From Keywords To Entities: A Practical Guide To Modern Blogging That Builds Trust

Are blogs dead, or did the rules change while we weren’t looking? We tackle the myth head-on and show how modern blogging thrives when it trades keyword stuffing for clarity, trust, and entity-based SEO. Drawing on field-tested notes from Brian Curee at Killer Bee Marketing—and inspired by concepts from Neil Patel—we break down a repeatable playbook: craft clear H1 titles under 60 characters, write meta descriptions that invite clicks, structure posts with question-based subheads, and deliver crisp, answer-first sections built for voice assistants and AI overviews.

We go beyond tactics to the deeper shift powering discovery today: Answer Engine Optimization and entities over keywords. You’ll hear why concise, conversational responses outperform bloated walls of text, how to use filenames and alt text for quiet but potent image SEO, and why bylines, citations, and outbound links strengthen the web of trust around your content. We unpack EEAT in practical terms—sharing firsthand examples that algorithms can’t fake—and explain how to anchor your presence with local signals that connect your business to a real place and community.

Finally, we map out topic clusters and pillar pages so you stop random blogging and start building topical authority that compounds over time. The destination isn’t ranking for a term by accident; it’s being known for a topic on purpose. If you’re ready to teach the robot by serving the human—clear, credible, and entity-rich—press play. Then subscribe, share this with a friend who still stuffs keywords, and leave a quick review telling us what you most want your brand to be known for.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Okay, so uh let's just be real for a second here.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

When was the last time you, the person listening right now, actually sat down, opened up a browser, and thought, you know, I really hope there's a dense 2,000-word article I can read about this today?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Aaron Powell Probably never.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Right. Because it really feels like the Internet has just completely moved on. I mean, the we've got TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and uh now we have these AI chatbots just handing us the exact answer without us having to click a single link.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Aaron Powell Yeah. The landscape is totally different.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Aaron Powell So the burning question we have to start with today, and I really want to be brutal here, is are blogs just dead?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

It is absolutely the question of the hour. And um honestly, if you just look at the raw numbers of how people consume media today, the scroll, the swipe, that whole 15-second attention span thing, you really might be tempted to say yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

It's hard not to.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Right. But that is a very surface-level take. The reality, and this is really what we are going to unpack today, is that blogs aren't dead, but they have fundamentally mutated.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Mutated. I kind of love that word for this. It sounds like uh like a superhero origin story or something out of a sci-fi horror movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Aaron Powell A bit of both, actually. I mean, think about it. That old era of just stuffing a bunch of words on a page to hit some arbitrary keyword count. Oh, yeah. That is absolutely dead, buried. But the era of using a blog as a highly strategic tool to answer specific questions, that's really just getting started. It's no longer about reading in the traditional sense, it's about retrieving.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Retrieving. That is such a crucial distinction. And uh that is exactly why I'm so excited about the source material we have for this deep dive today.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Aaron Powell It's some great stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

It really is. We aren't just looking at some generic 10-year-old marketing textbook. We are digging into a stack of internal notes and a guide titled Block Optimization and SEO Tips. And this was written by Brian Curie over at Killer B Marketing.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, and what is so interesting about Brian's approach here is that he isn't just theorizing from some ivory tower. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Right. He's actually in the trenches.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Exactly. These notes are based on actual experiments he's been running to figure out discoverability in this totally new landscape. He is asking the hard question of how do we actually get found when the rules are literally changing every single week.

