Podcast Overview
“I could be writing about ponies and glitter… then writing about swords… and AI would make them sound exactly the same.”
The conversation focused on the ever-evolving landscape of content strategy, with a particular emphasis on the impact of AI, the enduring fundamentals of SEO and the crucial distinction between content that drives revenue and content that simply fills space.
A key theme that emerged was the importance of emotional connection in content, as well as the rising demand for concise, value-driven writing in an age of information overload and shrinking attention spans.
The discussion explored practical strategies for standing out in a crowded digital marketplace, the role of forums and PR in building authority, and how brands can adapt their approach to maximise both visibility and trust.
Several points were raised, including the necessity of balancing AI tools with human creativity, the timeless value of high-quality blogs and actionable tips for both new and seasoned content creators. Whether you’re a marketer, business owner, or content writer, this episode provides valuable insights into creating content that not only ranks, but converts.
Time stamps:
00:00 Practical content strategies with AI
05:11 Impact of social media on content
09:23 Using search results for content strategy
10:25 SEO strategies and AI adaptations
13:48 Engaging on discussion boards
20:03 Optimising content for conversions
24:11 Discussing AI vs human content writing
25:51 Balancing factual and engaging content
29:12 Impact of AI content on SEO
32:54 Using research tools carefully
36:35 Importance of headlines in PR
38:16 Discussing Link Placement in Articles
43:40 Discussing low-volume keywords
44:51 Finding Hidden Keyword Opportunities
48:59 Advice for new content writers
51:27 Real productivity vs. burnout
Alex Spooner [00:00:00]:
So we're here to talk about content.
Aoife [00:00:02]:
We are here to talk about content.
Alex Spooner [00:00:05]:
The role of content in our strategies is just.
Aoife [00:00:09]:
Is paramount to drive revenue. We need to appeal to the emotional side of the reader.
Alex Spooner [00:00:14]:
You know, with AI, it's a great tool, but it's just a tool.
Aoife [00:00:17]:
It's huge now. Like, everybody's writing content as they should be, but it does mean that now it's harder to differentiate yourself from your competitor.
Alex Spooner [00:00:26]:
What you want as a business is you want to be the one that's cited.
Aoife [00:00:29]:
People want shorter content. They want information quicker than they've ever wanted it before.
Alex Spooner [00:00:34]:
The search landscape is changing. We all know this.
Aoife [00:00:36]:
So much has changed, but also so much is still the backbone of what we know as SEO.
Alex Spooner [00:00:40]:
They're looking for the information, and you need to be the one to provide that information to them.
Aoife [00:00:44]:
You know, there is a strategy that can produce content, but then there's a strategy that produces content that's actually going to make revenue foreign.
Richard Hill [00:00:58]:
Richard Hill here. Welcome back to the eCom@One podcast. Today, I'm handing things over to two of the team here at eComOne, Aoife, our content lead, and Alex, one of our amazing account managers, for a really useful conversation on content, how it's changing and what's actually working right now in the age of AI. Now, what I like about this conversation is, is that it's practical, not just about creating more content for the sake of it. It's about understanding what your audience really is looking for, how to build trust, how to turn content into something that actually supports visibility, authority and revenue. So whether you're leading content in house, working with an agency, or just trying to work out what good content looks like now, there's loads of value in this one. So do me one quick favour. Hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening so you. You never miss an episode. Right, let's dive in.
Aoife [00:01:51]:
So. Hello, Alex. Welcome to the podcast. It's both of our first times on, I think.
Alex Spooner [00:01:55]:
Thank you, Aoife. It is indeed my first time ever doing a podcast. Yeah, it's exciting. Bit nervous. So we're here to talk about content.
Aoife [00:02:04]:
We are here to talk about content. Do you want to start by introing yourself?
Alex Spooner [00:02:10]:
I'm Alex. I'm an account manager over here at eComOne
Aoife [00:02:15]:
And I am Aoife, I am the content lead here at eComOne. So I think we're very well versed in talking about this. You know, we've had some, you know, a lot of time working together. We've had some challenges, some, I know, amazing wins as well. I think that content is such a diverse subject. There's so much to talk about here. So I am very ready to dive in with you and get started.
Alex Spooner [00:02:36]:
It is huge, to be fair. I mean, the role of content is our strategies. It's just, is paramount. It's the majority of what are kind of like on new work, kind of like the new exploration work and new research work. It's all driven through content. And you know, with the rise of AI, we are seeing the importance of correct content titles, correct strategy. You know, it keeps getting more and more more important by the day. So in your role day to day, what would you say is a perfectly written piece of content? What would you call perfect?
Aoife [00:03:15]:
Well, that is a very difficult question. And I think especially in the role of AI. I mean, we're not even five minutes in and we're already saying AI, which shows how much of a big deal it is nowadays. But I think when you say a perfectly written piece of content to me is one that is very emotionally driven actually. And I think that's something we'll probably go into further. But a lot of pieces of content nowadays, especially because of AI, they're very straight to the mark, just very factual. And that's great. But for me, we need to be to drive revenue.
Aoife [00:03:45]:
We need to appeal to the emotional side of the reader. We need to understand like what it is that they are looking for in terms of like their problems, like how can we resolve them and also how that product is actually different from any other piece on the market because it's huge now, like everybody's writing content as they should be. But it does mean that now is harder to differentiate yourself from your competitors. So for me, a perfectly written piece of content just from like the first standpoint and the most important thing that I think is actually getting into the shoes of the reader, whoever you want to appeal to, and understanding how you can change their life. And that can sound really silly, it can sound really dramatic because if you're selling something just like a pen for example, you think, well, that's not really life changing, but in a very small way it is. And that's what you need to get across to the reader.
