Beyond Keywords: How AI is Reshaping Traditional SEO

Expert Marketing Advisors: Hello! We’re just going to give a few minutes for everyone to join us. We have quite a large audience today. Thank you so much.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, quite a few folks coming in from both East Coast and West Coast, cool.

Courtney Kehl: Okay, I think I can kick it off. I’m Courtney. I’m the founder of Expert Marketing Advisors, and we’re thrilled to have everybody here. We’ll certainly make sure the recording goes out as well. But anyways, we’ve been seeing more and more that AI is impacting SEO and the SEO that we understand from 10 years ago, and even longer 20 years ago has always evolved. But here we are with the rules of SEO changing so much. AI is really sort of disrupting this space. We thought we’d get our team together here. Our Senior SEO Experts are on this call as well, and going to dive right into all the different changes that we’ve been seeing and the strategies to go forward.

Courtney Kehl: So with that, let me introduce you here to David. David Smith is a Senior SEO Expert of ours, and if you want to say hello, David, you’re gonna do yourself justice.

David Smith: Really great to be here. Hi, Leon! Hi, Courtney! Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Courtney Kehl: Absolutely. And then Leon as well. Leon Hitchens is a fellow Texan. More recently we have relocated to Texas. So anyways, over to you, Leon.

Leon Hitchens: Hi, really great to talk today, I’m actually really excited. This is a fun topic.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely coming up. I think it’s probably an area that we’ve seen impacted more so than any of the other areas over the last 5 – 10 years. Sometimes content goes through a pivot. Sometimes it’s short videos, sometimes it’s more casual. But anyways, here we are. So maybe let’s dive into the state of SEO today. And you know, does traditional SEO even matter? What does that look like in the bigger picture?

Courtney Kehl: I’ll stop, all over to you David.

David Smith: Oh, thanks. Yeah. I mean, certainly that the idea that traditional SEO doesn’t matter would be probably the wrong place to start. But it’s a question. That’s it’s coming up because you’re steering a lot of you know whether it’s an Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn feeds. Talking about SEO is dead, and we’ve been hearing that it seems like every quarter every year that comes out, and it’s usually just something to buy or help you buy a new thing that’s out there. But traditional SEO isn’t dead.

David Smith: The idea that we’re is we’re trying to help the searchers find what they need right? So that general idea is still prevalent. We have to, you know, we’re that linchpin between the searcher and the thing, the solution, the service they’re trying to find. So some of the key elements are still viable.

David Smith: But it does come down to how they’re being found. And I think that’s where AI is going to enhance the searchers ability to find. But it’s also going to make us as creators and writers and marketers think more intelligently about the content we’re providing and make sure that it’s resonating with that reader. And that’s the thing where traditional SEO is still strong is that we want to make sure that we’re resonating with that person what they’re hoping to find, and that we’re articulating that in the way that they’re both, they’re looking for it. And I think that’s still, you know, really prominent in traditional SEO techniques. And you know, checklists and all that.

Courtney Kehl: Sure, sure, Leon.

Leon Hitchens: Yeah, Google, still the biggest driver of traffic. And then, it’s even with AI becoming the top results ChatGPT and everything Google is is driving the most traffic for most websites. It’s how they get all of their traffic, if not a majority of it. So those same tactics that have worked for the past 20ish years are still really applicable to David’s point.

Leon Hitchens: There is a lot more actual human interaction where they’re answering questions, and they want to get a solution to it. I still differ on it a little bit from David. I still believe that there’s the traditional SEO things that just you know you’re writing for more of the bot in the end. But you do have to hit those points off. Answer the question. If you’re writing something like that and start shifting towards some of those things, but those other ones like, you know the best use cases of this tool is some of the top drivers, and then those folks that hit start to roam around the websites and do everything.

Leon Hitchens: So that’s a really core part of like don’t just stop, you know, optimizing for the traditional methods just to go all AI, you got to keep that base. And then, you know, pepper in that AI stuff for this transition that could take another 5, 6, 10 years to fully see through.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, I would say, I mean SEO it is predominantly taken by Google as a Search Engine, and one of the more widely popular and used. But now, with all the others, you know the GPTs in the world, and of course you know the legacy ones. Gosh, I’m going to date myself here, was it Firefox? I don’t even know that’s still around. But anyway, search everywhere. Optimization has come up as sort of a different spin on the search engine optimization, because it really is everywhere that’s being pulled in cool. So then, what about seeing this personalization? And those pieces are coming in.

