Friends.

There’s never a dull day around here, that’s for sure.

There is still a ton of chatter on the updates to search, and the ever-evolving role of AI in content and SEO, so we’re going to keep discussing this here!

I’ve lived through a lot of changes in technology and content publishing already.

Being a Gen Xer does bring me a ‘we’ll get through it’ perspective as we’re headed towards another major shift in content.

I mean, I used to spend hours backing up my dad’s work computer on floppy disks. I’ve also spent countless hours defragging hard drives, downloading free music, and connecting my laptop to my really long phone cable to log in.

I am part of the generation of writers who had a real-life portfolio of my work that lived in a huge binder. I brought this to a few job interviews back in my day.

Now, we’re facing another major shift in technology + the way we do content and I’m here to tell you, we got this!

Four Truths We Need to Remember

One: AI is improving rapidly, but it takes time for us humans to learn new ways of doing things.

The new Google search looks really cool, but it is inherently changing the way we use search and access information. This means, that users are going to have to learn a new way to search. These kinds of shifts in user behavior take time to implement and do not happen overnight.

We have a bit of time to figure this out.

Those of us in SEO are already completely biased when it comes to these changes, but the average, everyday user will need to learn a few new tricks — this can happen, but not instantaneously.

Two: The new Google search landscape WILL bring fewer eyeballs to our content.

This is just going to be the reality. We need to plan for some potentially big drops in search traffic. I’m guessing this is going to be niche specific, so some publications will see more fluctuations than others, but if you are not doing these things, you’ll be left behind:

• Diversifying traffic sources (think email, social channels, communities)

• Increasing the value of every, single person that does come to your site (think product sales, email, CRO optimizations)

We are also going to have to publish content that won’t necessarily rank or even get views. We’ll still need to build topical authority and create content clusters that support other types of content. So, we’ll have to invest in content that might never rank, and never get traffic, and we’ll have to evaluate our overall content efficiency scores differently.

Three: Most publishers will be using AI in some way to help them create more content.

As we have seen in recent weeks, even publishers that were on the fence about AI are suddenly changing their AI tune. Google is currently ranking AI content and has come out to say that if AI content can be helpful, it is a-okay! You can see their guidelines here. So, while the standard for ‘helpfulness’ might not have changed, the way we can build that content certainly has.

There are tons of ways to use AI now to produce content, from synthesizing information and data (even your own) to cranking out charts, questions, and elaboration on ideas. New content creation AI tools are being made every day and things that used to take us hours and hours (think sorting through and evaluating thousands of search terms, keyword research) can now take us just a few minutes with the right tools and inputs.

AI is a part of content now, like it or not.

Four: We are going to have to discover new topics, questions and really get to know what our readers are looking for.

I love this thread from Marie Haynes where she asks others to provide their industry + a topic and she’ll share her thoughts on how SGE might actually work. Do not sleep on this discussion — this is how those of us in the know are thinking about the future of search and Marie does a great job walking through her thinking here!

TL;DR: If we want to survive the next layer of search, we are going to have to dig deeper and discover new topical questions our audiences are asking. And, we’ll have to provide content for the unsatisfied truth seekers who want to know more!

Will all of this being said, I think there is still going to be lots of room for us that work in content — if we are willing to change up the way we do things and do some things even better.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the roles of content for the future and I know many of you have been thinking about where your career goes from here.

I’ve talked a lot about generalist writers becoming less important, but I haven’t really discussed the one role I think there are big opportunities for.

Let’s call it the subject matter expert editor!

The Must-Have Role in Content — The SME Editor

The way we create content is changing. But the deliverability of authentic, expert-driven content is not.

So, where do I see the most opportunities for us in content?

For me, that is the role of the SME editor. While not a typical editorial role, this role is going to be crucial for anyone in content today.

I see this role of SME editor or Content Designer or Content Architect (as we’re toying with naming this role at V4M) as being someone who ‘owns’ the final content piece and has deep, deep real-world niche experience to bring to the final content piece.

What could an SME editor do?

1. Fact check content, even confidently created AI-created content through the lens of a real subject matter expertise.

We’ve all known about the dangers of misinformation for a while, but it’s becoming increasingly important for publishers that want to build trust with their audiences to make sure their content is factually accurate. And, while AI is great at synthesizing information, sometimes it still just makes shit up. And, that’s where a real-deal SME editor comes into play.

