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- [00:02]
A
You're not going to want to miss this episode. Jam packed with good actionable tips. This is the Med Spa Success Strategies Podcast. I'm your host Ricky Shockley with MedSpa Magic Marketing and this is where Med Spa and aesthetics practice owners come to discover strategies and tactics that help them better market and manage their practices so they can improve profitability, have greater impact for themselves, their teams and their clients. Today I'm excited to be joined by John Mest. John is a data scientist by training, salesperson by accident, and loves working with customers more than any part of his job. He's a highly technical person that can also speak to other humans, a trait that has helped him a ton in his career. John has worked as an analyst on Wall street, built data products for Fortune 100 brands, and helped found multiple companies. Today he's the CEO of Just Reach out and the CEO of ChatRank. Just Reach out is a digital PR software that enables businesses to pitch the media and to earn press and ultimately backlinks to their sites. ChatRank is the tool that helps customers understand their visibility and rankings in the AI chat models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Google Answers, and more. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. How do you help ensure your Med Spa is recommended by these tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini? As more and more people move their search behavior to these language learning model and chat tools, we're going to give you actionable insights today. John is a phenomenal guest, really excited. Make sure you have the notepad ready. And let's jump into the episode with John. John, here we are covering the hottest topic in marketing. I'm sure everybody's got a version of this conversation. So my hope is today that we're going to add some value, give people some clarity on what the heck is going on with AI search. What can they be doing now? What does the future look like? What should be on their radar? And then we'll also talk about maybe some tools and things that people could be using to do some of this better. But the first thing is what are we even talking about? And if you don't mind, let's start with the acronym because is it AI SEO? Is it aeo? Is it like what? What do you call it?
- [01:59]
B
So there is no answer. The market will eventually tell us what this answer is. Is it geo? Is it aeo? L O M E O? I don't have an answer. We generally like to call it improving your chat rank. That's just our way of doing this, but, like, frankly, it's pretty open these days. I think Andreessen Horowitz a couple months ago put their, like, market map out there about like the space and AI search visibility, and they dubbed it GEO Generative Engine Optimization. And so that's generally the term we use because once a 16Z does it, they just, we just kind of agree to it. But that's like the, That's, I guess, the best answer I can give you on that. There is. There is no answer, but Andreessen has told us that it's geo.
- [02:36]
A
Yeah. So for people who are vaguely familiar, what we're talking about here, what, what is the difference here between SEO and these terms? What are the, what are these engines? What are, what are we talking about? What are the places where people are going and performing searches? What is the change that we're seeing in the market?
- [02:50]
B
Absolutely. So if you were to kind of go online and try to search for really anything like 98% according to the data, like, we'll just go to Google and then search something like that. That is how people find answers still today. But that is shifting and changing as people are trying to find different answers to different types of questions. So tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, these are things, these are kind of what are called large language models or LLMs. They're kind of chat interfaces where you can talk to them and try to get answers. So different than a traditional search like Google, you're actually having a conversation. You're asking a natural language. It's not just writing down keywords like running shoes, Nike size 12. Like, that's not what you do to a ChatGPT. You go in and say, hey, I'm thinking about having different types of procedures for this type of thing on my face. Or I want to think about these different options, provide me, you know, what should I be thinking about? Are there any concerns, Are there any risks to this? This is my age, my ethnicity. This is kind of what I've talked about before. You give it more information, you have a conversation rather than just saying, like, I don't know, Botox near me. Like, that's like, that's not what people are really talking about in the engines. So the way they operate and the way they think and work is different than like a traditional Google search. So Google is really about giving you a list of potential, like, options to click on and learn more about that. They call the 10 blue links. It's like we refer them to that first page of results. Here are the 10 different sites we find to be most valuable to give you information on the thing you searched. Whereas the answer engines, as we like to call them, the LLMs, like ChatGPT, they're giving you actual answers. So they're saying this is what you should do or this is what you should think and then also kind of having a conversation to refine those answers over time to get the perfect answer for you. So this idea of like a search engine versus an answer engine, it's going to be like, I think a large part of what we talk about today, but that's really like the differences in SEO and what we call GEO for now is because you have to approach the problem differently when you're trying to kind of win in 10 blue links versus trying to win and getting to be the answer to the question.
- [04:47]
A
Yeah, and I guess like tying this into why is this important? Why is everybody talking about it? I think for those of us that are kind of have been in this space for a while, there's some things that pop up and we're like, maybe it sticks, maybe it doesn't. Like TikTok was a good example of that. Right. Like it ended up being something that stuck, but nobody knew it was going to be something that stuck. There was nothing inherently obvious about TikTok in my opinion. That was like a surefire 100% this is going to be something that sticks. Now you got the Gary Vaynerchuk types that call that kind of stuff with pretty high success rates. But I think this is one of those things that pretty much everybody sees the writing on the wall. If you've used any of these tools, you'll know what we're talking about. If you haven't, I would encourage you to go do it because like John said, it just completely changes the way that you get information and it's so much more robust and it's iterative, like you can you and ask follow up questions and instead of going down a rabbit hole yourself of clicking through those blue links like you mentioned, John, you're getting a curated answer and you're, and you're getting to the thing that you want faster. So in the med spa space, I think that we would probably both agree that the takeaway here is there's people right now today doing this. This is not something we're talking about like five years from now. This is going to be a trend right now. This is happening and as the months go on, that's going to become more and more and more and more prominent. So how do you see People right now, like just using the med spa space as an example. What are the types of activities that people are doing when they're looking for maybe a med spa provider?
- [06:11]
B
Yeah. So think about again the example I gave a second ago about like running shoes, Nike size 12. Like if you know what you want and you know where you're going to get it and you just forget if you bought it on Zappos or I don't know, dick dicksportinggoods.com you'll just go search it on Google, find the answer and just click on that link and go by that is just still exists, it's still very prominent. Still the way to kind of like that's the easiest way to go about buying yourself a new pair of running shoes. But people are using these answer engines like ChatGPT and Claude and others to ask complicated questions. Think about it. Is the thing I'm asking about straightforward like buying running shoes, or is it more like a conversation I'd like to have with somebody that seems to be an expert on the topic, but I don't know an expert on that topic. And I don't necessarily want to walk into a med spot first and just be sold on something because maybe I'm like, I'm nervous about it, I'm concerned or I don't really know. So you kind of want that expert. But it's really hard and difficult to find an expert you can trust and one that you feel it could be objective. They're not trying to sell you anything. Like that is what people are going to these answer engines for to have a conversation with an expert. Now this expert happens to be an expert on everything in the world. They're an AI like search engine, so they kind of know everything. But like think about it, that's what people are using these tools for. So you mentioned like, is this a thing now or is it going to be a thing in five years? I like to tell people, like my mom is in her mid-60s, she's using ChatGPT. Like I feel confident it's going to be something that sticks. Like this is not like just a kids on the block using it kind of thing.
