5 top tips for creating authentic content

Jack says: “Authenticity will be the difference-maker for content in 2025.”

What does authenticity mean and what does it mean to customers?

“It’s something a lot of brands struggle with, so it is something that can separate a business from the generic – especially with the advent of AI generation and LLMs.

Bringing an authentic voice to your content and your brand can help you stand out against the competition. This is especially true for younger audiences. We’re seeing more and more that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are hesitant to engage with brands that are very polished and corporate. Being authentic, open, and honest with your audience is going to be key – if it’s not already.

Authenticity definitely means different things to different people, but it starts with having an open, honest, frank approach to content. For example, think about how you communicate your message rather than being purely positive and just claiming that you’re the best.

Be honest about what your product does and doesn’t do. Google has talked about the powers of pros and cons rather than just always trying to sell, sell, sell to your customers. Be honest to your customers and explain what you don’t do best, and the alternatives they could consider or the other products or services that you work well with. Don’t just force your message down your customer’s throats at all times.”

As an SEO agency, would you recommend someone else for a job that you don’t want to do and someone else could potentially do better?

“We do that all the time at Candour. When we get inbound inquiries, Mark Williams-Cook and the team will have a conversation and ask, is this realistic? Does it line up with our values and our budget? We’ll often recommend freelancers who we’ve worked with before.

We’re not running many PPC campaigns at the moment, but we have worked with smaller agencies and one-man shows that we could recommend. They might get more for their budget by using those guys rather than us.

That sounds counterintuitive. You want to accept every customer and get every penny that you can, especially as times are incredibly tough at the moment. However, being honest and open about what you offer and what you don’t offer is key. It can help you build those relationships with other brands as well.”

Does authenticity provide an opportunity for smaller brands to compete more effectively with larger ones?

“That’s where a lot of it comes in. You can get away with a lot when you’re a big brand. You can do a lot of wacky things – like the unhinged social media trend where McDonald’s and other big restaurateurs were fighting with each other on Twitter/X, for example.

There is an element to having a clear brand voice for your small business. You can really nail down your niche and your specific target audience compared to a huge brand that is scattershot and trying absolutely everything.

If you have a really clear message and a really clear value, consumers look for brands that align with their values. They are far more likely to align with, and be loyal to, a brand if they feel like that brand is being authentic. It’s especially relevant for small businesses.”

You have 5 tips for creating authentic content, starting with number 1: Curate your content like you’re a magazine editor.

“This comes from my journalism experience. The kind of content I want to create as a podcaster, content writer, or even video creator is content that I would read, watch, or listen to myself. That’s where so much of the creative process comes in.

If it’s not going to cut the mustard for yourself, then the chances are it’s not going to be interesting for other people – and the opposite is true. If you have a great idea and you’ve made a piece of content that you think is really resonating, chances are there will be other people who will think the same.

However, you’ve got to be brutal and honest with yourself in that process and not just make stuff for the sake of it.

You can create using a persona, and there is an element of truth when you do that. From a podcast perspective (both of us being podcasters at heart), there is the ‘you’ that is the presenter, the host, and the guest when you’re on other shows as well. In my case, the ‘me’ on SEOin2025 is the same as the ‘me’ on Search with Candour, the ‘me’ on my film podcast, the ‘me’ chatting to my wife, and the ‘me’ chatting to clients (minus a few swear words here and there, depending on the audience).

I’m Jack Chambers-Ward wherever I am. Perhaps I’ve accidentally stumbled into that, but it is relevant for that audience to understand who you really are. If you want to present something that is slightly adjusted (maybe it’s just you but dialled up a bit) that is valid. However, creating an entirely different persona is a step too far. You need to stay true to your original brand values.”

Number 2: Let your brand values drive the content before the brief and the keywords.

“A lot of people get the brand values in a leaflet when they first join a company or start working with a new client, then they sit in a desk drawer or on a folder in your hard drive, and you never really think about them.

When it comes to crafting your unique voice – whether you’re early in your content process, you’re maintaining that, or you’re working with a new client – you need to understand why you’re saying what you’re saying. Don’t start by thinking about the brief and the keywords, and then wonder how it ties into your brand values. Go with a value-led approach rather than wanting to rank for a keyword and hoping your audience will care.

Think about how the audience will care first and why that is relevant to you and your values. Then, think about the kind of things they’re going to be searching for.”

Number 3: Stay consistent with your message and branding across channels.