Leon Hitchens: Yeah, the personalization is really where you gotta answer the questions. You gotta tailor. That’s why a lot of businesses have too many niches sometimes like they’re talking to so many people, and if you’re talking to everybody you’re talking to no one. So you have to narrow in that audience to be able to talk to a very specific type of person.

Leon Hitchens: If you’re talking about a specific tool for developers. You need to dive in on what type of developer, what size company, so that you can tailor it to them and make sure you are talking to them, and then also doing those same things answer questions as quickly as possible, and then all of the other, like hitting the normal traditional things. Make sure of your articles. Probably more than 700 words, you know a little longer, has some images that are unique, and all that, but those hyper personalizations are the talk to the person as deeply as possible.

Courtney Kehl: Right? So it’s keeping the same best practices going and then building upon. That sounds like a good takeaway. There. We expert marketing advisors focus specifically on B2B Tech Companies. And we have seen an impact across all of the different folks that we work with, but not so much that you know you should pause your SEO strategy and approaches and efforts, but with that sort of you know, I don’t want to say huge dip. Again, Google is still over 90% of searches. So the GPTs of the world are only taking a small sliver of that right now, what are your thoughts, David, on this sort of stagnation, or how we want to kind of call that out.

David Smith: Yeah, I mean, if there’s certainly been dips. But you know those dips are also finding recovery too. So we’ll see keywords plummet 80 points one week, and then they’re back up again. And I think that’s where Google’s testing. They’re trying to understand. Leon and I were speaking earlier about. You know they’re making adjustments because they’re trying to figure out where they need to land. You know how much emphasis they should put on it? Should they pull from certain factors even back, I think when some of the earlier parts of AI started really hitting our focus like a year ago, we saw some of that right.

David Smith: But it’s again. It’s making sure that they’re trying to find what’s really resonating with the reader. And they’re like, well, maybe we should devalue all this junk content. So they did a big purge. And just this devalued a ton of sites. And they’re like, well wait. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that so quickly but there is some testing. And then all that testing. You’re going to see that volatility you know we love to, and I know we love to tell clients.

David Smith: Hey? Just hold on, you know SEO is not, it’s never been overnight. It’s always a long play. But in that long play the ROI is where it’s most rich. So we have to allow for some of that ebb and flow.

David Smith: And I think because Google’s still trying to hold on to all this. They don’t want to disrupt so much that they lose more ground, right? So I think they’re testing. And they’re seeing some drops. Then they’re also pushing back and trying to reestablish what was lost. So I think patience is the key here, and not to over jump anything. And I love what Leon said earlier. You know, SEO best practice is still important.

David Smith: The AI stuff should be things we’re enhancing on it, and we’re recognizing that longer tail searches are more voice searches, 0 click returns. All those things mean that people are getting a more nuanced search. And so we do have to start writing that way and just making sure that we’re really focused on our reader. And it might be a very nuanced reader sometimes. So write to that, reader, and remember who you’re writing to.

Courtney Kehl: Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I’m hearing you keep the best practices, keep those tactics and then build on those. So they certainly aren’t coming obsolete.

Courtney Kehl: So we just have a fun number. We always like to throw out a fun number 5,000 updates per year. So it was leading to me, where have we seen a lot of changes in the algorithms that Google uses? And it’s staggering when you see that this is a constant situation. So have you guys seen any major changes on like, can you point to an algorithm that would was a point in time that all of a sudden things got Wonky? Or do you see that this is a constant state of change?

Leon Hitchens: Yeah. I can jump in real quick on that 1st part is the, there’s definitely big updates that you see and have those impacts like the the last one that I remember named was like Panda back in the day, like, you’ll see those big ones where everyone’s talking about it, but also Google’s tweaking it to try to fix it to David’s point, they’re trying to make sure that there’s an impact to the to the users, that’s positive.

