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I've been experimenting with a content strategy shift that might surprise traditional SEO practitioners. We're a video-first education company, creating videos first and repurposing them into blog posts, podcasts, shorts, and emails. Recently, I replaced a 5,000-word article on how to drain a pool with a concise 700-word script. The original article ranked #10 on Google, and I wanted to see if a more streamlined version would perform better. Additionally, I created separate posts for draining above-ground and in-ground pools, recognizing the trend towards short, targeted content. This approach mirrors the rise of short-form videos and AI-generated answers. We'll see how this impacts our rankings and user experience. If you have any questions, email me at matt@moneylab.co.
Creators & Guests
What is Money Lab?
Matt Giovanisci and friends drop the gauntlet of truth about being self-employed, serial entrepreneurs. They're not "teaching" how to build a successful company. Instead, they run business challenges and experiments offering a transparent view of what it takes to make money online.
Hey. It's Matt from Money Lab. Today, I wanna talk about a content content decision that I made that would shock some people, especially those who practice SEO. But here's what I did, and I thought it was a worthy experiment to try. I said I've said this in previous episodes that we are a video first education company.
Matt Giovanisci:And the way that that works is when we create content, we create a video first. And then from that video, all other media is sort of spawned off and created in or repurposed in some way. And so it all starts with a video script that we turn into a video. That script, we turn into an article. We also record it as an audio podcast, and that script becomes little mini scripts for shorts.
Matt Giovanisci:And we can also repurpose those scripts into emails that we send out. So we start we'd all start with a script. So Steph had written a script that was about how to it was called, like, how to drain a pool fast. And she put it on my list of things to do, which is to take that script and turn it into an article or take the existing video and embed it in an in the article that needs that video. So I looked at our content, and we had a post called how to drain a pool of any kind was the name of the article.
Matt Giovanisci:And then I also noticed that we had an article about how to drain an above ground pool. So I was like, okay. Alright. Well, we have this article that already exists, so I'm gonna go in and add this video. I don't need to rewrite it.
Matt Giovanisci:When I saw the article, the article was 5,000 words. And it was written in 2019, so it was about 5 years old. And it also ranked, I think, number 10 on Google. So it, in my in my opinion, wasn't ranking. And I thought, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Wow. This is a really long article. And the first half of the article, like half of the article, just talks about reasons why you would drain a pool. Like, here's all the reasons you could drain a pool. Here's all the things to think about before draining a pool.
Matt Giovanisci:And then here's how to drain every type of pool, like its own section, its own how its own step by step, all that stuff. And I thought, man, if you just want it to if you were just like, how do you drain a pool? It would take you forever to find the answer, and then you would also have to know if you had an above ground or in ground pool, and some people might not know that, and what's an in text pool? So it was just, like, really long, and it was packed full of content that I felt didn't really need to be in there. And so I had this new script, and the script was only 700 words max.
Matt Giovanisci:And I thought, what if I deleted 5 a 5,000 word piece of content and replaced it with 700 words? I mean, a completely new version of the of the article. And so I did. I deleted all that content. Now I didn't delete it.
Matt Giovanisci:I just you know, I already I have it in a word doc, but I deleted it from WordPress. And I did I took the video script, embedded the video, and the video script was a lot you got to the answer much faster. It's like, how do you drain a pool fast? We we renamed the title. There's 4 ways.
Matt Giovanisci:Here are the 4 ways. Boom. Boom. Boom. Like, super easy.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? I took some pieces of that other article and added it to the end. So I I was able to get, like, roughly 1100 words, I think, in the end Because I just felt like if you are draining a pool or if you're re if you're searching for how to drain a pool, you don't you're not you've already answered the question, why should you drain a pool, Or what are the reasons? You probably have a reason, and so now you're asking, okay. I need to drain the pool because it's green.
Matt Giovanisci:I need to drain the pool because I I need to change a light bulb. Whatever whatever the case is, now I know how to do that. And so now the article answers your question much faster. And then after it answers your question, it says, here are some precautions. And that's the the part that I added from the other article into this one.