- [07:31]
A
My parents as well.
- [07:33]
B
Yeah, totally. So like for me, like when you're thinking about as a med spa as an example, are people kind of trying to find information and ask technical, complicated questions that have nuanced answers and they might have different answers based on like who you are, what age you are, what demographic you are, where you live. Have you done this before? These are all Things that are kind of very, again, they're nuanced. You want a good curated answer. To me, like, what I care about that is what people are going to these answer engines for is to find that expertise and find that information. So if you're thinking about this as a med spot owner, that's what I would think about is like, how can I position my brand to be there as that thought leader, make sure that my answers and my information is what the AI bot is giving to them as a, as a user. That's what I'm really focused on. And we can talk more examples, but that's really what I would be thinking about as an owner for medspot.
- [08:17]
A
I'm so tempted for the first time ever here on the podcast to like us to pull up the, like, chat GPT and show this, like, as an example because I do think it would be helpful just to, at the risk of complications and for the audio listeners, I can, we can even read through it. But I think. Could you just even like, role play it, John? Like, what do you, like, go through what somebody might be typing in? I guess I'll start the prompt and you kind of go through it for me. So, like, let's say I'm going to the ChatGPT and you said we think of Google as kind of people have already made the decision, or maybe they're doing research on their own. But most of those searches are like, hey, where's a good Botox near me in, you know, Atlanta? Those are the types of things people type in on Google. But with ChatGPT, that might look like I've never been to a med spa. It's all the things that are going through your head prior to you ever even performing a search that now you're putting into ChatGPT. Right? It's, it's, hey, I've been thinking about going to a med spa. I've got these wrinkles around my eyes, my forehead that sort of bothering are bothering me, and brown spots and sunspots. It seems like there are a million different options. And I don't really want, like you said, a salesperson to guide me one way or the other. I just want honest, objective information. What has good satisfaction ratings, what are people generally happy with, what doesn't? What are the risks and pros and cons of different things. Give me my options. And that's.
- [09:27]
B
And I'm a woman. I'm 62 years old. I live in Boca Raton, Florida, and I'm in the sun a lot. And, and I I've had complications with these types of things in the past. I had, I just, again, you're trying to get the, the way to kind of do this the best is called prompt engineering. It's like really thinking through how to best engineer the prompts. You get the best answer. It's actually a whole skill on its own. It's actually a quite interesting thing that you should be thinking about. As a side note, it's called prompt engineering. Just take a look at that. But essentially, yeah, exactly what you described. You're having a conversation, you're trying to basically talk to that salesperson without being sold. You're kind of talking to the person who's going to give you objective information. And the more information you give to the AI, the better information will give back to you as to a curated answer. And so I always like to say, like, yeah, go into those conversations, like, feel free to kind of explain yourself, explain what's going on and have follow up conversations. It really is like having a conversation with another being, whether that being is an AI or a real human, and use that to your advantage to make sure you're getting the curated answer, not just the generic answer.
- [10:25]
A
Yeah, and if you have not done this, please, please, as a result of this podcast, go to ChatGPT or Grok or Perplexity or Gemini, any of these things and just go, start doing exactly what we said and talk, talk it through like you're talking to your best friend and someone that you're going to confide in and you can give them every detail so that you get the best information and start seeing how this works and start asking the follow up questions. So John, when somebody does this kind of thing, we, that's the starting point of probably what these conversations look like a lot of times. What is the distinction here between information that might be relevant at a national scale but is not relevant for a local med spa? So this is one of the things that I've always had a challenge with like blogging for SEO, is if I create a blog which, like, what are, what are the benefits of Botox or why would I pick Botox vs Dysport? There might be hundreds of other people that have written that article. Yours is probably not likely to be the one that's recommended. And even if it is to that user, they're probably not even local to you. So that's the challenge I've seen with like the SEO side. Does that same concern apply to like these AI engines? How does this work as like a national versus local scale? And when does the search become localized or the conversation?
- [11:37]
B
Absolutely. So this is a very interesting question because actually we work with many clients that kind of do both of these things. And so from a national level, you might again want to be having content and answers optimized for people. People ask, should I get Botox or like, should I use this versus this? Or like, what is the best treatment for this like issue that I'm having? Or what, what are the procedures I should be looking at as like a person trying to achieve this outcome? Like, those are questions that are very national, global, even like answers that you want to provide to people so they know what's going on. Now you're right. If they click on that link and learn more about it, they might just end up on your page and you're in Miami, but they live in la, so it's not going to be very relevant for them. That's going to be actually call you and actually schedule an appointment with you. So what oftentimes happens is people will go and do that research and they'll say, okay, I'm interested in this thing, this procedure, or I want this outcome. How do I get that? Okay, great. I'm saying this is what you should do. And then the next thing would be like, okay, I live in Miami, where can I, like where can I go do that? So eventually that at some point in that conversation, if they are going to be convinced, at least examine it, try it, maybe call a couple of med spots to see if it might be worth it for them. They are going to eventually then say like, okay, now I'm in Miami, where do I go? And so at that point you want to be front and center there as a localized spot for that and so you can optimize your content for that like procedure, that outcome, whatever we're describing there. But make it very clear that you are the best at doing that in Miami or Coral Gables or like Aventura or like any like Boca or like wherever you are, like in the surrounding area where you might, where your trade area where you so just like, like local SEO where you kind of like owning like different pages for different local like localities and like making sure you like really own your like trade area. The same thing applies here. So even having those blog posts about like, you know, Miami versus Boca is really important to make sure that you are capturing the right audience. There's. And so we can talk more about the details of how to do that. But frankly like the idea of local SEO very much applies here. And I really think that overall, like that is what you want to want to own is like your local area to make sure that you're not just kind of informing national audience with no actual return for that, for that effort.
