Content and Conversation: Organic Growth Insights from Siege Media Episode Summary: "AEO Playbook: How to Optimize for AI w/ Profound’s Josh Blyskal" Release Date: June 30, 2025

In this insightful episode of "Content and Conversation," Siege Media’s founder Ross Hudgens welcomes Josh Blyskal from Profound to discuss the evolving landscape of AI optimization (AEO) and its implications for content marketing and SEO. Drawing from Profound’s impressive achievement of generating over $148 million in yearly traffic value for their clients, Josh delves into the strategies that enable content to rank effectively and gain widespread shareability in an AI-driven search environment.

1. Introduction and Company Growth

[00:09] Ross Hudgens: Josh, I'm excited to have you here. Your company is taking the world by storm...

Josh shares exciting news about Profound’s recent Series A funding led by industry giants like Kleiner Perkins and Nvidia Ventures. He emphasizes the growing demand for AI search in marketing, highlighting how marketers are transitioning from mere awareness to active engagement with AI tools to reclaim and optimize their traffic.

Notable Quote:

"Marketers are really trying to do something. We're moving from that point where people are thinking, okay, this is a space to stay aware of all the way to the point where it's like, okay, as a business, we're seeing that marketers need to take action."
— Josh Blyskal [00:48]

2. The Shift from SEO to AEO

The conversation shifts to the broader industry trend where traditional SEO metrics like traffic are becoming secondary to more nuanced elements such as user experience and AI interactions. Ross notes that Siege Media is adapting by prioritizing AI-driven reporting and insights.

Notable Quote:

"The whole search world is transitioning from like a means to an end to like the actual end itself."
— Josh Blyskal [11:27]

3. Understanding AI Search Volume and Data Integrity

Josh explains Profound’s proprietary pipeline that aggregates tens of millions of AI-generated queries monthly from platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This extensive dataset allows marketers to gain real-time insights into consumer intent and search behaviors, which is crucial for developing effective AEO strategies.

Notable Quote:

"We are the first in the industry to have the biggest single database of queries across these answer engines that exists outside of these model providers."
— Josh Blyskal [05:32]

4. The Dominance of Generative Queries and Content Types

A significant portion of AI-driven searches are generative, meaning users seek to perform actions rather than just gather information. This shift has led to a surge in listicles and comparative content as answer engines prioritize breadth and structured data.

Notable Quote:

"Something like 50% of the intent in these answer engines is just like, it's generative queries or it's just people like conversating and interacting with these models."
— Josh Blyskal [08:20]

Josh also highlights that listicles constitute nearly one-third of all citations in AI search, vastly overshadowing traditional blog content.

5. Quality of Traffic and Conversion Rates

The discussion moves to the quality of traffic generated through AI search platforms. Josh reveals that platforms like Perplexity boast significantly higher click-through and conversion rates compared to ChatGPT, attributing this to the highly targeted and intent-driven nature of AI-generated queries.

Notable Quote:

"Perplexity has like between like a 6 and 10x higher click through rate than ChatGPT does."
— Josh Blyskal [16:01]

6. Strategies for Optimizing Content for AI Search (AEO)

Josh outlines actionable strategies for optimizing content specifically for AI search engines:

• Semantic Chunking: Crafting content in self-contained, data-driven paragraphs to facilitate accurate AI interpretation.
• Long-Tail Landing Pages: Developing highly specific landing pages that address unique use cases, ensuring visibility in AI responses.
• Author Schema and Metadata: Enhancing author information and metadata to increase content pickup.
• URL Optimization: Incorporating relevant keywords and temporal markers (e.g., "2025") in URLs to bias AI search results favorably.

Notable Quote:

"Semantic chunking with data, to be very specific. So what does that mean? What that basically means is that when we're writing our blog posts... we want the exact insight from that piece of writing that paragraph is kind of snappy, really data based."
— Josh Blyskal [32:14]

7. The Future of AI and Search Ecosystems

Josh shares his vision for the future, where AI models become more streamlined and possibly decoupled from content retrieval, allowing for more sophisticated and dynamic interactions. He anticipates that AI-driven searches will lead to the creation of more specialized and creative website designs, moving away from the current "samey" structures optimized solely for SEO.

Notable Quote:

"In the ideal world, answer engines allow us to really free the website up to be a really exciting, maybe unoptimized place. Like, maybe the user-facing website is actually like radically designed and is not super intuitive for answer engines."
— Josh Blyskal [39:15]

8. Upcoming Innovations and Product Launches

Towards the end of the episode, Josh teases upcoming features from Profound, including tools for creating content briefs and generating AEO-optimized content directly within the platform. These innovations aim to empower marketers with data-driven content strategies without relying on external tools or extensive AI strategy planning.

Notable Quote:

"We're building right now is the ability to actually create content briefs and create content within the Profound platform itself."
— Josh Blyskal [47:02]

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Josh encouraging listeners to connect with Profound through various platforms for further insights and tool access. The discussion underscores the critical shift from traditional SEO to AI-driven optimization, emphasizing the need for marketers to adapt their strategies to remain competitive in an AI-centric search landscape.

Notable Quote:

"Sign up. Check it out. Email us. We are really interested to show you what's going on with an aeo, what's going on with your brand."
— Josh Blyskal [49:39]

This episode provides a comprehensive overview of the current state and future trajectory of AI optimization in content marketing. Josh Blyskal's expertise offers valuable guidance for marketers seeking to navigate and leverage the complexities of AI-driven search engines to enhance visibility and drive conversions.