Why SEO Still Matters in an AI World with Mariah Magazine

Summary

The Mindful Marketing Podcast: Episode 366 – Why SEO Still Matters in an AI World with Mariah Magazine

Release Date: July 15, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 366 of The Mindful Marketing Podcast (formerly The Savvy Social Podcast), host Andréa Jones delves deep into the enduring significance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the evolving landscape dominated by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Joining her is Mariah Magazine, an SEO expert with a decade-long journey in the digital marketing realm. The episode explores Mariah's transition from website design to SEO mastery, the resurgence of long-form content, and the symbiotic relationship between SEO and AI.

---

Mariah’s Journey into SEO

Mariah begins by sharing her entrepreneurial path, which spans nearly ten years. At 22, she made a bold move by quitting college and her job to pursue website development. Despite outdated training in table layouts, Mariah's research-intensive nature led her to self-teach by creating an online HTML portfolio. This initiative secured her a paid internship in a WordPress-focused agency, where she honed her SEO and development skills under the mentorship of a seasoned WordPress developer.

“I started my business when I was 22, quitting college and my job to dive into website development. That internship was pivotal in shaping my SEO expertise.”
— Mariah Magazine [01:55]

As the agency dissolved, Mariah took charge, attracting clients through Facebook groups and word-of-mouth. Her initial foray into blogging was driven by client inquiries about getting found on Google, prompting her to explore SEO deeply. A standout blog post achieved page one rankings for numerous keywords, significantly boosting her email subscribers over nine years.

---

The Importance of SEO in an AI-Driven World

Mariah emphasizes that SEO remains crucial, especially with AI integrations like ChatGPT reshaping search dynamics. She explains that AI relies on comprehensive and strategic content to understand and index websites effectively. Long-form content, in particular, serves as a foundational training manual for AI, enhancing brand authority and visibility across multiple platforms.

“Long-form content is a shareable resource that showcases your expertise and builds trust. It’s essential for training AI bots to understand your business and connect keywords effectively.”
— Mariah Magazine [32:32]

She underscores that while short-form content like Instagram Reels and TikTok videos garners quick engagement, it lacks the depth necessary for sustained SEO benefits. Instead, long-form content offers longevity and a deeper connection with the audience, making it indispensable in the AI era.

---

Long-Form Content vs. Short-Form Content

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the superiority of long-form content over short-form alternatives. Mariah articulates that, despite the prevalent trend towards short, snappy content, long-form pieces provide substantial SEO advantages by offering more comprehensive information that AI algorithms can easily parse and index.

“Short-form content takes longer to create when you aim to convey a meaningful point. Long-form content, much like writing a book, allows for thorough exploration of topics without the constraints of character limits.”
— Mariah Magazine [25:00]

She highlights her personal preference for long-form content, comparing it to threads on platforms like Twitter, where she articulates her thoughts in detailed paragraphs rather than brief snippets. This approach not only enhances her SEO rankings but also establishes her as a trusted authority in her field.

---

YouTube Strategy: Tutorials and Consistency

Mariah shares her experiences with YouTube, initially struggling with the demands of consistent, high-energy content creation. After a challenging phase, she pivoted to producing educational tutorials that align with her expertise in SEO. By focusing on practical, no-frills tutorials, she found a sustainable model that not only engaged her audience but also generated substantial AdSense revenue.

“I started creating tutorials because they cost me less to edit and align with my expertise. Consistency is key, and producing content every other week has been effective for me.”
— Mariah Magazine [09:53]

Her YouTube channel has become a substantial revenue stream, contributing up to $1,100 in a single month. Additionally, it serves as a gateway for potential clients to discover her consulting services, as her in-depth tutorials position her as an SEO authority.

---

Email Marketing and Strategic Funnels

Mariah elaborates on her strategic approach to email marketing, emphasizing the importance of nurturing leads through thoughtful and authentic communication. She employs tailored email sequences that educate subscribers on her SEO philosophy and actionable strategies, fostering a deeper connection and trust.

“My email sequence is designed to teach my philosophy on SEO and position me as a consultant and educator, rather than just another SEO agency.”
— Mariah Magazine [21:49]

By integrating client examples and soft-selling techniques, Mariah effectively converts email subscribers into consulting clients without appearing too sales-driven. Her emphasis on providing value and actionable insights ensures that her audience remains engaged and trusts her expertise.

---

Brand Authority and AI Integration

A pivotal insight from the episode is Mariah’s perspective on brand authority in the age of AI. She explains that AI algorithms evaluate a brand’s entire digital footprint, encompassing websites, social media, and other online content, to establish authority and relevance.

“AI bots are now looking at your entire digital footprint, including your YouTube videos, blog posts, and social media interactions, to assess your brand authority.”
— Mariah Magazine [32:32]

Mariah advocates for a holistic SEO strategy that integrates long-form content with consistent, valuable interactions across various platforms. This comprehensive approach not only enhances SEO performance but also ensures that AI can accurately represent the brand in search results.

---

Practical Strategies and Future Plans

Towards the end of the episode, Mariah discusses her future plans, which include maintaining her YouTube cadence, incorporating more blogging, and continuing to develop resources that reinforce her expertise. She emphasizes flexibility and avoiding over-structuring her content creation process to maintain authenticity and prevent burnout.

