The role of click-through rate (CTR) in SEO has been debated for many years.

Several industry studies have asserted that CTR is a ranking factor – a claim that’s been ardently denied by many Googlers. 

Whether it’s a direct ranking signal or not, CTR has its place in SEO.

This article explores why CTR matters in SEO, Google’s stance on the metric and how to use it right.  

What does CTR mean for SEO?

CTR can mean many things depending on the context. In PPC campaigns, it is used as a metric to measure ad effectiveness. 

When it comes to SEO, CTR refers to the percentage of people who click an organic or unpaid (Google) search result that leads to your website. 

Essentially, if out of 100 searchers, five clicked through to your page from Google, then your CTR for that particular result is 5%.

Google conveniently shares the numbers with us on Google Search Console (GSC):

As usual, you have to take the numbers you see as approximations or relative numbers because Google withholds a significant percentage of search queries from us for privacy reasons. 

Local results often make people disclose their whereabouts or other sensible data. Likewise, health and finance information may be too risky to share, so Google hides related keywords.

Measuring the impact of SEO: A look at metrics and KPIs

If CTR is not a confirmed ranking factor, is it still a useful KPI for tracking our SEO efforts? Or is it a vanity metric for showing off?

Many SEOs still rely on metrics that don’t really provide actionable insights, including rankings, traffic and engagement.

They are not completely useless, but by themselves and without context, these metrics won’t make sense. 

Rankings differ depending on who searches from where based on search history and location and may be pointless with the wrong user intent.

Traffic can be completely irrelevant or downright harmful. Thousands of people looking for the wrong thing you don’t even offer only cause server load! 

Engagement can be the wrong kind of engagement. When people are angry and write comments, it might look good as a number. 

Satisfied visitors typically write fewer comments. Complaining happens much more often than expressing gratitude.

I believe CTR is a useful SEO metric. It lets you see how many people are clicking through and also how many are not. Then you need to find out why.

Does Google use CTR as a ranking factor?

Some SEO experts argue that Google can’t rely on links anymore as they are “gamed” easily. What else would be a useful metric they thought? 

Well, given all the websites using Google Analytics and Search Console, Google has a wealth of user experience data. Some even point out that Google Chrome also collects such information.

For example, they can see whether visitors came, puked and ran away after clicking your website (thanks to bounce rate as measured by Google Analytics). They could also see who clicked through in the first place.

So these SEO experts concluded that such metrics might be a perfect ranking signal to use for Google along backlinks. Yet, there’s no reliable way to find out. 

Then, some resorted to “correlation studies.”

They tried to look at the top-ranking content, analyze it and then, based on that analysis, reverse-engineer the algorithmic ranking signals.

A famous and somewhat shortsighted correlation has been widely spread ever since – content length.

The correlation studies showed that most top-ranking content was much longer that its lower-ranking counterparts.

Does it mean that just by writing 3000 words of fluff, you can outrank 1,000 words of expertly written, highly specific content? Most likely not.

It just means that the existing articles are probably expertly written and comprehensive. Note that this was before AI became a major part of ranking algorithms. 

Today, search engines can use highly complex “machine learning” and artificial intelligence to determine the quality of websites and have to rely less on indirect metrics.

So correlation studies have indicated that well-ranking pages also have a higher CTR. 

Does it mean that Google uses CTR as a ranking signal? Well, no. It’s possible but not proof. 

As we know from science, correlation is not causation.

Just because you sneezed on a sunny day does not mean that the sun caused the sneezing.

Let’s take a closer look at some popular correlation studies below.

What do correlation studies say about CTR’s impact?

I remember at least three widely read correlation studies that looked at user experience factors like CTR (among others). 

They suggested that indeed there is a significant correlation between website usage or click-throughs from search results and increased rankings. 

• One such notable survey was done by Larry Kim of (then) WordStream back in 2016. The data set was relatively small but seemed to show some visible impact.
• Another CTR study was conducted by the German SEO tool vendor Sistrix in 2020. This time no claims on CTR being a ranking factor have been made despite a very large data set (probably the largest to date).
• The Semrush team also looked at many search queries in 2017, the respective (UX) signals and related rankings. They have found a strong correlation between “direct website visits” and top Google rankings.

The Semrush study stirred a lot of controversy for its bold claim that “direct traffic is the top ranking factor these days.” They did not specifically refer to CTR, though.

What does Google say about CTR as a ranking factor?

After word about these study results spread far and wide, it led to some weird tricks to fool Google into believing that results were clicked.

Huge click farms were used in Asia (e.g., mainland China) to simulate clicks by setting up a vast amount of hardware (thousands of smartphones or computers). 

These click fraud machines were made to fake all kinds of online metrics, such as ad clicks, social media engagement and app downloads.

Google spokespeople repeatedly and vehemently deny that there is some impact or ranking signal related to CTR or other so-called UX factors.

Most strikingly, John Mueller stated in 2021: 

“If CTR were what drove search rankings, the results would be all click-bait. I don’t see that happening.” 

Whether you believe Mueller or not, it is improbable that CTR is an important ranking signal as it’s too easy to fool both by using click farms and by creating clickbait.

Last but not least, click studies have always shown that the results already on top get clicked the most. This would create a self-fulfilling prophecy and a closed loop in case Google uses CTR to determine rankings. 

Position 1 results get the highest CTR, and thus Google would have to put the results that are already ranking on top higher than those shown below. 

So unless Google created a rather complex algorithm to reduce the impact of top rankings on CTR (which differs based on numerous factors like location, industry, SERP features etc.), it would not make sense.

How to use CTR to improve your SEO

TL;DR: Although CTR is likely not a significant ranking signal and may be a bit of a vanity metric without context, it is also quite useful. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t go to such great lengths to write about it!)

So how can organic CTR benefit your SEO efforts?

Use CTR for discovering low-hanging fruit: You have many impressions but no clicks (low CTR)? Bingo! That might be a page that is almost ranking for a keyword. 

You can find keyword combinations that just need a nudge to finally capitalize on existing visibility and get some clicks.

Use CTR to locate off-topic or irrelevant pages: So you have a high CTR but no conversions? There may be some mismatch between search query or user intent and the actual page or its content. 

You may even rank high for a lucrative transactional query, but you waste people’s time and energy when there is nothing to buy (think out-of-stock products).

Use CTR to find highly valuable long-tail queries: So some more obscure three-word keyphrase has just three searches but 100% CTR? Whoa! 

Let’s take a closer look, maybe there are even more similar long tail keyword combinations possible on the same page?

Just consider this screenshot from my blog’s GSC:

Yes, CTR can be a valuable SEO metric beyond mere vanity, regardless of whether it is a ranking factor.

Evergreen content is content with a long lifespan.

It is also incredibly important for search engine optimization (SEO).

In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about evergreen content – including what makes a topic evergreen, why evergreen content is important and some examples to inspire you.

What is evergreen content?

Evergreen content refers to any type of content that remains ever relevant, ever accurate, and ever useful long past its publication date.

Think of it this way: Evergreen trees always look green and fresh, even in the dead of winter.

By the same token, evergreen content always looks green, fresh, and up to date – even if it was published two years ago.

(Two years old is positively ancient by the internet’s standards, but if your content is evergreen, that’s not a problem.)

