There’s a strategy in search engine optimization called the Skyscraper technique that basically says if you want to rank high for a search phrase like “best pinot noir”, “production music licensing” or “cybersecurity firms”, you just search those terms, check out the top results and write a better, more comprehensive article then the top-ranking ones.

So now you have a ton of these obnoxious 10,000-word Skyscraper posts that rank well in search for high-purchase intent, bottom-of-the-funnel search phrases.

But they aren’t really that useful cause you have to search through a long article for a simple answer, which is typically what you’re looking for before you dig deeper.

Now, artificial intelligence is beginning to neuter that approach. Which is a good thing.

Because if you search “what is doublespeak”, you don’t want 10,000 words. One of the ways Google improved the user experience in this regard was with rich snippets, those expandable Q&A kiosks that appear in search results, and cull short answers from longer articles.

A rich snippet kiosk for the phrase "SEO" in Google search results.

Nigel Stevens -- who was on our sister program the B2B Lead Gen Podcast -- does SEO for major players like Hotjar, Intercom, Unsplash, and Big Commerce says he’s starting to outrank skyscrapers ranking for shorter posts, that are more concise and succinct.

And Joe Romm, an MIT Ph.D. of Physics, argues stories are more compelling than facts, it’s all about the headlines. And if you want to master headlines study Shakespeare, the Greek philosophers, and Jesus Christ.

Dale Bertrand (@dbertrand), President at Fire&Spark, a Boston-based digital marketing agency specializing in SEO strategies for e-commerce companies, is a man on a mission, at the nexus of SEO and story.

His presentation at INBOUND was one of the most talked-about sessions. And he’s one of the rare birds who’s good at both arts and science.

I say that because marketing and PR people are overwhelmingly math haters, which is why so many are scared away from search engine optimization.

He runs a performance marketing agency called Fire&Spark in Cambridge, Mass that approaches SEO from a more purpose-driven, than technical standpoint.

But Dale devised a novel strategy that puts a brand’s mission front and center as a way of differentiating itself in the eyes of Google, essentially putting the message before the math, or the more technical aspects, of SEO.

What is Mission-Driven SEO?

What you’re doing to optimize canonical tags, sitemaps, crawl budgets is not going to get you the bang for the buck that it used to.

Google's getting a lot better at finding the most useful content for a query.

Why is it established brands out rank emerging brands?

It’s because they have authority from backlinks. People are linking to them from their websites. And Google sees those backlinks and treats them like endorsements. Backlinks are how Google measures authority.

SEO is so competitive nowadays that you need the authority to rank well in most markets. It used to be that you could just optimize for a keyword and you would rank but now you need to optimize for keyword and have some authority from backlinks.

Mission-driven SEO is about building authority. Mission-driven is a term that should resonate with cause related marketing professionals. By mission, Dale means cause.

So brands with a cause or purpose centered around their products,