What’s happening in the world of content right now?

For years the world of SEO con­tent has been excit­ing and nov­el, and there is a lot of infor­ma­tion online about opti­mis­ing blogs so that busi­ness­es can rank as high­ly as pos­si­ble on Google.

But cur­rent­ly, the realm of con­tent cre­ation is chal­leng­ing. With each algo­rithm update, busi­ness­es are find­ing it hard­er to rank well on Google and search engine users are com­plain­ing about ‘over-opti­mised’ results. The prob­lem is, things like SEO, affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing, and AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent are mud­dy­ing the waters.

Legit­i­mate sources of con­tent are being out­ranked by oth­er low-qual­i­ty sites with good SEO. And despite Google’s con­stant efforts, it’s very dif­fi­cult for users to find the con­tent they’re look­ing for. Search terms are hijacked by blogs that, though are in the rel­e­vant field, aren’t actu­al­ly answer­ing user queries.

This state of affairs is lead­ing to sev­er­al changes in user behaviour:

• Users are get­ting frus­trat­ed by over­ly opti­mised results, feel­ing that they are not gen­uine anymore.
• Searchers are look­ing to Tik­Tok and YouTube for suc­cinct results as these offer quick answers that aren’t try­ing to sell them anything.
• Users are writ­ing “red­dit” at the end of their search queries because this will show user-gen­er­at­ed advice and insights from real people.
• Users are going straight to AI mod­els for spe­cif­ic answers (e.g., Chat­G­PT and CharacterAI).
• Peo­ple are using AI search engines like Arc Search – which gen­er­ates the user a com­plete­ly unique web­page by col­lat­ing real pages and remov­ing the waffle.

Tak­ing a quick look at this Red­dit thread will tell you every­thing you need to know about users’ frus­tra­tions with con­tent on Google at the moment. Evi­dent­ly, the land­scape has changed significantly.

So, what can you do about it?

Well, the good news is that users still want qual­i­ty con­tent – they haven’t sworn it off com­plete­ly. It may be that in the future SEO-type con­tent ceas­es to be a source of lead gen­er­a­tion entire­ly, but we’re not there yet.

It’s like­ly that off-page rank­ing fac­tors will become more impor­tant (e.g., back­links). So, if you’re wor­ried about your web­site’s SEO this could be a mit­i­gat­ing strat­e­gy for you.

In terms of con­tent cre­ation, there are lots of things you can do to remain rel­e­vant, use­ful, and acces­si­ble for users. Let’s dive into some of our top ideas:

1. Create short-form videos

With the aver­age user atten­tion span dwin­dling, short-form video con­tent stands as a high­ly effec­tive strat­e­gy for cap­tur­ing and engag­ing audi­ences. Plat­forms like Tik­Tok, Insta­gram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are excel­lent for this type of con­tent, as they have tools that make it easy for cre­ators to pro­duce their videos.

Short videos can be used for a wide range of pur­pos­es, from show­cas­ing products/services, telling your brand’s sto­ry, shar­ing cus­tomer tes­ti­mo­ni­als, reveal­ing behind-the-scenes action, and sim­ply comedic sketches.

This method is often more cost-effec­tive com­pared to tra­di­tion­al dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strate­gies like email mar­ket­ing, which requires con­stant con­tent cre­ation and man­age­ment, or influ­encer part­ner­ships, which can involve high upfront costs.

Cre­at­ing short-form videos can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly low on resources. Busi­ness­es can pro­duce high-impact con­tent with min­i­mal invest­ment by using sim­ple, read­i­ly avail­able video edit­ing tools. This makes short-form video an excep­tion­al­ly viable option for busi­ness­es aim­ing to expand their dig­i­tal foot­print efficiently.

If you want to choose this strat­e­gy, make sure you incor­po­rate rel­e­vant key­words in the title, descrip­tion, and tags. This will help audi­ences dis­cov­er you and put you on the map.

A bril­liant exam­ple of this is Chipotle’s Tik­Tok strat­e­gy. The fast food chain had a viral moment on Vine 10 years ago and has seem­ing­ly embraced the short video form ever since. Post­ing humor­ous sketch­es con­sis­tent­ly, the brand also col­lab­o­rates with influ­encers and posts chal­lenges. Most notably, the #ChipotleLid­Flip chal­lenge amassed mil­lions of views and the brand boasts great suc­cess in reach­ing a younger audi­ence since 2018.

