Well that’s not entirely true, but it is how it feels to many of us who spend hours upon hours writing SEO content to please Google, only to see no results.
The Changing SEO Landscape
SEO has never been easy, but right now it feels impossible. You’ve likely heard the question echoing through the SEO space – Is SEO dead?
How are sites are supposed to rank when most search queries are answered with an AI overview or a featured snippet, are people even going to click on your site? No clicks, no traffic, no sales. Now that ChatGPT Search has entered the scene, is anyone ever going to click on a link again? At a glance, the future looks pretty bleak.
Things look even worse when Google have said that they don’t care how content is produced, only that it is useful to a user.
Can you feel the little AI demons grasping at your ankles, ready to rip your job away? Is it time to start the dreaded LinkedIn search for a new career? What is the point in producing content when AI can apparently do the same thing, and far faster?
When you consider all of these things, it does feel a little hopeless – but it’s not. Instead a new reality brings new opportunity – to stay ahead, we simply need to change.
Why are Search Engines like Google Changing?
The fact of the matter is that your search engine is changing. But so is user behaviour. When our users change, we need to adapt the way that we produce content to meet these new needs.
Statistics show that 1 in 10 Gen Zers would rather use TikTok than Google for search, and more than 41% of consumers use the social media for search purposes. That’s not to say the future is necessarily all in short form video, but what it does show is how a user is far more likely to want a fast answer. Your audience don’t want to sit and read through 3,000 words of beautifully written, keyword driven SEO content – they want an answer, and fast.
Search engines are adapting to these changing demands, and the technology is changing to prioritise content that puts a user first.
A user first approach means we need to change the way we produce content. Web pages need to focus on getting a user the answer quickly, and content can’t just be purely promotional with a backing track of keyword research. The crawlers are getting smarter, so it’s time to work smarter not harder.
What Does Google Care About?
There are a few things that Google does care about – ways to create content that will still rank, and get users onto your site.
Authority
Unfortunately, you can’t make a website, pop a few products on there and instantly be on page one. Google likes to know that you know what you’re talking about.
But how is it that you can establish yourself as an expert?
The simple answer is that you need to create content that establishes you as an authoritative speaker on a topic. Have you worked in an industry for a long period of time? Have you spoken on a topic multiple times as an expert? Do you have new data that hasn’t been repeated across the internet 1,000 times already? Are other people referencing what you’re saying? If not, why not?
In order to develop trust, you need authority. The EEAT principles have been consistent across many Google updates – so it’s safe to say that they remain important. It’s all well and good churning out quality content, but if Google doesn’t trust what your content says, it’s not going to put it in front of a user.
Focus
It’s important to have a clear focus, not only to please the Google Gremlins, but also to make life easier for your user. It’s easy to lose focus when you’re struggling for content ideas – as much as nobody wants to see another Top Trends for 2025 blog, nobody wants to see something completely unrelated either.
For example, if you’re a travel company, then you want to present yourself as an expert on travel, and while content about the best airplane food might be loosely related, it’s not relevant to your area of expertise. Instead you could have articles that discuss hotspots in certain areas that your potential customers might visit, or guides on how to travel using only hand luggage (even on Ryanair). Not only does this connect directly with what your business does, but it is actually useful to a user.
As much as we want to make sure that the bots that are going to analyse our content are happy, we also want to make sure that users are too.
Genuine Keywords
We all know that optimising content for relevant keywords is how you get featured in search results – but we need to consider further than that. Yes, it’s important to fit keywords into your content, but it’s also important that the keywords are not the only part of your content.
For example: Bread oven baked bread is better than bread that is not baked in the best bread oven. If you’re looking for a bread oven near me, then we have a high quality bread oven for you.
This content not only reads awfully, but it has no real use to a user and is purely aimed at making a bot happy. Just because you want to fit a keyword into your content does not mean that you should sacrifice on the quality of your content. Instead, select keywords that fit naturally into content that you would have produced anyway.
Try to think of it like this instead: Have you been influenced by BreadTok? If so, you’ve probably seen the difference that a quality bread oven makes to getting the perfect, crisp crust on your sourdough.
You want to fit keywords into your content in a way that to the unassuming eye, they’re not there. Avoid keyword stuffing to ensure that content is easily readable to your user and, in turn, Google will be a little bit happier with your content.
How can I Write Content that will Rank?
It’s all well and good pointing out things that will negatively impact your search rankings, but the question is, how do you write content that will rank?
Helpful Content
The first Google helpful content update took place in August 2022, and since then, there have been three other major helpful content updates which have in some cases majorly impacted search engine results. In a Search Central blog post, John Mueller stated that there will continue to be updates that show ‘more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.’
