Surviving the Era of Infinite Content: How to Futureproof Your Content

It’s no secret that blogging and publishing content is the key to success for SEO and organic traffic. This is something that I’ve been advocating for years.

Content marketers understand this concept really well. So they continually create new content based on what’s already ranking and what their target audience is searching for. As a result, we’re left with thousands of similar posts on the same subject on the web.

According to recent data, upwards of 7.5 million blog posts get published every day. Take a moment to let that sink in. That’s more than 2.7+ billion blogs per year.

With the rise in AI-generated content and AI-assisted tools for writers, this number will continue to grow at an exponential rate every year.

So how can you survive in this era of seemingly infinite content? This guide will teach you how.

Writing Content That Ranks

At the end of the day, climbing the SERPs is the purpose behind publishing new content. Sure, there are some bloggers out there that genuinely want their thoughts to be heard. But for the most part, websites publish content to drive organic traffic.

While the exact Google algorithm remains a mystery, it’s been said that publishing frequency doesn’t technically boost your search ranking.

But with that said, by adding new content to your website on a regular basis, Google’s web crawlers will index your site more frequently. It also increases the chances that you can rank well for different search terms, which can ultimately boost your traffic.

All of this has an impact on your search ranking. So indirectly, increasing publishing frequency should impact your organic traffic. This is something that I’ve seen first-hand on my own sites and with client websites.

This concept is backed up by data that shows how inbound traffic rises as publishing frequency increases.

Website owners, bloggers, and content marketers that see these types of statistics all come to the same conclusion—we need to start publishing more content.

As AI writing tools become more accessible and more popular, it’s getting easier and easier for websites to push out content. Something that would take a blogger four or five hours to write can be handled by AI in just 30 minutes.

But is this really the best way to publish content that ranks? Let’s explore this question in greater detail below.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Content Marketing: Is it Right For You?

AI content creation tools are pretty impressive. I’ve seen these first-hand, and it’s really amazing what a computer can produce in a matter of minutes.

There are dozens of great use cases for AI in content creation.

But just because AI can produce more content at a higher rate than a writer, it doesn’t automatically mean that content will rank. There’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to use AI for marketing, and the wrong way won’t generate any results.

The Problem With AI For Content Creation

Without getting too hung up on AI algorithms or how things work behind the scenes, the basic concepts of these tools are the same across the board. They take content that’s already available, learn from it, and ultimately produce new content.

But lots of AI-generated content doesn’t yield high quality. It doesn’t capture a writer’s unique voice, tone, or brand message either. Some AI content doesn’t make sense at all. It’s just randomly jumbled ideas thrown together related to a single subject.

Obviously, these solutions will continue to improve over the years. But the vast majority of AI-written content will still drown in the sea of infinite content.

Plagiarism is another top concern with AI-written content. This is something I’ve seen first-hand as well when I’ve experimented with AI tools.

You also have to consider how Google has adapted to various black-hat SEO strategies and trends over the years. If it feels like everyone is using AI to create content, it wouldn’t be shocking if Google could spot those articles and adjust rankings accordingly.

The Right Way to Use AI For Content Creation

I’m not saying that you can’t or shouldn’t use AI as part of your content strategy. You just need to be a bit more selective with exactly how you’re using it.

If you just want to put a title into a form field, press enter, and publish content, then you’re not going to have much luck ranking ahead of other similar articles.

The best content creators understand the difference between AI-generated content and AI-assisted content. They’ll use the content spit out by AI as a starting point to potentially give them a leg up on outlining and gathering preliminary notes. Then they’ll take that work and turn it into a higher quality post.

Writers can use AI to help them edit content and improve grammar. It’s great for brainstorming, direct-response copy, creating outlines, and generating first drafts. You can even use AI for keyword suggestions to help get your content ranking.

How to Futureproof Your Content Creation

So if AI alone isn’t the answer to futureproofing your content strategy, then what is? There is a combination of different factors that you need to consider here.

Here’s how you can maintain a competitive edge over AI-generated content:

Fill Information Gaps

Right now, AI is still fairly limited in what it can do. AI models can’t conduct research, interview people, conduct surveys, or generate custom videos.

Instead, AI takes existing information on the web and rewrites it in different words.

To gain an edge over this model, you need to fill the gaps that AI can’t cover. While it’s tough to be 100% original, you can easily find information gaps on a subject with a little bit of research.

Look at the top five or ten articles for any given search term. In addition to seeing what they have in common, you should also evaluate what’s missing.