2. Give each piece of content a very specific purpose

More than ever, it’s cru­cial that each piece of con­tent you pub­lish has a super spe­cif­ic pur­pose. This super-focused approach answers the prob­lem cur­rent users are fac­ing – they are sick of see­ing gen­er­alised blogs that don’t answer their spe­cif­ic queries.

Since SEO began there’s been the prob­lem of key­word stuff­ing, and this has­n’t entire­ly dis­ap­peared despite Google’s best efforts. This can take the form of sim­ply cram­ming too much infor­ma­tion into a sin­gle blog post, dilut­ing the mes­sage and mak­ing it hard­er for users to under­stand its purpose.

When a post tries to address mul­ti­ple top­ics or answer var­i­ous ques­tions, it often fails to sat­is­fy any par­tic­u­lar query thor­ough­ly. This lack of focus can impair the con­tent’s abil­i­ty to rank well for spe­cif­ic key­words, as search engines strive to pro­vide the most rel­e­vant and tar­get­ed answers to user queries.

Cre­at­ing con­tent with a spe­cif­ic pur­pose tack­les this issue head-on. By focus­ing on a sin­gle top­ic or prob­lem per piece, busi­ness­es can craft mes­sages that are more coher­ent and impact­ful. This clar­i­ty not only improves SEO by align­ing close­ly with spe­cif­ic search terms but also enhances the expe­ri­ence for users. Read­ers or view­ers can quick­ly grasp the val­ue of the con­tent, which is cru­cial in cap­tur­ing and main­tain­ing their attention.

3. Involve your audience

A unique approach to con­tent cre­ation is involv­ing your audi­ence in the process.

Doing this might look like ask­ing read­ers to share their own sto­ries, con­tribute guest posts, take part in chal­lenges, or pro­vide tes­ti­mo­ni­als about their expe­ri­ences with your product/service. This approach does­n’t have to include con­tent that explic­it­ly pro­motes your brand – it could be a month­ly fea­ture of pub­lish­ing the best arti­cle writ­ten by a subscriber.

For exam­ple, Patag­o­nia – the activewear cloth­ing brand – takes a huge inter­est in envi­ron­men­tal issues. On its web­site, you can find lots of sto­ries about activism and ath­let­ic chal­lenges from every­day peo­ple. E.g., this short film about one man’s 24-hour run that rais­es aware­ness for air qual­i­ty issues and this blog post by a Patag­o­nia Ambassador/rock climber/ seamstress.

Get­ting cus­tomers and every­day peo­ple from your tar­get audi­ence to share their sto­ries human­is­es your brand. It can be unex­pect­ed, upbeat, inspir­ing, and much more charm­ing than tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing. This type of con­tent res­onates with poten­tial cus­tomers because it comes from peers they can relate to and isn’t the usu­al salesy-con­tent they’re bored of.

In addi­tion, this approach can cre­ate a sense of com­mu­ni­ty. Cost-wise, this approach is pret­ty eco­nom­i­cal. Paid ads, in com­par­i­son, can be expen­sive and don’t guar­an­tee engage­ment. We think user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent can be real­ly pow­er­ful and, over­all, enhances your authen­tic­i­ty as a brand.

4. Use alternative platforms for your content

As Google becomes increas­ing­ly clut­tered with over-opti­mised con­tent, busi­ness­es will need to explore alter­na­tive plat­forms for their con­tent cre­ation to main­tain and grow their audi­ence engagement.

If you want to move away from post­ing sole­ly on your web­site’s blog, plat­forms like Tik­Tok, Insta­gram, and YouTube are most exciting:

• Tik­Tok, with its rapid-fire, high­ly engag­ing short-form video con­tent, is par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive at cap­tur­ing the atten­tion of younger demo­graph­ics. The plat­for­m’s algo­rithm favours nov­el­ty and engage­ment, offer­ing busi­ness­es a chance to go viral with cre­ative, orig­i­nal con­tent that show­cas­es their prod­ucts or ser­vices in a fun and approach­able way.
• Insta­gram con­tin­ues to be a pow­er­house for brands look­ing to visu­al­ly show­case their offer­ings. With fea­tures like Sto­ries, Reels, and IGTV, busi­ness­es have mul­ti­ple for­mats to cre­ate nar­ra­tive-dri­ven con­tent that res­onates with a visu­al­ly ori­ent­ed audience.
• YouTube remains the leader in long-form video con­tent, pro­vid­ing a space for more in-depth sto­ry­telling, prod­uct reviews, tuto­ri­als, and edu­ca­tion­al con­tent. This plat­form allows busi­ness­es to build a com­pre­hen­sive con­tent library that can address detailed con­sumer queries and show­case your com­pa­ny’s expertise.

