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Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: AI Spam, Google Stories, Gemini Announcement

It seems like a day doesn’t pass without noticing the clutter in the SERPs. Rumors are swirling that Google is on the brink of rolling out a massive update aimed at cleaning house. While Google has been tight-lipped, there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon for those of us longing for a return to quality.

But, for now, we’re left with many spammy publishers getting the quick wins. But I don’t see this working forever, so content peeps — have hope!

For now, the landscape is dominated by those who play the short game.

For us that are still here doing the hard yards, creating quality content, and trying to build genuine publications, I have to admit it was a bit of a kick in the pants to read this Wired article this week, where self-confessed AI Clickbait Kingpin brags about the over 2000 sites he owns, and mass publishes AI crap onto.

If you care about building something real, something people will love and trust, these tactics are a waste of time.

Brand equity matters in the long game.

I am choosing to stay the course because the publications I work on and the clients we work with care about their digital businesses. So, let the spammers game the system for now; it only works until it doesn’t.

And I do think Google is trying to combat these types of SEO strategies as well.

Google just announced it’s depreciating Web Story carousels from Google Discover.

Why does this matter?

While Web Stories were created as Google’s answer to Instagram or Facebook stories, they have been largely manipulated by spammers, taking precious Google Discover traffic away from authentic, quality publishers.

Lily Ray explains:

"SEOs all over the world found various loopholes with Web Stories that made them extremely easy to spam and drive thousands, if not millions, of clicks with each spammy story, inserting ads into the stories and links to other spammy websites.”

See, we can’t have nice things. But at least we see signs that Google is cracking down harder on spammy things. You can read Lily Ray’s thoughts in a recent LinkedIn post here.

So, like I’ve said before, it works until it doesn’t.

Bard Becomes Gemini: Why It’s Important to See Where Google is Heading

Google just made a huge announcement: Bard has become Gemini, with a new Ultra 1.0 release for all of us to test.

It’s early days with this updated AI technology from Google, but something I think is interesting to point out here:

“Gemini Advanced users will have access to expanded multimodal capabilities, more interactive coding features, deeper data analysis capabilities and more.”

The key here is that Google now has greater multimodal capabilities for searching and documenting all the information in the world.

Think:

• Podcasts

• Videos

• Images

• As well as text

As this technology improves, Google will have more ways to collect and process the information on the web. They are actively working to build these capabilities, which will also expand to search.

I also believe, and I’m just thinking this through, that with multimodal capabilities like this, it will be tougher for SEOs to manipulate the current ranking signals that we are used to.

As this technology advances and Google invests more resources into these AI capabilities, authentic, original content will become more vital to feed the machine. Google will need more from us.

For publishers, there will be a lot of implications if this becomes the new search landscape as well.

Get the popcorn out, people! Whether we like it or not, our world is changing.

Again, I say, for those of us who are genuinely trying to build long-lasting brands and valuable, helpful resources, we need to expand the way we think about quality content and that important EEAT layer that is much needed.

This leads us to our continuing discussion on content optimizations.

Content Optimizations: Where to Start

Everyone thinks their content is great, but I’m here today to ask you to look at your content with fresh eyes.

For our purposes today, we’ll mainly discuss optimizing your core content hubs, whether they be a dedicated company website, publication, or blog.

While these strategies have implications for other content marketing initiatives (i.e., distribution efforts or social channels), we must focus our efforts somewhere.

Writers — Pay attention. We’ll be digging into some tips you’ll want to know and start implementing. Being able to optimize digital content is such a great skill to have as well.

Recognizing the necessity of content optimization is the first step toward enhancing your digital presence.

If you are in one of these groups, you need to optimize:

• If you have been publishing content for over a year.

• If your primary content was created solely for search (SEO-focused topics).

• If you need your content to continually help you grow your business.

Last week, we talked about the types of content optimizations you can do; this week, I want to add another note on WHY we should invest funds into updating and optimizing our content (not just publishing new content).

The Benefits of Optimizing Existing Content First

Here in the Maritimes, I see a lot of houses that rebuild their foundations.

As winters and storms worsen or when homes are too close to the ocean’s shifting landscape, foundations often need to be rebuilt.

I see it all the time, reminding me of the importance of maintaining our foundational content.

We need to take care of our foundational content as well to bide the shifting tides of an increasingly competitive landscape or to build new content on a stronger, better platform.

We need to build a stronger house.

When done properly, content optimizations strengthen the overall quality of our publications and can be one of the best overall lifts in ROI. I often think it’s a good place to invest funds before new content production.

Here’s why. Some of the benefits of doing content optimizations before investing in new content:

Exposes Topical Gaps: Content optimization involves thoroughly reviewing your existing material, which can highlight areas where your content might be lacking or missing entirely. This layer of review and analysis is necessary if you want to be known for certain topics.

Maintain the Relevancy of Your Money Pages: We all have those core pillar pages that are core to our publications. Before we create new additional content, it’s important to make sure these resources are up-to-date, fresh, and relevant. Stats, data, external links — they all become irrelevant. If you want to maintain your publication, you are going to have to keep optimizing.

Allows Us to Connect What’s Already Published to a Fresh Content Plan: Content optimization isn't just about updating old articles; it's also about ensuring coherence across your entire content library. Before we publish new content, we need to document and improve what’s already there. If we improve what we already have, we may not need to publish as many new articles.

