SEO

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

As search evolves, the rise of AI overviews in Google results brings fresh opportunities for visibility, but the fundamentals remain the same. While it’s not about optimizing content solely for AI, a strong SEO foundation enhances your brand’s presence across all search experiences, including AI-driven results. 

The essentials of SEO—well-structured, unique, and genuinely helpful content—continue to be the bedrock of visibility. However, as digital marketers aiming to build authority and relevance, we can consider AI Overviews as an additional layer that increases brand exposure. 

AI overviews offer the chance for brands to surface in a different light, adding an opportunity for expanded visibility in high-quality content spaces.

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

Developing a solid link building and content strategy is pivotal to achieving the right positioning in AI overviews. The key to success is consistently updating content to match user intent, answering complex queries, and designing content that fulfills user needs.

1. Monitor SERP Features for Target Keywords

Monitoring SERP features helps you stay competitive. Some queries now feature AI-generated summaries, videos, images, and other multimedia elements. For example, Google may display a “People Also Ask” section, AI-generated overviews, and even knowledge panels for specific keywords.

Tools like Ahrefs, and SEMRush can identify which keywords yield SERP features, like AI overviews, that may benefit from multimedia content additions. This data enables you to adjust your content by incorporating structured data, images, or videos.

2. Creating High-Quality, User-Focused Content with EEAT

High-quality content, especially when structured for user engagement, enhances your visibility potential across search types. Google’s EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) are critical for ranking in AI-driven search.

Focus on creating original perspectives that add value (information gain), grounded in genuine expertise and real-life experience. Google’s AI algorithms identify rehashed content and can now better recognize authentic, informative resources.

Showcase your expertise by weaving in firsthand examples, studies, and insights that differentiate your content from competitors. Content that draws from expertise is more likely to rank and appear in AI-driven summaries.

3. Deep Dive into Audience Research and Core Topics

In-depth audience research is non-negotiable in aligning content with user intent and needs. Google’s ranking systems now prioritize content relevant to a website’s primary purpose. Publishing content that strays from core topics risks diminishing your authority in Google’s view.

Create audience personas to understand what your audience values. Develop content around these insights to ensure they resonate and fulfill their needs.

Ensure each piece of content addresses your audience’s pain points and challenges. If your site focuses on digital marketing, avoid publishing unrelated topics, as Google now distinguishes unrelated content sections within a site.

Google recently noted a shift in visibility for sections of sites like “Fortune Recommends” and “Forbes Advisor” due to disjointed content that wasn’t fully aligned with each site’s primary theme.

4. Link Building That Complements Core SEO

Backlinks remain crucial for reinforcing authority, yet placement has become more strategic in AI. Here’s how to build links that serve both organic search and AI-driven summaries:

• Be strategic in placing links on entities and sites you want to be topically associated with your brand. 
• Consider sentiments in the context of the page's/content's overall message. Ensure they promote a more positive perception of your product/service and do not work against your offerings. 
• Be on the lookout for links/resources/where-to-buy pages that can demonstrate your products' POV as they get included in the lists pages.
• Make quality control part of your process when checking the entire context of the page/content from which you aim to get links. Not only is it relevant to your site, but it must also help improve the association toward solving problems your prospective customers are experiencing. 

5. Optimize Content for Complex Queries

With generative AI allowing users to ask intricate questions in one search, optimizing for query chains—consecutive follow-up questions—is more effective than targeting isolated keywords. By addressing connected topics, your content appears more thorough and relevant.

Write comprehensive guides that anticipate follow-up questions. For instance, if you write about “digital communication skills for HR,” also consider covering “how digital skills benefit talent development” or “common challenges HR faces in digital communication.”

By structuring content with linked topics, you increase the chances of AI identifying it as useful for multi-layered searches.

6. Publish Short-Form Videos Directly on Your Site with Structured Data

While platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are popular for short-form video content, don’t overlook the value of hosting these videos on your website. Tools like Wistia can enhance video quality and user experience on your site. 

By embedding videos directly, you keep traffic on your domain and have better control over the content’s SEO impact. Additionally, mark up your videos with structured data to make them more discoverable in Google Search and eligible for inclusion in AI overviews.

Embed product demos, explainer videos, or testimonials directly on relevant landing pages and use structured data to signal their relevance to Google. This can improve visibility in both standard search results and AI-driven summaries.

7. Enhance Sales Pages with FAQs and FUQs (Frequently Unanswered Questions)

Adding FAQs to your sales pages immediately answers common customer questions, enhancing user experience and optimizing for AI overviews. FUQs, or frequently unanswered questions, address nuanced or lesser-known queries, showcasing your in-depth expertise and understanding of the customer journey.

