SEO

Why Keyword Research Is Useful for SEO & How To Rank

Published

2 years ago

May 5, 2022

Search engines have moved away from matching keywords in search queries to keywords on webpages, a process that accelerated in 2012 with the introduction of the Hummingbird update.

The impact on SEO has been a shift in keyword research toward a deeper understanding of what words mean in different contexts and especially as a part of an overall topic.

Keyword research is still important, but in a different way than has been practiced in the past.

The strategic choice of topics and word phrases continues to be important, and this guide will show you how to research keywords in a manner that is appropriate for the way search engines appear to rank webpages today.

Keyword Dimensions

The first step for keyword research is to define what kinds of keywords you want to target.

Most of us by now know about search intent and the different kinds of intent that keywords have, so I won’t bother with that.

I’ll only point out that the intent maps to a searcher’s reason for searching, to find information, to buy something, to research something, etc.

If you need a refresher, read this article about user search intent.

However, it is worth pointing out that choosing keywords by their search volume is not always a good approach.

There are additional keyword dimensions to consider beyond user search intents.

Keyword Dimensions

Keyword Search Volume.
Keyword Intent.
Keyword Meaning.
Keyword Latent Meaning.

There are at least six issues to consider regarding high search volume keywords:

High-traffic keywords can have multiple search intents (not all of them your chosen intent).
The People Also Ask feature encourages search query reformulation.
High-traffic keywords don’t always convert.
High-traffic keywords aren’t always relevant to the website’s goals.
Google diverts some high-traffic keywords to local SERPs.
Google reformulates vague queries.

The takeaway about high search volume keywords is that it’s important to research why people are searching with those search phrases and make decisions based on whether those keywords align with your goals, whether that’s to sell more products, get affiliate clicks, or more advertising revenue.

We can’t really know all the different reasons why searchers use specific high-volume keyword phrases unless we study the search results.

And once the different reasons are understood, we can begin to understand the keyword dimension of the latent meaning.

We can understand the hidden reasons why people use vague search queries because the search engines provide clues.

Clues To High Search Volume Keyword Phrases

The best keywords are those that communicate a user need that aligns with the solution a website offers.

A keyword phrase like [what’s the best home router 2022] expresses a very clear need and is a useful phrase for an electronics-related site.

A keyword phrase like [heart attack] is vague and does not express a precise need. Often, vague keyword phrases like [heart attack] express multiple needs.

Those multiple needs are what I call a latent meaning.

Latent means hidden or not immediately apparent.

Vague keyword phrases like [heart attack] contain latent meanings and express users’ needs that are hidden within the words used in search queries.

Let’s take a look at the search query, [heart attack], as an example.

Search engines provide clues as to what users mean when they use vague search queries.

So, if you want to rank for a high-volume search query, take a look at the clues that are hidden (in plain sight) within the search results.

Here’s a screenshot of the featured snippet for the keyword phrase, [heart attack]:

Screenshot from search for [heart attack], Google, March 2022 Featured Snippet for Keyword Phrase Heart Attack

Google ranks a page about Heart Attack Symptoms for the search phrase, [heart attack]. The title of the page shows that the page is about Heart Attack Symptoms.

And here’s a really cool observation about that page.

A search for Heart Attack Symptoms shows the exact same page from CDC.gov ranking #1 for that phrase.

Screenshot from search for [heart attack symptoms], Google, March 2022 SERPs for Heart Attack Symptoms

It’s clear that Google is ranking a page about Heart Attack Symptoms for the phrase [heart attack] because Google is understanding that when people search for this phrase, what people really mean is Heart Attack Symptoms.

Understand The Latent Meaning Of Keyword Phrases

Earlier in this article, I wrote that every keyword phrase has a latent meaning, a meaning that is hidden.

The above search results are an illustration of my observation.

When someone searches for [heart attack], most people are really searching for [heart attack symptoms].

What that means is that if you want to rank for the high traffic search phrase [heart attack], then what you should really optimize for is [heart attack symptoms] because according to what Google is ranking, that’s what most people mean when they search for [heart attack].

Now, let’s take a look at the rest of the SERPs and see what they tell us.

The next three top-ranked webpages (positions 2, 3, and 4) are about heart attack symptoms.

Screenshot from search for [heart attack], Google, March 2022 Screenshot of SERPs for Heart Attack

But if you look at the page ranked in position #5, it looks like the latent keyword phrase is [what is a heart attack].