“My priority is YouTube, but I’m also adding blogging when I come up with valuable ideas from my videos and newsletters. Flexibility helps me stay authentic and avoid burnout.”
— Mariah Magazine [36:28]

Mariah also introduces her free SEO roadmap available on her website, which outlines six essential steps for successful SEO. She encourages listeners to leverage this resource to build a robust SEO foundation, essential for thriving in an AI-integrated search environment.

---

Conclusion

In this insightful episode, Mariah Magazine and Andréa Jones underscore the enduring relevance of SEO in an AI-driven world. Mariah’s emphasis on long-form content, strategic use of YouTube, and holistic brand authority offers a comprehensive roadmap for marketers aiming to navigate the complexities of modern SEO. By evolving with technological advancements and maintaining a generous, value-driven approach, Mariah exemplifies how traditional SEO practices can seamlessly integrate with emerging AI trends to drive sustained business growth.

“SEO is not dead; it’s evolving. By building a strong SEO foundation and embracing long-form content, businesses can thrive alongside AI advancements.”
— Mariah Magazine [38:33]

Listeners are encouraged to access Mariah’s free SEO roadmap and implement the discussed strategies to enhance their own marketing efforts in this AI-enhanced landscape.

---

Notable Quotes:

• “Long-form content is a shareable resource that showcases your expertise and builds trust.” — Mariah Magazine [32:32]
• “Short-form content takes longer to create when you aim to convey a meaningful point.” — Mariah Magazine [25:00]
• “SEO is not dead; it’s evolving. By building a strong SEO foundation and embracing long-form content, businesses can thrive alongside AI advancements.” — Mariah Magazine [38:33]

---

For more insights and resources discussed in this episode, visit MariahMagazine.com/roadmap.

Transcript

[Drea]

If you're tired of feeling like you put so much time and effort and energy into that dang Instagram reel only for three people to see it, this episode's for you. Because we're talking about long form content. It's beautiful. Reemergence. I have the amazing Mariah magazine on the Mindful Marketing podcast today. We're going to talk all about it, especially those of you who want the depth, they want the trust building, they want the transactional content to disappear and actually create content that has legs. Oh, we're going to get into this in the 366th episode of the Mindfulness Marketing Podcast. But first, a word from our sponsor. Riverside is the all in one podcast recording and editing tool that I use for this right here show. I use it to edit not only the audio and the video, it is like Chef's Kiss. Magical. Making the entire process so, so easy. Plus, I love their magic AI clips. Their little AI robot in the background pulls out the most impactful moments of the episodes without me having to comb through and do it myself. Resizes for social media. So those vertical videos you see on TikTok and Reels, those all come from Magic AI inside of Riverside. It's literally one click. It spits out 10 clips. I pick the best one and away I go. Saves me so much time. If you want to get on the Riverside train, check it out today, the links in the show notes and make sure to use my code, DREA D R E A at checkout to get 15% off your membership. Mariah, welcome to the show.

[Mariah]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to see where we're going to go in this conversation.

[Drea]

Yeah, as I was telling you before, I just like to be nosy and just pick people's brains publicly. So I love that for us. But I want to start at the beginning of your journey because I know you as like the SEO person, but I want to get a sense of where you started in your business and how you got to today.

[Mariah]

So I started my business. It's going to be 10 years this summer. Actually, when this podcast episode comes out, I'm going to just be celebrating 10 years in business. The anniversary is in July and so I got into the space when I was a young 22 year old little thing and I quit college and I quit my job in the same month. And I kind of, I was in school at the time for website development, like an online program and they were teaching me table layouts which like even at that time they Were very outdated. And I was like, this shit's whack, y'.

[Drea]

All.

[Mariah]

Like, I can't. And I was like, I'm smart. I am also nosy. And like, I am very research heavy. And. And I'm like, I feel like I could just figure this out. So I ended up bullshitting an online HTML portfolio, and I ended up landing a paid internship through a Craigslist ad. And so I landed this paid internship doing website design and development. And the one owner of the company, it was literally like, it's a kind of like the old school agency model where it was like, pretending to be very professional, like, on the front end, but it was literally just like two dudes hanging out, like they were four years old than me. We were hanging out. And so the one owner was a WordPress developer. And so he just kind of took me under his wing and taught me everything that he knew about developing on WordPress. And so I stayed with them for quite a while. He became my mentor for SEO for WordPress development and all of that. And then a year later, they ended up shutting down the business, started funneling clients to me, and I was like, oh, okay. But earlier in that summer, previously, I was like, I feel like I'm kind of obsessed with this, and I feel like I can kind of do it on my own. And so I ended up jumping into Facebook groups. At the time, that's where I met, like, a lot of my first online business friends was through good old Facebook groups. And I grew word of mouth through there was getting website design clients and all of that. And people would. We would launch their website and then they would end up coming back to me. And they were like, but how do I get found on Google? And I was respectfully, don't know, can't tell you. Like, my job is done. The website looks great. You are now on the Internet. Congratulations. And they were like, but how do I get found? And I was like, I find an agency. Like, I don't know what to tell you. And people kept asking me and kept asking me, and I was like, I feel like this is something I should pay attention to. So this is also in the beginning stages of business where I had more time than money. So I started blogging for my own business. I was blogging about what I was learning in the online space. I was blogging about stumbling upon at the time. Do you remember that one?