Identify customer pain points and unique questions that arise during the sales process. Incorporate FAQs and FUQs into your content strategy to address these needs proactively. This thoughtful design positions your content as a comprehensive, reliable source in current search results and evolving AI landscapes.

Positioning Content for Future Search Landscapes

Incorporating these practices prepares your content for success in an evolving SEO landscape, where AI-driven summaries may soon become more prominent. By blending traditional SEO with AI-conscious content practices, you build an adaptable content strategy that remains resilient in a changing environment.

The essentials—quality content, strategic link building, and user-focused design—create a content approach that thrives in AI and traditional search results, establishing your brand as a trusted source.

by Venchito Tampon

SEO-Driven Content Marketing For Startups

Create content that ranks and converts. 

SEO-driven content marketing aims to rank pages and engage users so that they will convert. 

While most SEOs vouch for just rankings, I do believe that content marketing activities should impact the business goals and objectives ─ and any marketing activity, for that matter.

In this guide, we’ll explore tips on utilizing content marketing for startups to drive SEO impact to your website. 

1. Turn Audience Research to Content Clusters

Start by understanding the needs, interests, and challenges. This can involve creating a buyer persona that speaks to the demographic and psychographics of your target audience. Getting fresh data from your management team can also help pinpoint who your customers really are.

Create your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), which describes your business' ideal customer based on common attributes like demographics, behavior patterns, needs, and pain points.

Then, use tools like Sparktoro or Ahrefs to discover topics and questions your ideal customers might be searching for to find solutions.

When looking for topics, ensure you tap into each stage of the marketing funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action), or in the digital marketing realm, we have BOFU (bottom of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel), and TOFU (top of the funnel). 

Even if it’s not a product/service page you’re publishing, you can still convert customers on your pages in the TOFU funnel (informational pages) as long as you deliver solutions to their needs and contextually place a solid call to action on your landing pages.  

Here are a few steps to building effective topic clusters:

1. Identify Core Topics: Identify 3-5 broad topics that align with your startup’s services, products, or expertise. These will become your pillar pages.
2. Conduct Keyword Research: Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google’s Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords related to your core topics with significant search volume. Pro Tip: Do not skip zero-volume keywords that must be part of your content marketing base. 
3. Create Subtopics: Based on the keyword research, identify subtopics that address various facets of the core topic. 
4. Link Your Content: Interlink your pillar page with cluster pages. Internal linking helps search engines better understand your priority pages and improves the crawling and indexation of your new pages. 

For instance, If your startup offers project management software, your pillar topic could be "Project Management Techniques". Cluster pages could cover subtopics like "Agile Methodology”, "Kanban vs. Scrum”, and "Project Management Tools for Startups”.

Publishing these product-led linkable assets can also lead to more link building opportunities while driving new users to your product or service. 

2. Enlarge Your Publishing Base Through People-First Content 

People-first content is about creating valuable, relevant, and high-utility content that meets the needs and expectations of your intended audience. 

We’ll examine these four critical components of people-first content (Jason Acidre’s framework). 

Needs Met

“Needs Met” is about how well your content matches the searcher’s intent and fulfills their expectations. Here’s how to ensure that your content meets this criterion: 

• Intent Matching: Ensure your helpful content answers the exact queries your audience is searching for. Use tools like Search Console to identify common keywords and adjust your content to fulfill informational or commercial intent. Avoid misleading click-bait titles that don’t deliver on their promises.
• Target a Single Topic & Intent: Focus on a single topic, providing clear and concise answers without overwhelming the reader. Avoid burying essential information in long, multi-topic content. Consider using separate pages for subtopics with significant search volume.
• Direct Answers to Main Queries: Present direct answers prominently above the fold using formats like Quick Answer Boxes, Key Takeaways, or Summaries. This approach caters to users seeking quick information, especially on mobile devices.
• Remove Fluff Content: Keep your writing concise and relevant, eliminating off-topic, redundant, or overly wordy sections to maintain clarity and improve user experience.

For instance, in every blog post I write for our corporate training blog at Rainmakers, I determine the user intent of each search query. Asking the question, “What do they want to know first?” helped me prioritize points (and put them above the fold) so it would immediately satisfy the user's needs. 

Here’s a recent post on “What is leadership to you?” The searchers would likely be students and learning and development practitioners who are looking for different schools of thought on the subject.

I delivered what they needed, based on my expertise on the subject:

Another example is my coffee shop blog. We meet users’ needs by providing direct answers to certain questions (e.g., how much does it cost to start a coffee shop?). 