Clarity First: Titles And H1 Rules

SPEAKER_00 2:49

It's a look under the hood. We've got the nuts and bolts of writing, like titles, images, the technical side of things. But then, and this is where it gets really fascinating, there's this whole section on a concept called entity-based SEO.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yes, the Neil Patel stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Exactly. Brian was learning about this from Neil Patel at NP Digital, and it completely flips the script on how we even think about keywords.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

It really does. It moves us away from writing for algorithms, which, let's be honest, is what ruined blogging for a lot of people in the first place and pushes us toward writing for what Brian calls answer engines, and ultimately for real humans.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

So that is our mission for today's deep dive. If you're writing content or even just thinking about how your business shows up online, we're going to show you how to stop chasing the algorithm and start building something that actually lasts.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Sounds like a plan.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

So let's just jump right in. We have to start with the first impression.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

The first impression, which in the digital world is not your logo. It's not your beautiful website design. It is your title, your H1 tag.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

And Brian's notes are pretty strict here. He says the H1 is the very first thing people and machines see. But here's where I struggle, and I think a lot of listeners probably do too. We want to be creative. Oh, sure. We want to write things like The Journey Begins or A New Dawn. But the notes basically say don't do that. Yeah. No creativity allowed.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Well, creativity is great for the body of the content. But for the title, clarity is king. The absolute biggest mistake people make is trying to be clever or abstract with their headlines.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Because people are just trying to find an answer.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Exactly. If I am scrolling through search results, I am in hunt mode. I need to know exactly what I'm going to get before I click.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So a title like The Journey Begins tells me absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Nothing at all. It could be a blog about hiking or a divorce or a new tech startup. The rule of thumb in Brian's notes is to keep it clear and specific.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Right. And the notes also mention keeping it under 60 characters so it doesn't just get cut off in the search results. But there was this one tip that I thought was super actionable.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Using the tools.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yes. Using tools to find out what people are actually asking in the real world. Brian lists answer the public and keywords everywhere.

Meta Descriptions That Win Clicks

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Those are fantastic tools because they completely remove the guesswork. You might sit there and think people want to read a post called marketing tips, but the actual search data might show they are specifically searching for how to attract local customers.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Which is the exact example from the guide. He contrasts that bad generic title, Marketing Tips, with a highly specific one, how to attract more local customers online. The difference is night and day.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

It really is. One is incredibly generic and the other solves a distinct problem.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And notice how that second one targets a very specific intent. It is not just marketing in general, it's attracting local customers. That specificity is what actually makes someone click. You are promising a real solution.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Speaking of getting them to click, we have to talk about the elevator pitch right under that title, the meta description.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Oh man, I feel like this is the step literally everyone skips.

Skimmable Structure And Ideal Length

SPEAKER_01 5:53

It is wildly overlooked. People will spend four hours writing a masterpiece of a blog post and then spend five seconds writing the meta description. But this 150 to 160 character snippet, that's your ad copy. It is the hook.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Brian's tactic here is simple but really effective. He says to include a gentle call to action, something like discover more or learn how. It feels so subtle, but does that actually make a difference?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

It absolutely does. It's completely psychological. You are directly telling the user, hey, the answer you're looking for is right here inside. Just click.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Because if you don't get that click, the content basically doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Precisely. It doesn't matter how profound your insights are if the front door is locked and you aren't inviting anyone in.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Okay, so we've got them through the door, they clicked. Now, how do we keep them from just bouncing immediately? This brings us to the structure and skimmability section of the notes. I have to admit, I am a chronic skimmer.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

We all are. Skimmability is a word that hurts writers' hearts because we want people to read every single poetic sentence we wrote, but we have to face the reality of the web. No one reads top to bottom anymore. We scan for relevance.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

We look for the bold text. We look for the bullet points. Brian really emphasizes using subheadings, the H2s and H3s, to break up the text, but he has a very specific strategy for these headers.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Writing them as questions.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yes. Why is that so effective?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Because it perfectly aligns with how our brains actually work when we are searching for information. If I'm skimming a page and I suddenly see a big bold header that asks the exact question I have in my head, like what makes a marketing plan work? I immediately stop scrolling.