[Drea]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, gee. Yes. I loved it. I loved it. I'd be like, what am I gonna see today?

[Mariah]

Yes, yes. And So I was creating tutorials about how do you stumble upon to grow your business? And just like what I was learning about Pinterest and what I was learning about blogging and WordPress and all of that. And then I was like, wait a minute, how do I get people over to these blog posts? I was like, I should probably figure out SEO. And so I ended up creating this blog post that got on page one of Google for like over 15, 20 keywords, ended up bringing hundreds of email subscribers to me a month. And as like a little 22, 23 year old, I was like, I thought people said growing an email list was hard. What do you mean? Like, it felt easy for me. I was just getting these people. And that blog post ended up being on page one until last year.

[Drea]

Wow.

[Mariah]

For nine years I never updated it because I ended up transitioning away from like website design and development and going into SEO. So I didn't really care about that. I actually ended up creating just like a free newsletter sign up thing on mailchimp just so those people could like jump on the list somehow. And then I would like have another upsell in that follow up email to get them over to my real list in case they were interested. But I don't want to like the make my email list too busy with all of these people. That just didn't make sense. And so at the I was like, okay, I think SEO is a thing. So I started learning about it and I fucking hated it. I thought it was the worst thing on the planet. It was so overwhelming, it was so technical. What I found was that most of the content was created for advanced SEO people talking to other advanced SEO people working on massive websites. I didn't have a massive website, My clients didn't have a massive website. And so that information didn't really make sense to me. And then the other information that I found on SEO was created by SEO agencies trying to be very vague and overwhelming so that you just got annoyed and then hired them on retainer, which is a scrappy little girl. No, ma'. Am. Like I'm not doing that. So like I was like, okay, there really is no like DIY SEO information for people like me in my situation. Like an online line, business owner, small business, not super huge, but also I'm not really local either. Like I kind of playing in this middle ground. And so I ended up diving in with the support of my mentor who kind of knew SEO foundations through website development. And so I ended up diving into SEO, breaking it down, putting it back together. In a way that actually made sense. Started offering it to clients. They got incredible results. And then I like to say SEO sunk its teeth into me and hasn't let me go. And now I'm obsessed with it. Now it's like I can see it so clearly on websites. I can see the patterns, I can see the gaps. I can see why you're not getting results without running any reports. I can take one look at your site and be like, oh, that's why. And what I loved about website design and development was actually the strategy of a website, the strategic setup. And I remember going to a mastermind when I was maybe like three years in business, and I was like, I want to be a website strategist. Like, I want people to pay me for website strategy. And everything I was saying, they were like, so an SEO expert. And I was so mad, I was like, no, that's not me. And then I, like, allowed myself to sit with it, and I was like, wait a minute. Like, yes. Because with SEO, Google search algorithms judge your website in over 200 factors. A lot of them are user experience. It is website strategy. It's just not the thing that people think that they need, but it's the thing that I sell on the back end. Yes, we do the keyword research. Yes, we figure out how we want to rank all of that. But the foundation of your site is what actually drives the results. So long form content coming back into play. I'm like, finally, like, we have to. We. Our websites are what all of your other marketing efforts should be pointing back to. So why is your website not strategic and set up in a way that supports your other marketing efforts and also gets you found by search engines and AI?

[Drea]

Yeah, I love this. Okay, What I love the most about what you said is I want to highlight this. This piece of, like, in your strategy, like, your strategic positioning as a company is SEO, because that's what people think they need. And this is where I find myself a lot of time talking about social media because people come to me and they're like, oh, Instagram reels. I'm like, cool. You think it's Instagram reels. I know the real problem is, like, a marketing ecosystem, but let's. Let's start with Instagram reels. And I feel like that's what you're saying with SEO. It's like, people come to you and they're like, oh, I want, you know, the latest thing is like, I want chatgpt to find me. And it's like, okay, cool. I'll show you. We'll talk about that. And also, once you're here, I'm gonna actually give you what you actually need, which is what I love about what you do. And where I see you show up with this is YouTube. So is that your, like, main, like, talk to me about your strategy.

[Mariah]

