The Seotistics newsletter is written by Marco Giordano, a Data/Web Analyst with the goal of combining business and web data. Tired of the usual boring Analytics content without any business impact? Seotistics teaches you how to use Analytics, web data and even content in your workflow while helping you with Strategy.
Share
π₯ Contentgeddon: Beyond The Hype
Published about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 8 min read
β
Use Data Or Be Used By Data!
The July 7 issue of Seotistics is here for you!
LLMs, AI, this and that, there are too many buzzwords but not much action.
Was content actually affected?
Yes and no.
I will tell you exactly why and what you can do instead of reading another case study.
Please move this email to your Primary inbox or reply to it. This is to prevent Seotistics goes into spam by accident. Gmail users can read this tutorial to do it.
βοΈ Next week (July 14) there will be the Seotistics Summer Sales! 30% off everything.
The next issue is postponed to Tuesday 15.
Speaking of products and content:
"Analytics for SEO" ebook v9 (confirmed this week)
More additions to "Analytics for SEO" course
More content for "Think Like a Web Analyst"
More content π
Also, go subscribe to Summer of SEO, a 10-day email series dedicated to Ecommerce SEO by Freddie Chatt. β You can expect to read my tips about 2 topics: AI and Analytics.
β
2025: Contentgeddon
Publishers have it hard since AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The whole business model has been under attack for years, now we are seeing even more cracks.
Basic content has always been slop but we needed more inputs to make it realize to the mainstream audience.
So what's the solution?
Finding alternative ways to bring traffic.
B2B SaaS that produced a lot of informational content have similar issues.
No one cares about your listicles, people want something more.
Even though this is a problem for content specialists, measurement is on you.
How do we even measure and coordinate all of this?
Well, it's why we have data.
Sure, excluding publishers it's not like a website makes money with content... right?
That's a common point when discussing content.
The LLM Hype
You've heard it all, LLMs eating your traffic and so on.
Do you actually believe any of this?
As of today, AI traffic accounts for a small % of your total traffic (code here).
12% for me, normal for a small personal website but extremely high for enterprise. Context is life!
In most cases you don't even need to worry about it.
This is why I push for Analytics... it can show you what is the current situation and be more realistic.
P.S. Some AI traffic will never be accounted for due to how web tracking works. β Still, it's not as impactful as you are told.
The LLM industry is built around fearmongering.
The only websites at risk are content websites (like always).
Most of the statements below are exaggerated:
websites won't exist (yes, for sure, people only want chats lol)
AI will replace writers (implying their only task is writing)
You have to check what works in reality and it's always humans + technology.
LLMs are a technology, nothing more.
Big players will still be big and small players will still need to outsmart them.
These are all tactical additions that do NOT replace a solid strategy.
Why We Actually Do Content
Ultimately to get more money, like everything.
The main caveat here is that content doesn't have to sell per se.
It can shape the perception of our brand in the mind of customers, though.
Too theoretical?
It's more practical than you think, actually.
Yes, branded queries in GSC are the way to assess your branding efforts. Yes, also impressions.
People buy from brands they know, especially in B2B.
Do you think people choose Semrush over another competitor just because of the features?
Nah.
It's because of branding.
Many professionals often forget this and measure content purely in terms of traffic.
This completely misses the point of why we do content.
Your Identity & Branding
Content is strictly tied to who you are or try to be.
We can say every action contributes to how you are perceived by others.
Sacrificing your identity for some clicks is exactly how many publishers destroyed their brand over time.
You must protect your brand at all costs if you want to stay in the market.
So no stupid listicles, no content 101 that answers obvious questions and no dictionary entries.
If you prefer, what many sell as "topical authority".
Consider content as your main propaganda tool instead. Use it to indirectly share your values and beliefs.
β
For example, my content is a great way of filtering out leads or people who aren't yet ready to buy from me.
Instead of jumping on a call and discussing, I'd rather have people read my content first and see if it resonates with them.
The ROIfication Of Content
How to notice if a company is unsuitable for content?
They keep asking about "ROI" or anything for that purpose.
The obsession with ROI is always a clear indicator the other party doesn't want good work.
People often mean return and not ROI.
β It's one of those words that get misused all the time.
Great content isn't necessarily easy to measure or attribute.
Does it mean you have to delete all of your content because it doesn't get clicks?
According to "SEO" wrong standards this website is bad... in practice it gets traffic from other sources other than Google.
If you have a deeper understanding of content, you will know that the hidden gems come from audience research.
Stuff like:
using the questions people often ask you
checking comments (on your socials)
checking comments on competitors' blog posts
hyper niche keywords in GSC
Some of my best content comes from there.
If a person asks you one thing, you can imagine others will too.
Attribution? Yes But No
Understanding which channel makes money is important and not fluff.
The issue is when companies become obsessed with attributing every cent and want complex models.
It's impossible to replicate reality with marketing models, forget it.
Attribution can be a valid help to ask new questions and test more.
Unless you work with goliaths, you don't need any heavy attribution work.
Tools like Google Analytics 4 give you some information about your sources with different attribution models.
They aren't the best choices at all but you can survive with them.
Content Is Different
Not every website has the same necessity for content.
