Welcome to another insightful week with The SEOs Diners Club newsletter. Leveraging over a decade of SEO expertise, I aim to distill the week's most critical developments into a concise read that won't take more than ten minutes of your time. Let's dive into the insights that matter.

1️⃣ Google's Unhelpful Content Criteria: Review Your Content!

Review your content to ensure it meets Google's standards for helpfulness and improve your rankings.

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Engagement Consultant, offered examples of unhelpful types of content. “Useless content is typically written for search engine rankings and in a way that is not human-focused,” Sullivan said.

What is Unhelpful Content?

For example, if you wrote content titled “20 fun things you can do today” and did it just for the keyword “fun things,” this might be considered unhelpful content by Google. What matters here is who you are writing the content for: For search engines or your target audience?

Tools and Score Obsession

If you use tools to determine which topics are popular when creating content, this can lead to your content being deemed useless by Google. “These types of tools cause people to focus on a ‘score’ rather than actual execution,” Sullivan added.

What comes to my mind is the scores given by tools such as Yoast SEO or SurferSEO when producing content. I observe that such scores cause our editors to focus on increasing the score rather than meeting user expectations. This leads to soulless content written solely to be successful in search engines.

Let's admit it: we've all written and published this content. Now, it's time to confront this.

How Does Google Find Out?

So, how does Google understand the purpose of a piece of content?

“If someone asks you a question and you answer it, that's human-centered content and is likely helpful,” Sullivan says.

From this answer, I understand that The best strategy may be to answer the user questions under Other Questions in a way that helps the user and by addressing the subject from all perspectives rather than a purely score-oriented approach. In the future, this will also ensure that your site becomes a Google-recommended site when Search Generative Experience is enabled.

Conclusion

If you have been negatively affected by recent Google updates, consider that your content may have been deemed unhelpful by Google. To review your content, you can review Google’s Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content page.

Finally, Remember that the Helpful Content system focuses not only on the content but also on the placement of the content on the page. In other words, the Helpful Content system also highlights sites that offer a good user experience.

If you have flooded the top page with advertising images with the idea of ​​maximizing your advertising revenues by getting to the top in search engines, this may be one of the possible reasons you have experienced a decrease after the latest updates.

2️⃣ Impact of SGE on SEO: Are Our Concerns Unfounded?

Is Google reducing generative AI in search results? We continue to track Search Generative Experience (SGE) in SERPs.

This week, I will give you an evaluation of Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) feature.

As you know, SGE was released as an experimental feature by Google Labs and aims to bring generative AI answers to search results. However, it has been observed that this feature has been included less in search results in the last few weeks.

So, what kind of impact does this have on SEO and Organic Traffic?

First, I should point out that with the launch of SGE, many SEO experts, including myself, were concerned that this feature could negatively impact organic traffic to sites. However, recent developments have alleviated these concerns somewhat.

There are several possible reasons why SGE appears less frequently in search results:

• The quality of automatic replies may not be sufficient. (This is the most likely scenario!)

• Users may find AI-generated results less reliable than human-generated ones.

These two reasons may have caused Google to highlight this feature less. This situation can be considered a positive development for SEO professionals because it doesn't seem like SGE will have a dramatic impact on search traffic.

As a result, there is a prevailing opinion that SGE does not hurt SEO and organic traffic and may even have a positive impact. However, more data and analysis are needed to make a definitive judgment on this issue. Remember, the SEO world is an ever-changing field, and each new feature may produce different results.

3️⃣ How to Discover Your Niche for Backlink Buying: Blue Ocean Approach

Discover how you can integrate Blue Ocean Strategy into your backlink purchasing processes. Stand out from your competitors with innovative and value-oriented approaches.

Blue Ocean Strategy generally aims to create new and uncompetitive markets in the business world. However, this strategy can also be applied to SEO tactics like backlink buying. Well, how?

Step 0: Gain Perspective

Clarify the purpose of your backlink campaign. The main goal should be the backlinks obtained from your creative content marketing.

Step 1: Find Your Location

Choose an area where you can be successful. Analyze existing content that you can distribute or create new content within a reasonable period.