While Red­dit might seem less straight­for­ward for direct mar­ket­ing due to its dis­cus­sion-based nature, it can still be a valu­able tool for gain­ing insights into con­sumer inter­ests. Busi­ness­es can engage with Red­dit from an inves­tiga­tive point of view, using it to search for top­ics of inter­est and gaps in cus­tomer knowledge.

Branch­ing out to these plat­forms allows busi­ness­es to diver­si­fy their dig­i­tal foot­print, con­nect more effec­tive­ly with dif­fer­ent seg­ments of their audi­ence, and break free from the dimin­ish­ing returns of over-opti­mised web content.

A great exam­ple of this is The Self Space, a Lon­don-based men­tal health ser­vice that began an Insta­gram strat­e­gy in 2019. Post­ing bite-sized men­tal health advice, the ser­vice now has 125,000 Insta­gram fol­low­ers and boasts 84 ther­a­pists (they must be doing some­thing right!).

5. Partner with influencers

While busi­ness­es fight on the Google bat­tle­ground for good rank­ings, influ­encers seem to have it all. It’s becom­ing increas­ing­ly obvi­ous that part­ner­ing up with influ­encers is one of the best ways to reach new audi­ences and boost brand authenticity.

Cre­ative forms of influ­encer part­ner­ships can vary wide­ly, from tra­di­tion­al prod­uct place­ments and endorse­ments to more inno­v­a­tive approach­es like co-cre­at­ed con­tent, takeovers of brand social media accounts, or par­tic­i­pa­tion in brand chal­lenges and campaigns.

Influ­encers can also host vir­tu­al events, cre­ate tuto­ri­als demon­strat­ing how to use a prod­uct, or share per­son­al sto­ries about their expe­ri­ences with a brand, adding a lay­er of per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ny to the pro­duc­t’s benefits.

This strat­e­gy works because influ­encers have already earned the trust and loy­al­ty of their fol­low­ers. Their endorse­ments serve as pow­er­ful social proof, lever­ag­ing their cred­i­bil­i­ty to sway pur­chas­ing deci­sions favourably towards the brand they represent.

Cost-wise, influ­encer mar­ket­ing can be high­ly eco­nom­i­cal com­pared to tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing. The return on invest­ment can also be sig­nif­i­cant, as influ­encers often gen­er­ate high­er engage­ment rates. Don’t for­get, costs can always be con­trolled and scaled based on the influ­encer’s reach and the terms of part­ner­ship, allow­ing even small­er busi­ness­es to tap into this resource efficiently.

A bril­liant suc­cess sto­ry of influ­encer part­ner­ship is that of Boxed Water, offer­ing a sus­tain­able alter­na­tive to plas­tic bot­tled water. Part­ner­ing with sev­er­al micro-celebri­ties, Boxed Water is still fea­tured in lots of styl­ish influ­encer posts – efforts which land­ed the brand a sub­se­quent col­lab­o­ra­tion with Alas­ka Air­lines– go team!

6. Nurture a niche and highly engaged mailing list

If the online world con­tin­ues to be clut­tered with over-opti­mised con­tent, it will be cru­cial to cul­ti­vate a com­mit­ted, niche, and high­ly engaged audi­ence. We like the idea of this tak­ing the form of a mail­ing list. This direct form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with sub­scribers is burst­ing with poten­tial because they would have already expressed inter­est in your brand, its prod­ucts, or its values.