To be considered evergreen, your content must pass these checkpoints:

• It’s written on a topic that doesn’t change drastically from year to year. (For instance, new research doesn’t continually come out, which makes old ideas/ways of thinking about the topic obsolete.)
• It contains knowledge that’s foundational to a realm of study or skill.
• Most of the information is perpetually useful.
• Most of the information is perpetually accurate and relevant.
• It can have a few outdated facts or references, but these must be minor (you can update them with little effort).

And, if your content contains any of these hallmarks, it is not evergreen:

• News.s
• Seasonal information or information tied to a specific date, event or year.
• Research or statistics that will eventually lose relevancy as they fall out of date.
• Research or statistics that are regularly updated. (For example, a new report is released annually, so the prior year’s stats become obsolete).
• Content tied to current fads or trends.

Examples of evergreen content topics

Here are a few good examples of evergreen content topics:

• How to tie a shoe
• 10 tips to manage your personal finances
• How to choose a paint color for your kitchen
• Beginner’s guide to content marketing
• How to teach your dog to heel in 7 steps

Examples of content topics that are not evergreen

On the flip side, these are good examples of topics that are not evergreen:

• 5 ideas for your kid’s Halloween party (Seasonal topic)
• ChatGPT launches in November 2022 (News)
• The local football team beats their biggest rival (Sports news)
• 10 SEO trends to watch in 2023 (Current trends/tied to a date)
• Content marketing research report for 2022 (Research tied to a specific year)

Why evergreen content boosts SEO 

So we know that the defining feature of evergreen content is a long lifespan past its initial publication date.

Whether you read it now, two months from now, a year from now, or two years from now, the information it conveys should largely remain accurate, relevant, and useful.

But why does this matter for SEO?

Reliability

By their very definition, evergreen content topics are ones that people are interested in no matter the circumstances.

They’re “old reliables.”

That won’t change with the time of year, the season, the current events, or the latest research. Evergreen topics are perpetually relevant and interesting.

People always look for and depend on the evergreen knowledge presented in evergreen content.

What does that mean for SEO?

The evergreen content pieces you optimize for search will earn clicks and visitors more steadily than your more ephemeral pieces because people are constantly searching for those topics on search engines.

To summarize, evergreen SEO content = a steady, reliable influx of potential customers.

Sustainability

Evergreen SEO content is also sustainable.

Why?

You only have to put in the resources to create this type of content once. It will need few, if any, updates. And it will keep bringing in a steady stream of visitors over a long period due to the evergreen interest in evergreen topics.

Lastly, if you created a high-quality piece of content geared for conversions, that piece will also bring in leads.

In the end, you’ll get much more out of your evergreen content piece over the long term than you will with your “trendier” content.

It will perform over months and years versus days and weeks without the need to throw money at it.

In this case, maybe we can also refer to evergreen content as “eco-friendly” for your brand.

Types of evergreen content to focus on

Some content types lend themselves to evergreen topics more readily than others.

For example, “how-to” content is a type you’ll often find has evergreen potential. 

That’s because how-to topics usually involve evergreen knowledge that never goes out of date. 

Examples:

• how to tie a shoe
• how to bake a cake
• how to prune a rose bush

Another great option for evergreen content is the humble but popular listicle. 

While it may seem trendy because of the sheer number of listicles that are published daily, it actually lends itself to evergreen topics quite well. 

Examples:

• 10 tips for baking a cake
• 5 ways to unclog your kitchen sink
• 50 greatest books of all time

Don’t forget about informational content. This may include foundational articles such as 101 and beginner guides that provide a general overview or introduction to a topic.

5 evergreen content examples

Ready for some evergreen inspiration? Check out these five examples of evergreen content.

What are transition words?

This blog post by Yoast SEO on transition words is evergreen because this knowledge is a principle of English grammar. Employing transition words helps make your writing easier to read.

DIY wood fence tutorial

This tutorial on building a wooden backyard fence is a great example of an evergreen video content.

How to invest in stocks

Foundational knowledge on a topic, like this beginner’s guide to investing in stocks by Investopedia, is prime real estate for evergreen content.

Easy pie dough guide

In this extensive guide to making pie dough, the author goes way beyond a basic recipe and talks about the science behind a flaky crust.

They offer encyclopedic knowledge on how to produce the best pie crust you’ve ever had. This type of knowledge is always relevant to bakers everywhere.

File under: “Evergreen.”

Cybersecurity ultimate guide

In the ever-changing world of tech, evergreen topics are hard to find. However, some pass muster and squeeze into evergreen territory, including cybersecurity. 

Why? Because, as long as the internet exists, people will use it to store their data. And, no matter what the technology looks like, people will always be interested in protecting their data from malicious entities. 

Thus, this HubSpot blog on cybersecurity is a good evergreen content example. It will be relevant for at least a few years, and when technology inevitably changes, the article can be updated to follow suit.

4 tips for writing evergreen content

As you write evergreen content, all the imperatives for writing high-quality content will apply.

That said, here are a few specific tips to ensure your content won’t need an update in three months. (True evergreen content won’t need an update for a long time.)

1. Keep examples, jokes, and asides timeless

Avoid even passing references to cultural events, news, or trends that will quickly become dated in a few months.

Don’t use them as examples or make jokes about them (if your brand voice calls for jokes, that is).

For example, many social media marketing articles from a certain period of time referenced now-obsolete tech like Google+ or Vine – and once those apps/services died, those mentions had to be edited to keep the content evergreen.

That said, sometimes, it’s impossible to predict whether a trend will actually morph into an entity with a legacy. Either way, try to keep your discussions of trends to their own blog posts.

2. Only link to sources that will stand the test of time

Linking to research and data is a great way to add credibility to your content. Just be careful about how you do this when you write evergreen content.

For instance, only link to sources when absolutely necessary, such as when you need a stat to prove a point, or when a particular research report is integral to understanding your topic.

And, when you must link to a source, choose that source carefully. Don’t link to obscure websites that may or may not disappear in a year, but rather trusted entities with a solid, proven online presence.

Some studies or reports that are a few years old may still be fine to link to – but only if these are outstanding or unique examples of research in their field or contain data you can’t find anywhere else.

And, if all else fails, audit your evergreen content regularly to ensure your citations and outgoing links are still relevant and working. If some facts or statistics are outdated, updating them with new ones should only take a few minutes.

3. Write with readability in mind

Keep readability top of mind as you write evergreen content. 

Readable content is easy to understand. The ideas are clear. Your audience can learn from that content with no problem.

And endlessly readable, evergreen content is content that will pull in endless results.

How do you write readable content? To jostle your memory, remember that readable content is:

• Structured well, with a logical flow from section to section and point to point.
• Organized into sections with headers that tell readers what to expect.
• Formatted to make the text scannable, with features like bulleted and numbered lists, short paragraphs, and headers that stand out from the body copy.
• Written to explain ideas and concepts clearly, without jargon or unnecessary words (fluff).
• Written for the particular knowledge level and understanding of the target audience.

4. Optimize

Evergreen content not correctly optimized for search engines will not pull in the results you’re hoping for.

To do its job, your evergreen content needs a fighting chance with proper SEO attached to it. 

Here are the basic steps to start with:

• Tie your evergreen topic to a keyword your brand can rank for. Need help with researching keywords for blogs? This Orbit Media article is a great resource.
• Write your content to help the reader, first. As you write, aim for helpfulness above all. Forget about using the keyword. You can always edit the text later to include more instances of it. But the first draft should be all about creating the best content on the topic.
• Include your keyword in major spots. Headers, the first paragraph, image alt text, and the meta title and description are biggies.
• Study what’s ranking at the top of Google and mirror the structure – but add your unique angle. Include all the information the top articles include, but do your best to make your evergreen content better and unique to your brand. Explain concepts in the brand voice, using its unique expertise. Don’t parrot what’s already out there. What can you add about the topic that hasn’t been said one million times already?

