SEO
Should We Write Content for People or Search Engines?
All high-quality content pieces in written form have two things in common: they offer real substance to the reader, and each is well-written (or at least decently written 😊).
But all too often, digital content writers worry too much about “writing for SEO,” mistakenly focusing on writing for search engines instead of the human beings who are actually reading the content.
They worry too much about content length, keyword density, using keyword variations, and adding local modifiers. And not because it helps the user — because it could potentially help SEO efforts.
This is problematic for a number of reasons, but most importantly because Google and other search engines don’t need us to write for them.
They need us, or the brand we represent in our writing, to understand a topic well enough to be able to offer a thorough, easy-to-understand answer for its audience (i.e., people) to be able to read, understand, and, yes, find on the web.
Google Is Built to Understand Good Content
Google has ever-evolving, highly sophisticated search algorithms that are getting better every day, and drastically better each year.
This isn’t limited to solely its traditional search results.
The growing number of search features that improve usability and accessibility are big additions to the overall experience Google offers its users.
All of this is helping parent company Alphabet generate billions of dollars in revenue every quarter.
A large driver of that revenue is Google’s extensive advertising network, but it starts and ends with Google search and its pay-per-click advertising there.
Google is the most-visited website in the world, and its success to continue to be No. 1 hinges on the success and accuracy of its search platform in all other capacities. That drives the traffic, advertising, and 3.5 billion searches done daily in Google search.
Google has become what it is today – essentially a synonym for search – because of the quality of its results.
And let’s not forget: Google wasn’t the first – there are plenty of alternative search engines.
But it is the best search engine.
While we wouldn’t go so far as to call it perfect, Google has been the most accurate and useful search engine we’ve ever had to date – and thus the longest-lasting – much due to its dedication to getting it right.
The proof is in the numbers (daily visits, users, revenues, etc.). That’s why Google serves more than 2 trillion searches annually.
And its role in the everyday lives of humans across the world becomes greater each passing minute, deeply rooted in Google’s dedication to ensuring its search engine is giving users the best-possible answers to specific search queries, anytime and anywhere.
For these reasons, Google (or any other search engine) doesn’t need us to write content that is specifically designed for it. Google serves its users, and it wants content to serve them as well.
If you write good content for people, Google will reward. The same cannot be said for content that is strictly written for search engines.
What Exactly Is Good Content?
Google knows how to identify high-quality content.
We know its algorithm and ranking signals help find the right content to satisfy any given search query.
But what does Google deem is good content? What makes bad content bad? And how come well-written content doesn’t always rank well?
For information about “good content,” Google suggests reviewing its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.
And, while Google’s John Mueller made sure to point out that the quality-rater guidelines are not directly related to its ranking factors, he said the document, which was not released to the public until 2015, offers useful information for creating good content nonetheless.
The 164-page document is made up of guidelines given to quality raters (people hired by Google to rate its search results) when manually evaluating the performance of Google’s algorithms.
The document doesn’t just talk about what Google considers good content; it also points out the qualities of bad content.
Here are the most important factors to consider when selecting an overall Page Quality rating:
- The purpose of the page: The first step in understanding a page is figuring out its purpose.
- Expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness: This is an important quality characteristic. Learning the reputation and credentials of a certain piece of content should not be hard to achieve.
- Main content quality and amount: The rating should be based on the landing page of the task URL.
- Website information/information about who is responsible for the main content: Find information about the website as well as the creator of the main content.
- Website reputation/reputation about who is responsible for the main content: Links to help with reputation research are provided to reviewers.
In addition to being well-written and researched content with a purpose, relevancy is incredibly important for visibility in search.
As simple as it sounds, one of the most important ranking factors for content on the web is relevancy to the query. No matter how good the content is, if it doesn’t answer the search query, it’s not the right result.
These aren’t signals triggered by keyword usage, exact-match phrase inclusion, or any other “gamey” search-marketing tactics. This is just good content being delivered for the right search queries. The only way to achieve that is to create good, wholesome content.
Basic Guidelines for High-Quality Written Content
Don’t fret. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it and doing it well.
