SEO best practices are always evolving. That said, recent changes in the world of search have been so drastic that the general content strategies on which marketers have relied for the last decade or so… they no longer work.
None of us really knows what web search is going to look like in two years. What we do know is what’s changed as of today, what the ramifications have been, and where search seems to be going. Spoiler: we’re actually pretty excited about it.
What's changed with search
The answer is “a lot,” but we’re going to cover two biggies.
Change #1: Google search started prioritizing lived experience
For a long time, Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines prioritized content based on E-A-T:
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
At the end of 2022, they added another E for Experience, meaning they want content that demonstrates first-hand knowledge of its subject matter.
Google’s Search Quality Raters are real people who review and give feedback on the results of changes Google makes to its search product, and so the impact of the change to Google’s guidelines wasn’t felt overnight. What we saw instead was a gradual shift over the course of 2023 and 2024 away from prioritizing informative content written in a general (and sometimes generic) brand voice toward rewarding experience-based content written in the first person by someone who knows what they’re talking about. That’s E-E-A-T.
Change #2: AI shook up the search world
At the same time that all this was happening, ChatGPT launched. Then, tons of other chat-based AI search tools like Perplexity and Claude launched. Then, Google rolled out AI Overviews.
Almost overnight, we saw the type of content that marketers used to use to entice searchers to their websites being served up in AI chats and right on the search engine results page (SERP) — no click-through necessary. We saw this coming a long time ago; Google has been experimenting with ways to deliver the answer to a searcher’s question on the SERP for years. In theory, it’s a better user experience for the searcher. For many marketers, it means a drop in web traffic.
What these changes mean for marketers
We at Trekk have spent a lot of time gathering information and analyzing our clients’ web traffic, and we don’t think any of this spells the death of driving organic web traffic through content marketing.
We have found, however, that the content that works today is markedly different from the content that worked two or three years ago in the following ways.
Content needs to be targeted further down the funnel
More and more, top-of-funnel searchers are getting the information they need from the search results page. Educational content used to be the gold standard for attracting leads to your site; now it’s the easiest type of content for AI to scrape and serve up.
The good news is that, by the time they get to your website, your audience will be better informed and closer to making a decision. This means your content should help users who are evaluating their options — think product demos or comparison charts that offer up nuanced pros and cons.
Content needs to demonstrate first-hand experience
Make sure your content is offering an experienced perspective. Blog posts written in a strong first person voice that detail an actual lived experience perform well, as do interviews and opinion pieces. Add images and video to back up your experience if you can.
Content needs to offer something AI can’t
AI can’t show what a day in your life looks like and explain how you make the decisions you make or create an interview between you and your top customer. What is the original content that can only come from you? That’s what you should be publishing in the coming year.
Where we go from here
We work with several clients on content marketing and these are the types of content we’re advising in 2025:
- Interviews with subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Articles by SMEs detailing a specific part of their job or project they worked on (written by the SME or ghost-written by Trekk after an interview with the SME)
- Interviews with customers
- Detailed case studies
- Technical white papers that could only be written with the input of SMEs
- Podcasts featuring SMEs
- Webinars featuring SMEs
Notice anything? We’re recommending a whole lot more involvement on the part of SMEs. Will it require an investment of time on the part of our clients who work with us on content marketing? Yes. Will it also result in content that better draws on experience and expertise to provide value for middle- and bottom-of-the-funnel users? One hundred percent.
We’re actually pretty excited about the future of content marketing because we believe it will provide a better experience for our clients and their customers. And at the end of the day, that’s what marketing should be about.
For more thoughts on the changing search landscape and driving organic web traffic, check out the most recent episode of Sidetrekked.
About the Author
Nick Ostdick is Trekk's Content Strategist. He joined the team in 2021 after years of working in journalism and B2B marketing. He's the winner of two Illinois Associated Press Awards and has written for a number of national arts and food & beverage publications. Nick holds a MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University.