What is evergreen content? A standby in your content creation lineup

Evergreen content should be a workhorse in your content marketing strategy.

Create it well once, and it should perform for months, even years.

Pay attention to the topics you choose for evergreen content – make sure they’re relevant to your business and have staying power in terms of reader interest.

Is the knowledge foundational? Is it endlessly useful? Will people care about it later just as much as they do right now?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, you have a winning evergreen content topic on your hands.

To keep this content working hard for you, tie it to a keyword you can win and optimize it for search engines. 

Evergreen content that ranks in the top 10 of Google has tremendous power and potential to bring in steady website visitors and potential customers for the long term. 

Create evergreen pieces alongside your more trends-focused or timely pieces, and you’ll have a winning content mix.

A full 87% of shoppers in the U.S. begin product searches online, with a majority turning to Google to find the answers they need. The path to purchase is non-linear, with multiple touches occurring across channels, devices, and locations.

Providing potential customers with helpful content throughout this journey is the best way to build trust. The majority of consumers say they trust websites more that appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Ranking highly on Google is the best way to build brand awareness, generate leads, increase revenue, and provide genuine value to your customers.

This guide from Conductor outlines eight strategies to maximize brand awareness and make your organic and paid spend go further. Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download 8 Ways to Maximize Brand Awareness Through Paid and Organic Search.

Instagram users can now add up to five links to their profile bios.

This new feature was announced in a brief post on Mark Zuckerberg’s broadcast channel, a relatively new feature that lets creators send messages to their entire community. Zuckerberg said that support for multiple links in the bio was “probably one of the most requested features we’ve had.”

How it works. The ability to add multiple links to a profile is available to all accounts, including business and creator accounts. To use the feature, users must go through the Edit profile, Links, and Add external link options, and then arrange the links in their desired order.

This feature directs followers to various content (e.g., online businesses, promoted brands, supported causes, profiles on rival social platforms), Instagram said.

Early testing. In initial tests, there were no issues linking to competing platforms like TikTok or YouTube. Instagram also offers users the option to link their Facebook profiles using a dedicated linking option, which displays a professional-looking rounded Facebook icon and accompanying text. However, external links do not include any special customizations, such as small icons.

The links do not open in a separate browser window but within the Instagram app itself. Users who want to switch to their built-in browser, like Safari or Chrome, must tap the three-dot menu at the top of the page and select open in system browser.

Competition with third-party tools. The emergence of Linktree, Beacons, and other “link in bio” solution providers can be attributed to platform restrictions on Instagram and other networks that have long prevented users from adding multiple links to external sites, fearing the potential loss of user engagement. By allowing expanded access to links, Instagram could potentially draw creators back to its platform.

Trailing behind TikTok, again. Instagram is not the only platform to make this choice; TikTok currently only allows clickable links in bios for business accounts, making it difficult for regular users and creators to direct followers to other websites. Instagram’s decision to finally address the demand for increased access to bio links may be a response to criticism of TikTok’s stricter limitations.

Why we care. The new feature provides advertisers and brands an opportunity to increase traffic to their websites, ecommerce stores, and other online platforms. With the ability to add multiple links, businesses can more effectively promote their brand, products and services to potential customers, and can potentially increase engagement and conversions.

SEO or PPC? 

Like everything in marketing, it would be great if there was a simple answer to the SEO vs. PPC question. 

Unfortunately, despite the human temptation to simplify this into a binary answer, the answer is complicated. 

SEO helps your webpages rank higher on the non-paid search results by improving the quality and relevance of the content on your website. This improved visibility comes without the expensive costs per click of PPC. 

PPC ads are paid online advertisements that are laser targeted by demographics and keywords to get in front of the right people at the right time.

Typically, PPC ads show in highly prominent positions on the search results and hoover up the majority of clicks for highly commercial terms.

What is right for you?

This article will provide an overview of the search landscape and the two key search engine marketing (SEM) tactics, plus five simple questions you can ask yourself to determine where your efforts should be spent. 

Defining SEO and PPC

In a nutshell, SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility on Google, Bing and other search engines.

PPC, or pay-per-click, are the ads that appear on a page of search results (typically in premium positions). 

The search landscape

The key to making an educated SEO vs. PPC decision is understanding the makeup of the search engine result pages (SERPs) for the keywords that matter to you. 

While the search results were once just “10 blue links,” modern search engines provide a rich array of page features, all designed to provide comprehensive answers along with the means to dig further into a topic. 

Modern SERPs feature: 

• Ads 
• Knowledge panels.
• Featured snippets.
• Maps.
• Images. 
• Videos.
• Top stories (news).
• People Also Ask.
• Carousels.
• Organic listings.
• Search tools (related searches, etc.)
• And more ads.

Search results are complex and diverse and each of these areas offers an opportunity for keen-eyed search marketers.

Now we understand the search landscape, we can dig into the relative merits of SEO and PPC and how these apply to your situation. 

SEO: The pros

How can you benefit from SEO? How do the organic listings differ from the paid listings that sit above the organic listings?

Awareness

Visibility in search engines for your targeted keywords drives awareness of your business. 

Branding

Visibility around commercial search terms and informational queries related to your business area can have a positive branding benefit. 

Your brand can become associated with and trusted by searchers asking questions as they conduct the research that will lead to a purchase. 

Credibility and trust

Having your site return in the organic results can influence your perceived credibility with an audience looking for your services. 

Many users skip ads and trust organic results more highly, particularly in the research stage of a purchase. Being visible gives your business that all-important stamp of approval.

Versatility

As we covered in our review of the search landscape, organic search results are highly varied and versatile. 

As such, there is a range of opportunities to present your business to your prospective clients as they research a purchase. 

Reputation and reviews

Search results include reviews from several sources and having strong review and reputation signals in place further boosts trust signals. 

Website traffic

Increasing website traffic gives you more opportunities to engage and educate a prospect as to why they would buy from you.

Cost per click

Traffic from organic search is free – sort of. Developing that visibility will take time and effort (money), but there is no direct charge for each impression or click. 

Return on investment (ROI)

As paid clicks continue to get ever more expensive, smart SEO can provide an improved ROI over paid clicks. 

Cost

While SEO is neither cheap nor easy, it will generally be more cost-effective than other marketing tactics for delivering brand awareness and relevant traffic to your website.

Sustainability

Unlike PPC, organic traffic does not dry up when you stop paying. As such, efforts to develop organic traffic can sustain a business when marketing budgets are tight.

Not paying for every click

Not all keywords convert the same and SEO can help you target users earlier in the purchase cycle without paying for those low conversion rate clicks. 

Scope

There are so many new queries every day that to maximize scope, you will need strong organic visibility. You will not want to pay for all kinds of clicks or advertise every piece of content on your website.

Strategic advantage

Visibility in organic search is not quick or easy – which is a good and a bad thing. 

Once you have established yourself in the organic results, your competitors can’t simply buy their way in (assuming you have done things the right way). 

This can provide a strategic advantage over the competition if they rely on paid search.

80/20 rule

With modern CMS platforms, SEO is simplified, and you can often generate 80% of the possible SEO results with only 20% of the work. 

SEO: The cons

SEO has many benefits, but it is not without its challenges. 