Matt Giovanisci:I felt like that was a better flow. So we'll see. We'll see if that that worked. Now I also noticed that we had an article called how to drain an above ground pool. I was like, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:So we have an article about how to drain a pool, and then we have an article about how to drain an above ground pool. They're technically similar. They're technically they're probably saying the same thing. Now, I mean, just in a different way. So I thought, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, that article ranks number 1. So I was like, I wonder if there's other long tail keywords. Because the long because the short tail keyword, the main keyword, doesn't have that many searches, but it has enough to where if anybody were searching for it, find us. If we go from 10 to 1 or even 10 to 3, we're gonna get traffic. We're gonna get a decent number of visitors from that post, and we know that those people are our ideal audience.
Matt Giovanisci:So it's worth making that article better. But then I looked at okay. Well, if we have one for an above ground, we should probably have one for inground. Let's see people are searching for that. And it turns out, they're not searching for it as much, but they are searching for it.
Matt Giovanisci:And as it turns out, I have content now that I've quote unquote deleted that has an entire section about how to drain specifically an in ground pool. So I took that content and put it in its own post. So now, I technically have 3 posts on my website all around draining a pool. In the past, I would have done I would have just been like, well, we're not gonna do all 3. That's insane.
Matt Giovanisci:We're just gonna do 1. And then we hope that Google will just pick ours as the other as the one for both, but that's not what's happening. And so the the new version of SEO is that you have to and new feels very old, which is I think we live in this world of short form content, and SEO is also going that way. Because, ultimately, if GEO is a thing, right, if we're talking about AI, you know, developing your content so that it's AI able or whatever, then we have to come up with shorter responses and succinct things that we're trying to answer. And I think it is content or topic dependent, and it's just something to start thinking about.
Matt Giovanisci:Now let me give you an example of what I'm talking about, and this is how I'm I'm starting to think of content going forward. You have I I used to be the person who was like, I think we should create the one stop shop for this topic. And so I would always just go after huge topics because we really didn't have a lot of competition. It made a lot of sense for our business. But now we have lost because of the way that Google has changed, at least from my perspective, we lost a lot of the long tail that we used to rank for for those big topics.
Matt Giovanisci:So for example, I'll give you an example that we're that we're working on. So we rank for the phrase hot tub maintenance. Huge phrase. Gets a ton of searches. Our article is number 1 and has been for many years.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? That gives us a lot of traffic, but that post is an all encompassing post because it's a very big topic. If somebody were to search for, how do I take care of my hot tub? That's the first article that's gonna come up. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:Because it's it's about that. But that's a very loaded question. And within that, there's a lot of there's not a lot of answers. It's a very long form delivery system. It's like you need this and then you need this and then you need this, and it's like this whole thing.
Matt Giovanisci:And so we've created that one stop shop. Now in the past, we there's one section of that article that talks about what is the right order to add hot tub chemicals. So it's brief, quick. Here are the right order. Do this, then this, then this.
Matt Giovanisci:Boom, boom, boom. And to me, I'm like, well, that's that's all you really need to know. But that content, that that answer is buried within a much larger post. And what Google was doing before is they were they were they were able to let us rank for that because they could change our title, change our description. They were auto scrolling to that section like they do with YouTube videos.
Matt Giovanisci:And so I was like, okay. So so the hot tub maintenance post, which we ranked for the main keyword and, like, subsequent related keywords, but we also ranked for a ton of other long tail question keywords that were baked into that post. But now it seems as though we have lost that because, ultimately, what Google is going for now is to become the answer hub. That's what their AI is doing. It's like if you you type a question in a Google, you it needs to get you the answer as soon as possible.
Matt Giovanisci:And I've been saying for a long time that what AI is going to do is it is basically gonna become like a person that says, here's what I found in the Internet. I'm gonna phrase it. I'm gonna paraphrase, and then it's gonna cite its sources, And it's probably gonna cite the top three sources. So Google becomes there's gonna be less and less search results. It's gonna be tighter and tighter.
Matt Giovanisci:Meaning, if you're not one of those top 3, then you don't you don't get traffic at all is what is where I think it's going. Because I don't think that they can just become an AI that spits out the answer, not it like, in the case of the hot tub maintenance idea, Google's it's never gonna be able to put that long nuanced piece of information together even with AI. And and I don't think anybody wants that. So that post is gonna rank, but the short quick answers, they're gonna disappear. Unless we can we as SEOs and content creators create those short answers.