The one thing working in our favor is that if you write well currently, you know how to write well for people. Don’t change that position and think too much about creating content for search engines.
The brands and marketers that rush to publish content just to try and give their website some life with no real purpose aren’t hitting the mark, and they won’t win the click, either.
Here are the basics for writing quality content:
- Define a purpose: All content should have a purpose. In turn, it should have a topic of focus, an audience, and even an intent stage for that audience.
- Research thoroughly: Get the whole story before you start tearing stuff apart. What’s the beginning, middle, and end? Personally, I like to outline my content first so that I always know where it’s heading and what I need.
- Write well and make sure to edit (and edit again!): It doesn’t need to be Hemingway. But use punctuation, check grammar, and try to keep it to the point and on-topic. Give background when necessary.
- Have a byline: Google cares about where content comes from. Who is the brand or person behind the content? It wants to know. Make sure it can find out. The more authority a person’s reputation has, the better.
- Make it informative, thorough, educational: Make sure there is substance in the content. We have a purpose. Does it satisfy the purpose? And does it explain it thoroughly? Educate your readers and they will appreciate and depend on you.
- Cite sources: Always cite your sources. Statistics and data mean nothing if we don’t know where they came from. Be sure to always cite the original source whenever possible.
SEO
Google’s Search Engine Market Share Drops As Competitors’ Grows
According to data from GS Statcounter, Google’s search engine market share has fallen to 86.99%, the lowest point since the firm began tracking search engine share in 2009.
The drop represents a more than 4% decrease from the previous month, marking the largest single-month decline on record.
U.S. Market Impact
The decline is most significant in Google’s key market, the United States, where its share of searches across all devices fell by nearly 10%, reaching 77.52%.
Screenshot from: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/, May 2024.Concurrently, competitors Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search have seen gains. Bing reached a 13% market share in the U.S. and 5.8% globally, its highest since launching in 2009.
Yahoo Search’s worldwide share nearly tripled to 3.06%, a level not seen since July 2015.
Screenshot from: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/, May 2024.Search Quality Concerns
Many industry experts have recently expressed concerns about the declining quality of Google’s search results.
A portion of the SEO community believes that the search giant’s results have worsened following the latest update.
These concerns have begun to extend to average internet users, who are increasingly voicing complaints about the state of their search results.
Alternative Perspectives
Web analytics platform SimilarWeb provided additional context on X (formerly Twitter), stating that its data for the US for March 2024 suggests Google’s decline may not be as severe as initially reported.
From our data (Search Engine website category, US, March 2024) it doesn’t look like we’re there yet: pic.twitter.com/RBUJp4ZLeb
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) May 1, 2024
SimilarWeb also highlighted Yahoo’s strong performance, categorizing it as a News and Media platform rather than a direct competitor to Google in the Search Engine category.
Don’t underestimate Yahoo. They’re doing great. On our platform they’re categorized as News and Media, and hence not a direct competitor to Google in the Search Engine category. But they rank #10 worldwide, #6 in the US, and #1 in their category. Much higher than Bing and OpenAI. pic.twitter.com/O4yJu5QEK6
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) May 2, 2024
At the same time, Google is slightly declining 👀 pic.twitter.com/9i7paeU1QG
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) May 2, 2024
Why It Matters
The shifting search engine market trends can impact businesses, marketers, and regular users.
Google has been on top for a long time, shaping how we find things online and how users behave.
However, as its market share drops and other search engines gain popularity, publishers may need to rethink their online strategies and optimize for multiple search platforms besides Google.
Users are becoming vocal about Google’s declining search quality over time. As people start trying alternate search engines, the various platforms must prioritize keeping users satisfied if they want to maintain or grow their market position.
It will be interesting to see how they respond to this boost in market share.
What It Means for SEO Pros
As Google’s competitors gain ground, SEO strategies may need to adapt by accounting for how each search engine’s algorithms and ranking factors work.
This could involve diversifying SEO efforts across multiple platforms and staying up-to-date on best practices for each one.
The increased focus on high-quality search results emphasizes the need to create valuable, user-focused content that meets the needs of the target audience.
SEO pros must prioritize informative, engaging, trustworthy content that meets search engine algorithms and user expectations.