Image SEO: Filenames And Alt Text

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Boom. You're reading that section. Now let's talk about length. Is there a magic number here? Yeah. Because for a long time, the advice was that you had to write these massive 3,000-word epic posts just to rank.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, the skyscraper content era.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Right. But Brian's notes suggest a Goldilocks zone, somewhere between 800 and 1200 words.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Which is a very practical range for today's attention span. It is long enough to cover a topic with enough depth to actually build authority, which Google loves, but it is short enough that you aren't demanding a marriage commitment from the reader.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

And he adds a really great piece of advice. If you have more to say, don't write a novel. Make it a series. Part one, part two. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Which is brilliant because it keeps people coming back. It builds a habit.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Exactly. Now, onto images. I feel like most people just jump on a stock photo site, grab a picture of people pointing at a whiteboard, slap it in, and call it a day.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Oh, please stop doing that.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

That's what the notes say. It's not just about looking pretty.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Not at all. There is serious technical SEO juice hidden in those images. The actual file name matters immensely.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Aaron Powell This blew my mind a little bit. I usually just upload whatever the cameras spit out, like image5439.jpg or screenshot one dot PN. But Brian says to rename the file with keywords before you ever upload it. Yes. So like VeroBeachmarketing Tips.jpg. Why does that matter so much to the search engines?

Answer Engine Optimization Basics

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Aaron Powell Well, think about it from the machine's perspective. Google cannot physically see the image the way human eyes do. It reads the code. So if the file name is just image123, it learns nothing. But if the file name is Vero Beach Marketing Tips, you are explicitly telling the search engine this image is highly relevant to this specific topic. You are labeling the data for them.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

And that leads perfectly into alt text.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Right. Now alt text is primarily for accessibility. It is what screen readers read out loud to visually impaired users. So describing the image accurately like small business owner reviewing marketing plan is just the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

But it has a secondary benefit.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Huge benefit. It gives the search engines even more deep context about what exactly is on your page.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So you are helping real people and you are helping your ranking. It's a total win-win.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Okay, let's shift gears here. We've covered the structural basics, but Brian's notes dive into this whole new era of search. AEO. Answer engine optimization. Is AEO just another marketing buzzword? Or is this a real fundamental change?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

It is very real. Just think about how you use your own phone today. We aren't just opening a browser and typing disjointed keywords like pizza New York anymore. We are literally talking to our devices. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

We're asking Siri, where can I get the best pizza near me?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Exactly. Or asking Google Assistant, how often should I post on my business blog?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

And because the user's query is a natural question, the content we write needs to be the direct answer.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yes. The tactic Brian outlines in the notes is super straightforward, but so many people miss it. You literally ask the question directly in the text of the blog and then you answer it immediately.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And the format of that answer matters.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Very much so. Keep it conversational and keep it short. One to two sentences max for the core answer. Use bullet points if there are steps.

EEAT And Showing Real Experience

SPEAKER_00 10:45

The example in the guide is perfect for this. The question is, how often should I post? And the immediate answer is aim for at least two posts per month. Boom. Done. But honestly, doesn't that feel almost too simple? Like we aren't writing enough?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

It feels simple to us as writers, sure. But for a machine, that is absolute gold. That clear, concise little snippet is exactly what an AI or a voice assistant can cleanly pull out and read back to the user. Oh wow. If you bury that answer in paragraph four, hidden behind a massive wall of text about the history of blogging, the AI is just gonna skip right over you.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

That makes total sense. You are literally writing the script for the AI to read. Yeah. And speaking of AI, there is a section here on next level strategy specifically for AI overviews. Brian mentions that the tone of our writing actually needs to change.

Writing For AI Overviews And Trust

SPEAKER_01 11:33

It does, because AI models are trained on vast amounts of natural human language. They actually prefer content that sounds human.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

He suggests reading your blog out loud before you publish. If it sounds robotic, you need to rewrite it. Talk like you were talking to a friend.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

And there is another critical layer to this AI optimization, which is credibility. Trust. Exactly. AI engines want to cite trusted, verifiable sources. That is why Brian emphasizes using clear bylines, just saying, written by Brian Curie actually matters to the machine.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

And citing other big established players in your industry, like linking out to HubSpot or Forbes.

