AI-generated overview
Nathan Gotch argues traditional SEO content creation is inefficient given that 97% of content gets zero Google traffic (per Ahrefs) and CTR drops 70% when AI answers appear. His 80/20 content strategy: spend only 20% of time creating website content, 80% on reviews, backlinks, and brand mentions on trusted sites. Content creation guidelines: (1) avoid keywords AI easily answers like "what is personal injury," (2) create highly relevant commercial pages targeting specific keywords like "car accident lawyer in Chicago" using tools like Rankability, (3) build at least 10 supporting assets internally linking to each commercial page for topical authority, (4) prioritize off-site activities that drive search and AI visibility over on-site content volume. This framework challenges traditional content marketing dogma that more content equals better rankings, instead emphasizing quality commercial pages supported by strategic off-page signals that influence both traditional search and AI platform retrieval.
97% of content gets zero Google traffic per Ahrefs, and CTR drops 70% when AI answers appear in search results, fundamentally challenging traditional content marketing ROI.
80/20 content strategy: spend only 20% of time creating website content, 80% on driving reviews, acquiring relevant backlinks, and securing brand mentions on trusted websites.
Avoid targeting keywords AI can easily answer like 'what is personal injury'—these informational queries get cannibalized by AI answers with minimal click-through to sources.
Focus commercial pages on specific high-intent keywords like 'car accident lawyer in Chicago' that require local expertise AI cannot replicate from training data alone.
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You're wasting your time creating the wrong SEO content.
According to Ahrefs, 97% of content
gets no traffic from Google,
and AI hasn't made that any easier.
One study showed that CTR drops by 70%
when there's an AI answer in Google.
So the question is,
should you just stop creating SEO content altogether?
Well, the answer is no,
but you do need to change your strategy.
Here's what you need to do instead.
Number one, don't target keywords that AI can easily answer
like what is personal injury.
Number two, create a highly relevant page
targeting a commercial keyword