My marketing ecosystem here. Okay. So I used to blog pretty consistently. And then I was like, I want to start a YouTube channel. And so I started my YouTube channel back in 2017, used to create. I thought that I had to create videos every single week. I thought that they had to be talking head videos. I thought that they had to be like, Mr. Beast, Clicky and like, all of this stuff to keep attention. And then I burned myself out, and it was awful. And I was like, Fuck YouTube. I'm not doing this. I'm not making no money. It's taking me forever. It's actually costing me money because I have to pay for an editor. I was like, this is awful. So then I took a couple steps back from it. And then around 2020, the new Google Analytics 4 came out. And I remember I was like, how do I set up GA4? Like, I had no idea how to do this. And so I went to YouTube and I'm trying to look for a tutorial, couldn't find one. I was like, okay, I guess I'm just gonna have to figure it out. Everybody's asking me. And so I went in, figured it out, spent a couple days, whatever, recorded myself doing it, turned it into a YouTube video, mainly so I could just send it to clients and send it to website designers and people that were asking me. That video blew up, ended up getting me across the threshold of a thousand subscribers and the watch time in order to get monetized. And so then I was like, how long can I ride this out? And I remember at the time, I was making like 2, 50, $300 a month just from that video. And so I was like, okay. But I still wasn't enticed to go back to YouTube yet. Then after six months, seven months, it starts to dip. Now I'm making $9 a month. And I was like, fuck. I got a taste of the potential. Like, what is sweet YouTube money? I was like, that's sweet YouTube Adsense money, girl. Like, give me more of that. So then I started. I was like, what? What if I, like, did this my way? What if I did? I only did tutorials because those are easy for me. They cost me less to edit because it's not clickbaity, like, moving Screens gotta stay focused. Yada, yada, yada. I'm doing tutorials, I'm doing screen shares. You have to watch the screen and stay engaged if you want to learn what I'm doing from beginning to end. And so I was like, what if I just do tutorials and what if I just publish every other week? And so that's what I did. I've been consistent for that since 2021. Just about. I think that I missed maybe like a week or two. And then I've been able to. And I mean, the ad money fluctuates depending, but I've been able to stay. I think the most that I've made was like 1100 in one month from YouTube AdSense. And then it dropped down this past year, I think to 500amonth in December, and now it's shooting back up to a thousand a month. That's from me creating two videos a month. These are tutorials. These aren't. I ain't reading a script. I'm not pre planning. I do some YouTube SEO keyword research. I make sure that I know what the hell I'm going to talk about. And then I just rip through them, send them to my editor, publish them. And so the interesting thing with using this to grow my business is like, if you're a marketing strategist, you might be like, girl, how does this work? Because, like, you're creating a tutorial, so you're solving people's problem, literally showing them how to do it. Why would they need to hire you? And also why would they subscribe to the channel? Because you've already solved their problem. That's where I heard you can't grow a successful YouTube channel with tutorials. And I was like, I don't care. I'm not doing anything else. And people ask me for videos all the damn time. And I want to save my breath. Like, I could just whip it together in one and then have a resource for these products that I'm creating. And so I've been able to defy the odds. I don't know, like, people find my YouTube videos, for one thing, end up binging a bunch of tutorials on how to do certain things, see that I'm an expert, and then are literally like, how the hell can I get you to help me with my SEO? Do you do consulting? Please help me. Like, I have had big nonprofits, I have had people within bigger companies, their marketing team, because marketing teams, a lot of people think that there's like a shit ton of people there. Sometimes it's just a team of like three people. And the one marketing manager is like, I have my hands in so many pots, I don't know this very well. And I have to train my content team. And so it's like they see that I know what I'm talking about and then they just slide over to my website and end up being like, how the hell can I work with you? And so YouTube is a huge thing that I'm focusing on. I'm starting to do more YouTube lives. Two, I don't want to have a podcast in a different platform. I would rather grow YouTube and really step into. I'm doing brand sponsorships a little bit more now and really growing that, but just having kind of like a video podcast where I interview other SEO professionals and like bring them on and conversations to grow and learn about our industry. Which I feel like in my industry people are really weird about it. They're just like, I don't want to talk with another SEO person because they might take my clients. And I'm literally like, I can't help everybody. Like, my, my books are booked. Y' all like need other people to refer people to. And so to me, I'm just like, I love learning how people think about things and so really using the YouTube videos and tutorials with YouTube, SEO, YouTube lives. And now I'm coming back to blogging. I'm starting to take certain YouTube videos and certain newsletter ideas that I have and I'm creating more long form blogs on my site because their resources that I literally input in all of my digital products or people slide into my DMs all the time asking me very similar questions, I send them the link to that. Or like, if I'm doing summits or like being a guest speaker and like a group or something like that. Like, I have all of these resources where then people just end up seeing me as like, if I don't know, Mariah knows, like, she's got to have something and like, that's what I want. I want you to see me as the expert. And so how can I create these little resources that solve your problem and position me as the person to help?

[Drea]

Yes. Oh my gosh. Snaps over here because I feel like there's something about the power of generosity that a lot of people discount. You know what I mean? And I come from that space too. So I, I. My first job in marketing was I was an intern for an SEO agency. And it was one of those agencies where it was like, it was a local based SEO agency and it was, this was like 2012, 2013. So at the time it was all like the shady stuff that people say don't do today. It was like literally white text on white background with like, people still do that keywords.

[Mariah]

Yeah, I just saw it the other day.

[Drea]

Oh my God. It's terror, like terrible advice. And so that's where I, that's my background. So like, part of that too is like we, we've, we've seen the traditional experiences and we're like, there's gotta be, there's gotta be another way. And I love that you kind of like created your own path and you also created multiple reven stream. So not only do you have your consulting now, you have money coming in from YouTube and you have the brand partnership. So like there's, there's multiple things around this. So.

[Mariah]

And digital products that people buy because they're literally like, hey, can I have the guide? Do you have a resource? I got DM sitting there right now. I haven't answered. Do you have a resource about this?

[Drea]

Yes, 100%. And next week I have Jessica Abel coming on the show to talk about this concept of like services too. Because one of the things that you talked about that I think people in our space like online business kind of discount a little bit, is that you still make the most money from services. Like, I don't care what people say about like scalable income. Like the top 0.1% of people, sure, they're on the beach raking in the money while they sleep. Most of us are like most people. Services are still the, the fastest way to grow your business, the fastest way to cash. And I love that you identified that too. It's not just your YouTube channel is there just to live the YouTube celebrity life. Like, you also have the consulting as well. It's like a really holistic business model, which I adore. I adore it. Okay. I have follow up questions though. Yes, you talked about them being a tutorial. I want to know how, like, what's, what's the way that you found the best to get people from the tutorial into their world? Are you just leaning on natural curiosity? Do you have strategic, like CTAs, like, what's your thought process behind this?