Remain flexible, adaptable, and proactive to navigate these shifts. Keeping a pulse on industry trends, user behaviors, and competing search engine strategies will be key for successful SEO campaigns.
Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock
SEO
How To Drive Pipeline With A Silo-Free Strategy
When it comes to B2B strategy, a holistic approach is the only approach.
Revenue organizations usually operate with siloed teams, and often expect a one-size-fits-all solution (usually buying clicks with paid media).
However, without cohesive brand, infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts, they’re pretty much doomed to fail.
It’s just like rowing crew, where each member of the team must synchronize their movements to propel the boat forward – successful B2B marketing requires an integrated strategy.
So if you’re ready to ditch your disjointed marketing efforts and try a holistic approach, we’ve got you covered.
Join us on May 15, for an insightful live session with Digital Reach Agency on how to craft a compelling brand and PMF.
We’ll walk through the critical infrastructure you need, and the reliances and dependences of the core digital marketing disciplines.
Key takeaways from this webinar:
- Thinking Beyond Traditional Silos: Learn why traditional marketing silos are no longer viable and how they spell doom for modern revenue organizations.
- How To Identify and Fix Silos: Discover actionable strategies for pinpointing and sealing the gaps in your marketing silos.
- The Power of Integration: Uncover the secrets to successfully integrating brand strategy, digital infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts.
Ben Childs, President and Founder of Digital Reach Agency, and Jordan Gibson, Head of Growth at Digital Reach Agency, will show you how to seamlessly integrate various elements of your marketing strategy for optimal results.
Don’t make the common mistake of using traditional marketing silos – sign up now and learn what it takes to transform your B2B go-to-market.
You’ll also get the opportunity to ask Ben and Jordan your most pressing questions, following the presentation.
And if you can’t make it to the live event, register anyway and we’ll send you a recording shortly after the webinar.
SEO
Why Big Companies Make Bad Content
It’s like death and taxes: inevitable. The bigger a company gets, the worse its content marketing becomes.
HubSpot teaching you how to type the shrug emoji or buy bitcoin stock. Salesforce sharing inspiring business quotes. GoDaddy helping you use Bing AI, or Zendesk sharing catchy sales slogans.
Judged by content marketing best practice, these articles are bad.
They won’t resonate with decision-makers. Nobody will buy a HubSpot license after Googling “how to buy bitcoin stock.” It’s the very definition of vanity traffic: tons of visits with no obvious impact on the business.
So why does this happen?
There’s an obvious (but flawed) answer to this question: big companies are inefficient.
As companies grow, they become more complicated, and writing good, relevant content becomes harder. I’ve experienced this firsthand:
- extra rounds of legal review and stakeholder approval creeping into processes.
- content watered down to serve an ever-more generic “brand voice”.
- growing misalignment between search and content teams.
- a lack of content leadership within the company as early employees leave.
Similarly, funded companies have to grow, even when they’re already huge. Content has to feed the machine, continually increasing traffic… even if that traffic never contributes to the bottom line.
There’s an element of truth here, but I’ve come to think that both these arguments are naive, and certainly not the whole story.
It is wrong to assume that the same people that grew the company suddenly forgot everything they once knew about content, and wrong to assume that companies willfully target useless keywords just to game their OKRs.
Instead, let’s assume that this strategy is deliberate, and not oversight. I think bad content—and the vanity traffic it generates—is actually good for business.
There are benefits to driving tons of traffic, even if that traffic never directly converts. Or put in meme format:
Programmatic SEO is a good example. Why does Dialpad create landing pages for local phone numbers?
Why does Wise target exchange rate keywords?
Why do we have a list of most popular websites pages?
As this Twitter user points out, these articles will never convert…
…but they don’t need to.
Every published URL and targeted keyword is a new doorway from the backwaters of the internet into your website. It’s a chance to acquire backlinks that wouldn’t otherwise exist, and an opportunity to get your brand in front of thousands of new, otherwise unfamiliar people.
These benefits might not directly translate into revenue, but over time, in aggregate, they can have a huge indirect impact on revenue. They can:
- Strengthen domain authority and the search performance of every other page on the website.
