Craft Your Content - Beware the robots!

Welcome to The Writing Rundown, a weekly newsletter that offers advice, short essays, and reading suggestions to help driven writers (like you!) improve their writing craft. It's nice to see you here! If someone forwarded you this email because they love your writing, you can subscribe here.

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

“…we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” - Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers

Elisa’s Thought for the Week

It’s easy to feel worried about AI, with all the articles and bros chirping on about how it’s coming to STEAL ALL THE WRITERS’ LIVELIHOODS, AHHHHHHHHH!

But Google issued a little update to their search engine raters guidance in December, changing their prior E-A-T focus to now include E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust.)

It’s important to note that search engine raters guidance is not a direct ranking factor (SEO folks, hold your ire!) They do, however, provide feedback that helps Google to adjust their algorithm.

In other words, your website won’t be penalized for having a bad E-E-A-T rating. But it isn’t a great thing in terms of competitiveness with other sites in your niche either.

These are the books that Google’s algorithm reads to learn how to adjust and adapt, while ranking factors are the tests it runs on the lessons it has taught every semester.

Google has defined their new E as:“content also demonstrates that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with actual use of a product, having actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced?”

Sounds an awful lot like Google is making moves to back-up their Helpful Content update earlier this year, that focuses on content written by humans for humans.

This is of particular importance if you are a writer in YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) niches like Finances, Personal Money, Career, Fitness, Wellness, Mental Health, etc — as the sites most impacted by the first E-A-T rating guidance were in these areas.

Play with AI writing FOR SURE! It’s fun and adds so many benefits to writers! But don’t lean too heavily into it, without human interaction.

You can learn a bit more about the new E-E-A-T guidelines on Search Engine Land’s update.​

CYC Elsewhere …

Other places we've popped up around the interwebs.

• I like a good vision and goal (that can then be broken down into manageable habits and milestones!) So when fellow OG Forbes-er Carol Roth asked me to share my 2023 resolution, alongside 300+ others, I happily obliged. (You can search my name or scroll down to #53, if you don’t want to wade through all of them.)

In Other Reading This Week …

Need more insights and inspiration for your writing and mindset?

• Looking for some guidance on “what to do” as a creator in 2023? Over on The Tilt writer Ann Gynn has collected advice from 23 creators, but the twist is that these are the 23 mistakes creators should avoid in 2023.​
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• If you want some ideas for how to use AI tools like ChatGPT in your online writing, this video from SEO pro Matt Diggity has some great advice and tips. I especially appreciate his focus on “you’ve still gotta have well-written quality content, and ChatGPT just isn’t there yet without human interaction.”
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• While I strictly do not endorse the glamour of the starving artist stereotype, there is something to be said for the quiet “lonely” times that allow us to focus on our creativity. Shane Parrish has some intriguing examples over on Farnam Street to give you inspiration.​
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• Looking for some quick email templates to help you manage email communications with your clients? The folks over at Meet Harlow have you covered with 7 of the essentials.
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• One thing we’ll be working on at CYC in 2023 is updating over 7 years of content from our site. But where, when, and how should you update that content? This piece from Marisa Mohi over on Content Journey covers it all — quickly and comprehensively.

Weekly Writing Tip …

A quick chance to learn from the masters.

“Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination.” — Anthony Burgess, The Best Stories of J.G. Ballard

Untranslatable …

Exquisite words from other languages.

Ghodar-dim (ঘোড়ার ডিম) [SELD-koo-th] (n.) – This Bengali term literally translates as “horse egg”, which is something that simply doesn’t exist. It’s a sort of false hope or discovery that doesn’t amount to anything — or seems like a hoax. Sorta synonyms: mare’s nest, bosh, nonsense, codswallop, boondoggle

This Week’s Writing Prompt …

We often do our thinking when we write.

Have you played with any AI writing tools yet? Found interesting, useful, or just plain fun ways to bring them to your writing process? Or are you staying away totally, opting for a more analog creative process?

For the Upcoming Week …

Because we all need a good chuckle to start things off right!

My, how far we’ve come. 👀

Cheers ~