Screenshot from search for [heart attack], Google, March 2022 Screenshot of a Search Result

Q: What is a heart attack?
A: Myocardial Infarction
Q: What is a heart attack?
A: A heart attack happens when blood flow to the heart suddenly becomes blocked.

Google Ranked Positions 6, 7, 8, and 9 For [Heart Attack] Keyword

If we examine the next positions, six to nine (there is no position 10), we see something really interesting.

The next four positions have a meaning that corresponds to:

Symptoms of a Heart Attack.
What is a Heart Attack?

Screenshot from search for [heart attack], Google, March 2022 Google SERPs for keyword phrase, Heart Attack

Keyword Research Should Include The Latent Meaning Research

Creating a list of keywords ranked from high volume to low volume is just a start.

High-volume keywords should be lumped together with their latent meanings, and those latent meanings should be ranked according to whether those latent meanings are top-ranked by Google or lower-ranked by Google.

For the example of the keyword phrase, [heart attack], the real keyword to chase is [heart attack symptoms] if you want to rank #1, because that’s what most people mean when they search for [heart attack], according to Google’s search results.

And the cool thing about this is that you can confirm this observation with Google Trends.

In the following screenshot, what’s notable is that the keyword phrase [heart attack symptoms] has significantly more search volume than the keyword phrase, [what is a heart attack] and also [what is heart attack].

Screenshot from Google Trends, March 2022 Screenshot of Google Trends

What’s cool about the Google Trends for those two keywords is that the above trends match perfectly with what we saw in the search results for the keyword phrase, [heart attack].

The top result for the [heart attack] keyword phrase related to Heart Attack Symptoms clearly has more search volume than the secondary latent meaning, What is a Heart Attack.

Takeaways:

Understand all four keyword dimensions before making a decision on which keywords to create content for.
Search volume is just one dimension out of four for understanding the relative importance of keyword phrases for your project.
Traffic should not be the leading reason for choosing a keyword phrase target.

Awareness Building Phrases

There are several obvious kinds of keyword phrases that are defined by goals.

You can create lists and order those keywords by their goals.

Examples Of Typical Keyword Goals:

Sales (aka the money phrases).
Sales funnel segments.
Awareness building.

That last one, awareness building, can be fairly important.

It could help a site rank for competitive keywords and major keyword phrases in addition to driving direct sales. (More on this strategy a little later. Keep reading!)

Once you match keywords to keyword goals, you can then develop content topics to address those goals that can become the building blocks of a content strategy.

The first two categories are directly sales and potential customers related; they solve a business problem directly.

The last category can be seen as grooming searchers to become customers and building recognition as a trusted site for solving problems with products, reviews, and other forms of content.

Money Phrases

The sales category focuses on what some in the SEO industry call “money phrases.”

Money phrases are so-called because they tend to convert at a higher rate.

These are keyword phrases with a commercial intent that are associated with a high level of sales (e.g., “cheap widgets” and “where to buy widgets”).

Money phrases are important (and competitive!) because they almost always result in a sale.

They are also important to ad-supported sites because the site visitor, being predisposed to making a purchase, is also more likely to click an advertisement and earn revenue for the web publisher.

Advertisements that are associated with money phrases usually have a higher cost per click, resulting in higher advertising earnings.

That’s why these keywords are called money phrases!

The Problem With Money Phrases

Money phrases are highly competitive and difficult to rank for. That’s a given.

A more important consideration that many are unaware of is that pay-per-click (PPC) ads will siphon off traffic from the organic search results, with the rest of the traffic distributed to the organic results.

Let’s examine how to deal with this issue.

Anatomy Of Money Phrases

Aside from the obvious phrases containing words like “buy” in them, there are an additional set of (long-tail) keyword phrases that indicate a user’s intent to make an immediate purchase.

I have categorized long-tail money phrases into five categories.

Each category represents a multiplicity of keyword phrases and their variants (singular and product name variants).

5 Money Phrase Keyword Categories

Competitor comparison.
Discount price searches.
Product reviews and ratings.
Coupon code searches.
Searches for sales.

Money Phrase Keywords & Site Architecture

It’s possible to build a site around different money phrases, and to use them as the basis of creating different sections of a site.