[Mariah]

Yeah, so I have done one thing that I think has strategically grown my email list. I have not promoted my email list aside from podcast interviews and like summits almost ever. I haven't done, like, I need to grow my email list because YouTube does it and it's been doing it consistently ever since. I started creating, like, my own commercials. So I have two commercials. Am I. Because I was watching these YouTube videos, and I was like, like, these YouTube content creators got commercials for, like, a frying pan. Why can't I be the frying pan?

[Drea]

You are the frying pan.

[Mariah]

Like, I want to be the frying pan. I'm going to talk about me. So I created these commercials, and they're very strategic. They're not in every single YouTube video, because I do have other videos that talk about things that aren't SEO, and so I don't put them in there, but I have one video for a digital product where I'll be, like, interrupting this video right quick because I created something cool and I want to share it with you. And it's really quick and snappy and, like, 90 seconds of it. So that lets people know that I have products even if they don't sell, like, right away. And then at the end, I have a separate commercial that makes people join up my email list. And it was like, hey, you. You made it to the end of this video. And if you're trying to figure out, like, what your next step is for SEO, you should download my roadmap, because I literally just break it down for you so you can stop wondering about it. And so my video editor, I've only had to create those once, and I just write little notes, and I'm like, can you pop in this commercial here and then that commercial here? And she's like, yeah, cool. Love it. So that's, like, a really strategic way that I do it. The other thing that I do pretty intentionally is weaving client examples in, because then it's not a hard sell. It's a soft sell. And now people see, she helps clients. And I'll be like, my consulting clients and my students, people are like, she can help me. This is incredible. And then they come over and they just, like, check out my website.

[Drea]

Yes. 100% to all of this is why I wanted to have you on the show. Because I talk about this all the time as, like, here's what I'm doing. But I love when other people do it too, because I can be like, see? See? It works.

[Mariah]

It works.

[Drea]

I have, like, a few that I cycle through. I'm like, if you like this video, you're probably gonna like this other thing. It's just, like a natural segue. And also for me, too, especially for my private clients, my consulting clients, they have to vibe with me. Like, if you don't watch my YouTube videos or listen to the Podcast, and you just, like, come in cold like, you.

[Mariah]

We.

[Drea]

We may not click. So a lot of my marketing, too, is like. Like, I want to show people what it's like to work with me, because I'm not, like, I wasn't traditionally trained in marketing. My degree is in English literature. Okay. So, like, I don't. I don't know the. The bro e marketing terms. Okay.

[Mariah]

The ro y of the twr. I was like, don't even. I joke around that, like, I barely know what ROI means.

[Drea]

Like, we're not. We're not going all the way that way. But I think it helps me, too, because when I do the tutorials, I'm not, like you said, a marketer talking to other marketers. Like, I'm the in between, you know, Like, I have the marketing practical experience, but, like, I know what it means to watch a YouTube video and go, what the heck are they talking about?

[Mariah]

Yeah.

[Drea]

So I love that. I love that. Okay, so they get into your funnel. They. They go on a video, they see your thing, they sign up for the. The roadmap. Then what happens?

[Mariah]

Like. Like a 6 email sequence that's kind of like, pushes them to something, but is more teaching them my philosophy on. To me, that's the important thing. If you just want SEO to get paid tomorrow and you're not in it for, like, you don't have passion around what you're doing, and you're only looking at as, like, I want results tomorrow because I got to make money tomorrow, and I'm looking for money and blah, blah, blah. Listen, business is about money. I need money. Cool. We understand that. But, like, I want people that value my unique perspective because there is a lot of SEO agencies. Also, I'm not an agency. I don't do done for you retainers. If you want everything done for you, I'm not your girl. So this funnel has to educate them on, like, what I do and what I don't do. And so I'm very much like, I am a consultant and an educator. All of my options. The end goal is for you to take SEO into your own hands, whether that's you, the business owner, your VA or somebody on your marketing team. Team. I don't want you to need me forever. And that is so unheard of in my industry. Everybody's like, no, I want the retainers. I was like, I tried retainers for a year and literally was so grateful when a client was like, we're selling our business. And I'm like, thank God. Like, love y'. All. Glad y' all are making money. This, this is for the birds. And, like, they were paying my rent every month for me just to do, like, basic things that they didn't want to do do. And so it's like, it's very important for me to share my perspective on SEO, how I operate and what I offer. So that's kind of what I'm teaching people in, like, my email sequence along with, I'm very practical. I'm very actionable, I swear. So I make sure to put some cuss words in my email sequence because I don't want y' all getting my weekly newsletter where I'm saying. And then you're like, she never said that before. So it's like, I'm very intentional about the language and kind of like what I'm teaching people, and then they just go into my weekly newsletter funnel. I send a newsletter every week called Building Momentum. And it's under this kind of thing where it's like, organic marketing takes time. It's foundational. Allow yourself to build momentum. Even if you only have one hour a week to spend with SEO, those baby steps add up and really making it actionable and practical for people.