- [13:37]
A
Yeah, so, so the conversation at some point, like you said, just like what happens with search, it mirrors, it's just happening maybe faster and more directly is you get the information that you want, you talk through your concerns, you kind of figure out, okay, I actually think I want dysport instead of Botox.
- [13:51]
B
What?
- [13:51]
A
And then your next question, if you're thinking about it is, okay, let's, let's find some good disport spots near me. I'm in Boca, I'm on the west side of Boca. And then you might even add like instructions there, right? I want something that's close to me on the west side of Boca because I don't really like driving to the east side of town over close to the interstate. Cause it's not really convenient. Like you might even, that's, that's where this is headed. And those are the conversations that people are having. What is the difference right now? So like with Google search, somebody performs that search, they want a provider near Boca. We have like on page signals. So the information that's on your website, you have the maps results which are review based review volume category designations, service lists, things like that. With Google you have domain authority. How many other reputable trusted sites have linked to you? And then beyond that, the factors that are at play at Google are very mysterious. We're guessing a lot beyond that. And if we weren't, we would all have a much more predictable approach to influencing those rankings. But it's very complex, it's very nuanced and it's somewhat secretive. With these AI engines, what is the overlap between the factors that affect traditional SEO versus the thing? So what are the things that are the same and what are the things that are different, the signals that are impacting these results?
- [14:55]
B
I'll start with different because I actually think that's more interesting. And then we'll go with the same after. So they both apply. So different is frankly, and this is kind of like silly because this might change relatively soon, but for now this is very much the case. These AI answer engines, they're bots that go on scrape websites and learn about who you are and what you're doing are very, are like infantile. It's almost like I like to mention it's like it's like Google in 1998. Like they're so early, they're not very good at reading a website or reading a blog post even. And so the way you present information on your page really matters. So instead of having like fluffy long language, like paragraphs that explain like who you are and what you do and like this great, like the way you kind of want to present your brand, the AI scrapers expect like a couple bullet points of exactly what, what you're trying to do to them. And then they like contributing information much more succinctly and like kind of much more, you know, like directly. And so that intent of what your page is saying is so important and to be very clear and understandable by the AI model to like see it, read it, understand it and then use that information. So like the way you actually write those, those performance pages, those local SEO pages, the like, the blog posts, all that kind of fun stuff really does differ. For AI engines versus traditional SEO. There's a lot of overlap. Not to say they're completely distinct, but there are certain things you can be doing and optimizing for to that won't actually feel any weirder to the human eye reading it. But I've definitely optimized for how the answer engines prefer to see things. And that's something that just takes time and effort and learning. And there's a lot of nervous systems out there that can help you do that. So that's the difference, I think, which is super cool. But then the similarities is that actually when you go ask a question like should I get this type of treatment or this one, or they kind of have those conversations we were talking about. The AI answers can either use their existing training data to answer that or do a real time search. It's called rag. It's retrieval Augmented generation. So instead of just relying on the AI models like knowing the answer, which again, they're trained on the world of information. And so but they might have been trained a year ago and that might take, they're not trained very often. It might be a year, 18 months till they're trained again. And so at a certain point they might be like, this is an answer. I just know, like if you ask who the mascot of Disney is, it's going to say Mickey Mouse. It's not going to do a search for that, it just knows that answer. But if you ask about like a certain treatment or a type of scenario, they might actually do what's called a RAG search. Like actually you're going to go out and search the Internet for new results that might have popped up since they were last. That model was Last trained. Now that is where really like that's very similar to SEO because they're using, whether they're using Google or Bing or they're using their own indexing, everybody kind of debates this. Nobody really tells us how people are doing things very much. You know, Google's going to use Gemini, is going to use Google, obviously. And like traditionally chatgpt with the relationship with Microsoft has used Bing. So being doing well with those types of search engines can definitely help as well here to get your information surfaced. So in that way, like the way that like Google thinks about, you know, maps and all these kind of different things, if you're optimized for traditional SEO, your localized results will probably be optimized decently well for AI search as well, because it's going to use very similar techniques. So when somebody does eventually in that conversation, click, okay, I want to be on the west side of Bokeh at that point. The LLMs, the AI models were definitely not just user training data. People then do a live search because they're like, okay, I want to make sure if somebody opened up yesterday, I want to make sure that I can capture that. So I don't want to make sure I'm not just like relying on information from a year ago. So in that way, traditional like SEO type answers are very much relevant here too. And so there's kind of, there's very much a combination of both. And like getting that right is super important for you to have that localized approach.
- [18:16]
A
This episode is brought to you by MedSpa Magic Marketing, my agency. We help med spas and aesthetics practices grow with more effective marketing strategies. And I know that's a vague phrase, right? It's a vague claim. So I have an offer for you. I offer this to any new prospects if you're interested in exploring any of them. Another marketing option, a new agency, or just getting into Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads for the first time. I'd love to show you why we're different, what we're doing for clients. And we can do that via a one and a half hour planning session where I'll outline a specific marketing plan and I'll give you all of the blueprints that we would implement if we were to do business together. Now you can take that, use that on your own, hire someone else to help you execute it or work, work with us. We really don't hold anything back on that strategy call. And I think you'll have a lot of confidence in how you manage your marketing investment moving forward. Understanding some of the nuances that can help you implement more effective marketing strategies for your business. So if you want to do that, you can go to medspa magicmarketing.com so. So with the difference in like the contents, could you get a little bit more specific on that? So you mentioned that, you know, in a, in maybe traditional website, we tend to be maybe long winded. There's a lot of fluff there. And AI is trying to condense the key points that are relevant to the information. They're relevant information related to what the user was looking for. Practically. What does that look like in terms of a difference? Are we talking about formatting? Like you want things in bullets. You want to be more clear with like your unique value proposition. What does that typically entail?