Alex Spooner [00:04:36]:
100%. I totally agree. And like, you got to remember as well, the readers, they're not just like ambiguous people, they're all looking for something, they're looking for the information. That's why they're on this page, that's why they're, they're putting these Questions into, into, you know, Chad, GPT or Claude. They're looking for the information and you need to be the one to provide that information to them in a way that they understand and in kind of the most succinct way as you can make it. And I think that the way that people have been looking for, looking for kind of content information. Questions, answer. I think that's changed over the last couple of years.
Alex Spooner [00:05:09]:
What do you think has happened?
Aoife [00:05:11]:
I think that content has changed because of the likes of social media and I think people want shorter content, they want information quicker than they've ever wanted it before. Because you know, back in the day you'd have like YouTube for example, which would be long form videos. But now people are more used to the TikTok format of getting like really quick, you know, 30 second almost dopamine heads and getting the information at their fingertips. And I think we still do need long form content. Absolutely. Because that will be the basis of anything. But I think we need to be more concise in the way that we deliver content and making sure that the information like there's no waffle, cut out the waffle and deliver exactly what they want. I mean it used to be a case of like telling a story and in a way that is still important, but we need to just cut to the chase and make sure that every piece of content has a purpose.
Aoife [00:05:58]:
So I think content needs to be delivered in a way that is short, concise, really easy to skim through. And I think, you know, from your perspective, it would be really interesting to hear about how that would also help or like, you know, how would it change the way that you would create a strategy?
Alex Spooner [00:06:15]:
Sure. So that kind of leads in exactly into kind of the point I was going to start making about the way that users have been looking for information has changed, but also the way that the information is getting served up has changed. And it's kind of hard to sometimes tell which one is leading the other. Especially you know, with AI, what you're seeing is specific snippets, some specific citations appearing within answers. And then what you want as a business is you want to be the one that's cited because that's what's going to drive the traffic to the site. It also kind of drives the, the trust signals that multiple search engines use and multiple AI engines use as well. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to get cited and there's only a few sentences that ever get cited. If you look at the way that AI serves information up.
Alex Spooner [00:07:05]:
It picks and chooses multiple different sources, compiles them together and sends them over to you. Right. So you need to be, we need to be structuring the information so that it, so that it works in a way that makes it easy for these engines to kind of, to give that information over to the user. We're also seeing that in not just AI, but, but within traditional search, you know, the search landscape is changing. We all know this. There's fewer spaces available in that page one to rank as a traditional result. So there's other ways. You've got to be thinking about working your, working your site into the results pages.
Alex Spooner [00:07:42]:
And the way that we write, I think, is the, is the way that we achieve that goal of trying to get more coverage in that page one that really drives the, drives users to the sites and our client sites. So when you see, you know something, that is, when you, when you type in something on like say Chat GPT, do you ever have a look, kind of see what the citations are showing? Do you ever have a look through what pages are getting suggested? Like, do you ever have a, like a little read about what's happening on there?
Aoife [00:08:13]:
Yeah, I do. So I think it is a really important thing to do. And it's the same as, you know, it's funny because we say so much has changed, but also so much is still the backbone of what we know as SEO. So back in the day you were just do a bit of competitor analysis. You would go onto the SERPs and you would look at what you know, what is ranking currently, how you can make it better, and that is how that would be like the baseline of your content. Whereas right now a really great thing to do, and I think it's a trick that a lot of people are missing, is to go onto Chat GPT search what you want to be found for on these AI search engines. It doesn't just have to be obviously Chat GPT and look at what is already there and taking that and understanding, right, well, how can I take that and almost replace it quite easily? You know, citations is a big thing and I think, I think it is still developing. I don't think a lot of people are focusing on it.
Aoife [00:09:01]:
And it's definitely something that we should. Because, you know, you take that information and you could be there instead if you just make those improvements.
Alex Spooner [00:09:09]:
That's right.
Aoife [00:09:10]:
But how, you know, it's one thing saying take that and you know, use it as your backbone, but how do you think we should go about doing that in terms of like making sure that we are taking over those citations that are already there.
Alex Spooner [00:09:23]:
So, you know, you touched on it briefly. You touched on having a look, seeing for yourself what's appearing. Well, that fundamentally drives, gives you a lot of the answers that you're kind of looking for. If you see what's being cited and you see what's appearing in the SERP, that gives you 60, 70% of the, of the kind of the methodology that you'd use to try and replicate what, what's working as well as seeing what can you do slightly better. You know, really good way of doing this is like if you type in a question in chat GPT, and it gives a bunch of, it gives a bunch of answers, it'll pull from places like, you know, from Reddit, Google, it'll pull from various different sources, see if those citations are actually answering the question. Because if they're not, then it's going to be looking for something that is answering that question. And that's where you could work in your content and your plan to try and like feed the answer in a more cohesive way so that it gets, it gets the citations that we're kind of looking for. But also, you know, you're going to have to remember there is an element of trust that website has built up over time.
Alex Spooner [00:10:25]:
So a well trusted website that doesn't always ask, answer the question directly could and often does still end up being cited instead of your website. So you've got to think, you know, how are you positioned within these citations and within these search engine results so that you can kind of take advantage of the, of the opportunity that they're giving you and kind of, you've got to be a bit realistic with it, you know, so we can't, unfortunately, we can't win on every single front. So you've got to pick and choose which questions you want answered and where you can answer them in a way that you, you become the kind of the professional that gets, that gets cited. So with these kind of, let's say with this new area of SEO, which is AI, would you therefore say that a lot of the rules that we used to use are still applicable in content writing today? Or would you say that the rule sets change completely in the last couple of years?
Aoife [00:11:26]:
This is something I'm actually really passionate about because I think so many people are overthinking it. Everyone's there saying SEO is dead. Something we've spoken about so many times, like on this podcast and on LinkedIn. And it is not like the baseline of what you are doing should pretty much be the same. You should still be targeting these primary keywords, secondary keywords, making sure that you've got internal links, external links, like the framework of content is still the same. It just means that we are ensuring that it is in direct line of what people are searching for. And if you think about it, that is pretty much actually what we used to do as well. But I just think it means now it should be shorter, snappier.
