Strategies for Creating Unique Content

In Part 1 of this series, I hope you will have taken away the reasons “commodity content” almost always fails in the rapidly evolving search environment. In this piece I am going to suggest how that “fail” can be avoided. Here’s what I suggest you (and I) need to do instead.
The starting point means reverting to one of the oldest questions in marketing: What do you want people to know you or your business for? Or to tie in with Andrew Holland’s “Fame Engineering” framing… “What do you want your business to be famous for?”

• As an accountant, would that be for tax specialism?
• For a campsite, would it be for peace, quiet and sweeping views on a working farm?
• For an ecommerce company supplying welding equipment and consumables, would it be for having the absolute best price deals on ESAB welding helmets?
• For a paralegal company would it be for the absolute best value advice on setting up lasting power of attorney in a client’s own home nationwide?

In the recent past search marketing revolved around capturing demand when specific search phrases were typed in. That was the keyword driven era.
It’s important to note that keywords are still extremely useful language to understand – a vital part of the marketing intelligence you gather, but their use has become more fluid. AI driven search now has enough processing capability to recognise the intent behind search phrases that are still typed in billions of times a day. But what really changes the game is that the LLMs behind AI search also recognise the much longer conversational enquiries and the intent within them.
That’s an important reality to keep in perspective. “Traditional” search hasn’t suddenly vanished from the face of the Earth. By all accounts the volume of search on normal Google search is still growing. Research by Similarweb¹ points strongly to that, while reports of Alphabet’s audited earnings figures from search² also provide a strong sign of that being the case. The well publicised prediction by Gartner in 2024³ that AI would have slashed search engine volume by a quarter by 2026 has proven to be well wide of the mark. Instead, search has diversified while continuing to grow.
The downside of that growth in search activity is that Google delivers answers (quite possibly your answers) on its own search results page. Much of the visitor traffic that might have arrived on your website has been monopolised by Google. If people see your answers and your brand in a result / answer, they are quite likely to pick up the phone rather than hit your website. Does that mean your website is redundant? Absolutely not. Your brand is only going to show up if search engine and LLM algorithms can find your pages and consider your original content worthy of consideration.
That background knowledge is all very well, but what is the practical way we need to change our approach to creating and publishing content?

Understanding the Real-World Problem First

Online search has become a different environment compared with just two years ago. AI powered search seems to be looking for respectable solutions to the inferred problem; that is revealed by the intent of a query. That query could be an “old-style” short phrase, or a longer conversational style prompt. It seems that the algorithms are less focussed on satisfying a specific search but presenting a credible solution to the problem or situation.

For the brands who want to be the solution, the goal becomes: how to become famous for filling that problem space with your version of a solution. In Cumbria for instance, imagine a farming family’s head (like some old family acquaintances): “Richard” north of Carlisle or “Percy” up on a farm on the edge of the fells, may be feeling their age (as they finally admit that the farming life is getting a bit too hard… at the ages of 87 and 91) and might just decide to organise for retirement. (Names changed – but real friends).

The likely trigger for them going online and searching is looking into how they can pass on or sell their farms most effectively. Both are keen to avoid inheritance disputes (one without descendants but several dispersed relatives and the other with a daughter, who doesn’t really want to take on the farm but loves her bungalow on the property and doesn’t want to be forced to move).

Both will almost certainly want to preserve the farm’s Agricultural Property Relief among other considerations. No doubt they will soon be thinking in terms of needing advice. Both will probably want to find a solicitor or an accountant with a good reputation for sorting out these matters.

This is known as a Category Entry Point⁴ – the real-world problem or desire for a solution. It is almost an umbrella for the various faces of the problem. For the solicitors or accountants who wish to be part of the chosen solution for these potentially valuable clients, the problem becomes how do we show our “superior talent” in dealing with issues of:

• generational rural succession (or lack of),
• farm tenancy transfer,
• agricultural estate planning.

How do “we” present ourselves as the obvious experts in helping a farm owner through these important changes?

A. Protect The Core Service Pages Which Are Already Bringing in Leads

First – work out which pages on your website actually generate visits and leads. Don’t kill them! Avoid deleting or drastically rewriting core service pages that already bring you commercially useful visibility (for example, the solicitor may have existing pages such as /agricultural-law/ or /probate-solicitors-cumbria/). If those pages are getting visits and engagement they are already doing some of the essential commercial donkey work and, it means the LLMs already have a good chance of finding them.

