It’s been a hard few years for content on the Internet.
Google decimated niche sites with their Helpful Content Updates, and don’t know how to fix it.
Generative AI entered the mainstream in November of 2022, which has dramatically increased the number of articles published each month, making it even harder than ever to stand out. (image from Arxiv.org)
To add to all of that, Google’s been rolling out their AI Overviews in search results. A recent Ahrefs study found that “informational intent keywords trigger an AI Overview 99.2% of the time” (source). While it’s good news that “AIOs only have a 10% chance of showing for commercial and transactional keywords,” it’s logical to assume that people click to websites from AI overviews much less than even from Featured Snippets. AI Overviews satisfy user searches better than Featured Snippets, so those of us who have produced a lot of top-of-funnel informational content are seeing much less traffic to those articles, reducing not only traffic but also middle and bottom of funnel marketing effectiveness and brand recognition.
To go even further, content marketing teams and marketing departments have experienced wave after wave of layoffs, with many marketing and content teams now a shell of their former selves, but expected to produce the same amount of and results from content they publish.
Because of all of this, there are many amazing content marketers available for freelance work, but many of them are struggling. Some are even leaving the industry, choosing to do a career pivot or just take a break if they can.
Simply put, it’s a hard time in content marketing.
So we have to ask the question, “Is it even worth continuing to publish content in 2025?”
My answer (“yes”) probably doesn’t surprise you, because I’m forever-optimistic about writing and publishing on the Internet and because EditorNinja’s lifeblood is literally published content on the Internet.
But I have good reasons to say “yes” that we should continue to publish in 2025, and I think the current hellscape of the industry is potentially setting us up for something more beautiful in the future, just like a wildfire can ravage a forest but new growth happens afterwards.
(Source)
We’ve Been Too Focused On “SEO Content”
Let’s be real – too many content marketers (myself included!) have been too focused on “SEO content,” meaning content written specifically with ranking in Google in mind to drive qualified traffic to the site.
Let me be clear about my critique here. I still think there is a place for content meant to rank in search engines. People are still searching in Google for information. EditorNinja writes SEO content for clients, for crying out loud. We still believe in it.
It still (kind of) works too. EditorNinja has seen great gains in organic traffic with a top-of-funnel content strategy:
But then August happened, and our traffic has gone down:
Let me be real – our traffic, leads, and business are still better off because of this content.
But, it is undeniably less effective than it was even six months ago. If you’ve followed our content here for any amount of time (and I am under no pretenses that you have), we’ve shifted our focus from the more methodical top-of-funnel definition-type posts like this to more posts like this one you’re reading – in-depth, analytical, strong point of view, and written from a place of experience and expertise.
This article probably isn’t going to rank for much. I didn’t do any keyword research for it. And that’s ok, because that’s not the purpose of this article, or any of the other recent content I’ve been publishing.
Because I’m getting back to the soul of publishing, which was always human-focused.
We’ve Lost The Soul of Publishing Online
Blogging used to be fun. When I started writing back during my early career in marketing, I wrote two weekly articles on my personal site. I wrote evergreen resources and thought pieces about different brands and their marketing, released Excel (lol, 2013!) templates for people to use to analyze their data, and more.
It was fun. Through my writing and the conference and work opportunities it brought my way, I met some of my favorite SEO-industry colleagues. Without that time in my career, I would honestly be nowhere close to where I am now, with one business sale under my belt, a fast-growing agency with EditorNinja, the ability to consult on SEO for brands I want to work with, and many other opportunities.
But I’ve gotten away from this type of blogging over the last few years. Part of that is that I am in a very different place in life now, with two young kids who take up a lot of my extra brain space that I used to use on writing.
But another part is that blogging has felt like a chore and like the return isn’t there. For so long, it’s felt like I’d get the same returns from writing stock “SEO content” as I would from writing something like this, which involves real brain work, organizing my thoughts, and putting them out there for people to read and critique.
