Wave Issue 127

First...

Last week I discussed hiring writers and editors and ended with this:

Yes, AI is a threat.
BUT, AI is also a big opportunity IF you can adapt to it.
If you're looking to produce the same quality content that you're putting out now, but with AI, you're destined to fail.

Pre-AI, writers that I used to hire would give me content that I'd give a 7 out of 10 and I'd consider it to be good.

But Post-AI, I now see AI-generators consistently give me the same good content.

What does that mean? That means it's time to step up your game because anyone can now create 7/10 content. You need to create content that's 9/10 or better.

That's how you're going to stand out now. Anything less than that will result in any ole content that an AI can create.

There are two main ways to create content that's 9/10 or better:

Hire Better Writers - Of course, this can get more expensive because better writers will cost more than the ones who create 7/10 content.
AI + Writer/Editor - It's easier to find writers/editors who can take 7/10 content and make them even better. This is the route I'm trying with a new site.

AI has set a pretty decent baseline for good content now. Not all AI tools are the same, but the better ones are what I'm talking about. If you're unable to create better content than the tools, you're not going to rank better than AI content.

It still doesn't change the images and uploading of content to WordPress process. You still need to have that, whether you do it yourself or a VA does.

So think about how you're adapting to AI and using it to help improve your content and processes.

Don't think about how an AI tool will replace your writers and publish content faster. Think about how an AI tool will improve your content and rank better.

Also...

The first two reviews of my Topical Maps Unlocked course have also come out!

Sponsor

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Niche Creators

How Mike Donovan Sold His 3-Year-Old Tech Blog For High 6 Figures

Fellow Niche Creator, Mike Donovan, shares his journey of selling his first site and the ups and downs of the process.

Check out Mike's Niche Creator Q&A to learn more about him.

SEO

Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy

Google updated their policy on Generative AI models and using them responsibly and ethically. Most of what it lists are common sense, but still laid out of what not to use Google services for:

Perform or facilitate dangerous, illegal, or malicious activities
Generate and distribute content intended to misinform, misrepresent or mislead, including
Generate sexually explicit content, including content created for the purposes of pornography or sexual gratification (e.g., sexual chatbots).

While Google lays out responsible use policies, Microsoft lays off the ethics and society team that was teaching employees how to make AI tools responsibly.

DuckDuckGo Launches DuckAssist

Not wanting to get left behind, DuckDuckGo has launched a new feature called DuckAssist that generates natural language answers to search queries using Wikipedia.

DuckAssist scans Wikipedia and related sites for information and uses natural language technology from OpenAI and Anthropic to summarize the information found. DuckAssist is more likely to appear in search results if the search query is phrased as a question or includes the word "wiki."

DuckAssist is free and private with no sign-up required, and anonymous with no logging in needed.

John Mueller Offers Hreflang Google SEO Advice

Looking to create a site with multiple languages? John Mueller of Google posted a super detailed response to an hreflang implementation question on Reddit.

The question was "Hreflang for language subdirectories already nested within a region subdirectory: terrible idea?"

Click to the Reddit thread to see the full thread.

Tools and Resources

How to Submit a Question for Google SEO Office Hours

Here's the page to submit questions for Google SEO Office Hours and where to find all the past Office Hours Transcripts too.

Google SEO Office Hours is where Googlers from the Search Quality team answer questions around Google Search, websites, and the things between.

Content

The changing dynamic of programmatic SEO

Kevin Indig looks at programmatic SEO and AI. He takes a look at how pSEO has been used by companies that have access to user-generated content, products, or data in the past.

He also discusses two new challenges that have arisen with the use of AI in programmatic SEO: quality assurance at scale and tracking longtail SEO traffic. He suggests solutions to these challenges, such as human editors, refining the AI prompt, and splitting traffic and rank tracking.

AI

New AI features and tools for Google Workspace, Cloud and developers

Introducing new generative AI capabilities in Google Cloud and Google Workspace, plus PaLM API and a prototyping environment called MakerSuite for developers. For developers who are experimenting with AI, PaLM API is an easy and safe way to build on top of our best language models.

New generative AI features in Google Workspace will make writing easier, with a draft being instantly generated in Gmail and Google Docs.

You can simply type in a topic you’d like to write about, and a draft will be instantly generated for you. So if you’re a manager onboarding a new employee, Workspace saves you the time and effort involved in writing that first welcome email.

Morgan Stanley and PwC testing OpenAI-powered chatbot for its financial advisors and lawyers

Enterprises are now announcing what they've been working on and how they're moving forward with AI.

Morgan Stanley is testing an OpenAI-powered chatbot for its 16,000 financial advisors, while PwC is testing chatbots to speed up its lawyers

GPT-4 Launched and OpenAI becoming ClosedAI

If you haven't heard yet, GPT-4 is out for ChatGPT Plus users and API by invite. GPT-4 is OpenAI’s most advanced system, producing safer and more useful responses.