- [19:39]
B
Yeah, so there's a, I'll call it the more qualitative answer. Then there's a more quantitative answer, the more like specific, detailed answer. So qualitatively is you want your pages to have a very, very like high intent. So when the AI scraper reads that page, they know exactly what you're trying to say. So what that means, like again, there's a lot of kind of techniques to get that done. But basically what they wanted to do is when they read that page, they want to say, okay, I now know from this page that this procedure is done for this type of use case that is like the answer we wanted to be able to give a one sentence answer. So actually the technical way to do that is provide that answer is the first sentence of the page is like blank. MedSpa does blank procedure really well because we get you in and out in 10 minutes and we're lower cost than our competitors and like our customers love us. Just one sentence that kind of like sounds almost like a run on sentence, but is a very like called a snippet. Like the AI headset could just pull that out. And so when somebody says recommend me a place, they go, oh, you should use blank medspot because they do exist this and you've actually already labeled it in your actual page itself. They don't have to read your page and summarize. They can just pull that sentence out and provide it. These AI scrapers can be lazy at times. Like these are things you can be doing to kind of like make sure that you are set up for that. So rather than reading a paragraph and summarizing it into a sentence, providing that sentence actually makes it much more likely to be resurfaced. So there are things like that that are kind of more specifically for the content itself. But overall you want to ensure that the AI scraper gets to that page and knows exactly what you're trying to say. And I guess the best way to do that is just be super direct and have high intent with what you're describing.
- [21:07]
A
I like that. So like intro of the page is the snippet. Basically. It's what these AI instead of the AI thing having to read your whole page and try to figure it on their own and connect the dots, give them exactly what they want succinctly upfront and tell them, like you said, all of the information that would indicate that you're a fit. Hey, if you're we're blah blah, Blah is located in West Boca. We provide XYZ service. Our clients rely on us for great results. We've been in business for a bunny years and we've got great reviews on Google or whatever that is. So now they go, oh well, if you're looking for this, this might be a good option. And you've presented, you basically made your case in a version of short format copy at the top of the page. Is that maybe a good little takeaway and an action item?
- [21:46]
B
100%. So the scraper will read the whole page, they will go through everything. But if they can just understand that first sentence, what's going on, it makes them understand the rest of the page even better. And so there's things you can be doing to kind of optimize for that too. So if you are the known for being in and out in 10 minutes, that's just your thing. It's like you're just a super efficient, quick and efficient like MedSpa. Make that clear on every one of your pages like that you are the efficient version. Like if you are the lower cost version or frankly the more luxury version, it costs more. But you get a luxury experience like make that very clear so that again, when they're going through, they're saying, okay, do you want. They're going to make recommendations. So when somebody does ask, make me a recommendation For West Booker, ChatGPT will probably give you at least three or four. They're not just going to give you one because like that's not there either. They kind of want to give you three or four so you can say basically give a feedback later like oh, this one's actually not in West Boca or this one's not what I want. They actually kind of like give you information so you can, they can learn from your like what you're saying, but ultimately you can then make sure that you are like, have that intent as well. So it says, like, if you want a quick in and out, use X. If you want this, use X. They all offer the same thing. I'm not trying to say that these med spots are all commodity. It's not true. Like there are differences in everything. But make sure you play for your differences so that the AI models understand that very clearly. So they're not trying to guess. They actually know that really, really well.
- [22:54]
A
I love that. Yeah, play up your differences. What makes you unique? What can you say that somebody else can't say? Like your marketing message, you need to know, you need to clarify your marketing message essentially and know who are you speaking to, who's your ideal client? And these engines are going to do a good job of making sure they're basically matchmakers between patients and practices. Really cool takeaway. So when it comes to the other signals that you find that are influencing these results, somebody gets down to the bottom of this. They're like, okay, I've decided I do want Botox and I do want this somewhere that's on the west side of Bokken, within a few miles of my house. What are you seeing as the factors other than the content signals on the website that are influencing those results?
- [23:36]
B
Yeah, so when it comes to a services type business like this, it's almost like strange to think about this, but things like Yelp reviews, TripAdvisor reviews, like when it comes to restaurants, like, anything that are like, customer sentiment and satisfaction is really, really important to the AI models. So kind of goes back to a fundamental difference between traditional search like a Google and an answer engine like ChatGPT that Google of relies on authority based on. Do other people think you're authoritative? Basically. Did the New York Times backlink to your site? Okay, we like the New York Times. We think they have authority, so we should give you authority. It's really just a very transactional, quantitative way to kind of build this mesh network of authority that gives you a score and then you got to use that score. Now, Google's never admitted any of this. It's all just conjecture. But over 30 years of people doing SEO, like they feel very good and confident. This is actually how it works. And it does. So that's like, that's how this works in traditional search. In AI search, it's less clear. There are people that are kind of like figuring some of these things out overall. But ultimately the thing about the AI search is that they really, really value user sentiment and user testimonials and Case studies and things like that that give more social proof to the answer. Again, they like again, just having a high authority website and getting backlink from the New York Times does help, but frankly, even more so than that, they care about the fact that people are going into Yelp and giving you a positive review and you have a good Yelp score. They care that you go people going on Reddit and recommending your, your service, they recommend you go on Quora, you go on these different places and actually recommending your service. Things that you might not have thought of before. There's a lot of types of places like this that actually really are relevant for like, you know, getting yourself surfaced. It's not just your own content, it's also making sure that you are kind of high profile and doing well and visible in these other places as well.
- [25:18]
A
So, so would it be fair to say then these are basically giving people a more diverse range of those authority signals. Like, hey, how do we figure out who is really that we want to recommend? Google has like it's kind of narrow view of website quality, inbound link profile, maybe user experience, reviews, reputation. But these tools are going to look at that ecosystem plus three others essentially, and they're going to find the, the complete data set that's going to hopefully give them the clearest picture of who they should be recommending. And that probably means having your hand in more things than you even traditionally did with SEO. One of the things that I thought was interesting and I did this video on our YouTube channel like four months ago. One of the first, it was like when I first started using ChatGPT and I wasn't educating, I was just walking through it and just kind of showing people what it might look like and how it might work. And one of the things I thought was interesting is it seemed to me that you could actually ask the engine what it used in its ranking analysis. So like how did you get these results? And it actually came back. And in that example it told me like you said jan, it looked at Yelp, which I was like, oh, that's interesting. And it looked at Google reviews and it looked at other things. And the weird thing is two things. One, it lied to me because it said and other signals. And I said, okay, what other signals? And then it admitted, okay, I actually didn't look at other signals, I just.
- [26:34]
B
Looked at those two things.