Leon Hitchens: So every shift and change like sometimes you know this, the Serp. You could be number 10 and then next week you’re number 5, and then next week you’re 1, and then you’re back to 10 like a few days later. And that’s really like it just shows that those are changing. And it might just be Google trying to get it right? Or at least feel it out to see if you’re getting it right.

Courtney Kehl: Right? And then, of course, the ongoing growth of content. And you know, data is king, as we like to say so with that, then what are we seeing? Actually changing as we pull in? AI. Everything from the draft for our first, st you know, for the draft for the blog AI can certainly understand that it can help with those outlines. It can help with that content. But really bringing that forward to then have this sort of stronger approach.

Courtney Kehl: So, David, I’m going to put you in the hot seat on that.

David Smith: Yeah, no. I mean the idea that we can use AI to help craft, you know, content briefs and do research is certainly great. I mean, from a scale standpoint. Who would love the idea that we can put together 10 content briefs quickly, and that they can be valuable.But unfortunately, we always have to remember where the content’s coming from.

David Smith: Google’s a big fan of unique, driven, content expertise, experiential content that they could trust that’s coming from a trusted vendor where, if we think about the pool of data that AI has to draw from, it’s it’s existing. It’s content that’s already out there. So what you end up with is a whole lot of the same stuff.

David Smith: So unfortunately, though, the content brief can be a good structure. What’s found is sometimes it’s like, that’s been done before. I’ve read that a hundred times. If I put that out there, they’re going to see it, and not that. And a side to this is, I get a lot of questions like, are they going to ping me, or somehow pull a negative down on me because of the fact that it might look like it’s AI generated. And I’ve always heard, no, they’re not.

David Smith: They’re not worried that it’s AI generated. They’re worried that the content isn’t any good and retread content can get tired and old, and no one wants to read that. And so I think it’s about. If you have a tool that allows you to build a good structural brief or an outline you almost need to go. That’s as far as I should take it, I can’t let it write it. I have to. I have to have that human element, because ultimately I’m relying on maybe the marketing team or the sales team of that client we’re dealing with who’s talking directly with the consumer, the buyer, the user asking them what their hot buttons are.

David Smith: What are they most concerned about? Why are they coming to you? I have a problem. The service isn’t working, or I need it faster. When I hear those remarks back, I want to write about that because I know that’s front center, someone right now, real time is struggling with this, and it, it most likely won’t be the same thing that AI has gone and grabbed from millions of other searches and data. Right? So we know we got really fresh content. And I think Google loves fresh, unique content which is just driven by us humans.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m looking at this, the content explosion as you can end up with a bunch of different white papers, or what have you? What is this? EEAT rule? As I’m sort of getting again a gazillion acronyms out there.

David Smith: Yeah, no, it’s expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness.

Courtney Kehl: Okay.

David Smith: It used to just be EAT, and then they threw the I think it was the expert or the experience side of it. It was just expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. So it’s for us, you know, Google and their big guy John mentioned some time ago, like they don’t call this a ranking factor. But it is a good way to remember how to write and how to craft content. Are you coming from a trustworthy standpoint? Can you point out things whether it’s links or getting nods from other companies that you are? You do perform well.

David Smith: Even reviews obviously are great for your trustworthiness. Are you writing from a place of expertise where you can showcase that we have folks in the business who have been here for years and decades, and their experience, and they have clout everywhere else. Right? And you’re also writing with authority. So you’re coming at it with a stance of we know what we’re doing, and we can prove it with our track record.

David Smith: So all those things roll up into just are you writing value? Are you delivering value that someone can capture, read and trust, because ultimately I always look at this. I’m a searcher, just like everybody else. So when I’m writing or crafting, or I’m helping my team do that. I’m like guys write the way you want to see. It’s always always about the recipe searches and you look for the recipe for a great new cocktail. And it’s like a 900 word essay about where the old fashioned came from, and I’m like, where’s the recipe for the Bourbon?

Courtney Kehl: Yeah.

