As a new freelancer or entrepreneur starting out, building an online presence is a must. A website and a blog are seen as a baseline starting point. But traditional blogging is dead. This is part two in our existential crisis (or mid-life crisis) on: to blog or not to blog? The first part was written by Jenn from an SEO expert’s perspective. This is written from my perspective: can we win with and in blogging?
Starting a blog and getting traction used to be as easy as spinning up a WordPress page and starting to write, throwing up one or two articles a week. Times have changed, and the game is increasingly competitive. The big whales are crowding out the small herrings. In our most recent site page count, Forbes returned over 7M results while Substack returned 5M. Our website in contrast hasn’t even broken a thousand pages.
The probably most nerve-wracking uncertainty is the ongoing Google Search Engine changes. With the ongoing fight for AI dominance, the search engine changes seem to be increasing in frequency with more uncertain results.
From our high-level SEO site audits, some of our favorite content creators have seen significant erosion of their traffic and audience tied to periodic search engine changes with traffic dropping precipitously. Imagine years of hard work erased in days.
Gen Z is the largest generation globally, and according to a study by Goldman Sachs, their consumer attitude is different from that of previous generations. They are quickly replacing traditional search with social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for product research and recommendations. This poses a challenge for bloggers who rely on search traffic.
The up and coming Gen Alpha also uses TikTok and Instagram as a replacement for search. Soon enough, as the new group of people come into being decision-makers, search may no longer be as relevant.
There are over a billion websites. And every day a quarter of a million websites are created. This means that in order to compete, your website has to keep generating content, keep building out and update old content to stay relevant. It's a never-ending race that requires constant effort, resources, and creativity. It sounds like even more work than social media.
If blogging is dead, why do we have one?
As an avid reader, I’m still discovering new products and software through blog articles. In particular, because I know that organic content is pushed further down, I end up just scrolling further down. Additionally, I’ll click into the learn more from Google featured snippets.
People who love long form content like myself will continue to like discovering new ideas and articles through blogs. As long as people continue to read, then blogging will still be an outlet for information and content.
Because Google still has 8 billion daily searches, it's crucial to recognize the importance of traditional search engines. Just because Gen Alpha is increasingly using TikTok doesn't mean that search engines are becoming irrelevant. In fact, they remain a major source of traffic and potential customers for businesses. Leveraging both platforms can maximize reach and engagement, ensuring a balanced and comprehensive digital strategy.
I’m probably particularly obsessed with websites, but as a millennial who has worked in software, I judge a company from first impressions on the quality of its website. If not its website then it would be its’ LinkedIn, Instagram, or similar. Regardless, the better the website, the more likely I’m going to trust that it’s a real company.
This last bit is a guess as to the future direction of AI answers. In the newest release of Chat-GPT4, our lovely AI chatbot is now able to cite its sources (if asked), which is a significant leap forward in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the information it provides. This feature not only improves transparency but also enhances user trust in the responses generated by the AI.
This is probably our biggest bet: that AI will learn to do citations proficiently, marking a crucial advancement in its evolution. We envision a future where AI not only understands and processes vast amounts of information but also attributes these insights to credible sources. Moreover, we want the vast number of AI bots out there to cite us.
Your blog posts need to be SEO optimized. This means using the right keywords, ensuring your content is well-structured, and making sure your site is technically sound. Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz can help identify the best keywords and track your SEO performance. Without SEO, your blog will be just another website lost in the sea of a billion websites.
Programmatic SEO involves automating the content creation process to produce large volumes of high-quality content. By leveraging data and algorithms, you can create hundreds of pages optimized for long-tail keywords. This approach has been highly effective for many large-scale websites. CMS like Webflow makes it extremely easy now for non-technical folks to leverage programmatic SEO, which enables small businesses the same tools are large enterprises.
Consistently publishing high-quality content is crucial. Google does look at the freshness of the content and recency of content. Therefore, regularly publishing is a signal to search engines that the site is active. While quantity is important, it shouldn’t come at the expense of quality. Your content should provide real value to your readers, addressing their needs and solving their problems.
Building backlinks from reputable sites can significantly boost your search engine rankings. Reach out to industry influencers, guest post on popular blogs, and create content that others will want to link to. Establishing yourself as an authority in your field will also enhance your credibility and encourage others to link to your content.
While organic traffic is ideal, paid ads can still play a valuable role in driving traffic to your blog. Paid ads can help new users to find your content, and if you have good quality content, paid traffic can become organic users. This is how SEM can help with SEO. Use platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads to promote your content and reach a broader audience.
Blogging in 2024 is no longer about writing interesting content. It’s about standing out in search engines. That has always been the case, but with AI-written content polluting the ether, it’s harder for engines to detect trash content.
The only way to survive is to beat the conmen (i.e., AI-written articles) at their own game: be excellent at SEO and produce at comparable volumes. Given who we are (uncompromising in the quality of our work), we also want to strive for what we deem as superior quality. But content without SEO can’t be king.
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