Matt Giovanisci:Similarly, to what is happening with YouTube shorts, reels, etcetera. We've gone from YouTube has its long form content, which people are watching, and it's interesting, but then there's also short form content. Give me another example of what I'm thinking of because hot tubs is a little I'll give you one in cooking and what I've what I've thought about. So you Google how to clean a cast iron skillet. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:The answer to that can be generative AI. It's not that many steps. It's 3 steps. Right? Okay.
Matt Giovanisci:Got my answer. Thanks. Bye. I'm out. That's it.
Matt Giovanisci:So Lodge, the the largest maker of cast iron skillets, doesn't stand a chance. Now Lodge has the brand behind it, and that's probably where the AI generated the information from. But right now, it's not citing those sources. But eventually, I think that that's what the AI becomes. So Lodge will be mentioned.
Matt Giovanisci:And if you're somebody who's like, well, I wanna read it from Lodge, then you'll click into that cited source and read further. Same thing applies with shorts. If you're on YouTube and you want, how do you clean a cast iron skillet? Do you want the 60 second version, or do you want the 15 minute version or the 5 minute version? It's like it's not that difficult.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, I kinda it's not it's such a nuanced thing. Like, I don't really need to go into a deep dive. Like, just fucking tell me how to do it. Okay. Here's a 60 second short.
Matt Giovanisci:Bing, bang, boom. Here's your here's your answer. Great. Now that's cleaning a cast iron skillet. But what if the what if the searcher is, like, just bought a new cast iron skillet, and they're really concerned about taking care of it?
Matt Giovanisci:They wanna learn they wanna know all the things. Right? That's the intent of the searcher, whether they looked at it on YouTube or search for it on YouTube or Google. Well, now the AI, it's you're now you want as a searcher, I believe, you wanna find a trusted source to tell you how to properly take care of a cast iron skillet From a cast iron skillet expert. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:You would think. I don't think AI works in that scenario. That's a much that's the thing where you kinda want, as a reader, a deep dive. You want to you wanna immerse yourself a little bit. And the reason I say that is because, do you want a 62nd how to take care of a cast iron skillet?
Matt Giovanisci:It's like, well, there's so much information in that. Like, what happens after you cook? What happens when you first get it? What happens, you know, if it's if it rusts? Well, you know, there's so many so many different scenarios in the care process.
Matt Giovanisci:If you cook this kind of food, you have to use this kind of material. If you use this, don't use soap. It's it's it's a lot. Now I'm not I know it's not doesn't require a book. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:But it requires a little bit more than that. It requires a nice article or or a 5 to 15 minute video. A short is not gonna cut it. And that's the way I'm thinking about content on our website now, is you have the long form, and this is probably, you know, something that a lot of other people have thought of already, but I've always been on the in the camp of our website is a resource for like, it's like a textbook. So, you know, there are sections within the textbook, but they are not individual chapters, because that would be insane.
Matt Giovanisci:But with search, even for our own website search, it's actually a little bit more helpful. Because now if somebody goes into our our search on our website and they type in what's the right order to add chemicals, well, our search will probably pull up the the hot tub maintenance article, but the searcher's intent doesn't is not gonna put those two things together. They're like, I don't need help on hot to maintenance. I just need to know this one answer, and now we have that. And so I don't know if that's gonna win the short tail or if it's or if AI is gonna, you know, temporarily take that over for now and people are gonna just just read that and go, okay.
Matt Giovanisci:AI, you helped me. Thanks. Or the featured snippet's enough, and they can move on. But that's what we're that's what we're doing because it actually would help our own internal searchers, and that's also the way that we think about YouTube. You know, you can say, how do you drain a pool fast?
Matt Giovanisci:Well, there's 4 ways, and we give you all 4 ways, and one's easy. Now we can do a combination of things. We could do a 60 second short that tells you the 4 ways very quickly. And it's like, alright. Well, alright.
Matt Giovanisci:And now I know the 4 ways, but I wanna know how to do that way. Like, how would you do this thing? And so we could create 4 different shorts, how to drain a pool with a sump pump, how to drain a pool with gravity, how to drain a pool, blah blah blah. So you you now have 60 second shorts for each one. But there's also a long form video because you wanna know all the ways, and then you wanna make a decision on your own.
Matt Giovanisci:So I think it's a lot of that. And to me, I get it. I get it. I it makes sense, but it kinda feels old school. It kinda feels like, Google is moving.