So, let’s get to optimizing. This week, we will start with improving the overall overall quality and EEAT.

Optimizing for Better E-E-A-T: Some First Steps

When we undertake a large-scale content optimization project, I like to start by assessing where we are with the current site. Are we doing all the right things?

Thankfully, I’ve got an amazing resource to help you conduct this initial assessment:

Start here: Questions to assess the quality of your content Google Sheet. (From Aleyda Solis).

We have also used and expanded on this for our internal processes. If your site has been around for a while, or you’ve had a mix of content initiatives, this initial quality layer check will expose some areas you’ll need to improve.

Once you have assessed where you might need to optimize and improve overall, it’s time to optimize.

For our internal processes, we have a checklist to improve the EEAT of each article, which contains over 22 ways to check and improve our articles.

But here are a few things that I think everyone should do:

Update Author and Editor Profiles

- Ensure the author's bio reflects the core topics of the publication.

- Include the editor's bio and credentials.

Add or HIghlight Interviews and Original Research to Articles

- Include interviews and original research with subject matter experts, customers, or stakeholders who can provide original quotes to support the content.

- Include fresh research or updates from the subject matter experts.

Make Sure Relevant Resources Back Up Opinions and Assertions in the Article

Ensure that relevant resources support all opinions. If unsure, consult with the subject matter experts. Don’t just leave opinions dangling in the article.

Update Stats, Information

- Update and verify statistics and information.

Update and Check External Sources

- Update and verify external sources used in the article.

This checklist is intended as a starting point for optimizing EEAT elements, but it is not exhaustive. There are a lot of ways we can improve the EEAT of our articles and sites. That’s where real-deal subject matter experts are needed as well.

If you aren’t using experts to help you improve your publications, why are you even publishing?

Gone are the days when we could tweak our content with a few SEO tools and get great results.

That’s just one way I see content optimization projects go wrong. There are a few others:

Where Content Optimizations Go Wrong: An Aside

• Just removing thin content. We need to ask, why is this ‘thin’? How does this piece of content help build our overall topical authority? Can we improve it instead?

• Over-optimizing for SEO. We’ll get into this more next week.

• Overly relying on the tools to tell us what to add or expand on.

• Not bringing in the experts when rewriting or adding to content.

• Trying to do too much — smart content optimization involves thinking about the clusters of content and overall topical authority we want to build and focusing on the big picture as well.

• Thinking it’s only about what you add, not what you take away. Removing content should be part of this process as well. Fluff is nobody’s friend.

One key takeaway before you start optimizing content:

This is not going to be an easy process if done right. Depending on the quality of the publication you’re working with, full content optimization projects can be tougher than just publishing new content.

To do this right, you have to care about the quality of the content. You must genuinely want to improve the content, not just make simple tweaks.

If you don’t genuinely care, it’s way easier to create new content. But remember, creating new content on a shaky foundation isn’t a good idea either!

While we’ve covered a lot this week, there’s still more. Next week, we’ll continue this series on content optimizations, talking about the tools that can help us improve our topical authority.

There’s so much to cover here. I feel like I’m just scratching the surface, but if you have any specific questions on these topics, please ‘hit reply’ to this email, and I’ll cover them in a future edition as well.

🤔 Content Musings of the Week

🧐 Experts remove fluff. Fluff not only bloats an entire article but can also quickly degrade any good, quality insights that a reader has to search for.

🎨 Creativity Requires Space: To foster creativity, we must give ourselves the space to think, dream, and experiment. Scheduled breaks and free time aren't luxuries but necessities for innovative thinking.

🔍 In a world drowning in information, depth of understanding becomes a rare treasure. It's not about how much content we consume but how deeply we engage with it.

Things to Read, Watch, and Ponder

▶️By the time someone clicks on your article, you only have a few seconds to keep them engaged. Since most people read on their phones, how we design our articles matters. Are you looking for the perfect article template to keep readers engaged? Here it is!

▶️ SEO recommendations must connect to the business objectives, but most SEO Agencies seem to miss this mark. Well, I’ve got some help for you. The brilliant Aleyda Solis has done it again, creating this SEO Recommendation Prioritization Template. Get yours now!

▶️ Thank you, Ryan Law, for again showing us that AI content is not a long-term strategy. Read to find out why!

▶️ We all make mistakes, but sometimes, these slip-ups can be good. Don’t believe me? Read the story of how Butcher Box’s famed ‘free bacon’ promo was actually a happy mistake.

▶️ SEO is an investment in brand growth, not a quick-win ROI strategy. Andrew Holland breaks down some misperceptions in what SEO can do and why it’s still a solid investment for most brands today. Read to get more insights!

Thank you for spending your Friday night or Saturday mornings with me here.

I really enjoy having the space to contribute to these discussions each week.

Today, I attended an impromptu Google Meet hangout with Marie Haynes and a few other standout, genuine SEO experts, and it reminded me of why I love this industry so much.

There’s a lot of change in our industry right now, but I believe the shifts will improve us all if we embrace it.

The good news is that there are genuine, authentic creators and SEOs that care. We’ve all got a part in improving our informational world, and I love that for us.

Have a great week!

Cheers! Amy

P.S.) We have room for a few select partners who are ready to grow their content marketing channels.

Starting with a detailed site and content assessment, we'll lay out clear costs and growth opportunities—ensuring you see the ROI before diving in. Ready for an expert perspective on elevating your content?

Schedule a free chat with me here. 

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: