The rise of AI-powered search engines and zero-click results is reshaping the online space, forcing marketers and content strategists to rethink how they measure success. You’re not alone if your website traffic is dipping, but your conversions and on-site engagement are increasing. And you’re not doing anything wrong. That’s what you can expect in the era of zero-click search SEO adaptation.
We’ll explore zero-click searches, why they matter, and how to optimize your content for this evolving search environment. We’ll also discuss why traditional metrics like click-through rates (CTR) are becoming less relevant and what marketers should focus on to stay competitive and drive meaningful results.
Zero-Click Searches: Explained
What are zero-click searches? Let’s break it down.
Zero-click searches are queries answered directly on the search engine results page (SERP), so the user doesn’t need to click through to a website. Think of Google’s featured snippets and the AI-generated answers now populating the platform.
These days, a majority of Google searches result in zero clicks. The data above shows that, in 2024, 58.5% of Google searches in the U.S. and 59.7% in Europe did not generate clicks.
In other words, zero-click searches often mean users get their answers instantly, and usually don’t need to go further. It’s convenient for the user, but potentially frustrating for the publisher who invested in that content. Yet here’s the twist: this shift isn’t necessarily bad. It just requires a change in strategy.
The New SEO Strategy: Adaptation Is a Must
Traditional SEO focused heavily on driving clicks. There’s nothing wrong with still wanting to generate traffic. However, with AI-generated summaries and snippets giving users instant answers, we must adopt a new strategy: zero-click search SEO adaptation.
This approach acknowledges that success can’t be measured solely by traffic volume anymore. Instead, it looks at other metrics to determine how your content is performing. This includes:
Time on Page: How much time are they spending on a single page?
Scroll Depth: Are they scrolling to the bottom of the page or stopping halfway?
Conversion Rates: How many people convert by completing a form or purchasing?
On-Site Engagement Metrics: How many people are engaging? How many are returning visitors? How many pages are being viewed per session?
Why would we want to track these metrics? When traffic is low, we want to learn about the behavior of the users visiting your site. Those who click through are often further down the funnel. They’re more informed, curious, and ready to act.
The Reality of Declining Top-of-Funnel Traffic
With AI surfacing top-level queries right on the SERP, fewer users visit your website for basic information. Before you panic, it isn’t all bad news. This means your site may see:
This isn’t a decline, necessarily. You’re reaching people who are further along in their decision-making process. As a result, you may see people exploring your website more or making purchases.
Your Guide to Zero-Click Search SEO Adaptation
How can you adapt your strategy to zero-click search optimization? Let’s break it down.
Step 1: Restructure Your Content Strategy
If most zero-click search results address the top-of-the-funnel questions, you need to invest more in middle and bottom-of-funnel content. The way to pivot is to create content for different search intents.
For example:
Top-level content (e.g., “What is X?”) should still exist but can be shorter, more concise, and optimized for AI or snippet capture.
Middle-funnel content should answer comparative or evaluative questions like, “How does X compare to Y?” or “What features should I look for in X?”
Bottom-funnel content should target purchase-related or decision-making keywords like “Best X for [use case],” “Where to buy X,” or “[Product] reviews.”
It’s also smart to use a pillar-cluster model. Create pillar pages exploring high-level topics, then link to more focused cluster pages with specific keywords and subtopics. This helps AI and search engines understand the depth of your expertise.
Step 2: Focus on Conversion-Ready Users
Remember: not all traffic is created equal. One engaged, ready-to-buy user is worth more than 100 casual browsers. So, you’ll want to use on-page signals to nurture leads.
You can do that by:
Including clear calls-to-action (CTAs) based on visitor intent
Offering downloads, checklists, or calculators to encourage engagement
Embedding videos or interactive content to increase time on page
Rather than focusing on impressions and CTR alone, you should start prioritizing:
Engagement Rate: How many users engage with something on-page?
Dwell Time: How long are they staying?
Lead Conversion Rate: How many take the next step?
These are the accurate indicators of content success in a zero-click world.
Step 3: Make Peace with the AI Layer
AI isn’t going away. It’s becoming the first touchpoint for many users. That means your top-level content isn’t wasted, but it’s being repurposed by AI to answer questions.