• Highly competitive.
• Search results can be very busy with several types of results.
• Ads dominate the top of the search results.
• Many search results are dominated by titans (Amazon, eBay, etc.).
• Local results can be hyperlocalized resulting in poor organic radius.
• Content development is tricky for smaller businesses.
• Tactics like link building are difficult and shrouded in bad information online.
• Algorithm changes can create turbulence and unexpected change.
• Lots of bad information out there that can waste your time.

One of the key problems with SEO is that it is just so easy to spend a lot of time and effort on SEO tasks that do little or nothing to help. 

Blog posts that will never rank, meta descriptions that don’t matter, technical SEO – the list goes on. 

SEO tools, which are supposed to help with this problem, tend to make matters worse and generate endless lists of SEO tasks that are essentially just busy work. 

These tools have utility, but they require experience to know what should be done and what can be ignored. 

While highly valuable, SEO can be tricky to implement and highly competitive. 

It is important to develop realistic goals and measurements.  

PPC: The pros

How does paid search differ from organic search? If SEO provides free traffic, why would a business consider paid search?

Targeting

PPC provides a laser-targeted way to get in front of potential customers. 

Ads can be targeted by search keywords, time of day, day of the week, geography, language, device and audiences based on previous visits. Organic traffic, by comparison, is far more scattershot.

Speed

While developing organic visibility can take time, a PPC campaign can be created in days and ramped up in weeks. There is no faster way to get in front of customers when they are primed to buy than paid search engine advertising.

Position on the page

Paid search dominates above-the-fold content. 

With typically four ads on desktop and three on mobile, a user will always see the paid search ads, even if they choose to scroll past them.

Improved ads

PPC ads are just that: advertisements. You have far more granular control and more space for delivering your marketing messages. 

Calls, locations, site links, pricing and bullet points (callouts) are just some of the options for creating ads that dominate the page.

Dynamic ad copy

Google’s responsive search ads have 15 titles and four descriptions providing over 30,000 variations with built-in split testing. This ensures your ads are customized to help generate clicks. 

Visual product ads

Where you sell a product, Google provides the option of visual shopping ads (product listing ads, or PLAs) that can help a user see what they will be clicking on. 

Brand visibility

Running paid search advertisements gets you seen by the right people. Even if they back off and conduct a brand search before clicking on your site, that visibility will pay dividends to your marketing.

Budget

While costly, PPC allows for budget control. Determine how much you are willing to spend per day (ideally with some initial and ideal ideas of returns), and set that fixed limit.

Agile

Speed provides agility. Want to test a new product? A new marketing message? 

You can get rapid feedback on a new product launch (or minimum viable product) by running a short PPC ad campaign.

Marketing intelligence

Where organic largely hides keyword data in the name of privacy, there is no such restriction with paid search. 

With integration with analytics software (like Google Analytics), we can determine what keywords convert and at what percentage and cost. 

This intelligence can be fed directly into SEO and inform all other advertising to improve results across the board.

A/B testing

Easily split-test ads, landing pages, and even call-to-action buttons to determine where the very best results lie. 

Again, this information can be fed back into all other digital (and traditional) marketing endeavors.

Stability

Despite the competition, paid search does not typically suffer the same turbulence as organic. 

There are changes, but they tend to have a far lower impact and are more easily managed. 

Careful use of match types and analysis of the search term reports allow for the removal of junk searches and an increase in ROI over time.

Cost

Despite what many advertisers believe, a PPC account that’s set up and managed well can be a low-cost way to generate leads for your business. 

If you are a local business targeting a small geographic area and a small set of keywords, you may find that you can generate more than enough leads without breaking the bank. 

Additionally, over time, accounts can be further optimized to reduce costs and increase returns.

PPC: The cons

There are clearly many benefits to PPC. However, there are also some pitfalls advertisers must be wary of.

• PPC can be expensive.
• PPC can be highly competitive for commercial terms.
• PPC requires constant investment. Stop spending and traffic dries up
• Strategically easy to copy.
• Easy to start, difficult to master.

PPC on search engines is a highly powerful, and quite possibly the most powerful marketing system that has ever existed. 

To succeed in a highly competitive environment, everything must be set up correctly: keywords, ads, landing pages and analytics. 

It is not unusual to get into bidding wars with other advertisers, which can drive costs up. 

As you start to run your ads, you are often taking a bite out of other advertisers’ digital apple. Doing so can result in spiraling costs (or revising your strategy). 

Successful PPC needs skilled management and optimization – from monitoring bids, Quality Scores, positions and click-through rates. 

Some of this can be done with scripts, but if you are too busy to do this properly, ensure you have an expert on hand to take care of keeping your account in tip-top shape.

PPC is incredibly powerful, but you must ensure all aspects are optimized to maximize results while keeping costs reasonable. 

Hopefully, you have an idea of the pros and cons of SEO and PPC now and are better positioned to review the landscape.

The next step is to work through a series of questions to determine the correct approach based on your target keywords and current situation.

SEO or PPC: 5 questions to ask

The following are five simple questions you can ask to help determine where you should spend your time and resources.

1. What keywords are you targeting? 

This question is crucial as your target keywords will strongly influence your choice between SEO and PPC. 

A useful exercise here to aid keyword research is to create a persona and answer the who, why and how customer questions.

• Who are your customers?
• Why do they buy? (Is something broken?)
• How do they buy? (What is the search journey?)

This can be a useful framework to help with the keyword research process (in addition to any tools you may want to use).   

2. What do the results look like for each keyword?

Google each keyword and summarize the search results for each.

This does not need to be complicated; some simple bullets will do the job. 

Keyword: “Plumber”

• 3 x local service ads
• 1 x text ad
• Find results on links (3 x external sites)
• Local pack
  • Local listing 
  • Local listing
  • Local listing
• People also ask
  • Question
  • Question
  • Question 
  • Question 
• Organic 1: Directory
• Organic 2: Wikipedia 
• Organic 3: Directory
• Organic 4: Government careers site
• Organic 5: Portal
• Organic 6: Local business

Here we see that the three-pack has good organic visibility right at the top of the page so SEO is likely useful if targeting a small geographic area. 

However, if you are targeting a larger area and can’t likely rank in the pack then the first non-directory or portal listing is the position 6 organic listing. 

This is around the 22nd link on the page (so unlikely to generate significant organic traffic). 

By conducting this relatively simple analysis for your keywords and reviewing the landscape you can make some estimates regarding whether ad coverage or SEO will generate the required results. 

3. How do the results vary by location?

There is a common mistake that a lot of local businesses make, which is to assume that what they see when they Google their target keywords at their location is what everyone sees. 

It is important to track your results from different locations as the ads, local pack and organic results (typically localized) will vary. 

What we recommend here is that you either conduct manual rank reports from different locations or ideally, use a rank tracking tool that will show you your rankings at various points across the geography you cover.

Note: You may see that your results are strong within a given distance of your location but drop off further away from your location. Sometimes, a combined SEO and PPC approach can be useful.

4. How much business do you need?

This is an important question and where we start to see some intersectionality from these questions. 

If you are a small business servicing a local area and need maybe one or two good leads a week, then SEO may give you more than you need. 

We have helped hundreds of small businesses that fall into this category, and once SEO is dialed in, they never spend a penny on PPC. 

If you are a larger business, have multiple teams and service a large city or geographic area, you may also need some coverage with PPC on top of SEO to ensure you generate enough work. 

5. What do you have more of – time or money?

An important difference between SEO and PPC is that you can do SEO yourself or within your business without any real costs. 