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A
But again, this is evolving so fast. If I did that now, it's probably totally different, I'm sure. And then I guess the other complicated part here is just Like Google, each of these AI engines will have their own criteria. Like ChatGPT might give you three things to look into that are different than what Perplexity or Gemini give you. Is that fair to say?
- [26:56]
B
It is. These models all have their own nuances and the way they think about things. I'd say for now, if you are a med spot and you're trying to improve your chat rank or improve your AI visibility, anything you do, taking the advice of what we talked about today, thinking through this problem will help across the board. It's not like you could probably get 85 to 90% of the way there by doing similar things for all the different models. But yes, these models will give you different answers. That's on purpose. They kind of have different ways of thinking about the world. And also the way that these models have been trained is different. Think about, like, Google, they trained their models very much on all the data Google has around search and email and all those kinds of things through Gmail and things like that. So that's how they kind of think about their model. Whereas, you know, Perplexity or Claude, like, might be big trained on different things too. So there are nuances. I'd say that for the most part they are very similar. But I'd say, like, Google's actually the most interesting because obviously Google still dominates search entirely. Like, as these answer engines are growing, it's great, but like, Google dominates search. Well, Google's Gemini is the one that provides those AI overviews you might be seeing on the top of some of these search answers, where it's kind of giving you those answers and then giving you those ten blue links. Well, actually, people have done the research on this. More than 50% of those AI overview answers don't come from page one links. Meaning you're not a top 10 blue link, you're not a Patreon link, but you had the best answer. So even if you're on page seven of Google Search, they're actually the Gemini tool built by Google, that she's still recommending you right at the top of that page because you actually have the best answer. Maybe you have the best Yelp review or something. Maybe you don't spend as much on your SEO as maybe some of the other, like, vet spots in the area do, but you actually had the best answer and you have the best reviews and you have the best reasons why the AI, again, the answer engine gives credit for it, not just how Google gives credit for it. And Google will just contradict their own top 10 blue links. Give you the answer that Gemini thinks is best in the AI overview. And so it's a really funny dynamic and I highly recommend if you're interested in learning more about that dynamic, like Sundar Pichai, but CEO of Google does like great speeches. I listened to him on a podcast recently. He's just been like really kind of adamant that this is like we are testing out a lot of different things and we're just kind of super open to how this all turns out. But ultimately like I said, like optimizing for AI search can almost help you like jump some of the like maybe the bigger names in the space or kind of help you kind of grow your business in a way that maybe traditional SEO or traditional search might just be really hard for you as a maybe a one or kind of multi location bed spot.
- [29:11]
A
Yeah, as you were talking, I just, I just went to ChatGPT because I was curious kind of doing this thing again. I said I want to get Botox. I live in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. That's the suburb in east of Nashville. I figured being specific with a suburb would make it even more interesting. And it gave me like seven different things and it has a snippet of each of them. And it's just like you said, John. It's like the tldr too long didn't read version like Indulgence, Medispa, Local Med Spa Offering, Botox and Dysport. It gave me the pricing in this in like a synopsis of their service list. And then it's, I asked it at the bottom. It gave me tips before you book. So what should you look into? Ask about post care, consider pricing, look for reviews, check credentials, schedule a consult. It gave me a provider summary where it gave me a list of the providers in the left column in the middle it actually gave pricing. So the thing that I think that's interesting about this, I was just at a conference and Marcus Sheridan, who wrote a book called, I think it was books called like they ask you answer or something like that, it was one of the early inbound marketing books. I have some disagreements with how that's applied to local business. But one of the things that he said is if your clients have questions about your service, there's no use in not being transparent about it because they're going to get the answer anyway. And if you're like, oh well, I don't want to give them the answer without the context. So like if you're more expensive with Botox, but you have a reason why he said the answer is not to not give them the price of your, your Botox. The answer is to give them the price and explain why yours cost $3 more a unit and why they should be excited to pay that extra $3 essentially. And it seems like that's kind of playing out here and that might be even more true now with these AI engines. Any, any thoughts on that? Just like giving people all of the information that they could possibly want and not hiding the ball on some of this stuff because it looks like that seems to be valued by the at.
- [30:50]
B
Least chatgpt I, I firmly believe that that to be true. And regardless, I feel like just hiding information is never really going to be helpful to you. I think like it said, like if you are asking to say you are maybe a higher priced option but you're luxury, you said you charge $3 more per unit but it's because you're a luxury facility. You get a nice like treatment that they get in there. You get, they give you a Perrier water and you get like a nice, you know, like a really high end treatment. When you walk into that med spa, own that tell them that. Because when you're doing it, people go online, they don't want the lower cost version, they want the luxury version. If you don't kind of explicitly say that like it's okay if you're a little more expensive. Some people want to pay that because they want that experience they're having. Like you just said they wanted to do that. So it serves you no purpose hiding it because then these answer engines won't figure that out and won't recommend you. When people say again, I want to get Botox in West Boca and I also wanted to be a luxury facility where they're going to give me sparkling water when I walk in the door. Like that is important. And if you don't own that answer right away on some of your content, it's going to be lost and you're not going to be that answer. You're going to go with somebody else. It might be a worse facility as you but they at least own that answer and own that like that person, that Persona for the, for the user. And so if you notice when you, if you're, it's hard to see because again I thought this is a podcast but on those answers it actually when it gives you that little synopsis of each one it's going to give you a little like, like link there to link to their site as well. So you'll see where they're getting this information from as well, which is super important because again, this is going to link back to your site. It's how you're going to keep see traffic. You could track this traffic in your Google Analytics data to see who is coming to your site from ChatGPT. So you can like understand is that a good referral network for me own that, like kind of learn how if you want to invest in that. It's like really kind of a full circle thing to kind of track and manage here too. So overall I'd say like, definitely, like, if you are a med spot owner, try asking some of the queries that you expect your target Persona to ask and like learn. What is it giving you? What kind of answers is it providing? Ask it, by the way, five different times on five different days that week because it will give you different answers. It will hallucinate. We'll get wrong answers sometimes on purpose to see what's going on. Like kind of go through these operations and see what's happening so you can understand clearly. Okay, I think I know I'm the best provider in this area, but. But for some reason like this competitor that is just frankly not as good as me keeps outranking me. Well, learn why. It'll actually tell you. You can ask it. Why are they outranking me? Oh, is it because of Yelp reviews? Oh, is it because you know they have better content than me? Is because you think they have like higher satisfaction scores when you know you do. Like those are all things you can be learning and you can then act against them over time.