With all this taken into account, it’s fairly certain that Google are going to continue to consider how helpful content is to a user. As Google also doesn’t seem to mind how content is produced, you’re going to be battling with AI content and Reddit threads for rankings.
But what does that mean for SEO’s?
The answer is simple really – we need to be writing content that is actually useful to a user. Forget the bots. Put the user first when you’re considering what content to produce. Does your content answer a question or fulfil a need? Does it share new information? How is what you have to say different or better than what someone can find on other pages?
Yes, still consider the usual things. You’ll still need strategic keyword ideas, you’ll still need to analyse the search volume around the queries that you’re writing content for, but your content needs to actually matter.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but nobody cares about your Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing or the Top 10 Places to Visit in Europe – it’s all been done before, and frankly it’s not answering anything that a searcher might be looking for. Put yourself in the shoes of a user – what might you be asking to get to your site? The more you niche down, the more your content is going to resonate and provide helpful content to your audience.
AI Overviews
AI overviews, we’ve seen them, we’ve used them, we’ve wondered how to become them. An article in Search Engine Land suggests that AI overviews might trigger a loss of up to 60% of site traffic, simply because they can answer the query of a user without them even needing to open up a site. So, what can be done about it?
The simplest answer is to wriggle into that AI overview – easier said than done, right?
This is where things start to intertwine. Studies have shown that AI overviews pull from sites that have higher search engine rankings, which might sound like ‘oh, well nothing changes then’, which though not necessarily wrong, isn’t necessarily right either. Yes, you still want to exist on page 1 of Google searches, but you also want to make it as easy as possible for your content to be pulled from.
Think clearly about how you’re structuring your content. Your headings are a great way to make points that can be pulled into a brief summary within the AI overview. You might also want to provide a ‘Key Findings’ section in a blog which easily summarises your content – sort of like a non-AI AI overview.
The easier it is for your content to be summarised, the easier it will be to get it into an overview. Again, you also want to consider how helpful your content is – overviews are designed to be helpful, your content needs to be too.
Next to an AI overview is room for three sites that have been pulled from – that is three sites that are automatically bumped to the top of your SERP. Rather than begrudging the AI overview for taking away traffic, instead see them as a tool and incorporate them with your SEO strategy.
Target Audience
So simple that it is often forgotten, you need to actively consider your audience. To put it simply, your audience can’t be everyone.
You might sell mops, and think ‘oh, well everyone needs a mop, so my audience is everyone’. Frankly, it’s not. 23 year old Janice who lives with her mum, probably doesn’t need a mop. 52 year old Darren who has a cleaner, probably doesn’t need a mop. 43 year old Norma who was influenced to buy a Roomba, probably doesn’t need a mop. And also, everyone out there who already has a functional mop, probably doesn’t need a mop.
Instead, niche down. Does Darren’s cleaner need a specialist and reliable mop for her cleaning services? What makes your mop different to other mops – and who is it designed to appeal to? If it helps, craft specific characters in your head and write to them. Writing towards specific people is going to help you ensure that your content is actually helpful.
It’s key to move away from writing content that is aimed at ‘everyone’, not only is that what everyone else is trying to do (meaning you’ve got far more people to compete against for those key spots on the SERP), but your content will be boring and generalised.
Content with pizazz that specifically targets a certain user base is key. If users like your content, odds are that Google will too.
Is this the End of the Blog Post?
Blog posts have been the cool kids of SEO content for a while – but does the changing landscape of search mean that they’re what’s dying?
Honestly, it’s debatable.
Website owners have a lot more to consider than another ‘Top 10’ listicle now than ever before. Before rushing off to write more blog posts, analyse if that’s where your time is best spent.
Consider your audience and why they’re on your site. If most of your queries are transactional, why are you writing a post with informational intent? Would your time be better spent optimising your product pages? Is your brand story clear across the site, or is a user going to be confused about what the purpose of your site is?
In a world where helpful content is the only worthwhile content, consider how you can target competitive keywords in ways that are going to be meaningful to a user.
The changes in search don’t mean ‘THE BLOG IS DEAD’, instead they’re adapting. If you’re writing a blog, it needs to add something new and unique – new information or another stance. If you can’t write something better or different to what’s in position 1 or in the AI overview, it’s highly unlikely to generate you any clicks.
Fresh content is the key to SEO success. A blog or a guide can often be incredibly useful to a user, but if you’re just producing content for content’s sake, then it is unlikely to generate the results that you need.
Google might not care about your content, but if you can make it matter to a user, then you’ll still be able to rank and generate clicks.