2. Evaluates and checks sources.

SME editors know what are trustworthy sources to cite and what garbage to simply leave out. They are fully immersed in their niche world, live and breathe in it and have a running log of sources they personally trust and use. Regardless of any DA, a real-world expert can evaluate the value other publications bring. I like to refer to these people as bullshit finders, and they really are!

3. Checking for E-E-A-T signals in a piece of content.

At Venture 4th Media, all of our writers are niche experts. But, not all of our writers are experts in every topical cluster within their niches. This is where the additional layer of editorial comes in. Our editors are all established SME experts in their own right, and we expect them to help mentor, guide and help our writing team. They look for key E-E-A-T signals in writers’ work, such as first-person narrative, sharing of opinions, and anecdotes, but they do more than just that. They can literally tell and evaluate the level of experience and when a writer is ‘stretching’ themselves a bit too far on a topic.

4. Evaluating content beyond plagiarism and spun content tool checkers.

While we do still do plagiarism checks on all of our articles, this isn’t good enough if you want the content to stand out from the crowd. We do our best to produce authentic, original content and that means we need to have this SME editor really dig deeper than any plagiarism tool out there and they do!

I’ve had editors send me articles to review that, at first glance, look pretty good, but after a discussion with them, we quickly see that a writer leaned really heavily or borrowed opinions (without sourcing) from other sources. Only someone who is an expert in this niche can get this level of granularity.

5. Picking out fluff and really understanding user intent.

Knowing what content does not belong is just as important as knowing what to write about. I’ve been on a fluff removal mission for quite some time (hey, we’re all guilty of this), and so are our SME editors. Experts who actually live in these worlds know from first-hand experience what someone else might question, look for, or want to know more about — this is the type of content you want to bring your audience.

Believe it or not, that's just the beginning of what an SME editor can do.

There is something to be said for having real-life, real-world experience and completely immersing yourself in a niche — these people are GOLD for your content teams!

The beauty of real-life experience is that it can't be faked. The insights an authentic SME brings go beyond what any AI tool can produce, what anyone can find in Google, or even what someone can learn from just talking to an expert for a half hour.

Want some SME editor training???

I'm currently toying with the idea of launching an updated training Bootcamp for SME writers who want to learn how to become SME editors. This would include the actual training we do for our editorial team. If you're interested, I'd love to hear from you! I’ve got a list started, and if there’s enough interest, I will pull this together soon!

Bonus Tip: How to Find Hidden Job Opportunities

These days it can be tough to find a new gig, but there are opportunities out there! If you are looking for a new job, here’s a great tip.

Use LinkedIn as a search engine.

Don’t rely on LinkedIn job search only to find new opportunities. Yes, you can keep applying to jobs and competing with thousands of other applicants, or you can discover the jobs BEFORE they are posted, directly from the source.

How do you do this?

Simple. Use LinkedIn to search and find “posts” where hiring managers post that they are looking for new people.

In the search bar of LinkedIn, search for “I’m hiring + job you are looking for”. Then narrow down this search by “posts” + “past week” or even “past 24 hours”.

You now have posts from people that are actually hiring! Now you can either reach out directly or find someone in your network to give you a referral to this job.

Bonus tip 1: Be creative in your search terms. Once you’ve read a few ‘hiring’ or “I’m looking for” posts, try using those search terms from these posts to dig up more opportunities!

Bonus Tip 2: Study these posts and look for keywords, skills, and requirements for the roles and update your LinkedIn profile to include the EXACT keywords and skills the recruiter or hiring manager is looking for before you reach out!

Some Things to Read and Ponder

Here are some dig-in resources that I hope you’ll love!

Having a strong point of view in your writing is so important; here are a few thoughts from Robert Rose on just this:

Even with AI, we’ll still need content strategies. Even publishers that were on the fence about AI are going to use AI, so what does this look like? Here are some thoughts from Mike King at iPullRank:

My Favorite Tweets of the Week

Thank you again for reading. I work really hard on these newsletters, but it’s a lot of fun for me to keep digging into these topics.

You can reach out to me anytime - would love to know what you want me to dig into next.

Cheers! Amy

Some Bonus Newsletters You’ll Love

If you really want to get into the weeds on these topics, here are a couple of newsletters to subscribe to.