All the information you need is out there to improve your visibility. 

Time is money. So, if you have a larger team costing you money, then spending money to generate leads quickly makes sense.

This is where we have to consider the pros and cons we discussed earlier, as improving SEO can take a while, whereas PPC can be almost instant. 

It is important to determine what is right for your completely unique situation and objectives and lean in that direction. 

SEO vs. PPC: Your unique roadmap 

Hopefully, you can see it is impossible to answer this question in a generic way. You really have to consider all the variables.

A hyper-local business with little competition and a requirement for just a few leads per week could likely develop good visibility in the local and organic search results with a little spend or some DIY SEO.

A new ecommerce store that is competing with a page of results from Amazon, eBay and other major department stores and online retailers is likely going to struggle in organic search (in the short term, at least).

Do you need leads now? Are you looking at the long game? Do you have much in the way of website authority? What is the competition like in organic search? What is the cost per click in paid search?

A clear digital marketing strategy and short- and long-term goals are essential in making an SEO or PPC decision.

The third option: SEO and PPC

In most cases, the right approach will not be either SEO or PPC. It will be a holistic SEM strategy that combines both.

SEO and PPC work best when they are strategically aligned to work together. 

A blended approach will typically drive overall results greater than their parts.

The benefits of running SEO and PPC together include:

• Keyword and conversion data from PPC can be fed into organic search (SEO).
• Geographic areas with weaker SEO coverage can be covered by PPC. 
• The total traffic volume can be increased by targeting clicks in paid and organic for high-performing keywords.
• High-cost, high-volume or low-converting (yet still important) keywords can be moved from PPC to organic search.
• A/B testing of ad copy and landing pages can be fed into your organic listing and landing pages.
• Remarketing allows you to stay in front of visitors after an initial touch via organic search and customize messaging around their engagement with your site.
• Test your keyword strategy in PPC before committing to long-term SEO strategies.
• Target users at all customer journey stages, from research to comparison to purchase with commercial keywords.
• Increase confidence and awareness by having both strong organic and paid visibility.

In our experience with thousands of businesses, an integrated search strategy that looks at both SEO and PPC is the optimal approach. 

We may often start with heavy PPC while organic is built up and then dial that back a little. Alternatively, PPC may be the icing on the cake to bag sales that were set up with SEO traffic. 

What is right will always depend on your situation and goals, but the smart mindset is to look at how to get these two titans of modern marketing working together. 

“The value proposition that we see for publishers specifically as we go forward is driving more traffic and clicks—not less—and ensuring that publishers and partners earn more money.”

That’s according to new Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Ads Kya Sainsbury-Carter, in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal.

Why we care. The rise of AI chat features in search has publishers, content creators, brands and SEOs concerned about a not-too-far-away future with less traffic and revenue from organic search. Bing has discussed its vision for a prosperous content ecosystem in a generative AI world (unlike Google) – but it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will essentially pick winners (for example, those publisher in its Start program.

‘The future of search is an integrated experience.’ The future is search + answers + chat + creating, according to Sainsbury-Carter. She also once again mentioned the ad revenue sharing model from Bing Chat “in different ways as we learn what behaviors look like.”

But. Bing’s gains have been small so far. Even when Microsoft attracted more users to Edge, it lost potential Bing users to Google Search. So while it’s great that Microsoft is talking about sharing ad revenue, Bing still needs to grow its market share significantly.

Seeking ‘relevant engagement.’ Microsoft has had ads in Chat since the new Bing launched. As it also tests photo and video ads, Microsoft is continuing to find a balance between ad load and the user experience, Kya Sainsbury-Carter said:

• “We have metrics that are looked at up to the highest levels about how consumers engage with ads, such as how quickly they click away from them, demonstrating that it wasn’t relevant or they didn’t mean to click on it.”

Read the full WSJ interview. Microsoft Looks to ChatGPT AI to Transform Its Digital Ad Business.

Google expanded the display of shipping and return information on Google Search text results for merchant sites while adding new reporting to Search Console to monitor and fix the structured data related to these e-commerce features, Google wrote.

Several months ago, we saw Google show return and shipping information in the search results snippets. Now Google is saying this feature has been expanded to show more details.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot from Google where Google can not just show the product’s price but also the shipping and return information:

Google said this is available in Google Search in the US with support for more countries soon.

How do I get these snippets. Google said to show shipping and returning information on product search results within Google Search you need to add the information using structured data markup. If you already submit your product information to Google in the Merchant Center, Google will use your shipping and returns information from Google Merchant Center as well. So either use structured data markup or submit the information via Google Merchant Center.

Search Console reports. Also, Google launched Search Console reports to monitor and fix the structured data required to enable this display of the return and shipping details. Google said, “If your products don’t have shipping and return information or the shipping and return information was added incorrectly, you’ll receive warnings in the Merchant Listings report and via email notifications.”

Why we care. If you sell products, adding the shipping and return details to your snippet, in addition the product price, reviews and other rich results can not only help you gain attention and visibility of your snippets within Google Search but also may impact your click-through rate from Google Search.

If you have outstanding shipping and return policies, you may want to highlight that through Google Merchant Center and structured data so that can be visible within Google Search.

Google is placing more importance on the content source, specifically the author, when ranking search results. The introduction of Perspectives, About this result and About this author in the SERPs makes this clear.

This article explores how Google can potentially evaluate content pieces through their authors’ experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

E-E-A-T: Google’s quality offensive

Google has highlighted the significance of the E-E-A-T concept for improving the quality of search results and on-SERP user experience.

On-page factors such as the general quality of the content, link signals (i.e., PageRank and anchor texts), and entity-level signals all play a vital role.

In contrast to document scoring, evaluating individual content is not the focus of E-E-A-T.

The concept has a thematic reference related to the domain and originator entity. It is independent of the search intent and the individual content itself.

Ultimately, E-E-A-T is an influencing factor independent of search queries.

E-E-A-T mainly refers to thematic areas and is understood as an evaluation layer that assesses collections of content and off-page signals in relation to entities such as companies, organizations, people and their domains.

The importance of the author as the source of content

Long before (E-)E-A-T, Google tried to include the rating of content sources in search rankings. For instance, the Vince update from 2009 gave brand-created content a ranking advantage.

Through projects like Knol or Google+, which have long since ended, Google has tried to collect signals for author ratings (i.e., via a social graph and user ratings).

In the last 20 years, several Google patents have directly or indirectly referred to content platforms such as Knol and social networks such as Google+. 

Evaluating the origin or author of a content piece according to the E-E-A-T criteria is a crucial step to developing the quality of search results further.

With the abundance of AI-generated content and classic spam, it makes no sense for Google to include inferior content in the search index.

The more content it indexes and has to process during information retrieval, the more computing power is required.

E-E-A-T can help Google rank based on entity, domain and author level applied on a broader scale without having to crawl every piece of content.

At this macro level, content can be classified according to the originator entity and allocated with more or less crawl budget. Google can also use this method to exclude entire content groups from indexing.

How can Google identify authors and attribute content?

Authors belong to the person entity type. A distinction must be made between already known entities recorded in the Knowledge Graph and previously unknown or non-validated entities recorded in a knowledge repository such as the Knowledge Vault.

Even if entities are not yet captured in the Knowledge Graph, Google can recognize and extract entities from unstructured content using machine learning and language models. The solution is named entity recognition (NER), a subtask of natural language processing.

