My team and I have been helping brands reach their SEO traffic and conversion goals through content and links for over 10 years. Recognized by industry leaders and household brands as an authority in both organic content and digital PR.
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Content Caffeine #12: Sundar Pichai on SGE & AI, Google does a content audit, defining content goals for 2024, & more
Published 3 months ago • 7 min read
Content Caffeine: a newsletter for the content-obsessed.
Hi everyone!
Last week’s edition was our most opened and clicked of all. Over 56% of you read the newsletter. Thank you! So, I’m keeping this format for now. If you like something more or have suggestions, hit the reply button. This edition is PACKED. TL;DR:
Google thinks SGE is best for net new queries never before seen; seeks to include more links in SGE.
Danny Sullivan reminds us unhelpful, inaccurate, content lacking information gain is unlikely to rank.
One year later, Google’s share of search remains unchallenged. Why I think that means our industry is safe. Breathe people.
E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor, but remains crucial to SEO success.
No, we shouldn’t all start buying links on business cards.
Cross-domain canonicals are not links.
Content marketing goals to escape vanity metrics–Alex Heinz
How to optimize for SGE–Garrett Sussman
Effective zero volume keyword research–Mark Williams-Cook
A few statements may harbor clues about why, where, and how Google is choosing to show SGE.
"By applying generative AI to search, we’re able to serve a wider range of information needs and answer new types of questions"
"Overall, one of the things I think people underestimate about search is the breadth of search, the amount of queries we see constantly on a new day which we haven’t seen before. And so the trick here is to deliver that high-quality experience across the breadth of what we see in search."
“And we’ve been iterating on it, and it clearly works for certain type of queries very well. We are expanding the set of queries where it works very well. It definitely is answering a certain category of queries for the first time in a better way. So that gives us direction to proceed as well.”
“We are improving satisfaction, including answers for more conversational and intricate queries. As I mentioned earlier, we are surfacing more links with SGE and linking to a wider range of sources on the results page, and we’ll continue to prioritize approaches that add value for our users and send valuable traffic to publishers.”
My take is so far, the best use of SGE is for net new, never-before-seen searches.
It’s good to know Google continues to prioritize the web ecosystem. Remember, at least in the short term, Google’s success is tied to ours as it depends on clicks as much as we do.
This page needed an indication of what was done to reach the ranking. Why should a reader trust this site? The page provided no specs for its recommended alternatives. No pros and cons. No categorization of the best alternatives for different use cases or budgets, e.g., best for those on a budget, best all around, etc. So much could be added to this page to make it trustworthy, useful, and actionable for readers.
The ensuing conversation was interesting because it represented most conversations I have with SEOs about their content.
The site owner believed they had some "great content". Each time someone pointed out an issue, the site owner responded in disbelief.
One person responded: “I don’t understand why it’s all or nothing with these things. Sure fix the minor issues, but why the complete drop and irrelevancy overnight? It makes it incredibly hard to diagnose these things when it’s being treated as all or nothing.”
Thin, unhelpful content that's not unique is not a minor issue.
Really? Yes, really. Your problem is, in fact, editorial. And having an editorial problem is a BIG problem.
What so many misunderstand is that making content helpful takes effort. It's not about mentioning the keywords SurferSEO has told you to mention the exact number of times the tool has told you to mention them.
As Danny points out, “it's not that any or all of these things are direct ranking factors, and changing them won't guarantee to move you up. But the systems overall are designed to reward reliable[,] helpful content meant for people, so the more this page aligns with that goal, the more you're potentially going to be successful with it.”
We know it takes effort. Our average blog post takes 15+ hours to create. It’s a premium product designed to future-proof our clients and deliver traffic and conversions over a long period of time.
Bing's US share increased by 1.52 while Google’s decreased by nearly the same amount.
But a year ago, the conversation was that this would topple Google’s monopoly. The speculation was that there would be many new entrants into search and that many would replace Google with ChatGPT.
Now it’s clear that has not happened with Bing. Many entrants into search came and went, with few remaining. Perplexity.ai is trying to provide a better solution to an SGE experience. It has recently raised $74 million in funding from the likes of NVIDIA and Jeff Bezos.
It’s also clear that while ChatGPT has a lot of users, it’s nowhere close to taking on Google’s dominance. At 55 million per month, ChatGPT’s traffic is only 2% of Google’s.
The biggest takeaway? As we all wait for the future of SEO with bated breath, it’s clear it may come slower than many feared or believed. Keep calm and create great content.
Google revamped its SEO Starter Guide, and the SEO community argued about E-E-A-T and had a nice laugh.
First up, E-E-A-T. In a section entitled “[t]hings we believe you shouldn’t focus on,” Google states that E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor. It’s clear that someone at Google thought it was important to clear up the misconception that E-E-A-T is a direct ranking factor when it is not.
So, the community once again began arguing over whether it’s a ranking factor or important to a site.
But this is wholly inappropriate for a starter guide. E-E-A-T is critically important for SEO success. As Lily Ray reminds us in this presentation, it wouldn’t feature so prominently in Google Search Quality Guidelines if it weren't important. Google currently mentions E-E-A-T 116 times.
So whether it's a ranking factor is a nuance that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the systems on which the algorithm is trained are designed to take E-E-A-T into account.
So yes, E-E-A-T is something to focus on; if you’re lacking here, you may not succeed with SEO.
Next, Google suggests offline promotions like business cards help. And the memes were memorable. Happy Friday!
Here's one from Marie!
One poking fun at...newsletters.
Link builder buying links in authority business cards!
Lily Ray tweeted a question about cross domain canonicals on which I’ve long sought confirmation.
The use of cross-domain canonicals as a link building strategy is risky. Not just because it comes close to, as Danny Sullivan puts it, another Google policy.
It’s risky because there’s a fair chance you won’t get the link equity.
A canoncial is a suggestion, not a directive. So when Google sees a top domain like Yahoo publishing an article and a lower authority site publishing the same article, the chances are fair that Google will choose Yahoo as the canonical, regardless of the code on the page.
And the chosen canonical is the one that gets the link equity.
I hope these insights help. For more tips, follow me here. To explore our work further, reach out here.
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Check out more of our work or how we might help you achieve your organic goals.
Rankings and traffic are metrics to track progress, not business goals. Here’s a much-needed article from Alex Heinz covering how to define business goals for your content strategy.
An emerging area we should all pay attention to. Optimization for SGE relies more on best-in-class practices like statistics, research, citations, information gain, and fresh quotes from subject matter experts. The good news is many of us are already doing this.
An excellent article with tests. Lots of work putting this all together by Garrett Sussman.
An important framework for breaking free of volume estimates and focusing on the user.
Crucial for new brands without topical or link authority to get some wins on the board.
Step-by-step goodness from Mark Williams-Cook.
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My team and I have been helping brands reach their SEO traffic and conversion goals through content and links for over 10 years. Recognized by industry leaders and household brands as an authority in both organic content and digital PR.
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