🗒️ Overview
- How AI is changing content creation and the market
- How to adapt your business model to changes in the world of AI
- A look at three classic authority sites and how they can improve
AI is changing the game of content creation and SEO, and it’s important to adapt your business model to thrive in this new environment. In today’s episode, we discuss the impact of AI on the content creation landscape and share our insights on how to make the most out of these changes.
Shifts in the industry and business model
The rise of AI is making content creation cheaper, but competition will increase as more people can produce content more easily. We’re looking at an increase in content, but a decrease in supply of traffic as search engines are now answering queries. We can already see this with the new Google updates.
Sites that have products will win in the end because they can easily be featured in AI-generated answers in search engines.
And having a product means you’ll get a lot more revenue from your site, which means you’ll have more resources to produce even better content. Focus on creating high-quality and unique content that AI cannot easily produce.
Affiliates will still be a great way to get started and grow your traffic, but turning to products after that will be the most rewarding.
Produce different types of content
Expand your content to include not just blog posts, but videos and social media content.
YouTube can be used for longer videos, but also look into YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and TikTok for that extra reach.
Having a consistent brand across all these platforms will be important for success in this changing landscape. Especially as Google’s generative search seems to be pushing brands a lot more in the SERPs.
Site 1: A travel blog
Let’s look at this real-world example, California Through My Lens, a travel blog focused on California experiences.
It does well in combining written content on its blog with authentic videos on YouTube and has over 250,000 YouTube subscribers.
The site currently monetizes through ads but has the potential to expand its business model, even opening itself up for sponsorship opportunities.
This blog could easily be turned into a tour company that organizes and promotes local tours. Working with Airbnb Experiences or TripAdvisor, they could 10-20x their revenue.
Site 2: A review site
A site like Knife Informer, which focuses on knife reviews, ranks for many round-up keywords. While their use of linking other social media to their site is not as good, they do have a mix of original images on their site.
Going the e-commerce route and opening a store would be a good idea for this site, similar to what Kevin from Epic Gardening did. He started as a review site and began selling raised beds (and using social media effectively), which led to massive growth.
Expanding to create informative content around things like knife use could be used to showcase and promote related products. And focusing on one product that appeals to most customers, like a knife sharpener, will help to simplify things at the start.
Running the affiliate and e-commerce models in parallel could potentially 3x their revenue through a combination of SEO traffic and product sales.
Site 3: A classic ad site
Now for Moms Who Think, which focuses on the baby and infant niche. The site ranks for many high-volume keywords, and lots of these are vulnerable to AI-generated content.
To get around this, they could create a product and modify their content strategy to support it. They could focus on physical products or info products, like courses for expecting parents.
They’ve already got a lot of traffic, so using that to collect emails, pre-sell products, test ideas, and promote affiliate products would be a good idea. And low-friction physical product opportunities like Amazon print-on-demand for children’s books or puzzle books would make it easier for them to monetize their traffic.
Despite the potential threats of AI, having a site with existing traffic provides a unique advantage in creating and selling products, which can ultimately increase revenue.
Embrace new opportunities
While it may be a short-term cash grab to create AI-generated content, long-term success will come from shifting your business model and leveraging AI for product development and sales.
Think about using both info and physical product opportunities to maximize revenue. Product owners will be well-positioned to benefit from AI-generated content and recommended products. But it’s really important to build traffic as a competitive advantage before you try out new product or service offerings.
Branching out might seem daunting, especially if you are more introverted and used to working online. But instead of focusing on the challenges, think about the potential rewards and long-term growth available through exploring new business models.
Plus, expanding into new products or services might be easier than trying to scale traffic substantially, and the effort you put into developing high-quality content could translate into success in launching new products.
