What should you focus on to improve or maintain your SEO in 2024 and 2025? Keeping up with technology-related trends gets more difficult by the year, but failing to keep up can mean losing leads to competitors that do.
In episode 3 of our Content with Humans podcast, I spoke with Sydney SEO consultant Pulkit Agrawal, from UR Digital. We talked about SEO trends, content strategies, how AI is impacting search, and what businesses might need to focus on in 2024/2025.
Here are some of the SEO and content tips drawn from our conversation. (If you’d prefer to tune in for the more detailed discussion, you’ll find links to the video and audio versions at the end of this article).
Using AI to scale up content production? Don’t.
It might be tempting to jump into using generative AI tools to create content at scale for SEO purposes – don’t do it! There’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of generative AI to improve efficiency, but using it to create mediocre content that doesn’t add value for readers isn’t going to work. Google algorithms have been updated (and continue to be updated) to detect strategies that aim to boost search engine results rather than provide genuine value for human readers.
AI has changed the search landscape
AI has already changed the search landscape, with many people now using tools like Chat GPT to search for information instead of a traditional search engine. However, search engines are also incorporating AI into their technology. It’s anyone’s guess where things are going to land. But there’s no doubt that being recognised by AI search algorithms is going to be important if you want your brand to come up during AI-driven search conversations and topic research.
Pulkit suggested that businesses aiming to establish expertise may need to expand their online presence and spread their visibility across more channels. This doesn’t necessarily mean building new audiences on additional channels (although that is certainly an option). Having articles published in industry publications, or being a guest on relevant podcasts, can also contribute to extending the footprint of your expertise.
Since our interview with Pulkit, HubSpot has referred to optimising for AI search as ‘Language Model Optimisation’ (LMO) and launched its free AI Search Grader tool. Businesses can use this to quickly check their level of visibility (and the impression they’re creating) through the eyes of Chat GPT.
Author bios on blogs
We’re living in an era where AI-generated content, fake profiles and misinformation are making it increasingly difficult to identify genuine topic expertise, and genuine authors. Pulkit believes that having identifiable authors attached to articles on a business blog is increasing in importance.
He recommends attributing articles to authors, having author bio information and images available, and linking the author bios to other information, such as their LinkedIn profiles, You Tube channels or personal websites. This helps search engines to understand that the author is a real person. It can also be a good indication of topic expertise or experience.
Keep in mind that there are multiple options around author attribution for a blog. These include:
- Have in-house writers or topic experts create the content, and attribute it accordingly.
- Engage copywriters to ghostwrite for your topic experts, so that content can be attributed to your in-house topic experts. (Be sure to arrange for your topic experts to provide their insights for the articles).
- Build a team of internal or external ‘contributing authors’ with relevant topic expertise.
Voice search to have more impact
Voice search isn’t new, but Pulkit believes many businesses are not ready for a future dominated by voice search. He pointed out that his teenage daughter has grown up with access to voice search tools and does not use text-based search at all. As her generation reaches adulthood and becomes a significant group of consumers, the balance of text and voice searches will shift accordingly. Businesses that are not prepared for voice search might soon find it difficult to compete with those that are.
Spectrum of content – TOFU, MOFU, BOFU
Pulkit advises businesses to focus on creating a quality customer experience, from the first encounter to after sales service. Ensure you create content for “TOFU, MOFU or BOFU, which is top of the sales funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel content.” He strongly recommends creating ‘how to use’ product content because the after sales component is an important part of the buyer journey.
Content quality over quantity, always!
Engaging professional content writing services to create high quality content assets can be a significant investment, and if you’re creating content yourself to save money, then it’s time consuming and takes much effort. However, if you cut corners and create mediocre content that has no value for readers, you’re wasting your time and money.
Pulkit dismisses the need to publish a particular volume of content or to publish consistently to a schedule. If you have limited time or budget, less can be more. His advice is to focus on publishing “great quality pieces that add exceptional value to the person who is reading it.”
I couldn’t agree more! It’s better to publish one outstanding piece of content a month, than to publish ten articles a month that nobody wants to read. That one piece of content that offers value to readers is infinitely more likely to help you forge connections with prospective clients.
Google is not your customer
One over-arching piece of advice from Pulkit is to focus on the customer experience. If you focus on providing valuable content for your audience, making your website easy to navigate and accessible, then it’s very likely you’ll also please Google. But if your focus is on pleasing Google, you’re likely to displease your prospective customers.
Be wary of SEO packages
Pulkit believes that the typical ongoing monthly ‘SEO packages’ offered by many agencies simply should not exist, because one size does not fit all.
“If anybody is using SEO packages and they feel that they’re not getting any value out of it, then they’re most likely right.”
How much should you spend on SEO?
It’s a question Pulkit says can’t be answered without determining the ‘customer acquisition cost’, identifying the available marketing budget and deciding how many customers you want to acquire on a monthly basis. Only then can you get an idea of how much you might need to spend on SEO to achieve that, and whether the spend would be justified by that outcome.
To view or listen to the entire interview, tune in to the audio version of Content with Humans on BuzzSprout, or on the Article Writers You Tube channel.
Need help with content creation? Article Writers Australia is a Sydney-based writing agency that helps marketing teams to plan and create quality written content.
Leonie Seysan is the Director of Article Writers Australia, and manages the team of professional writers and editors. She holds a Bachelor of Communications Degree (Media Studies) and has been writing professionally for over 15 years. Leonie is also the podcast host of 'Content with Humans'.
