SEO Content is Dead? My Strategy for “Information Gain”

The internet is drowning in "skyscraping." You know the drill: Google a topic, open the top five results, and realize they are all rewriting the exact same Wikipedia summary.

For a decade, this worked. If a competitor wrote "10 Tips for SEO," you wrote "20 Tips for SEO." You made it longer, added better images, and stole their backlinks. But in 2025, with AI capable of generating "Ultimate Guides" in seconds, this strategy isn't just tired—it's dead.

If your content summarizes what is already on Page 1, an LLM (Large Language Model) can do your job better and faster. To survive, you need a new metric. A metric Google patented back in 2020 but is only now enforcing rigorously.

That metric is Information Gain.

What is Information Gain? (The Google Patent)

In technical terms, Google's patent describes a system that scores documents based on how much new information they provide compared to a set of documents the user has already seen.

Think of it like a conversation. If you ask five friends "How was the movie?", and the first four say "It was good," the fifth friend who says, "It was good, but the third act had a massive plot hole involving the time travel mechanic," provides Information Gain.

The first four friends provided Information Retrieval (confirming facts). The fifth friend provided unique insight. In the eyes of modern SEO, you must be the fifth friend.

"We are moving from an era of 'Answer Engines' to 'Insight Engines'. Google doesn't need you to repeat facts. It needs you to provide context."

Why This Makes You "AI-Proof"

Generative AI is a consensus engine. It predicts the next likely word based on the average of the internet. It is designed to be average. It cannot go into the field, interview a customer, run a test, or fail at a project and tell you what went wrong.

When you focus on information gain SEO strategy, you are explicitly doing things AI cannot do:

• Original Data: AI cannot survey your 500 email subscribers (yet).
• Lived Experience: AI has never managed a budget or fired a toxic client.
• Contrarian Opinions: AI is programmed to be "safe" and agreeable.

The 3 Pillars of an Information Gain Strategy

So, how do we execute this? We stop writing "Ultimate Guides" and start writing "Experience Logs." Here are the three pillars I use for every piece of content published on PracticalAIWork.

1. The "I Tried It" Filter

Never write "How to do X" unless you can change the title to "How I did X."

If you are writing about our LTV Calculator, don't just define LTV. Run a simulation. Say: "We plugged in the numbers for a hypothetical SaaS company, and realized that increasing retention by 2 months was 3x more valuable than lowering ad costs."

That is an insight derived from usage, not a definition derived from a dictionary.

2. Original Data & Micro-Studies

You don't need to be Gartner or Forrester to publish data. You just need to be observant.

Example: Instead of writing "Best times to post on LinkedIn," look at your own LinkedIn analytics for the last 30 days. Export the CSV. Create a simple chart. Title your section: "My 30-Day Experiment: Why Tuesday at 8 PM failed."

Google loves this. It is a new data point that didn't exist in its index until you hit publish.

3. The "Subjective Truth" (Opinion)

The internet is becoming homogenized. Stand out by having a spine. If everyone says "Content is King," write an article titled "Why Distribution is Queen and Content is just the Court Jester."

Explain why you believe that. Did you write a great blog post that got zero views because you didn't distribute it? Tell that story. Subjective truth helps you rank for "long-tail queries" where people are looking for advice, not just definitions.

How to Audit Your Existing Content

You probably have dozens of articles that are at risk of being replaced by AI. Here is my quick "Information Gain Audit" process:

Step 1: The "Who Cares?" Test

Open your article. Read the H2 headers. If you copy-pasted those headers into ChatGPT, would it give you the exact same paragraphs? If yes, the article is in the "Kill Zone."

Step 2: Inject "Magical Moments"

Find the generic sections and inject a "Magical Moment." A magical moment is a screenshot, a personal anecdote, a quote from an email, or a photo you took with your phone.

Before: "Networking is important for career growth."

After: "I hated networking until I met my co-founder at a coffee shop in Seattle. I almost didn't go because it was raining. That one coffee changed my career trajectory. Here is exactly what I said to him..."

Conclusion: Be The Primary Source

In journalism, there are "primary sources" (the people who saw the event) and "secondary sources" (the people who report on what the primary source said).

For the last 10 years, SEOs have been professional secondary sources. We curated other people's info. In the age of AI, that middleman is being cut out. To win in 2025 and beyond, you must become the primary source.

Create data. Share stories. Have opinions. Be human.