But that’s kind of one-sided and might not build lasting repeat traffic, yet that’s an option, just not one that I am comfortable with.

For some merchants, it’s important to create content that discusses the different qualities of a product and to help a consumer choose the most suitable product.

But for now, it’s worth considering that many top-ranked sites, even ecommerce sites, are not built with a site architecture that revolves exclusively around money phrases.

Google Trends For A Comprehensive Set Of Keywords

Google Trends: Seasonal Fluctuations

A site that is comprehensive can generally weather the ups and downs of search-related cycles.

Google Trends is a good keyword research tool for identifying seasonal cycles for keywords.

It’s useful to research keywords on Google Trends to identify regular dips and rises in order to maintain steady traffic throughout the year.

Google Trends can also identify keywords that are losing appeal.

Google Trends: Regional And Changing Trends

Understanding changing trends, as well as regional patterns, will better help you to know when to roll out certain kinds of content, whether to abandon a keyword phrase and even to help identify the best regions to focus your link building on.

This is an important insight!

Screenshot from Google Trends Google Trends comparison Taxi vs Uber vs. Yellow cab

In the example above, it is clear that the search phrase [Uber] is wildly popular compared to the generic phrase [taxi].

The trend line also shows that the phrase taxi is trending downward.

Comparing keywords with brand names is highly useful to confirm suspicions of why a keyword phrase may change, trending up or down.

For example, the keyword trends for [digital cameras] trended downward with the introduction of the iPhone.

Another example is a comparison of the trends between the phrases [radio station] and the brand name “Spotify.”

The phrase [radio station] is trending downward while the brand name “Spotify” is trending upward.

There is no direct correlation between the two trends; the trend does not mean that Spotify is eating into the demand for radio.

But it does point to a change in how people are consuming music.

Insight: When you see a traffic decline even though your rankings are unchanged, it can sometimes mean there is a change in consumer behavior tied to the introduction of a new product or service.

Google Trends: Compare Known Keywords

Google Trends only shows relative traffic levels. It does not show the exact number of queries.

However, if you have an idea of keyword volume for one keyword phrase, then you can compare that keyword phrase to a target phrase in order to get a close estimate of what the actual search volume is.

Google publishes a daily list of trending searches that contain a rounded-up search volume.

It’s possible to use that list with actual search volume attached to search queries to compare with keywords that you’re researching and get a pretty close estimate of what the search volume is.

Google Trends: Related Queries

Google Trends has a feature called Related Queries that can be useful for teasing out possible latent meanings within vague keywords.

As can be seen in the screenshot below, the related query for the keyword phrase [heart attack] is the keywords [heart attack keywords].

Screenshot from Google Trends, March 2022 Related Queries

That’s pretty interesting how the top “related query” ([heart attack symptoms]) exactly matches the latent meaning for the keyword [heart attack], which is what we saw in Google’s search results.

Using the Google Trends tool like this could be helpful for understanding which keywords to choose in order to rank for high search volume keyword phrases, or to help you decide to devote your time to better keywords (because traffic is not everything).

The Related Queries feature offers two settings within the drop-down menu:

Select Top to see what queries are related, including what appears to be latent meanings within vague keyword phrases.

Screenshot from Google Trends, March 2022 Google Trends Related Queries Dropdown Menu

Lastly, select the most relevant category of the topic from the top dropdown menu.

Screenshot from Google Trends, March 2022 Google Trends Default Category

Because we’re searching for medical information, choose the Health Category:

Screenshot from Google Trends, March 2022 Google Trends Search Categories

Should You Worry About Latent Semantic Indexing Or LSI Keywords?

In a word, no.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a very old technology, developed nearly 20 years ago.

While LSI may be in use in some form, perhaps to identify stop words in a document, it’s a super old technology, and we are in the age of Natural Language Processing and AI in search.

Background reading about Latent Semantic Indexing:

Google’s John Mueller is on record saying that LSI is not something that any competent SEO should be thinking about.

According to John Mueller:

“First of all, we have no concept of LSI keywords. So that’s something you can completely ignore.

I think it’s interesting to look at LSI when you’re thinking about understanding information retrieval as a theoretical or computer science topic.

But as an SEO you probably don’t need to worry about that.”

Should You Use Keyword Synonyms?

With the advent of the Hummingbird update, Google started using strategies like keyword expansion in order to select the best answer to a search query from a broader selection of webpages.