Step 2: Build a Cross-Functional Team

Create an internal consulting team covering PR, content, SEO, and technical matters. Link building is not isolated from other marketing teams, so share your approaches transparently with this team.

Step 3: Understand the Current Situation

Create a tool or model to understand what strategies your competitors are using. This will help you plan your differentiation.

Step 4: Find Pain Points

Create a user story map to identify specific problems users are experiencing. Ask questions and create a specific problem statement.

These steps show how to apply the Blue Ocean approach to your link-building strategy. The key here is to develop a creative and problem-solving mindset.

4️⃣ How to Use Google Bard for Better SEO Performance?

Don't miss Bard's strategic advantage in SEO. Here are four ways to maximize Google's AI chatbot to fine-tune your SEO strategies.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots have begun to gain a significant place in digital marketing, especially SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Google's chatbot Bard is also preparing to create a new revolution in this field. So, what are the advantages of Bard for SEO?

Creating Schema Markup

Bard is quite capable of creating schema markup. Schema markups help search engines like Google better understand your website. Bard can create schema markups specific to your content and needs so you can gain greater visibility in search results.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is one of the cornerstones of SEO. Bard is also quite talented in this area. Once you specify your target keyword, it can create compelling and keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions.

Competitive Analysis

Bard can guide you when doing competitor analysis. It can identify your top-performing competitors for your target keywords and analyze their content strategies, backlink profiles, and more.

Technical SEO Guidance

Technical SEO is an often overlooked but extremely important area. Bard can provide essential guidance on this matter, but caution is advised as it is still evolving.

Conclusion

Bard offers many advantages for SEO; However, it should not be forgotten that it is still an experimental tool. Especially in technical SEO matters, Bard's capabilities may be limited. So, Bard can form the basis of your SEO strategies, but it may not be enough.

5️⃣ Free SEO Strategy Course from Kevin Indig

Kevin Indig, an expert in SEO, offers a free SEO strategy course at Semrush Academy. The course teaches how to create and implement SEO strategies effectively.

This week, I would like to tell you about an SEO strategy course prepared by Kevin Indig and offered for free at Semrush Academy.

Kevin is an expert who has consulted the world's leading companies on organic growth strategies. The course is designed specifically for middle and senior managers.

Here’s the course content:

1.SEO Strategy Basics:

Learn what an SEO strategy is and the five key components needed to create a successful strategy.

2.Creating Your SEO Strategy:

Discover the six main parts needed to create a goal-oriented SEO strategy.

3.Presenting Your Strategy:

Learn the skills needed to present your SEO strategy effectively.

Why Should You Join?

• Strategic Focus: The course focuses on strategy formation rather than tactics.

• Actionable Knowledge: When you complete the course, you will be armed with strategies you can implement immediately.

• Certification: Once you complete the course, you will receive a certificate from SEMrush Academy.

This course is an excellent opportunity to improve your SEO strategies and make a bigger impact on your business. It can take your SEO strategies to the next level and help you gain the support of your management team. I recommend you take a look.

6️⃣ Book Of The Week: “Leaders Eat Last” - Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek's book "Leaders Place Last" offers a new perspective on leadership and team dynamics. He explains how teams can be more harmonious and prosperous with the "Circle of Safety". A must-read!

Simon Sinek's book "Leaders Place Last" offers a striking perspective on leadership and team dynamics.

The book explains how leaders can provide deep trust to their team members and how this trust can lead to mutual success. Sinek introduces the “Circle of Safety.” This circle increases team members' trust in each other and creates unity against external threats.

This book is not limited to just theoretical information. Sinek supports his ideas with real stories from various subjects, from the military to manufacturing government to investment banking. These stories show how much leaders can sacrifice to advance their vision and how those sacrifices build a loyal team.

If you, as a leader, want to learn how to manage your team more effectively, inspire them, or want to better understand the world around you, this book is for you. This work by Sinek breaks new ground on leadership and teamwork and is a must-read book.

I hope you enjoyed this week's SEO insights. I am looking forward to seeing you next Sunday. Have a great week!

Best,

Mert Erkal

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