- Boost brand awareness, and encourage serendipitous interactions that land your brand in front of the right person at the right time.
- Deny your competitors traffic and dilute their share of voice.
These small benefits become more worthwhile when multiplied across many hundreds or thousands of pages. If you can minimize the cost of the content, there is relatively little downside.
What about topical authority?
“But what about topical authority?!” I hear you cry. “If you stray too far from your area of expertise, won’t rankings suffer for it?”
I reply simply with this screenshot of Forbes’ “health” subfolder, generating almost 4 million estimated monthly organic pageviews:
And big companies can minimize cost. For large, established brands, the marginal cost of content creation is relatively low.
Many companies scale their output through networks of freelancer writers, avoiding the cost of fully loaded employees. They have established, efficient processes for research, briefing, editorial review, publication and maintenance. The cost of an additional “unit” of content—or ten, or a hundred—is not that great, especially relative to other marketing channels.
There is also relatively little opportunity cost to consider: the fact that energy spent on “vanity” traffic could be better spent elsewhere, on more business-relevant topics.
In reality, many of the companies engaging in this strategy have already plucked the low-hanging fruit and written almost every product-relevant topic. There are a finite number of high traffic, high relevance topics; blog consistently for a decade and you too will reach these limits.
On top of that, the HubSpots and Salesforces of the world have very established, very efficient sales processes. Content gating, lead capture and scoring, and retargeting allow them to put very small conversion rates to relatively good use.
Even HubSpot’s article on Bitcoin stock has its own relevant call-to-action—and for HubSpot, building a database of aspiring investors is more valuable than it sounds, because…
The bigger a company grows, the bigger its audience needs to be to continue sustaining that growth rate.
Companies generally expand their total addressable market (TAM) as they grow, like HubSpot broadening from marketing to sales and customer success, launching new product lines for new—much bigger—audiences. This means the target audience for their content marketing grows alongside.
As Peep Laja put its:
But for the biggest companies, this principle is taken to an extreme. When a company gears up to IPO, its target audience expands to… pretty much everyone.
This was something Janessa Lantz (ex-HubSpot and dbt Labs) helped me understand: the target audience for a post-IPO company is not just end users, but institutional investors, market analysts, journalists, even regular Jane investors.
These are people who can influence the company’s worth in ways beyond simply buying a subscription: they can invest or encourage others to invest and dramatically influence the share price. These people are influenced by billboards, OOH advertising and, you guessed it, seemingly “bad” content showing up whenever they Google something.
You can think of this as a second, additional marketing funnel for post-IPO companies:
These visitors might not purchase a software subscription when they see your article in the SERP, but they will notice your brand, and maybe listen more attentively the next time your stock ticker appears on the news.
They won’t become power users, but they might download your eBook and add an extra unit to the email subscribers reported in your S1.
They might not contribute revenue now, but they will in the future: in the form of stock appreciation, or becoming the target audience for a future product line.
Vanity traffic does create value, but in a form most content marketers are not used to measuring.
If any of these benefits apply, then it makes sense to acquire them for your company—but also to deny them to your competitors.
SEO is an arms race: there are a finite number of keywords and topics, and leaving a rival to claim hundreds, even thousands of SERPs uncontested could very quickly create a headache for your company.
SEO can quickly create a moat of backlinks and brand awareness that can be virtually impossible to challenge; left unchecked, the gap between your company and your rival can accelerate at an accelerating pace.
Pumping out “bad” content and chasing vanity traffic is a chance to deny your rivals unchallenged share of voice, and make sure your brand always has a seat at the table.
Final thoughts
These types of articles are miscategorized—instead of thinking of them as bad content, it’s better to think of them as cheap digital billboards with surprisingly great attribution.
Big companies chasing “vanity traffic” isn’t an accident or oversight—there are good reasons to invest energy into content that will never convert. There is benefit, just not in the format most content marketers are used to.
This is not an argument to suggest that every company should invest in hyper-broad, high-traffic keywords. But if you’ve been blogging for a decade, or you’re gearing up for an IPO, then “bad content” and the vanity traffic it creates might not be so bad.
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