David Smith: It’s about finding that place where we can tell a great story, but if they’re looking for a recipe, folks give it to them, let them find it and let them get it quick, because that later on we’ll talk about that type of structured content is really key right now, because AI is pulling and grabbing and trying to offer it up in their overviews. And how it’s structured is really important. And we can talk more about that later.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, I definitely, I know when I’m interacting. I don’t want to say interacting with a bot, or you know, an AI generated email or something that’s coming back. But it definitely is. There are moments where I’ve stopped. And I’m like, Did AI write this, or, you know, is this, even even my boyfriend is flowers. He puts the nicest cards, and it’s like they’re just so sweet. And I think it was last week I was like, Did I do, you, are you using AI to write this?

Courtney Kehl: And he’s like, well, I’m kind of using multiple things. I’m like, okay, okay, so it definitely takes a bit of that trustworthiness away. And it’s just genuine. The genuine side is important, I think, even more so. So with the tool advantage piece here as we’ve seen it, we’re kind of going forward, Leon. Are there tools that you recommend that are there? I mean, I know it’s just kind of a playground of tools right now, so it’s hard to really hone in.

Leon Hitchens: Yeah. And like most of the tools that are out there are very based on the traditions of keywords. And you know, like data. In that sense, there’s not a ton of stuff out there for really, what’s happening with AI like Google’s not providing any like data flows on. What does AI actually respond to? How does that work? ChatGPT, Open AI isn’t doing that. So you gotta rely on a little bit of inference, you know, using an address or something out there to actually see what people are searching for, and then kind of make your way in.

Leon Hitchens: How is a person gonna interact with a search box which it’s a small line, you know, like they’re gonna type it in more googly, in a way, versus if you’re talking to a chat bot, you’re asking a question so like almost like you’re talking to a human like I’ve done it even yesterday, when I’m I’m in Toronto, I was like, Hey, can you give me a list of places that are really great to eat? I want to have sandwiches, lunch and dinner. Break it up like I’m having a conversation. Whereas Google, I just type in like the best ramen spot in town.

Leon Hitchens: And it’s a very different part. So you have to think about those using those old tools and hopefully through just everyone rushing to this, that these tools will start to come out. Google’s gonna have to build some sort of search console tool, just like they have to search for the AI at some point, and whoever does that first, I think, will be the company that actually gets a lot of folks to optimize and build their tool set for their GPT.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, absolutely, I would say, as when it’s a whole plethora of newbies coming through all these new tools and all these, I think the ones that really stick are the ones that are very user friendly and really clear and concise like it. I just don’t, I don’t have the patience to bop around and try to figure something out when I know there’s another tool that would just serve it up. So I think the ones that will really end up becoming the powerhouses are going to be those ones that are just. Really you know, providing those solutions.

Courtney Kehl: So, okay, moving forward? So how do you take the traditional? And what are you? What are you seeing kind of as you bring this together, and I guess we can call it today the modern SEO tactics. Really, again, just to your point on bringing that AI forward to actually tangible actions, we called out keyword clustering.

Courtney Kehl: That to me is a pretty natural thing to look for or to roll into your strategy. The Nlp area is a little bit newer to me, and then these AI powered audits are also really a bit newer to me, as I’m kind of. You know. I’m on the sidelines watching you guys as experts. So where would you start there? Maybe, David, on the keyword, clustering.

David Smith: Yeah, I mean, that’s super still very relevant. Obviously, it’s always been relevant. I think here we find scales where we probably want to. Highlight is that there was a time where this was a slower process, a lot of searching on all the different keyword tools that we have out there. There’s multiple ones again. This leans back into heavily understanding your client sitting down with them and saying, what do people say? What do they talk about, and can we please remove the jargon? I don’t want to know the terms that you’ve built and developed and kind of branded. We want to know when someone searches for your service or your solution.

David Smith: What are they looking for? Really? What’s the problem, you know? And that’s where we find the base. And we start building off of that now. But of course, the clustering is so important, because that’s where we can find a way of building breadth across that knowledge base.

David Smith: And then Google’s always been key on the idea of. They want to know what you’re trying to sell you right. They’re the gatekeeper to all the searchers, and you know we’re a client, the same and they’re like, if we’re going to showcase you, we want to make sure that you know your stuff and having a breadth of knowledge, it can really showcase that involves that cluster because maybe under one particular keyword, which is, say, the keyword that would get us, you know, a bronze statue if we rank number one for the client. It’s another 10 beneath that that are really relevant. And there’s 2030 below that.

