Aaron Winston, Strategy Director, Express Legal Funding

This interview is with Aaron Winston, Strategy Director at Express Legal Funding.

Hi Aaron, welcome to Editor in Chief! Could you please tell our readers a little bit about yourself and your journey to becoming an expert in content creation?

My route to becoming a prolific content writer has been a circuitous journey. Since I was very young, growing up in the 1990s in Texas, I have been interested in creating content to share with the world, particularly in written format.

Vocabulary has always been a strength of mine. I have a way with words and enjoy thinking about the power of word choice. Still, it was not until my late twenties that I worked full-time in content creation.

My career path began with my video game and iPhone app development work. My first iPhone game was published in 2012. The competition was stiff, and although I was a solid coder, I did not overly enjoy the process.

I found a venue where my writing ability could make a difference in 2018 when I was tasked with creating a new and improved version of the Express Legal Funding website. This project required effective content creation from an SEO perspective, which I have yet to stop implementing, as it has been critical to building the company's brand and securing online leads. I enjoy the process and work on it daily.

Your career path, particularly establishing Unknown Entity Holdings, showcases a deep understanding of intellectual property. How did this experience shape your perspective on content creation in the digital age?

While Unknown Entity Holdings was born out of the need to address copyright infringement of original and truly novel works in the age of generative AI, my passion for creating original works is where it began.

I am an adult on the Autism Spectrum, and being original and putting significant effort into everything I do is my version of authenticity. This makes for a powerful combination of creating comprehensive and novel content that is helpful to the end user.

The ever-increasing content and quality led to more visibility and traffic to the Express Legal Funding website. That increased exposure inherently increases the likelihood of people becoming aware of and creating infringing works to outrank me on the Google search results, made worse by the advent of AI rephrasing tools. As time progressed, so did the instances of infringement, necessitating me to incorporate copyright registration into the content creation workflow and the founding of Unknown Entity Holdings, an IP advocate holding company.

When people create unauthorized derivatives of my work and submit them for Google to index, they dilute my content's originality and novel nature in the eyes of search engines. While plagiarism and infringement are not the same, both are not okay to do. They hurt artists and creators, which is why Unknown Entity Holdings exists, as it aims to protect the viability of being a content creator.

You mentioned using your website for Unknown Entity Holdings to deter infringement and educate others about IP. What advice would you give to content creators who are just starting out and want to protect their work?

Boiling it down to a single piece of advice, I encourage content creators to register the copyrights for their original works with the U.S. Copyright Office. It is a relatively small, yet vital, step to protect copyrights and defend their works.

Building a successful website often involves navigating the ever-changing world of SEO. What's the most valuable lesson you've learned about creating content that resonates with both search engines and human readers?

Building a successful website is indeed a dynamic journey, and one of the most valuable lessons I've learned along the way is the importance of crafting content that incorporates Google's E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) principles for authors.

It's how you can create better content for search engines without it being detrimental to the experience of human readers. The concept is nuanced and takes time and effort to implement.

Still, it is very worthwhile, as so much of building trust with humans and search engines comes down to doing a good job explaining who you are as an author or content creator and why your expertise and experience are relevant to the topic you are covering. A critical component of that involves creating excellent content, as doing so helps demonstrate your areas of expertise.

You emphasized the importance of reading Google's Search Quality Evaluator guidelines for SEO success. Can you share an example of a time when these guidelines helped you make a strategic content decision that positively impacted your rankings?

One recurring concept in the search quality rater's guidelines involves creating a satisfying experience for web page visitors. Generally, that means it is important to cover topics in depth and answer the query that led the visitor to the page to the fullest extent so that once they are done reading or watching the video on the page, they won't need to look elsewhere for solutions.

Making this a priority also helps search engines better understand the content you create, helping you rank higher in the search results. The better Google can understand your content, the more confident it can be about placing it at the top of the search results.

Beyond technical SEO, you've also highlighted the significance of user experience. How do you balance the creative aspects of content creation with the technical considerations of website performance and accessibility?

My technique involves never sacrificing website performance to create great content because both can be accomplished. It's essential to be aware of technical SEO while building the content and to use it as a guideline. I make it part of my process.

I have found it does not need to be an encumbrance. It requires me to be more creative from a technical side, and that is why it is so beneficial to me that I am proficient in both disciplines.

Digital technology has revolutionized copyright management. What tools or strategies have you found most effective in monitoring and addressing copyright infringement of your content online?

Tools like SEMRush have been very valuable in helping me become aware of infringing content online. By tracking my own pages in the search results, I can identify new infringing derivatives once I see that those pages also rank on Google.

Although it is not a hard-and-fast rule, with the advent of AI, infringing pages often come in multiple forms created within a relatively short period of each other. Knowing this is also helpful. It instructs me to look deeper.

In a perfect world, everyone creates original content, but unfortunately, we are not in a perfect world.

Looking ahead, what emerging trends in content creation and copyright protection are you most excited about, and how do you see them shaping the future of digital publishing?

An emerging trend I am excited about is more content creators understanding and implementing ways to use AI to facilitate their overall content creation process in an ethical way.

For instance, in order to avoid infringement and reliance on stock photos, I use DALL-E to generate images to accompany my posts using prompts that come from my own mind.

Doing this adds value and helpfulness, as including these custom images adds depth and engaging elements to my original content. It allows me to include images better than I could create manually on my own and gives me more time to create top-level and novel written content.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

In many ways, I feel like we are still at the dawn of the content-creation era, and I look forward to seeing where things go.

I also want to thank the editorial team for taking the time to interview me and share my story as an author and Strategy Director at Express Legal Funding.