That visibility still builds trust, even if you don’t get the click. For example, if your content is used in a featured snippet or quoted in an AI-generated summary, users may recognize your brand and return when ready to engage more deeply.
To optimize for AI, try:
Using clear headers and structured content
Answering questions in the first few lines
Writing with a natural, conversational tone
Providing concise, factual, and trustworthy information
Step 4: Reevaluate Your Keyword Strategy
AI search is increasingly semantic and contextual, meaning it’s not just about matching keywords. It’s about understanding intent and creating your content with that in mind.
Instead of stuffing the page with exact-match keywords repeatedly, try using variations naturally throughout the text so you don’t get penalized. Also, structure content in a way that answers a question, offers an opinion, or presents data. Let’s use this blog post as an example:
Overusing the “zero-click search SEO adaptation” keyword would turn off Google and readers. So, it helps to use similar keywords such as “zero-click search” and “what are zero-click searches.”
This post is also formatted with H2s and H3s, as well as bullet points, offering a better user experience for readers. However, this also helps search engines understand the content.
Remember that while you want to consider the algorithm, it needs to go beyond that. Think like a journalist and focus on creating quality content that offers value and answers questions.
Step 5: Build Deeper Relationships with Content
In a world where top-level leads may never land on your site, make sure the ones who do feel like they belong. Nurturing those relationships is what will secure you long-term customers.
To make them feel welcome and appreciated:
Create gated content for lead capture
Offer newsletters, live chats, or SMS updates
Host webinars or deeper dive content sessions
Leverage first-party data to tailor the experience
Your website should be a destination people want to visit. You want to provide an incredible experience that keeps users returning for more.
Step 6: Educate Stakeholders on the Shift
If you work with clients, executives, or teams that equate SEO success with traffic volume, it’s time to shift the narrative.
Use visuals and reporting to show:
Lower traffic but higher engagement
Shorter journeys from visit to purchase
More qualified leads
This reframe helps align expectations with today’s reality.
Step 7: Leverage Branded and Owned Search Opportunities
As generic search queries become zero-click territory, branded queries and owned assets offer more reliable visibility. To do this, you can:
Encourage users to search for your brand name directly by building trust and reputation through consistent content and social media presence.
Optimize your FAQ pages, product descriptions, and about sections to appear in branded zero-click results.
Owning your brand space in search is more important than ever in a world of AI-driven search.
Step 8: Don’t Neglect Off-Site Channels
Your brand’s digital presence extends beyond your site in a zero-click search environment. Diversify where and how your content lives on the web. Here’s how:
Publish long-form content on platforms like LinkedIn to catch top-funnel attention.
Be a guest on industry podcasts or contribute to niche publications.
Encourage user-generated content and reviews on third-party platforms like Yelp or TrustPilot.
These efforts support your overall visibility and create additional entry points into your brand’s online space, even when users never leave the SERP.
Winning with Zero-Click Search SEO Adaptation
Search is changing, but the goal is still to provide value to your audience.
In the era of AI and zero-click searches, your job is to create content that resonates beyond the click. This means understanding how to optimize for visibility, engagement, and conversions, even if users never make it to your homepage.
Adapt your strategy. Realign your metrics. And lean into deeper, more meaningful content. That’s how you win with zero-click search SEO adaptation.
If you’re ready to adapt your strategy, contact us to schedule a free consultation call.
Content quality plays a direct role in how customers perceive your brand.
Engaging, well-written content establishes authority and trustworthiness, showing customers that a brand values their time and business. On the other hand, poorly executed content loaded with errors, irrelevant details, or copied material sends a message of carelessness.
Many companies believe they can save money by outsourcing to cheaper, less skilled writers. But what seems like a savvy business move can quickly turn into a revenue-draining mistake.
A recent conversation with a potential client revealed a growing frustration: they fired their previous agency because they outsourced writing to low-cost, foreign writers. Their content ended up being plagiarized, poorly written, and riddled with basic language mistakes. Not only would this hurt a brand’s reputation to publish, but it would also cost time and money to rewrite it.
Let’s explore the key reasons low-quality content is more expensive in the long run.
The High Cost of Low-Quality Content: 6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Cut Corners
In today’s competitive online world, high-quality content isn’t just nice to have. It’s a necessity.
