Debates on whether SEO is “dead” inevitably flare up with each new technology, but one constant truth underlies every evolution: content remains king. This was true when
Bill Gates famously declared it in the mid-1990s, and it remains true in 2025’s AI-driven digital landscape. Even as search algorithms get smarter and platforms proliferate, authentic content that provides value still sits on the throne of digital strategy.
Joseph Franklyn McElroy– founder of Galileo Tech Media and a veteran SEO strategist – has long championed this principle. In his early Wise Odyssey LinkedIn newsletters (now rebranded as Wild Ducks: A Wise Odyssey), McElroy’s reflective yet pragmatic tone reinforced that great content is the cornerstone of sustainable SEO and branding. His themes have evolved from organic brand awarenesstoward a focus on visibility, authority, and trust, but the core message remains: in SEO and brand strategy, content wears the crown. This article echoes those themes in a business-oriented voice, illustrating why content’s reign endures by examining how it drives visibility, authority, and trust in 2025’s digital arena.
The Evolving SEO Landscape: Content Is Still King
Every few years, headlines speculate that SEO is dying – whether due to social media, voice assistants, or AI chatbots. Yet time and again, the obituaries prove premature. “Another year, another declaration that SEO is dead. But the truth reveals another story,” as one industry expert put it. In reality, search and content marketing are not disappearing; they are adapting. AI search and new platforms may demand new skills, but they also underscore the unshakeable fundamentals of SEO. Google’s own advances, from MUM to generative AI, still rely on established signals like clear content optimization, relevance, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), and cross-platform brand presence. In other words, high-quality content and credible digital footprints are as crucial as ever.
What has changed is where and how audiences consume content. We live in a “search-everywhere” environment. Consumers find information not just via Google, but on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, podcasts, and AI assistants. This doesn’t mean SEO is dead – it means brands must optimize content for every channeland prioritize strategy over tricks. McElroy’s newsletter tagline captures it well: reflections on visibility, authority, and trust in an AI-mediated world “where judgment matters more than tactic.”It’s a reminder to business leaders that success comes from sound strategy and valuable content, rather than chasing every shiny new growth hack. As marketing guru Seth Godin boldly stated, “Content marketing is the only marketing left”– meaning that interruptive ads and gimmicks have given way to content-driven approaches. Customers today expect meaningful contentthat educates or entertains, and they reward brands who deliver it with their attention, trust, and dollars.
So yes, content is still king, but it rules a growing kingdom. To thrive now, content must do more than contain keywords; it must achieve three key goals:
- Visibility:Ensuring your brand is seen wherever your audience is searching.
- Authority:Demonstrating expertise and leadership so that your content demandsrespect.
- Trust:Building credibility through honesty, consistency, and genuine value.
When content meets these objectives, it fuels a virtuous cycle of brand growth. Let’s break down each pillar and see how content propels them in practice.
Visibility: From Organic Brand Awareness to Omnipresence
In traditional marketing, “brand awareness” often meant plastering your name on billboards and buying prime-time ads. The modern, sustainable approach is organic brand awareness (OBA)– earning recognition naturallythrough valuable content and word-of-mouth rather than sheer ad spend. McElroy’s concept of OBA can be seen as the foundation of visibility: it’s about showing up consistentlyin the right places online because people genuinely find your content useful. Unlike paid campaigns that vanish when the budget dries up, organic visibility grows over time from customer engagement, social sharing, and strong search rankings. As one definition explains, OBA grows naturally over time through word-of-mouth, customer experiences, social media interactions, conversations and organic search position, focusing on genuine audience connection and loyalty over quick hits.
A vivid analogy from McElroy’s early writing compares nurturing a brand to a family weekend ritual. He describes cooking organic pancakes with his young twins – a simple tradition that became “the identity of our family” through genuine participation. This warm anecdote serves as a business metaphor: just as those pancake mornings bonded the family, organic branding builds loyal communities by involving your audience in authentic experiences. Successful brands aren’t just known; they are lovedfor meaningful reasons. In practice, that means inviting customers into a story or conversation, rather than just shouting slogans at them. Content plays the central role here. High-quality articles, videos, podcasts, and social posts create touchpoints where your audience discovers you, learns your values, and engages with you – all without feeling “marketed at.” Over time, those touchpoints accumulate into sustained visibility. Your brand begins to dominate the conversationin your niche because you consistently appear wherever relevant topics are discussed.