Query expansion can use synonyms to expand the original search query.

The goal for query expansion is to identify more webpages that are relevant.

The goal is not to rank webpages that contain the keyword phrase and synonyms. That’s not how it works.

So, the answer really is no, adding synonyms is not a way to rank better and this can be verified by looking at the search results.

Third-Party Keyword Tools

All third-party keyword tools use a proprietary source of keyword data that is used to calculate an estimate of actual keyword search inventory.

So, it’s not an exact count of keyword inventory, it’s an estimate.

Nevertheless, the tools provide excellent opportunities for speeding up the keyword research process and that is a significant value to investigate to see how it fits into your process.

Keyword Research Is More Than Search Volume

In the old days, researching keywords used to be an easy process of identifying the phrases with the highest search volume. That’s no longer the case.

Today, it’s important to cross-check the search results, and go deep into understanding what a keyword phrase means for a user and what they’re trying to accomplish.

It’s also important to think in terms of topics.

In 2018, Google added what it calls a Topic Layer in order to understand topics and subtopics from all the content on the internet and identify content that is evergreen (relevant year after year).

These are the kinds of challenges the modern SEO faces today, to expand the research process beyond search volume in order to keep up with how search engines rank content today.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

All in-post images created by author, March 2022

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SEO

A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

Published

3 hours ago

November 30, 2023

Max

Today, ChatGPT celebrates one year since its launch in research preview.

Try talking with ChatGPT, our new AI system which is optimized for dialogue. Your feedback will help us improve it. https://t.co/sHDm57g3Kr

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) November 30, 2022

From its humble beginnings, ChatGPT has continually pushed the boundaries of what we perceive as possible with generative AI for almost any task.

a year ago tonight we were probably just sitting around the office putting the finishing touches on chatgpt before the next morning’s launch.

what a year it’s been…

— Sam Altman (@sama) November 30, 2023

In this article, we take a journey through the past year, highlighting the significant milestones and updates that have shaped ChatGPT into the versatile and powerful tool it is today.

a year ago tonight we were placing bets on how many total users we’d get by sunday

20k, 80k, 250k… i jokingly said “8B”.
little did we know… https://t.co/8YtO8GbLPy

— rapha gontijo lopes (@rapha_gl) November 30, 2023

ChatGPT: From Research Preview To Customizable GPTs

This story unfolds over the course of nearly a year, beginning on November 30, when OpenAI announced the launch of its research preview of ChatGPT.

As users began to offer feedback, improvements began to arrive.

Before the holiday, on December 15, 2022, ChatGPT received general performance enhancements and new features for managing conversation history.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, December 2022 ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

As the calendar turned to January 9, 2023, ChatGPT saw improvements in factuality, and a notable feature was added to halt response generation mid-conversation, addressing user feedback and enhancing control.

Just a few weeks later, on January 30, the model was further upgraded for enhanced factuality and mathematical capabilities, broadening its scope of expertise.

February 2023 was a landmark month. On February 9, ChatGPT Plus was introduced, bringing new features and a faster ‘Turbo’ version to Plus users.

This was followed closely on February 13 with updates to the free plan’s performance and the international availability of ChatGPT Plus, featuring a faster version for Plus users.

March 14, 2023, marked a pivotal moment with the introduction of GPT-4 to ChatGPT Plus subscribers.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023 ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

This new model featured advanced reasoning, complex instruction handling, and increased creativity.

Less than ten days later, on March 23, experimental AI plugins, including browsing and Code Interpreter capabilities, were made available to selected users.

On May 3, users gained the ability to turn off chat history and export data.

Plus users received early access to experimental web browsing and third-party plugins on May 12.

On May 24, the iOS app expanded to more countries with new features like shared links, Bing web browsing, and the option to turn off chat history on iOS.

June and July 2023 were filled with updates enhancing mobile app experiences and introducing new features.

The mobile app was updated with browsing features on June 22, and the browsing feature itself underwent temporary removal for improvements on July 3.

The Code Interpreter feature rolled out in beta to Plus users on July 6.

Plus customers enjoyed increased message limits for GPT-4 from July 19, and custom instructions became available in beta to Plus users the next day.

July 25 saw the Android version of the ChatGPT app launch in selected countries.

As summer progressed, August 3 brought several small updates enhancing the user experience.

