Value Creation and Value Communication: Why Good Content Needs Both

There are two separate jobs involved in creating a useful piece of online content: You need both. But they are not the same thing. This distinction matters because many website owners spend most of their time on value communication while doing very little value creation. They add headings, summary boxes, tables, FAQs, images, schema markup … Read more

How to Find a New Angle When a Topic Has Already Been Covered

Almost every broad topic you might write about has already been covered online. Search for advice about choosing a telescope, growing vegetables, improving at chess or starting a website and you will find thousands of pages. Add videos, forums, books, social posts and AI-generated answers, and the amount of existing information becomes overwhelming. That can … Read more

I Could See “VIRAT” on His Shirt—but Google AI Mode Insisted I Was Wrong

I was watching an international cricket match on television when something caught my attention. Virat Kohli had VIRAT printed across the back of his India shirt. That led me to ask Google AI Mode about Indian naming conventions and why some cricketers appeared to use their first names while others used their surnames. What followed … Read more

What Eight Google AI Mode Answers Revealed About Citations, Query Wording and Original Content

Google AI Mode can produce a polished answer supported by an impressive-looking list of citations. But how stable is that answer? Does asking the same question repeatedly produce the same recommendation? Do the cited pages support the precise claims being made? And what happens when the question is reworded to emphasise a different part of … Read more

AI Mode Gives You the Consensus. Your Opportunity Is in What It Leaves Out

AI Mode can produce an impressively complete answer within seconds. It can search across numerous sources, identify the broad agreement and turn it into a clear set of instructions. That creates an obvious problem for website owners. If AI Mode can already summarise what the internet says, what reason does anyone have to visit another … Read more

How to Prove First-Hand Experience in Content (Even With Everyday Tasks)

When people talk about showing first-hand experience in blog posts, the examples are often exciting: But first-hand experience does not have to come from something unusual. In fact, the best way to understand the principle is to start with something completely ordinary. If you can prove that you completed a simple everyday task, you can … Read more