Newsflash: Buzzsumo deems Google and SEO clinically dead

The people from Buzzsumo have released its 2023 report on the future of content marketing and it’s a must-read. Among other advice: resort more often to content repurposing and alternative social platforms and stand out from the crowd to get more visibility. The report has a few harsh words for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and especially Google. A follow-up on our cornerstone article on the subject. The report was written with the help of three agency experts, two in the UK (Reboot Online and Hallam) and one in the US (Fractl). The co-authors did quote ChatGPT3, but merely recommend you use it to get rid of repetitive tasks.

Buzzsumo deems Google and SEO clinically dead in 2023 report

2023 will be a year of innovation. There will be more newsflashes in our columns… with our commentary on top, goes without saying.

Here is the first of our 2023 newsflashes.

For many years now, we have been fighting against a certain vision of SEO, which is nevertheless dominant in the Internet world. Many professionals in the sector, and even more amateurs, think that one must “write for Google”.

On the contrary, we believe that the duty of content professionals is to create content for their audiences and not for search engines.

In short, rather than creating SEO copy based on your competitors’ key phrases, one must create content on one’s digital assets and social platforms for one’s readers. Moreover, you must build this content for the benefit of your readers and take them by surprise as much as possible.

The authors of the Buzzsumo 2023 report

A recent Buzzsumo report, which arrived in Visionary Marketing’s mailbox and was written by three experts from the US and the UK, confirms our impression.

Here are a few highlights.

1: Google indexes old hats and penalises quality content

“Improving your content doesn’t necessarily mean improving your rankings – and we’re getting wise to that fact.

[…]

Despite this, we’re not afraid to rock the ranking boat if it means creating something that’s genuinely helpful to our audience [Editor’s note view this post].

There are ranking anomalies in Google, with top-tier content struggling to gain traction, and old, ill-informed content sailing along in position one – uninterrupted for many years.

Even after Google’s helpful content update, this still seems to be the case.”

Take that, Google!

2: Search of Find Engines?

Eventually, one can now say that Nicholas Carr was wrong. It is not Google that has made us stupid (or lazy). It is Google itself that is a victim of its own success, as I explained here.

“Simply put, quality content is in limited supply right now. Google is full of copycat blogs with a dearth of actual useful advice or expertise.

Software Engineer Dmitri Brereton wrote about this, and many more of Google’s shortcomings, back in February 2022 in a piece titled: “Google Search Is Dying.”

Our take is that this is not going to get any better with ChatGPT3 et al.

3: Old is New (hence #1)

“The majority of today’s most shared and linked content was first published four years ago in 2018.

In fact, only 8% of the “2022″ headlines were actually created in 2022.

Updating a single piece of content in this way can afford you the time to be smarter, and make your clients’ content work harder.”

Read the Buzzsumo 2023 report it’s well worth it.