7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Just “Quit” Producing Educational Content on Your Website (Despite the Slow Death of SEO)

?“Most companies should stop publishing educational content to their website for SEO purposes.”

This is how my friend and former HubSpotter Pete Caputa started his well-written post on LinkedIn yesterday. Such a statement may come as a surprise from someone who was an OG at HubSpot and helped build that company literally on educational SEO content.

But times are-a-changing, and Pete further suggests there are 3 main reasons why you should stop posting educational content for SEO on your website:

1.??????? The cost to maintain rankings has become quite expensive (time, effort, energy)

2.??????? Buyers are shifting from “searching” to “browsing”

3.??????? Overall website traffic is flat across the board (for most companies), in part due to AI, ads, “People also ask”, Knowledge graph, etc.

The Other Side of the SEO Coin

As I read Pete’s thoughts, I felt it important to take this topic a step further and possibly show the other side of the coin as well.

Sadly, many people will read what Pete said and completely miss the part where he suggested to “…stop publishing educational content to their website for SEO purposes.”

Folks, it’s critical you keep in mind that SEO should have NEVER been the only reason you’ve produced educational content on your website.

Those who had this as their only intention were always missing the mark.

So here are 7 reasons you shouldn’t just “quit” producing educational content on your website (for SEO).

7 Reasons Why Educational Content Still Matters

1.??????? PEOPLE ARE STILL GOING TO WEBSITES IN DROVES (before they buy from a company).

?I suspect websites will remain VERY relevant to business success over the next 10 years and remain a primary vetting area for buyers/consumers before they engage a company. With that, if they come to your site, DO YOU WANT THEM TO BE FED??? I know I do, and what feeds them is that you address their questions, worries, fears, issues, concerns, etc. (They Ask You Answer[TAYA]). By doing this, you can either create an incredible UX for your visitors, or a boring/mediocre one. As for me, I’ll always choose incredible.?

2.??????? SEO is still VERY alive in certain industries (and countries).?

In They Ask, You Answer, I talk about what I refer to as the “CSI” of an industry—or its Content Saturation Index. The fact is, in 2024, there are many industries where SEO is still quite available. Case in point: Over 90% of all businesses don’t discuss cost/price on their websites, one of the most common SEARCH terms in every industry.

Unfortunately, many folks assume SEO is dead (or unachievable) everywhere because many other industries are way oversaturated with content (like marketing agencies, for example).?

Mark my words—there will be MANY companies that will make MILLIONS in revenue this year through continued SEO efforts (educational content production for their website).

This is especially true outside of the United States, where much fewer businesses have done anything close to TAYA (Asia, Germany, France, much of Europe, almost all of South America, all of the Middle East, etc.) Unfortunately, many thought leaders in the marketing space are unintentionally biased because of their US experience, not knowing what is happening in the rest of the world. (I'm not inferring here Pete isn't aware, he's very smart)

3.??????? Educational Website Content is CRITICAL for Sales Teams

If you’ve read my book, you’ve read all about “Assignment Selling”—one of the easiest ways sales teams can increase closing rates and shorten sales cycles while intentionally integrating educational content into the sales process.

Sadly, most companies don’t consider (or train their team) how to use content in the sales process and, because of that, lose a sense of the content’s value. Furthermore, most marketers don’t understand Assignment Selling because, well, they are thinking like a marketer. ;-)

4.??????? Educational Website Content is the Foundation of Your Other Online Content

Most folks realize the importance of repurposing their content at this point. The same holds VERY true for the educational content on your website. For example, let’s say you create a “How Much Does (your product/service) Cost?” article on your website today. Not only will this potentially do very well from an SEO and UX perspective, but you could easily take the content and use it as a script for a cost video that goes on YouTube, a guest post on an industry publication, or a short form video that goes on all socials (reels, TikTok, shorts, etc.)

5.??????? Educational Content becomes a Company Training Manual

Most companies, especially small businesses, have almost no training manual that states their opinion/doctrine/beliefs/etc. on all the questions pertaining to their industry. But with enough educational content, especially with the help of AI, it’s EASY to create these manuals, especially for the Sales team.

I’ve had dozens of situations where a company did TAYA, and that became the onboarding content for new employees, especially their sales team. And speaking of sales teams, creating your own educational content helps ensure your reps are giving out uniform answers to customer/prospect questions—and not just making stuff up on the fly (or worse, giving opposing answers to customer questions.)

6.??????? The Future of Interactive Chat and Digital Avatars will be Built on YOUR Educational Content

This one is HUGE, and almost no one is thinking about it or talking about it.

In the future, consumers will expect an incredible chat experience on your website, one where they feel like they are interacting with a real human (even though they’ll know it’s AI) that can answer all their questions (well) and help them immediately find what they’re looking for.

Guess what? If your team hasn’t produced its own educational content, you won’t be able to offer that chat experience because you won’t be able to train the AI on YOUR content.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in training AI and LLMs on a competitor’s content. It needs to be me, my voice, my beliefs, my doctrine.

Again, this will be a VERY big deal in the future.

7.??????? Companies that Produce Educational Content Better Understand Their Customers

This one is a bit harder for someone to understand without having lived it themselves, but there is incredible power in becoming obsessed with how your customers think, feel, fear, search, behave, etc.

By having a TAYA mindset in everything you do, not only do you become a better educator and thought leader, but you also find more ways to innovate. This is because innovation generally only happens when you’re incredibly in tune with the problems buyers have and you’re able to, therefore, find ways to solve those problems in a fast and easier manner.

What’s interesting is that we could list even more reasons why educational content still matters, but we’ll stop there, as hopefully you see the benefits.

My friend Pete was right in his assessment that educational content for SEO is much more difficult today than it has ever been. It’s also only going to get harder to see impacts from SEO in the future due to AI and the ways buyers are evolving.

Ultimately, you shouldn’t build your business on Google search in 2024 and beyond.

But you SHOULD build it on a foundation of educational and creative content that spans across digital—from your website, to social media, to YouTube, and beyond.

So see the big picture.

Understand what’s at stake here.

And continue to focus on what buyers want every step of the way.

**Important Note: I’m seeing more and more STUNNING results from companies that are taking my advice and using pricing calculators on their websites to attract more leads. On August 21st, I’m putting on a special 1-hour event (FREE, btw) called:

The Website Pricing Calculator Era with Marcus Sheridan: How B2B & B2C Businesses Can (SAFELY) Use Pricing Calculators to Explode Leads and Sales?

Make sure you sign up and attend LIVE. I’ll field all your questions while showing some really powerful tools and examples that will not only address your concerns but also get you excited about this incredibly effective lead-generation strategy.