NER recognizes entities based on linguistic patterns and entity types are assigned. Generally speaking, nouns are (named) entities.

Modern information retrieval systems use word embedding (Word2Vec) for this.

A vector of numbers represents each word of a text or paragraph of text, and entities can be represented as node vectors or entity embeddings (Node2Vec/Entity2Vec).

Words are assigned to a grammatical class (noun, verb, prepositions, etc.) via part-of-speech (POS) tagging.

Nouns are usually entities. Subjects are the main entities, and objects are the secondary entities. Verbs and prepositions can relate the entities to each other.

In the example below, “olaf kopp”, “head of seo”, “co founder”, and “aufgesang” are the named entities. (NN = noun).

Natural language processing can identify entities and determine the relationship between them.

This creates a semantic space that better captures and understands the concept of an entity.

You can find more about this in “How Google uses NLP to better understand search queries, content.”

The counterpart to author embeddings is document embeddings. Document embeddings are compared with author vectors via vector space analysis. (You can learn more in the Google patent “Generating vector representations of documents.”)

All types of content can be represented as vectors, which allows:

• Content vectors and author vectors to be compared in vector spaces.
• Documents to be clustered according to similarity.
• Authors to be assigned.

The distance between the document vectors and the corresponding author vector describes the probability that the author created the documents.

The document is attributed to the author if the distance is smaller than other vectors and a certain threshold is reached.

This can also prevent a document from being created under a false flag. The author vector can then be assigned to an author entity, as already described, using the author name specified in the content.

Important sources of information about authors include: 

• Wikipedia Articles about the person.
• Author profiles.
• Speaker profiles.
• Social media profiles.

If you Google the name of an entity type person, you will find Wikipedia entries, profiles of the author and URLs of domains that are directly connected to the author in the first 20 search results.

In mobile SERPs, you can see which sources Google establishes a direct relationship with the person entity.

Google recognized all results above the icons for the social media profiles as sources with a direct reference to the entity.

This screenshot of the search query for “olaf kopp” shows that entities are linked to sources.

It also displays a new variant of a knowledge panel. It seems I’ve become part of a beta test here.

In this screenshot, you’ll see that in addition to images and attributes (age), Google has directly linked my domain and social media profile to my entity and delivers them in the knowledge panel. 

Since there is no Wikipedia article about me, the About description is delivered from the author profile at Search Engine Land in the USA and the author profile of the agency website in Germany.

Personal profiles on the web help Google to contextualize authors and identify social media profiles and domains associated with an author. 

Author boxes or author collections in author profiles help Google assign content to authors. The author’s name is insufficient as an identifier since ambiguities can arise. 

You should pay attention to everyone’s author descriptions to ensure consistency. Google can use them to check the validity of the entity compared to each other.

Interesting Google patents for E-E-A-T rating of authors

The following patents share a glimpse into possible methodologies of how Google identifies authors, assigns content to it and evaluates it in terms of E-E-A-T.

Content Author Badges

This patent describes how content is assigned to authors via a badge.

The content is assigned to an author badge using an ID such as the email address or author’s name. The verification is done via an addon in the author’s browser.

Generating author vectors

Google signed this patent in 2016, with a term up to 2036. However, there have only been patent applications for the USA, which suggests that it is not yet used in Google searches worldwide.

The patent describes how authors are represented as vectors based on training data.

A vector becomes unique parameters identified based on the author’s typical writing style and choice of words.

This way, content not previously attributed to the author can be assigned to them, or similar authors can be grouped into clusters.

Content ranking can then be adjusted for one or more authors based on the user behavior of the user in the past in the search (on Discover, for instance).

Thus, content from authors who have already been discovered and those from similar authors would rank better.

This patent is based on so-called embeddings, such as authors and word embeddings.

Today, embeddings are the technological standard in deep learning and natural language processing.

Therefore, it is obvious that Google such methods will also be used for author recognition and attribution.

Reputation scoring of an author

This patent was first signed by Google in 2008 and has a minimum term of 2029. This patent originally refers to the long-closed Google Knol project.

Thus, it’s all the more exciting why Google drew it again in 2017 under the new title Monetization of online content. Knol was shut down by Google back in 2012.

The patent is about determining a reputation score. The following factors can be taken into account for this:

• Level of frame of the author.
• Publications in renowned media.
• Number of publications.
• Age of recent releases.
• How long the author has been officially working as an author.
• Number of links generated by the author’s content.

An author can have multiple reputation scores per topic and have several aliases per subject area.

Many of the points made in the patent relate to a closed platform like Knol. Therefore, this patent should suffice at this point.

Agent rank

This Google patent was first signed in 2005 and has a minimum term until 2026.

In addition to the USA, it was also registered in Spain, Canada and worldwide, making it likely to be used in Google search.

The patent describes how digital content is assigned to an agent (publisher and/or author). This content is ranked based on an agent rank, among other things.

The Agent Rank is independent of the search intent of the search query and is determined on the basis of the documents assigned to the agent and their backlinks.

The Agent Rank refers exclusively to one search query, search query cluster or entire subject areas.

“The agent ranks can optionally also be calculated relative to search terms or categories of search terms. For example, search terms (or structured collections of search terms, i.e., queries) can be classified into topics, e.g., sports or medical specialties, and an agent can have a different rank with respect to each topic.”

Credibility of an author of online content

This Google patent was first signed in 2008 and has a minimum term of 2029, and has only been registered in the USA so far.

Justin Lawyer developed it in the same way as the Patent Reputation Score of an author and is directly related to use in searches.

In the patent, one finds similar points as in the abovementioned patent.

For me, it is the most exciting patent for evaluating authors in terms of trust and authority.

This patent references various factors that can be used to algorithmically determine an author’s credibility.

It describes how a search engine can rank documents under the influence of an author’s credibility factor and reputation score.

An author can have multiple reputation scores depending on how many different topics they publish content on.

An author’s reputation score is independent of the publisher.

Again in this patent, there is a reference to links as a possible factor in an E-E-A-T rating. The number of links to published content can influence an author’s reputation score.

The following possible signals for a reputation score are mentioned:

• How long the author has been producing content in a subject area.
• Awareness of the author.
• Ratings of published content by users.
• If another publisher publishes the author’s content with above-average ratings.
• The amount of content published by the author.
• How long ago the author last published.
• Ratings of previous publications on a similar topic by the author.

Other interesting information about the reputation score from the patent:

• An author can have multiple reputation scores depending on how many different topics they publish content on.
• An author’s reputation score is independent of the publisher.
• Reputation score may be downgraded if duplicate content or excerpts are published multiple times.
• The number of links to the published content can influence the reputation score.

Furthermore, the patent addresses a credibility factor for authors. The following influencing factors are mentioned:

• Verified information about the profession or the role of the author in a company. It also considers the credibility of the company.
• Relevance of occupation to the topics of the published content.
• Level of education and training of the author.
• Author’s experience based on time. The longer an author has been publishing on a topic, the more credible he is. The experience of the author/publisher can be determined algorithmically for Google via the date of the first publication in a subject area.
• The number of content published on a topic. If an author publishes many articles on a topic, it can be assumed that he is an expert and has a certain credibility.
• Elapsed time to last release. The longer it has been since an author last published on a topic, the more a possible reputation score for this topic decreases. The more up-to-date the content is, the higher it is.
• Mentions of the author/publisher in award and best-of lists.

Systems and methods re-ranking ranked search results

This Google patent was first signed in 2013 and has a minimum term until 2033. It has been registered in the USA and worldwide, which makes it likely that Google will use it. 

