How to avoid copy-cat content 🙀

Happy socially-distanced Friday folks,

Like my new font?

Substack finally added some new UI updates, and I have been playing around with their Sans Serif fonts all day.

How’s your week been?

Hope y’all are keeping safe as the world struggles with the second wave of the thing-that-won’t-be-named.

Side effects of watching the Harry Potter series all week 😀

So today we’ll be talking about the ‘Information Gain’ concept

Everyone wants to rank on page one of Google’s SERPs.

However, ranking top for your target keyword doesn’t mean your content is great.

Most times, when looking to rank for a particular keyword(s), we check Google for the top 3 or 5 results (depending on which SEO expert you follow) and synthesize or compile them into one article.

For example, if we were looking to rank for the keyword “social media marketing,” you’ll notice that the top three pages cover topics like “what is social media marketing”, “how to set a social media strategy?” and “social media platforms”

Here’s the rub.

So you click through to the first article and read through.

But you feel you need to learn more. You go back to the search results and open the second - it has similar information to the first. You repeat this process with the third and maybe the fourth.

Look, the content may be great, but they all repeat the same thing in different ways.

Each piece satisfies the user's intent, but you haven’t gained any information.

You end up feeling frustrated - now imagine if that’s your reader.

To make matters a bit more complicated, it seems Google has some patent out there that allows them to assign information gain scores to articles or blogs.

According to Bill Slawski, Editor of SEO BY THE SEA:

“Information gain scores indicate how much more information one source may bring to a person who has seen other sources on the same topic. Pages with higher information gain scores may be ranked higher than pages with lower information gain scores.

A searcher may be provided documents about a topic, after searching for pages or links to pages responsive to a search query.

Also, a searcher may be provided with a page based on:

Interests of the searcher

Previously viewed pages of the searcher

Other criteria that may be utilized to identify and provide a page of interest.

Information from the pages may be provided through an automated assistant or results from a search engine.”

So, what does this mean for you…

The old process of writing needs to be scrapped.

1. Use keyword/SEO tools to find relevant keywords.

2. Check the SERP for the top 3-5 articles ranking for those keywords.

3. Structure your piece using a similar flow to the top-ranking articles.

4. Synthesize and summarize the ideas you find in these articles into yours.

5. Add a few extra sections to make your piece slightly better.

6. Publish

You only end up with copycat content that isn’t really useful. When folks use Google, remember they are looking for information they haven’t read before, not regurgitated information.

Now, how do you bring new information - or an article with high information gain to your readers?

Well, here’s the model I’ll be using over the next couple of months

1. What’s the reader looking for?

2. What do they already know (am I writing for newbies or experienced pros)?

3. What new thing (strategy, tactic, insights) can I teach them?

Try it out and let me know!

Content Writing Jobs (Remote/Freelance)

• Blog Writer: BeMo Academic Consulting | Click here

• Shopping & Products Writer: BuzzFeed | Click here

• Social Media Content Writer: Upwork | Click here

• Marketing Content Writer: Stage 4 Solutions | Click here 

• B2B Copywriter: Alviere | Click here 

• Digital Marketing Content Writer: Workforce Software | Click here

All the best folks. And please share with any of your friends/colleagues who might find this useful 🙏🏾

My biggest takeaway this week 🚀

What I’m thinking about?

What gets measured gets managed. And in the same vein, what gets mis-measured gets mismanaged.

Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!

Stay safe & sane,

Dozie

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