Before I go and piss off all of the excellent writers, creatives, and content marketing pros I’ve worked with over the years, I’d like to be clear that what I’m about to say is not about you. It’s not about content marketing. It’s about content mills.
I am glad the days of the slop content mill are dead and gone. It always rubbed me the wrong way. There was something fundamentally wrong to me about publishing a bunch of 101-level content regurgitated from cursory Google research and stuffing it with whatever search algorithms are currently prioritizing.
Who broke search? We did. It was us marketers with our content mills, that’s who.
We were the ones that messed it up with a “traffic at all costs” mentality. You can blame it on Google, you can blame it on systemic incentives. But at the end of the day it was our slop content that made it impossible for people to get answers they can really trust.
Not being able to find trustworthy information via search engines created the demand for other sources. And now when people want answers, they go to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and other AI tools.
Unfortunately, as an old boss of mine used to say, you can’t unsh*t the bed.
The content mill is dead. It’s not coming back. And as I said earlier, I am glad.
Why? Two big reasons for me:
1. Now we can focus our efforts on content that has more depth, more substance, more perspective. We can stop wasting time and resources creating a bunch of “what is” and “how to” content. We can invest in partnering with company SMEs and customers to develop real thought leadership. You know, that content that gives customers real value and can actually set your brand apart from the competition.
2. We can finally focus our websites on the buyer’s journey. We can stop stuffing our content with informational keywords and using our website to educate on basic topics. Why on earth would they go to your website for that when they can get less biased information from their favorite AI tool (or even zero-click search if it’s really basic info)? Traffic coming to your site is now far more likely to actually be in buying mode. Imagine that!
The floor has been raised. Marketers who lean into depth, perspective, and prioritize buyer needs over everything else are going to win.
That’s a trade I’ll take every time. How about you?