- [33:09]
A
Yeah. So cool. So many good takeaways. I, I did ask it the follow up question here. It gave me this list for my town and I said what, what sources did you look into to get this data? Give me all the sources you looked into. And it, and it's cool because this might be different in every town. Every search, like you said, John, might be different. What was the acronym you use when it's going into kind of doing the task and not relying on the training?
- [33:29]
B
It's a rag search. R A G. Yeah.
- [33:31]
A
So it's doing some version of that rag search, I'm assuming, but it tells you it's looked at Google Reviews and this might evolve. So you probably need to stay on top of this. Like right now. It looked at Google Reviews. Maybe at some point it doesn't decide to use that. It looked at Bird Eye Reviews. Weirdly specific to me that it was looking at Bird Eye. It looked at a website called best prosintown.com super interesting. Like that's a directory I've never really paid attention to. Like if maybe I didn't with Google, but maybe now that I know ChatGPT actually is pulling that, if that's the case, at least in my town, and that might not be true of John searches in his town. And that's something to keep in mind. And you can ask, I love that you can ask it. Why did you recommend them instead of me? And it'll tell you and it'll give you the homework you need to do to make up the ground and hopefully like be there in the recommendations list. So I think these are a ton of cool takeaways so far. Like the things that I'm trying to recap it for the audience in a live time here. It's be succinct and clarify your marketing message. Who are you speaking to? Why would people choose to do business with you? Make that crystal clear on your service pages. So when people do make that decision to go to ChatGPT or any of these other tools and ask for the recommendation, you're giving them the AI the answer that doesn't have to go digging for it or trying to figure it out. The next thing was do this. Exercise yourself. Figure out what is showing up and what you need to do to make up that ground. What is actually influencing the rankings. The third is be transparent in the information on your business and make the case if you have something cool. Like you said, John, if, if I'm the luxury med spa, but I just say I'm the luxury med spot, I don't really explain why I'm missing an opportunity. If ChatGPT is recommending me as the luxury med spa and I explain why that's going to add more meat to that. Right? It's they're the luxury med spot. They say that every new pa, every time a patient comes in, they have champagne and this and that and that while you're waiting for your appointment. Like those are the things that tangibly differentiate you. Hey there. Wanted to briefly interrupt the episode to make a quick ask. If you're a podcast listener, it would mean the world to us if you leave a review for the podcast, whether that's on itunes or Spotify. It's something I hadn't really remembered or thought of asking for. But it does help us show up more frequently so that we can reach more people with the information that we're providing. So it mean the world to us if you'd leave a review on itunes or Spotify. If you're listening on Audio. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the subscribe button so you're in the loop for future videos and you don't miss any of the content that we're putting out. So I think we talked about how people are using the tools where the overlap exists between SEO and Geo aeo, whatever we're calling it, how to kind of reverse engineer your own ranking algorithm locally and to figure out what maybe you need to do to impact those rankings, what to do with your website. To some extent it seems to me like this is just like an evolution of SEO. I think some people are talking about this like it's fundamentally different and I could be wrong. Let me know if you disagree. It seems to me like with SEO, we were trying to figure out there's this tool, Google that recommends businesses. What are the criteria that this tool is using to recommend businesses and how do I influence those rankings? We're doing basically the same thing now with ChatGPT and other tools. Is that, is that a fair assessment or is there something I'm missing in.
- [36:34]
B
That you're, you're spot on. Like people that say SEO is dead, it's wrong. Like the SEO is still very relevant because being optimizing for these like places where people find information is the most important thing. The main difference being that search engine optimizations, like being, being a search engine, it's going to give you like a certain type of answer. Whereas being an answer engine, like kind of like what the ChatGPT is, it's going to give you an answer. So you optimize for different things based on whether you want to kind of have your page high up on this like list of potential ways to get the answer versus just being the actual answer. And so if you know that like your potential customer and the user is going to have a whole conversation, refine down the message until they find the exact answer that fits them best. You want to make sure that if you that's your target customer, that your website and your messaging fits exactly that customer is going to end up being. And so like in traditional search, like SEO, you might be thinking about more broadly, how do I make sure my med spa is relevant and aware by the whole world. But basically they get this answer. Like in this instance, you might only care about the exact customer you're going after. But if you own that customer, you will win the answer entries because your answer you will always be the answer for that customer. When they refined down to West Boca Luxury Med Spa with champagne and in and out in 10 minutes. So like if you just like nail that, you will always be the answer because nobody else is going to own that. It's too niche. So you're going to win in there. And people do refine their messaging down to that like kind of expecting that overall answer. So that's the only difference there. But it's not, SEO is not dead. It's just a new way of optimizing for the answer rather than the being relevant in the search criteria.
- [37:58]
A
Yeah, it kind of feels like Google would give you, like it would give you the consideration pool and then from there you do your own homework. Right. You go read the reviews, you browse the website. It's like these engines are doing one step further. They're whatever your next homework would have been with Google when you got your consideration pool, they're going and doing that for you, especially when you're good at feeding it the criteria like you said. And I think that that's the thing that probably will change dramatically in terms of like user behavior is people will be way more specific because they know they can be once they learn how to use these tools. And everybody becomes, becomes some version of like a prompt engineer. It's going to be a skill like just everybody has. It's going to, we're going to re acclimate to how we perform searches and look for information with these tools and it's going to be that it's going to be I'm in West Boca, I don't want to drive far, I work during the week so I want something that's got after hours availability. I'm looking for something that's, that's high end in terms of like reviews and experience but also has a fair price point and is not going to have an issue with wait times. I also kind of want one provider I can stick to. So I don't want to be bouncing providers. Can you find me the place that you recommend? And there's so much specificity now to that search that like you said, owning your niche and speaking specifically to the person that's like, hey, you just described exactly what we're going to do for you in a local market. You're not going to have seven med spas that check that box. So really clarifying your marketing message and knowing who you're talking to. The other thing that I was kind of thinking about, just to try to like boil this down a little bit, it seems to me like this still is, there's two, two versions of information here. It's what do you say about yourself as a business and ChatGPT or these, these engines are using that. Like, so what you say about your business and the claim that you try to make is part of this equation. And then what do other people say about you? Is that, is that a fair summary? It's what do you say about your business? What are other people saying about you? And is there alignment that we can feel comfortable with?
