Content Marketing and AI: What Is Changing?

What works? What doesn’t?

A few preliminary thoughts as I begin to explore this brave new world of AI search engine results.

Content marketing and AI are changing the face of search engine optimized writing.

Blogging and SEO article writing used to be my bread-and-butter work. I contributed to many top websites over the years. In the early days of the internet, driving traffic to articles was more science than art. I remember one client handing me a mathematical formula to determine how many times to use keyword phrases in his articles.

Then, over time, there was a shift away from 500 to 1,000-word keyword-based articles. I learned that the market was saturated with all that good how-to content and overview pieces. The web had its encyclopedia; now what readers wanted was “expert opinions.”  Suddenly, websites that published articles from freelancers slapped colorful “expert” badges on them. Everyone talked about Google’s E-A-T formula.

The E-A-T formula stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a concept used by search engines like Google to evaluate the quality and credibility of online content, particularly for pages that impact people’s health, finances, or safety.

This formula seemed to work – for a while. Then, in late 2023, AI was launched, and AI search became a ‘thing’ throughout 2024. I watched as website after website – sites I owned, sites I managed or contributed to for clients – began losing ranking. Many good articles stopped receiving click throughs from search engines because AI could answer the same question in a short, top of the search page box.

I’m seeing this on my gardening blog, I’m seeing this on client blogs, and everyone wants to know the same thing: should they keep blogging? Or are blogs a thing of the past, like free Yahoo! GeoCities websites and AOL startup CDs? (Now I really am aging myself.)

Blogging Isn’t Dead, But It Is Evolving

Blogging isn’t dead, but it is certainly evolving. Gone are the days when you can slap up enough TOFU (top of funnel) and BOFU (bottom of funnel) content and get plenty of search traffic. Quantity cannot win over AI these days.

What is winning is unique content. How unique? Go as unique as you can. My best performing article on my gardening blog these days is a how-to article for which I took original images of my husband working out in the fruit tree orchard. I documented every step with photos, including our rusty old wheelbarrow and pruners. Search engines seem to like authenticity. I am seeing content for which I took similar realistic images also ranking well, and content for which I licensed stock images not doing as well. I am gradually replacing stock images with original photos to see if that helps.

Authenticity and expertise still seem to win, as does long form content. Original topics – thought leadership pieces and anything that AI cannot readily answer – also does well.

Contrary opinions continue to rank well, too, especially if you can support them with the previously mentioned expertise and authority.

Branded Content for the Age of AI Search

Ann Smarty, a marketer who frequently writes about AI search, wrote about the need for branded content in one of her recent Substack articles. In her piece Build Your Brand Knowledge, she posits that brand-driven content will be at the core of SEO content marketing moving forward. Brand knowledge helps not only with search engines but also helps AI know and share your brand. The more branded content you have online, the better. She gives plenty of examples of how to add brand content to your website. Adding frequently asked questions, using traditional media like press releases and journalist outreach, even creating short, branded videos all helps raise your company or product visibility with search engines and AI algorithms that generate results.

Evolving Information – Follow Us

This world of AI-driven search continues to evolve. Follow Seven Oaks Consulting on LinkedIn and YouTube for the latest and bookmark our blog. We are learning as we go – and growing as we learn. We’re testing what we learn, too, and will share what works with you.