Having Google on Your Side [video]

Transcript:

I read an article today by my least favorite information service provider, the “Googs” and it really hit home because it's what I talk about a lot, which is creating content for people first.

Not machines.

Google makes most of its money by data scraping, advertising, but as content creators, we want our content — that we've sweat buckets over trying to get out there and be seen — we want Google to work for us.

To promote us.

So when I got to the part that was ‘avoid creating search engine first content,’ a lot of what they were writing just screamed AI to me.

I remember the first time that I used ChatGPT. My mouth physically dropped open. I saw the speed at which it wrote, and I thought, “Crap! I'm going to be out of a job soon.” And I know I'm not the only person who's thought that, or still thinks that, when they use AI for the first time.

It so fast. There's no way we can write anywhere near that fast.

I was just creating a blog post — probably writing it for about two hours, and a lot of that was speaking out the text. But there's all the formatting and getting links and working your content into silos for extra search engine juice. There's so much and ChatGPT can, with a blink of an eye, pretty much create a blog post for you.

But that's where we shouldn't get lazy because Google says itself, “Are you using extensive automation to reduce content on many topics?” Well, think how easy it is to do that with ChatGPT, or some other AI. I really think, and it's been my thought for some time, that the proliferation of junk on the web will reach a tipping point, and then there'll be such extreme kickback from the search engines as they just get rid of all this junk.

Because there are so many people creating content, and they can't read over the content, well, some won't read over that content — they'll just put it out there. Others, that don't have a level of expertise, are generating content that doesn't have correct information in it. Maybe court cases that don't even exist or citations, studies, white papers that were never actually published. One of the pointers that Google says is, “Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?”

When I think about how AI puts out information, that is the main issue that I have with it.

Yes, there are the words. Yes, it's a great tool for brainstorming, and creating more content from the ideas that it produces, but there's real lack there.

You definitely are getting a super high-level overview.

Imagine you're on an airplane and you're at 37,000 feet. That's the kind of overview that I feel like ChatGPT gives you. It's a good starting point. It will put you on a path but it's up to you to clear that path and make an information highway of it.

Your content needs to give folks value, needs to teach them something that, whether it's through analogy, storytelling, real life experience, AI just can't emulate.

Google has these E-E-A-T guidelines and what they're looking for is content that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

So at the very least, as you're putting content out on the interwebs, if it can show experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness that scores high points with Google.

And in terms of people finding you, by doing a search for what you offer —

having Google on your side is a really good strategy.

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