Aoife [00:12:01]:
It answers the question directly instead of adding a little bit of flow. Love. I don't think that much has really changed because if you look at what AI is, you know, choosing from, it is blogs. It is like the standard content that we were always putting out. There are things that can help, obviously. Like for example, video is now a bit, probably a bigger factor now than it ever used to be. But the baseline of a content strategy or an SEO strategy, it is pretty, I think, and you may disagree or you may think there are other elements, but I, I do think the baseline is still very much the same. What are your thoughts on that?
Alex Spooner [00:12:33]:
I totally agree. It's fundamentally good SEO today is the same thing that good SEO was five years ago. If anything, we've cut out a lot of the kind of the almost like cheat tactics and kind of quick wins that people used to use. We've cut out a lot of those and now it's all about building topical authority. It's all about building trust. It's all about getting yourself kind of mentioned in discussion boards and forums because you know, the way that, that search engines kind of look for trustworthy sites nowadays, it is that, you know, that people element are people talking about you outside of just what you're writing about yourself. So, you know, I've been hearing a lot more kind of rumors and murmurs out there about forums and about discussion boards and about kind of how they're, they're becoming more and more important. Are you hearing anything like that?
Aoife [00:13:24]:
Yeah, I was going to say, speaking of those, it would be good to hear your perspective on how they are used within the strategy. Like are people just using them within content? I know that's something that we do, you know, using them with within like the faq, stuff like that. Or are people actually starting their own discussions on the forum boards themselves? Like how are they being utilised within, like our sort of SEO strategies to help drive revenue and you know, brand visibility?
Alex Spooner [00:13:48]:
It's a really interesting topic actually. So it's one of those things that you don't want to be disingenuous you don't want to be, you know, making up any information, but getting yourself known on these boards is important. So when you see questions out there that you as a brand have an answer to, there's nothing wrong with you answering that question for that user because you're going to be probably the most trusted source. As you know, effectively, if you have a, if you sell a specific product and somebody wants to know more about that product type, there aren't many people that are going to know more about that product than you. So there's nothing to stop you from answering that question, which in turn is one of the big driving factors in how you know how your content and your answers get surfaced as well. You can effectively help drive some of that, some of that trust building and trust signals through the, through discussion boards. And I would say that there's nothing wrong with answering questions yourself. Just don't try and pretend to not be you guys.
Alex Spooner [00:14:45]:
You know, it's, it's never looking good when you pretend to be. We've all seen them out there where, where you can see, you know, that's a very niche answer to something that only you guys would know. So it's good just to be, you know, open with your, with your audience. But there's nothing wrong with answering. Ultimately, the search engines and AI engines, they're not going to care really whether you're a brand or you're a person, other than the fact that they're going to be trying to attribute that, the, the topic to a specific person, if it's an author or to a specific brand. So you've got to be thinking about, if you're going to be attributing certain pieces of information to your brand, do you want it against the whole brand or do you want to a specific author because they both have their own different uses, you know, so maybe having somebody in your company that answers questions for you or for users out there on discussion boards is probably the right way of, of kind of dealing with that opportunity. Really.
Aoife [00:15:44]:
Would you recommend that they redirect to, you know, when giving advice or answering a question, how do you make sure that it is then redirected back to their website? Or is it matter of just like putting the brand name as their username? Like, how can we make sure that that is actually leading back to the website?
Alex Spooner [00:16:02]:
Yeah, I mean, there are like, there are multiple schools of thought with this and the advice has changed over the years and it'll probably continue to change. Ultimately, if you have a relevant topic or relevant product, you should link it because it is a justified reason to be presenting your website. It's difficult when you want to almost force the link in. You know, we've seen it before on, like in. On other websites out there. We've seen it where, you know, you see the suggestion as almost like a force link within a piece of content within a piece of copy. And you can tell, you know, as a user, you can tell. And then also because the user can tell, likely search engines and AI engines, they can also tell, like, realistically.
Alex Spooner [00:16:48]:
So you don't want to necessarily be undercutting your knowledge and your professionalism by trying to force something that doesn't need to be forced. Because there's plenty of questions out there. There's plenty of reasons for you to, you know, direct users to a website, to your website that doesn't involve kind of, you know, let's say not underhand moves, but just moves that are a little bit too, like, pushy. Almost too pushy. Exactly. That's right. There's. There's ways of doing it that don't really undermine you in the long term.
Aoife [00:17:19]:
I think it is super interesting. I think when a lot of people, and, you know, I don't blame them when they think of content, they just do think of like their blog. And that is a really. Don't get me wrong, I'm very passionate about the importance of blog content. I do also think there's so many other revenue drivers when it comes to content. And forums is one that it's kind of like a little secret that I think more and more people are going to pick up on that. So people jump on that pretty early. They'll be able to get some really good, you know, citations, some really good, like, you know, information within the overview.
Aoife [00:17:48]:
And beyond that, obviously, like we've discussed, like, including these forum discussions within the FAQs and your catalyst content on your category pages, because these are real questions that people are asking. So it's a really good way beyond just your. Your typical keywords actually get people on the page. You know, if you go in a forum and you can see the questions, the topics and the conversation they're having, including that within your content is such an easy way to get people to land on your page because, you know, that's what they want to hear 100%.
Alex Spooner [00:18:18]:
So also, you've got to remember content is part of an ecosystem. So we have the whole Internet is an ecosystem and content forms a part of it, and forms form another part of it as content, almost. Content writers, SEO account Managers. What we're trying to do is we're trying to build on the existing ecosystem, trying to build on it with kind of our footprint and our stamp and make us the, the kind of the leaders in whatever industry that we're trying to work with. So there's multiple different ways of kind of building up that trust. But blogs, the reason why they never go away is because they're kind of a foundational element of content writing. Forums answer certain questions and they get often cited. They form one part of it.
