Hey friends,
I was inspired this week by the Hidden Path, a newsletter I've followed for years that teaches competitive business strategy.
The topic was contrarian beliefs.
The author, Alex, noted that:
"Contrarianism - difference built on disagreement - is hard to copy, and hard to fake, and therefore is much more strategically robust than other approaches."
I would add that I believe contrarian beliefs (conveyed via content) are only strong when they're authentic.
In other words, you don't disagree with the world for the sake of it, instead, you truly believe in your opinion. The fire it lights inside you means you get up every day, think about it endlessly, and try to convince others of it.
This of course had me thinking about my own contrarian beliefs about SEO and content marketing.
I have a lot of strong opinions, which probably isn't news to you dear readers, and they often go against how I see other SEO consultants & agencies doing things.
So, this week I'll cover three that are top of mind at the moment.
💡 Before we dive in, I'd love to know: What's your contrarian marketing belief? Reply to this email and I'll add it (anonymously if you'd like) to next week's newsletter.
1/ The small things really do matter
I often hear people say “meta descriptions don’t matter, Google just rewrites them” or “who cares about alt tags”.
Well, I care.
And I think you should, too.
SEO is filled with all these tiny, tiny things that individually might not matter much.
However, I think an “I don’t care about the details” approach can become toxic. It seeps slowly into everything you do.
Let's take those examples.
Yes, Google does rewrite 70% of meta descriptions, which makes them seem a bit pointless. However, if you write them properly, Google will use yours.
If Google does use yours, that gives you a little bit more control over how you show up in the SERPs—and that might be the difference between winning a click or not.
See this result for the keyword "Men's shirts".
Because T.M. Lewin took the time to write a good meta description, they make sure their USPs are visible—the text "variety of collar styles, sizes, lengths" and "multibuy offers available" is visible.
A couple of results further down, we find that a competing result by John Lewis didn't write theirs properly, so the meta description was pulled automatically from the content on the page.
This is a less compelling description to have under your site.
Google's automation decided to pull a description of how to choose a shirt—which isn't a selling point like TM Lewin.
Over 1,000s of daily searches for this keyword, I wonder how often this tiny detail leads to fewer sales for John Lewis.
Furthermore, when it comes to alt tags, did you know that they actually help screen-reading tools describe images to visually impaired readers?
Quite a few companies have been sued for not having them.
So, yeah, most of the time these details appear to have a minor impact on ranking.
And they often aren’t my first priority when fixing a site’s SEO.
But often these things matter for a good reason.
Besides, a culture where things are done properly, from the content on the page to the image file names, seems like a good one to build to me.
2/ You should not be scaling content if you don’t know what “good” looks like
Let’s face it, it’s really hard to make good content.
Content that satisfies readers. That’s objectively good. That’s memorable. That ranks. That converts.
I see people scaling their content production before they have a clear opinion and understanding of what good content even looks like.
The symptoms of this:
- Websites filled with expensive content that does zilch. It gets no traffic.
- Websites filled with cheap (*cough AI*) content that gets no traffic.
- Websites filled with content that gets traffic, but no results.
It’s evident to me when signing new clients that far too many agencies and founders are being sold (or selling) the idea that poor-quality content is effective.
I frequently adopt sites with zero traffic, filled to the brim with thin, garble content that no reader would EVER enjoy.
Somewhere along the line:
- Someone didn’t understand what “good” content looks like and so mistakenly thought this was good content.
- Someone who didn’t mind giving their uneducated client a secret middle finger decided to take a shortcut to make more money.
If you scale content before having clear guidelines (or minimum quality checklists) on what good looks like, you’ll quickly build a library full of shite.
It's really worth slowing down, creating content yourself, and crafting a few exemplary pieces so you can say "this is what we want to create again and again".
⚡ Note: There are times when you might want to lower your quality standards to increase scale. But this should be a conscious, strategic decision made by those who know what they’re doing.
3/ Creating “human” content is more important than ever
At the heart of my marketing philosophy is a belief that when everyone else zigs, you should zag.
I also strongly believe it's pointless to create something that everyone else can create easily. Where is the competitive advantage in that?
For that reason, as soon as I saw a surge in the adoption of AI content generators, I turned my attention immediately to solving for the opposite.
I quickly started building something that’s really, really difficult to build: a content production engine that’s cost-effective but also outputs high volumes of content that’s obviously human (creative, insightful, and experience-filled).
I think brands that put the most distance between what they produce and what AI can produce will be the ones who win an audience over the next 10 years.