From Keywords To Entities Explained

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yes. It's about not being an isolated island on the web. You are actively connecting your content to the established web of truth.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

And this touches on that acronym in the notes. I was hoping we'd get to that. I mean, EEAT sounds like a lunch order to me.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

It really does. But it stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Google and now the AI engines, they are actively looking for concrete evidence that you actually know what you are talking about.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

So they don't just want generic info you could have scraped off Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Exactly. And this is where that first e-experience becomes your superpower. You have to share personal examples. When you write, in our business, we found that doing X leads to Y. That is your unique experience.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Because an AI can't hallucinate a real personal experience.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Exactly. It is entirely unique to you, and therefore it is highly valuable to the search engine.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

So share your own real stories. That is something the algorithm simply cannot fake. Now this brings us to the section of the notes that I honestly found the most fascinating, but also the most confusing when I first read it.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

The Neil Patel stuff.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yes. This concept Brian picked up from Neil Patel at NP Digital, entity-based SEO.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

This is definitely where we leave the kiddie pool and jump straight into the deep end.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Help us out here. Because for the last 10 or 15 years, we've all been beaten over the head with keywords, keywords, keywords. What is the actual difference between a keyword and an entity?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Okay, let's simplify it as much as possible. Think of a keyword as just a dumb string of letters.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

If I type the word Jaguar into a search bar, the search engine historically just saw J-A-G-U-A-R. It had no idea if I meant the wild animal, the luxury car, or the football team. It was just matching text on a page.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So it's literally just pattern matching letters.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Exactly. But an entity is a defined thing. It is a real-world concept with a clear definition. To a modern search engine using entity-based SEO, Jaguar the car is a highly specific entity with attributes like wheels, engine, and luxury.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

And Jaguar the animal is a totally different entity with attributes like fur, jungle, and predator.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Precisely. The search engine is no longer just matching words, it is actively trying to understand the meaning and the context behind them.

Topic Clusters And Pillar Strategy

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Okay, that makes sense. And in Brian's notes, he uses this Vero Beach example to bring it home for local business. Right. If someone searches for marketing strategy in Vero Beach, the search engine isn't just looking for those exact words in that exact order anymore. It is connecting the entity of small business with the entity of Vero Beach.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yes, it is looking for the real world relationships. Brian mentions specific entities in his notes. He has Brian Curie, which is a person entity, Killer B marketing, which is a business entity, and Vero Beach, which is a location entity.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

And the goal of our content is to help the search engine clearly understand how all these different things connect to each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

That's the entire game right there.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Honestly, this feels like a massive relief. You'd be trying to jam the phrase Vero Beach marketing into a single paragraph 15 times until it sounded completely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Welcome to Vero Beach Marketing, where we do marketing in Vero Beach for all your Vero Beach marketing needs.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yes. I have read those exact websites. They feel so incredibly robotic and spammy.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

They do, and Entity SEO finally kills that entirely. It essentially says you do not need to stuff keywords anymore. What you need to do is build topical clarity.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Topical clarity.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Right. If you just write naturally about your local community events, your business partnerships, and your actual services, the search engine is smart enough now to see that web of connections. It understands, oh, this business is a real authority in this specific location.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Aaron Ross Powell So writing naturally like a normal human being is actually better for SEO now.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Finally, yes, it truly is.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

That is the best news I've heard all day. So how do we actually implement this entity-based approach? The notes talk a lot about topic clusters. Is this just a fancy way of saying we need to group our blog posts into categories?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Aaron Powell It is much more strategic than just making categories. Topic clusters are basically the antidote to random blogging.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Random blogging.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah. A lot of businesses treat their blog like a diary. They just post whatever comes to mind that week. Happy Halloween. And then the next week it's here is a 20% off sale. And then look at this cute picture of my dog in the office.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, I am definitely guilty of that. Sometimes it just feels like you have to get something, anything published, just to keep the lights on.

