You’re getting traffic? T’riffic! This shows your blog is working as it should be and there are no hidden technical issues to worry about.

But unless that traffic is turning into leads — and, ultimately, sales — your blog isn’t generating the leads your business needs and you need to look at your strategy.

A good place to start is understanding your ideal customers and their journey. Every piece of content you create should be aimed at your ideal customers at different stages of this journey.

Understanding the customer journey

This is an overview of the customer journey, from the time a prospect becomes aware they have a problem to the time they make a purchase and then eventually become an advocate for your brand.

It’s an idealistic representation of the journey that doesn’t include meltdowns, dithering and general customer messiness. But it does highlight the key stages where there are opportunities to create helpful content.

Now you can see the basic customer journey your prospects are taking, let’s move on to the reasons your blog might not be generating leads.

Why your blog is getting traffic but no leads

You’re working without a content strategy

You didn’t start your blog with any kind of strategy, so you’ve been randomly creating content and hoping something sticks.

A content strategy helps you create the kind of content your prospects want to see and are actively searching for online. This will bring them to your website where you can show them your expertise, build their trust and convince them why what you’re offering is right for them — or not.

What your content strategy should cover

Your strategy should cover things like your:

• Aims and objectives
• Themes and topics
• Target audiences
• Internal linking
• SEO keywords.

An effective strategy will help you create content that satisfies your visitors’ needs and the goals of your business, so you’re both getting the value you’re looking for.

You’re optimising for traffic rather than people

You’ve optimised your blog to draw maximum traffic, using topics and keywords that are broad and popular. But somewhere along the way, you’ve forgotten that traffic = people.

When you optimise for traffic volume, you’re inevitably going to attract people who are interested in your topic, but who don’t need what you’re selling and are never going to buy from you. This is why high numbers of visitors doesn’t always result in high numbers of leads.

Switch to a people-focused approach

You need to stop thinking about traffic numbers and start thinking about people.

Here’s how to switch your thinking from a traffic-focused approach to a people-focused approach.

Think about why people are coming to your blog and what they want to see when they arrive. Are you delivering for them and giving them what they need? If not, why not and how can you change that?

You’re not “listening” to your audience

When you’re deciding what to write about, you’re making assumptions about what your audience needs or asking AI. This approach will be hit and miss at best.

To understand what your audience is really interested in, you need to “listen” and learn.

How to “listen” to your prospects

You can listen to the prospects who contact you and ask you questions. You can also research what your ideal customers are asking, talking about and looking up online.

For example, you might look at:

• What problems they’re having
• What questions they’re asking Google
• What information/ideas they’re searching for.

By actively “listening” to what your audience wants, you can create better content for them so they’re more likely to feel understood, to engage with your brand, and, eventually, convert into customers.

You’re not targeting the right audience

You’ve been writing content that feels relevant, but without really thinking about who’s going to read it or benefit from it. And, as a result, it’s been kinda missing the mark.

If your content isn’t targeted, with a specific audience and message, it won’t reach the right people, it won’t speak to the right people, and it definitely won’t convert the right people.

How to target your content

For every piece of content you create you should ask and answer the following questions:

1. Who do you want to reach?
2. Where are they in your customer journey?
3. How are you going to reach them?
4. How are you going to help them?
5. What conversion do you want to achieve?

Here are some example answers to those questions:

1. People who need IT support
2. Problem aware — they know they have a problem
3. SEO keywords that describe the problem they’re having
4. Show them their options for fixing their issue
5. Get them to sign up to your mailing list.

Targeting your content for conversions

To get the maximum number of conversions from your content, you should be writing content for people at all stages of your customer journey. From those who’ve just realised they have a problem, to the brand advocates who already choose you and buy from you consistently.

With a proper plan in place, you should start getting the conversions you want.

You’re using your blog as a sales tool

Then why the hell isn’t it selling, goddammit?!

Because the main job of a blog isn’t selling, it’s to help your prospects buy. And that’s an important distinction.

When people seek out content, it’s usually because they’re at the stage of the customer journey where they’re weighing up their options. What they need is objective information and impartial advice that will help them make an informed decision. What they don’t need is a sales pitch.

If your content is too salesy, your visitors won’t feel able to trust it.

Why should your content be impartial?

Giving visitors the right information helps them find the best solution to their problem. Something that will work well for them and satisfy their needs at the price they want to pay.

That might not always be your solution, but that’s okay, because if your solution isn’t right for them, they’re probably not your ideal customer at this point in time. Selling the wrong things to the wrong people can invite negative feedback, which you definitely don’t want.

Being impartial and giving the best advice is an excellent way to build trust. So even if you don’t convert this person this time, you will have given them a positive experience they’ll remember. And, as a result of that, they may come back to you in time.

You’re not promoting your business as the ideal solution

You’re answering your prospects’ questions and addressing their concerns. But you’re not then promoting what you can offer them as the solution to their problem. As a result, they’re getting their answers and leaving, because there’s no reason for them to stay.

Before you write each article, you need to ask yourself two questions:

• Is this something my ideal customers are searching for?
• What’s in it for me and how will it achieve my goals?

Include a CTA in your articles

The aim should always be to give something and to get something, so make sure every post includes a relevant call to action (CTA) at the end. This will give your readers somewhere else to go.

For example, that might be to:

• Another relevant article
• A page of your main website
• A page offering a lead magnet to download
• A sign-up box to subscribe to your mailing list.

Using CTAs like these will give you more opportunities to convert a new customer.

Your CTAs aren’t compelling enough

The CTAs you use in your article need to be irresistible enough to inspire your reader to act. If they’re not, that could be impacting your conversions.

Sow how do you make your CTA more compelling?

Turn your CTA into a CTV

A CTV, or call to value, prompts your readers to take action and shows them why they should take that action.

For example:

CTA: Sign up to our mailing list
CTV: Never be stuck for ideas again! Sign up to our mailing list and get daily content prompts.

CTA: Read our article on knitting
CTV: Get inspired, with dozens of cosy creations you can make at home.

CTA: Visit our sales page
CTV: See our stand mixer in action and learn how to get amazing results every time.

Your content rambles

Your articles start with a long and largely unnecessary introduction. Then they ramble on, line after line, without any line breaks. Long sentences that take ages to get to the point and occasionally wander off on tangents like they’re out for a Sunday stroll.

But your readers just want the answers and information they came for, delivered directly and succinctly, in a way that’s easy to consume. If your content makes it difficult for them, they’ll just go elsewhere and, eventually, spend their money there instead.

Deliver valuable and consumable content

To make your content valuable and consumable:

• Keep your intro brief and get straight to the good stuff
• Use short paragraphs with white space between them
• Introduce each section with a relevant heading
• Vary the lengths of your sentences
• Maintain a linear structure that doesn’t veer off topic
• Aim to say something significant in every sentence.

Your content is poor quality

Poor quality content doesn’t inspire confidence. And if people don’t feel confident about your brand, it’s unlikely they’ll want to spend their money with you.

What do I mean by poor quality?

Here are some examples:

• Content that lacks detail and substance
• Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors
• Making bold claims without giving any evidence
• Citing sources that aren’t current or credible
• Using AI without bothering to edit or fact-check it
• Not delivering what your headline promises.

Improve the quality of your content

For content that’s more likely to convert, make sure you’re:

• Producing articles that are well-written, valuable and interesting
• Doing the necessary spell-checks, editing and fact-checking
• Researching your content well and crediting the original sources of your information
• Formatting your content so it’s easy to skim-read and find information
• Optimising your articles for Google, but writing for your human audience.

Your conversion method has issues

It might not be your blog or content that’s causing the problem. It could be where you’re sending your readers next.

For example, if your:

• Onward link is broken and goes to an error 404 page
• Enquiry form is too long and convoluted, or asks for too much information
• Lead magnet isn’t downloading or isn’t doing its job to convert them
• Contact form or ordering process is broken and not completing.

Check your processes regularly

Use a broken link checker on your site regularly and fix any broken links it finds.

Make a point of testing your processes once a week to make sure they’re working and not letting you down.

Listen to feedback on things like enquiry forms and ordering processes. Are they too long? Too convoluted? Too nosey? Too many hoops to jump through? Respond to feedback like this by making improvements.

Need some help creating content that converts?

Understanding the theory behind creating great content is one thing, but actually doing it is entirely another. This is why many businesses with successful, high-converting blogs use professional content writers.

I’m Jenny Lucas an SEO content writer based in Leicester, UK.

I’ve been writing content that attracts and converts for more than 17 years — and I could write for your business, too.

• With a proven SEO strategy that works to attract the right kind of visitors
• With a sound content strategy that targets people at every stage of your customer journey
• With well-researched, well-written content that informs, inspires and entertains.

If that sounds like the kind of help you need:

• Visit my content writing page for more information and pricing
• Get in touch to discuss your needs.

You might also like…

The post Why your blog is getting traffic, but not generating leads appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

Yes, AI can write you an article. It can write you an article in seconds. The article will be reasoned, well-written and easy to read. It will be formatted for the web. It will even give you the sources it used for its information, if you ask for them.

So all you have to do is copy and paste it into your blog. Happy days, huh?

But “Can AI write your blog articles?” isn’t the question you should be asking. The real question is, should it?

Should AI be writing your blog articles?

No. At least, not without your oversight and supervision. Because you really shouldn’t trust it without moderating its output. But that’s not the only reason it shouldn’t be writing for you.

Now, you might be thinking, ‘but you’re a content writer and you would say that’ — and you’d have a fair point — but, objectively, the answer is still the same.

Hear me out and let me explain.

AI is becoming more prevalent online

In their 2025 study, Ahrefs found 74.2% of newly created web pages contained AI-generated content.

The study was devised to test Ahrefs’ own AI content detector. They asked it to analyse 900,000 new web pages and this is what they found:

• 2.5% of pages, categorised as pure AI
• 25.8% of pages, categorised as pure human
• 71.7% of pages, categorised as a mix of the two.

Of the pages that contained a mix of AI and human content:

• 25.86% showed moderate AI use (11%–40% of the page content)
• 20.50% showed substantial AI use (41%–70%)
• 15.51% showed dominant AI use (71%–99%).

This doesn’t bode well. So many technologies that started as tools for convenience and communication have become so embedded in our daily lives, we’d be hard-pressed to manage without them.

AI is no different. But is becoming ever more reliant on AI really a good thing?

The dangers of relying on AI for writing content

To many of us, it’s obvious that our dependency on AI will be a slippery slope. We’ll lose what we don’t use.

If you’re defaulting to AI every time you’re feeling the pressure to create something, you’ll start to lose your:

• Research and critical thinking skills
• Ability to formulate an argument
• Vocabulary and unique brand voice
• Problem-solving skills
• Ability to craft a narrative.