[Drea]

Yes. I love this. It's like giving. Giving the atmosphere in the room. And it's like, here, here's the vibe that you signed up for. And yes, this is gonn be practical as well. I love that. Okay, so back to the videos. One of the biggest pushbacks that I'm getting from my. My clients right now is that long form content just takes longer to create. Right? Like, sometimes it's easier to, like, snap the selfie, pop a caption, post that on Instagram. And I get that. So I want to talk a little bit about some of the results that you're seeing from long form content. Like, if we can get into the numbers, either you or some of you, your consulting clients, I would love to hear, like, a success story.

[Mariah]

Yeah. Okay. So long. I need to share the perspective on this because we have to shift it. So the short form content. Cute. Love that. People love it. For me, it just. I don't like it. It's not deep enough. I'm a deep. Like, even with my friends, I'm literally just like. And where do we think that that came from? What did your mom say when you were little? Like, I can't help myself. I'm deep. And so, like, I'm a researcher. We're going layers underneath. And so the only kind of, like, quick hit content that I really enjoy is threads, because I can just word vomit like little snippets of things. But even I, I'm looking at my threads, I'm like, these are 17 times longer than what other people. Like some people can put one line and I have several paragraphs. I'm just not like a short winded person. But also I found a, that like reels and short form content took me 17 times longer to create than long form content because, and I'm sure that you've heard this before, but like the shorter the thing, it actually takes more time when you're trying to like really get a point across. It's like writing a book. It's easier to create a longer book because you just like word vomit some things. But if you have to stay within a character limit, it's actually a lot harder to keep the important things and know what to keep in order to get the same result with less words. And so short form content for me, as you can tell by the answer to this question, we didn't even get there yet. I'm a wordy bitch. Like, I just, like, I, I can't. And so long form content, how we want to shift perspective is it's a shareable resource for your people that showcase your expertise. Short form content, it's not enough for me as a consumer to munch up on. It's not enough. Like I'm gonna see like, oh, you know, I did this, this cool thing, I was like a speaker on this and blah, blah, blah, and I'm nosy and I want like a full blog post about your experience. What do you mean? What did you like? What did you not like? Like all of that. And that long form content builds trust because we are so used to that quick hit that we're kind of just like scrolling past them for entertainment purposes. Where I want people that like my depth, that crave the insights, that. So I'm training my audience to expect long form content from me because that's what I prefer to create. And so I already gave an example with my intro. But like one blog post was on page one of Google for nine years without me updating anything. And it got me hundreds of email subscribers a month. And then the other thing. So like even I'm not just talking about blog posts. Like your digital product sales page, my DIY SEO course sales page has been on page one, teetering in between position one, two and three for the past three years. My sales page for DIY SEO course, which is literally exactly what the sales page is about. Driving leads, driving people and Maybe they don't buy because they don't know and like me yet. But you know damn well they're hopping over to my YouTube channel, getting to know me, trying to see like all of this. It's bringing people into my world. And so like long form content just has a longer shelf life for things and it allows you to share them. I share blog posts, I share YouTube videos and like I said, my courses, my digital products, they're super easy for like affiliates to share if you can like have a cookie code over on there. Like, it just makes it so easy to share things. And I think that that's my favorite thing. I don't have to regurgitate the same thing over and over and over and over again. Oh, you want to know about SEO titles and meta disc descriptions? Here's the YouTube video and then here's the blog post with it. So maybe I'll send you the blog post that has the YouTube video embedded and then you can decide do you want to read the post or do you want to watch the video? Because I don't care, I just want you to get the information. And now I'm showing up on Google search on page one and my YouTube video is showing up on YouTube search and my YouTube video is showing up on Google Search. So now I'm getting found in three different arenas. And the cool thing about like where SEO is going to with AI mode, AI overviews, all of that is before social media didn't really translate into SEO results. It was kind of like a. Yeah, social media drives traffic to your website. Okay, cool. But like as an SEO person I was like, not really that helpful to be honest. But now with AI, your website is the training manual for AI on your business. So more strategic blog posts that you have, you are training these AI bots, you are training Gemini, you are training ChatGPT on what you are or like what you do, who you are, who you serve, and the problems that you solve because you're giving them content to munch on. This is how people are getting found in ChatGPT. Like it's because they have the solid SEO foundation set up. The Googlebots understand their site, they understand what problems they solve and they can connect the keywords that are on their site with what people are searching in. Whether that's in an AI overview, whether that's in ChatGPT, it doesn't really matter. It's essentially all training people. So these long form contents are easier materials for these search bots, these AI bots to get trained on. Your business where it's cool because social media is coming into play into this kind of newer thing called brand authority. So domain authority is benefiting in SEO and it's basically like how authoritative is your domain name and like how we improve that is getting backlinks. So links from other websites back to you, all of that kind of boring, a little easy to manipulate. There are like backlink farms that will basically get you backlinks from anywhere you want, all of that. And so Google is now, the way that it's going with these AI bots and stuff like that, it's kind of like taking a look at your entire digital footprint. And so TikToks, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, all of these posts are now getting indexed text on Google searches. So now they are improving your brand authority. And so now if you're talking about the same thing. So we still need strategy here. We can't just like go off talking about random that doesn't align with like our expertise. But if these AI bots which pick up on patterns, that's how they're different than search bots. They're more pattern based. And so if it's noticing. Wow. Mariah talks about a sale on her website. Oh, I'm getting trained on like her perspective of like who she works with and how she works with on her services page and with, with her blog posts and all of that. And oh wow, she's talking about this on YouTube too because the AI bots can see the transcripts. Oh, and she's talking about on LinkedIn threads, Pinterest, Instagram. I don't do TikTok. I just, I don't fuck with it. And so it can basically see. Oh shit. Mariah must really know what she's talking about because I'm noticing this pattern around her brand. But those little quick hit social media things aren't as easy to share when people are looking for resources or they're looking for answers to questions. Like I just had a consult with a client who's very well known on Instagram and he was like, I think we have to turn some of these into blogs because people keep asking me the same question over again and like I can't find this social media post about it.