Content is often the first touchpoint potential customers have with a brand, making first impressions everything. Unfortunately, many businesses learn the hard way that skimping on content quality to save a few bucks often backfires. Here’s how low-quality content can hurt your brand.
1. Brand Damage: Losing Customer Trust and Loyalty
When customers encounter sloppy content filled with typos, factual inaccuracies, or overly simplistic language, they’re less likely to trust that brand. It feels unprofessional and inconsistent, leading them to doubt the quality of the products or services offered. And once trust is broken, it’s difficult to restore.
Quality can also decrease when brands focus more on pumping out tons of content to meet deadlines or self-imposed posting schedules. About 83% of marketers said they feel it’s better to focus on quality over quantity, even if it means posting less often.
Example: Imagine visiting a website for a consulting firm and finding blog posts that read like they were written by a grade-school student. Instead of imparting expertise, this type of content can make a brand look amateurish. Low-quality writing can easily lead prospective customers to look elsewhere, costing the company potential sales and long-term loyalty.
Solution: Professional writers and editors uphold a brand’s voice and credibility by producing accurate, engaging, and expertly written content. This creates a consistent brand image that customers can rely on.
2. Plagiarism Risks: Legal Issues and SEO Penalties
Hiring cheap writers often means running the risk of plagiarized content. Not only is this a legal liability, but it also puts your business at risk of being penalized by search engines. Google is increasingly cracking down on websites that engage in content duplication, which can result in a lower ranking or even complete removal from search results.
Example: A business unknowingly publishes plagiarized content supplied by a low-cost writer. The result? Not only does the website get penalized in search rankings, but it also faces potential lawsuits. The cost of cleaning up this mess far outweighs the savings from cheap content.
Solution: Partnering with agencies prioritizing original, well-researched content eliminates these risks. Professional agencies use thorough editorial processes to ensure content is plagiarism-free, protecting a business’s reputation.
3. AI Overuse: Robotic Writing That Fails to Engage
With AI technology advancing, many agencies are tempted to rely on AI-generated content, hoping it will save time and money. While AI can help with brainstorming or data analysis, it falls short in creating content with a human touch. Audiences today crave authenticity and unique perspectives that resonate on a personal level, which is something AI simply can’t provide.
Example: A potential client receives AI-generated articles that come off as generic and robotic, missing the nuanced tone their brand requires. Instead of engaging readers, this content feels lifeless, leading to lower engagement rates and higher bounce rates.
Solution: By working with an experienced content agency, you get real writers, editors, and strategists. Human insight and creativity are irreplaceable in crafting compelling, relatable content.
4. Time-Consuming Rewrites: Fixing Low-Quality Content Is Costly
When a brand hires low-cost writers, the expectation is that the content will require minimal edits. However, this is rarely the case. Subpar content requires extensive editing or complete rewrites, consuming valuable time and resources. In the worst cases, businesses end up hiring new writers to redo everything from scratch, effectively paying for content twice.
Example: A company saves money upfront by using cheap writers, but quickly discovers that most of the content is unusable. They spend additional time revising it in-house, only to realize they’re still falling short of their quality standards.
Solution: Investing in quality content from the start prevents this costly back-and-forth. Partnering with a trusted content agency that provides high-quality writing from the beginning ensures your resources are used efficiently.
5. Client Retention: Low-Quality Content Costs Agencies Their Clients
For marketing agencies, poor content has a far-reaching impact. It doesn’t just harm one client’s brand. It also damages the agency’s reputation and causes clients to look for other providers. If clients repeatedly receive lackluster results, they’ll quickly lose confidence in their agency and move their business elsewhere.
Example: A marketing agency loses a major client due to constant complaints about poorly written content. The agency’s decision to cut costs by hiring low-quality writers has now resulted in lost revenue and a tarnished reputation.
Solution: By collaborating with a professional content agency, marketing firms can offer their clients reliable, premium content. Consistent quality helps agencies retain clients and build stronger, long-lasting partnerships.
6. SEO Decline: Low-Quality Content Means Lower Rankings
Search engines prioritize content that is original, insightful, and useful to readers. When a business fills its site with low-quality, keyword-stuffed content, it risks a drop in rankings. Search engines are quick to recognize mediocre material, and over time, this can significantly impact a brand’s online visibility.