David Smith: And they build this tree of ideas and concepts and talking points, and a conversation basically that has to be covered. And so that clustering does come into play. Now, of course, with AI that can happen rapidly. And so then again, it happens rapidly, and it’s not so much like the content we’re worried about. Is it retread? Or is it going to be reused? It’s about looking at it. Going, is it? Is it relevant? And that’s where we got to go back to the client and go, you know. Here’s this cluster we built.

David Smith: Is it resonating? Are there any holes in it. Most likely there should be. Because you guys should know better than AI at this moment whether these are the things that they’re coming to you for, but within that cluster we find all the topics that we can talk about, and then we just pick and choose. And you know, hey, which one should we elevate first, at how deep do we go?

David Smith: And then, of course, sending it across the site, linking to other pages that support it, and then showcase that authority. So Google can trust. You know, they understand that this is a site that they could serve up high in the search results.

Courtney Kehl: Right, right? And then if we pivot that, take that one step further into the Nlp, the natural language processing, I feel like, and I’m just throwing this out there. I feel like, that’s where really that personalization comes in and really kind of making it conversational people joke about how they? You know they’ve named their GPT. They say, please, they say thank you, I mean, at the end of the day. It’s the please. It’s just more of that conversation, based, as you were saying, Leon, like just a different sort of part of that coin, so to speak.

Courtney Kehl: What are you seeing with the NLP parse concept?

Leon Hitchens: Yeah, so it’s one I don’t love. We use the jargon. It’s natural language processing. It really means when it comes down to it. It’s like talking like a human and having a conversation on your website. You know, it’s really, it’s part of, you know, the AI to understand and analyze human language. Google’s the one platform in the world that has intent like, know their ad platform in the world has intent, and when you search you have intent. So you gotta write that.

Leon Hitchens: And writing those articles, those websites. You want to make sure that you’re writing in a human manner. You know just the way that a human would understand it. If you turn around and use really big words like the ChatGPT will spit out some really big ones. I have to Google occasionally. Nobody’s gonna read it, or they’re gonna you know, telltale signs of the ChatGPT. So in the end, it’s really writing for that and making sure that whatever you’re doing don’t use complex language. Don’t use complex sentences, you know.

Leon Hitchens: Most Americans read, write at about 6th grade level. Do that. That’s why most Presidents do their speeches. And then one thing, too, you did mention tools before, like there’s a really great tool for this. It’s called surfer SEO that you can kind of get. Get some of that content improvements out there, and you know, look at it. You know there’s another one called Clear Scope, too.

Courtney Kehl: Okay, great great takeaways. Yeah, definitely, we. So in working with B2B Tech Companies, we’re working a lot of times with product engineers. The SMEs themselves, or in the CEOs, are just really deep technical knowledge. And it is a good point, as you’re. You’re just kind of getting some of that initial content out to also make sure that it is a lot of times they’re speaking at like a 10th grade 11th grade level, even higher into the universities and then we always try to kind of bring that down, and I don’t, for lack of a better way of saying it, dummy it down, but it’s just like, say it simply and then go from there, and and we can get deeper each time. But just at the beginning. It’s really sort of like, get that initial conversation going that makes sense for the average average end user.

Courtney Kehl: Great. So oh, I went a little too fast there. Sorry. Bear with me.

Courtney Kehl: Okay. So the AI power technical audits, we love doing audits. It helps us really understand what’s working, what’s not, and how to dive in. And I think, David, you touched on sort of with the keyword clustering, there should be gaps, and that is always evolving. But what is sort of what this actually looks like now, as it comes to? Sort of all comes together. Put you on the spot there, David.

David Smith: I would feel like there’s some of this that is still really lacking, obviously looking at what AI can provide, and looking at gaps and stuff. I don’t know what we’ve seen. And Leon, maybe you can offer a different opinion. I see some of the same tools that we’ve been using for years. Still very good at recognizing page issues and performance issues. So a lot of this, I guess I would say, I’m not finding AI incredibly helpful, maybe pulling, putting together recommendations from the audits and and things. But those are really what our team is good at, right?