As a result, you won’t be thinking as deeply as you should. Your content will start to sound more like everyone else’s. Your arguments will become more superficial and surface-level. Your output will become a generic shade of beige that no one is going to get excited about. Do you want that? Do you?

Audiences are becoming more discerning

As creators are shifting more towards AI, their audiences are becoming more selective.

A 2026 study by Sprout Social found 66% of users are more selective about what they engage with on social than they were a year ago.

But can we really tell if content is AI-generated?

In a 2026 YouGov report, 58% of respondents agreed they can spot AI-generated material.

However, a 2026 study published in Judgment and Decision Making found participants were unable to reliably distinguish AI-generated stories from human-written ones. In one experiment, just 39.4% correctly identified the authorship.

Does it matter if we can’t tell?

I don’t think so. Crappy content is crappy content, whoever or whatever writes it. And it’s this thin, low-substance content people are turning away from. The kind of content that, when you start to read it, makes your eyes glaze over and your soul leave your body.

This content has a pervading sense of emptiness. No opinion, no conviction, no personality. Nothing relatable. Nothing that grabs you. Nothing that makes you feel remotely inclined to carry on reading.

AI isn’t solely responsible for this kind of content. But it does generate content that makes you feel like all the interesting humans have already left the party.

Why will anyone read your AI-generated articles?

People need a reason to read what you’re putting out there. And there are often more reasons not to read AI-generated articles. Here are some of them.

AI is freely available

Your audience can access AI, too. They can give it the same prompts you can. They can ask their own questions. They can ask for specific details. They can double down in areas they don’t understand or where they need more clarity.

In short, they can have a more interactive and personalised experience than your article will ever give them. And if they can do all that themselves, why would they bother to read your article?

You need to be offering them something more than AI can give them. This will come from your expert insights, your unique first-hand experience, and your original thinking and ideas.

AI still gets things wrong

AI still isn’t capable of validating its sources. It still isn’t guaranteeing accuracy in its answers. It’s still plagiarising bad content. And, as ChatGPT so daintily puts it, it’s still ‘suffering from hallucinations’ — which means it makes stuff up.

If AI generates your articles without any human oversight, you’ll just be another blathering robot voice adding to all the other misinformation online. And, seriously, what’s the point in that?

What’s more, since AI became prevalent, people have become much less trusting of what they’re seeing online.

In a 2025 survey by KPMG, 70% of respondents said they struggle to trust online information because they can’t tell if AI generated it. This means the majority of people are now suspicious before they even start reading.

In a 2026 YouGov report, 69% of respondents expressed concern that AI-generated content may contain incorrect or misleading information.

And in a 2026 survey by Gartner, 57% of respondents said AI content has made them less trusting of brand messaging overall.

Your blog should be helping you build authority and trustworthiness online. For that to work, you need to be a respected source of truth, with information that’s accurate, credible and can be relied upon.

If you’re using AI, you need to ask for its source links and fact-check them before including them in your articles. Are the source links live and working? Are the sources original, current and credible? Is the information truthful and up to date, to the best of your knowledge?

Most importantly, if you do find a source is wrong — and part of your article is based on that source — your article could also be wrong.

AI doesn’t know what your audience wants

If you’re using AI to help you plan your blog articles, those articles might not be hitting the spot.

AI can build you a customer profile, it can make generalisations and identify promising opportunities for content. But it doesn’t know for certain if its suggestions deal with issues your audience are actually experiencing and want to read about.

Human content strategists look at numerous things when we’re planning your blog content, including the demand for the content and the search volumes it’s attracting. This extra care gives your audience blog content that’s genuinely useful to them and worthy of their reading time.

AI can’t guarantee its ideas are original

It’s probable AI will never have an original thought or idea. It’s only capable of “creating” anything because it has access to the internet and can assemble answers from the work of human content writers. What a sad little life it must have.

Because of this, it can’t guarantee its output hasn’t been done before. If it has been done before, by a human writer, you could be plagiarising someone else’s work — albeit without meaning to. And who would choose to read something that’s just a poor rip-off of something someone else has written?

AI doesn’t benchmark its blog articles

When I’m writing an article, I want to be sure it’s the best it can be and that it’s deserving of a top three spot on Google. To do this, I benchmark my articles against those already ranking in the top three places, making sure mine are more thorough and give more value.

Of course, nothing can guarantee a top three place, but taking this approach gives us the best possible chance of getting there.

Why is a top three place so important?

Research from Backlinko shows, only 9% of Google searchers make it to the bottom of the first page of the search results and only 0.44% of searchers go to the second page of Google’s search results.

AI doesn’t benchmark the articles it produces to make sure they’re competitive, so you’ll have no idea if your article is good enough to achieve a top-ranking spot. And, if it isn’t, the chances of people finding it could be negligible.

AI doesn’t have your lived experience

AI will never experience anything as a human does. Everything it claims to know has been stolen from people who’ve already been there and done that. But that’s not necessarily the same knowledge and understanding you have.

For example, you might have had a different result or learned a different lesson. Your own experience might have challenged what others are saying and given you a different perspective. This is what your audience wants to read — not just another AI article, mindlessly repeating the consensus because it doesn’t know any better.

Real-life stories and examples make your articles more interesting and build your credibility, for example:

• Here’s what happened when we…
• Here’s what our experts recommend and why
• Here’s how we transformed/achieved [something important] for our client
• Here’s why [thing everyone else is doing] doesn’t work and how we do it better
• Here’s why [thing everyone else is saying] is wrong and what we’ve found to be true.

These aren’t headlines, by the way. They’re just ideas for framing your own unique and original content.

AI doesn’t have your personality

Even with prompts, AI will never sound exactly like you. It will either sound like every other AI-written article out there — *yawn* — or it will be a poor imitation of you.

Your personality and way of communicating will make your article more engaging to read.

For example, they bring together your:

• Tone and style
• Sense of humour
• Fresh perspective
• Thoughts and ideas
• Unique insight and way of looking at the world.

All of which give your article uniqueness, originality and a touch of something special. It’s a secret sauce that will attract people, keep them engaged and give the right ones all the reasons to work with you.

If an article isn’t engaging and doesn’t offer anything new or interesting, people won’t feel compelled to read it.

AI doesn’t have your opinions

AI doesn’t have a bum that gets sore and splintered, so it’s happy to on the fence. It will present both sides of an argument, but almost never offers an opinion. Because heaven forbid it might be wrong.

Humans don’t do that. We can present both sides of an argument, too, but we pick a side and give our expertise and reasoning for that decision. It’s that expertise and reasoning your audience wants to see.

Imagine someone has come to your article, torn between a number of options and unsure which one to choose. Yes, this person might want to learn more about the pros and cons of each option. But, ultimately, they want to know which options are best for them and which they can disregard.

If they’re not going to get the answers they need from your article, why would they bother to read it?

Using AI to help write your blog articles?

AI can help with a lot of the things you might find difficult when writing articles. For example, it can be really useful when it comes to the planning, prompting, formatting and wording. Blank page? What blank page?

But you need to remember, it’s just a tool and it has its limitations.

For starters, it’s no substitute for the knowledge, expertise and first-hand experience you bring to the table.

It won’t do much to help you with the SEO side, either.

And, unless you’re prepared to take time over your prompts, fact-checking and refining, the article you end up with could be more or less the same article everyone else has.

Something to think about

As AI-generated content becomes increasingly prevalent, audiences are naturally going to gravitate to sources they trust for their information.

Becoming one of those trusted sources could be really beneficial and lucrative for your brand.

Need some help?

Your blog should be a lead-generating machine for your business. It should be attracting new leads and setting them on the journey to becoming paying customers.

I’m Jenny, an SEO content strategist and content writer who’s been planning and creating premium blog content for the last 17+ years. I mean, that has to count for something, right?

The content I write is the kind of content your ideal customers are actively searching for online.

I use AI with caution and never in my writing process, so every article is 100% human, engaging to read and written to convert.

If your AI articles aren’t really doing all that for you, maybe I can help.

Visit my main website >>

Check out my portfolio >>

Read some more articles >>

Get in touch >>

You might also like…

The post Sure, AI can write you a blog article, but why would anyone read it? appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

It certainly seems so sometimes. You can put in a fairly vague search term and often get results that are spookily close to what you were looking for.

Type in ‘sage’ and I get the accounting software, not the herb. Type in ‘amazon’ and I get the company, not the river. Type in ‘beef’ and I get the Netflix series, not the meat.

Is it mind-reading?

Magic?

A miracle?

Nah. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s more likely the search engines and AI search learning what you’re most likely to want to see.

Search engines use a range of signals and ranking systems to assess each search query and decide which results are likely to be most useful and relevant. They can consider the query itself, the context and the content of pages. Plus other factors, like how current the information is and where in the world it’s coming from.

What is search intent?

As it sounds, search intent is about what a user is intending to accomplish when they do a search online. It’s the bridge between what someone searches for and the results they’re given.

Yoast has identified four main types of search intent. These aren’t definitive and there can be some crossover, but the majority of searches are represented here.

The four types of search intent

1. Informational intent

When a user has informational search intent, they’re looking for information.

That could be anything from wanting the opening times of their local supermarket to wanting the answers to deep and meaningful questions. What is the meaning of life?

2. Navigational intent

When a user has navigational search intent, they’re looking for a specific website.

Virgin, Three, Sky and Apple are all words that have meanings in their own right. But when users search for them, Google knows they’re looking for the company websites and not the definitions of the words.

3. Commercial investigation

When a user is doing a commercial investigation, they’re doing their research before making a purchase.

For example, they might be doing searches like:

• Best value TV and broadband package
• Most energy-efficient oven
• Easiest smartphone for over-80s
• Most weather-resistant outdoor furniture.

4. Transactional intent

When a user has transactional search intent, they’re looking to buy something.

This is why when you enter a product into the search bar, you typically get shopping results showing first.

Search intent on search engines

Traditional search engines would generate a list of web pages containing words that matched or related to the search query. To an extent, they still work this way, but they can also recognise and understand search intent by looking at the way search queries are phrased.

For example a search with:

• Informational intent might be phrased as a question: “What is the pension triple lock?”
• Navigational intent might include context: “Direct Line insurance”
• Commercial investigation might start with something like “Fastest…”, or “Most reliable…”
• Transactional intent might start with “Cheapest…”, or end with “Near me”.

If a search query is vague, search engines may use a range of signals to decide which interpretations and results are most relevant. If a search query is ambiguous and has several plausible interpretations, they may display several kinds of content in the search results.