Matt Giovanisci:I I used to say, like, Google's very smart. They don't need us to break up the content and all these little pieces so it's easier to find. They're finding it within our content. So just go after the big keyword, and you'll rank for all the small ones. I I used to call it the moonshot technique, which is the idea that makes no sense, but they would say, like, shoot from the moon and you land in the stars.
Matt Giovanisci:So it's like go for the big keyword. And in the pursuit of that, you will probably rank for all these, you know, secondary, tertiary keywords. But now that doesn't that's that's all gone. And so now it's like, oh, okay. Those secondary and tertiary keywords you used to rank for, now you need individual pieces of content for that.
Matt Giovanisci:And I've even seen this like, I've seen people talk about this on x or Twitter where they're saying, yeah. Now your content like, you know, it used to be commonplace. Your content had to be 1200, 2,000, 25 100 words for it to rank. But now, no. It can be 300 again, which is, like, feels very old school.
Matt Giovanisci:As long as as long as 300 covers the answer and your topics are micro enough or you're you know, it doesn't require an in-depth deep deep dive. And I'm like, okay. I get it. And because we do it that way, it actually does help the audience that does find Swim University in other ways, and they go to our search tab, which is our like, one of our most popular pages, they're gonna find the their answers much faster there too. And I think that's a good thing overall.
Matt Giovanisci:So I just wanted to talk about that because I think it makes sense. It feels old school, but that's you know, just like links feel old school to me, but apparently, they're becoming even more relevant. But then I've also heard from people that are becoming less relevant. But I think in the flood of AI, it makes a little bit of sense why they would become more relevant again. Because now Google doesn't know who to trust anymore because there's so much AI content flooding the SERPs that the old metric that they used before you know, but, you know, before their machine, you know, learning profiler, where they could where they could take their machine learning and objectively judge a website and give it a score.
Matt Giovanisci:Now they don't know. It's like that machine learning doesn't work anymore. So that, you know, I'm hearing that people are like, there's manual people looking at websites now, and they're giving manual penalty you know, penalties and stuff. So that's happening. So alright.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, how does the algorithm supposed to determine now if a site because it could look real good, it can have all of the topic clusters filled out because all it takes is somebody with a little determination, not much, to just spit out a bunch of AI content and put it up on a website, on an old domain. So, you know, it doesn't that's that's not hard to do now. Where it used to be the barrier to entry was like, well, who the hell's gonna do that? It would cost a fortune to get all those writers and and to set set up the hosting and to buy the domain. It's like, well, no.
Matt Giovanisci:Now it's you're all you have to do is buy the domain. And and then then you could do whatever you want because you don't have to pay writers anymore. So now they're like, shit. Our machine learning robot doesn't work anymore, or it's not as good as it used to be. And this is again, I'm not an engineer or I don't I'm just speculating, But it's like, oh, yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, backlinks make sense now because it's like, well, the New York Times linked to them, they're probably decent, which is why you're seeing, like, Forbes rank even though their SEO is sometimes atrocious. But they're ranking because Google just knows they can trust Forbes even though they really shouldn't. But you know what I mean? It's just a big enough company. It's been around.
Matt Giovanisci:They have the the link juice, blah blah blah. It's a magazine. It's named after a real person. You know? So, you know, it has a trust factor behind it.
Matt Giovanisci:And I think, yeah, for now, maybe until they figure out a better machine learning algorithm that can that can detect AI content. I don't know how the hell they're gonna do that, or I don't know. I'm sure there's a way, but it just seems to me that makes the most sense that if you do shorter form content with a more human touch, meaning the e e a t, like really sort of leaning into that. You know, how do you drain a pool? Here are the 4 methods I've used, and here's what I think was the best, and here's the cheapest or here's the fastest or here's whatever.
Matt Giovanisci:And it's like and I told it to you first person in 500 words. And I and I included a video of me telling you that and actually showing you how to do it. So, you know, trust factor way up way up. But, again, I don't think the algorithm of Google can determine that, the machine learning. I don't think it could determine that yet.
Matt Giovanisci:Hopefully, it will. And then we'll start I'll start to re rank again, but who knows? Who knows? But I thought that was interesting to talk about, so I just wanted to bring it up. If you have any questions, email me, matt@moneylab.co.