David Smith: So these are things I wouldn’t want to rush through. And I wouldn’t want to be like, Hey, let’s scale this to get it faster, because this is the nuts and bolts, you know, if we have issues, we have to understand it, I think getting in with our hands. Getting dirty here is really important. So I tend to be more hands off with too much AI on this side. Maybe bring data, sure. But I need real eyes on it, because our eyes know the client better than a random tool might. So I’m still going to go old school here.

Courtney Kehl: Okay. And what are your thoughts? Leon?

Leon Hitchens: Yeah, we do use AI a lot for this. Like, I, I think the use case of it is like, there are a lot of tools that are adding these AI components in that. Let you see what AI is, kind of seeing it as. And then you can. Actually, we’ve gone and just gone and asked ChatGPT, how is it viewing this page, or what do you know? What does it think you know it would do to rank this better in the ChatGPT. And a lot of times they’re pretty standard kind of like traditional SEO like making sure that all tags are on there. All the page speed loads fast, like there’s so many of those things that go back to the traditional SEO that still have a play into this.

Leon Hitchens: The nice thing is AI can interpret a photo. It can interpret a video transcript. You know, it can interpret all these things. It’s got a little bit better grasp on what’s happening on that whole website and page that it can piece together and infer what you know what it is actually doing there. So you gotta leverage it in a smart way, but also use those old tools.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, yeah, I definitely am hearing. It’s important to merge them and sort of take the AI piece, so I don’t want to take it with a grain of salt. But I went down a rabbit hole. I don’t know. Back in October planning for this year and I was like, Okay, we need to integrate this. And so I’d ask, ChatGPT, and then, or like, what should we be integrating? And it would come out with a few answers. And we’re like, Okay, great. Now, how do we do that? And like we, we went so far down the rabbit hole that it was like they might as well just been talking to another bot like it was just like, just spit it back out. Tell me what I need to be doing?

Courtney Kehl: And yeah, it’s just a slippery slope. You definitely want to still trust your best practices and your instincts. And and yeah, those recommendations. So with that, where do we stop? What should we pull back on something which we start doing? And then, you know, when you see those wins, what do you really double down on? So just kinda doing a little bit more of a broader takeaway here as we’re looking at the cover overall conversation. David, stop! Start double down.

David Smith: Yeah, I mean, certainly. Keyword stuffing. We’ve been talking about this for decades, you know. We, you know, gone are the days you can hide keywords in the background of your screen and get ranking. So we know that’s not. That’s not good, and you certainly want to make sure you’re writing like, you know you’re talking about. So just repeating words over and over is not not key, because you know no one, and, like Leon mentioned intent.

David Smith: So important people are not looking for that, you know, predictive and analytics content briefs. That’s great. I’m a big fan of content briefs because it’s a way I can sit down with the client and say, Hey, this is what we’re going to write. Are there any gaps here and I’m just a big fan of that lean and cooperation between our team and the clients to say, Hey, this is what we’re going to bring forward.

David Smith: So yeah, absolutely, if you’re not doing that man, you need to. That’s super important. You know, predictive analytics using AI, that’s great. Of course we can take data, share it, and say, Hey, this is what we’re seeing happening. Comparing other sites that are ranking really well for something. What’s their site doing that? Our site isn’t, of course, that’s super good, and it can do it. And, like Leon said, it brings some, sometimes valuable data. And sometimes like, why, I never thought of that. Right? This site does show a lot more video than ours. How do we miss that? Let’s get more video on this page and not just over. Not just a talking video. But let’s get some actual sights and sounds of the team working. So those are all very important.

David Smith: I’ll let you jump in on the doubling down.

Leon Hitchens: Yeah, the doubling down part of it. It really comes to making the web a better place like you want to actually be helpful to your customers to prospects you’re gonna have to be okay sometimes with not getting traffic like traffic might not be the outcome. I’m seeing an uptick of like direct traffic, for you know some folks, and that’s that’s because people see something they see it mentioned. They pull it from ChatGPT. They’re not always clicking on those results. They’re gonna type it in and go there.