Alex Spooner [00:19:07]:
Blogs, you know, core elements of topical authority, core elements of information that won't go away because you always need somewhere to house the larger pieces of content, the longer form stuff, the stuff that takes more than just a quick paragraph to write about that's going to have to be housed somewhere and the blog will always be the place that it kind of, it would have to go.
Aoife [00:19:29]:
Absolutely, I completely agree. You know, there's so many conversations, like we say, about AI and how it's changing the whole landscape, but I'll always at the baseline of everything, I think it's so important to remember that the drivers are all the same. One question I think is really important and I think we both will have our own knowledge about this. You know, there is a strategy that can produce content, but then there's a strategy that produces content that's actually going to make revenue and that's actually going to convert. What do you kind of think are the main differences there, like just between churning out content and creating content that actually serves a purpose.
Alex Spooner [00:20:03]:
That's going to look back to kind of the earlier discussion that we had about the having a look at what is getting served up already. So there are different types of content, they're going to have different purposes. The goal for any, any of our clients, any E Commerce brand is always going to be how do we increase revenue on site? You know, and there's. That question is always going to get asked, how does this content convert? How does it turn a user who's just looking at this information to somebody that's going to buy something from our, from our brand? And the most effective way of doing that is by working the products or the product recommendations into that piece of content where it's relevant. So a lot of things, a lot, a lot of opportunities that we see out there that are missed currently are going to be things like missing having, sorry, having no product blocks or product recommendation blocks, not having those within the content. That's a huge opportunity that people just don't seem to be not Necessarily willing, but not seem to be thinking proactively about. It's one of those things that they're not thinking about. You know, am I going to be writing this piece of content just for the sake of writing it? Because if you can rank, if you can rank a page, that's great, but it's only part of the story.
Alex Spooner [00:21:24]:
They're not thinking about the other element of the spectrum, you know. So I think when you're in that planning phase for your content writing, one of the things you're going to have to be thinking about is I'm going to be presenting these topics and I want to be cited in these areas and I want to have these keywords being targeted, but also what am I trying to sell? Like, what is a. What, what products do we need to get out there? Because we've seen it multiple times where you can write about a specific category. And if you put the right products within that specific category, users will navigate from your content through to the product pages and then convert. And if they don't convert, then they'll come back and they'll convert later because now they're more informed. So, yeah, I think this, there's an opportunity out there that a lot of brands just aren't, aren't utilising, which is that, you know, that commercialisation of the content, I think they're just not doing it well enough. And it's something that we've been working on in eComOne, but we're just noticing that other brands and other agencies even just aren't necessarily taking advantage of, of the opportunity.
Aoife [00:22:29]:
Yeah, I completely agree. I will say there is something kind of controversial. Not all content is actually there to convert. Not all that. It's not always going to be a revenue driver. Some of it is just that like we, we spoken about, you know, building that authority, making sure that you've got that, that domain authority to then rank for other, you know, the more important keywords that you want, the more important topics. Some of the, some of the content that you need to produce is going to be the baseline of just making sure that Google will see you as an expert. And also some content takes a long time, which is really frustrating, but some content you might not see for a while.
Aoife [00:23:08]:
And it doesn't mean that it's a bad piece of content. It is just the name of the game, which is really frustrating at times. I think we've all had the frustration of this is a great piece of content. Why is it not moving? Why is it not doing anything? And it's just a matter of being patient, but also understanding that not every single bit of content is actually going to make you money in terms of, like, directly. But overall, actually it can really boost you in terms of like, whether it's thought leadership, whether it's like just building, you know, your kind of expertise in the area. So Google does see you as a leader in that sector.
Alex Spooner [00:23:41]:
100 is that topical authority? You know, that's ultimately the name of the game. We're trying to build up topical authority. You know, you've got the EAT metric that's still live, it's still present, and if anything, it's more important now than ever. So I think you're spot on there. Not everything is going to convert and not everything is there to convert, but I do just sometimes feel that the opportunity to convert is sometimes missed.
Aoife [00:24:06]:
I do agree with you. I do agree. I think it's just understanding why you've produced that bit of content.
Alex Spooner [00:24:11]:
Exactly.
Aoife [00:24:11]:
Is it actually going to be a converter? Is it just a matter of like, getting the baseline of trust there to build up domain authority? And that's, it's, it's frustrating, isn't it? I think at times when something takes a while or, you know, you produce a bit of content and it's just you sort of think, oh, maybe it will be a converter. But actually it just ends up being like an educational piece. So something that I touched on and I because I'm really passionate about it, so I'm going to bring it straight back around to this topic is speaking not just, you know, for information, but also emotionally. And it's a big thing at the moment with AI and as a content writer myself as a content lead, one of the things that I find the most difficult to explain first is why you would need a content writer or someone like us eComOne to write your content when technically you could just use AI. And I think for me, like, AI cannot replace. And I'm so standing my ground on this, it cannot replace content writer. Because whenever I have tried to use AI to help with my writing, it is just so, like monotone. Every single bit of content reads exactly the same.
Aoife [00:25:18]:
Like I could be writing about ponies and glitter and then I could be writing about swords. I don't write about these things, but if I did, I wish I did, but, you know, it would read exactly the same. It doesn't have any nuances to who it's writing for. It can't replicate the human antidotes, anecdotes, not antidotes. Excuse me, Chat TV would not have got that wrong. Or like, you know, just the human nature. Like humans don't want to read content that is boring. And even if it is like a topic that you would sort of think, oh, it's not really that interesting.
Aoife [00:25:51]:
Like, you know, like print a rink, for example, that's the first thing that's coming to my head that is not an interesting thing to read about. But it doesn't mean that you can't put a bit of fun in there. You can't put a bit of like emotional, like, you know, anything emotional in there that is actually gonna like change the reader's perspective and why they should pick your product over any. Anything else. 100 and I think AI just isn't there yet in terms of, you know, it's great at giving you some information. It's great at giving you some, you know, some data. I mean, not all the time because it actually makes stuff up all the time. So it might be interesting to jump into your perspective and that one of them about, you know, how can you kind of make sure that your content is factual but also made for a human? And one of those would be, yeah, making sure that all the facts are correct.