Considering 85.19% of all blog traffic comes from organic search, don’t you want to take advantage? You must be able to stand out from competitors with top-notch, optimized content.
Example: A website’s search rankings plummet due to poorly optimized content. While it may save money initially, the long-term impact on search rankings can be devastating for the brand’s online presence.
Solution: Experienced content agencies understand how to create content that strikes a balance between SEO optimization and reader engagement. They focus on delivering content that ranks well and satisfies readers, improving both visibility and brand reputation.
Protect Your Brand with Quality Content
The saying “you get what you pay for” rings especially true when it comes to content creation. Poorly written, plagiarized, or AI-generated content may save you a few dollars initially, but the long-term costs of brand damage, lost customers, and SEO penalties are too great to ignore. Instead, invest in quality content that builds trust, boosts engagement, and drives revenue.
Hiring real experts is the first step in protecting your brand. Don’t risk your reputation. Choose a content agency that values quality just as much as you do. When your brand is in capable hands, your clients will keep coming back for more.
Ready to Invest in Quality Content?
When considering the costs associated with poorly written content, the benefits of investing in quality content become obvious. Working with a reputable agency like ours means partnering with real people — skilled writers, editors, and strategists — who are committed to your success.
Here at Express Writers, we don’t cut corners. Our content is crafted to meet the highest standards, preserving your brand’s reputation and retaining your clients’ trust.
AI is here, and while it has generated thousands of pieces of content already, those pieces of content are still not quite up to the standard you would expect (or Google for that matter) when it comes to expertise. If your company is using AI-generated content, you may want to consider hiring a Subject Matter Expert (SME) writer to follow up and help you optimize and more importantly, humanize your content so that you do not sacrifice your position in the SERPs.
AI-Content Generation Doesn’t Understand E-E-A-T, But a Writer Does
AI creates content by pulling words together based on the prompts you provide. It can optimize content with keywords, but not in a reader-friendly way. Likewise, the tool provides outdated stats, which means you could be quoting something as much as two years old – and in the content marketing world, that might as well be 10 years. Content marketing trends come and go more than the tides, and now that Google has made it clear E-E-A-T is the standard, quickly generating content with AI and not following up with human AI content optimization is a risky chance to take.
What is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This was designed for Google’s quality search result analysis and helps feed into the infamous algorithm that every website owner is trying to attract.
While E-E-A-T doesn’t directly impact your rankings in the SERPs, it is a strong SEO factor that you cannot ignore and E-E-A-T is more likely to increase conversions, according to SEMRush, because if a customer trusts your site, they are more likely to use your service.
Examining How AI Struggles to Meet the E-E-A-T Expectations
AI content is written by a computer, and while the technology can perform tasks such as intelligence, learning, reasoning, and even decision making, there is a lot that it cannot do. From the content marketing side of things, AI lacks significantly in terms of creating personalized narration, building character, establishing trust, and even being factually correct.
Right now, ChatGPT3.5 only has data back to 2021. Asking it how many blogs there were worldwide created this response:
A simple example
As you can see, its knowledge goes back to September 2021, and worse, it didn’t even have an answer then.
In case you’re curious, there are more than 600 million blogs as of 2023.
AI doesn’t have the ability to pull statistics, and statistics build two very important components of E-E-A-T:
Authoritativeness
Trustworthiness
If you cannot prove to your audience what you are saying is factually correct, where is your authority and how can they trust you?
Easy, they can’t.
What is AI Content Optimization?
AI-generated content has its flaws, but it definitely is cheaper and faster than your average writer. That said, despite AI automating numerous processes in our lives, it cannot go unsupervised – especially when it comes to content. Instead, you need content that has a human touch, essentially human-optimized AI content, so that your message gets across and leaves a profound impact on the reader.
5 Reasons to Consider AI Optimization Done by a Writer
In most cases, you can generate hundreds of blogs for free, but you still want to optimize your content using a human. At Express Writers, we do offer human optimization for AI-generated content, and quite a few clients have used this service so far to help amplify their AI-created content without sacrificing their SERPs.
