have largely been making withdrawals from the bank of credibility over the last decade. And, people like Katie Mitchell notice.

Here is a comment from the LinkedIn post I referenced in the intro of this newsletter that says it all.

Credibility isn’t something that happens once.

It’s all of those things happening all the time. Therefore, it needs to be ingrained in your overall strategy and processes.

The same rigor used for optimization needs to be applied to building a system that prioritizes credibility over time.

What should you stop doing that doesn’t help that cause?

What do you need to start doing?

Relationship to the Audience

What’s your relationship to your audience?

Is it strictly transactional? Or, are you providing as much, or more, value to you them as you receive in return?

Do you provide value without any expectation of a return?

Content Brands like Wistia, Profitwell, Litmus, and SparkToro have continued to adopt that approach.

Chris Savage had this to say when I asked him about Wistia’s approach to content a few months back.

The way people find you matters.

Does your audience find you exclusively through a search algorithm?

Or do they find because you’ve produced helpful and inspiring work that’s helped make a difference in their lives and careers?

Search traffic can be fickle and transactional.

But people who find you through the quality of your work are more likely to come back.

This is why so many brands are working with influencers to spread their brand’s message. They’re going where that level of trust and loyalty already exists.

But, as Savage and Wistia have demonstrated, this is something most brands can do internally, too.

Forget about timing the moment for when people need you and make good content anyways.

There’s no direct tie-in to your business? Make good content anyways like SparkToro does with their annual post on holiday gift ideas.

There’s little to no way to track attribution? Make good content anyways like ProfitWell did by creating a limited run of collector cards featuring SaaS executives.

Make it good first. Everything else becomes easier once the audience is bought in.

Featured Agencies

Ten Speed

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2. Vital existing content needs to be updated
3. Multimedia assets need to be integrated (webinars/podcasts/product assets used in articles)
4. Technical errors are preventing search engines from crawling and indexing the content
5. CTAs are not contextualized within the content

See how Ten Speed combatted all 5 of these with Visible, resulting in 313% organic traffic growth, 2x trial monthly sign-ups, and 3x in influenced revenue + more.​

Compound Growth Marketing

How are you planning to hit your pipeline and revenue goals in 2023?

It’s common for companies to have less budget and the same targets this year.

Compound Growth Marketing helps companies navigate challenges like this with an experienced team who has worked with companies like LogMeIn, Airtable, Drift, and Appdynamics.

To get weekly insights for the state of demand generation, click here.

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That’s it for this week.

Get out there and make good content––on your blog, social, email...wherever you can. We need you.

John

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