To ensure your email mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy is high-qual­i­ty, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing tips:

• Don’t exclu­sive­ly pro­mote the brand and its prod­ucts. Instead, offer edu­ca­tion­al con­tent, insid­er indus­try insights, or sub­scriber stories.
• Tai­lor your emails to dif­fer­ent seg­ments of your audi­ence based on their behav­iours, pref­er­ences, and pre­vi­ous inter­ac­tions with your brand. This per­son­al­i­sa­tion makes con­tent more rel­e­vant and engag­ing to each sub­scriber, increas­ing the like­li­hood of pos­i­tive respons­es and interactions.
• Avoid over­ly for­mal lan­guage. A con­ver­sa­tion­al tone helps human­ise your brand and makes your emails feel like a note from a friend rather than a cor­po­rate broad­cast. This can make your com­mu­ni­ca­tions feel more per­son­al and less intrusive.
• Send­ing emails on a reg­u­lar and pre­dictable sched­ule respects your sub­scribers’ expec­ta­tions and com­fort. It pre­vents the annoy­ance asso­ci­at­ed with unpre­dictable spam-like blasts and helps build a rou­tine where sub­scribers look for­ward to your content.
• Make it clear that you val­ue sub­scriber feed­back and pro­vide easy ways for them to inter­act with your con­tent, such as through sur­veys, reply options, or social media links. Engage­ment is a two-way street, and inter­ac­tive con­tent can help deep­en sub­scriber relationships.

To pro­mote your newslet­ter, lever­age your web­site, social media account, or blog posts by includ­ing sign-up prompts that high­light the exclu­sive ben­e­fits of being a subscriber.

7. Optimise for mobile

Did you know that 80% of the world’s top web­sites have under­gone mobile opti­mi­sa­tion? Plus, 61% of users say they’ll nev­er return to a site that’s not mobile-friend­ly. We all know how impor­tant mobile phones are to mod­ern-day users, and the impor­tance of mobile opti­mi­sa­tion is even more rel­e­vant when it comes to content.

Put sim­ply, users expect quick and respon­sive expe­ri­ences when brows­ing the web and there­fore, to effec­tive­ly engage an audi­ence, your con­tent must look and feel great on smart­phones and tablets. To opti­mise for mobiles, busi­ness­es should:

• Ensure their web­sites’ lay­outs and con­tent auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjust to fit the user’s screen size and orientation.
• Opti­mise image sizes and code to speed up page load­ing times.
• Sim­pli­fy nav­i­ga­tion so that users can move around sites easily.
• Ensure all but­tons are touch-friend­ly (i.e., not too small for thumbs to access!).
• Avoid large pas­sages of text or fonts that are too small and dif­fi­cult to read.
• Test their web­sites on mul­ti­ple devices to ensure usabil­i­ty across all platforms.
• Avoid pop-ups that block user visibility.

Mobile opti­mi­sa­tion is essen­tial as it broad­ens your hori­zons. Such a large major­i­ty of audi­ences use mobile devices; so, not opti­mis­ing their expe­ri­ences excludes a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of poten­tial customers.

Fur­ther­more, Google’s search algo­rithms favour mobile-friend­ly web­sites (and this isn’t like­ly to change), mak­ing mobile opti­mi­sa­tion cru­cial for SEO regard­less of the cur­rent chal­lenges Google faces.

8. Be friends with data

In order to cre­ate con­tent that res­onates with audi­ences, you’ll need to use insights from data that mea­sure your con­tent’s per­for­mance. Data ana­lyt­ics can lead to more informed deci­sions, bet­ter audi­ence tar­get­ing, enhanced engage­ment, and uncov­er pat­terns that would­n’t be trace­able with­out an ana­lyt­ics tool.

Busi­ness­es will need to col­lect data from var­i­ous sources such as web­site traf­fic, social media engage­ment, and cus­tomer feed­back. Tools like Google Ana­lyt­ics or social media ana­lyt­ics fea­tures can track which types of con­tent gen­er­ate the most views, shares, and interactions.

Once data is col­lect­ed, you can analyse it to under­stand what con­tent res­onates best with your audi­ence. And by con­tin­u­al­ly mon­i­tor­ing and adapt­ing, con­tent strate­gies can remain dynam­ic and aligned with audiences.

Final thoughts

The art of con­tent cre­ation seems to be ever-chang­ing. While the old SEO tricks for con­tent opti­mi­sa­tion may become less rel­e­vant, the audi­ence remains to be absolute­ly crucial.

To suc­ceed and pub­lish con­tent that tru­ly res­onates with your audi­ence, you will need to under­stand them thor­ough­ly. By focus­ing on their expe­ri­ences and con­sid­er­ing their exact needs, you can con­sid­er­ably improve engage­ment. Make sure to mon­i­tor your ana­lyt­ics and be as authen­tic as pos­si­ble, and you’ll be off to an excel­lent start.