For human optimization, we recommend using our General Blog service. It is affordable, has a human optimize for SEO, rewrite for flow, add branding and personality, and most importantly, infuse your content with up-to-date statistics.
Still not sure? Here are some reasons you need to use a human to optimize your content.
Humanized AI Content Offers Personalization
AI is repetitive, robotic and has no personality, but it is a computer, so you can’t expect it to have a personality. Your marketing copy, however, and those who read it, do expect to see some personality in the words you provide.
We are overwhelmed with dozens of marketing messages, emails, blogs and social media posts each day, so you need something that stands out, and AI content cannot do that alone. Instead, it needs that human touch.
AI might automate generating your blogs for you, but you still need a human to help that piece of content resonate with your audience and offer authenticity.
AI Has Writing Flaws
AI is by no means perfect, and while they continue to learn and release new versions of AI-generation tools, they still have too much missing. AI does understand basic grammar, but the output sometimes repeats itself and doesn’t read well.
For example, I had ChatGPT3.5 write me a 100-word paragraph for a blog on “reasons to start running,” and requested it to write a catching intro.
Here is the intro it came up with:
Not awful, but also, not really catchy either. It tends to ramble, it doesn’t understand flow, and some of the text feels more like fluff/filler than something that hooks. Speaking of, where is the hook? Do you see a profound hook that makes you want to continue reading a blog based on this intro?
A human needs to go through these paragraphs and pick out what matters, refine points brought up, and here is the perfect opportunity to add an interesting fact or stat that catches the reader’s eye.
A Human Writer to Help Infuse Stats into Your Content
Stats are crucial for content. Not only do they provide backlink opportunities – yes, backlinks are still important to SEO, but they also help you satisfy the Authority and Trustworthiness requirements of E-E-A-T. When you have statistics to back up statements or claims within your content, the reader feels more confident in what they’ve read rather than just making a statement and offering no insight or high-value resources to back it up.
Offering Accuracy Checks
You can use AI to generate your first draft, but you need human eyes to go back and review the content for accuracy. As shown above, AI content tools have their flaws, and sometimes they can be inaccurate, especially when it comes to more industry-specific content. Having an SME writer review the content for inaccuracies within your niche, including the wrong use of special terminology, etc., can greatly improve the overall quality of your content.
You Need a Human for Empathy
While AI-generated content can certainly create as many pages of content as you would like, it cannot offer empathy, and that is crucial in content marketing. The reader needs to think that you are on their side, you understand where they are coming from, and you are developing a relationship with them.
AI cannot do that. Instead, you need your content to be compelling and the reader needs to feel as though you “get them,” which requires a human.
AI is a First Draft, but You Need a Real Writer to Take it to the Finish Line
Yes, AI can be a great tool for coming up with blog ideas, generating first drafts and even writing up an outline, but once it comes to the meat of the topic or even taking that content to publish status, you need a human writer.
Whether you want your content optimized or outright humanized, the SME writers at Express Writers can help get the job done. We can edit, rewrite for flow, add in your branding and optimize for search engines. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you add that human touch to your AI-generated content.
While AI can share the workspace with a traditional writer and editor for content marketing, there is one thing it cannot do – SME content creation.
The only genuine SME (subject matter expert) out there in your niche is, well, you – and the talented freelance writers out there that know your field just as well as you.
More importantly, Google knows it and expects to see that in your content.
What is AI Content Generation?
It seems like almost daily another AI content generation tool is launching.
Some are free, others are paid, but are any of these tools able to truly replace a genuine expert? TechTarget lists 36 AI generation tools in their 2023 guide, and while there are loads of tools to choose from, they are all based on the GPT-3 model.
AI content generation is content that is created by a platform utilizing the GPT-3 model. The content is generated and while marketed to be “new,” it really is not. Think about how AI generators work.
Generative AI tools take keywords, themes, and even voice/tone preferences, and it works to generate a blog, web page, or even a social media post, but it is not creating them out of thin air or using any expertise in the field to offer unique opinions and insights.
Instead, AI generates your content by pulling information from the internet. It searches and scours the thousands of web pages and blogs already out there to piece together information and generate copy.
But, AI Doesn’t Understand What it is Creating….
While it is fascinating to watch AI work, AI has no clue what it is writing. It is solely based on an algorithm pulling data based on your input.