Search intent in AI-powered search

AI is more sophisticated than traditional search engines. Its Large Language Models (LLMs) can identify relationships between words and concepts, including synonyms and implied meanings.

If you use Google, its generative AI search is something you will have become used to seeing at the top of the SERP. It uses these LLMs to interpret your search queries then pulls information from a source, or different sources, to assemble a response. It provides links to these sources so you can get more information if you choose to.

Synonyms in AI-powered search

Modern search systems can recognise that different words and phrases may express the same or closely related concepts. Language models are one technology that can help with this kind of understanding.

Synonyms are words that have the same meaning. Like small and tiny, for example. AI understands this.

This means two different people, both using AI search, could submit queries that are worded differently, but asking the same question. And AI will understand that both search queries have the same search intent and are looking for the same answer.

Implied meanings in AI-powered search

AI can also pick up on search queries that the user is not explicitly asking, but that would make plausible further questions based on the original query.

For example, let’s say a student is searching for “best tablet university £1,000”. Where a vague or ambiguous search string is given, AI can expand the search to include additional criteria or pre-empt the search intent by rewriting the question.

• Which tablets under £1,000 have a long battery life?
• Which have the best apps for university students?
• Which are the lightest and sturdiest for portability?
• Which have attachable keyboards?
• Which come with a stylus?

How SEO copywriters use search intent

It’s the job of search engines and AI search to understand what users are looking and present the best and most relevant results/answers.

It’s the job of SEO copywriters and content writers, like me, to produce the best and most relevant content, that satisfies user search intent, so it gets listed and mentioned in those results/answers.

So, how do I do that?

For me, there are a number of steps involved. But I tend not to work in a linear fashion, so I’ll work on them all at the same time until I have everything lined up and know your content has the best possible chance of working.

Research what the user is trying to accomplish

As an SEO content writer, it’s my goal to create content that gives the people what they want. So the first step for me is understanding what your audience wants to read about and what they’re actively searching for online.

For example, do they:

• Need ideas or inspiration?
• Have a question they need answering?
• Need to understand how something works?
• Have a problem they need to solve?
• Want to understand what their options are?
• Need expert advice or guidance?

This will come from learning more about your audience, where they are in the customer journey, and how much they already know.

Decide on the content and format

What does your audience need from your content to accomplish their goal? And what format will work best for that?

For example:

• A styling guide might contain a lot of images showing different colours and textures
• A how-to guide might need to be step-by-step and in sequence
• A lot of information on a topic could be split into handy sub-articles
• A comparison guide might need easily comparable, tabled data.

Find out how the user is searching online

I need to understand how your audience is searching online for the thing they want to accomplish.

How are they phrasing their search queries? Are they using the correct terminology or language that’s more familiar to them? Are they using one or two main search terms, or a lot of synonymous ones?

For this, I use a combination of an SEO keyword research tool and Google’s SERP data.

My keyword research tool gives me the average number of searches a particular keyword receives each month and whether that number has been consistent month-to-month. It gives me an idea of the user’s search intent when they use this keyword and an idea of how easy or difficult it will be to rank for it. And it gives me a list of alternative keyword options that might also be relevant.

Google’s SERP data backs this up by showing me the results Google is returning for the keyword I’m looking up. This shows me how Google is interpreting the search query. If the SERP results are in a similar vein to the content I want to produce, I know I’m on the right track. If not, I know I need to think again.

Research what additional information might be needed

I’m an inquisitive person, so, as I’m researching the topic for the content, I’m always considering the additional questions or concerns your audience might have. If I can address those too, it means they won’t need to go looking elsewhere for that information and we’ll be able to keep them on your page.

Some of this information can be included in your article to make it as comprehensive as it can be. Some information might be venturing off-topic. This could link to a different article on your blog or highlight the need for a new one.

Benchmark the content against the competition

While the previous steps can cross over, this is always the last one.

When the article is written, I’ll check it against the top ranking content it will be competing with to make sure it has every chance of competing effectively and ranking highly.

If I feel it needs more at this point, I’ll add it.

Do you need an SEO content writer who will give your audience what they need?

Allow me to introduce myself.

I’m Jenny Lucas, a freelance copywriter who’s been writing SEO content for more than 17 years. And who’s helped many businesses make blogging work for them.

You can find out more by:

Visiting my Content Writing page >>

Learning more about my content-writing process >>

Contacting me directly to discuss your content needs >>

You might also like…

The post What is search intent and why does it matter for SEO copywriting? appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

You have a website. You want your ideal customers to find your website on Google. You knew you needed SEO for that, but now you’re being told you need AEO and GEO as well. WTF?

What do all these abbreviations mean and which ones do you actually need if you want people to find your website online?

Let’s break this down so we can make some sense of it and find you the answers you’re looking for.

What is SEO?

SEO is the OG. The original.

This is what I’ve been using since I started writing websites in 2007. No, you’re old.

It stands for Search Engine Optimisation and it’s about optimising your website for search engines, like Google. In plainer English, SEO covers a lot of important guidelines and techniques that make a website function at its best.

Good SEO means a website is:

• Helpful
• Accessible
• Fast-loading
• Well-written
• Mobile-friendly
• Safe and secure to use
• Easy for search engines to crawl.

If your site is well-optimised — using the right techniques and following the guidelines — it’s more likely to perform better on traditional Search Engines.

Examples of Search Engines

If you’ve been browsing online, you’ve almost certainly used one of these Search Engines:

• Google
• Microsoft Bing
• Duck Duck Go
• Yahoo Search.

How we optimise for Search Engines

With SEO, we’re optimising our content to rank in the traditional search engine results. Ideally in Google’s coveted #1 spot — or at least on Google’s first page. These things still exist in the era of AI-powered search, but they appear further down the page now we have the AI summary.

To make sure our pages are appearing for the right kinds of searches, we use SEO keywords, which mirror the words and phrases people are using to search on Google. The keywords we choose for each page must also be relevant to what our page is about and satisfy the intent of the people who are searching.

What is AEO?

AEO is one of the new kids on the block — remember them? Hangin’ Tough? The Right Stuff?

I digress.

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimisation and it’s an element of AI-powered search.

While Search Engines rank the pages that best answer your search query, Answer Engines give you a direct response to your search query.

Answer Engines look for the most expert, thorough, helpful, well-written and well-structured answer. When they find it, they’ll extract it and present it with a clickable credit to the site they found it on.

Some call this progressive. Most content creators call it theft. Because when the Answer Engine is answering a query directly, people don’t always need to go to your website. So, essentially, it’s stealing your content and stealing your clicks. I cover this in more detail in my article:

Is generic commodity content helping AI to steal your web traffic? >>

Anyhoo, when we optimise for Answer Engines, we’re aiming to be chosen as the best possible answer and be credited as the original source. Even if it might feel like shooting ourselves in the foot. Ouch.

Examples of Answer Engines

Answer Engines you may have heard of include:

• Perplexity
• ChatGPT Search
• Google AI Overviews
• Microsoft Copilot
• Google Gemini
• Voice Assistants, like Siri and Alexa.

How we optimise for Answer Engines

AI’s goal is to provide the best possible answers in the shortest possible time. To optimise for this, we need to make our content as quick and easy as possible for AI to scan and read.

This means using:

• The Q&A format with a succinct answer (under 45 words) followed by the full answer
• Processes in numbered steps
• List items in a bullet-point format
• Information nuggets like stats and data points
• Synonyms and related ideas that give broad topic coverage
• The SEO heading hierarchy
• Schema markup for structured data.

It’s also about standing out with unique and original, expert content rather than something more generic.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation and it’s another element of AI-powered search.

Generative Engines generate responses to search queries.

With a Generative Engine, there’s a chance the AI might summarise, recommend, or cite your brand’s content in its generated responses. And when we use GEO, it’s those mentions we’re aiming to get.

Examples of Generative Engines

Some of these are also Answer Engines:

• ChatGPT Open AI
• Google Gemini
• Perplexity
• Claude
• Microsoft Copilot.

How we optimise for Generative Engines

We’re still learning about Generative Engines, but word on the street is, they’re discerning.

They favour:

• Unique, original and authoritative content
• Hard data with statistical proof
• Links to reputable and credible sources
• Clear language and active voice
• Concise, information-packed paragraphs.

They also want to make sure you’re credible and will search for trust signals like off-site reviews and positive brand mentions across the web. This figures. If they’re going to become a trusted source of information, anything they’re recommending needs to be good.

What kind of engine optimisation does your business need to be found online?

Now you understand what the different kinds of engines are. But how do you know which ones you need for your business and where you should be investing your money?

Does the arrival of AEO and GEO mean SEO is finally dead?

Err… no. Sorry.

People have been saying SEO is dead for years — *eyeroll* — but it’s not true and never has been.

What’s actually been happening is that SEO has been evolving for this whole time. Improving the way we create websites and content to give internet users a better, more responsive and more intuitive experience.

It’s almost as if Google has been training the people who write SEO content for this new AI-powered era.

Don’t believe me? Look at this.

SEO evolved to include AEO

Although AEO is a relatively new thing, SEO content writers were prompted to start optimising our content with questions and answers from the late 2000s into the 2010s. This was known as the ‘They Ask, You Answer’ era. It’s when FAQ pages became popular and blog articles were often written in a Q&A style.

In 2015, the featured snippet was introduced. This was the prelude to the Answer Engine, giving a brief answer as a snippet at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). We optimised our content to be chosen for the snippet, giving a brief, snippet-worthy answer, then the more thorough answer for people to click through to.

It was 2023 when the first AI summaries were introduced. And the SEO content writers who’d been following the guidance were already well on their way to creating the kind of content Answer Engines were looking for. With the brief answer followed by the full answer in bite-sized chunks. Some people call this way of writing ‘chunking’ but, for many of us, it’s how we’ve always written for the web.

When this started to kill our clickthrough rates, SEO evolved to include GEO.

SEO also evolved to include GEO

The most lucrative way to be found using AI search is to be mentioned by a Generative Engine.

But how do we get those mentions?

By working hard on and off the website, just as SEOs have always done.

Optimising for Generative Engines on the website

With:

• Unique, expert-led articles
• Original research and ideas
• Hard data and statistics
• Credible research sources
• Authoritative, well-written content.

Optimising for Generative Engines off the website

With:

• Reviews on independent review sites
• Positive brand mentions across the web
• Backlinks posted on other websites.

AEO and GEO are still SEO

You don’t need separate AEO or GEO in your online strategy.

You just need an evolved SEO writer for the content and an evolved SEO for the technical side. They will take care of everything you need to get found using traditional and AI-powered search.

Hope that helps.

Do you need an evolved SEO content writer?