Aoife [00:26:41]:
Because AI makes stuff up all the time.
Alex Spooner [00:26:44]:
Constantly. Yeah. The more. The more you use it, the more flaws you find with it. So, you know, with AI, it's a great tool, but it's just a tool. It doesn't replace an entire, effectively industry of content writing doesn't replace an entire industry of people that have been, you know, writing for multiple decades. Often it can't do what they can do because it doesn't know what they know. It only ever knows one position and one thing and it really only presents information in one way.
Alex Spooner [00:27:13]:
You know, it's that whole. We can read through a piece of content. If we see an EM dash, we're immediately suspicious. You know, it might not be AI written, but if we see multiple land dashes, we can. Would probably assume.
Aoife [00:27:24]:
It is so easy to pick up on AI once you know, once you know.
Alex Spooner [00:27:28]:
Yeah. And where it's like, you know, it's not this. It's this we immediately spot.
Aoife [00:27:33]:
Absolutely. Really drives me crazy.
Alex Spooner [00:27:36]:
So what you're trying to do is you're trying to avoid the pitfalls of an audience that is growing more and more aware of this. You know, a year ago, people weren't necessarily clued up out there in, in the. In the wider world about what AI writing looks like. People could still, I wouldn't say, be fooled, but they could assume that something isn't written by a where, whereas in fact it is. But I think the more we live with this tool, the more we can spot it. So you're trying to avoid that pitfall of writing like something that people are immediately going to disengage with once they realise that it's AI. Because a lot of times people read an answer from AI, but they only really care about the answer to a question they've they've asked directly. They don't want to read an entire piece of content about something they haven't asked written by at all effectively.
Alex Spooner [00:28:28]:
So a lot of the foundation, you know, of the topics you're going to be writing about, the titles, the way that it needs to be written, who the audience is, you know, a lot of the questions that you want to get answered within that piece of content, that all has to come from a human. And if you just let AI try and answer those questions for you, it will just. Unfortunately, it's not cut out to consider all the factors that we instinctively factor in whenever we do any of this content writing.
Aoife [00:28:55]:
Do you think, how do you think like say you have a piece of content and it's not a badly written piece of content, but it's just very AI like you can tell that it's AI versus a piece that is maybe a similar structure, but it is written by human. Do you think it affects revenue?
Alex Spooner [00:29:12]:
So I think currently the way that the current thinking is that AI content doesn't derank a web page. However, what I will say is that AI written content does have lower engagement and therefore if it has lower engagement, you have higher things like bounce rates, you'll have higher things like also have a lower engagement time. Now those do have an impact on revenue because the more that trend is seen, you know, by, especially by Google, but other search engines out there as well, the more the trend of that page not necessarily giving an answer to a question that user's asking, the more that trend carries on, the lower the trust signals, the lower the, the topical authority and you almost undermine yourself. So you do yourself a disservice by putting a piece of content out there that's completely written by AI. And sure, it might be written well enough at glance, but if it's not written well enough to overcome some of those, the challenges with AI written content that we discussed earlier, I think you'll be undermining a lot of the work that you're doing.
Aoife [00:30:18]:
I completely agree with you. I think a lot of people, you know, they see oh, it's ranking, so it's going to do well. That is not what that means, unfortunately. I really wish it did mean that, oh, piece of content is ranking so it's going to do well. But I, I personally get put off if I go into webpage and I can see that it's like, particularly if it's for a service and I can see that it has been completely and very obviously written by AI. It really puts me off. And I know a lot of people feel the same about that and I just think, yeah, we need to factor in the fact like there's bounce rates and, you know, people. I don't think people do engage as well with AI written content.
Aoife [00:30:55]:
And just because, you know, Google doesn't actually, you know, mark you down right now. If we can flag AI, it doesn't mean that's not going to change.
Alex Spooner [00:31:02]:
We don't know if that's going to change.
Aoife [00:31:03]:
We don't know.
Alex Spooner [00:31:04]:
We know it, we know it can spot it.
Aoife [00:31:05]:
Yeah, we know it can spot it, but. And the algorithm changes so quick. Like it is frustrating how quickly it can change and you don't want to have all this backlog of just purely AI written content and then it's all just devalued or like all just stops ranking because then Google's changed the rule. The rules, basically.
Alex Spooner [00:31:24]:
And they'll never tell you.
Aoife [00:31:25]:
Yeah, and sometimes you'll just wake up one day and it'll all be good. We're really putting another fear into people right now. But I do think it's such an important thing to make sure we are putting that human element into content and we're not just copy and pasting 100.
Alex Spooner [00:31:39]:
It's great. Like I said, it's a great tool. It'll give you a great draft. It'll give you all the kind of the stats and the facts that you need just to check first. It'll give you all the bulk information, but it just needs that person to go through it, to check it to make sure that the information is providing is true, to make sure those stats are accurate. Like we touched on earlier, unfortunately, it does sometimes make things up.
Aoife [00:32:00]:
Oh my God. It's ridiculous. I sound like a hater. Like, I'm not against AI and I think it's a great tool, but I just think like people are using it too much.
Alex Spooner [00:32:09]:
I think people use it just in the wrong ways.
Aoife [00:32:11]:
Yes.
Alex Spooner [00:32:11]:
You know what I mean?
Aoife [00:32:12]:
Yeah, yeah, that's a better way of putting it. Completely agree. I think that it's good for certain amount of things. But I think copy and pasting content
Alex Spooner [00:32:20]:
for me it's just not the way
Aoife [00:32:22]:
it breaks my heart.
Alex Spooner [00:32:23]:
I don't think it's. It's one of those things. We've seen it out there. We've seen it. We've already seen it out there in the real world, it doesn't do well. So we can say with confidence that that's not the right strategy. However in us using AI so in eComOne is obviously a tool we're going to use AI. What would you say is a really good use case for, for the use of these tools? Like where do you see it factoring into our content writing process?
