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Over the years, a divide has been growing between content marketers and audiences.
With AI coming onto the scene, this divide has even grown wider.
And what caused this divide?
A difference in how each party views valuable content.
Marketers think valuable content is content that provides all the possible information about a topic.
Readers think valuable content is content that provides the information they need.
To them, every other thing is fluff.
Marketers think they’re delivering valuable content that’s better than competitors’, while readers think marketers create content full of fluff.
Amidst this divide, AI has come in to snatch a lot of readers from marketers.
What are the implications of this, and how can marketers adapt to the new realities?
What is lean content all about?
I’ll dive into all of these in a moment.
What is lean content?
Lean content is the type of content that explains a topic exhaustively in as few words as possible.
Lean content focuses on the economy of words to save readers’ time while delivering actionable content.
If a topic can be addressed in 2,000 words, the lean content approach keeps it to 2,000 words, not blows it to 3,500 words to outdo competitors.
Lean content is different from thin content in that thin content cuts down the amount of words and sacrifices quality.
Lean content creates a balance of the quality of ideas and the economy of words.
Skyscraper content is losing its appeal
The skyscraper content approach was first proposed by Brian Dean of Backlinko.
And the idea is simple.
Provide as much detail as possible about a topic. Provide more details about a topic than the ranking pages.
This approach worked like a charm for brands over the years.
However, that is changing.
Skyscraper content is losing its appeal.
Why?
There are 2 reasons I can think of.
One, readers’ needs have evolved. Most readers now want value as fast as possible.
If they’re on a page about a recipe, they care less about the history of the recipe and how your grandma passed it on to you.
They just want the recipe as fast as possible.
So, skyscraper content filled with unnecessary information will piss the reader off rather than satisfy them.
Two, skyscraper content has shifted the focus from readers to competitors.
In the bid to outdo competitors in terms of word count, marketers forgot that the ultimate judge of the content is the reader.
And marketers pack so much information into content pieces that readers have to wade through the pile of filler to get to the information they want.
Writers are happy that they’ve created “better” content than their competitors, but the reader sees the writer as that friend who can talk for minutes without getting to their point.
So, when AI delivered bare-bones content, readers jumped for joy at the fresh breath of air.
But is AI delivering the best information to readers?
Has AI achieved a balance of content length and quality?
While AI provides short answers, those answers have not proven to be reliable alternatives to expert-written content.
Here are 4 common types of answers that users often get from large language models (LLMs):
- Accurate answers
- Accurate answers with insufficient information
- Answers that change across users
- Wrong answers
Some weeks ago, Nathan Ojaokomo, a SaaS freelance writer, published a LinkedIn post about asking ChatGPT, “Who are the best freelance B2B SaaS writers in Nigeria?”
In the answer he got, his name was number 1.
But what’s surprising?
Everybody in the comments who asked ChatGPT the same question got a different list of writers.
If ChatGPT provides different answers for the same question, which answer is the most accurate?
This is possible because LLMs generally can’t distinguish between an accurate and inaccurate answer.
When you ask an LLM a question, it refers to its training data to answer that question. Even if its training data is inaccurate, it will use that data to answer your question.
Yet, many users trust these answers without any scrutiny.
If skyscraper content wastes readers’ time and AI answers provide less value than people need, what’s the middle ground?
Lean content.
Lean content serves a topic exhaustively in the least number of words possible.
Let’s see some ways to deliver lean content to readers.
Steps to lean content
1. Ask what information your ideal audience wants
Lean content often starts from your audience and search intent.
When you understand the person you’re writing for, you’re more likely to write content that fits their needs.
That said, understanding your audience goes beyond just having a buyer persona. You have to immerse yourself in their communities.
These are social media platforms (LinkedIn, X, Facebook, etc.), forums (Reddit, Quora, etc.), and other platforms like Slack groups. By immersing yourself in these communities, you’ll understand how your audience thinks and what message will resonate with them.
Once you know your audience, understand their search intent.
Search intent is why your audience will search for the topic you’re writing about.
When you understand your audience and why they’d read about a topic, you can easily set a foundation to answer their questions without fluff.
Ask these questions to get to the main point of a topic and heading quickly:
- What pain will lead my reader to this topic?
- What’s the best solution to that pain?
- What do they already know? (No point repeating what they know)
Another question I ask to guide my answers in a topic is, “If my ideal reader is my friend and asks this question in a bar, how will I respond?”
This question will help me strip down the topic to its essence.
I expanded on this in one of my LinkedIn posts:
After asking and answering these questions about your reader and topic, you’ve laid a solid foundation for lean content.
2. Build each heading from its outline
Even if you report to nobody, creating a content outline is still important.
A content outline helps you strip each heading to its main points.
To create an outline for each heading, ask these questions:
- What’s this heading all about?
- Why is this heading important to the problem the reader is trying to solve?
- How can the reader take action?
- What are supporting examples or statistics?
Answer each question in 1 or 2 sentences, and you’ll have an outline for each heading.
Then, build the heading consciously from this summary.
If you do this, it will be hard to go off track and lose the reader.
3. Add media and interactive elements to content
Media elements are images, infographics, and videos.
Interactive elements, like an interactive demo, deliver content as the reader interacts with it. For example, an interactive demo can show how to use a product. This is useful for product-led content.
These elements spice content with variation, which engages readers and keeps them on the page.
They also help you better explain some topics (like tutorials) while using fewer words.
Then, people who want another content format will get value from your page.
If you want to show people how to take action, use visuals that guide them through each step.
If you run a SaaS product, consider using interactive demos to showcase how your product performs tasks and solves problems.
Use media and interactive elements to engage and deliver more value to readers while cutting the words on the page.
4. Leverage glossary pages and strategic internal linking
Some industries have many technical terms that beginners may struggle with.
In such a case, it makes sense to define these terms.
But if you define these terms in every blog post, you’ll have bloated content. And some of your readers already know these terms, so why define them again?
How do you help beginner readers get information about a term without boring experts with obvious definitions?
Enter glossary pages and strategic internal linking.
A glossary page is a page where you define industry terms. It’s a mini-dictionary for beginners and experts.
To set up a glossary page, list all relevant industry terms. Then, create short pages that explain what each term is all about.
Some marketers have complained about glossary pages losing organic traffic because of Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode.
But in this case, creating glossary pages is more about educating and satisfying visitors rather than just a pure SEO play.
Looking at everything through the SEO lens is what has driven many marketers away from their audience’s needs.
That said, how do you create shorter and more valuable content with glossary pages?
In your blog posts, you can link to these glossary pages whenever you mention an industry term.
This way, you don’t have to define these terms in every blog post.
Here’s the glossary page of Optimizely, an optimization platform:
Now, see the company’s blog post about conversion rate optimization best practices:
Instead of creating a “What is conversion rate optimization?” heading, Optimizely links to its glossary page.
This way, CRO experts don’t have to suffer another obvious definition, while CRO beginners can click through to learn more.
Win-win and shorter content.
Apart from satisfying readers with shorter content, this can also reduce bounce rates, which is good for your website.
5. Cut words ruthlessly when editing
Editing involves putting yourself in the place of a reader and a critic.
Doing this helps you find unnecessary ideas and sentences in your content.
But before editing, let your content rest for at least a day.
When you return to it, there’ll be a distance between you and the content.
When editing, check for:
- Quality of ideas
- Ideas that are out of place
- Grammar
- Awkward sentences
One thing I do while editing is read the content out loud to find awkward sentences.
Once you go through this process, you’ll tighten your ideas and reduce the number of words used.
Beyond that, send the content to an editor if you have one.
Once you’re done with this process, your content is ready to meet the reader, with every word earning its place.
Conclusion
Lean content is about delivering quality content while cutting down the number of words used.
If a topic can be exhaustively explained in 2,000 words, that’s lean content for that topic.
Writing the topic in 800 words will amount to thin content.
Writing the topic in 3,000 words will amount to bloated content.
Readers want your content to get to the point in as few words as possible.
If you can achieve this, it becomes easier to satisfy and influence the reader.
Samuel is a freelance SaaS writer. He has written for top SaaS websites like GetResponse, SweepWidget, and Hopper HQ to raise awareness, attract users, and drive monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Get in touch with him to rev up your content engine.