2 builders who never spoke to each other

Decide if the piece is to be found or to be passed on

Search formats and shareable formats are different objects, so pick which one you are making before you start, and accept that the rare piece doing both is where the compounding is. The same test applies to the product: make it survivable without a click, describable by a fan in one sentence and summarisable at the top of an answer.

The method

1. 01

   Decide up front whether a piece is meant to be found by search or passed along by people, because the two demand different formats.

2. 02

   The best pieces do both at once - they target a substantial keyword and are good enough that people pass them on unprompted.

3. 03

   Design the product so it survives being marketed without a click: showable in short video, carried by a couple of images, describable by a fan in a sentence, and summarisable at the top of an AI answer.

What it returned

• Search-discovered formats include blog posts and video tutorials; shared formats include podcasts, free tools, visuals and ebooks.

• Rand Fishkin puts this alongside getting the word out through social, PR, advertising, search and AI answers, and word of mouth, which he expects to return to being the strongest channel.

Sources

• The content marketing sweet spotHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · The content marketing sweet spot · undated
• Inimitable Product is the New "Make Great Content" - SparkToroRand Fishkin · sparktoro.com · Businesses and Creators Have But Two Solutions · undated