SEO is dead, long live SEO!
This is how it feels at least, as both AI-driven search and user-generated content grab our digital lives. Today’s master in marketing by a thing or two about user -generated content and how brands can make it work for them.
(And read to the end to find out if she thinks SEO is actually dying.)
Meeting the master
Shelagh Dolan
Content Marketing Lead, Quora for business
Lesson 1: Find conversations that already happen.
Whatever your marketing channels are, don’t reinvent the wheel.
One of the benefits that companies can find in communities like Quora, says Dolan, is that many conversations are already happening. Instead of building a campaign again, companies can start where users are, no matter where it is in the funnel.
Although it doesn’t make sense for your marketing strategy to target users at every Point into the funnel, use existing conversations (at Quora or elsewhere) to meet your users where they are at.
Think of someone who wants to learn a language, she says. Maybe it starts with, “I will go to Italy.” Another has been dreaming of a trip to Italy for months now, and they start their research with an idea of ​​the specific trips they will go on. And a third person has everything planned and is ready to start learning something Italian.
Dolan says her most successful clients are the ones who can target all these people – “an awareness campaign paired with a retargeting campaign” combined with really useful content (we come to it for a moment).
Lesson 2: Build authority by being helpful.
Now about the really useful content.
Dolan says brands can build authority and rely on public forums by really answering people’s questions – when they use a trusted individual, not a business unit, to do so.
She gives the example of a health company that runs a marketing campaign on Quora. To answer user questions, they could use a licensed provider – not their CMO – whose expertise will build trust. The goal is to jump into the existing conversations with something that will solve problems does not promote a product.
(But keep that brand relevant. Don’t answer medical questions if your job is hocking used crocs. —Ed.)
Frankly, it’s a bit of how we think of Masters in Marketing Newsletter – we will give really useful, good advice on marketing. Self -promotion comes in second place.
Lesson 3: embrace Multi -channel, multi -format distribution.
Last year, Dolan began publishing the Quora ads newsletter naturally on LinkedIn.
Existing subscribers to the newsletter already knew about Quora’s Ads platform, so Dolan went out in search of an unsaturated audience. She asked herself: “How can we pull new people in Netto who maybe Don’t do it Do you know that Quora even has ads? “
Let’s bring this full circle.
Part of this strategy came from Dolan’s own advice to find existing conversations and leverage individuality – she had noticed the popularity of LinkedIn -influencers that have a stable drum of positions based on their own experience and expertise.
Find the existing conversations, think outside your usual channels, and look for a new audience.
Lingering questions
This week’s question
Will SEO be outdated in three to five years? —Brian Morrissey, founder, The restarts show Podcast
This week’s answer
Dolan says: honestly? Yes.
Traditional, organic SEO has always been a challenge – it required constant research and maintenance without guaranteed returns, not to mention being seen as an algorithm that could refuel your strategy at any time.
AI summaries and zero-click search have made it 10 times more difficult to drive organic traffic, and in three to five years there will be no reason why anyone ever rolls through pages with results to find themselves on a company-sponsored blog post reading a long-lasting, H2-clad overview of a industry topic and I say this as a long-lasting firmly (with a heavy heart)!
I think about how my own information -seeking behavior has changed completely over the past year with AI, from finding quick answers and technical troubleshooting at the work to make recipes and get TV/movie recommendations at home.
I don’t have a technical background, but I get a daily behind the scenes look at the AI ​​product that the Quora team builds (it’s called POE and it’s a central place to access any AI model and create your own customized bots). The biggest shock has been how fast new models and capabilities roll out – messages and launches are measured in minutes and hours, not days.
I think marketers – probably especially B2B – marketers – are hyper -aware of AIS abilities and its influence on SEO, among other aspects of marketing, but it will not be long before the general public catches up and gets used to the deeply personalized experiences possible through AI.
Soon, everyone will force to their favorite method of finding and consuming information, whether it scans an AI overview, announces a chat app (which can already do so much more than chat), talk loudly with AI or refer to a handful of trusted sources.
In three to five years I think we are far away from rolling through SERPs and much closer to one Her [the 2013 sci-fi movie in which a man falls in love with his AI] situation.
Editor’s Note: Kudos to Dolan and Morrissey for giving us an opening to tackle this very complex problem. If you haven’t already done so, Subscribe to Masters in MarketingAs we explore this question from different angles in the future. –Curt part Principe
Next week’s lingering questions
Dolan asks: Besides AI, which marketing trends or technologies are you keeping an eye on or are you planning to try this year?