Aoife [00:32:54]:
I personally do like it. For a very high level research tool, I think you have to fact check and it's like we keep saying this because it does make stuff up. So when you are getting say like data statistics to add into your articles, always make sure you say give me the primary source for this piece of information and actually read it. Because sometime it's given me a primary source and actually it's linked me to a completely different study. It's not been correct. But I actually do think it is really great for sifting through like all these date like all different pieces of data and actually being able to create a story from there. I think it's good from a PR perspective. I've been able to scrape emails and contact information of different publications and I also do think it's good for giving you the, the layout of an article so you know, you know in a way that makes sense.
Aoife [00:33:42]:
So making sure that all the headers are structured correctly in a way and an order that makes sense. Sorry. So I think that is good. I'm just against it like writing the whole piece of content like it. I, I don't think you can't use it. I just think it needs to be used in a way that is smart and actually makes sense. And sometimes what I actually like to do as well is I like to run my piece of content through and say am I missing anything versus the competitor? Because then it can spot actually areas that you can improve on, build on that you may have missed before and actually can get you that number one spot or get you into the search engines, the A, the AI search engines as well. I think that is a really good starting point to, to use it.
Aoife [00:34:24]:
I just think over using it to write the piece of content and then straight up copy and pasting is just a no go for me.
Alex Spooner [00:34:30]:
I totally agree. Let's talk a bit about PR Yes. So when we wrote, when we write content, one of the goals we wanted to achieve is that it gets picked up by publications like. That's ultimately one of the. One of the big wins in content writing is getting an article that you've written picked up. How do you go about making sure that the content you write is likely to get picked up in a publication? What do you think are the other three golden rules that you want to follow when you're writing something for that purpose?
Aoife [00:35:01]:
So I would say so. I just for context, I've got a background as a journalist. I also studied pr, so I have kind of an understanding of that. But I would say the way that you write a piece of content is very different from how you would write a PR piece. You know, a piece of content, you're weaving facts throughout the article. It's not just all in one go. A piece of PR you need to put. Or it's like a.
Aoife [00:35:23]:
We call it like an inverted pyramid. You need to put all the facts straight up. A journalist only has a very small amount of time to figure out if they want to run with a story or not. So you need to put like the whole what, where, why, when, within the first couple of sentences. It all needs to be there. And the least interesting piece of mations. It's like that funnel, you go down and down. It's really important that you put exactly why they should publish your story first and foremost.
Aoife [00:35:51]:
It cannot be salesy in any sort of way. I'd avoid putting links in there. Like a couple of links is fine. But like, as in, you don't want to stuff it full of links. You don't really want to put any external links. It is very, very different. And also when you're doing outreach for an, you don't want that email to be lengthy. Everything needs to be really short and sharp, straight to the point.
Aoife [00:36:12]:
And really think about why somebody would be interested in reading this story if you're reading that. Like, I wouldn't necessarily pick it up and be like, you know, people's attention spans are so much smaller nowadays.
Richard Hill [00:36:23]:
Yeah.
Aoife [00:36:23]:
And if you think, oh well, I wouldn't probably click on that. It needs to be, I don't want to say shock factor or like shock value, because not everything needs to be controversial, but it needs to grab people's attention.
Alex Spooner [00:36:33]:
So it's a good hook.
Aoife [00:36:35]:
Yeah. It's so important almost. The headline is actually probably more important in some ways than the actual content itself, because that is the first thing that anyone is going to see. And it may not be the way that the journalists will write it, they may change things. But having all of the information in the first paragraph is actually really essential to making sure that your story will get picked up. It's hard now, I will say the landscape has changed so much and it's getting harder to do just as like a sole marketer. It's why, you know, we offer it as a service here at eComOne, because I know a lot of people struggle with that because people see it as an extra revenue source now. So it's getting harder to get a free placement. A lot of times if you include a link, they're like, right, well now you need to pay like a thousand pounds to get it placed, which is just.
Aoife [00:37:23]:
It's extortionate, really.
Alex Spooner [00:37:24]:
Sure.
Aoife [00:37:26]:
So you just need to find a way of making sure it's newsworthy and it's not just like a product placement.
Alex Spooner [00:37:31]:
I suppose, though, that goes into the value element of it, doesn't it? If it's got that kind of price tag, it's because, well, I guess a lot of journalists or a lot of publications out there have now clued up to the, to the value of, of links and link building and they've clued up to the reason that, you know, agencies were previously reaching out to them with these articles. I'm sure they ask themselves, you know, why are people putting so much effort into these articles almost for free? Well, now they realise that it's not necessarily for free. It's because we get a lot out of it by including links into it. So when you want to include a link within a piece of content for pr, do you think that that comes up against any sort of friction with the publications themselves?
Aoife [00:38:16]:
I think so. I've had to have conversations where I've said to them, look, we really need to make sure that this link is included. We've had to have conversations about, like, how the link is phrased, how it's placed. I think it's really important to not be salesy and even the link, you know, they might query the link and say, actually, is there less like, like a product placement? They don't want to really include specific products. Is there a landing page that they can put it on? So I think making sure that you choose your link carefully and making sure it actually makes sense within the article, you know, that's the best way of going about it because, yeah, you probably will have to have conversations or they may just upload the article without the link and the name mentioned. Don't Get Wrong is still really useful. It just is so much better if there is a link.
Alex Spooner [00:38:59]:
Yeah, it gives you something of value that directly builds, you know, trust to your website, which ultimately what we're trying to do, it makes that connection really direct. So that's a really interesting piece of insight there. So would you say therefore that a piece of content that's written well enough could kind of overcome a lot of those, those hurdles that a publication might have with including a link?
