The key to successful SEO is genuinely valuable content.
Yes-yes, there are many sides to SEO. I divide all SEO-related work into 4 categories:
- Technical (code issues, tags, schema, etc.);
- Content (from backlinks to articles and beyond);
- User Experience (layouts, design, navigation, etc.);
- Analytics (data, data and one more time data).
If you zoom out and look at what drives SEO success – it’s content.
That’s #1 thing I recommend non-technical business owners to do – create content.
You say “Alex but I do create content at it does not seem to move the needle”.
Well, true, volume (amount of content being created) is not the issue. The issue is quality.
This article is exactly about it – how to create high quality (I call it “genuinely valuable”) content.
And to figure out the “how”, let’s first figure out the “what”.
Don’t have time to read?
SEO success comes down to content, and the content that works is what I call genuinely valuable — information your ideal customer can actually use to solve a problem. Before writing, nail three things: a well-defined ICP, the real intent behind searches, and the topics that follow from both. Then create it human-backed: find a subject matter expert, extract their knowledge with 10 sharp questions, write it up preserving their voice, layer in real FAQs, and close with further reading that adds value. Keep attention spans (47 seconds) in mind — favor short, value-upfront pieces, but mix in long form too. This process is what survives Google’s spam updates and keeps your content original, authentic, and quotable.
What is genuinely valuable content?
A genuinely valuable content is a consumable piece of content that satisfies user’s need.
Sounds simple, right?
Let’s unpack it. Clarifying the definition will help you generate value with ease.
- Consumable – a content that is easy to read/watch and, most importantly, understand.
Dropping a value bomb as a huge chunk of unformatted text stuffed with a ton of ideas makes it impossible not only to read but also to understand.
- Content – this can be anything from animated videos to podcasts to social media posts and everything in between.
- User – that’s your ICP (ideal customer profile). And it is not just gender and age. If you can walk me through the day of your ICP since a human opens his eyes and until he closes them – that’s how I know that you have your ICP well-defined.
- Needs – can be everything from doubts to random question to service/product specifications.
Figuring out the needs must be a part of your ICP and a part of your recurrent discussion topics when talking content.
- Satisfy – means a human can use this content to advance. The word “advance” can mean many things – solve, get clarity, understand the next step, etc.
So if we are to define a genuinely valuable content once more – it will go like this:
A genuinely valuable content is an information that your ideal customer can use to resolve problems.
I replace “high quality” with “genuinely valuable” because “quality” is very subjective and our brains are not wired to associate quality with needs or user in general. The word “value” usually sparks natural curiosity of “what makes it valuable” and that’s exactly the thinking pattern we need.
Before we move into the “how”, there are a few additional things you need to know.
What do you need to know before creating content?
First, you need to get your ICP straight. This is the foundation of all foundations. Creating content without a well-done ICP is guessing — a wrong content creation path.
Second, understand the search intent. Not the mainstream keywords set. Understand why people perform those searches and what they are really trying to find — what will make them stop searching.
Third, figure out the topics – what the content is about.
This will fall naturally into place once you get the ICP created and once you understand the “why” of performed search.
Lastly, take attention spans into account. Current (2026) attention span is 47 seconds. And you cannot ignore it. This will drive how your content looks like (formatting) and its length (long vs short piece).
The stats show that around 80% of the users won’t scroll past 50% of the page’s length. This is also the reason why the top of the page is considered a prime estate.
I often simplify it and say that people won’t read past 40% of your page’s length.
You can either go for a longer pieces and focus on providing all value upfront OR you can opt-in for generally short pieces (my preference) that increate the chance of users sticking until the end of each article or any other content piece you produce.
Does this mean that nobody reads long pieces? No. Moreover, research shows that people that do read long form pieces engage more — exactly what we are looking for. The best strategy then is a mix of different content length to serve all kinds of users.
PRO TIP: Ask AI to do an online research based on your ICP and Search Queries to understand what users want to know.
