The Experience Quotient: Using Your Unique Story to Win at Search

Feeling AI-exhausted? This is focused material!

I try to spend some time in training hours every quarter. I’ve sat in on many webinars and read lots of ‘white papers’ over the last 6-12 months continuing to learn more about SEO – AI – Content Writing. I thought the following information would help many of my clients because so many are struggling figuring out how to stay relevant in search results. In this blog post, I talk about a very specific method - for both web pages, blog posts, and even social media posts. I hope it helps you.

If you’re feeling "AI-exhausted," this article focuses on cutting through the noise.

Kerri Marvel

Asking the right questions

If you keep asking yourself HOW to get AI content into your website’s pages, posts and social media because you think that’s how to get found in AI search, or to get found at all, you’re missing the point. The question you should be asking yourself is what are those LLMs (large language models=AI) looking at and pulling from?

Your content will be ignored if you have ‘hollow’ or thin content. The internet contains a firehose of information – so how do those LLMs filter down which content to show? AI Search is engineered to trace the ORIGINAL source (of content in a page or post), back to the original firsthand HUMAN source who wrote it. So the question you SHOULD be asking yourself is HOW do you add the HUMAN experience factor?

Yes, I’m talking about EEAT, Again

In 2014, Google developed the original EAT Search QUALITY Rater Guidelines. EAT stands for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. Then, in December 2022, they added a second E for Experience – the human component – due in large part to the influx of AI being used everywhere. I have been telling my clients about EEAT for years, to write web page, blog post, and even social media using EEAT’s principles for years.

Writing in first person is not enough. The writer’s UNIQUE experience needs to be included. Cognitive linguistic signals in LLMs can identify the Experience within the content. How is this done? By sharing a personal experience, perspective, opinion, or feelings on your topic – first-hand life or work experience. But it’s not THAT simple.

 

The ‘Experience’ Quotient

There is a formula for adding a ‘depth of human experience’ to your content. But first, it may help to know HOW Search has changed. Search algorithms have heavily evolved twice, so far.

Level 1 – Back in 1998, Google (and other search engines) didn’t “know” things – only to look for matching words. Search engines didn’t know the difference between the color orange and the fruit orange.

Level 2 – Then in about 2013, Google (and other search engines) start understanding what things are, and the relationships between them. It became important to write comprehensive and intelligent content, to help with the relationship between words. (The web is saturated with this type of content today, thus the ‘firehose’ of information).

Level 3 – Search engines now understand the FULL meaning of sentences, contexts, sentiments and INTENTION, to the same degree a HUMAN does.

You can see why the LLMs (AI) have now been trained to look for evidence of the ORIGINAL HUMAN INSIGHT, that was gained via REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE. So to be considered for display in Search or AI results, your content must rise above the noise. Call it Level 3 rewriting of your content!

Search engines and AI use something called Natural Language Processing (NLP) to recognize when a human is sharing memories of lived experiences and the knowledge acquired from them. This boils down to something called Cognitive Linguistics, which studies language as an integral part of the human mind, and the link from language structure to conceptualization, knowledge and even bodily experience.

---

There are 3 main ways to inject the Human Experience into your content.

• ‘Over the Years’ Stories
• Pivot Points
• Only the Pros Would Know

---

Details of using the 3 Methods of the Experience Quotient

1. 'Over-the-Years' Stories – incredibly effective – demonstrate how long you’ve been doing something

Example: Back in 2007, when I operated my restaurant, Gooseberry Fool Café, I was making coffee using a pour-over machine for the water, but the Saturday breakfasts got so busy, I finally invested in a plumber coming out to set up my expensive coffee maker to pull its own water, which made the process much easier and faster.

Your story could also:

• Explain the evolution of your methodology over time
• Identify standard industry practices you retained, which you modified, and which you discarded as your personal expertise matured.
• Describe long-term effects

 

2. Pivot Points – a technique that describes your changes in beliefs or processes, as a result of LIVED experiences.

Example: I used to require that my website clients provide all of their own content for their website, but after years of these busy professionals not knowing where to start, getting overwhelmed, or just not having time, now I provide at least the starting paragraph, and content is not written in stone anyway. It’s amazing how a little nudge suddenly helps them realize what they want or need to say, including what not to include.

Your story could also:

• Explain the fundamental shift in a professional or personal belief, resulting from real-world situations.
• Describe how your approach evolved, and how your standard operating procedures have changed accordingly.
• Describe the path NOT taken, and your reasoning why.

 

3. Only the Pros Would Know – Involves demonstrating deep understanding of complexities learned through extensive first-hand experience. These are things not taught in the classroom or included in a handbook of standard industry best practices.

Example: The manual says to tighten the bolt to 50 lbs of torque, but after building a hundred of these barbeques, I learned to stop when I felt a certain give in the wrench. If I went strictly by the manual, I’d strip the threads.

Your story could also:

• Discuss how one concept impacted another
• Describe a complex decision-making challenge
• Explain the ripple effects that were caused down the line
• Talk about Theory vs Reality scenarios
• Report an ‘Exception to every rule’, and describe the case(s)
• Describe a situation where a decision was made or something happened, and the effects were so intense, there was no going back, you reached the point of no return

Explaining how you navigated such challenges demonstrates your battle scars, showing how you survived the situations that other less-seasoned professional would not have.

---

Summary

Don’t just share the facts, also share the friction, mistakes and breaking of rules that only a human could experience. Put these ideas into practice with new writing or rewrites, and let me know how it goes.

Kerri’s Pro-Tip for Clients: If you’re stuck, imagine you’re explaining this to a friend over coffee. You wouldn’t just talk facts—you’d tell them about the time it all went wrong (or right!), and the shortcut you discovered after ten years of trying. That is your Experience Quotient!"

Kerri Marvel
Website Designer, SEO Doer, Blog Writer, Website Care Plan Administrator