Hi, I’m Jenny. I’m an SEO copywriter and content strategist based in Leicester, UK. I’ve been creating content that works since 2007 and I’ve been evolving my process this whole time.

So if you need a content writer who can make you searchable in the era of AI, maybe I can help

You can find out more about me on my main website >>

Read more articles on my own blog >>

Or, if you’d like to discuss a project, get in touch >>

You might also like…

The post SEO vs AEO vs GEO: which does your business actually need? appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

This pick ‘n’ mix guide is packed with inspiration and ideas for your marketing efforts over the winter period, from December 2026 to February 2027.

For each month, I’ve prepared an event calendar, which might inspire a post, promotion or tie-in. I’ve included links where possible, so you’ll find all the information you need, including themes and full event details.

Please double-check the 2026/27 dates and that the events are still going ahead before you invest time and money on marketing.

There’s also a selection of content ideas for each month, which you should be able to adapt for your brand and your audience.

Remember, your content should be about helping rather than selling, so make sure it’s customer focused with a clear What’s In It For Me (WIIFM).

This is an evolving post that I return to and update every year. For advance notification of updates, make sure you’re following me on LinkedIn.

If you need more ideas, you’ll find plenty in my blog post:
111 Blog post ideas for your business.

*Denotes events held on the same dates every year.

Content ideas for December 2026

December 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — Decembeard, for bowel cancer (UK), TBC
17th — Harbin Ice & Snow Festival, China, to mid Feb

Weeks, fortnights etc

2nd — National Grief Awareness Week (UK), TBC

Days

1st* — Word AIDS Day
1st — Cyber Monday
2nd* — International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
2nd* — English Breakfast Day (UK)
3rd* — International Day of Persons with Disabilities
3rd* — World Wildlife Conservation Day
4th — Hanukkah
5th* — World Soil Day
5th* — Annual Day of the Ninja
5th* — International Volunteers’ Day
7th* — International Civil Aviation Day
5th — Small Business Saturday (UK)
10th* — International Animal Rights Day
10th* — Human Rights Day
10th — Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children (UK)
11th* — International Mountain Day
12th* — National Workplace Day of Remembrance (UK)
18th* — International Migrants Day
20th* — International Human Solidarity Day
21st* — Winter Solstice, shortest day
24th* — Christmas Eve
25th* — Christmas Day
26th* — Boxing Day
31st* — New Year’s Eve
31st* — National Champagne Day

December 2026 content ideas

1. A countdown or top ten

• A countdown of your most popular blog articles from 2026
• A look at your 10 most popular products this year
• Your top ten favourite moments from the year
• A top 10 of your recommendations for…

2. Something festive

• Unveil a festive special offer
• Promote your Christmas gift guide
• Run an on-brand competition or prize draw
• Host a fun quiz, challenge or event.

3. End of the year business round-up

• What happened in your business this year?
• Did you achieve any of your goals for the year?
• Did you pivot or differentiate your services?
• Did you introduce anything new?
• What were you most proud of?
• Did you do any charity work or fundraising you want to mention?
• Did you have any notable achievements or anniversaries?

Content ideas for January 2027

January 2027 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — Buy Nothing New Month (UK)
1st* — Dry January
1st* — Ginuary
1st* — Veganuary
1st* — Walk Your Dog Month

Weeks, fortnights etc

4th — Big Schools’ Birdwatch
18th — Cervical Cancer Prevention Week (UK), TBC
19th — Energy Savers Week, with Citizens’ Advice, TBC
25th — Farmhouse Breakfast Week (UK)
30th — National Storytelling Week (UK)

Days

1st* — New Year’s Day
2nd* — World Introvert Day
3rd — Festival of Sleep Day
4th* — World Braille Day
10th — World Houseplant Appreciation Day, TBC
11th — Hot Toddy Day
14th* — International Kite Festival, Gujurat
16th* — International Hot and Spicy Food Day
18th — World Religion Day
18th* — Thesaurus Day
18th* — Winnie the Pooh Day
18th — Blue Monday, third Monday in January
18th — Brew Monday, for the Samaritans, third Monday in January, TBC
21st* — International Squirrel Appreciation Day
21st* — International Sweatpants Day
29th — RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (UK), TBC
23rd* — Handwriting Day
23rd — Wakakusa Yamayaki, mountain burning festival, Japan
24th* — International Day of Education
25th* — Burns Night, Scotland
26th* —Australia Day
26th — Up Helly Aa, galley burning, Scotland
27th* — International Chocolate Cake Day
27th* — Holocaust Memorial Day
28th* — International Lego Day
28th — Stroke Prevention Day, TBC
30th — World Leprosy Day
31st* — Inspire Your Heart with Art Day
31st* — Self-assessment tax deadline

January 2027 content ideas

1. Your business plans for 2027

As we enter a new year, it’s a good time to talk about new plans for your business and how they will benefit your customers.

• What are your business plans for 2027?
• Are you making any changes?
• Do you have more products/services planned?
• What will you be doing more/less of?
• What will you be investing more in?
• Who are you looking to work with?

2. New Year, New Start

The New Year is a great time for making resolutions, changes and improvements. And for launching new initiatives, services and product ranges. All of which you can write about on your blog. Some ideas to think about:

• Environment: sustainability, energy saving
• Productivity: streamlining, automating, digitising
• Health initiatives: walking, cycling, healthy lunches
• Embracing new ways of working
• Customer loyalty: rewards, bonuses, benefits
• Customer initiative: suggestion box, engagement.

3. Health, safety and winter wellbeing

Health and safety is important all year round, but comes to the fore during winter. Some themes to think about:

• Darker days, reliance on artificial light
• Risks caused by frost and ice, slips and falls, frozen plumbing
• Greater strain on power and heating systems
• Keeping warm while working outside
• Staying safe on the roads, in your vehicle
• Emergency precautions and preparations.

Content ideas for February 2027

February 2027 event calendar

Month and longer

1st* — Children’s Sleep Awareness Month
1st — Dignity Action Month, for health and social care (UK), TBC
1st* — Heart Month (UK), TBC
1st* — LGBT+ History Month (UK)
1st* — Raynaud’s Awareness Month (UK), TBC

Weeks, fortnights etc

1st* — African Heritage and Health Week
1st — Children’s Mental Health Week (UK)
2nd — Freelance Writers’ Appreciation Week
4th — The 77th Sapporo Snow Festival, Japan
6th — Chinese New Year (Year of the Goat)
8th — National Apprenticeship Week (UK)
20th — Real Bread Week
22nd — Eating Disorders Awareness Week (UK)

Days

1st — National Sickie Day, first Monday of February (UK)
2nd* — World Play Your Ukulele Day
2nd* — World Wetlands Day
3rd — World Read Aloud Day, first Wednesday in Feb
4th* — World Cancer Day
4th — Time to Talk Day, first Thursday in Feb (UK), TBC
5th* — World Nutella Day
5th — NSPCC Number Day (UK)
5th — Rio Carnival, Brazil
5th — Welsh Language Music Day
7th — British Yorkshire Pudding Day, first Sunday in February
8th — International Epilepsy Day, second Monday in Feb
9th — Mardi Gras, New Orleans, USA
9th — Safer Internet Day (UK)
10th* — World Pulses Day
10th* — National Umbrella Day
11th* — International Day of Women and Girls in Science
11th* — World Day of the Sick
12th* — International Charles Darwin Day
13th* — World Radio Day
14th* — Valentine’s Day
14th* — International Book Giving Day
15th* — Singles Awareness Day
17th* — World Human Spirit Day
20th* — Love Your Pet Day
21st* — International Mother Language Day
22nd — International Margarita Day
22nd* — World Thinking Day, for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, TBC
23rd* — International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
24th — World Bartender Day
25th — National Toast Day, last Thursday of February
27th* — World NGO Day (Non-Governmental Organisation)
28th — Rare Disease Day

February 2027 content ideas

1. Winter

• Winter exercise and activity
• Home cooking: healthy comfort food, hot drink ideas
• Best/most efficient heating systems
• Ways to pass the time at home: DIY projects, fun things to do
• Things to learn: courses, self teaching, 5-day challenges
• Practical things you can do for your business now
• Helpful guides: checklists, how-tos.

2. The month of love

With Valentine’s Day dominating this month, it’s a great opportunity to talk about all the things you’re loving/recommending at the moment. Some examples to think about:

• New apps and tools you’ve been trying out
• Inspiring books, blogs or articles you’ve been reading
• New discoveries in your local area
• Share glowing testimonials your customers have left
• Share what your customers are loving this month
• Recommend other products or services that complement your own.

3. Start creating a comprehensive buyer guide

Depending on the nature and complexity of your product, this could be done in one post, or in a content hub as shown in the diagram below. Either way, it’s a chance for you to answer all your customers’ buying questions in one place.

A content hub consists of a main pillar article (orange) that links to several more detailed articles (blue), covering all the different aspects of the buyer decision-making process.

This could be a good idea if you’re selling to buyers with different awareness levels of your product or service, because they can pick and choose which of the more detailed articles they want to read.

And you don’t have to have eight different topics — that was just to make my diagram look pretty! You would choose the number of topics that’s relevant for what you’re selling.

Want to add an event?

My aim is to build a comprehensive calendar of UK and international events. If there’s a great event that’s missing and you’d like me to consider including it, please get in touch with the details and official website.

Other posts in this series

As many dates aren’t confirmed until close to the event, these posts will usually be updated a couple of months before each season starts. I’ll publicise them on LinkedIn when they’ve been updated.

Need quality content for your business blog?

I’m Jenny Lucas, a freelance content writer based in Leicester, UK.

If you like what you’ve read here, but don’t have the time, skills or inclination to do your own content marketing, I can help by writing it for you.

For more information, head to my content writing page, where you can find out more, or get in touch.

Need more content ideas?

Check out these other posts I’ve written.

The post Content ideas for Winter 2026/2027 appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

Keyword cannibalisation: it sounds monstrous, but what does it mean and why might you need to be concerned about it?

Keyword cannibalisation is an SEO issue

When you search-engine-optimise (SEO) your web pages, each individual webpage should be targeting a different set of keywords with different search intent. This is so Google knows exactly which page to show for each particular search query.

Keyword cannibalisation happens when two or more pages of your website are targeting the same SEO keywords with the same search intent. And it’s so-called because those pages will be competing against each other, with each one “eating” into the ranking potential of the others.

Your web pages are competing against each other

When you have multiple web pages competing against each other for Google rankings, it throws Google into a tailspin, because it doesn’t know which of those page best matches the search query.

For example, let’s say your business sells office chairs and you have these three blog articles on your website:

• Sit comfortably with these ergonomic office chairs
• The most comfortable ergonomic office chairs
• Our top ergonomic office chairs for comfort.