“In late 2023/early 2024, you saw brands like Ryanair posting very over-the-top, crazy, and borderline offensive things on social media. They were grabbing attention and getting a lot of clicks, likes, shares, and all that stuff. Then you would see an ad for Ryanair on YouTube or TV and suddenly it’s: ‘Welcome to Ryanair. We do discount flights.’ It’s very corporate, very clean, and very conservative. Those two things don’t align.

There is value in adjusting your content for the audience, depending on the platform, and repurposing content. However, a lot of brands underestimate how much crossover there is.

A theme from the guests we’ve had on Search with Candour this year is the amount of people who consider SEO to be siloed by itself. More people need to understand that SEO is part of the wider marketing package. Whether you are with an agency, in-house, or freelance you need to be working together with the rest of the people who are organising your channels. That can be the social team, the design team, or whoever – you all need to be working together and understanding that you’re saying the same thing.

I’ve seen paid ads that have a very different tone to the organic result, which is again different to the content on the website.”

How do you maintain consistency while also being native and appropriate for each platform?

“That’s definitely a learning process. With podcast content and long-form audio or video, for example, there has been this ‘TikTokification’ of short-form content. You need super snappy editing and tight cuts, and it can’t be longer than 60 seconds – even though TikTok is now expanding to much longer run times.

However, you can take the same piece of content and repurpose it in multiple ways. As long as you keep the initial values, the concept, and the ideas in mind while you’re doing it, it can still work.

For example, you can put a short clip on an Instagram reel or a TikTok and put the long-form version on YouTube or Spotify. Then, you can put a transcript or a blog post write-up of that on the website. There are lots of different options. You can take the same piece of content and make it work for different audiences with a bit of tweaking and editing, as long as you keep the core value and message consistent.”

Number 4: Leverage positive and negative elements in your marketing.

“This is especially relevant for product-based and service-based content. You should be honest about the offerings that you have.

Last year, I talked about how e-commerce brands should be creating content that answers the user’s questions, and that ties into this concept of being honest about what works and what doesn’t as well as what you do and what you don’t do.

At Candour, we don’t take on PPC clients at the moment, so we’re going to be honest about that. If somebody wants to work with us on PPC, we can happily turn them away because we have other clients we’re working with. Have the confidence to be negative about your product and honest about what it doesn’t do. You will be surprised by the positive response that can get.

A lot of brands are very protective of their offerings. They can’t possibly describe any negative elements of their products or services because they think that it will be the only thing people will latch onto. From my experience, people gravitate towards the honesty and authenticity of people being open about what they do and don’t do.”

Number 5: Cut once, measure twice.

“This is definitely something I learned from my years in writing and journalism: start with your first draft.

Your first draft should never be your final draft. Go into the flow of things, get writing, and get it out as organically as you can for your first draft. Just get the words on the paper, because there’s nothing more intimidating than a blank page when you’re trying to write content. The same is true for sitting and staring at a camera, wondering what you’re going to say.

Once you’ve got that, you can then edit it down. Lead with those values for the initial draft, then you can introduce more of the strategic and SEO side of things – thinking about the topics and keywords you want to target from that content. Once the first draft is out there, you can then edit it down and integrate those other elements into it.”

How do you measure the value of authenticity?

“That is the hardest part, but there are a couple of different ways you can do it. A big part of this is the loyalty that you build.

You can look at things like returning purchases, direct traffic, and growth in branded searches. I’ve had a few clients where we have built an ongoing content strategy and the organic traffic goes up, but there’s something else going on.

Have a look at the direct traffic. Are people coming straight back to you because they know you are the best source of information for this content? Maybe they’re not even typing it into the search engine anymore and they’re just going straight to your homepage or content page.

That is really interesting, and it’s something I underestimated and hadn’t factored into the organic strategy side of things. Direct traffic might be going up, and branded search might be going up, and that can be a sign of growing awareness, growing loyalty, and things like that.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop reporting month-to-month. SEO reporting is a tricky thing sometimes, especially if you’re agency-side and working with multiple different clients. However, too much time is spent on month-to-month reporting, when so many businesses vary from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, and season-to-season.

Think about it in the more business-minded terms of quarter-to-quarter year-on-year, season year-on-year, or month year-on-year.

That is a far better way to understand the marathon that is SEO rather than the sprint of getting 1,500 new clicks this month when you’re actually down compared to this time last year, so you need to think about the strategy. Stop focusing on the month-to-month and start focusing on the long-term strategy.”

Jack Chambers-Ward is Marketing and Partnerships Manager at Candour, and you can find him over at WithCandour.co.uk.