Importantly, this organic visibility has compounding benefits for SEO. When you prioritize valuable content and community engagement, you naturally earn the signals that search engines reward: real backlinks, positive reviews, dwell time, and brand mentions. In essence, great content makes your brand unmissable. As the SEO industry described it, “If a brand isn’t showing up in search results, does it even exist?”– top search rankings aren’t just about traffic, they’re a credibility boost. Users tend to trust and click the names they see repeatedly at the top. The more people encounter your brand in search results or social feeds, the more familiar and trustworthy you become. “The brands that consistently appear in searches gain an unspoken trust with users,”notes one SEO authority blog, “Familiarity breeds trust, and trust turns into authority.” In other words, by steadily growing your organic presence, you are training both algorithms andpeople to regard your brand as the go-to choice.
Achieving this kind of omnipresence requires a mindset shift. It’s not about pushingyour message everywhere arbitrarily; it’s about deeply understanding your audience (“the Who”)and creating content that genuinely meets their needs. McElroy cites brand strategist Kevin Perlmutter, who argues that too many companies obsess over their internal story (“finding your Why”) and forget to empathize with the customer’s story. In our earlier metaphor, it’s like choosing the pancake ingredients because youlike them, rather than considering what your familyenjoys. To build real visibility, brands must focus on why people should care– which starts with caring about the people. Content strategy should be informed by audience research, feedback, and even emotions. By tuning your content to the interests and pain points of your target consumers (their tastes and cravings), your brand becomes naturally more discoverable and shareable. You’re not just appearing in front of people – you’re resonatingwith them. That resonance leads to clicks, follows, and conversations that steadily amplify your presence.
In summary, cultivating organic visibility is a long game, but a rewarding one. It means doing the hard work of earning attentionrather than buying it. But the payoff is a brand presence that is sustainable and respected. Your company will remain visible, relevant, and resonantacross channels because you’ve built a genuine community interest. And crucially, that visibility lays the groundwork for authority and trust – the next pillars we explore. After all, being seen is the first step; what matters next is being believed and being beloved.
Authority: Establishing Credibility Through Expertise and Empathy
Visibility alone isn’t enough if your content doesn’t carry weight. This is where authoritycomes in – the sense that your brand is a knowledgeable, reliable leader in its domain. In SEO terms, authority has a very literal impact: Google assesses it by evaluating your content’s quality, expertise, and the endorsements it earns (like backlinks and mentions) But beyond algorithms, humanauthority is earned by consistently demonstrating insight and value. How can content be crafted to convey expertise and credibility effectively? McElroy’s approach points to a blend of science and art: neurolexical marketingand storytelling.
Neurolexical marketing is a concept McElroy often highlights – essentially, it means using language with an awareness of psychology and neuroscience. Every word and phrase in your content can influence how the audience feelsand responds. By choosing words that trigger emotion or a sense of identity, you’re not just conveying facts; you’re forging a connection. This can significantly bolster your authority because you speak in a way that resonateswith the audience’s own experience. In McElroy’s words, neurolexical marketing “fuses neuroscience insights with the strategic use of language. It revolves around understanding how specific words, phrases, and narratives impact the human brain and influence consumer behavior.” When your content soundsauthoritative – using confident tone, relatable language, and vivid storytelling – people are more likely to perceive your brand as an authority. It’s the difference between a dry, jargon-laden explanation versus a compelling narrative by someone who clearly gets it. The latter inspires confidence and respect.
“Engaging content isn’t just about whatwe say, it’s about sparking a conversation that resonates deeply with our audience.” – Wise Odysseynewsletter, 2024 edition.
This quote from McElroy’s newsletter encapsulates the neurolexical philosophy. Great content doesn’t lecture the audience; it engages them in a mental dialogue. It anticipates their questions, validates their feelings, and uses familiar terms that make them think “Yes, exactly!”For example, an article about cybersecurity could dryly state facts, or it could open with: “Ever felt that jolt of panic when a suspicious email lands in your inbox?”Immediately, the reader feels understood. That emotional hook not only grabs attention but also establishes the writer’s authority – it signals this author knows what you’re dealing with. Using such empathetic, audience-centric language transforms your content from a generic info dump into a trustworthy conversation. This is a powerful form of authority: empathic authorityborn from showing you truly understand the audience’s world.
Of course, authority ultimately also requires substance. Emotional resonance opens the door, but you must walk through with expertise. Here, the principles of Google’s E-E-A-T are instructive. Google’s quality guidelines emphasize Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthinessas measures of content quality. To establish authority in the eyes of search engines andusers, your content should demonstrate real expertise: original research, specific examples, knowledgeable analysis, and accurate information. McElroy suggests weaving in “real-world experience and well-being triggers” into content to give it depth alongside emotion. In practice, this might mean a blog post that not only makes an emotional point, but also shares data or case studies to back it up. A useful checklist is to ask: Does this content teach something new or provide a unique insight that others aren’t providing? If yes, you’re staking your claim as a thought leader. If not, no amount of clever wording will make it authoritative.