Google doesn’t know which is the best one to rank on its results page.

This can have a negative effect on your website

If there’s keyword cannibalisation on your website, this could mean:

• Lower or fluctuating rankings
• Diluted engagement, authority, and linking opportunities
• Inferior user experience
• A waste of your SEO investment.

How does keyword cannibalisation happen?

There could be a number of reasons. Here are some of the ones I see most often.

Working without a keyword strategy

A keyword strategy takes all the keywords you want to rank for and assigns them to the most relevant pages and blog articles. More than that, it ensures every page has a clear purpose that satisfies user search intent.

With a keyword strategy every keyword has its place, so there’s overlap and no keyword cannibalisation.

Without a keyword strategy, it’s easy to duplicate keywords across multiple pages.

Creating new pages or articles every time

For some business owners I’ve spoken to, creating something new was their default. If they had a new product, they created a new page for it. If they found something new to blog about, they’d create a whole new article.

But this isn’t always necessary and it can result in keyword cannibalisation if your new page is too similar to an existing one.

Not keeping track of what you already have

I’ve been approached by businesses that were creating content on top of content. They didn’t have a content plan, they just posted whatever they felt like, whenever they felt like it. And they didn’t keep track of the articles they’d already published. As a result, their back catalogue was huge, with hundreds of articles, many of which were repeating information and keywords.

Your blog shouldn’t be a dumping ground for every piece of content you’ve ever created. It should be something you’re actively monitoring, contributing to strategically and regularly updating. Because this is the only way you’ll know if it’s working for your business.

How to fix keyword cannibalisation on your website

Did you do your original SEO without a keyword strategy? Or have you been creating new pages or content without considering your existing back catalogue? If so, you may have a keyword cannibalisation problem.

But all is not lost and there are ways to fix it.

Have an SEO keyword audit

The first step will be to do a site-wide keyword audit. A decent SEO will have the tools to do this for you and help you understand the results.

When I say ‘decent’, I mean be careful, because there are a lot of cowboys out there. Find yourself an SEO who comes with recommendations and has a proven track record.

Your SEO keyword audit will identify:

• Areas where you’re doing well with your SEO keywords
• Area where you’re not doing so well and need to improve
• Mistakes that need correcting — including keyword cannibalisation
• Keyword gaps and link-building opportunities.

Once you have this information, and know where the problems are, you can start to fix your keyword cannibalisation issues.

Amalgamate similar pages

If you have pages that have very similar content and are ranking for the same keywords, consider amalgamating those.

In this diagram, we have four similar pages, which we’ve merged to create one super-strong super page.

To do this, find the page that’s your best performer and make that page the one you keep.

Your best performing page will be the one that’s:

• Already ranking highest
• Got the most backlinks
• Most comprehensive and thorough
• Most relevant for user search intent
• Most useful to your audience.

Copy any distinct or new information from the other pages and integrate it onto that one page. Doing this will make your best performing page even stronger, so it gives you the best chance of ranking higher.

Finally, add redirects from the similar pages to the page you’re going to keep. This will tie up all the loose ends, so you can delete those similar pages from your site without causing any problems.

Give pages with the same keywords different purposes

If you have cluster topics, amalgamating pages might not be the best way to go.

Pages that are optimised for the same keywords can coexist without a keyword cannibalisation issue if they have different purposes and satisfy different kinds of search intent.

As an example, here’s how one keyword can be used on four different pages, with each page targeting a different type of search intent.

• Why you need running shoes —> informational intent
• Asics running shoes —> navigational intent
• Which running shoes are best for beginners? —> Commercial investigation
• Buy running shoes —> transactional intent.

Track and monitor your content

I keep a content inventory of my blog articles and monitor their progress.

For each article, this includes the:

• Article title
• URL
• Date it was originally published
• Date it was last updated
• Primary category
• Number of clicks in the last 3 months
• Number of impressions in the last 3 months
• Average position over the last 3 months.

The spreadsheet is useful for lots of things including:

• Finding all the articles I have on a particular subject
• Checking which articles are due to be updated
• Seeing how articles are performing in search
• Highlighting any issues so I can correct them.

This allows me to easily make additions and improvements to the articles I already have rather than creating new ones every time. This keeps my whole back catalogue fresh, relevant and valuable with no keyword cannibalisation.

Does your blog have a keyword cannibalisation problem?

I’m Jenny, a UK freelance copywriter and content specialist. I’ve been writing premium content that ranks on Google since 2007.

My content inventory and auditing services are designed to organise your blog content and get it to a point where your entire back catalogue is working hard for your business.

This includes:

• Creating a spreadsheet inventory of your articles
• Identifying, highlighting and fixing any problems
• Amalgamating or repurposing articles that are too similar
• Updating and refreshing old content to ensure it’s still serving its purpose
• Identifying content gaps
• Creating content plans and writing new articles.

If this sounds like something you need, you can:

Read more about my content strategy services >>

Find out more about my approach to content >>

Contact me for more information >>

You might also like…

The post Keyword cannibalisation: what it is and how to fix it appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

Be honest with yourself. When you read your website, who’s doing the talking? Is it you? Is it the brand you’ve been working hard to create? Or is it every similar brand on the internet?

Are your ideal customers reading your website and thinking they’ve finally found a brand that speaks to them and understands exactly what they need? Or are they reading it with an eerie sense of deja vous, like they’ve already read it several times before?

Why your website sounds like everyone else’s

Truthfully, there could be a number of reasons.

Let’s look at some of the most common ones. Starting with the thing you know full well I’m going to mention…

You wrote your website with AI

You wrote your site with AI. You didn’t give it a very imaginative set of prompts. And, unsurprisingly, it came back with the same generic, unhuman drivel as every other business that did this.

I would be rolling my eyes at this point, but seeing as you’re here and trying to fix your copy, I won’t.

I get it, okay. AI takes away the fear of the blank page. It stops your cursor winking at you, willing you to write. And when you see your page filled with words, it makes you feel like you’ve achieved something.

To the uninitiated, it sounds… passable. It’s clear, easy to read and sounds professional. But more and more people are starting to notice the signs of AI. Not just em dashes — *yawn* — but formulaic wording, language patterns and tone.

The lack of personality and real-world experience makes it sound generic and inauthentic — and this could be harming your credibility.

In short, it doesn’t sound like you and it never will.

You’re trying too hard to sound “professional”

Too many businesses are still stuck on the idea of wanting to sound impeccably professional. They use formal language, impressive-sounding words and long, plodding sentences. And they end up with copy that sounds stuffy, serious and boring.

First — and I can’t stress this enough — nobody wants to read that.

Second, this will make you sound like every other impeccably professional business.

You want to be universally acceptable

You want to appeal to anyone and everyone who might buy from you.

So you remove all trace of character from your copy and take a neutral standpoint where you don’t stand for anything or have an opinion on anything.

If your copy were a colour, it would be beige. If it had a flavour, it would be vanilla. If it were a personality, you wouldn’t want to be stuck talking to it at a party.

With nothing to make you stand out, you blend in.

Your web copy is full of industry clichés

You’re a logistics company that says “you deliver”. A gifting company that has every occasion “all wrapped up”. A taxi company that’s “driven to do better”.

If there’s an industry cliché to be used, you haven’t been afraid to use it. And that’s why your website sounds like everyone else’s.

You took “inspiration” from your competitors

When you were wondering what to write, you snuck a cheeky peek at your competitors’ websites to see how they’d done it. What they’d said. How they’d said it.

Anything that sounded necessary, safe and credible, you remembered… or wrote down. Like copying your friend’s homework.

And it influenced your copy, so it ended up sounding like a mish-mash of theirs.

We’ve all been there. Comparing ourselves to others we admire. Wanting a piece of their success. And sometimes not even thinking we deserve it for ourselves.

But we do. You do. Which is why you need to do you.

How I create standout copy that actually sounds like you

Your copy sounds generic and the same as everyone else’s. Maybe it comes across as cold, colourless or boring. And it’s making you blend in when you need to stand out.

You may have other problems, too. Like missing out on business opportunities and attracting the kind of bad-fit clients who don’t respect your time, expertise or boundaries.

To counter that, you need to be brave. To show up in your true colours so you’ll attract your kind of people and have a business you enjoy.

Personify your brand

To make your copy shine, we need to add some humanness. We do this by giving your brand a persona and making it personable.

If you’re a solo business owner, this persona will probably be the same as, or close to, your own character. But you can decide where the boundaries are, how much of yourself you want to put into your brand and how much you want to leave out.

Personifying your brand gives it a rounded character and an engaging personality. For example, if your copy feels cold and distant, it can bring warmth, humour and relatability. And, even if your business is formal and serious, making it sound more human will make it more appealing to read.

Express your brand values

Your brand values are what your brand stands for and what you care about as a business.

Your brand values and what they mean to you should be individual to you, so they’re not shared by everyone else. This is why I advise my clients to avoid listing the values that every other business says they have. I’m talking about values like honesty and integrity. These should be a given. Because no business would say they were deceitful or immoral, now, would they?

Some brands list their values on their website, which is weird. Because if they’re genuine and meaningful they should shine through in everything you do. In other words, you shouldn’t need to tell your ideal customers what they are — you show them.

Share your experiences and stories

Your experience is what shows how well you know your industry, your business and your customers.

Your experiences are unique to you. Even if a competitor has had the same experience, it won’t be identical to yours and they won’t tell it in the same way.

You have stories, too. Real world stories that have happened to you and the real people you serve. Maybe they’re success stories that show your competency. Maybe they’re warnings your ideal customers need to know about. Either way, they’re valuable to your audience and help to position you as the expert you are.

Offer an opinion

Real people have opinions. They don’t try to please everyone and they don’t sit on the fence like AI does. I guess bots don’t get splinters, though I really wish they did.

Experts, like you, have expert opinions and can give expert advice your ideal customers will find valuable.

For example, maybe you go against the grain in your industry. Maybe you think everyone else is doing it wrong and your way is better. Maybe you’re advising against the latest trend everyone wants, with good reason. Maybe there are widespread myths in your industry that you’re constantly debunking.

Your opinions come from real world experience, not everyone will have, and this is why you shouldn’t be afraid to share them.

Show how you work

The way you work and the advantages of this for your customers can be a key differentiator for your brand.

Maybe you’ve changed the way you work to make it smoother and more streamlined. Maybe you’re constantly developing better and more efficient ways of working. Maybe experience or customer feedback have shaped and improved your process.

The way you’re working, developing and evolving is unique to you.

Use your voice

Your copy can mirror the language you use in your business.

