Topical Authority, Information Gain & E-E-A-T: Competitive Advantages in an AI-Generated Content Era, Where Sameness Is the Standard.

Topical authority. Information gain. E-E-A-T. These aren’t just buzzwords. They’re competitive levers that can determine whether your content ranks—or gets buried—in rapidly evolving SERPs.

In this session, James will take a tactical deep dive into what these concepts actually mean in practice, and how to implement them as part of a winning SEO strategy.

You’ll learn how to build real topical depth (no, this doesn’t mean randomly publishing hundreds of blog posts based on scraped People Also Ask (PAA) questions), work with subject matter experts to demonstrate experience and expertise, and create content that adds genuine value to users beyond what already ranks.

In a sea of AI-generated content, where sameness is the standard, these are the exact things that AI can’t fake. Standing out means doubling down on human-driven, experience-led content that demonstrates real authority and delivers true value.

If you want to gain a lasting edge over your competitors, and build a content engine that ranks, converts, and compounds over time, this is your roadmap.

Transcript

1. Topical Authority, Information Gain & E-E-A-T: Competitive Advantages in an AI-Generated Content Era, Where Sameness Is the Standard. James Brockbank, Digitaloft.
2. We can create content about anything we know nothing about in seconds.
4. It works, until it doesn’t. 77% drop 71% drop 87% drop
5. 87% drop
6. If you’re only publishing consensus content, why wouldn’t a searcher consume Google’s version of this?
7. This isn’t just about AI; copycat content feeds into the same problem.
8. We’ve had tools encouraging us to write the same as everyone else…
9. You’re competing against AI & copycat content.
10. SEO teams and agencies are being replaced by AI tools…
11. SEO teams and agencies are being replaced by AI tools…
12. Lots of businesses are lazy, impatient & don’t want to spend money.
13. So how do you actually win in a world of AI and copycat content? 04 01 02 03 05 Intent. Information gain. Topical coverage. E-E-A-T. Subject matter experts.
14. So how do you actually win in a world of AI and copycat content? 01 Intent.
15. 1. Intent. How much content do you really need on your page?
16. Lots of pages have too much content on them right now…
17. What content should be on the page?
18. What is someone actually looking for when they land on this page? Ask yourself…
19. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? What is it?
20. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? Why have it?
21. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? How much does it cost?
22. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? Proof of before and after?
23. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? Reviews from patients?
24. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? What can it treat & why choose us?
25. What is someone actually looking for when searching ‘Botox in London’? Why this clinic over another? When can they fit me in? How much is it going to cost? Where’s the evidence they’ve done it before?
26. How do you figure out what people are actually looking for? Ask them. Ask customer service & support teams. Reddit & Quora. Go through the user journey.
27. So how do you actually win in a world of AI and copycat content? 02 Information gain.
28. 2. Information gain. What new information are you adding to the topic beyond what already ranks?
29. Consensus content is making sure your content aligns with the general consensus of a topic. You can’t go tell your audience that bananas are blue…
30. Information gain is fundamental to creating helpful, reliable & people-first content.
31. How unique is your content compared to what’s already out there?
32. If a page adds nothing new or unique to a topic, can it really be considered as helpful?
33. This may mean that boosting some pages in rankings based on how much information they would add to a searcher and demoting them if they don’t add much information to a searcher. - Bill Slawski
34. [consensus content] + [information gain] It’s not enough to be creating consensus content…
35. So how do you actually win in a world of AI and copycat content? 03 Topical coverage.
36. 3. Topical coverage. Does informational content still have a place in SEO strategies in 2025?
37. Organic clicks are being lost.