B. Investigate and Understand the Questions Your Clients Are Asking Online

With the help of your marketing support find out what your ideal clients are asking online. Previously I would have tackled this as a keyword research task, but now my approach has shifted. I still do the keyword research and use many of those keywords as seeds to quiz Gemini, Perplexity and Claude about the questions that are being asked. You can do this equally well by asking Claude or your favoured LLM AI tool the questions you know your clients ask when they search for solutions that you provide.

In the farm succession scenario above a possible line of enquiry might be “I am thinking of retiring and passing on the family farm near Caldbeck, Cumbria, to one of my sons who is keen to carry it on. I have two other youngsters who aren’t interested in farming, and I need some advice about how to proceed equitably for all three.” No mention of solicitors, accountants or land agents. The LLMs will probably “advise” at length about their understanding of the problem as in test runs of that exact query in Google and 4 different AIs.

Instead of giving me a list of relevant sources of advice, the answers (apart from Google’s normal search – and its AI overview result) tried to be the adviser. I responded to the dialogues that their advice verged on the untrustworthy (in Perplexity’s case even referencing law from Ohio State!).

Next, I prompted the models that I needed advice from local experts with this follow-on query. “I notice you don’t recommend any practitioners in the area who specialise in these matters?” and “Sorry – I don’t trust your “legal” or financial advice, and I really need to speak to a local practitioner who is familiar with these matters.”

And… the models all came up with a variety of lists.

Do you see your practice represented here?

That was just one enquiry angle that your solicitor, land agent or accountancy practice might want to be “famous” for. There are several other angles to explore before committing to writing at length on such a potentially complex and fraught topic.

C. Content Acid Test: Is This Content Idea Worth The Effort?

Before planning – and then committing any piece of content to publication, the person responsible for marketing should apply an essential test: “Does this content idea simply regurgitate what’s out there already? Is it just describing the statutory framework for the nth time: something an AI tool can summarise in seconds? Or does it demonstrate precisely how your brand navigates the often complex, emotionally charged realities of a typical Cumbrian rural succession scenario?”

If your content idea actually adds something distinct and of value to the knowledge pool it should successfully avoid the commodity content trap. By answering real questions from real scenarios/customers you should be able to safeguard any existing organic search positioning you’ve managed to build in the past… and give LLMs a reason to choose your answer over a competitor and then recommend your brand.

D. Being the Unique Solution for The Situation – Your Unique Knowledge and Angle

What sets you apart from the other practices vying for the high value farming client’s attention? This is where you need to look inwards at what your, and your colleagues’ experience is and what makes you particularly suitable for advising on this scenario. This is a new refinement of our old “Getting to know your business” approach which was highlighted in the webinar I mentioned in the previous article where Candour’s Jack Chambers-Ward interviewed Liv Day and Ellie Wraith from Digitaloft about how they turn their clients’ expertise into SEO gold! https://withcandour.co.uk/podcast/turn-client-expertise-into-seo-gold
You could look at it as almost interviewing yourself and your colleagues. You would do it in such a way that you would cover these questions:

• What’s nobody in northern Cumbria talking about when farm succession comes up?
• What have competitors dropped the ball on, and you have a robust system to avoid that failure?
• Is there common advice that you disagree with, based on experience in this area or advice you have a particular local strength in?
• What questions keep coming from customers? Dig into their enquiries and concerns. Call notes, reviews, Reddit and forums can all contribute.
• Have you got survey data related to your clients’ experience of farm succession cases? Obviously use that carefully to preserve confidentiality.

By the time you’ve recorded and processed all of that information you will begin to have a pretty good feel of what needs to be answered and how you can make it unique, helpful and relevant to the actual scenario and clients you want to attract.