Maybe you have a particular way of describing things, have a unique turn of phrase or use specific words more regularly. Maybe you have a different way of thinking or see things differently to other people.

We can use these characteristics and quirks to your advantage in your web copy. So it sounds more like you and less like everyone else.

Do you need web copy that sounds more like you?

Maybe I can help.

I’m Jenny Lucas, I’ve been a website copywriter since 2011 and I’ve seen every kind of website you can imagine — good, bad and really, really ugly.

The good ones are always from brands who’ve thought about their copy. And who haven’t just copied their competitors or used AI. These websites are clear, engaging and have a distinctive voice that really speaks to their ideal customers.

If that’s the kind of thing you want for your website, too, we should talk.

You can learn more about me and the brands I work with on my main website >>

You can read more articles like this one on my blog >>

Or you can get in touch here >>

You might also like…

The post Why your website copy sounds just like everyone else’s and how to fix it appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

This pick ‘n’ mix guide is packed with inspiration and ideas for your marketing efforts over the autumn period, from September to November 2026.

For each month, I’ve prepared an event calendar, which might inspire a post, promotion or tie-in. I’ve included links where possible, so you’ll find all the information you need, including themes and full event details.

Please double-check the 2026 dates and that the events are still going ahead before you invest time and money on marketing.

There are also three seasonal content themes for each month, which you should be able adapt for your brand and your audience.

Remember, your content should be about helping rather than selling, so make sure it’s customer focused with a clear What’s In It For Me (WIIFM).

This is an evolving post that I return to and update every year. For advance notification of updates, make sure you’re following me on LinkedIn.

If you need more ideas, you’ll find plenty in my blog post:
111 Blog post ideas to benefit your business.

*Denotes events held on the same dates every year.

Content ideas for September 2026

September 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — World Alzheimer’s Month
1st* — Blood Cancer Awareness Month (UK)
1st* — Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
1st — East & South East Asian Heritage Month
1st* — Oddfellows Friendship Month (UK)
1st* — Organic September (UK)
1st — Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month
1st* — Sepsis Awareness Month (UK)
1st* — Sleeptember (UK)
1st* — Self-Improvement Month
1st* — Snacktember
1st* — Sourdough September (UK)
1st* — Urology Awareness Month (UK)
1st* — Vascular Disease Awareness Month (UK)

Weeks, fortnights etc

7th — National Payroll Week (UK)
7th — Know Your Numbers Week, for blood pressure (UK)
11th — Heritage Open Days (UK)
13th — Balance Awareness Week (UK)
14th — National Inclusion Week (UK)
14th — Orchid Male Cancer Awareness Week (UK)
14th — Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Week (UK), TBC
14th — Jeans for Genes Week (UK)
14th — Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week
14th — Recycle Week (UK)
16th* — European Mobility Week
19th — Oktoberfest, Munich
21st — FSC Forest Week, for the Forest Stewardship Council (UK)
21st — National Coding Week (UK), starts third Monday in September, TBC
21st — National Eye Health Week (UK), TBC
21st — Fairtrade Fortnight
21st — ICON Week, to raise awareness of infant crying
21st — Fire Door Safety Week (UK)
21st — International Week of Happiness at Work
21st — Migraine Awareness Week
21st — Organ Donation Week
21st — World Reflexology Week, TBC
26th — British Food Fortnight
27th — Shetland Wool Week (UK)

Days

5th* — International Day of Charity
5th — International Vulture Awareness Day, first Saturday in September
6th* — National Read a Book Day (UK)
7th* — World Salami Day
8th* — International Literacy Day
15th — Pension Awareness Day (UK)
10th* — World Suicide Prevention Day (UK)
11th — National Make Your Bed Day
12th — World Sepsis Day, TBC
13th* — International Chocolate Day
13th* — Roald Dahl Day (UK)
15th* — World Lymphoma Awareness Day
15th* — International Dot Day, for creativity
15th* — International Day of Democracy
16th — National Fitness Day (UK)
16th* — International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
17th — World Patient Safety Day
18th — Youth Mental Health Day (UK)
19th* — International Talk Like a Pirate Day
21st* — International Day of Peace
21st — World Gratitude Day
21st* — World Alzheimer’s Day
22nd* — World Car-Free Day
23rd — International Day of Sign Languages
24th — National Manufacturing Day
25th* — International Ataxia Awareness Day
25th — World Pharmacists’ Day
25th —World’s Biggest Coffee Morning (UK)
26th — World Copywriters’ Day
26th* — European Day of Languages
26th* — World Contraception Day
27th — World Tourism Day
28th* — World Rabies Day
29th* — World Heart Day
30th — International Podcast Day
30th* — National Sporting Heritage Day (UK), TBC
30th — Thank You #HiddenHeroes Day (UK), last Wednesday of September, TBC
30th — World School Milk Day, last Wednesday of September

September 2026 content ideas

1. Do something for charity

September 5th is the International Day of Charity. So why not do something to help your favourite charity and write a blog about it? Helping charities

• Volunteer your staff or services to help with a charity project or event
• Hold a fundraising event
• Donate money to fund a project and write an article to show what your donation helped the charity to achieve
• Give learning opportunities or apprenticeships to disadvantaged or underprivileged young people and document the process in a blog
• Run a challenge or competition, charge people to enter and donate the profits to charity
• Write a post to promote the charity you’re supporting, talk about the work they do and why it’s so important — tell your audience how they can help too.

2. Christmas countdown for marketing

In marketing circles, the start of autumn is the countdown to Christmas, so it’s a good time to start your Christmas preparation posts. Depending on your brand you may have one or several posts planned in the run up to Christmas.

• Create a Christmas gift guide
• Plan your Christmas special offers
• Compile ideas and inspiration for Christmas: home decoration, recipes, time-saving, food preparation, party planning.

3. Winter break ideas

As summer comes to an end, your audience will be thinking about their next break. If you can make it relevant to your brand, give them some inspiration.

• City breaks: destination ideas, city guides, restaurant recommendations, most popular tourist attractions, best cultural experiences, hidden gems that are off the beaten track
• Winter activity holidays: skiing, snowboarding, sledging, ice fishing, whale watching, trekking, snow mobiles
• Themed breaks: Christmas markets, reindeer rides, northern lights, winter snow, winter sun
• UK breaks: destination ideas, Christmas markets, winter customs and events.

Content ideas for October 2026

October 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — ADHD Awareness Month
1st* — The Big Draw Festival
1st* — Black History Month (UK)
1st* — Breast Cancer Awareness Month (UK), TBC
1st* — Charcot-Marie-Tooth Awareness Month
1st* — National Cholesterol Month (UK), TBC
1st* — Go Sober for October (UK), TBC
1st* — Inktober
1st* — Lupus Awareness Month (UK), TBC
1st* — Positive Attitude Month
1st* — Speak Up Month
1st* — Stoptober, to quit smoking (UK)
1st* — Unblocktober, to fight plastic entering our seas (UK)
1st* — International Walk to School Month

Weeks, fortnights etc

1st — National Vegetarian Week
3rd — Family Learning Festival (UK)
4th* — World Space Week
5th — National Curry Week, (UK)
5th — National Hygiene Week (UK)
5th — National Work Life Week
5th — Dyslexia Awareness Week (UK)
5th — Back Care Awareness Week (UK)
5th — Bike to School Week (UK)
5th — National Braille Week (UK)
12th — International Adolescent Health Week
12th — UK Coffee Week, TBC
13th — OCD Awareness Week
15th — Baby Loss Awareness Week (UK)
24th — International Brain Tumour Awareness Week

Days

1st* — International Coffee Day
1st* — International Day of Older Persons (UK)
1st — National Poetry Day
1st — World Sake Day
1st* — World Vegetarian Day
2nd — World Smile Day, first Friday in October every year
4th — International Vodka Day
4th* — World Animal Day
5th* — World Teachers’ Day
6th* — National Badger Day (UK)
6th* — World Habitat Day
8th — World Sight Day
9th — World Egg Day, second Friday in October
9th* — World Post Day
10th — World Hospice and Palliative Care Day
10th — World Mental Health Day, TBC
10th* — World Porridge Day
11th* — International Coming Out Day
11th* — International Day of the Girl Child
13th — National No Bra Day (UK) for breast cancer awareness
13th — International Sceptics’ Day
14th — National Burns Awareness Day
15th — Conflict Resolution Day, third Thursday of October, TBC
15th — International Credit Union Day, TBC
15th* — Global Hand-washing Day
15th* — Global Wave of Light, for baby loss
15th — World Values Day
16th* — World Food Day
16th* — Restart a Heart Day, TBC
16th — Developmental Language Disorder Day
16th — Wear Red Day, against racism (UK)
17th* — International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
18th* — Anti-Slavery Day (UK)
18th* — World Menopause Day
19th — International Gin and Tonic Day
20th* — World Osteoporosis Day
21st — Apple Day (UK), weekend closest to the 21st
21st — International Pronouns Day, third Wednesday in October
21st* — National Reptile Awareness Day
22nd — International Stuttering Awareness Day
23rd — Wear it Pink, for breast cancer (UK)
23rd — International Champagne Day
25th —World Pasta Day
26th — National Sleep-in Day (UK), TBC
26th — British Summertime Ends (UK)
31st — Halloween

October 2026 content ideas

1. Preparing for winter

It may only be October, but it’s a good time for your audience to plan ahead for the colder months and make sure they and their homes are prepared.

• Winter home prep: insulation, boiler, heating system, radiators, fire/chimney, smoke detectors, draughts and air leaks, roofs, gutters, outside lighting etc
• Winter garden prep: trimming and pruning, storing furniture and pots, shed/greenhouse maintenance, salts for paths and driveways, repair broken/dangerous steps and paving slabs
• Winter vehicle prep: battery, tyres, anti-freeze levels, oil, screenwash, lights, kit to carry in case of emergency
• Personal care for winter: medicine cupboard essentials, hair/skin care, foot care, joint care, colds and flu, keeping warm, staying active, healthy foods and drinks
• Winter clothes: latest fashions, warmest outerwear, best non-slip footwear, skiwear, sunglasses.

2. Halloween

Halloween is known for wickedness and mischief, so it’s a good time to write about bad things. Here are some ideas:

• Buyer beware: scams, swindles, hoaxes, rip-offs
• Bad behaviour that loses customers, such as poor etiquette, spamming, aggressive selling and poor customer service
• Shocking mistakes people are making that are preventing them from achieving their goals
• How to recognise the signs of bad clients and troublesome customers
• Scary statistics that show your audience why they should/shouldn’t be doing something in their business.