38. Most of these clicks are going nowhere. AI Overviews
39. Most of these clicks are going nowhere. AI Overviews AI Mode
40. Most of these clicks are going nowhere. AI Overviews AI Mode AI Chatbots
41. People are discovering brands in new ways.
42. People are discovering brands in new ways. The top of the funnel is fragmenting.
43. Understanding query fan-out. Source: Aleyda Solis “AI Mode uses our query fan-out technique, breaking down your question into subtopics and issuing a multitude of queries simultaneously on your behalf. This enables Search to dive deeper into the web than a traditional search on Google, helping you discover even more of what the web has to offer and find incredible, hyper-relevant content that matches your question.”
44. Understanding passage-based indexing. Source: Google, 2020 “Sometimes the single sentence that answers your question might be buried deep in a web page. We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to not just index web pages, but individual passages from the pages. By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for.”
45. You need relevant passages if you want to be visible, but that doesn’t mean it’s all on separate pages.
46. You need relevant passages if you want to be visible, but that doesn’t mean it’s all on separate pages. You can stop writing a page for every PAA question.
47. So how do you actually win in a world of AI and copycat content? 04 E-E-A-T.
48. 4. E-E-A-T. Think of E-E-A-T like your business's online reputation.
49. Quality rater scoring is used to train RankEmbed and RankEmbedBERT… The judgement of human raters is used to train machine learning systems that rank search results. E-E-A-T is an important consideration when raters evaluate page quality.
50. Understanding E-E-A-T.
51. Understanding E-E-A-T.
52. E-E-A-T at the content, author & brand-levels. Content-level E-E-A-T signals. Author-level E-E-A-T signals. Brand-level E-E-A-T signals.
53. 3 levels of E-E-A-T. Content-level E-E-A-T.
54. 3 levels of E-E-A-T. Content-level E-E-A-T. Author-level E-E-A-T.
55. 3 levels of E-E-A-T. Content-level E-E-A-T. Author-level E-E-A-T. Brand-level E-E-A-T.
56. 3 levels of E-E-A-T. Content-level E-E-A-T. Author-level E-E-A-T. Brand-level E-E-A-T. On-site signals.
57. 3 levels of E-E-A-T. Content-level E-E-A-T. Author-level E-E-A-T. Brand-level E-E-A-T. On-site signals. Third-party signals.
58. You can’t be ranked or recommended as the best if you’re the only one saying it. What you say about yourself. What other people say about you. Your website's content Structured data Press coverage Reviews Social Discussion Forums
59. So how do you actually win in a world of AI and copycat content? 05 Subject matter experts.
60. 5. Subject matter experts. AI can write consensus content but there are things it can’t do (or fake)…
61. Too many brands think it’s ok to create fake experts…
62. A subject matter expert is a person of authority on a specific topic…
63. Subject matter experts are in demand right now… ➔ First-hand experience (what it’s like to actually do or use the thing). ➔ Unique perspectives that come from real world practice. ➔ The feedback and insights gained from actually speaking with customers. ➔ Credibility that comes from an expert’s name, title and reputation. ➔ The unique selling points, and areas of differentiation, of your business.
64. Who are the subject matter experts in a business? Subject matter experts. The founder(s). Product specialists. Sales people. Customer service managers.
65. Without using SMEs, you’re only going to create the content that anyone else could…
68. You can use subject matter experts to… ➔ Come up with content ideas & topics that keyword research or competitor analysis wouldn’t uncover. ➔ Validate the things that customers (and the industry) do and don’t care about, and what the hottest trends are right now. ➔ Analyse competitor content to help identify gaps that could be covered. ➔ Provide facts and information for content to be created around. ➔ Check facts and information in content that’s been created.
69. Why can’t we 10x our content output using AI? When your boss asks…
70. Here’s why... 77% drop 71% drop 87% drop
71. Why can’t we replace our content team with AI? When your boss asks…
72. Here’s why... 77% drop 71% drop 87% drop
73. In 2025, you win by doing what others don’t (or won’t) and what AI can’t.
74. Thank you ! Follow me on social: @BrockbankJames /in/james-brockbank Get in touch: james@digitaloft.co.uk