Aoife [00:39:20]:
I think so. It honestly depends on the topic being completely honest. Like I think you, like I've seen it before where there's been an amazing PR release, but it's just not been eye grabbing enough or it's not actually like, you know, you need to make sure that the story isn't just plucked out thin air. It needs to actually have something of value. It needs to actually be like something people would actually click on and read or else it's not worth the attention of the journalist. And it is unfortunate. It goes back to that thing of like in the past, you know, when I first started my career, it was very much like people within PR and journalism. They work really closely together because a journalist needed a story and a PR person had a story.
Aoife [00:40:00]:
So it was very much like they worked together and it was like an equal level of. They both got something out of it. Whereas now, because like a lot of publications have shot like, you know, there's not that many, you know, so many, like Enemy for example, that's closed now, it's not magazine anymore. Like just the way that people get their information has changed. So journalists are finding other ways of getting that revenue. Like you said, they've kind of realized, hold on, we could be making a little bit of money here. But there are ways about it. Like you know, I've secured placements without paying a penny.
Aoife [00:40:30]:
So I think it is just making sure that you are not just writing any old PR piece that actually only your company would find interesting. You need to make sure it's valuable to the outside audience as well. And that is a much better way of, if you think of like, how would, why would a journalist actually want to write about this? And then that's how you write your piece. It's not just for, it's not a company announcement, it's much wider than that. That's how you need to approach it, to make sure that you're actually getting something out of it.
Alex Spooner [00:40:57]:
Absolutely. And timeless, right?
Aoife [00:40:59]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Trends are a big thing and I know it's not always easy to jump on A trend, but I do think at time, timing it right as well. So if you haven't, if you're doing like an event, what else could you link it to? Is there anything else out there that actually is of interest that we could kind of relate it to a little bit? But it's, it's hard. It's not a PR's, I think a hard one. I think it's, it's changing, but I just think focusing on pushing something that's actually newsworthy rather than just pumping out PR press releases like you need to. I'd rather spend more time focusing on something that's really newsworthy and also develop relationships with journalists. Don't just ping them an email saying, will you publish this? Like, get to know them.
Aoife [00:41:42]:
See if there's any way that you can actually build relationships with them. And that's something that we do here at eComOne, and I think that's a really important part of it as well.
Alex Spooner [00:41:51]:
That's traditionally how PR was, how the original PR kind of pieces were spread around, wasn't it? It was through word of mouth, it was through meetings, it was through lunches. And, you know, you would effectively build up these relationships and then if you have something on offer, you'd be the first person they'd go to. So when it comes down to kind of getting something that's, that's timely out there, would you say that quality over timeliness or timeliness over quality?
Aoife [00:42:22]:
Oh, now that is. I. Oh God. I always think quality over anything. I don't think you should publish anything that you want or proud to put your name to, even if it does mean being a little bit late on the bandwagon. I don't see the point in publishing something that looks. First of all, it probably won't get published if it's not actually up to standard. It probably won't get published anyway.
Aoife [00:42:43]:
I will always say quality over quantity. Same with any type of content. And it links back again to the AI. Thing is, don't just pump out content. Make sure it is of, you know, you're putting your name to that and there is absolutely no point just to jump on something, to push out something that is like very low effort or actually, if it doesn't actually make any sense or if it doesn't really suit you, then why bother doing it? In a way, I do think timeless is important, but, like, only if it's actually relevant.
Alex Spooner [00:43:11]:
It's a tricky one, isn't it?
Aoife [00:43:12]:
It is a tricky one, especially in the age of like, tick tock and effectively newer social media, short form content, short attention spans, you know, that is going to be changing. So it's going to be one of those questions. It's going to forever kind of be up there with, with how we form our plans together. It's like do we want to be the absolute first on the market with this, with this topic or do you want to put in some more time and kind of wait to see what the opportunity really looks like?
Aoife [00:43:40]:
It's such a hard one, isn't it? Because I do sort of think, yeah, you need, if you can get in before, before anybody else that gives you an auto. Not if not just on PR now just like content wise then it kind of gives you an automatic way to get right to the top, doesn't it? Of like even if a keyword, and this is also something I actually want to ask you is about keywords that maybe have low volume. A lot of people seem to avoid them thinking oh there's not much point. But actually that could be a really quick win in the future if it's really relevant to you. What, what do you think about that? You know, going for, I don't want to say low hanging fruit, but maybe the ones that people think, oh, it's got like 10 searches, do you still think that's worth going after?
Alex Spooner [00:44:16]:
It's really interesting one. So it's actually, it's not even necessarily a question about what could it be in the future. It's about what is happening to that keyword right now. So even though something might have low search volumes, you know, we're looking at like 10, 20, 30 searches a month. If it's that niche somebody's looking for that specific page, you can have very low competition for those sorts of keywords. But also those users are often going to have quite high intent. So this isn't true. Every single, every single low volume keyword, you know, you're going to have keywords out there that just have low search volumes because they're not popular.
Alex Spooner [00:44:51]:
But you will sometimes find certain keywords have a low search volume, have a really high purchase intent and it's about getting the almost like the right piece of content for those users because there's no one else that's going to be given those, giving them that information. So if they do need something really specific, you could be the only one on the market to give them that. And then therefore, if it's a high enough value service or high enough value product, there could still be a lot of money to be made off of These low search volume keywords, if you put in the right thought, almost like if you add up the, the equation well enough, you could figure out that there's actually nobody going for these keywords. And when you're starting out with an SEO strategy, you obviously go for you, you just kind of, you see what is out there in terms of the total keyword space. But one of the main things you also look at is opportunities. You know, where have we traditionally not tried to push our content? What keywords are we currently not ranking for? And you'll go, you go through, down through that list and looking past the search volume is part of good SEO, because if you just go by search volume, you're only ever going to be fighting battles that other people are already fighting. You really want to be thinking about opportunities outside of just the obvious. And the hidden opportunities are sometimes some of the biggest wins.