3. End of British Summertime

UK clocks go back one hour this month, giving people a whole extra hour of time. So you could talk about some of the things that can be achieved in an hour. There are lots of themes for this, depending on your brand, but here are some ideas:

• Teach them how to make something
• Show them how to make a plan or prepare something in advance
• Host a one-hour course where they can learn something valuable
• Host a practical class, in person or online
• Help them write a blog post or schedule some social media posts
• Encourage them to do something they might have been putting off
• Take them through a how-to to demonstrate a new technique.

Content ideas for November 2026

November 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — Lung Cancer Awareness Month (UK)
1st* — Mouth Cancer Action Month (UK)
1st* — Movember, for men’s health
1st* — Men’s Health Awareness Month
1st* — National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month (UK)
1st* — World Vegan Month
19th — Disability History Month

Weeks, fortnights etc

2nd — International Stress Awareness Week
2nd — National Pathology Week (UK)
2nd — Green Careers Week (UK), TBC
2nd — Talk Money Week (UK)
6th — Diwali begins
9th — World Nursery Rhyme Week
16th — Anti-Bullying Week (UK)
16th — Sugar Awareness Week (UK), TBC
13th* — Trans Awareness Week
15th — International Fraud Awareness Week
15th — Road Safety Week (UK)
16th — National Self-Care Week
30th — Lifelong Learning Week (UK)

Days

1st* — World Vegan Day
3rd — World Sandwich Day
4th — National Stress Awareness Day (UK)
5th — Bonfire Night
7th — International Stout Day
8th* — World Radiography Day
8th — Remembrance Sunday
9th* — World Freedom Day
11th — Armistice Day
13th — Children in Need, TBC
13th* — World Kindness Day
14th* — World Diabetes Day
18th — World COPD Awareness Day
19th* — International Men’s Day
19th* — World Toilet Day
19th — Carers’ Rights Day (UK)
20th* — World Children’s Day
20th — Trans Day of Remembrance
21st* — World Television Day
25th — White Ribbon Day, for violence against women (UK)
27th — Black Friday
30th* — St Andrew’s Day

November 2026 content ideas

1. Christmas countdown for customers

For many of your customers, the start of November starts the countdown to Christmas, so anything you can do to help will be appreciated.

• Update customers on your festive season opening hours, delivery dates, last chance dates etc so they can make sure they’re prepared — you can follow this up with a series of reminder posts on social media
• Create a Christmas checklist to help your customers with planning, workload, shopping etc.

2. Stress Awareness Day

November 5th is National Stress Awareness Day. This could be a great opportunity to help your customers by:

• Showing them how what you offer can make their lives less stressful
• Giving them hacks and tips to make their work/lives more manageable
• Talking about healthy vs. unhealthy ways of dealing with stress
• Write about the benefits of exercise and taking more time outside
• Compile a list of helpful stress-management resources.

REMEMBER, you can also visit the website to see what the 2026 theme is and write a post based around that.

3. Recycle an old blog

Articles that are more than three years’ old are often out of date and need a refresh, so why not recycle or repurpose an old blog and republish it?

Here are a few ideas on how to do it:

• Update the article with the latest information and statistics
• Expand the article with more information and add more value
• Add new voices and industry insights
• If it’s an image-based article, update the images to show the latest trends and styles
• Rewrite it to show how things have changed since you published the original article.

Want to add an event?

My aim is to build a comprehensive calendar of UK and international events. If there’s a great event that’s missing and you’d like me to consider including it, please get in touch with the details and official website.

Other posts in this series

As many dates aren’t confirmed until close to the event, these posts will usually be updated a couple of months before each season starts. I’ll publicise them on LinkedIn when they’ve been updated.

Need quality content for your business blog?

I’m Jenny Lucas, a freelance content writer based in Leicester, UK.

If you like what you’ve read here, but don’t have the time, skills or inclination to do your own content marketing, I can help by writing it for you.

For more information, head to my content writing page, where you can find out more, or get in touch.

Need more content ideas?

Check out these other posts I’ve written.

The post Content ideas for Autumn 2026 appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

You have a blog that’s been working well to drive organic traffic to your website.

But, lately, you’ve been noticing a drop in your traffic and your click-through rate (CTR) is down. So what could be the problem?

The same thing happened to a business I know.

Here’s what happened.

This is a true story

A business had a top 10 tips article on their blog and it was one of their most visited webpages.

The tips were valuable, the SEO was on-point, the traffic was excellent. But the article could have been ranking and converting better, so the business made some improvements. They kept the existing listicle format, but added more SEO keywords and focused more on how their business could help visitors.

At first, it seemed the changes had been successful. The article’s impressions grew, as expected, and it climbed up the rankings, as expected — but its click-through rate fell off a cliff. Ouch!

What went wrong?

As the business published their improved article, Google was introducing the latest version of its new AI summary.

The new AI summary was programmed to pull together bite-size information in a list format. The business’s article contained bite-size information in a list format.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

Google’s AI was taking information from the business’s article to use in its summary. And because people were reading the information in the summary, they had no reason to click on the article.

Effectively the AI summary was stealing the business’s clicks. Rude.

This is something that’s becoming more prevalent and, as a website owner, you need to be aware of it.

It’s an example of commodity content

The business’s top 10 tips article was a classic example of what we’re now calling commodity content.

In economics, a commodity is something that’s basically the same product, no matter who produces it. Like sugar, oil and steel. The buyer cares less about the product and more about the price, convenience and availability.

What is commodity content?

Commodity content is generic and easily copied. The reader cares less about who created it and more about how easy it is to find and consume.

It’s the kind of content AI will strip for parts — taking all the good stuff for itself and leaving you with a husk of an article that does nothing for your business.

Commodity content is content that’s:

• Generic and kinda meh
• Been done to death
• Not introducing anything new or different
• Not bringing any original insight, opinions or perspectives
• Compiled using publicly available information, anyone can find.

Examples of commodity content

Commodity content includes:

• Generic listicles
• Basic how-to guides
• What is… ? explainer articles
• Generic buyer guides.

AI isn’t totally heartless. It will credit your blog article as its source and give a link to it. But when your article is titled ‘10 tips’ and the AI summary is giving 10 tips, it’s already stolen your thunder.

Businesses should be creating non-commodity content

Non-commodity content is the opposite of commodity content. It’s fresh, unique, and authentic to you, which makes it more valuable and more difficult to replicate.

When it’s non-commodity content, readers do care about who creates it. They care that it’s real and comes from a place of first-hand knowledge and experience. This is the kind of content they feel invested in and they want to know they can trust it.

Non-commodity content contains material like:

• Storytelling
• Lived experience
• First-hand research
• Original imagery or photography
• First-hand knowledge and expertise
• Unique perspectives and opinions.

Examples of non-commodity content

Non-commodity content includes:

• Real-life stories
• Research studies
• Expert opinion pieces
• In-depth case studies
• First-hand interviews
• Original infographics
• Independent experiments
• Unique inspiration guides
• Evidence-based forecasting.

Non-commodity content is a natural next step in blogging

Google has been pushing us towards creating more unique, non-commodity content for several years now.

Its Quality Rater Guidelines have rewarded content that features Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). And its Helpful Content updates have penalised commodity content created by content spinning and mass-producing AI articles without any human oversight.

So, although content writers weren’t able to predict exactly what AI search would look like, we were prepared enough to start adding that extra uniqueness and value to the articles we wrote.

How to get your blog back on track

If you think your blog has a commodity content issue, this is something I can help you rectify.

Have a professional content audit

A content audit is like a health check for your blog.

It’s a review of the articles you have on your blog to assess their quality, relevance and performance. This will tell you if an article is fighting fit, if it needs reviving, or if it needs killing with fire.

Spoiler alert: most content contains some value — even your commodity content — so never write anything off straight away.

When I audit your content, I’ll start by creating a spreadsheet inventory of your articles and how they’re performing. I’ll then produce an action plan that details what needs to be done to update and improve your blog. This will include transforming commodity content into non-commodity content.

You can read more about my content audit service here:

6 Good reasons your blog needs a professional content audit >>

Content auditing to make your blog work harder for your business >>

Revisit articles with problematic titles

Some article titles are problematic because they appear to give it all away.

For example:

• 10 Top tips for contouring —> AI summarises the 10 tips
• How to boil an egg —> AI gives instructions on how to boil an egg
• What is matcha? —> AI explains what matcha is.

If people can get what your title promises from the AI summary, they’re not going to bother reading your article — even if your article includes way more value than the title suggests.

Your title needs to tease something more valuable — and your article needs to deliver it.

For example:

• Contouring secrets from a professional make-up artist
• A chef’s guide to cooking eggs with perfect runny yolks every time
• Mind-blowing matcha flavour combinations we created in our kitchen.

Refresh, rewrite or repurpose older articles

Yes, okay, I shamelessly stole this idea from Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, but it works in a similar way.

I have a make-do and mend mentality, in life and in work, which means I make every effort to fix things before I throw them away.

Rather than simply deleting older articles that are no longer serving their purpose, I’ll look for ways to sharpen them up. Some older articles are still valid, but need refreshing with the latest information or better SEO keywords. Some could benefit from a rewrite. Some might have passed their use-by date, but the information or ideas could be repurposed.

You can read more about how Refresh, Rewrite, Repurpose works, here:

Refresh, Rewrite, Repurpose: how to audit and reuse your old blog posts >>

Add as much value as only you can

Your articles will be more unique and valuable to you if they include your input.

That could be in the form of your:

• Real-life stories
• Insight and experience
• Knowledge and expertise
• Perspective and personality.

When I rewrite articles for you, I’ll always prompt you to add your own twist.

This is how to turn generic commodity content into non-commodity content that showcases your Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). And it should help stop that pesky AI from stealing your clicks.

Need some help to stop AI stealing your content?

As a human copy and content writer, nothing irks me more than the AI takeover of our glorious internet. And if there’s any small thing I can do to stop it, I’m there.

That includes helping businesses, like yours, from losing potentially valuable clicks and traffic.

Work with me and I’ll:

• Audit your blog to highlight commodity content, poor performance and other issues
• Create an action plan that outlines how to fix them
• Do the work to bring those articles up to standard
• Give you the prompts you need so we can add your own spin
• Develop a better strategy for writing non-commodity articles in future.

If this sounds good and you’d like my help, get in touch and send me the link to your blog.

You might also like…

The post Is generic commodity content helping AI to steal your web traffic? appeared first on Jenny Lucas Copywriting.

This pick ‘n’ mix guide is packed with inspiration and ideas for your marketing efforts over the summer period, from June to August 2026.

For each month, I’ve prepared an event calendar, which might inspire a post, promotion or tie-in. I’ve included links where possible, so you’ll find all the information you need, including themes and full event details.

