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This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 88. Next year in SEO and AI, you're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the grumpy SEO guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because I've been doing SEO for over 15 years. And in that time, do you know what people keep posting on the SEO forums? SEO is dead. In 2009, do you know what people were posting on the SEO forums? SEO is dead. And then in 2010, do you know what people were posting on the SEO forums? SEO is dead. And this kept happening all the time. And it's obnoxious because I'm pretty sure that SEO is just fine. Anyway, so in this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about what might happen with SEO next year, and we're going to talk about AI, because those two things are kind of similar. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical. And based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. At the end of this episode, we're gonna talk really quickly about what your title tags should be. This is gonna be a shorter episode because today is Christmas and it's also the first day of Hanukkah, and I don't know what you celebrate or whether you even celebrate anything at all, but I hope you're having a phenomenal day. So I'm gonna keep this episode kind of short so that you can enjoy whatever you're doing. So, okay, is SEO dead? No. Okay, now let's talk about. Let's talk about what's probably gonna happen. Okay, look, here's a super quick version of what is likely to happen next year in SEO, Everything is gonna be pretty much how it is now. You're gonna need relevancy, authority and making sure that you don't get penalties, okay? And there's probably gonna be some little changes to the algorithm here and there. And maybe some things that people are doing that are a little bit black hat are gonna get you, you know, found out and they're gonna stop working. But, like, ultimately, that's what SEO is probably gonna look like next year. Hey, SEO is not dead until people stop wanting to get traffic to their websites, okay? As long as you have a website and people are searching for your keywords, SEO is okay, okay? Now one of the main reasons that people like to say that is because of AI. And they say, well, AI is going to replace SEO. Okay, let's talk about that for a minute. So look, there's a few things that people use AI for now, okay? So first of all. Okay, let's just start discussing them.
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Okay?
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So depending on the search engine you use, sometimes if you search for something you might before the results, maybe before the ads, you might see like a generated response from AI that attempts to answer your question. And people are using this to say that SEO is not going to be around anymore because people are just going to get their answers from AI. That's awesome. In fact, I hope that happens, okay? Because look, if AI can answer your question in a sentence or two, you don't need to spend five minutes reading a website, okay? So that is benefiting everybody. But that also doesn't mean that something's going to change with SEO. Because look, what. Because look, what is the main reason that people want to get visitors to their website? It's to sell something, right? Like ultimately it's to sell something. Now, sometimes it's not. Sometimes they just want you to read the writing or something, but generally they're trying to sell something, right? AI, an AI response is not going to purchase anything for you.
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Okay?
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That doesn't matter if you're asking for a quick question. Like what? I don't know. I literally have no examples right now. I don't know, what color socks should I wear with a green shirt or something like that? If AI can answer that question for you, yeah, that's awesome. I would encourage AI to do that. And I would encourage you to take two seconds and read that answer rather than having to browse some blog article to get the answer to that question.
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Okay?
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That sounds like a great use of technology. And I'm not joking. Sounds like I'm joking, but I'm not. But if you want to actually learn more about it and be more in depth, then you should probably click on a website. And AI is not going to answer that question for you because you're going to want to click on the website. So nothing's changing. Look, I think the way to say it is this AI serves a purpose that search engines don't, and vice versa. If you want to get suggestions on a paper that you wrote, AI can do that for you. Search engines cannot do that for you.
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Okay?
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They'll take you to a website where you can pay somebody to check your paper, but that's not. Not what you're looking for. If you need to find ideas for something, AI can do that. Search engines probably can't do that. If you want to have a discussion about something with somebody, AI can probably do that. Search engines can't do that. So people are saying, well, the data shows that more people are using AI and fewer people are using search engines because AI serves a different role. Of course they are. That doesn't mean that search engine optimization is going away. It means there's a new technology that does something that search engines don't do. That's nice. Okay, anyway, whatever. So AI can generate content. Okay, that's cool. And then you got the people that like to say, well, search engines penalize AI content. No, they don't. I mean, no, search engines don't not. No, people aren't saying that. Like, people are definitely saying that. Go to any SEO forum and there's people that are like, search engines don't like AI content. If you write AI content, you will not rank well. No, that. That's wrong. That is not true. Okay, anyways, anyways, the people that say that are content salesmen that are trying to convince you that a quality of content is somehow a ranking factor when it's not.
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Okay?
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Quality of content is not a ranking factor.
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Okay?
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And I think, well, you know what? We'll come back to that in a minute, okay? They're like, you shouldn't use AI because if you use AI, it means you're not gonna buy content from them, okay? So they can't sell you content. So they're worried about that. Right? And these are the same people that tell you quality of content is a ranking factor. And if you use their content, which of course will not be free, you will somehow rank better than if you use, I don't know, another person's content. Like, whatever. It's not true. Look, I have said numerous Times that anybody who has done SEO for a few weeks could not possibly think that quality of content is a ranking factor, okay? Because it's not like if you do any SEO at all, you very quickly realize that quality of content is not a ranking factor.