One tangible outcome of authoritative content is that it naturally attracts third-party validation. When your content is truly valuable, other websites and publications will cite or link to it. These backlinks are like votes of confidence, boosting your SEO authority just as positive references boost one’s professional reputation. When reputable websites link to a page, they’re essentially endorsing its credibility.” The key, however, is earningsuch links through high-quality, insightful content – not by trying to game the system. Think of backlinks and mentions as the byproductof being authoritative, not just the goal. If you focus on creating content that industry peers would find worth sharing – for instance, a definitive guide or a provocative new take on a trend – you will build authority both online and in the minds of your audience.
Finally, language and content strategy can also reinforce authority by highlighting identity. Brands can position themselves as part of their audience’s aspirational identity. For example, a travel company publishing content for “adventurous explorers” or a SaaS provider speaking to “innovative CIOs” is subtly affirming those readers’ sense of self whileasserting its own niche authority. This neurolexical nuance makes the audience more likely to trust the brand’s expertise – because it feels tailored to people like them. When readers feel a piece of content was written specifically for someone with their interests or challenges, the author’s authority gets a boost (in their eyes) for being a specialist. It’s a reminder that authority is not just about what you know, but how well you know your audience. By aligning content with the audience’s language and values, brands become authoritative voices within that community.
In summary, to elevate authority through content, focus on bothhead and heart. Use a tone and terminology that emotionally connects (the heart), and deliver depth and accuracy that inform (the head). Over time, this combination positions your brand as a trusted expert – the company people think of first when they need answers. Authority built this way is durable; it doesn’t vanish with algorithm updates because it’s rooted in real human perception of your credibility. And as we’ll see next, this authority is closely intertwined with the ultimate goal: trust.
Trust: Building Lasting Bonds with Memorable Content
Trust is the crown jewel of brand success – especially in an era of information overload. It’s one thing to get a buyer’s attention (visibility) or even to impress them with knowledge (authority); it’s another to earn their confidence and loyalty. Trust is what turns one-time visitors into repeat customers and advocates. In SEO terms, Google also cares deeply about trustworthiness. Recent research emphasizes that “Trust is the foundation of strong search engine visibility. Google wants to recommend sites that are credible, useful, and safe.” If users consistently have positive, trustworthy experiences with your content, search engines take notice and reward you with higher rankings. But how do we craft content that genuinely builds trust? This is where cognitive content strategycomes into play – designing content in line with how humans think, remember, and make decisions.
Cognitive psychology tells us that people remember stories and meaningful patternsfar better than raw facts. We are wired to respond to narratives; they help us make sense of information and remember it later. McElroy’s newsletter often exemplified this by using personal anecdotes and metaphors (like the pancake story) to convey marketing lessons. These devices aren’t just stylistic; they are trust-building tools. Why? Because when readers understand and recall your message, they come to trustyour brand as one that enlightens rather than confuses. Think about the content you personally find trustworthy – likely it’s content that was clear, well-structured, maybe even enjoyableto consume. That’s no coincidence: clarity and relatability signal honesty and competence. In contrast, content that is convoluted, overly salesy, or irrelevant breeds skepticism.
Cognitive contentmeans delivering information in the way our brains prefer. For instance, breaking up text with descriptive headings and bullet points isn’t just good for SEO – it respects that readers scan and absorb in chunks. Repeating key principles in different ways throughout an article helps reinforce memory (a concept known as the spacing effect). Including real examples or visuals taps into multiple senses, making the experience more memorable. All these tactics make your content stickierin the audience’s mind. And when people remember your advice or story days or weeks later, it cements a subconscious trust: “I remember who taught me that useful thing – that brand really knows their stuff.”Essentially, memorable content keeps your brand top-of-mind and trustedfor when the customer is ready to act.
Another aspect of trust is consistency and honesty. To build trust via content, a brand must be transparent and consistent in its messaging. If your tone of voice is welcoming and respectful in a blog post, but aggressive in a sales email, trust erodes. Likewise, making promises in content that your product or service can’t keep will quickly backfire. McElroy’s approach of “turning customers into a community with connections and stories”underscores that trust comes from authenticity. Share your brand values and behind-the-scenes perspectives; admit mistakes if needed and address customer concerns openly. This humanizes the brand. When readers feel they know the people and principles behind a company, it bridges the trust gap inherent in online interactions. In fact, Google’s quality guidelines explicitly look for indicators of who is behind content (author names, credentials, company info) as signs of transparency. Being forthright about your identity and qualifications in content doesn’t just please Google – it reassures users that real, accountable people stand behind the advice or claims being made.