Only a Genuine Industry Expert Knows the Content for their Industry
AI is incredibly fast and can write a blog post quicker than any writer, but because of its limitations in terms of understanding and having any expertise in the niche, it is not a specialist.
Here is where you may hit a speed bump or two, if you are using AI generation for your content marketing:
Let’s Talk about E-E-A-T and How AI Falls Short for Industry Professionals Seeking SME Content Creation
In Google’s February release, they mention guidelines for using AI generation in your content, and make it clear that they reward high quality regardless of how it is produced (whether human-made or AI-generated).
Many took that as a green light to go ahead with AI, but that is not what Google conveyed.
Let’s go back to the double update released in December 2022 when the extra “E” was added to the E-A-T standard, making it now E-E-A-T.
Image Source: Google Update, December 2022, Page 26
What was that extra “E” for?
Experience…
Trust is crucial with Google. Some websites may fall short of the bar, no matter how experienced, professional, or even authoritative they are if they don’t have the reader’s trust, and one example given from Google within their update reveals the most consequential sentence that websites need to pay attention to:
“…the content creator lacks adequate experience” means they will have a low E-E-A-T score.
For example, if the content creator reviews a restaurant, but never ate at the restaurant, they are not experienced or trustworthy, which means they have a low E-E-A-T to Google.
Let’s break it down further by looking at each component of E-E-A-T.
Experience
Experience, in Google’s eyes, offers another level of dimension they can use when evaluating content. Content must demonstrate it was assembled with a degree of experience – after all, a reader will value a person’s content more if they have life experiences on the topic and they are not basing it exclusively on research.
AI has no experience with your topic. Let’s take a look at divorce law, for example.
You want to write a blog for your law firm on the latest guideline changes for calculating child support, but you will find a few speed bumps along the way using AI to do so:
AI typically doesn’t access the latest data – so it may not even know or find the latest guidelines for calculating child support. Worse, it could create a blog on outdated guidelines that it notes as “updated.”
AI has no actual understanding of handling child support cases. AI hasn’t had to calculate what a child support payment would be based on your state, the local laws, or the parent’s income. It has definitely never filled out the child support worksheets – but you have.
If you go off the premise of why “experience” was added by Google, you can see why AI might not meet the mark. AI is not an attorney or a financial expert, and therefore, there is no SME content creation happening when you use AI to draft your blogs.
Expertise
SME content creation comes down to one important factor: credibility. A person without qualifications should not be writing a topic out of their realm of expertise. Period.
Why?
Google is unlikely to rank a website with content not written by a credible source over a website they know has content written by a believable source.
In areas where a subject matter expert is required, such as healthcare, Google has a higher level of scrutiny than things based more on personal opinion and less on facts.
Authoritativeness
Authority means you have proven you belong in the niche your website represents.
Sure, backlinks to relevant and authoritative sources will help build that authority, but only so far. If you only have quality backlinks, but don’t meet the other areas of E-E-A-T – well, you don’t have much to go on.
There’s not much more to say there. Authority is a building block, and it requires more than one block to finish your foundation.
Trustworthiness
Now, we’ve already covered where AI falls short for SME content creation, but the biggest area you are going to see harmed by the use of AI is “trust.”
Readers need to trust the content they read, and the website publishing that content, and Google has made it clear what they expect.
In fact, Google has made it evident that a website should have a clear owner, and that owner is responsible for that site.
When you are in industries that require an expert, such as legal, finance, technology, etc., the reader needs to know that a genuine SME is writing that content – not AI.
In Google’s policies update (modified March 14, 2023), they made this clearer.
In Section 2, Google notes that content distributed online cannot misrepresent the provenance of where it was developed. Meaning, if your content is AI generated, but you claim it was written by an SME, you’ve violated that AI use policy.
Likewise, impersonating an individual that is respected in the industry can be equally detrimental to your rankings. Such as using AI to create fake author bylines or even entire author profiles.
One area to pay particular attention to is Section 2c, which states that any misleading claims of “expertise” in sensitive areas, such as finance, legal, healthcare, etc., is a direct violation of of the AI use policy.