[Drea]

Yeah.

[Mariah]

Yes.

[Drea]

Oh my gosh, I'm over here like, okay, I have a million Bob questions. First of all, because I'm like, oh, the nosy, the nosiness is like ramping up because I love this and I feel like you put into words something that I've been really struggling to communicate with people with part of the value of AI, which is this concept of brand authority. Because I do find that a lot of people are scared of AI, first of all, especially marketers. It's like the AI taking our job, like rhetoric is being passed around and I don't think that's necessarily true. To me it sounds like when TV started becoming popular and radio was like, oh, like TV is going to take over our jobs. And it's like, okay, let's just. We evolve with it, right? We evolve with the times.

[Mariah]

And then podcast and then like Sirius XM and all these different options came out.

[Drea]

All the options came out and we still have radio. Like it's still there. So I feel like part of this is like you can either be against it and like really fight for your position there or you can evolve with it. I'm of the position of evolving with it, right? And so I love this idea of brand authority versus website authority. Because AI and like technology is just getting more sophisticated, which benefits us. So if someone's searching for like something specific, I hope that ChatGPT is like, oh, I got you. Andre has been talking about this on her YouTube channel and on Instagram and on her website. Just go to her. You know what I mean? Whereas before you had to be so specific about like I need this specific keyword on this specific key, like this specific page. And now it's like it's just getting more sophisticated, which benefits us, which I adore about this strategy and it makes me really like want to double down on long form content as well. Again because it like first of all just lives so much longer than social media, but it like builds the brand authority more, which I love. One of the things though that you mentioned that I have a follow up question on is you mentioned other social platforms thread specifically. Are you repurposing anything from like the blogs and the YouTubes over to the other socials or like what's your, what's your strategy there?

[Mariah]

People aren't gonna like my answer. I'm not very strategic when it comes to that, to be honest. I kind of like sometimes I'll like throw my YouTube video up there if like I want to. And then other times I'm just like, oh, it's easy for me on threads to just little bites that I find myself saying on a client call saying in a YouTube video, having to write in an email 14 times this week, week I pop it over to threads. So it's kind of just a. I think people need to hear this. Here we go. Less of strategic repurposing.

[Drea]

Yeah. And what about LinkedIn link?

[Mariah]

LinkedIn is my dumping ground of like, when I remember to post on there. Yeah, okay, but it's all like, related. If I have like a YouTube live and I know that the person has like a decent following on LinkedIn, I'll make sure to talk about the YouTube live over on LinkedIn. But I'm usually when it comes to LinkedIn, I'm either repurposing my threads like word for word, or my email newsletter. I'm not creating unique content for LinkedIn.

[Drea]

Yeah, okay, so that is content repurpose. See, I feel like people, okay, those of you who are OD listeners, you'll start to notice the pattern. I can't. Almost every person is like, I'm not strategic. And then they lay out a strategic strategy and I'm like, okay, yeah, that, that is strategic. I feel like there is, it's, it's a little more. Are intuitive. And a lot of the people I work with don't have that intuition that, that you just, you're just like, oh, I like, I'm just gonna take it from the newsletter and pop it over to LinkedIn. Like, a lot of people I work with don't think that way. That's why they're listening to this podcast. They're like, oh, I could just take my newsletter and copy. Paste it to LinkedIn. Yes, yes. Put it somewhere else. I love that. I love that. Okay, so future, future thoughts, what's next for you? You keeping the every other week week cadence with the YouTube videos. And then you mentioned you're adding in blogging. How frequently are you doing that?

[Mariah]

Yeah, blogging is going to be like whenever I want type thing. It depends on. Yeah, yeah, I, I think that that's the thing. My entire marketing strategy, aside from every other week on YouTube, which for the past couple weeks, I have to get some brand sponsorship videos in there. So I've been doing every week for like the past three weeks, weeks. And my YouTube video editor, I'm pretty sure she hates me because she was like, girl, we have been doing this for like 2 years every other week. And now you're like doubling my workload and I'm like, hi, thanks. So that is a little. A tiny bit flexible on like, how many videos I have to squeeze in in a certain amount of time. But mainly it's every other week. YouTube Lives. I think I would like to do once a month. Month. For now, that feels really easy for me. I'm not trying to just add in random shit to fill up my schedule. Blogging is more so I would probably say once a month. So it's not going to be every YouTube video. It's going to be YouTube videos or newsletter ideas that, like, I get a lot of replies on that. Like, I want to turn into something that lives for a very long time. Like, there was this topic I just turned into a blog post about is SEO only for Google? Because people so often, us SEO people, we fucked ourselves over and we were using SEO and Google, like, kind of interchangeably when it comes to things. But, like, SEO actually predates Google. Like, SEO is like, it's not dying, it's not dead. It literally is like how we use the Internet. Like, it's how we use ebay, Amazon, like, Etsy, all. If you're searching for something on the Internet, Internet, it's essentially what it is. Like, people getting their content found through the key words that they are putting in certain places. And so I had a lot of people being like, well, SEO is dead because, you know, AI is taking over. And I was like, chatgpt search is literally a search engine, dude. Yeah, like, SEO. Like, I don't know if you remember Ask Jeeves.