Custom instructions were extended to free users in most regions by August 21.

The month concluded with the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise on August 28, offering advanced features and security for enterprise users.

Entering autumn, September 11 witnessed limited language support in the web interface.

Voice and image input capabilities in beta were introduced on September 25, further expanding ChatGPT’s interactive abilities.

An updated version of web browsing rolled out to Plus users on September 27.

The fourth quarter of 2023 began with integrating DALL·E 3 in beta on October 16, allowing for image generation from text prompts.

The browsing feature moved out of beta for Plus and Enterprise users on October 17.

Customizable versions of ChatGPT, called GPTs, were introduced for specific tasks on November 6 at OpenAI’s DevDay.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023 ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

On November 21, the voice feature in ChatGPT was made available to all users, rounding off a year of significant advancements and broadening the horizons of AI interaction.

And here, we have ChatGPT today, with a sidebar full of GPTs.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023 ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

Looking Ahead: What’s Next For ChatGPT

The past year has been a testament to continuous innovation, but it is merely the prologue to a future rich with potential.

The upcoming year promises incremental improvements and leaps in AI capabilities, user experience, and integrative technologies that could redefine our interaction with digital assistants.

With a community of users and developers growing stronger and more diverse, the evolution of ChatGPT is poised to surpass expectations and challenge the boundaries of today’s AI landscape.

As we step into this next chapter, the possibilities are as limitless as generative AI continues to advance.

Featured image: photosince/Shutterstock

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SEO

Is AI Going To E-E-A-T Your Experience For Breakfast? The LinkedIn Example

Published

22 hours ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Is AI Going To E-E-A-T Your Experience For Breakfast? The LinkedIn Example

Are LinkedIn’s collaborative articles part of SEO strategies nowadays?

More to the point, should they be?

The search landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, blurring the lines between search engines and where searches occur.

Following the explosive adoption of AI in content marketing and the most recent Google HCU, core, and spam updates, we’re looking at a very different picture now in search versus 12 months ago.

User-generated and community-led content seems to be met with renewed favourability by the algorithm (theoretically, mirroring what people reward, too).

LinkedIn’s freshly launched “collaborative articles” seem to be a perfect sign of our times: content that combines authority (thanks to LinkedIn’s authority), AI-generated content, and user-generated content.

What could go wrong?

In this article, we’ll cover:

What are “collaborative articles” on LinkedIn?
Why am I discussing them in the context of SEO?
The main issues with collaborative articles.
How is Google treating them?
How they can impact your organic performance.

What Are LinkedIn Collaborative Articles?

First launched in March 2023, LinkedIn says about collaborative articles:

“These articles begin as AI-powered conversation starters, developed with our editorial team, but they aren’t complete without insights from our members. A select group of experts have been invited to contribute their own ideas, examples and experiences within the articles.“

Essentially, each of these articles starts as a collection of AI-generated answers to FAQs/prompts around any given topic. Under each of these sections, community members can add their own perspectives, insights, and advice.

What’s in it for contributors? To earn, ultimately, a “Top Voice” badge on their profile.

The articles are indexable and are all placed under the same folder (https://www.linkedin.com/advice/).

They look like this:

Screenshot from LinkedIn, November 2023 LinkedIn content

On the left-hand side, there are always FAQs relevant to the topic answered by AI.

On the right-hand side is where the contributions by community members get posted. Users can react to each contribution in the same way as to any LinkedIn post on their feed.

How Easy Is It To Contribute And Earn A Badge For Your Insights?

Pretty easy.

I first got invited to contribute on September 19, 2023 – though I had already found a way to contribute a few weeks before this.

Screenshot from LinkedIn, November 2023 Exclusive LinkedIn group of experts

My notifications included updates from connections who had contributed to an article.

By clicking on these, I was transferred to the article and was able to contribute to it, too (as well as additional articles, linked at the bottom).

I wanted to test how hard it was to earn a Top SEO Voice badge. Eight article contributions later (around three to four hours of my time), I had earned three.

LinkedIn profile

Screenshots from LinkedIn, November 2023 Community top voice badge

How? Apparently, simply by earning likes for my contributions.

A Mix Of Brilliance, Fuzzy Editorial Rules, And Weird Uncle Bob

Collaborative articles sound great in principle – a win-win for both sides.

