If you want to succeed in SEO, you need more links to pass authority to your site.
And if you want more links, you need more linkable content.
With the advent of AI, the SEO and digital marketing world more broadly have been thrown into chaos. We now have more tools than ever before to help with everything from keyword generation to content production.
But AI has also led to some challenges in the content world. Although AI can help generate content at a massive scale and at a pace we’ve never seen before, it also isn’t very successful at creating highly linkable pieces.
By the same token, AI is increasing pressure in the industry, both by increasing the total competition you face in the content marketing world and increasing publisher scrutiny.
In other words, it’s harder than ever to make, publish, and distribute extremely good pieces of content.
But here’s the good news.
With the right strategy, you can start writing much better, much more linkable content, even in the rapidly changing and somewhat confusing era in which we practice.
Contents
The Impact (and Necessity) of Linkable Content
It’s inarguable that linkable content is a necessity if you want to survive in today’s digital marketing landscape.
Linkable content assets are those that are extremely valuable both for users and for your own strategy.
When your work is high enough quality, people will naturally want to link to it and read it. If it offers something unique, something practically valuable, and something genuinely interesting, it’s going to be easy for you to naturally earn links for it.
On top of that, if your piece is meant to show off your expertise and cast your brand in a more positive light, it’s going to be more valuable for you to earn links for it. More people will visit your website, more people will stick around, and more people will walk away with a great first impression of your brand.
Instead of merely resorting to tactics like reciprocal link building. you can focus on creating linkable assets and either naturally attracting links or building stronger ones to your website.
Why AI Doesn’t (Typically) Produce Linkable Content
We’ve all used AI at this point.
Some of us have used it for content generation in the context of our own SEO campaigns.
But most of us have only used AI for tasks incidental to content creation, like conducting research, making outlines, or summarizing dense pieces of work that will be instrumental to us in writing something.
That’s because we have an instinct, and a largely correct one, that AI doesn’t typically produce highly linkable content.
Why is this the case?
- Originality. And I can do some amazing things, but it can’t produce anything totally original. It can put things in new words, so you can’t be cited for plagiarism, but it’s not going to offer any totally new ideas or ways to present those ideas. That’s because generative AI is constrained by the examples given to it. Although today’s AI has access to millions, if not billions of pieces of content at this point, it can only mimic what it already sees; it can’t come up with any truly novel ideas or totally original ways to present older ideas. Because originality and uniqueness are so important for attracting links, this is a mark against it.
- Style. Many people marvel at AI’s ability to write in a particular style, such as in the tone of one of your favorite politicians. But while this is an impressive parlor trick, it doesn’t necessarily help you establish a brand voice of your own. People don’t want to read content doing its best Quentin Tarantino impression; they want to read content that’s consistently written by an authentic individual. With the right combination of prompts, and enough patience, you could probably develop this persona using AI, but it’s much easier, more natural, and arguably more effective to simply write authentic content of your own.
- Personal experience. AI can also struggle with fabricating personal experience, since it doesn’t have any personal experiences of its own. In today’s content world, sharing personal experiences and stories can elevate a piece of content and make it more linkable, as it instantly makes it more believable, more relatable, and more akin to storytelling. Telling a story about how you helped a client save their family property is much more effective than explaining how it hypothetically could be done. And of course, even if AI could be effective in making up stories like this, it would be a breach of ethics to allow it to do so while claiming that the stories are yours.
- Depth. Generative AI is impressive in terms of its ability to research topics in short order and summarize them for a lay audience. However, it doesn’t always offer the depth of expertise necessary to create a truly linkable piece. Remember, if generative AI has the information, that means it’s been published online hundreds of times already. If you’re offering a sufficiently deep analysis, you should be saying something that no one else has been able to say before, or at least saying it in a different way. You’ll likely do a much more thorough analysis, and come up with more novel takeaways, if you follow the process on your own.