Among the inventors of the patent is Chung Tin Kwok, who was involved in several E-E-A-T relevant Google patents.

The patent describes how search engines, in addition to the references to the author’s content, can also consider the proportion that he can contribute to a thematic document corpus in an author scoring.

“In some embodiments, the determining the original author score for the respective entity includes: identifying a plurality of portions of content in the index of known content identified as being associated with the respective entity, each portion in the plurality of portions representing a predetermined amount of data in the index of known content; and calculating a percentage of the plurality of the portions that are first instances of the portions of content in the index of known content.”

It describes a re-ranking of search results based on author scoring, including citation scoring. Citation scoring is based on the number of references to an author’s documents.

Another criterion for author scoring is the proportion of content that an author has contributed to a corpus of topic-related documents.

“[W]herein determining the author score for a respective entity includes: determining a citation score for the respective entity, wherein the citation score corresponds to a frequency at which content associated with the respective entity is cited; determining an original author score for the respective entity, wherein the original author score corresponds to a percentage of content associated with the respective entity that is a first instance of the content in an index of known content; and combining the citation score and the original author score using a predetermined function to produce the author score.”

The patent’s purpose is to identify “copycats” and downgrade their content in the rankings, but it can also be used for the general evaluation of authors.

Key factors for rating an author

In addition to the possible factors for an author evaluation listed in the patents above, here are a few more to consider (some of which I have already mentioned in my article “14 ways Google may evaluate E-A-T“).

• Overall quality of the content on a topic: The quality that an author delivers about his content on a topic as a whole, independent of domain and format, can be a factor for E-E-A-T. Signals for this can be user signals, links and other quality signals at the content level.
• PageRank or references to the author’s content.
• Co-occurrences of the author in content (podcasts, videos, websites, PDFs, books) with relevant topics or terms.
• Co-occurrences of the author in search queries with relevant topics or terms.

Applying E-E-A-T to author entities

Machine learning methods make it possible to recognize and map semantic structures from unstructured content on a large scale. 

This allows Google to recognize and understand many more entities than previously shown in the Knowledge Graph.

As a result, the source of content plays an increasingly important role. E-E-A-T can be algorithmically applied beyond documents, content and domain.

The concept can also cover the author entities of content (i.e., the authors and organizations responsible for the content).

I think we will see an even more significant impact of E-E-A-T on Google search over the next few years. This factor may even be as important for the ranking as the relevance optimization of individual content.

If you’ve ever googled instructions for how to perform a specific task, then you the importance of high-quality how-to content.

The person desperately searching for an excellent how-to article on fixing a leaky sink will find immense relief when they finally hit on a blog post that lays it out simply and clearly, for instance.

In almost any scenario where somebody needs instructions and help on how to do something, great how-to content can swoop in and improve their lives.

That’s what we’ll explore in this article – why how-to content matters and how to create it effectively.

Why create how-to content?

The right how-to content, created with clear steps and instructions, saves a lot of hassle. It might even save someone’s day.

So, if you’re the one creating this content for your audience, that’s immensely valuable.

You’re rescuing them from the dreaded Google search that never ends by not only fulfilling their search needs but giving them content that’s actually helpful.  

And it’s easy to see how those actions could help grow your brand – by proving your expertise and thus building trust and affinity with your readers.

Along with that, if your how-to content is properly optimized for search, you’ll help people outside of your audience whom you can then pull into your brand orbit.

To sum up, how-to content is incredibly valuable for both the brand and the audience – so why wouldn’t you create it?

How to create how-to content

Great how-to content is born once you know your goals for that content, understand whom you’re writing to, and know exactly what your content will help them accomplish.

1. Zero in on your content goal: teaching/educating

Every piece of content has a goal, and if your goal is to teach/educate about a particular topic, make sure that’s clear from the outset.

Your goal will influence how you approach creating a piece of content and creating how-to content requires a teaching mindset/approach. 

Why does this matter?

Because a teaching mindset is entirely different from an information-sharing, entertaining, or analytical mindset.

Teaching through content, especially, needs a specific method if you expect to teach successfully:

• Detailed explanations.
• Step-by-step instructions.
• Lots of examples.
• Helpful visuals (photos, video, illustrations, etc.).
• Presenting not just the “what” but also the “how” and the “why” of the topic.
• Putting yourself in the reader’s shoes and seeing how you can build their understanding from A to B, to C, to D, and beyond.

So, as you plan out your content, keep track of the goals for each piece. Your goals will influence the outcome, especially for how-to content.

2. Find your how-to topic

Sometimes the how-to topic you’ll use for your content will be obvious.

You might even have a whole list of how-to topics you want to create content for that tie into your brand goals, what you sell, and what your audience wants to see.

But, if the right how-to topics aren’t presenting themselves this easily, don’t worry. You can research to find your perfect topics.

Think about the needs of your target audience

What are some problems they have (big or small!), relevant to your industry, that you could help them solve with how-to content?

Don’t know this? Ask them. Polls, surveys, interviews, and just plain chats are your friends.

Consider the wants of your target audience

What questions are they asking, directly or indirectly? 

• Look for potential how-to topics inside your customer service data. 
• Have your sales reps keep tabs on the most common questions they hear. 
• Do some social listening to find out what your audience wants to know how to do.

Look for how-to keywords relevant to your industry/what you sell

You can also find how-to topics with some keyword research.

A good keyword can easily inspire an equally good how-to topic.

• Search for keywords starting with “how to”, but also ones starting or ending with terms like “step-by-step guide”, “how do I…”, or “tutorial” – these also imply a how-to topic. 
• If you’re starting with a topic, find a closely related keyword for which your brand can still rank. Avoid any keyword that’s too competitive.
• Look at metrics like search volume to determine whether anyone is actually searching for the keyword and keyword difficulty (KD) to determine how competitive the keyword is to rank for.

3. Research and plan your how-to topic for SEO and readers

With a topic/focus keyword in hand, you can start figuring out how you’ll write your how-to content. There are a few ways to do this to ensure you hit the bullseye for readers and search engines.

Research what already exists on Google

If you want to rank in Google for your how-to topic, you need to see what’s already ranking for your keyword and determine how to make your content better.

You should also see what’s ranking in Google to study how these pieces are structured, which facets of the topic they focus on, and how they address the searcher intent for the keyword. 

Since these pieces are winning the rankings for the keyword, you already know they are in the vein of what searchers and Google are looking for – so you should definitely take notes and inspiration from them.

Look at the competition

In some cases, what’s ranking in Google for your how-to keyword/topic may be content from one of your direct competitors.

In this case, focus on how you can differentiate your content from theirs.

• What’s missing from your competitor’s content piece?
• Could you go deeper on the topic – e.g., provide more granular steps in your how-to, more insights, or additional research?
• How can you differentiate visually? For example, maybe your competitor has completely overlooked the visual aspect of their how-to content. In this case, you could go further by adding photos or screenshots of the how-to process.

Choose the right format

Not every how-to topic will call for the same format, like a list of steps.

Some how-to topics are better suited for an instructional video, while others might call for a simple written explanation or a long, detailed guide with tips and photos. 

For example, for the keyword “how to plan a trip,” the top of Google is populated with written guides. This makes sense because trip planning is very much a thinking-based activity.

Written guides are well-suited for this kind of how-to.

In contrast, the top of Google for the keyword “how to tie a shoe” contains mostly video content.