You might notice that some of the concepts are outdated. Or maybe certain use cases related to your target market haven’t been covered. You could also discover that nobody has included unique research in their articles.

According to a recent study, more bloggers are starting to conduct original research instead of just using existing studies in their posts.

The same study found that posts with images, statistics, videos, and contributor quotes are more likely to drive results.

AI still can’t accomplish these things. So you can easily stand out from the crowd by adding this type of content into your blogs.

Use Thought Leadership to Your Advantage

AI can’t replicate the experience of a real person. If you have real experience and success in a particular field, then use that to your advantage in your content strategy. While all of the other content out there is just generic, you can stand out by investing in thought leadership.

Here are some easy ways to apply this to your content creation strategy:

• Share personal stories about your own life experiences or business experiences
• Discuss the personal experiences and real-life stories of people in your network
• Take your expertise and use it to analyze or evaluate industry trends or events
• Look beyond the data and use other factors to create a story
• Explain why an idea or concept is wrong or flawed

Take this exact blog post you’re reading right now as an example. AI simply couldn’t write this because lots of the concepts are opinions and gut feelings based on nearly 30 years of industry experience.

This idea holds true for any website type or industry. AI can’t tell your personal story of how you lost 60 pounds in three months. It can’t replicate your experience taking $500 and building a national franchise from scratch. AI didn’t go to law school or pass the bar exam with you.

Create Different Types of Content

One of the best ways to future-proof your content is by branching out. Publishing the same type of content over and over again can be dangerous if that format goes stale.

• Curated content: Curated blog posts—reviews and analysis of other people’s posts.
• Detail orientated blog posts: Deep, original blog posts that showcase your expertise and thought leadership.
• Video blog posts: Video blogs (expert interviews, “how to,” FAQ videos, etc.) with transcriptions.
• Viral videos: Viral videos (videos that you create with the goal of getting them highly shared).
• Podcasts: Podcasts with transcribed text.
• Using lists: People love reading lists, you’re reading one right now!
• Reviews: Get reviews of your products to increase the amount of content on the page for SEO reasons and to help increase sales.
• White papers: Create white papers that your customers or clients can read.
• “How to” blog posts: Produce “how to” articles that help your customers or clients out.
• Create a FAQ: Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are incredibly helpful to any readers and decrease buyer’s hesitation.
• Case studies: Case studies are enjoyed by readers and often linked to by other websites.
• Testimonials: Testimonials and video testimonials help increase sales by creating more trust with viewers.
• Email newsletter: Have an email newsletters that readers can subscribe to.
• Widgets: Create a widget such as an interactive vacation planner or mortgage calculator.
• Ebooks: Create an ebook, and if possible fit into the buying process of your business.
• Infographics: Infographics are frequently shared through social media websites and they can also be picked up by bloggers for backlinks as well.
• SlideShare presentations: SlideShare along with many of slideshow sharing websites are a great idea for creating backlinks and receiving referral traffic.
• E-brochures: E-brochures can be picked up socially to drive more business.
• Business related statistics slideshow: Slideshows based on statistics in your industry.
• Sharing business history: Historical information about your company or your industry.
• Webinars: Host or be a part of a webinar.
• Wikis: Do you have a business wiki or a part of a wiki related to your business?
• Online training: Offer online training (either free or a small fee) to clients or potential clients.
• Press releases: Press releases are a big trust signal to Google along with the idea that it can generate more backlinks to the press release and in return power up your website.
• Local pages: Create local content such as city/town pages. A great tactic is to take one piece of content that you worked hard to create, such as a white paper, and repurpose it into video, infographics, and slideshow formats. That way you get a lot more mileage out of each chunk of original content.

Don’t be Resistant to AI-Assisted Writing Tools

While AI alone may not bring you to the top of the SERPs, it can certainly help. You just need to use it the right way.

Don’t rely on AI for creating 100% original content that’s ready to publish with the click of a button. But you can use it to speed up your content creation process, improve your quality, and help you increase your publishing frequency.

Keep an open mind. Understand that AI is here for the long term.

While I personally don’t think AI will ever replace human writers altogether (at least not in our lifetime), I do think that the writers who learn to use AI appropriately will survive and thrive in the era of infinite content.

Final Thoughts

Every time you publish something on the web, you’re competing with thousands of other sites trying to rank for the same keywords.

It seems like the days of creating 100% original content are long behind us. But with that said, there are still plenty of ways to stand out from the crowd. If everyone else out there starts using AI to generate content, you can still have a competitive edge by applying the principles discussed in this guide.