LinkedIn struck a bullseye: creating and scaling content (theoretically) oozing with E-E-A-T, with minimal investment.
Users benefit from building their personal brand (and their company’s) for a fragment of the effort and cost this usually takes. The smartest ones complement their on-site content strategy with this off-site golden ticket.

What isn’t clear from LinkedIn’s Help Center is what this editorial mix of AI and human input looks like.

Things like:

How much involvement do the editors have before the topic is put to the community?
Are they only determining and refining the prompts?
Are they editing the AI-generated responses?
More importantly, what involvement (if any) do they have after they unleash the original AI-generated piece into the world?
And more.

I think of this content like weird Uncle Bob, always joining the family gatherings with his usual, unoriginal conversation starters. Only, this time, he’s come bearing gifts.

Do you engage? Or do you proceed to consume as many canapés as possible, pretending you haven’t seen him yet?

Why Am I Talking About LinkedIn Articles And SEO?

When I first posted about LinkedIn’s articles, it was the end of September. Semrush showed clear evidence of their impact and potential in Search. (Disclosure: I work for Semrush.)

Only six months after their launch, LinkedIn articles were on a visible, consistent upward trend.

They were already driving 792.5K organic visits a month. (This was a 75% jump in August.)
They ranked for 811,700 keywords.
Their pages were ranking in the top 10 for 78,000 of them.
For 123,700 of them, they appeared in a SERP feature, such as People Also Ask and Featured Snippets.
Almost 72% of the keywords had informational intent, followed by commercial keywords (22%).

Here’s a screenshot with some of the top keywords for which these pages ranked at the top:

Screenshot from Semrush US database, desktop, September 2023

Now, take the page that held the Featured Snippet for competitive queries like “how to enter bios” (monthly search volume of 5,400 and keyword difficulty of 84, based on Semrush data).

It came in ahead of pages on Tom’s Hardware, Hewlett-Packard, or Reddit.

LinkedIn computer hardware installation collaborative article

Screenshots from LinkedIn, November 2023 collaborative article example

See anything weird? Even at the time of writing this post, this collaborative article had precisely zero (0) contributions.

This means a page with 100% AI-generated content (and unclear interference of human editors) was rewarded with the Featured Snippet against highly authoritative and relevant domains and pages.

A Sea Of Opportunity Or A Storm Ready To Break Out?

Let’s consider these articles in the context of Google’s guidelines for creating helpful, reliable, people-first content and its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

Of particular importance here, I believe, is the most recently added “E” in “E-E-A-T,” which takes experience into account, alongside expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

For so many of these articles to have been ranking so well must mean that they were meeting the guidelines and proving helpful and reliable for content consumers.

After all, they rely on “a select group of experts to contribute their own ideas, examples and experiences within the articles,” so they must be worthy of strong organic performances, right?

Possibly. (I’ve yet to see such an example, but I want to believe somewhere in the thousands of pages these do exist).

But, based on what I’ve seen, there are too many examples of poor-quality content to justify such big rewards in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The common issues I’ve spotted:

1. Misinformation

I can’t tell how much vetting or editing there is going on behind the scenes, but the amount of misinformation in some collaborative articles is alarming. This goes for AI-generated content and community contributions alike.

I don’t really envy the task of fact-checking what LinkedIn describes as “thousands of collaborative articles on 2,500+ skills.” Still, if it’s quality and helpfulness we’re concerned with here, I’d start brewing my coffee a little stronger if I were LinkedIn.

At the moment, it feels a little too much like a free-for-all.

Here are some examples of topics like SEO or content marketing.

misinformation example 1

misinformation example 2

Screenshots from LinkedIn, November 2023 misinformation example 3

2. Thin Content

To a degree, some contributions seem to do nothing more than mirror the points made in the original AI-generated piece.

For example, are these contributions enough to warrant a high level of “experience” in these articles?

thin content example 1

Screenshots from LinkedIn, November 2023 thin content example 2

The irony to think that some of these contributions may have also been generated by AI…

3. Missing Information

While many examples don’t provide new or unique perspectives, some articles simply don’t provide…any perspectives at all.

This piece about analytical reasoning ranked in the top 10 for 128 keywords when I first looked into it last September (down to 80 in October).

Screenshot from LinkedIn, November 2023 Missing Information example

It even held the Featured Snippet for competitive keywords like “inductive reasoning examples” for a while (5.4K monthly searches in the US), although it had no contributions on this subsection.