[Drea]

Yes, Y.

[Mariah]

That was a search engine. How to get found in the search engine. It's SEO, baby. Like, and so I ended up having that newsletter topic. I was like, yo, I need to. I need to, like, word vomit this stuff. And so I ended up creating a blog post on it, and now I link back to it and, like, certain things. And, like, I'll send it for podcast show notes. I'll post about it on thread sometimes and all of that. So my blog strategy is a little bit more flexible. I will overwhelm myself if I have too many parameters. And then I end up just doing things to check things off the list. And then again, my energy isn't behind it. I'm creating my own prison. I am, like, too structured for my own good. Where to me, I have one priority, which is YouTube. That is my ride or die. If nothing else gets done, that has to get done. And then my weekly newsletter, everything else is kind of like, play.

[Drea]

Yeah. Yes. Play.

[Mariah]

Yes.

[Drea]

You said the magic word. I love this so freaking much. And for those of you who are listening, I hope y' all took notes because there are so many ideas in here for how you can play in your own marketing. It doesn't have to be this rigid, structured thing and you can still be successful. I love that. So for people who are listening, who are like, okay, I Need Mariah in my life. You mentioned the SEO roadmap twice. And so I was like, we're talking about the SEO roadmap, but how do we get it?

[Mariah]

Yes. Yeah. So you can go over to my website, Mariah magazine.com roadmap and it should redirect you right over to the free roadmap. It's basically like just an overview of the six steps for successful SEO. And I do want to say that, like, the foundations of SEO are the same thing with AI. There is going to be probably things as we learn about how the AI algorithms kind of happen and how they pull things, us SEO freaks will probably figure out different ways to, like, game the system and figure things out. And like, we just really enjoy problem solving on the Internet. And so there will be things that like, eventually we'll have to do. It's so new right now that what we're seeing is the people getting the best results are the people that have a really solid SEO foundation, like truly. And so what that means I break it down in the roadmap and all of that totally free. And then I have the three things that you should do right away if you want to get started within the next hour with your SEO. And one of those is signing up for a Google Search console. It's a free tool created by Google. And number two is Bing Webmaster Tool. So I have tutorials. Don't feel like you gotta like, set all that shit up on your own. I have tutorials. You can get the link in the roadmap, but ChatGPT search is actually pulling from Bing's search index. So if you are not in Bing's. Yeah, if you're not in Bing Search Index and Bing doesn't know about you, you are not going to get pulled into chatgpt Search.

[Drea]

Dang it. I have homework to do. I don't need. I don't. I haven't looked. I have no idea. Idea.

[Mariah]

So if your website's been around the Internet, Bing probably knows if you're not like, not like if you're not de indexing your site. But you want to have control over these things. You want to submit your site map. And I know that this is probably gibberish to some people, but I go through it in the roadmap, download it. And so it's interesting because, oh, I just hear so often like, SEO is dead. And I'm like, ChatGPT search literally doesn't even have its own Internet index. It needs Bings. And then where do you think that Bing came up and decided to develop their index. You think that they just pulled it out of their ass? No, they were inspired and probably using similar things to Google's index. Google is a massive business. Too big for their own good, might I add. But it's like these things aren't going anywhere. And so as business owners, can we learn how to play in the search world a little bit so that we can stop spending so much time doing that doesn't move the needle and instead just like build a foundation that feels strong and stable? Because like, I don't know about you, but like, I didn't get in business to do everything. I just want to do the stuff that matters.

[Drea]

Well, yes. Okay. If y' all heard me clicking, that's literally me downloading it right now. Because I'm like, wait, wait a second, I, I have, I haven't even looked. I've been ignoring Bing, so sorry. Bing. I'm gonna look into you now. Mariah, thank you so much. I'll put this link in the show notes too for y' all listening online. Dre.com,366 and all of Mariah's links where you can check her out online. But thank you so much for being on the show today. This was great.

[Mariah]

Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for letting me word vomit all of my perspective and talking about SEO. I just really enjoy when I can have a space to talk about this with somebody that also might get a little lit up by long form content. And yeah, this was fun. Thanks for having me.

[Drea]

Yes, of course. And I have homework now, but if you're listening and you're like, I want to do more of this in my marketing, like this is my vibe. Also I have to tell you about the Mindful marketing lab where one of our word of the years this year is play. We are playing, we're experimenting, we're shifting as a marketing is shifting. And I share my marketing experiments. So this whole Bing thing probably going to be turned into a marketing experiment. I'm gonna put it in the lab so you can see me working on my business alongside with you and all of our members. Come on in the water Spine. Next week I will have Jessica Abel on the show to talk about relationship based marketing, specifically the importance of service based business owners and how to market your business and your services. It's totally different than being a celebrity or any influencer or content creator. Okay, so come on in for that episode next Tuesday. I'll see you then. Bye for now.