This makes sense because understanding how to tie your shoes would be difficult without someone demonstrating it. 

It’s not a complex process but relies heavily on spatial understanding. Videos are best for this kind of how-to.

With these examples in mind, choose the format for your how-to content carefully. 

Consider the medium through which your audience will best learn about your topic and what that topic requires in terms of total understanding.

4. Write with the aim of teaching effectively

You already have your goal in mind – teaching your audience to build affinity and trust – as you set out to write your how-to content.

But how do you teach effectively? Keep these tips in mind.

Remember who your audience is and write to them

Your best guide is always your audience. To teach them effectively, you need to know them – really know them.

First, you must have a grasp of their level of knowledge.

What do they know already about your topic? What do they not know? How can you bridge the gap between the two?

You also need to know what they’re most concerned with and what is less important to them.

Which parts of your how-to topic need a deeper explanation? Which parts are satisfactory with only cliff notes?

For example, in this blog about how to plan a trip, the author assumes their audience already has a destination in mind, or won’t need much help picking one out. 

Instead, they offer tips and advice about researching and planning your trip based on your destination (such as researching the weather during your trip window, visa requirements, and more).

Put yourself in a beginner’s shoes

If you’re an expert, sometimes it can be hard to go back in time and try to remember what it felt like to be new and inexperienced at your specialty.

But to write great how-to content, you need to be able to do this.

The better you empathize with your readers, the better you can help them with how-to content. 

So think hard about what it was like to start fresh with little knowledge about your topic. Use that to make your content more helpful, real, and useful for beginners.

Avoid using technical terms or industry jargon

As a practitioner in a specific industry, it’s pretty easy to fall into “industry speak” without realizing it. 

But this can turn off or even alienate readers who aren’t yet familiar with those terms. Here’s a great example from Brand Chemistry of jargon:

To an outsider, this sounds like a different language.

At worst, using jargon will make your audience feel lost from the beginning of your how-to content. That’s the opposite of what you want.

At a base level, this all goes back to knowing your audience and speaking to them in a way they’ll understand. 

Instead, avoid falling back on cliches and buzzwords and aim for clarity in how you explain and describe concepts.

5. Add your unique angle and expertise on the topic

Nearly 7 million blog posts are published daily. How will you stand out from the crowd? 

Answer: Use your expertise – the mix of knowledge, skills, and experience that forms your unique brand perspective.

Many brands are built on the expertise of their founders, but many others rely on the diverse skill sets of their teams.

This knowledge and skill combination is fundamental to the brand and how they solve customers’ problems.

Whichever category your brand falls into, ensure you understand that expertise, where it comes from, and how it’s expressed in the content. (If you don’t – start interviewing your team to get that understanding.)

For example, perhaps the brand founder has a story explaining how they became an expert with some unique twists and turns influencing how they approach their industry.

Where relevant, referencing and using these stories in content can be an incredible differentiator and may give extra gravitas to your how-to content.

6. Explain the ‘why’ behind your points

This point is true not just for how-to content but also for most other long-form types.

Great educational content doesn’t just explain the “what” – it also delves into the “how” and the “why.”

Let’s return to the blog about how to plan a trip to show you an example.

In the section on choosing a destination, the authors could have just told you to research the weather and travel requirements before you plan your trip and left it at that. 

But instead, they give you reasons why researching before planning is a good idea based on their experience and expertise: 

• In their experience, when they failed to research, their trips didn’t meet their expectations.
• Researching as a part of vacation planning “can really save you troubles or headaches down the road,” such as when the authors traveled to India without researching the weather first and ended up there during the hottest months of the year.

Using their expertise, they explain the WHY behind their point. They give you solid reasoning with examples from their extensive experience traveling.

See the difference it makes? Without these things, this blog would lack evidence of E-E-A-T, and the information would seem shallow and less trustworthy.

7. Include helpful visuals 

We already touched on this briefly, but it’s worth a second glance.

Most content, especially blogs, needs visuals to be more engaging, but how-to content practically begs for them.

In your written content, look for opportunities to help your reader understand concepts better with a well-chosen, well-placed image, photo, or screenshot.

For example, this blog on how to block a knitting project has much-needed pictures that clarify the text instructions.

Effectively educate your audience with how-to content

How-to content presents a huge opportunity to provide value to your audience immediately.

If you can teach them effectively, the benefits will roll outward for a long time – including building trust and affinity with your brand.

That makes educational, how-to content one of the best investments for a content marketing strategy.

It’s like that old saying, “Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.”

What will you teach your audience? 

Google is in the process of building an “all-new search engine” powered by its new A.I. technology while at the same time working on adding new A.I.-based features to its current search engine under the project name Magi. “The new search engine would offer users a far more personalized experience than the company’s current service, attempting to anticipate users’ needs,” the NY Times reports.

New Google search engine

Google has put a team of designers, engineers and executives in charge of building out this new search engine that “could put new A.I. technology in phones and homes all over the world,” according to the report.

The new Google search engine are still in its early stages, with no timeline for when it will be released. But it this new effort does “demonstrate Google’s ambitions to reimagine the search experience.”

The new search engine would “learn what users want to know based on what they’re searching.” In addition, it would “offer lists of preselected options for objects to buy, information to research and other information.” At the same time, being more conversational, like talking to a person. Earlier reports has Google talking about big changes coming to Google Search.

In 2009, Google tried to heavily personalize search results where it actually said all search results were being personalized for all users. But a decade later, Google admitted personalization offered little benefit to searchers. Personalization in search was very limited and pulled back in a big way, outside of immediate previous query and some localization based on the user’s location. That may have been a privacy play but here we are in a world where now Google seems like it can potentially lose market share to Microsoft Bing and other players.

Project Magi

While Google is working on an all-new search engine, a team of more than 160 Googlers are working full-time on adding new features to the existing Google Search. This project is being code-named Magi, according to these reports and may be released as early as next month to a subset of users.

Magi would allow searchers to complete transactions, such as buying shoes or booking flights, according to the report. This would allow searchers to complete financial transactions, all while still incorporating the existing search ads that Google Search makes a huge profit on today.

These changes can allow searchers to answer questions about “software coding and write code based on a user’s request.” “Google may place an ad under the computer code answers, according to a document,” the report added.

Other Google projects

Google is also working on other efforts, including:

• Google Earth’s mapping technology with help from A.I. and search for music through a conversation with a chatbot.
• GIFI would use A.I. to generate images in Google Image results.
• Tivoli Tutor, would teach users a new language through open-ended A.I. text conversations.
• Searchalong, would let users ask a chatbot questions while surfing the web through Google’s Chrome browser.

Lara Levin, a Google spokeswoman, said told the New York Times that “not every brainstorm deck or product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited about bringing new A.I.-powered features to search, and will share more details soon.”

Lara Levin from Google reached out to us with the following statement as well, “We’ve been bringing AI to Google Search for years to not only dramatically improve the quality of our results, but also introduce entirely new ways to search, such as Lens and multisearch. We’ve done so in a responsible and helpful way that maintains the high bar we set for delivering quality information. Not every brainstorm deck or product idea leads to a launch, but as we’ve said before, we’re excited about bringing new AI-powered features to Search, and will share more details soon.”

Why we care

Watching how fast Google changes and reacts to OpenAI and Microsoft has been interesting. Search is changing incredibly fast and over the next several months will be fascinating to see how search ads, SEO and other forms of marketing change with it.

Stay tuned, we will keep you posted on these changes.