Geo Signals And Local Authority

SPEAKER_01 16:35

We've all been there, but that completely confuses the search engine. It looks at your site and has no idea what you are actually an expert in.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Because there's no clear theme.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Right. Topic clusters mean you pick a main overarching topic, let's say, digital marketing strategy, and you treat that as your pillar piece of content. Then you write several supporting blogs that all link back to that main pillar.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

So the supporting blogs would be things like how to build a marketing plan or the difference between marketing and advertising.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Exactly. And by strategically linking them all together, you are sending a massive signal to the search engine. You're telling it, look, we aren't just mentioning this topic in passing once. We have built an entire library of deeply connected content about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Aaron Powell We are the experts on this specific web of topics.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

It's almost like building a spider web where every new strand you add just makes the center of the web that much stronger.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Aaron Powell That is a perfect analogy. And it also naturally keeps the user on your website longer because there's always a relevant next article to read, which is another huge trust signal to Google.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

And a big part of building this web is defining your core entities from the start, right? Brian advises asking yourself this really foundational question: what do you want to be known for?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

It sounds like a traditional branding question, but in this new era, it is heavily an SEO question. If you want to be known as the authority for Viro Beach Marketing, you need to consistently and naturally mention the city. You need to talk about local community things.

Be Known For a Topic & Build Trust

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And link out to your Google business profile.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Absolutely. You are constantly teaching the search engine who you are and where you belong in the real world.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And that ties right into the GEO optimization aspect mentioned in the notes. It is not just about existing on the internet, it is about existing in a physical community. Mentioning local events naturally connects your business entity to the location entity.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

It anchors you to the map, literally and figuratively. If you claim to be a local business, but you literally never mention the actual town you operate in, the search engine's trust level in you drops significantly.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So stepping back and looking at everything we've covered today: titles, structure, voice search, AEO, and this massive shift toward entities, it really feels like the whole game has changed.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

It has.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

It's gone from tricking the robot to teaching the robot.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

That is the core philosophy here. If you look at the progression in Brian's notes, every single tactic is moving in one singular direction.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Trust.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Trust, yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Which brings us to the big takeaway for this deep dive. The end goal is no longer just to be ranked for a specific keyword.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

No. The goal is to be known for a topic. And those are two fundamentally different things.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

How so?

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Well, you can rank for a keyword by accident or by using cheap spammy tricks, but that ranking might only last a week before the algorithm catches on. But being known for a topic, that is true brand authority.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Brian has this great line right in the closing of his guide. He says, When content is clear and conversational, you don't just get clicks, you build trust.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

And trust is ultimately the only metric that actually converts into real business. You can have a million clicks on a blog post, but if those users land on a page that feels robotic or spammy or confusing, they are going to leave immediately.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

But if they land on a page that directly answers their question, sounds like a real human being and clearly demonstrates that the author knows their stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

That is how you get a customer.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

It is truly amazing how we have come full circle today. We started out by asking if blogs are dead because of all this new AI technology. Right. But the actual solution to surviving this technology is to just be more human.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

It is the great paradox of AI. The more artificial, generated content floods the web, the more valuable, authentic, human, entity-rich content becomes.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

So for everyone listening right now, here is the challenge. We want you to take a hard look at your current website or your blog strategy.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And don't even look at the traffic metrics for a second. Just look at the message.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Exactly. Brian leaves us with a think about this section in his notes. And I want to leave you with a variation of that question today. Stop asking yourself what exact keywords you want to rank for.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Such a trap.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Instead, ask yourself, what do you actually want your business to be known for?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Because if you can clearly answer that, you can build a real strategy around it.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

And once you know that answer, just start writing. Not for the bots, but for the actual people out there asking the questions.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

I couldn't have said it better myself.