Watch the Livestream GPT-4 Presentation to see demos and some of its incredible capabilities. There's a Discord bot creation and the creation of a joke-generating website based on a hand-drawn wireframe.

My own testing of ChatGPT and the API are both really good. But GPT-4's API is 3x more expensive than davinci completions and 30x to 60x to gpt-3.5-turbo.

There's been no official name change, but OpenAI is becoming "ClosedAI" and leaving their books closed. They're not sharing the training data, energy costs, or hardware and methods that were used to create GPT-4.

If you're using Microsoft 365 apps and services, they also launched Microsoft Business Chat, a chatbot experience that’s able to summarize information pulled from meeting transcripts, recent contacts with customers, entries in your calendar, and more that you can plug into emails for the team or as slides in a presentation.

Baidu's Ernie Bot Disappoints Without Bert By its Side

China's Baidu unveiled its much-awaited artificial intelligence-powered chatbot known as Ernie Bot on Thursday, but disappointed investors with its use of pre-recorded videos and the lack of a public launch, sending its shares tumbling.

But unlike ChatGPT, which last November launched as a free to use chatbot to the public, Baidu limited the presentation to brief videos that showed Ernie carrying out mathematical calculations, speaking in Chinese dialects and generating a video and image with text prompts.

The company's Ernie bot is based off its AI-driven deep learning model, Ernie - short for "Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration" and not for "Bot and Ernie."

Link Building

How I Land FREE Giga Backlinks (Over-the-Shoulder) - YouTube

Matt Diggity and Bibi (a link builder) demonstrate how to use humor and wit in order to get free backlinks. They use a website called TaughtUp.com as a case study. They cover the steps of how to get links:

Link Prospecting
Site Inspection & Personalization
Email Templates
Results

The way they go about it is also relevant for topical authority too. Remember, topical authority isn't only about the content. Backlinks are also a factor when it comes to topical authority.

6 Link Building Services That Actually Work (+6 More to Avoid)

Jenny Abouobaia covers six link building methods that work and don't work.

Six link building services that work:

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) editorial link building
Digital PR
Guest posting link building
Niche edits
Skyscraper link building
Managed link services

Six link building services to avoid:

Anything cheap
DA/DR increasing services
Negative SEO links
Private blog networks (PBNs)
Press releases that aren’t newsworthy
Tiered links

Education

8 Most Important Types of Keywords for SEO

Mateusz Makosiewicz at Ahrefs takes a look at the types of organic keywords everyone interested in SEO should know.

Seed keywords
Keywords by search intent
Long-tail keywords (topical and supporting)
Low-competition keywords
Niche keywords
Branded and unbranded keywords
Your competitors’ keywords
Primary and secondary keywords

How to compare hourly sessions in Google Analytics 4

Glenn Gabe explains how to create a report in Google Analytics 4 to compare hourly changes based on major algorithm updates (like broad core updates).

GA4 is coming and with the latest Google Core Update, not a bad time to start learning how to use GA4.

How AI is Impacting Paid and Organic Search

Learn how to navigate the global landscape of paid and organic search in the world of AI. Adapted from the SMX Munich keynote presentation by Inna Zeyger and Lily Ray. Some of the main takeaways:

Use AI to increase efficiency, but be careful about misusing AI content
Helpful content requires effort
Taking shortcuts can catch up to you
Instead of focusing on scale, focus on content quality and E-E-A-T
Invest in your authors’ online reputation & build out their Knowledge Graphs

Your SEO guide to the ChatGPT API

Tom Demers provides a guide on how to use the ChatGPT API for SEO purposes. It explains how to access the API, how to connect it to Google Sheets, and how to use the API with specific SEO use cases such as:

generating title tags and meta descriptions
creating content outlines
generating FAQs
converting content to HTML
adding internal links.

He also mentions the differences between the API and the web interface of ChatGPT, such as scale, fine-tuning, character limits, and pricing.

Why SEOs should focus on creating trust

Tadeusz Szewczyk shares a variety of SEO tips for making a trustworthy website. I've shared many of these in the past when it comes to building E-E-A-T and this is a great overview of different things to do.

Name, brand and URL
Clean and working UX
Content
Ads
Real humans behind the site
Security and safety measures

Case Study

10 Websites That Tried to Fool Google (And Failed)

Thinking of creating auto-generated sites with different tools? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Here are 10 that tried to fool Google and failed:

Conch House
Find This Best
For Noob
Bike Hike
Asia Work
Fmsppl
YT5S
Board Games Tips
Answers To All
Mce Zone

Business Ideas

SEO analysis of the US bed and mattress industry, Nighttime skincare, and Safe sleep for infants

In one article, SALT.agency explores the US bed and mattress industry from an SEO perspective, considering how other factors are affecting them online.

They also shared a couple more - nighttime skincare search trends and safe sleep for infants trends.

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Have a great week taking your niche sites to another level!