Now, this brings us to the next component of creating people-first content: 

EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

By now, we should have known this populating all over SEO blogs. The ability to integrate EEAT into your content matters ─ here are few tips to leverage this: 

• Comprehensive Author Details: Showcase the author's experience, expertise, education, achievements, and social media links to showcase their credibility (authorship SEO). A detailed bio builds trust and authority.
• Proper Sourcing & Citations: Cite reputable sources to demonstrate that your content is research-based and factual, enhancing trustworthiness and depth.
• Including Credible Stats or Expert Quotes: Incorporating statistics or expert quotes can boost content visibility and authority by 30-40%, providing evidence-based information that supports your claims.
• Accuracy of Information: Ensure your content is accurate, especially for industries like YMYL (Your Money, Your Life). Update facts and data regularly to maintain integrity and ethical standards.
• Editorial Process, Disclaimer, and/or Disclosure Statements: Include disclaimers, disclosures, or editorial policies to add transparency, authenticity, and clarity about the content’s intentions or potential biases.

Ahrefs has solidified its brand marketing by incorporating credible authors and experts to contribute insights and quotes to its blog posts, boosting the pages’ credibility and search performance. 

Originality & Information Gain

Google emphasizes originality and information gain to combat the issue of copycat content. The goal is to provide unique insights that add value beyond existing content. Here’s how to enhance originality:

1. First-Hand Knowledge: Share personal experiences, unique insights, or innovative ideas that address unmet needs. This will set your content apart and position your brand as an expert, potentially earning hard-to-replicate DR 90 backlinks.
2. Original Research & Data: Conduct your research or gather data through surveys, experiments, or analysis. If you can't collect data, source it from public databases and present it from a unique angle to offer fresh insights.
3. Provide Self-Sourced Images: Use original visuals like screenshots, branded infographics, product photos, or personal experience images to add authenticity and relatability. This makes your content more trustworthy and distinctive.

When incorporating experiences into your content, include what made you feel, see, touch, and taste ─ these are five senses only a person with actual experience on the topic can share in the content.

Give Depth To Your Content Assets

One of the WOSCON 2024 speakers, Kasra Dash, mentioned during the panel Q&A that building topical authority on a website requires publishing more pages within a relevant subject and achieving depth through topics that haven’t been published elsewhere. 

Identify subtopics that could be expounded into single blog posts. Based on your expertise and experience, think of topics you can add more depth by giving more information on the “how-to” or new insights from real-world practice. 

You can also publish internal data studies that align with topics to validate and support points. This is also an additional content asset that attracts new links to your page.

3. Build a Link-Earning Flywheel

Link building through manual outreach is becoming more difficult these days. Asking for inclusion or requesting a link requires newly contributed content and a solid reason for linking.

This is one primary reason why building a link-earning flywheel on your site gives you leverage to earn passive links without the constant need to do email outreach. 

Here are a couple of ways to build a link-earning flywheel:

• Invest in ranking content assets for informational queries other publishers are searching for when looking for additional resources to reference in their content work (e.g., how-to, statistics, data, etc.).
• Provide direct answers to posts’ FAQs and industry questions to get featured snippets. 
• Create high-utility content like tools, calculators, or quizzes that intently help solve your target customers' problems. 
• Engage in thought leadership. Participate in webinars, podcasts, or industry forums to establish authority in your space and attract publications that will link to your insights or expertise. 

4. Brand Positioning via Content Promotion

Contributing content to other sites in your industry positions your brand from a place of authority, as you provide new insights that can add to the body of knowledge in your industry.

Here are ways to position your brand through content promotion:

• Promote your content assets by linking to them from content you distribute on other blogs (i.e. guest posts).
• Create media lists for your digital PR campaign and build relationships with journalists and publishers. If you receive requests and notifications for expert quotes, have your client respond to them (as they’re likely to get a positive response). 
• Use Ahrefs to find pages with many links (>100). Create something better and pitch as a replacement. 

This link-earning flywheel generates momentum over time, as quality content attracts new backlinks, and these linking pages also attract links on their own.

5. Maximize Rankings for Low-Hanging Fruits

Low-hanging fruit are keywords that are easier to rank for and can quickly increase traffic to your site. Optimizing content for these keywords can help your startup gain quick wins and establish your brand authority to tackle more competitive search terms. 

Here’s how to identify and leverage low-hanging keywords: 

• Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Google Search Console to find keywords you’re already ranking for but aren’t in the top positions (e.g. position 5 to 20). These are opportunities where a little optimization efforts can significantly improve rankings. 
• Target low-competitive long-tail keywords. For instance, you can write more specific topics like “best solo travel destinations in Southeast Asia” or “affordable family vacation spots in Europe” instead of targeting “travel destinations.”
• Optimize and upgrade existing content to include low-hanging keywords (discovered through Search Console or Ahrefs). Update headings, meta descriptions, image alt text, and internal links to reflect the targeted terms. 

This strategy works because it allows your startup to achieve quicker SEO results. As you gain more authority and organic visibility, it helps you dominate other terms, mainly commercial queries, which brings additional revenue. 

by Venchito Tampon