Leon Hitchens: So as you build all of that, you gotta make sure when somebody gets to your website that they can consume the right sort of content quickly. And everything’s accessible, being fast, all those normal SEO things. But, like the outcome has always been, get people to have a good experience, and that’s that the doubling down is okay with not getting traffic occasionally, and if you see, you know less traffic, but more, you know, prospects, more customers. The outcome is okay.

Courtney Kehl: Sure. Sure. Yeah. The user experience for me is huge. It’s just at the end of the day. If it’s not simple, if it’s not straightforward, if it’s not giving me what I want, I move on, and I think that’s pretty common attention span behavior.

David Smith: I mean, you mentioned that right there. Just the idea that getting traffic is great, but I mean conversion is better, isn’t it? You know, and what comes after landing on the page is time on page.

David Smith: They’re staying, and they’re reading, and they’re taking time to take in what you’re providing. That leads to conversion and all that whole process of growing the client. And then like being a thought leader. That’s still very important. So it’s traffic is sessions. It’s time on the page. And then it’s conversions which is ultimately what we’re looking for.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, yeah, that’s the gold. So with that, as we’re sort of making SEO, we are a big fan of putting in foundations. And you know, really getting that strong base and then going from there and scaling across, you know different areas, whether it’s, you know, personas, buyers or industries, verticals. What do you have? But with that sort of same thought process. And we’re saying here, you know, let’s stay up to date on the different AI models. I’m being ignorant here. I don’t know Google’s age. I don’t know this integration and how Bing is going to impact ChatGPT. But any thoughts around that, Leon.

Leon Hitchens: Yeah. So you said it earlier, Courtney. It’s SEO is becoming. Search everywhere. Optimization. It’s a different thing like being you know. And the CEO of Microsoft said that 1% for them is enough market share to make an impact for them. They need the data they need. So being in ChatGPT is very similar to Google search generative. It’s that Gemini right up top. They’re putting them in our faces because they want the data. They want to be able to use all that to get better results.

Leon Hitchens: And they’re just really pushing down to optimize. You know your content to be found anywhere on the web. And it’s just a different search interface than what you know. We’re used to it. So it’s no real difference. But people are. Gonna notice it because the first thing you do when you hit something now is, you know, AI search. 1st thing you do. Google’s an AI search like they’re putting it front and center for us, maybe a little too much. When you’re just like, I want to go, you know, to a website here.

Courtney Kehl: I mean, even in our life, in our day to day, like our Amazon, you know, shopping carts and such. So yeah, of course, the AI piece is definitely in our face. So as we’re kind of bringing together different content, different. You know, we took out a white paper or ebook and pumped out a podcast as a result of using an AI tool which I thought was hilarious because it really sounded like 2 genuine people interrupting each other, laughing, and so on, and so forth. But I think the takeaways, as well as the transcript and the meet, and then does this translate over to something that people would find valuable? So I think that’s part of the test. New formats, David. Any of your thoughts on that one.

David Smith: Well, yes, audio video. Obviously, we’re consuming information so much differently now. I’m just the average searcher. And if I could see a video fast. And first, I’d rather do that. I feel compelled to watch someone tell me something rather than just read something. Maybe it’s because I’m burnt out on searching for my Bourbon recipe. I just want to see it, and for some reason I just feel more connected to a human being. I want to see someone tell me.

David Smith: But really, from this, the second point here is the schema markup or AI readability. I love that because you know, those AI overviews are being parsed out and curated because they’re looking for data or content that can easily be formatted and just grabbed and put there. So we’re trying to tell clients. Make sure we write that way. And if there’s that question that’s constantly being asked, answer it. Please don’t belabor it. Just give it a simple off the shelf answer that covers the answer question.

David Smith: But it needs to be easily and found right, so schema tells us, to make sure it’s set aside, and it’s set up that way. It’s kind of like walking into the grocery store, and we all know that the middle, the aisles are set up in a certain way. You know that that section across the middle, right at eye level. That’s what they want to gravitate to. And so think about that when you’re writing, make sure it’s available, make sure it’s easy to find, and it’s the thing that when the searcher the bot, comes looking for it they can grab it quickly and populate that. And then, all of a sudden, you’re in that overview.