No one is going to trust content that is not written by a genuine expert in these delicate fields. While it is tempting to skirt that and just create an expert to back up AI-generated content, Google has made it abundantly clear it will not be tolerated.
Bottom Line: Flaunt Your Expertise with Genuine SME Content Creation
If you don’t have the knack for the written (typed?) word, that’s okay.
Just don’t turn to AI to create it for you.
Instead, seek out content agencies that hire genuine subject matter experts in those unique industries so that you are receiving content from a person that knows what they are talking about. They have degrees, work experience, and years of expertise writing in those niches.
While AI is permitted, Google has made it abundantly clear that they expect E-E-A-T to rule over it all, and that means if even one component of it is missing, you are risking your website’s rankings.
Let’s face it – after all of this time, we all know how hard it is to bounce back once Google has lost interest in your website. So, it is best to avoid ever reaching that point.
The team at Express Writers understands the importance of genuine SME content. We have a team of subject matter experts ranging from medical to healthcare to finance to legal and more. When you have a distinct niche, you need a team of writers that can provide your website with high-quality content and meet the demands of Google. Reach out to our team today and check out our SME content creation options, or visit the shop and order your first piece of SME content.
When building your brand, coming up with ideas to fill your editorial calendar can often be a daunting task. When the creative juices just aren’t flowing, it’s a struggle to come up with fresh ideas that your audience (and Google) will love.
So, what are you to do when you aren’t sure which topics to cover on your blog, social media, or other channels? Well, we have some ideas for you in the latest round of #ContentWritingChat!
#ContentWritingChat Recap: Generating Captivating Content Ideas for Your Brand
— Kathryn Lang – hopesmith and dream ignitor (@Kathrynclang) August 2, 2022
As Kathryn pointed out, you want to write about topics that are aligned with your brand overall. Consider how the topics you’re covering relate back to your brand’s mission, vision, and voice.
A1. The content topics that your brand chooses to cover will play a big role in the public messaging and theme of the company, it’ll be a significant determining factor on what kind of audience and attention the company will be able to draw in. #contentwritingchathttps://t.co/sE5r0RDC4M
Your content is what will attract people to your brand. You need to make sure you’re writing about the topics that will bring in your desired audience.
a1 I would say it's key if you want to start building authority around your brand. also, it's a way of keeping the content creation focused.#ContentWritingChat
Content is also key for building authority, so you’ll want to cover topics that are centered around your area of expertise.
Q2: A huge part of generating content ideas is understanding your audience. What should you know about them?
A2. When crafting content for your audience its important to understand their painpoints, interests, communication preferences, cultural/geographic factors. Having some guidelines will contribute towards crafting content designed to resonate with the audience #contentwritingchathttps://t.co/LpWWCLXRtd
As Andrew pointed out, knowing the pain points and interests of your target audience goes a long way. It’ll help you create content that will resonate with them on a deeper level.
A2. You should consider what piques their curiosity. What gets them to stop scrolling and click through to your content – on email, on social media, YouTube or otherwise. It's something they need, it speaks to a problem they've been trying to solve.#ContentWritingChathttps://t.co/3nbWv6RzzWpic.twitter.com/hqcvez3IYb
— Kathryn Lang – hopesmith and dream ignitor (@Kathrynclang) August 2, 2022
Beyond coming up with the right content topics, you’ll also need to know how they like to consume content (blogs, videos, etc.) and how long they like content to be.
To help you figure all this out, Carla suggests checking out your analytics for helpful data and even taking the time to talk to your audience.
Q3: Google Analytics tells you a lot about your website visitors. How can you use it to generate content ideas for your blog, social media, etc.?
A3: Follow the Yellow Brick Road: pay attention to what content gets the most traction. The most visits, the most engagement, shares, etc. That's a big clue as to what your audience cares about. So DO MORE of that! #ContentWritingChathttps://t.co/z70pqc2wLepic.twitter.com/tn8rUnApvT
It’s all about what gets the most attention! Andrea suggests looking at the pages that are getting the most traffic, engagement, and shares and use that as an indicator that your audience is really loving that topic.
A3: Your website visitors tell you exactly what they want by the pages they visit, the topics they read about, the resources they download, and the high and low bounce rates they have from page to page. See what they like and brainstorm from there. #contentwritingchat
It’s also smart to look at bounce rates to see where improvements can be made to your content and also to find ways to keep people on your site longer.
