Content and the New SEO

Whether you work in project management, product management, instructional design, or e-commerce, every business needs both internally-facing and customer-facing documents. These documents can be the product itself, as in digital media, or the documents could accompany the product, as in user manuals and other customer success materials. No business can afford to not have sparkling copy that conveys its meaning clearly and concisely. Smart businesses invest in writers and researchers who bring the best technical and professional skills to bear on the project.

In the old SEO search paradigm, writers mostly had to build a set of keywords into the document, which led to small word clouds of copy barely strung together with connecting phrases. To combat this problem, Google’s algorithm pivoted to longer-form content. That’s one of the reasons why when you look up a recipe on the internet, you get the chef’s entire life story before you get to the two tablespoons of sugar and one cup of flour. As explained by WebFX, content authorship in 2023 will be all about answering complex queries.

The new paradigm will not just use one query but will bundle the user’s previous queries and present query into one package. So if I search for “sunscreen” on one occasion and “the Seychelles” on another occasion, the new SEO will need to have a complete Seychelles trip planned for me, complete with things to do, where to stay, what to eat, and what to do to avoid sunburn. The effect will be that web-based content will become more complex and detailed, so that sites which offer a “one stop shop” will be higher ranked than sites which offer partial and limited material. The advantage will go to writers and researchers who have the ability to work across domains and dive deeply into their subject matter.?

Another big feature of new copywriting will be closer collaboration between content creators and user experience designers. Sites that more quickly deliver content without a lot of load time will be prioritized over clunky sites with a lot of intentional or unintentional barriers. This means that advertisements and graphics will need to seamlessly interface with text and not cause delays. Web users these days simply will not wait for even a second or two before they click away from the site, and the new SEO for Google and other search engines will prioritize this behavior even more by pushing slowly-loading content further down the list.

It can be easy, though, to get so caught up in the rules of search engine optimization that creators begin to try to game the system. The old rules of reader engagement still apply. The writing should be tailored to the intended audience. Excess verbiage should be eliminated. One paragraph should flow smoothly into the next. Infographics should elegantly capture data relationships. Quality will still be rewarded no matter how the SEO recommendations change.?