B2B SaaS are the cutting edge of thought leadership and a great example of how you do content.
In those hyper-competitive markets, thought leadership and really detailed content make the difference.
I can't say the same for Ecommerce, actually.
Most of the content I read is either super basic or the usual listicles.
Publishers are a great ground for learning content management and operations... but not so much for overall quality and depth.
β
This means there are tons of opportunities to be in the top 1% for content quality.
1000 mediocre articles aren't enough to convince people to buy from you.
That's why you should invest in understanding quality!
OK... So What We Have Today To Measure Content
The tools are always the same:
GSC, GA4
Heatmaps
The usual Google Stack is omnipresent and can tell you much more than you think when tracking the proper events.
Just as a reminder, this is what you could track:
Scroll Depth (other than the default 90%)
Time Spent
Button clicks
Form Downloads
As usual, avoid using GA4 default events and create your own in GTM.
Reports like this are slop and tell you nothing about a page. Yet, I see a lot of them proposed by agencies or even consultants. Folks, we can do much better π
This way of measuring quantitatively is limited though, so I recommend you introduce qualitative analysis.
Microsoft Clarity (and heatmaps) is a great aid as you can simply record sessions and see what users do.
This is my favorite approach so far when people make wild assumptions based on useless metrics like Bounce Rate.
A bunch of sample sessions can be more expressive than some numbers on a screen.
Where Many Get Stuck
In tactical details.
Stuff like:
obsessing over clicks, impressions and position. None of this matters per se
opening GA4 every 5 minutes to check the traffic
learning crazy tools like Make/n8n to build basic automation
You won't earn more by becoming more tactical.
You won't add more value with some low-level automation you copied from YouTube.
But you can definitely add value by being strategic and focusing on what the others don't see (or refuse to).
Some companies blindly follow trends and don't have a cohesive vision of the market as a whole.
The best (and most paid) professionals cut through the noise and do the bare minimum that works over time.
No hype, fancy solutions, impossible challenges.
Just extreme focus and concentration on solving specific problems.
Once again, specialism is often better.
If you want to enter the right mindset, I crafted this course just for you. Thinking analytically is undersold compared to technical skills:
Enough talking, I will show once again how I do with Seotistics.
The method is quite straightforward: publish peak content around my most talked topics.
Email -> thoughts, drafts, prototypes
Website -> full articles
Social media -> bits, thoughts, opinions
Based on this, I can recycle content across media and use different formats.
β
Here is what I never do:
obsess over keyword research
tutorials or cheap content
related topics just for "topical authority"
This is what separates a solid workflow from fluff. It's rooted in reality.
Many agencies or consultants would recommend you to rush content and even talk about related topics.
You know, as a trade-off for becoming an authority.
I am not a fan of this because you end up producing more than needed and sacrifice quality.
For ranking, you definitely need quantity.
But for a full-fledged content strategy, quality always win over quantity and you don't need much to win the game.
Organic Traffic By Not Doing SEO
As you can see from my stats below, I do get organic traffic but I don't exactly have content "for SEO".
The reason is simple, this is brand-building at its best.
When many armchair SEOs say build brands and don't do pure SEO, they are right.
My channel ranking for 2025 based on sessions. As you see, the majority of the sessions are labeled as Direct (normal in my case) and the 2nd is unexpectedly Organic Search.
The issue is that you must have done it in the past to realize it takes years of grind!
If you have the patience and resources to wait, this is the best way to go.
That said, I will continue talking about this topic in my future content as you need to know it!
π₯ Join Our Community
Our Discord community offers a small place where we can talk business and web data.
If you hate all the noise of social media, then this place is for you.
The Seotistics newsletter is written by Marco Giordano, a Data/Web Analyst with the goal of combining business and web data. Tired of the usual boring Analytics content without any business impact? Seotistics teaches you how to use Analytics, web data and even content in your workflow while helping you with Strategy.
Read more from Seotistics - Web Analytics + Business + Strategy
Use Data Or Be Used By Data! The August 4 issue of Seotistics is here for you! Last week I've talked about the foundations of Analytics... now I will show you how it usually works with B2B enterprise businesses. This is my direct experience and I had to make some concepts more "generic" to avoid being too specific. Most of the skills you need are relatively basic but the real issue is how you combine them together. P.S. Maybe I will cover this topic in more depth in the next issues π Please...
Use Data Or Be Used By Data! The July 28 issue of Seotistics is here for you! In a world where people obsess over the Google Stack and AI, I am here to show the truth. Traditional skills are the foundations for everything. Learn these and you will have the edge over many others who like shiny tools. I may cover more details in my next issue too, I am super tired by all the content I am producing lol P.S. The Seotistics Summer Sales end tomorrow at 23.59 (CET). Hurry up because there won't be...
Use Data Or Be Used By Data! The July 21 issue of Seotistics is here for you! Google Analytics 4 is hated by many. You see a lot of posts on LinkedIn of marketers complaining about it... True, the product is bad but with over (allegedly) 85% market share, what's the alternative? So instead of complaining about it, I show you how you can exploit it. People these days are GA4phobic, they are scared and angry at GA4... it doesn't have to be this way! P.S. New article about small vs big websites...