In the past five years, the SEO game has changed dramatically. Before, paid links and other tricky manipulations of Google’s algorithms paid off, boosting PageRank and easily sending sites to the top of the results page.
However, thanks to Google’s continual refinement of its analytical tools, webmasters have realized that the game is up: Google is hard to fool, and even if you do manage, Google will eventually catch on to your tricks.
What was the answer?
Content. And so it was for some years. Websites that were good at sourcing and publishing content were rewarded for their efforts, and over time, more and more webmasters jumped on board, creating more and more content. Content was being published at ever faster rates.
That brings us to today. The content singularity. As the internet becomes increasingly saturated with content, so do our brains. We click through it. We skim it. We bookmark it and promise ourselves we’ll read it later. We forward it to friends. How often do we read it?
As the amount of information on the internet increases, we are more likely to get tired, overwhelmed, or simply bored of reading all that stuff. This problem is called Content Shock. For everyone who once repeated the mantra “Content is King,” Content Shock is the French Revolution of SEO. Welcome to the Age of Content Shock. The King is dead. Long live the King.
So what is a webmaster to do?
Luckily, there are some ways to create a content marketing strategy that pays attention to the problem of Content Shock. We’ve assembled our best tips for staying on top of the results page in the Age of Content Shock.
The Printing Press
If you have the resources, the best defence against the threat of Content Shock might simply be to double-down on your previous strategy. Produce more content than ever before. If it sounds heavy handed, it’s because it is, a little bit. Hire more writers, train them better, push their content harder, and leverage all of your resources to flood the field with large amounts of high-quality content.
Drawbacks: You need to be fast and overwhelming with this approach. Essentially, since it relies on being able to buy more content than your competitors, this strategy only works if you’re one of the largest players in the market.
Personalize
One of the biggest threats to the standard content marketing approach is the increasingly curated nature of our Google Search Results pages, our Facebook News Feeds, and the other ways that we get our information. As Google learns more and more about what we like, this effect will only become stronger.
The answer?
Produce content that people like, of course! This strategy has the advantage of being able to bypass the flood effect of the Printing Press strategy detailed above via one of the best content delivery strategies:word of mouth. If people like your content, they will share it with their friends. Google and Facebook will see this, and will reward your efforts appropriately.
This also has the advantage of being a “best-faith” strategy: you’re not trying to game the system. It’s entirely conceivable that Google might start punishing those who produce large amounts of low-quality content (in some ways, the bounce rate is already a primitive mechanism to do this). Bottom line: Google wants to deliver high-quality content. If you give it to them, you will be rewarded with a higher PageRank.
Innovate and be creative
Here’s the wildcard: it pays to be creative. Say you have a competitor that has already employed the Printing Press strategy, flooding the market with content. You can’t get a blog post in edgewise. So don’t even try! Why not deliver video content on your own YouTube channel? There are whole markets there lurking under the surface.
Or perhaps you need to innovate even further: Content Shock is principally a problem of having too many words to read and too many minutes of videos to watch. So experiment with short-form content. Twitter, Vine, Snapchat and others have all had success with this approach, and this kind of content has proven to be more resistant to the problems associated with Content Shock.
Content Marketing in the Age of Content Shock
A revolution in content strategy, and it’s all content marketers can do to avoid being sent to the guillotine. While it may be tempting to sit back, it’s important to adapt to the new environment of SEO. These tips will give you options when considering how to revamp your strategy to increase page viewsand stay at the top of the results page.
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