- Accuracy. AI hallucinations were common not that long ago – but they’re becoming rarer and rarer. An AI hallucination is essentially a total fabrication – an instance in which this technology makes something up and presents it as true. It used to be something that content generators and prompt engineers would have to be extremely vigilant about, and it still poses a risk today. Although their risk is small, it’s definitely worth being aware of.
Start With a High-Level Strategy
If you want to start producing more linkable content assets in the age of AI, you need to start with a high-level strategy.
In other words, what’s the vision?
What’s going to make your content stand out and what’s going to make it linkable?
Start by defining the following:
- Direct audience. Who is your direct audience? That is, who is the audience to whom you’re writing? Don’t necessarily worry about who’s going to be reading and reviewing your content to potentially build links to it; instead, focus on delivering the best and most relevant content to a niche target audience of readers. The more market research you do, and the more you’re “in the heads” of those audience members, the better and more linkable your content is going to be.
- Expertise. You also need a pitch for your expertise. Linkable assets are demonstrations of authority, so you need some kind of way to sell yourself in a crowded market. Are you one of the world’s leading experts on some very specific topic? Are you able to explore a broader topic in greater detail or with a different lens than others? What makes you an expert and how is that going to come through in your content?
- Unique perspective. Similarly, what is the consistent and unique perspective that you’re going to bring to your content? This is important to establish for every author profile in your content generation team. What makes people excited to read a piece of content by this person? How is that going to consistently land with your audience and attract link builders?
- Value to third parties. Finally, think about the value for third parties. Why would someone link to your content? Is it to cite some original statistic or piece of data you’ve provided? Is it to showcase your opinions as a possible counterargument to a mainstream narrative? Is it to share your unique take as part of a body of research? Without value to third parties, you’re not going to naturally attract links.
Generate Novel Ideas
Remember, novelty and originality are indispensable if you want to build linkable content pieces.
To that end, you need some way to generate novel ideas.
It’s tough. We get it.
But here are some ways that you can get started:
- New information. Is there any way that you can present entirely new information to your audience? You could do this by doing your own research, covering an emerging topic that others haven’t invested in yet, or perhaps even generating new topics of your own. This is arguably the most difficult approach, especially with respect to long-standing topics that have had decades of development in the online content world.
- Fresh takes. If you’re not able to present new information to your audience, can you at least provide a fresh take? For example, do you have something new to say about information that people have had for a long time? Are you able to give a dissenting opinion on something that seems to be accepted as a given in your industry? What controversial opinions do you stand by?
- Consolidation/aggregation. Another approach is to consolidate or aggregate other resources or pieces of information online, assuming no one else has done this already. Making lists of niche resources or creating an overarching introduction to a topic could be sufficient in helping you create a linkable content piece of your own.
Dedicate Time and (Human) Effort
For many years, Google has emphasized the importance of “people-first” content.
That’s not a coincidence.
Although Google does not have any express penalties for people who simply regurgitate AI-written content, it’s clear that they still value human creators and original ideas.
Accordingly, if you want to create more linkable pieces in the age of AI, make sure you understand how to use AI responsibly. Don’t simply feed it a prompt and take whatever it gives you; use it to research, plan, outline, and shape your piece if you want to, but put the time and effort in if you want your piece to shine.
That means doing your own research in addition to relying on AI, meticulously scrutinizing and reshaping the materials it gives you, and using your own expertise and voice to make the piece sound like your own.
Track, Measure, and Get Feedback
When you start rolling out these more linkable pieces, it’s important to track, measure, and get feedback. Pay attention to how your different pieces of content perform, and how your strategy is doing overall. Read user comments and ask people what they think about your content.
Content marketing has always been and will always be a matter of ongoing adjustment. The more objective data you have to work with, the better you’ll be able to create linkable content in the future.
Toward a Modern Content Strategy
Creating a modern content strategy with today’s technology it’s both easier and more challenging than ever.
With the help of link building and content marketing experts, the path becomes much clearer.
If you’re interested in getting started, reach out for a free consultation!
Tim has spent more than two decades in organic online marketing, working with some of the most well-recognized online brands in scaling their content marketing campaigns.
Connect with Tim on Linkedin & Twitter.
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