We should also note that emotional resonance breeds trust. This ties back to neurolexical tactics but from a different angle: content that evokes positive emotion can create a halo effect for your brand. For example, if your social post makes someone genuinely laugh or your podcast story moves them, that emotional experience is associated with you. They’ll trust you a bit more, because you’ve touched them in a non-transactional way. It’s similar to how we trust friends who understand us and make us feel good. Brands can achieve a slice of that feeling by crafting content with heart and personality, not just corporate polish. As McElroy emphasized, it’s about “not just being seen; it’s about being feltby your audience.”When people feel something from your content – whether it’s relief from a solved problem, inspiration from a case study, or camaraderie through a shared belief – a bond forms. Over time, that bond can outweigh even a cheaper price from a competitor, because the customer trusts youmore.
In measurable terms, trust pays off in multiple ways. Users who trust your site exhibit better engagement signals (longer time on page, lower bounce rates, higher conversion rates) which in turn boost your search rankings. Trust also means customers will give you the benefit of the doubt – crucial during inevitable hiccups like a website outage or a delayed delivery. Moreover, trust generates word-of-mouth referrals and reviews, which further amplify both SEO and sales. Essentially, trust creates a self-reinforcing loop of positive reputation. It’s the holy grail that all the visibility and authority we discussed aim to ultimately achieve.
Conclusion: Content’s Reign Continues – Now Stronger Than Ever
In the fast-changing digital world of 2026, it’s tempting to latch onto each new platform or algorithm update as “the next big thing” and wonder if older strategies become obsolete. But as we’ve explored, the core driver of success remains the same as it was decades ago: valuable content that earns visibility, authority, and trust. What haschanged is that today we understand better how these three outcomes reinforce one another. High-quality content makes your brand visible across search and social channels without solely relying on ad spend. That consistent presence builds familiarity, which fosters trust and paves the way for authority. In turn, being recognized as an authority leads to more people seeking out your content (increasing visibility) and trusting your offerings – a virtuous cycle that all starts with content.
Even Google’s ever-evolving algorithms reflect this reality. The search giant’s focus on E-E-A-T signals and user experience essentially translates to: reward those who provide trustworthy, authoritative content that people actually want to see. It’s no longer possible to trick your way to the top; you have to prove your worththrough content. “Google aims to prioritize content that’s seen as trustworthy,” notes a recent Semrush report, because Google’s own reputation depends on sending users to credible, helpful sites. In other words, your success is increasingly aligned with genuine user satisfaction. That is a promising trend for businesses committed to quality – it means doing the right thing by your audience is also the best SEO strategy. Content that truly serves your customers’ needs will inherently hit the marks of visibility (via shares and search interest), authority (via expertise shown and cited), and trust (via positive engagement).
McElroy’s Wild Ducks: A Wise Odysseyseries is a testament to this philosophy. Throughout his writings, he urges brands to marry timeless wisdom with modern techniques – to use AI and analytics (the new tools) in service of human-centric content (the timeless strategy). For instance, leveraging AI for what he calls “FusionCrafting” can streamline content production and personalization, but human judgment must guide the narrative and ensure authenticity (he demonstrated this technique by writing a book “Wild Ducks Don’t Fly in Formation” that was the #1 New Release in December 2025 on Amazon). As he noted in one edition of his Newsletter, AI can draft and optimize, “but AI is a tool. It can’t replace the lived experience behind a story or the emotional intelligence needed to connect with a specific audience”. This balance of innovation and authenticity is how content maintains its crown in an AI-mediated world. The brands that win will be those who pair cutting-edge delivery with old-fashioned storytelling and transparency.
For founders, CEOs, and marketing leaders reading this, the takeaway is clear: invest in content as an asset, not an afterthought. Content strategy is not just a marketing expense, it is the engine that drives brand equity. When you consistently create content that educates, inspires, or solves problems, you’re building a reservoir of goodwill and credibility that no competitor can easily replicate. You’re also future-proofing your SEO – algorithm tweaks won’t faze you when you’re aligned with the ultimate goal of search engines (delighting users). As one SEO expert remarked, “the content that performs best in AI search or gets cited by ChatGPT is the same high-quality content that excels in traditional Google Search”. Trends come and go, but great content endures and keeps paying dividends.
In medieval times, a king’s reign was secure only if he had the love and respect of his people. In much the same way, content’s reign in digital marketing is secured by the value it provides to the audience. By focusing on visibility, authority, and trust, we ensure that our “king” – content – is benevolent and beloved, not oppressive or irrelevant. As we head into the future, it’s fitting to rephrase that classic adage: Content is king– and its power is in how it builds community and credibility. McElroy’s odyssey of insights ultimately teaches that while tactics may change, the brands that tell compelling stories and put their audience first will always rule the day.