Most of its sections remain empty, so we’re talking about mainly AI-generated content.

Does this mean that Google really doesn’t care whether your content comes from humans or AI?

I’m not convinced.

How Have The Recent Google Updates Impacted This Content?

After August and October 2023 Google core updates (at the time of writing, the November 2023 Google core update is rolling out), the September 2023 helpful content update, and the October 2023 spam update, the performance of this section seems to be declining.

According to Semrush data:

Screenshot from Semrush, November 2023 Semrush data

Organic traffic to these pages was down to 453,000 (a 43% drop from September, bringing their performance close to August levels).
They ranked for 465,100 keywords (down by 43% MoM).
Keywords in the Top 10 dropped by 33% (51,900 vs 78,000 in September).
Keywords in the top 10 accounted for 161,800 visits (vs 287,200 in September, down by 44% MoM).

The LinkedIn domain doesn’t seem to have been impacted negatively overall.

Screenshot from Semrush, November 2023 Semrush data

Is this a sign that Google has already picked up the weaknesses in this content and has started balancing actual usefulness versus the overall domain authority that might have propelled it originally?

Will we see it declining further in the coming months? Or are there better things to come for this feature?

Should You Already Be On The Bandwagon If You’re In SEO?

I was on the side of caution before the Google algorithm updates of the past couple of months.

Now, I’d be even more hesitant to invest a substantial part of my resources towards baking this content into my strategy.

As with any other new, third-party feature (or platform – does anyone remember Threads?), it’s always a case of balancing being an early adopter with avoiding over-investment. At least while being unclear on the benefits.

Collaborative articles are a relatively fresh, experimental, external feature you have minimal control over as part of your SEO strategy.

Now, we also have signs from Google that this content may not be as “cool” as we initially thought.

This Is What I’d Do

That’s not to say it’s not worth trying some small-scale experiments.

Or, maybe, use it as part of promoting your own personal brand (but I’ve yet to see any data around the impact of the “Top Voice” badges on perceived value).

Treat this content as you would any other owned content.

Follow Google’s guidelines.
Add genuine value for your audience.
Add your own unique perspective.
Highlight gaps and misinformation.

Experience shows us that when tactics get abused, and the user experience suffers, Google eventually steps in (from guest blogging to parasite SEO, most recently).

It might make algorithmic tweaks when launching updates, launch a new system, or hand out manual actions – the point is that you don’t know how things will progress. Only LinkedIn and Google have control over that.

As things stand, I can easily see any of the below potential outcomes:

This content becomes the AI equivalent of the content farms of the pre-Panda age, leading to Google clamping down on its search performance.
LinkedIn’s editors stepping in more for quality control (provided LinkedIn deems the investment worthwhile).
LinkedIn starts pushing its initiative much more to encourage participation and engagement. (This could be what makes the difference between a dead content farm and Reddit-like value.)

Anything could happen. I believe the next few months will give us a clearer picture.

What’s Next For AI And Its Role In SEO And Social Media?

When it comes to content creation, I think it’s safe to say that AI isn’t quite ready to E-E-A-T your experience for breakfast. Yet.

We can probably expect more of these kinds of movements from social media platforms and forums in the coming months, moving more toward mixing AI with human experience.

What do you think is next for LinkedIn’s collaborative articles? Let me know on LinkedIn!

More resources:

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

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SEO

What It Really Is & How to Build One

Published

1 day ago

November 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Building a personal brand is undeniably hard work, but it isn’t as tricky as you might think.

I spoke with two influencers—Wes Kao and Matt Diggity—for their best tips on establishing a name for yourself online.

A personal brand is how people perceive you and what you’re known for. It’s the skills, experience, and values that give you an edge over others.

Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman is one example. He helms and hosts the science/health podcast Huberman Lab, lectures at Stanford Medicine, and has earned media mentions from the likes of BBC, TIME, and more.

Andrew’s personal brand is built on his credibility and areas of expertise. Many of his posts attract thousands of likes and hundreds of comments on X and LinkedIn.

If we want to dig deeper, Maven and altMBA co-founder Wes Kao has a somewhat alternative take on the definition:

In my opinion, it’s better to reframe ‘personal branding’ into ‘personal credibility.’ Personal branding has a superficial undertone. It assumes you have your work, then you tack on an artificial layer of ‘branding’ to shape perceptions.

