The Death of Traditional Search Is Real
The days of typing a query into a search bar and getting 10 high-quality, relevant links has been gone for quite some time.
Now consumers are using ad-blockers at minimum and adding “reddit” or “-ai”, to the end of their queries. For the frequent users, they’re using plugins, adjusting browser settings and more, all just to get more authentic search results.
Seems like we’ve drifted pretty far from navigating to google.com, typing a query, then finding what you were looking for…
Google’s Search is following the classic product lifecycle:
- A great innovation enters the market.
- It’s user-focused. The experience is excellent.
- Popularity grows. Others want a piece of the pie.
- Shareholder value or private greed starts to take priority over user experience.
- User experience erodes. Quality declines.
- The product loses relevance, and users leave.
Google’s Search is following this pattern—except it has no real competition. It owns 90% of the search market, and that monopoly has allowed the quality to decay while the incentives shift toward ad revenue and ecosystem stickiness.
Here’s what I’ve been seeing over the last several years and to today:
- Search results turning into answers, rather than a list of relevant results to choose from.
- Sponsored listings dominate the above-the-fold area
- Organic results are weak or default to established names that have mediocre content
- The system is too expensive for Google to police – their focus is on ad revenue, not user experience.
When Google’s search declines, trust in search, as a whole, erodes. Consumers will adapt and we’re already starting to see the beginnings of it.
- Social media serves as proof that the people, product, and services behind a brand are real. There’s more trust and more engagement.
- LLMs are tailoring responses to unique user-inquiries.
- People prefer local companies who care rather than chains and large organizations who follow SOPs. They don’t need search to find these companies – they ask their friends and coworkers.
Consumers will leave traditional search, and that’s a good thing.
Why this is good for real, high quality content creators
The internet has been and will continue to be flooded with real-sounding, human-less, AI content. Your 80yr old grandmother can spend 30 seconds putting a request into ChatGPT to, “Write a magazine article on how to change a flat car tire.”
The barrier to entry to producing written content has been torn down and is non-existent now.
I’m okay with that, here’s why:
- The internet doesn’t need any more generic content pushed to the top by gaming the search algorithms.
- This pushes content creators to differentiate themselves in one or multiple ways.
- Truly unique content that adds value in an entertaining way will be in very high demand.
When everyone has the power to produce content at the click of a button using very similar means of doing so, you lack any competitive advantage. The internet doesn’t need any more generic content about how to change a flat tire.
In fact, I can tell you how do so right now and in a short enough time frame where someone with tiktok brain won’t lose focus.
- Verify you have a spare tire in the trunk and a jack.
- Loosen the lug nuts on the tire to be changed.
- Place your car’s jack (usually located in the trunk) under the jack point closet to the tire.
- Jack the car up so that the tire is just a few inches off the ground.
- Remove the loosened lug nuts. Remove the tire.
- Place the spare on the wheel hub. Hand tighten bolts.
- Tighten bolts down in a star pattern.
- Lower and remove jack.
- Finish tightening bolts down firmly in a star pattern.
However, the internet might need content that’s focused towards a specific demographic, a specific type of car, or for other follow up questions, for example:
- How to change a flat tire on a Tesla Model 3
- Safely change a flat tire in an offroad location
- How to tell if a spare tire has expired and gone bad
If you have the in-depth technical knowledge of a topic and the storytelling ability to not only educate, but entertain and inspire, that’s 80% of what’s needed to win.
The other 20%? That’s where you have to be able to market yourself or your content.
High-Quality + Marketed Content Will Win
Being good isn’t enough. You have to be findable, likable, and shareable too.
The mediocre plumber who’s great on camera will outperform the world-class plumber who stays invisible. It’s the same career advice that gets told to undergrads in top colleges and mid-career professionals who feel stuck – make your work, accomplishments, and skills known. SPEAK UP!
Content must:
- Educate, entertain, or inspire
- Feel and be authentic.
- Be discoverable across platforms.
- Build connections with the audience.
And the algorithms—whether Google, OpenAI, or TikTok—need great content. Their core value proposition is to provide you, the user, with the best content.
I get it – it’s a high bar to set, but this also gives everyone the chance at massive leverage against the big players.
Smart, likable people can out-market billion-dollar brands.
What I’m Doing Differently
Here’s how I’m adapting:
First and foremost – I’m continuing to follow the tried and true methods I’ve used for the last 15 years.
If you were to stop me on the street and ask me what’s the most important thing to do when creating content or when developing a content marketing strategy, the answer boils down to three points:
- Focus on the long-term play, not the short term.
- Create for people, not algorithms. Provide real insight and value.
- Make the content so easy to digest and understand that even someone with no background in that area could understand how it works.
I’ve had content that’s ranked for years. No special tricks.
Like in any sport, it’s those who master the fundamentals who tend to be the most skilled and adept.
The video below, I created to detail how to install a Tesla Wall Connector has earned nearly 400,000 views and earned me nearly $3,000 as of posting this.
Proper keyword research, structuring the content correctly, and providing real value still win in the market.
Second – Analyze, test, and study LLM search behavior. Are these engines just wrappers over Google? Do they weight backlinks? Are keywords still a factor? I don’t know, but I’m trying to find out.
Three – researching how people actually use LLMs. Consumers are no longer typing in “keywords,” per se.
Instead, they’re asking questions in natural language as if they were talking to a friend. How does this natural language get processed to find relevant content?
How do we optimize and structure content to match?
I firmly believe that good content marketing and sustainable SEO is a lot like your health and fitness.
It’s not something that can be bought or achieved overnight. Instead, it’s the result of small and consistent smart decisions that are made every day over a long period of time.
Your body will change and you’ll need to adapt your diets and workouts. The same goes for your marketing strategy. Marketing will change and evolve and your strategy and tactics will need to evolve with it.