Q4: Is it worthwhile to check out what your competitors are doing to gain inspiration? If so, what do you need to know about analyzing their content?
A4. Always gotta check in with the competition: a nice pulse-check to see if anything's resonating with their audience, what seems to be working for them (or not). It gives you clues into what everyone else is doing / saying so you can offer something better. #ContentWritingChathttps://t.co/UZ3tnt1rsHpic.twitter.com/SwhwlWeYTS
When checking out the competition, pay attention to what’s working for them and what’s not. Knowing what resonates with their audience gives you some ideas on what you can do with your own content.
A4. It only makes sense to pay attention to your competitors, but do so in a respectful way. Try to understand differences & similarities between you, also how that’s likely to affect your target audiences. Don’t undercut or diminish them. #ContentWritingChat
Dana offered some great advice here. While you want to watch your competitors, don’t undercut them or diminish them in any way. This practice is meant to inspire your content, so never copy what someone else is doing directly.
Q5: What are some other smart tactics or tools that can help you come up with fresh content ideas?
A5: Send out surveys, run polls, or even hop on some market research calls to better understand your audience. #ContentWritingChat
If you’re stuck for ideas, send out a survey to your email list, run polls on social media, or even ask people to hop on market research calls for in-depth, one-on-one conversations.
Jennifer suggests checking out Answer the Public. It’ll give you a look into what people in your target audience are interested in, allowing you to create content that answers their questions.
Carla’s advice is to also pay attention to what’s happening in your industry. This can often spark content ideas that will help you keep your audience informed.
Q6: What do you do if you chose a great topic for your content, but aren’t seeing the traffic and engagement you hoped for?
A6. Just because it flops the first time doesn't mean it's not wanted / you didn't target it right. It might need to be repackaged (title, imagery), or it might need some paid help for traction. Could be consistency – maybe a series works better over time. #ContentWritingChathttps://t.co/nkPF8gBBmPpic.twitter.com/D8JDwoSXgX
Simple tweaks to the content title or the imagery used can make a huge difference. However, in some cases, you may need to put a few advertising dollars behind the content to drive more traffic.
A6: I first see if I can repurpose it into a different format (video, audio). Second would reshare it at a different time and day. If these two don't work then drop it. #ContentWritingChathttps://t.co/H3lMcsJOLF
Andrew suggests adjusting the title, copy, and imagery first. You can also try different promotion techniques to see if that helps improve performance.
Q7: What’s the best thing you can do when you feel like the creative juices aren’t flowing?
A7: Check out the search results and see where your content is ranking, what is out ranking it. Dive into your analytics and see what people are searching for to get to your page, you could be ranking for the wrong keywords. #contentwritingchat
Check out your analytics! See what people are searching to land on your website. Perhaps those keywords or phrases could spark some inspiration.
A7. Phone a friend! It could be helpful to speak with other professionals in the industry that would be able to consider your content and topics from a different point of view. They may have fresh ideas and even help you by collaborating with you #contentwritingchathttps://t.co/MDOzRO3Y1Rpic.twitter.com/1jTW1LvODR
Don’t be afraid to talk to a friend in the industry. As Andrew said, it could offer a new perspective on things that could help generate tons of new ideas.
A7: Write those inspired genius ideas down. Voice record them on your phone if you're nowhere near a pad and pen. Do a selfie video with your stream of consciousness. You can go back later to flesh out. Nothing worse than forgetting. So capture it somehow. #ContentWritingChat
This is great advice from Jennifer, so be sure to always save any ideas that come along immediately. You don’t want to lose them!
A7. Take a break, even it’s just for a few minutes. Go for a walk, listen to music, do deep breathing, whatever works for you. A lot of times, that’ll allow you to “reset” & address the situation with a clear mind. #ContentWritingChathttps://t.co/Kihsc6Iilh
But if the creative juices still aren’t flowing, take a break. Getting out for a walk, listening to music, or whatever else refreshes you can make a world of difference.
Want to join us for the next #ContentWritingChat? Mark your calendar for the first Tuesday of every month at 10 AM Central! And be sure to follow @ExpWriters to stay updated.
