Enhancing content for AI search

Integrating original video, visuals, and research

Hey friends,

We're all still figuring out how, exactly, AI search tools are finding content.

Here's one reasonable theory: tools like Perplexity are still following Google’s lead.

In other words, they're looking for original, helpful content. So how do you make the pages on your site more original, informative, substantial, and insightful??

Incorporate the content that only you can provide. If you’ve got the budget to create new assets for each post then... congrats! But not everyone does.

You can start by using original material from your archive.

?? Use these assets to improve any blog post

All too often, companies invest in original research, graphics, and video then forget about it all.

This is exactly the kind of content that should be all over your blog! Things like:

• Charts + visualizations. Have you published any original research (eg. ebooks, industry reports)? These have great data and data visualizations. Liberate them from the paltry PDF files!
• Video. Archived webinars, explainers, or product walk-throughs often live on solitary pages or external libraries like Youtube. Embed them in relevant blog posts. Some people prefer video to reading. Video also provides a deeper dive on topics.
• Customer quotes. Case studies and customer stories are great bottom-funnel content, of course. But they also provide social proof for the content on your blog.
• Product instances. Those animations and screenshots that live on your product pages? They can actually help illustrate processes that might otherwise seem a bit abstract in pure text.

Of course, the goal is to be helpful. So if you find useful stats, videos, and visuals from sources beyond your company, that’s great too. But the first stop should be your own assets.

?? How to find those assets in your own library

Here are 4 ways you can surface the most relevant content for any topic.

1. Try the search functionality on the user side of your site

Do you have a page devoted to case studies, or customer stories? Does your site have a useful system of categorization tags?

That’s a quick and easy way to start searching for relevant assets. If your blog has a search bar that actually works – more power to you.?

Of course, this isn't the case for many sites. In which case you’ll need to get more creative...

2. Site searching on Google Use the Google search bar to investigate your entire URL.?

Copy and customize this formula:

Site:[your main URL] “[subject you’re looking for]”?

In the screenshot above it looks like this:

Site:salesforce.com "cold call”

?It might not be the prettiest option, but it will get the job done.

3. Library inventory with ércule

When you track content performance using our product, you also have access to a searchable inventory of your entire site.

Search a targeted phrase in the Library view. It will show you all of the pages that are focused on similar topics. Any one of these pages may contain some original data, art, or quotes that can be used throughout your blog.

4. External libraries Some companies use other platforms to host content. Lots of SaaS companies keep their video content on Youtube, for example.

Youtube has excellent search functionality, so you can search for targeted phrases within your company’s Youtube channel quite well.?

It even provides embed codes for your videos, so they're easily added to blog posts.

?? Example: Apollo.io

This blog post from Apollo’s “magazine” is using a mix of new data and archived data here.?

Right away we see that it's using images of cold call scripts as header images. (This is way more engaging than the stock images that fill up so many blogs.)

Additionally, the post includes a pull quote from this related blog post. The quote provides social proof for the particular tactic discussed. It also provides an internal link for readers to explore.

Further down, the post addresses the topic of sales lead research. “Research” can, of course, mean a lot of things. So the post provides a visual example.

It just so happens to illustrate the research process with a screenshot of Apollo’s own product…

Clever! But also useful for readers. After all, Apollo is a tool that enables this kind of sales research. A product image here illustrates the possibilities for good sales research.

This approach applies to any marketer, especially in SaaS. After all, the product you’re marketing is designed to solve problems for people. The content you write is designed to illuminate those problems – and solutions.?

In this way, product-led content can be extremely helpful?– for your visitors and your bottom-line alike.

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