Yet the fiction endured because it was legible, and because legibility fuels the Fisherian Runaway<\/a> of B2B content, or what I\u2019ve called SEO book reports<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If every marketer sees the same volume leaderboard, they chase the same terms, produce the same 4,000-word skyscrapers (adding a few floors with each competitive iteration), and congratulate each other on their \u201ccomprehensive\u201d guides while users nod off and append \u201creddit\u201d to their searches so they can find something honest and useful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We reached a collective tipping point over the past five years where the majority of marketers began to denigrate \u201cSEO content\u201d as banal, regurgitated, sea of sameness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I believe that\u2019s not an inherent trait of creating experiences or conten<\/a>t for users and their intent, but an emergent property of the data being too easy to pull, sort, copy, and converge into similar formats. Yes, the medium informs the message, but it doesn\u2019t necessitate mediocrity. No one needs another \u201cultimate guide to marketing automation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, so the world has changed. In the last few years, the search box started talking back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where a prospect once typed \u201cbest CRM for small businesses,\u201d<\/em> she now uploads a 14-page RFP and converses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI run a 21-person remote agency\u2026 $50k annual budget\u2026 must integrate with Slack and PandaDoc\u2026 show me options and revenue-forecast features.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s less of a keyword, and more of an incantation<\/strong>\u2014personalized, iterative, laced with private context. The output she receives is not ten blue links but a synthesized answer, cherry-picking documents, memory, and probability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not to mention the messy middle that occurs within one\u2019s conversation with an AI \u2013 the small corrections, nudges, and iterations that get you closer to your ask. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Try modeling that<\/em> with simple volume metrics. You\u2019ll spend quarters labeling sand grains while the tide comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suppose, by some miracle, a vendor delivered \u201caccurate prompt volume,\u201d at least to the point of being useful. It may happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We would likely do what we always do: sort descending, brief writers, reverse-engineer incumbents, crank up Clearscope. The sea of sameness would simply migrate from keywords to prompts, and the runaway would accelerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good riddance. The absence of reliable prompt numbers is a forcing function to centering strategy on the one thing that reliably creates value: customers and their needs<\/a>.. It compels us to trade shallow pattern-matching for deeper levers: unique advantage, lived expertise, proprietary data, triangulated insight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alpha hides where spreadsheets fear to tread: inside the messy, idiosyncratic contours of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. (Yes, that stodgy SWOT you ignored in business school.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n MasterClass<\/em> broke into red-ocean SERPs<\/a> by wielding advantages only it owned: SME video snippets (and transcripts) from world class instructors, a product-led funnel, and a war chest for links and paid surround-sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re launching yet another CRM, the useful question is never \u201cwhat high-volume term can we rank for?\u201d It\u2019s \u201cwhat can we do that HubSpot can\u2019t?\u201d Sometimes the answer lies outside search, until you earn the brand, links, and data to fight on that terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We switched from keywords to topics years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In our client work, we\u2019ll still often use head keywords as anchors for prioritization, namely because they are easy to communicate and understand and often present the broadest angle for coverage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But embedded and within a head term are dozens of secondary keywords, and now, voice of customer data and prompt data, synthesized to comprehensively answer buyer questions as well as provide the context and cues to get picked up beyond the phrase match head term. And that\u2019s within a page; a page also exists in a broader ecosystem of topic themes that branch across various questions and customer journey stages, ultimately mapping towards entities and authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I think most SEOs have at least implicitly made this shift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HubSpot \u2013 who has since deleted the post, but your author has a strangely precise memory \u2013 wrote around 2015-2016<\/a> that one should prioritize \u201ctopics over keywords.\u201d Thus, pillars, clusters, and content hubs aimed at building topical authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This shift far preceded LLMs, which have only accelerated the need for a new model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Very recently, Kevin Indig wrote a big guide about this titled, \u201cKeywords are dead. But the Keyword Universe Isn\u2019t.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This model also effectively roots itself in customer research and voice of customer phrases: Instead of hyperfocusing on specific keywords or doing a keyword sprint every so often, you need to build a keyword universe that you\u2019ll explore and conquer across your site over time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever model (or models) the industry converges upon, it\u2019s obvious that the model built upon single keywords \u2013 each aligned with difficulties and broad user intents \u2013 is declining in utility as well as accuracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is keyword data useless? No. If we get good prompt data, would I ignore it? Also, no. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s still a valid data point, but it needs to be incorporated into a broader framework that includes your customers\u2019 undermet needs and your unique product or service advantages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We run every client through a three-circle Venn: buyer, product, and channel. Where they overlap lies content worth making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No single dataset dictates the roadmap; the composite does. That is your ikigai<\/strong>,<\/a> your defensible core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Want more insights like this?\u00a0Subscribe to Field Notes<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the beginning was the keyword. The keyword \u2013 the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[184,25],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-field-notes","8":"category-seo"},"yoast_head":"\nFrom queries to incantations <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Why chasing prompt volume would break us anyway<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Where\u2019s the Alpha?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Topics, keywords, and the keyword universe<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA Keyword Universe is a big pool of language your target audience uses when they search that will help them find you. It surfaces the most important queries and phrases (ie, keywords) at the top and lives in a spreadsheet or database, like BigQuery.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nTriangulation: The Ikigai of SEO<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nPractical Playbook (Reader\u2019s Digest Version)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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