Point two is citations. These pieces of content are still getting cited in AI Overviews or in ChatGPT. They still sometimes provide the source from where they got the information. Okay, the clicks are a tenth, if not more, than what you used to get. But if someone is going to get it, at least let it be you, not your competitors. So if they’re still providing citations, we want your content to be the one that’s cited and not anyone else’s.
It might also be worth mentioning at this point, and I’ve got anecdotal evidence from some of our clients, the traffic that does come in, a lot less than they’re used to, but the traffic that does come in through AI tends to convert a lot better. So that’s worth bearing in mind.
Point three is topical authority. Producing all this content still helps your site be seen as a topical authority. And it’s a bit of a nebulous term, but there was a leak in May 2024, and there was some metric that talked about topical authority that Google uses. And so I won’t say too much more on it because, like I said, it is a bit nebulous.
But it’s always been the case that if you’re a suitcase brand and there’s another suitcase brand, and to all intents and purposes, both sites are exactly the same, same speed, same product, everything is the same, same prices, but one suitcase brand talks about other related content around traveling and things with all the internal links and link building to it, that one tends to do better.
So topical authority, although nebulous, is still a very real concept you need to consider and a very real reason why you should still be creating that content.
And finally, point four, original ideas still get shared. If you create something that is genuinely useful and genuinely quite entertaining, not only can you just repurpose that across all your socials now, but they will get shared in their own right.
In a world where brand building is becoming more and more important, spreading your original thought through those guides is key. So that is why you should continue making content.