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Okay?
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So anybody saying otherwise has no experience doing SEO or is lying to you, okay? But I will go further into this right now and say that anybody that has used the Internet for more than five minutes realizes that quality of content is not a ranking factor. Do you mean to tell me that every number one result you click on is great content that is factual and accurate and true? Really? What Internet are you using and what search engine are you using? Because I would like to use that Quality of content is not a ranking factor. AI content can rank just as well as regular content now, so you have to remember, search engines do not rank based on the content's quality. They are essentially ranking popularity of content.
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Okay?
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And I'm not going to get into it now because this topic has been discussed many times before, and I just really think that there's better stuff to talk about right now. So AI content is not bad. I mean, you might think it's bad. Like, you might not like it, but as far as ranking goes, it's not bad. It's also not good. It's just content. Okay, what are the four things you need to rank? Do you remember? What are the four things you need to rank? One, don't have penalties. Two, have content quality doesn't matter. Three, have authority. Four, have relevancy. Those are the things you need to rank. AI content can produce relevancy the same as other content. Therefore, it's not a problem.
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Okay?
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By the way, those four topics are covered in detail in episode 51, and that's called the four things you need to rank if you want to learn about the things that are necessary in order to rank. So anyway, AI is a thing. It can write content. It can give you suggestions. It can give you advice on your papers or your blog posts or whatever you have written.
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Okay?
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It's a thing. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just a thing.
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Okay?
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It's not replacing SEO. Okay, well, like I said, I want to keep this episode short. I want to talk about one more thing. Here's. This is some advice for you. Okay, first of all, before I give the advice, I have to say this. A lot of people like to purposefully misquote me as saying that authority is the only thing that matters, which is hilarious, because I Have an episode called the 4 Things yous need to Rank and only one of them is authority. But authority is the biggest part, honestly. Anyway, look, but let's talk about on page for a second because sometimes listeners might get the impression that I don't think on page is a ranking factor. And it is. On page is like 10% of the game. Look, I don't officially know, but in my experience it's around 10%.
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Okay?
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Like all your. On page can be wonderful and great and you still might not rank anywhere. And the reason you're not ranking anywhere is because you don't have authority.
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Okay.
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Anyway, so one of the things that is very important with on page is your title tags.
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Okay?
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Title tags. I don't want to say they're the most important, but they're very important. A question that I get pretty regularly is this. What should my title tags be? I'm going to tell you how to answer that question. Ready? This is what you do. This is what you do. This is what you do. Take the top 10 results for those keywords. Look at what their title tags are. I would presume that they are very similar, if not the same. Okay, I'm not saying that they're always gonna be exactly the same, but I'm telling you, I bet you the top 10 results for your keywords have very similar, if not identical, title tags.
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Okay.
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And maybe you should make your title tags very similar. Don't copy anyone's company name. Okay, but like, come on, why do you think that is? Why do you think the top 10 pages all have the same title tags? It's because they're useful.
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Okay.
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We worked with a client not too long ago where, I'm not joking. Like 8 out of 10 of the websites in the top 10 for most of their keywords had the same title tags. Like literally the same. And what do you frequently see in title tags? It's something like company name, vertical line, product name, or product name, vertical line, company name or some version of that. Right. Why do you think everybody uses the same thing? I already answered that. It's because it's effective.
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Okay?
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If you don't know what your title tag should be, look at what's ranking in the top 10. Use something very similar. And if they're all the same, that's very interesting, isn't it? Anyway, I don't want to. Like, I don't want to.
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Yeah.
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But anyway. Oh, and this is something else I was going to say about title tags. Obviously authority is the biggest ranking factor, but I have seen cases where simply changing the title tags will produce a three point change in the SERPs.
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Okay.
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Just from changing your title tags.
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Okay.
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Now, it's not a replacement for authority if you have, you know, normal competition, but it can help. There's a reason that everybody in the top 10 has pretty much the same title tags, okay? There's a reason for that. So I understand wanting to be clever and think of something unique, but there's a reason those websites are in the top 10, okay? Besides all of their authority, which is the main reason they're in the top 10. Okay? But like, for the most part, there's a reason that all of those websites in the top 10 have very similar title tags, okay? And I'm not saying that that's definitely the case, but it's usually the case, okay? And so there's a reason they all have the same title tags, okay? It's because they're relevant and they're good. You should have your keyword in your title tags and your company name or whatever. I have no knowledge of what your niche is, so it doesn't really matter, but you should have your keyword somewhere in your title tags because that's what you want to rank for. Okay? But don't keyword stuff. So, anyway, okay, I think this episode is over because I wanted to keep it short and I'll talk to you later. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can Visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me at hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast, because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about reasons why your website's rank is decreasing.