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Hello, fellow content peeps!

This week, I’m celebrating the fact that the Content Forward newsletter here on Beehiiv has been going strong for one year!

This has been a year for the books in content marketing & SEO for sure.

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One Year of Content Forward!

We’ve been through it this year, haven’t we?

Google updates, the Helpful Content Update, spam attacks, content goblins and alligator parties, niche site publisher shakedown…

It’s been a rough wild ride in content and SEO.

I’m so happy you’ve all been here every week to hear all about it.

This weekly end-of-week ritual of sharing my ramblings, deep dives, and strategies has kept me focused, and I am forever grateful for it.

I’ve been trying to think of a clever, special way to celebrate this milestone, but I keep coming back to the realization that this year has just been a smackdown, and perhaps we can just celebrate the fact that we’re still here.

Looking back a year ago feels like looking back on a decade.

When I wrote the first Content Forward newsletter, I was eagerly, yet cautiously optimistic about where we were headed with content and SEO.

A year ago, we were starting to see the effects on our industry from AI, the macro-economic shifts, and the ever-increasing ‘sameness’ that was SEO content.

I, like many of you, craved a new content playbook.

That’s why I shared this article from Jason Mountford, called F*ck Keywords. Write Barbecue Content.

I love how Jason calls this out:

Here we are one year later, and I agree, with one caveat — SEO is a much riskier place to focus all of our content marketing resources.

I love this idea of barbecue content as a more holistic content marketing approach. Moving forward in 2024, I want to implement strategies that:

• Serve our audience and solve problems that they are thinking about in fresh ways (opinions, information gain, stronger points of view, yes to ALL of this, please!)

• Emphasize better distribution strategies (Google isn’t the only way to get eyeballs. It may not even be the best platform for your audience. Where are they already hanging out?)

• Gives our publications a seat at the thought-leader table instead of trying to keep up, copy, or mimic what’s already happening in a fickle search landscape.

So, as we celebrate this one-year milestone of Content Forward, I guess you could say that I’m still optimistic about where our industry is headed.

Yes. There have been some painful lessons along the way, but I still believe that authentic, say-something-new content is becoming even more important right now in this AI, mass content conveyor belt world.

Looking back is fun, sure, but I really try not to get bogged down in the “I wish I could have done this…” narrative.

So, this retrospect got me thinking…

What if we could make decisions better moving forward?

Looking back, it’s easy to say… we should have done this, or I wish we had started this sooner… but unless time travel is possible, that’s just wishful thinking at this point.

We all have decisions in life we wish we had made differently. It’s no different in business, but it doesn’t help us to look back in regret on any of it.

But, what if we made our decisions going forward a bit differently?

What if we imagined the ‘bad outcome’ or things we may regret before we made a decision? This kind of thinking is a game-changer.

I love this idea of preemptive regret decision-making —of choosing to think through what could go wrong before we make a decision that we may regret.

But, what does this look like in real life?

I like to think of this as a framework where I ask myself:

If I choose Decision A vs Decision B, can I live with Decision A if everything goes tits up?

What do we have to lose?

Nobody can predict the future of our decisions, so maybe the real question is, can we live with this decision if it doesn’t work out?

This morning, I was discussing an update to one of our websites with my editor. We were weighing the risks and outcomes of what a revamp and overhaul to the site might look like.

In the end, my thinking is — even if we make major updates, what do we really have to lose?

The site has lost traffic as is. We won’t lose traffic to the internal pages where people are finding us.

We need to test something new.

The possible updates and focus shifts may bring in new opportunities, or they may fall flat. I can live with that.

If the level of ‘regret’ is going to be too catastrophic for you to handle, it’s time to rethink that decision BEFORE you make it.

This strategy is actually quite fun and freeing when you’re starting something new. Try it sometime! Let me know how it goes.

Okay, to celebrate one year of doing this around here, I want to reshare some of my personal favorite editions.

These are not the ‘top’ newsletters, but they are my faves.

3 of My Fave Content Forward Issues to Reread at the One Year Mark

Here’s What You Absolutely Need to Thrive in Content Today

I give some real deal advice for all of us in content here. TL;DR - Build a community of supportive people around you. I get into who I think those people are. I am 100% grateful that I have these people on my journey, too.

How to Side Hustle Smarter

Many of us are side-hustling this year. Testing new ideas is fun, but how can we decide where we put our energy? I share some tips here. Now, that I think about this, I may need a refresher on this too!

Unpacking Google’s Questionable Alliances

The future of the internet content ecosystem is changing in real-time. I wrote this a few weeks ago, and we are still seeing our beloved search landscape erode with dangerous spam, questionable love for Reddit, and small publishers left in the dust.

Yes. As an SEO, I, too, have believed in Google's promises of a better day and a better search environment. There is still a part of me that hopes for this, but that week, it really hit me—Google is really changing the entire search landscape, and they have broken the unspoken covenant that we, as content creators, had for many years. It is a new day whether we like it or not.

Isn’t it Time We Celebrate the Screw Ups that Got Us Here?

We often hear about big swings, big misses, and ultimate failures wrapped up in a narrative where the hero ultimately thrives, but what if we just celebrated…?

• Trying something new

• Taking big swings (whether we win or we lose)

• Daring to have big dreams and tell people about them

• The hard work in building something new

• Learning along the way

• The messiness and chaos that comes when you try to level up

• The boldness it takes just to try

I am so down for this! We don’t need to wait until those big risks completely pay off to tell our stories; we can and should celebrate the amazingly wonderful screw-ups, missteps, and try-hards along the way as well!

That’s why I love that The Failure Ball exists and that it’s back for another year. You can buy tickets or apply to speak and share your massive mess-ups with a crowd.

I have supported this event in the past but never made it to Denver to enjoy the festivities. This year, I think I may have to add this one to my list of must-have events. If you want to go, reply to this email and let me know — maybe we can have a Content Forward meet up in real life?

I am not being sponsored in any way to promote this event. I love what Jess and her team are doing and have been following this event and mission for years. Check it out here!

Things to Read, Watch, and Ponder

▶️ Jimmy Daly of Superpath reflects on a tough year and his thoughts on where content marketing is. What’s next for him? Find out here.

▶️ Lily Ray released a new video on the cycles of Algorithm updates, the state of SEO as she sees it today, and gives some good insights on what she’s seen in the past decade or so in SEO. Worth a watch here!

▶️ Evaluating the ROI in content isn’t as easy as you think it is, but Ryan Law breaks it down in this in-depth guide here. Read it here!

▶️ Hiring is so broken already — is the future of job searching in an AI world, a bot that fills job applications for you while you sleep? Get the lowdown on this ‘strategy’ and tool here.

That’s it for this week. Tomorrow morning, I’m on my way to sunny Mexico for a digital business retreat. We’ll be having some seriously fun roundtables and Lightning Talks poolside.

Lots to talk about this year, that’s for sure!

Have a great week!

Cheers! Amy

Some Bonus Newsletters You’ll Love

If you want to get into the weeds on these topics, here are some newsletters that I read regularly that I think you’ll enjoy: