The pressures of ChatGPT have Google scrambling for a SERPs reboot. That is, a fundamental revisioning of how to answer their billions upon billions of daily queries.
Part of Google’s response comes in the form of what they’re calling “unique expertise,” which they’ll be increasingly intent upon floating up in the SERPs. These are bits of information from unique perspectives, with guidance that may not seem intuitive at first.
What’s so lovely about unique expertise? From our perspective as link builders it perfectly answers the question of what should be included on a sale’s pages “citable elements.”
Unique Expertise is a campaign-idea generating powerhouse. Here’s how we applied it to a Sofa’s category page on the IKEA website.
Identify Challenging Outcomes, Apply Your Expertise
We do this by reading the page, learning how it positions value, and ask if there are any audiences (and groups of publishers) for whom any practical guidance may be missing.
The IKEA page in question: Sofas and Couches category page.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/sofas-sectionals-fu003/
Challenging Outcome: “Actual Coziness”
Audience: Families, Parents
Question: “how do you actually maximize feelings of coziness without sacrificing practicality or function?”
Expertise Applied: While admittedly not the focus of the page, they do currently state that they have “cozy” sofas. This phrase, possibly there for SEO purposes, could provide a great deal more depth for site visitors. And while coziness will always be subjective, there are definitely some measurables here if we think of coziness as “safety, warmth, stability, connection.”
Who, from this perspective, would not want to be cozy?
We need IKEA’s research help though – because what are the metrics or measurements of coziness? As link builders we can only speculate what expertise IKEA may have that would enable them to materially answer this question, but certainly this capacity is at the core of their engineering.
Closing the Link Gap: From a campaign perspective we could imagine a large PR push once IKEA has “unlocked” the true secrets of coziness. Additionally, the sofas page could have an added element on “Coziness Maximization for Sofas,” which would function nicely for outreach and link requests.
Challenging Outcome: Accessibility
Audience: Families, individuals with disabilities, orgs that serve
Question: “how do you make your seating accessible to your specific physical requirements?”
Expertise Applied: Following perhaps from coziness is inclusivity – enabling and ensuring that every family member can participate in the shared entertainment experiences of the sofa.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if IKEA continued today with the important work it started in 2019? And as they design for people with disabilities, why not “open source” their design requirements and specifications? This open sourcing of furniture accessibility guidelines for manufacturers could start important conversations and enable even more families to feel cozy, together.
Closing the Link Gap: Accessible Furniture Design Guidelines could support and justify any number of stand-alone link campaigns, and further establish IKEA’s intention to apply its expertise in advocacy for under-served populations.
Challenging Outcome: Aesthetic Vision
Audience: Designers, decorators, diyers
Question: “how do I select a sofa that will help achieve my aesthetic goals for a space?”
Expertise Applied: IKEA has answered this one already with its “Design a Sofa” section on the page. As link builders we’d love a jump link to that section so that anyone citing it can direct visitors directly. But this portion in particular speaks directly to those whose purchase decisioning hinges on aesthetic outcomes.
Closing the Link Gap: We’d promote this to publishers who solve interior decoration and design problems. Publishers who seek to inspire their readers and motivate them to achieve their aesthetic vision (by shopping at IKEA ;). Perhaps we could approach from the data perspective if we knew how often specific design choices were made… perhaps we’d have a perspective on emerging trends, or the specific choices that enable the achievement of a vision.