E. Turning Your USP Into a Reusable Content Asset

At this point you may discover that you need a new service page or to update the existing one with your unique angle on farm succession (sticking with our example). The questions you’ve uncovered from clients and prospects will contribute to an FAQ section that tackles those questions more thoroughly than competitors and highlights your expertise in this field. Uncover the stories of how your business has helped to successfully resolve this scenario in the past with permission or anonymisation of the exact identities and locations as necessary. The study may also generate a series of blog posts that illuminate aspects of the topic at length and build up a genuine knowledge store that supports the new or updated service page. It’s important to make sure that each piece has a named individual from the firm as an author.

You will also have a mass of material for social media posts and videos.

F. Penetrating the Local/Regional/Industry Networking Ecosystem

And I don’t just mean turning up at the latest Cumbria Chamber Business Bites on a Thursday evening… no matter how enthusiastically Kev Warman tries to help you mingle. This is about getting word out about this solution and getting the network of social, media, news channels, collaborators and clients to shout out about you.

Your website may have the most complete repository of information born of years of hard-won experience but if the wider network ecosystem never gets to hear about it, then you will still be as invisible as you were before for that solution to a farming family’s next big step.

You have to literally throw the word out about your new service offer. Your own social media channels need to be full of promotional pieces highlighting what your offer is now that you have defined it.

A really useful piece of content, a lively podcast episode or video short can get people talking about you on socials and even attract high authority backlinks, citations or mentions from perhaps West Cumberland Farmers or Rickerbys the agricultural engineers: who are all heavily involved in the rural communities of the area. More importantly, you will begin to show up in more places. Search is no longer just about Google even though it is still dominant. AI based technologies look in a lot more places than Google’s own index. And much like the old marketing wisdom of being where your clients are, you need to show up across as wide a footprint as possible. That will help you foster the “mental availability” or front of mind recall that’s needed when one of these old farmers is finally ready to hand over the reins! 

For Cumbrian businesses you may want to talk to Nick Turner or Helen Statham at Intro PR and social media to work up a newsworthy angle on how you’ve positioned the service with its refresh. They have the contacts with local journalists and news channels that might do a feature on the service offering. Another channel to exploit (nicely) is the local news media combination of Business Crack and Cumbria Crack. Nicole Regan is the editor and Adam Lewis is listed as Business Reporter currently. (August 2026).

There are many other PR firms in the area and surrounding region that could help with spreading the word and helping your firm penetrate the fog around this topic. LinkedIn and any other social channels can be used to amplify the effect of any media pieces that you do get published.

Can you get a slot on local radio? CRFM in Carlisle for instance often have slots where they will invite a firm to sponsor a slot on the schedule. An LPA support service in the area, recently decided to support a slot dealing with mental health issues to help boost their local credibility (well deserved credibility I might add).

Clients of mine have used our Local Brand Authority service to boost their impact locally as well with some remarkable successes. One tech client had been invisible in Penrith since they were launched. Within 3 weeks of the first set of multimedia content being published they picked up their first significant order, from there, via a website enquiry. A very specialised, niche engineering company also went from almost absolute invisibility (to ideal clients just 400 metres away on a Carlisle industrial estate) to pulling in orders from as far away as the Isle of Arran, Glasgow and even Lancashire: where their most successful rivals are based.

Encouraging backlinks from other websites is still incredibly important – it is after all the very foundation of the web, so don’t be shy – ask!

If You Just Build it… They WON’T Come!

I can’t stress enough just how important the external promotion of your services has become again. It is no longer a sane business choice to think along the lines of the old adage. “If I build it, they will come!” The search environment has moved on significantly since websites were a rarity and social media had not emerged.

Repeatedly over the past few years, I have worked with companies who have been willing to pay for updated content, some social media or photography but have baulked at the idea of doing the whole digital marketing process. And sure enough, they have seen improvements in how the content shows up, over the course of the projects. Sadly, investments in link attraction and PR have always seemed like a step too far for them.

Those companies are now falling behind competitors who have publicised their content, stories and services more skilfully. The successful companies haven’t shied away from engineering their fame, and AI driven search technologies are recommending them over the more reticent companies. Ignoring “Fame Engineering” (as Andrew Holland calls it), is a business decision you take at your peril. Once you do commit to the task this framework outlined in the webinar I have referred to repeatedly, gives you a process to follow to ensure that commitment is not wasted.

Thanks to Liv Day and Ellie Wraith of Digitaloft for sharing so many aspects of their approach.