- [39:46]
B
Exactly. So the way Google searched out this and traditionally is to that backlink profile, the authority scores they provide for you. So it's like, do you have authority based on your page one link? If you have a certain authority score, just purely on, like, is your website highly authoritative to answer this question? They have an algorithm to do that that is like, like I said, a very quantitative thing. The answer engines, they're more exploratory, they're more open and meritocratic in like, their, their way. So they will give you the benefit of the doubt even if you don't have the highest authority score. But they're also going to then say, okay, how can I kind of get that social proof of that authority authoritativeness? Well, I'll do it by looking at reviews and looking at like, other places referring to you. And like doesn't necessarily need the backlink. It doesn't need like the, the actual hard, like link that Google users can like, use, like to actually feed their algorithm. They're just looking for. If I scan these review sites. You mentioned those review sites, some of them you never heard of before. Like, yeah, again, it's bizarre. Like, you might think this doesn't matter, but if the answer engine is telling you this is what we're using, go and reach out to them. Make sure you're really highly like motivated there. Tell your best customers to go leaving reviews on those sites like this all kind of important so that these answer engines get that kind of authority like authoritativeness or this kind of like, way to score you. That's not just traditionally like how Google does it. So they usually these more, you know, meritocratic methods to find that social proof, not just, you know, a traditional, like backlink profile.
- [40:58]
A
Do you think it's fair to say that each evolution of search, it just gets us to a point where it's less about tricking these tools. Like, I remember when I started an SEO, the agency that I worked for, this is like 2011, 2012, you'd outsource like their SEO work to India. And it was working really well because you could just game the living crud out of the system. Like you could go spam your link on other people's blogs and that would count as a link that passed SEO value. And you could literally rank just by doing that enough at a high enough rate. And the changes that happened since then the last 13 years have basically just kept getting it like evolving to the point where they're just getting better at actually finding the truth. And there's transparency around this. Like even think about that with Google Reviews. Google Reviews is a was one of the first real Internet based layers of clear transparency like this. This business can say what they want to say about themselves, but what do other people really say? And it added transparency around the truth. What is the reality of how this med spa is positioned and what customers think? Does it feel to you like this is just a deeper evolution of that and it's not going to be yes, we know there's still optimization tactics at play. Like you have to be in the game because there are factors that influence the recommendations. So you have to be proactive about influencing the factors. But they're getting better at actually just finding the businesses that deserve the recommendation. And if you don't earn it, you're not going to get it. Like they're just the more data, the better data. These engines get better at actually providing a transparent, truthful answer.
- [42:26]
B
Yeah. So the advent of AI like a few years ago even has like transformed this even further. So Google now today, like they're fully onto these like games of like link farms and providing like everybody giving each other links and all this like stuff. Like they're so past that. So I mean get, not to get too much in the weeds but if you have like 20 DA, 25 like links on your profile, that's not nearly worth it like 160 day. Because they know that someone went to the 6070s like sort of like they know that's more of a like an authoritative link and they know that's just not just somebody farming it out. They feel like that's a really strong like local newspaper or local blog or things that they can actually trust and feel good about. Like they've kind of caught onto these games of like just padding your stats and like filling up your, your profile to just like kind of keep going up, up and up. So they've kind of tailored their algorithm to this entirely. AI is the same way. So like there are tools out there which will, will sell you on. Hey, we'll produce 50 pieces of content per day, AI generated, stick them on your website and you'll just start ranking Better like, yeah, you might work for a day, you might trick them for a day or two, but they'll catch on to it immediately. They catch on to the AI generated content. You're just going to be hammered for it. You're going to like go to zero basically for that. And so I always tell our customers, when they or people, when they talk to us, they ask me advice on this. I always say like being truthful, like an authoritative in your writing and what you're doing and how you're presenting your brand and having good customers who will then go leave your reviews. Like that is still the fundamentals that will help you win in this world. Maybe you can trick it for a week, maybe you can trick it for a month, or you can keep trying to trick it. That's not a sustainable long term solution. It's like, we don't recommend doing that, but we always tell people it's like just actually go out and write good content. So if you want to actually win in the West Boca area, write a blog post. It's called like, here are the top five med spots in the West Boca area. And explain why you think you're really good and explain why you're like, your competition might be good too. Like, hey, they're great because they're just a low cost option. And it's almost like a backhanded compliment because you're like, hey, I'm the luxury one. They're the low cost option. But by doing that, you're just telling, you're giving really truthful information. You're providing not just like a word. Great. Everybody else thinks you're providing real information. If you do that and you do that really well, the AI models will find that page, read it, match it against other pages and like, oh, they are the low cost option. They were truthful about that. Oh, they are this. They were truthful about that. Like, they'll find that one article to be highly authoritative. They'll give it a really good score and they're like branding or score, however they think about this. And then every time somebody goes on and says, I need a med spa in West Boca, it's going to reference that piece of content and say, okay, well this is who it is. This is who it is, who it is. And use that. It's like, that is something that you can do as a brand. Like, you're not lying, you're not tricking them, you're just explaining like, really? Like, we know this space really well. We think we're the best. So here's why. And we talk about that and your competition can do the same thing. But ultimately that kind of content really does work. The AI models are getting much, much better at figuring out spammy content and AI generated content, things like that. Have someone in your team sit down, write an article or write a product page or write some kind of describes who you are, what you do well and kind of just be truthful and like know that like as a human, like what we do. And I promise you that is your best chance to sustainably long term, win in the space. It's not tricks and games. It's not. It might. I said it might work for a week. It's not going to work long term.
- [45:26]
A
Yeah, cool. Any. Anything else? John, I'm excited to actually talk about your businesses and what you all are up to because I think it's really cool. Any. Any things you want to add to wrap up this conversation? I think it was awesome. Honestly, this is a really cool interview. I hope everybody got a lot from this. I did. You have some clarity and some homework here. Anything you want to add that we didn't cover?