Users, Not Algorithms
I’m optimistic, though, that this is changing. If SEO is less effective for content than it’s been for a long time, maybe it’s time to get back to writing our thoughts, to starting conversations, and to showing people how we think about things, because that’s ultimately what’s helpful instead of “10 tips to write better content.”
No one needs or wants to read the same 10 tired tips to writing better content.
People want to think better about writing better content, so they can apply those frameworks and thoughts to their specific scenarios and actually drive results.
My hope is that with these changes, it will become more popular again to actually write things that people want to read, not “things that Google wants to rank and hopefully people will read too.” Maybe we’ll even see much better business results (though maybe not traffic results) because of it.
What a wild idea.
Many Existing Channels Still Work
So if SEO is less effective, how do we get eyeballs on our content?
First of all, I am not saying that SEO is dead. It is still very possible to get good levels of organic traffic to our informational and transactional content. In fact, Ahrefs found that “AIOs only have a 10% chance of showing for commercial and transactional keywords.” This means that, for now, our transactional pages that target commercial keywords are relatively safe from AI-generated answers, probably because Google doesn’t want to be seen as recommending specific solutions or companies.
But, if SEO is less effective at driving top-of-funnel traffic, how do we drive top-of-funnel traffic moving forward?
The answer is the same as its ever been – non-SEO channels like social media, newsletters, and PR. We then need to prioritize building our own audiences, such as email lists, to whom we can promote the content that we’re producing.
The Type of Content May Change
As this happens, we’re going to need to change the kind of content we’re producing. Why?
No newsletter operator is going to promote something called “10 Ways to Get Website Traffic.” That topic is covered to death. This might be tough love, but there’s no “10 ways to get website traffic” article that you could write that would deserve to rank in Google. If you’re going to write about getting website traffic, you’ll need to work harder than before to get that post noticed.
- You’ll need to write 100 ways.
- You’ll need to interview people about how they get traffic to their website.
- You’ll need to make sure the page is super interactive and a joy to read.
The list can go on, but you get the idea.
We’re going to have to work MUCH harder to get eyes on our content moving forward. If you’ve been solely reliant on “SEO blogs” (btw, they’re articles, not “blogs,” and this IS a hill I will die on) as your main acquisition strategy, you’re going to have to upskill and change your strategy if you want to continue driving business results and getting paid to do so.
Lean Into New/Other Channels
Like it or not, the consumer world has largely moved away from written content to more interactive and bite-sized entertaining media like videos (YouTube) and shorts (Instagram/TikTok).
B2B content has also gone this way, but not nearly as far as consumer content. If you’re leading content at an e-commerce brand, you need to be producing great visual content. If you’re leading content at a data streaming B2B SaaS brand, it’s much less important. Those buyers aren’t watching B2B content on TikTok (most likely) and definitely don’t want to see your data streaming rendition of the latest trending dance set against the latest trending audio.
That said, you can’t rely on singular channels anymore. It’s always been a bad idea to rely on one channel, especially one like Google, but it’s really a bad idea right now. Google giveth and Google taketh away, but owned audiences are forever.
It’s time to lean into:
- Partnerships with publications in your space
- Conferences and summits and webinars
- Visual content sharing helpful snippets that then push viewers to longer-form visual content
- Newsletters, maybe even establishing the go-to newsletter for your industry!
It’s Not the End of Content Marketing
Lest I be accused of saying content marketing is dead (which I am not and will not), let me be clear – this is not the end of content marketing.
This is possibly the end, though, of the easy days of content marketing. Of writing something quickly that simply references a bunch of other things and aggregates knowledge, without adding anything new to it, and then throwing a bunch of internal and external backlinks at it and ranking in Google.
That may still work from time to time. But it’s working increasingly less and will continue to work increasingly less.
If we want to succeed with content marketing in 2025, we’re going to need to adjust and change with the times.
Personally, I’m excited to see what we all come up with. It’s an exciting time for content marketers who love the craft and love the challenge of driving results.