Aoife [00:46:08]:
I love that. That's so true. I've, I, we know a previous company that I used to work for, we wrote an article and I think it was like 70 of the traffic. And it, you would never think that looking at its data it had, it looked like it had like 10 search volumes a month when they picked it up. And it just grew and grew and grew until the point that we actually, even with the stuff that we were doing really well for, it still did not bring as much traffic. So it just shows the importance of like getting in there. The keywords that you may not think actually are the biggest wins.
Alex Spooner [00:46:40]:
There's actually a really funny article out there. So some other SEOs might have seen this before, but there was an SEO out there somewhere in the States and he had put a piece of content out and misspelled the word plumber into plumbering and that became one of his highest pieces of piece of traffic or highest revenue pieces of content because nobody else was out there competing for the word plumbering because it's scoring correctly. So he was there.
Aoife [00:47:10]:
We're finding this.
Alex Spooner [00:47:11]:
It was only him within the local area. So it's, it's like it's a very niche example that, but it does go to show like sometimes thinking outside the box. And I don't recommend misspelling a word intentionally just for the record. I'll never recommend that. But I'm just saying that that is an opportunity that somebody did take advantage of of a what would traditionally niche kind of keyword that nobody else would really be looking for. We've spoken a lot about content, spoken a lot about AI. We've spoken a lot about kind of the way that the market's moved and how to take advantage of opportunities within the, within the content creating space. If you could make one recommendation for a new content writer out there, just starting out in their, in their, in their role, what would you tell them to kind of think about first?
Aoife [00:47:58]:
I would tell them, and it's something I've banged on so much in this podcast because it is the main thing that I think people are losing out on now is getting emotional, putting your own personality in there, obviously within your brand guidelines, but don't be afraid to just have fun with it. I think a lot of brands now are missing the fun factor. People don't want to read content that is boring. People don't want to, you know, they'll click on an article, get within the first sentence and they, you know, you'd only have a few sentences to get someone's attention. So just don't be afraid to really play around with it. Do do something different and just have a bit of that personality because that is what people want to see and that's what makes people buy and that is how you build a loyal customer base of people who actually like your brand, not just your product.
Alex Spooner [00:48:43]:
Totally agree. People looking for that personality, aren't they? They don't want the cold, you know, corporate spiel. They want to see what's behind just the products, you know, what else are they buying into? What's the history, for example?
Aoife [00:48:56]:
So what would your, what would your main tip be as well, beyond that?
Alex Spooner [00:48:59]:
For a new content writer? I'd be telling them to look beyond what they know. So they're going to have a predisposed idea of how something should should be written or how it should work. They should look at how other people have been writing, how other pieces of content are already published, you know, what else is out there in the space. So they have to like, kind of consider a bit more about what more do they want to offer outside of what's already been taught to them? Because I think people get very closed off with the way that they think and the way that they want to write. Especially, especially if they've been writing in, you know, the same kind of content for quite a while. I think people should sometimes just take back, take a step back and see what's working out there and then build on it. I think there's just not enough building happening. You know, I think people get too into the routine of things.
Aoife [00:49:50]:
So, yeah, completely agree. So if you had to give, you know, a book recommendation, a tool, anything like that, what would you give?
Alex Spooner [00:49:59]:
So there is a book that I read about a couple of years ago now and it's a really niche one and it's kind of weird, but I really enjoyed it. So it's called how to Read Water. There's basically. Let me, let me get his name. His name's Tristan Gooley and he basically spent his entire life almost obsessed with water, looking at the patterns of it, seeing how it evolves. And what he found was that the patterns and behaviors that you see in a puddle get replicated larger and larger and larger into what's happening in oceans and in the Atlantic. So he basically spent his entire life so far studying it. So he's got loads of like, really interesting bits of knowledge about it.
Alex Spooner [00:50:40]:
But I think the core of it is that, you know, you can find the answers in the detail. So if you're looking for an answer out in the ocean, sometimes looking at a puddle will give you what you want. And I think we can carry that over to other topics and you know, especially in SEO, especially in content writing, I think we can take that rule and we can apply it to. Apply it to what we do in like a really nice way. So, yeah, I highly recommend people read that if they're interested in water because it's very. It's very water specific, very water based.
Aoife [00:51:12]:
Amazing. That sounds great. I've not heard of that. I think mine would be. It's called Working Hard or Hardly Working by Grace Beverly. She's an entrepreneur. She runs many amazing brands that I absolutely love, such as Shreddy. We are tala, the productivity method.
Aoife [00:51:27]:
And it actually follows the productivity method, which is all about ensuring you are actually getting the best out of your work. And it's not just like fake productivity. You know how some people have that competition of like, I'm the most productive and I do. I wake up at 4 o' clock in the morning and do this and this. It's actually getting the most out of your day without burning yourself out, which I think is a really important topic, especially in the era of LinkedIn when everyone seems to want to do them age. Everyone has, you know, so much to do. Super busy.
Aoife [00:51:57]:
Exactly. And so it's all about, you know, prioritising your work in certain ways. I highly recommend it. It's actually really helped me make sure that I'm actually getting the best out of my organisation or like my planning without feeling overwhelmed or burnt out.
Alex Spooner [00:52:10]:
That's really interesting. I think I need to get that one.
Aoife [00:52:12]:
Yeah, I can lend it to you. Okay, cool. So if anybody wanted to continue the conversation with you, Alex, how would you like them to get in touch with you?
Alex Spooner [00:52:19]:
Absolutely. So. So if anybody wants to reach out or you can have a discussion about any of these points or topics, I'm more than happy to talk with you guys. You can reach out to me on on LinkedIn. I'm Alex Spooner on LinkedIn and I look exactly like this on my profile picture. So you'll be able to find me there.
Aoife [00:52:35]:
Yeah, me too. So my LinkedIn is Aiofe Daly Spelt. A, O, I, F, E, D, A, L, Y in case people don't understand. And then it's the same. Aoife@comone.com and we are more than happy to answer any questions that you guys might have.
Richard Hill [00:52:51]:
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