David Smith: But if you’re writing too much with jargon, and it’s convoluted. And maybe it’s technical, and it sometimes needs to be well, okay. But you still need a higher level answer that AI can find. And then, and then find yourself in that result.

Courtney Kehl: Right? Right? Absolutely. I think we’ve already kind of, you know, emphasized the importance of humans. And AI being used, maybe more so for the draft point, or for the checkpoint. But not soup to nuts and at the end of the day it is humans talking to humans. And that’s where you’re going to find that impact. But anything deeper on that one, Leon?

Leon Hitchens: Not too much deeper. I think. You know you gotta put the AI tools to work, you know whether that’s just a ChatGPT, and then have human oversight like it. It’s wrong. I’ve seen and especially in technical spaces, like legal or finance, like Google has a term for it. It’s like your money, your life, and there’s a higher threshold for all that.

Leon Hitchens: And then same thing on the AIS. They’re probably mimicking that. So you need a human error editor, to make sure that things are just right. These AISs hallucinate and tell the wrong thing all the time, and like. There’s been court cases, you know, where a lawyer is putting stuff and facts in there, and they just made up a court case. So always review it because you want to make sure that that’s right, or if it’s wrong, you can correct it before somebody else calls you out on what’s happening there.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, yeah, it is getting picked up, too. If folks are not trying to put something out there that just isn’t, it is inaccurate. We get flagged from time to time when we’re like, Wait a minute. This needs that extra personal touch. Yeah, with that, I think it’s also that experimental piece is a big takeaway. I mean, I think we’re in the era where change is normal. And so it’s just going to constantly be in that state of mind.

Courtney Kehl: But yeah, no, I appreciate all the great talk, we are in a Q&A. I know we went a little bit over, but everybody seems to be hanging on here. I do have a question around: what are there any quick wins when it comes to AI and SEO, or is it always the long game?

Courtney Kehl: David? I’ll put you on the spot for that one.

David Smith: Yeah, quick. Wins are great. I’d love to say they’re always quick wins. Sometimes that quick win stuff is just look at your site, you know. Are you addressing? When I get to the site, I always want to ask the client. What do you want them to do? What’s the quickest course, from landing on your page to conversion, and if there are roadblocks and you’re talking too much, or as we mentioned earlier too many jargon words cut that stuff out. It needs to be like a nice seamless transition. We can dive deep into who you are and what you do, and all the accolades of your business, and that’s fine to talk about.

David Smith: But if you have a service or solution, make sure that comes across, so be simple. Don’t overdo it, quick wins can be found there, because a lot of times we get in our own way. You know, we whole forest for the tree stuff. Step back, find something that’s not in your field and ask them, hey, what do you think I do? And can you? Can you find my service and my solution quick, and sign up, and if they can’t, that’s your quick win. You’re your own stumbling block, I think. After that it’s ROI, and it’s a slow race.

Courtney Kehl: Sure, Leon, any quick wins to put on the table.

Leon Hitchens: I think you can frame as a quick win is making sure the website loads fast. All tags are on there. The meta descriptions, all those like key pieces that go to regular SEO still apply in the AI world, and while you might not see it right away. The quick win is just you’re gonna have a healthier and better website that these tools are gonna index better. And they’re gonna crawl your site and find things easier, and it’s all about cost for them. So the harder you make it, the more it costs them.

Courtney Kehl: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s always going to come back to who says it simply, who? Who’s the most direct and at least, that’s how, when interacting with me, I’m very direct. So you know, it probably speaks more to my personality. But you know, shows the more personal side of it, and we do have a couple more questions. But as these are coming in, I think we’ll probably just take them off on the side and get back to folks and be happy to dive in more.

Courtney Kehl: If anybody has a specific situation or a use case or something for us to look at. We’re happy to do that as well. You’ve got the two all stars here, David and Leon so feel free to reach out, and you can always find us on LinkedIn as well. Great! Well, thanks so much. Everyone for joining. I appreciate it. Thank you, David. Thank you, Leon.

Courtney Kehl: It was fun.

David Smith: Great thanks.

Leon Hitchens: Yes.

David Smith: So much.

Courtney Kehl: Thank you.