I am a big fan of manual hands-on investigation as the depth of it is very much different from AI research. But if you are against budget and time constrains, you still can get good enough results with AI-backed search.
Now that the preparation is DONE, let’s dive into the “how”.
How to create a genuinely valuable content?
As with everything else, planning and preparation are about 50% of success. That’s your foundation for creating a well-done piece.
So if you skipped the past two sections, I recommend going back and reading through them.
The other 50% is writing.
The best piece of content is done by a human writer.
For example, the piece you are currently reading was fully done by me with pen and paper (yes-yes, including the occasional em dashes, meta tags and excerpt) – except for the TLDR block at the very beginning of this article.
Authenticity of the content is your bulletproof vest against continuous SPAM updates that Google rolls out as they target AI-generated low quality content.
Let’s be honest though, in today’s world we cannot have a human writer behind every content piece. Can we?
I think it is not realistic.
Your middle-ground is human-backed — creating content from human input, and having human check and edit content.
Here is the exact process I suggest to follow to create a genuinely valuable human-backed content piece:
- Find the subject matter expert (the one who knows).
If you are not an expert in the topic you write about you have two options:
- either become an expert
- find an expert.
You or/and your team are the expert in services/products you offer. So you do not have to go far.
- Extract expert’s knowledge.
This is the most difficult part as experts are busy 24/7 and they do not have time to sit and do the writing. Actually, they might be not great writers at all.
Here is a solution for it:
a. Design 10 questions that will extract all information from them.
b. Ask them to do the brain dump on those questions via writing or via audio messaging.
Whatever format works for you as long as you can extract their knowledge.
- Do the writing (or whatever other content piece you create).
I suggest preserving their original notes/quotes as much as you can. This boosts the authenticity further.
- Do additional research for the frequently asked questions.
Now that you have a content piece ready – ask your sales team or customer service “what are the most frequent questions people ask about this topic”.
A shortcut and an additional step I anyway recommend taking is asking AI to do an online research for the TOP 5 FAQs.
- Write an ending — suggest some relevant further reading. Not just “latest posts” but content that builds more value on top of it. See how I did it in this article.
- Fine-tune the final piece. Read through it. Ensure it flows well. Develop the TLDR section. Run through your team if necessary. Attach an image (real image), add meta tags. Make the final adjustments and hit “publish”.
This process guarantees the originality, authenticity and value of each content piece.
It is not only the piece that survives SPAM updates, but it also becomes a highly quotable piece and a great source of inspiration for social media posts.
PRO TIP
Consider converting your written piece into a podcast session. This way you can further expand the content, have material to distribute across multiple channels and have video material available to attach to a written piece.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Will AI-generated content hurt my SEO?
This entirely depends on the value the content piece generates and not on who/what created that content. If you follow a human-backed process I suggested in this article – you are safe. If you op- in to fully AI generated content – you are playing a dangerous game. You might not see any immediate effects but Google consistently rolls out new updates that target low quality AI generated content. Sooner or later it will hurt you. - If AI knows more that I do, why would I need a subject matter expert?
The premise of “AI knows more that I do” is wrong. We are led to believe it is true. In reality, AI is a probability machine that outputs things that we make sense of. Remember that it is trained mainly on publicly available data. At best, it can do an online research and pull information from your competitors or experts in the field. It does not have a hands-on experience though – and this is exactly what makes your content unique. “Hands-on experience” is a big enough topic that deserves its own article. - I use AI for writing but all my articles look the same. What do I do?
Create your voice profile file that you feed to AI when writing. A voice profile is a text file that explains what is unique about your voice — common expressions you use, writing style, length of sentences, etc. This will help it imitate your writing and make it more “in your voice”. Following the process I outlined in this article also helps boost uniqueness of each piece.
You will definitely benefit from reading about meta tags and ICP build out next.
Pitty, I don’t have those articles ready yet. In the meantime, if you want to know what I think about SEO in the age of AI/LLMs – you can check this article out.
Thank you for reading the entire piece.