She suggests that personal credibility is about substance: Showing people what you do, how you think, and how you can contribute. Wes adds:

In this way, you build deeper connections with people who believe in your work—which means stronger relationships, more control, and more opportunities.

In this podcast interview snippet with Nick Bennett, SparkToro’s Amanda Natividad echoes Wes’ sentiment:

People generally don’t like the term [personal brand] because it sounds disingenuous and icky. Acknowledging the existence of your personal brand is admitting that you care what others think about you, and that you find ways to manage those expectations at scale.

Wild as it sounds, building a solid personal brand gives you more control over your life.

A strong following could:

Expand your realm of influence, particularly in your area of expertise (i.e., be viewed as a subject matter expert).
Boost your credibility, in turn allowing you to promote your company/product better.
Build a loyal following independent of the company you’re working for (or if you own that company, create more positive sentiment towards it).
Open doors to job, networking, and investment opportunities.

Chiangmai SEO conference founder Matt Diggity shares some excellent points in his Facebook post on the topic, too.

Excerpt from Matt Diggity's Facebook post on the benefits of personal branding.

There’s no linear path to building your personal brand.

As a precursor to the below steps, let’s first talk about finding your “voice.”

Wes and Matt both emphasize the importance of staying true to yourself. That means not crafting an online persona of who you think you should be.

I try to write like how I sound in person. Talking and writing are different media, so you shouldn’t try to match the two in a literal sense, but you want to capture your overall spirit. For example, I have a hint of snark in my writing because that’s how I sound in person.

Matt echoes this sentiment:

How I talk on the internet is how I talk IRL. If I’m not having a f**king blast on my YouTube videos, I won’t do them. It has to be fun.

Keep this idea in mind as you go through the steps below.

Step 1: Position yourself

Think of yourself as a product: What are your strengths, obsessions, and areas of expertise?

If you’re well-versed in technical SEO or a seasoned entrepreneur, these might be your unique selling points.

From there, double down on something you would be excited to think, write, and talk about for years—because “it will likely take years to get to where you want to go,” says Wes.

As an (optional) next step, consider solidifying your position with a spiky POV—a term coined by Wes, and which she cautions should be used with care.

A spiky POV is not about a contrarian hot take for the sake of it. In 2023, social platforms are flooded with hot takes and generic advice. I think about respecting the intelligence of my audience and teaching them something they don’t already know. A true spiky POV is rooted in deep expertise, including recognizing the limitations and counterpoints of your idea. This builds your reputation as someone who is rigorous and worth the time to engage with.

Here’s a LinkedIn post by Wes that combines all of the above: a unique perspective backed by her personal experiences, with a takeaway for the audience too. In other words—a spiky, worthy POV.

Step 2: Start sharing publicly

You already knew this, but social media platforms are one of the best ways to get growth and build your name. It’s your chance to build your reputation in a public arena.

Wes, Amanda, and Matt each utilized a combination of online channels to promote their voice and content. It’s one of the first things you should do—because your content is really only as good as its reach.

This is the first thing I did to build a personal brand and authority in the SEO industry, and I still do it to this day…

Take an hour a week, go to SEO social media hangouts (SEO Facebook groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and go from top-to-bottom answering people’s questions.…

— Matt Diggity (@mattdiggityseo) September 27, 2023

This doesn’t mean cross-posting your content across more platforms than you can manage, of course.

Study where your target audience spends most of their time, then hone in on those platforms (ideally, stick to no more than 2-3).

In Matt’s case, his followers are primarily on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—and that’s where his SEO-led content thrives.

If creating whole posts from scratch seems daunting, start by commenting thoughtfully in relevant online communities. Obviously, do it with heart:

This is the first thing I did to build a personal brand and authority in the SEO industry, and I still do it to this day…

Take an hour a week, go to SEO social media hangouts (SEO Facebook groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and go from top-to-bottom answering people’s questions.…

— Matt Diggity (@mattdiggityseo) September 27, 2023

Here are some simple ways to start.

LinkedIn: Contribute to a collaborative article

You might have seen these articles floating around LinkedIn—perhaps even been invited to add your insights to them.

These blog posts are similar to Wikipedia pages: LinkedIn users build on each AI-generated article with their perspectives, and readers can choose to react to these additions or engage with the content.