Google is the top search engine. According to Statista, Google commands 84.69% of all online search market share.
I believe that to get a good understanding of Google’s business model and how they make money is important to position yourself properly.
Read their approach to search
If you read Google’s approach to search, you will get an idea of what they are trying to achieve.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Google makes money by selling ads
They want to show you ads so that they can bill advertisers for showing those ads. They want to show relevant ads that are more likely to receive clicks.
Google wants to help you find what you are looking for
They want to understand your query and provide you with the most relevant information so that you will come back. They want to stay ahead of the competition.
Intent is important
Google uses natural language processing (NLP) to try to predict the intent of your search. If you are looking for a local business then it wants to give you results for local businesses.
Google tends to reward fresh content
They will test new content to see how people react to it. They want to make sure the data they are serving is current.
Use this knowledge as a tool to guide your strategy
A search request with some local intent might not need to answer the question better than anyone else in the whole wide world. It just has to answer the query better than other people in the local community. So using AI to write a local post can work.
If you are competing on a broader range (ex: national, international), then your content probably needs to be more in-depth and original to rank.
Keep your content updated to make sure Google counts it as fresh content.