- [45:44]
B
It kind of just a summary of some of the things we already talked about. But basically like, don't be afraid to just go explore this. Like I always. People say, like, I'm so overwhelmed. I've never used chat GPT before. I don't know what to do. Like, I'm just, It's AI. I'm so not technical. Like, none of that applies. I promise you. Go to ChatGPT, open up a console, Just like start searching. Just say like, hey, I'm looking for med spots in my area. Just like search. Try to find your med spot. Try to like just get answers to why. Like, again, it's kind of fun. You'll get like the hang of it pretty quickly. You don't have to be an expert on AI. You don't like feel weird about it. Just like, go in there, try it and like see what it says and then take some action for it. Go write a blog post. Go update your product page. Go change your About Us page. Like whatever it takes or whatever you think might be helpful for you. Just try something. See if you get results. Like, see if you get something. Have a. In your online intake form or your intake form in store or in your med spot, say how. When they say how do you find us? Google, Yelp, whatever. Like add ChatGPT or like add an AI model, like an LLM.
- [46:38]
A
It's happening. If you don't think it's Happening. You're denying reality.
- [46:41]
B
It is definitely so just like my recommendation is try it out. Like try exploring it. You don't have to like write a hundred blog posts or optimize for perfectly tomorrow. Just try like learn about like your space and your area, your industry, your, your local niche. Write a blog post or like kind of write something on your website about it and then change like add a little like, like question on your, on your intake form. Like did you hear, where'd you hear about it from? Like just list ChatGPT is one of the answers. Like that, that is it. Like just try that. It'll take you, I don't know, less than an hour to do what I just described to you. And like I promise you, like just start there and if you, if you see results, great. If you don't like try it again. Like it's like, it's really just like small steps can go a long way here.
- [47:16]
A
Yeah, I love pro tip as a ChatGPT user. The voice mode too. Like I think that can train help you if you're not used to using these tools. If you talk you're, you're going to inherently communicate a little bit differently than if you type. And if you type. I think so many people default to Google mode. If you talk like you're talking to a person that can give you the answer. It's like you're talking to a genie. Like that's going to give you the answer to any question that you could possibly want answered. So the little voice mode I love or even just like the dictate because you can free flow your, your thoughts a little bit more. But yeah, that's awesome John. So I hope she doesn't hear this.
- [47:48]
B
My, my mother in law walks around the house like just talking to ChatGPT on our phone all day and I'm.
- [47:51]
A
Just like oh, I've literally sat in the car in the morning. I do like a, I make like a fake commute for myself because I work for my house and I'll go get like an iced coffee and I'll just sit there for like an hour and a half talking through a business problem and troubleshooting scenarios and all sorts of things and even have it spit out a spreadsheet with like the whole like scenario troubleshooting chart that we walked through but. Cool. I want to talk a little bit about your businesses now John. Tell us what you are up to and the tools that you all have built because I think there's some really cool stuff here.
- [48:20]
B
Yeah, so our business like our original business we started a few years ago was called Just Reach Out. It's a online. It's like a digital PR service where you can actually go online. And if you don't want to hire expensive, inexpensive PR agency and you want to float your business, you can use our tool to find local blogs, local influencers, podcasts, you know, YouTubers who might be interested in like talking about you or kind of writing about you, featuring your med spot, things like that. So it's a great tool. It's like a basically a tiny fraction of what it would cost to hire a PR agency. Kind of tell your own story, do your own messaging and like do your own pr. It's a great little kind of like sign up and use software tool. We also have done for you plans as well for that. And actually I mentioned that because digital PR getting mentioned, getting in the local paper by influencers, like we mentioned it, these are all, these all matters. These matter even more so than it used to in like traditional search and that like getting that social proof and getting people talking about you is really important. So that was my original business. It's called Just Reach Out. You can find this@justreachout.IO. now I have to leave the chat rank because last summer we were in this situation where our core search terms, things that we were like really owning and winning customers with for our business basically went to zero overnight because Google stuck an AI overview on the top of our core search terms. So we got like hammered with traffic like reduction overnight by this AI overview, kind of like usurping all of our, like our number one blue link in our ad and everything else. We were like, oh crap, like what do we do about this? We kind of reverse engineered how to like get into the AI overview, how to get these AI models, the LLMs to start talking about us and referencing our business. And so we kind of did this and it started working. We were getting referral for Just reach out from ChatGPT, cloud perplexity, everywhere else. And it was just, it was amazing. We like, this is great. This is, it's not free because it takes our time, but it's essentially free. This is like, why pay for a Google Ad when I can just get in the answer above the Google Ads? And then like, I'm just getting free referral. So we did that for a while. We were like, this could be something. And so we spun it out into what is now ChatRank. This is like a. We almost stumbled into this. We started the business last summer. We were live with customers about last December. So now ChatRank, it's called ChatRank AI. You can learn more about us. Again, you can sign up and use the tool to kind of everything we described here today. How to write good content, what content to do, templates for writing that content, ways to optimize your website tracking and visibility against you and your competition, and the core search terms and things people are searching for in these AI models, all available for you to track and monitor and then how to improve. It's all available in ChatRank. The reason why I tell you that story is just because like we didn't build ChatRank because we thought it was like cool. We built it for ourselves and it worked and it still works for us. And so we know we were in your shoes not long ago, struggling to figure out how to like make headway in this AI world. And so we've done it. We've just productized that and shared it with others. So again we offer those as a self serve solution or do you want to use our services? We also can do it for you. And so that's kind of like again, both of our plans here for just reach out chatrank, they're self serve tools you can just sign up and use. Med Spas Love us. It's a great way to kind of promote yourself locally in other ways. But then plus you can use our services if you'd like to as well.
- [51:08]
A
Yeah, super cool tools. I had a chance to. I was like clicking around and stuff when we talked last, so definitely go check those out. We'll make sure all of those are in the show notes. This is an awesome conversation. Thank you John. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
- [51:18]
B
Thanks Ricky. I really enjoyed it.
- [51:20]
A
We'll have to do it again in six months when everything inevitably changed.
- [51:23]
B
Everything has changed. It'll be completely useless in six months.
- [51:27]
A
Thanks everyone for tuning in. This podcast is a production of medspa Magic Marketing. If your med spa or aesthetic practice is in need of digital marketing services, help with advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Google lead generation and booking more appointments, please visit Medspamagicmarketing.com.