Please double-check the 2026 dates and that the events are still going ahead before you invest time and money on marketing.

There are also three seasonal content themes for each month, which you should be able adapt for your brand and your audience.

Remember, your content should be about helping rather than selling, so make sure it’s customer focused with a clear What’s In It For Me (WIIFM).

This is an evolving post that I return to and update every year. For advance notification of updates, make sure you’re following me on LinkedIn.

If you need more ideas, you’ll find plenty in my blog post:
111 Blog post ideas to benefit your business.

*Denotes events held on the same dates every year.

Content ideas for June 2026

June 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — Pride Month (UK)
1st* — SPANA’s World Tea Party, for sick and injured working animals

Weeks, fortnights etc

1st — Volunteers’ Week (UK)
1st — Child Safety Week (UK)
1st — National Growing for Wellbeing Week (UK), TBC
1st — World Heart Rhythm Week
5th — The Big Lunch (UK), TBC
8th — Aromatherapy Awareness Week, TBC
8th — Carers’ Week (UK)
8th — Diabetes Awareness Week (UK), TBC
9th — Bike Week (UK)
13th — March for Men (UK), for prostate cancer
13th — Drowning Prevention Week (UK)
14th — Book Week, Scotland
15th — Loneliness Awareness Week (UK)
15th — Men’s Health Week (UK)
15th — National Picnic Week (UK)
15th — Children’s Hospice Week (UK)
15th — Learning Disability Week (UK)
15th — Refugee Week (UK)
15th — #GladToCare Awareness Week (UK), date TBC
20th — English Wine Week
20th — Rabbit Awareness Week (UK), TBC

Days

1st* — World Milk Day
1st* — Global Day of Parents
3rd* — World Bicycle Day
4th* — International Day of Innocent Child Victims of Aggression
5th* — World Environment Day
5th* —International Day Against Illegal Fishing
5th — National Fish and Chip Day (UK)
7th — Cancer Survivors’ Day
7th —LEAF Open Farm Sunday (UK)
7th* — World Food Safety Day
8th* — World Oceans Day
13th — World Gin Day, second Saturday in June
14th* — World Blood Donor Day
15th* — National Beer Day (UK)
15th* — World Elder Abuse Awareness Day
17th* — World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
18th* — Autistic Pride Day
18th* — International Picnic Day
18th* — Sustainable Gastronomy Day
18th — National Clean Air Day
19th* — World Martini Day
19th — National Writing Day (UK), date TBC
20th — International Surfing Day, third Saturday in June
20th* — World Refugee Day
21st — Father’s Day (UK), third Sunday in June
21st* — World Humanist Day
21st* — Global MND Awareness Day
21st* — Summer Solstice, Northern Hemisphere
21st* — World Music Day
21st* — International Day of Yoga
22nd* — UK Windrush Day
23rd* — UN Public Service Day
23rd* — International Widows’ Day
23rd — International Women in Engineering Day
26th — National Cream Tea Day
26th — Take Your Dog to Work Day (UK), Friday after Father’s Day
26th* — International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
26th* — UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
27th* — Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day
29th* — International Day of the Tropics
29th* — Haro Wine Festival, Spain
30th* — International Asteroid Day

June 2026 content ideas

1. World Environment Day

June 5th is World Environment Day.

• Talk about your environmental policies and show how you’re making a difference
• If you sell products, talk about ways your customers might reuse or recycle them or their parts
• Introduce a new environmental initiative and write a blog post about it
• Ask your employees where the waste problems are in your business and take steps to tackle them — show others how you did it so they can do the same.

2. Summer holiday

With summer holidays just around the corner, why not help your customers prepare? Offer some tips, create an inspiration guide or write on a relevant topic. Choose something that’s relevant for your brand. Here are some ideas to inspire you:

• Self preparation: tanning, waxing, hair styling
• Inspiration: hairstyles, fashion, beach-ready looks
• Winding up at work: checklists, advance preparation, autoresponders
• Health and safety tips: sun care, healthcare, first aid, dos and don’ts
• Travel tips: regulations, restrictions, money, vehicle hire,
• Activities: hiking, water sports, camping, photography, video
• Equipment: wetsuits, sunglasses, hiking shoes, cameras, canoes, tents, caravans, awnings, furniture, backpacks and bags
• Packing tips: holiday essentials, checklists, ‘don’t forget’ lists.

3. Making the most of the season

• Summer offers and promotions
• Cooking: fresh seasonal produce, new ideas, recipes or flavour combinations
• Summer drinks: cocktails/virgin cocktails, punches and party drinks, best for hydration
• Health: summer diet, benefits of keeping hydrated, ways to drink more water, best exercise for hot weather
• Getting out and about: things to do, places to go, activities to try
• Being outdoors: garden furniture recommendations, how to style a balcony or small garden, bringing the outside in with healthy plants.

Content ideas for July 2026

July 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — Disability Pride Month
1st* — Plastic Free July
1st* — Sarcoma Awareness Month
18th — South Asian Heritage Month

Weeks, fortnights etc

6th — Alcohol Awareness Week
6th — Great British Pea Week, TBC
6th — National School Sport Week (UK)
18th — Festival of British Archaeology
24th — Love Parks Week (UK), TBC
25th — National Marine Week (UK), TBC

Days

1st* — International Reggae Day
2nd— Cycle to Work Day (UK), TBC
3rd — National Bereaved Parents’ Day (UK), TBC
7th* — World Chocolate Day
10th* — Don’t Step on a Bee Day
11th — World Mojito Day
11th* — World Population Day
11th — World Rum Day, second Saturday in July
12th* — National Simplicity Day (UK)
15th* — World Youth Skills Day
17th* — World Emoji Day
17th* — World Day for International Justice
18th* — International Nelson Mandela Day
20th* — World Chess Day
24th — International Self-Care Day
24th* — Talk to Us Day, 24/7 for the Samaritans
24th* — World Tequila Day
25th* — National Schizophrenia Awareness Day (UK)
28th* — World Hepatitis Day
29th* — International Tiger Day
30th* — World Friendship Day
30th* — World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

July 2026 content ideas

1. War on plastic

It’s Plastic-Free July. Here are some ideas for a tie-in, choose something that’s relevant for your brand:

• A how-to on how to find all the sources of plastic in your business — even the hidden ones — and talk about alternatives for buying better in the future
• Create a tutorial for reusing and repurposing plastic: in arts and crafts, for storage, for decoration, making toys, plant holders etc
• Write about projects in your industry where plastic waste is being repurposed, reused or recycled
• Compile a guide to plastic-free alternatives, where to find them and how to use them
• Launch an initiative in your business to cut or reduce your use of plastic and write about it — or talk about your current efforts to cut plastic waste.

2. School summer holidays

The school summer holidays start in July, so it’s a good time to look at content that will involve families and children.

• Activities: new things to try, places to go, sports, gaming
• Create a challenge to encourage creativity, promote learning or help the community
• Devise an online or outdoor treasure hunt
• Write about planned events in your local area
• Put together a list of books to read or films to watch
• Family barbecue: food, activities, games, theme, ideas
• Create an arts and crafts tutorial.

3. Communication

July 17th is World Emoji Day, so it could be a good time to talk about the way we communicate, how it’s changed and how it’s changing. Here are some ideas:

• Write about AI and how it’s changing the way we communicate
• Create an on-brand emoji or picture quiz — for fun or with a prize draw for correct answers
• Write a piece about the best communication strategies in your industry and what makes them so effective
• Run a customer survey to learn about communication problems in your organisation, publish the results and show how you plan to improve
• Write about your experience of automated communications, when they work well and when they don’t
• If you’re improving or changing the way you communicate with your customers, use this as an opportunity to talk about your plans
• Write about how our language and communication styles are evolving with new generations and technologies.

Content ideas for August 2026

August 2026 event calendar

Months and longer

1st* — National Road Victim Month (UK)
1st* — Swim 15, for bowel cancer (UK), TBC

Weeks, fortnights etc

1st* — World Breastfeeding Awareness Week
10th — Afternoon Tea Week (UK)
12th — World Photography Week
23rd — World Water Week

Days

1st* — Yorkshire Day (UK)
5th — Play Day (UK), first Wednesday in August
7th — International Beer Day, first Friday of August
8th* — International Cat Day
8th* — National CBD Day (UK)
10th — National Lazy Day
12th* — International Youth Day
13th* — International Left-Handers Awareness Day
13th* — National Prosecco Day (UK)
15th — International Relaxation Day
19th* — World Photography Day
19th* — World Humanitarian Day
30th —World Mai Tai Day

August 2026 content ideas

1. Back to school

The new school term starts next month. If this is relevant to your brand, you could write a post aimed at the members of your audience who have children. Here are some ideas:

• Lunch prep ideas to make things quicker and simpler
• Back to school checklist: stationery, uniform, school shoes, school bag, PE kit, trainers, software/apps
• Parental advice to help their children with productive study, being active, staying hydrated, handling stress, keeping a positive attitude, bullying, online safety, friendships and relationships
• Compile helpful resources to help parents and their children get back to school, such as study guides, tips and advice.

2. Last days of summer

As we’re edging closer to autumn and a new school term, it’s time to make the most of the last days of the summer holiday. You can use this as an opportunity to inspire your audience with ideas on how to do that.

• Inspire your readers to compile an end of summer bucket list, filled with fun family things to do — give them lots of ideas
• Last minute summer break ideas featuring late details and where to find the best sunshine spots
• Talk about the best new attractions, places to go and events happening in your area during the last weeks of summer
• Write about the best seasonal produce that’s still available to enjoy.

3. World Photography Day

August 19th is World Photography Day: A worldwide celebration of the art, craft, science and history of photography. Here are some ideas for photo and image based posts:

• Run an on-brand photo challenge or competition on your social media and publish your best entries in a blog post
• Put together a photographic post that will show your audience inspiring ways to use or style your product
• Present a series of photographs, images or mood boards that represent your brand, then write about them in a blog post
• Produce a photo diary for a week behind the scenes in your business.

Want to add an event?

My aim is to build a comprehensive calendar of UK and international events. If there’s a great event that’s missing and you’d like me to consider including it, please get in touch with the details and official website.

Other posts in this series

As many dates aren’t confirmed until close to the event, these posts will usually be updated a couple of months before each season starts. I’ll publicise them on LinkedIn when they’ve been updated.

Need quality content for your business blog?

I’m Jenny Lucas, a freelance content writer based in Leicester, UK.

If you like what you’ve read here, but don’t have the time, skills or inclination to do your own content marketing, I can help by writing it for you.

For more information, head to my content writing page, where you can find out more, or get in touch.

Need more content ideas?

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