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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your, your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com now let's jump into today's show. So there's a massive debate about how to get discovered on YouTube right now. But there's been massive claims across the Internet that YouTube SEO is dead.
- [00:51]
B
SEO is dead.
- [00:52]
A
Search, I think, just, it doesn't work. Things like tags don't matter and YouTube has changed. And so we're actually going to be looking at those claims one by one in this video and really talking about the actual math. Not hype, not opinion. But what does it take right now to start and grow a YouTube channel and actually get views and even go viral? I've been creating content on YouTube for 18 years, got three silver play buttons, a gold play button, and actually have generated millions of views, over a hundred million views now from YouTube search. But can you still do that today? Well, on the Think Media podcast, I'm joined by my co host, Nathan S. Wine, who's also generated tens of thousands of dollars from search traffic From Search on YouTube. But in a 2026 world, Sean Nathan, is that relevant or not? There's been a few videos that have been posted. There's been a little bit of smoke around this conversation. And so, you know, what we've done is pulled out some of those claims. And so Nathan, um, you can walk us through these and we'll kind of debate this and look at what the truth is. But what, what do you, what is your big thoughts? You've watched some of these videos, some of the claims out there. What do you feel about search traffic, browse traffic, and the big picture of what it takes to win on YouTube right now.
- [02:09]
B
This is such a, I think a critical conversation, especially if you are a new channel or if you are restarting channel this year because YouTube has changed. That's facts. But I think there's misinformation about search and how important it is and how much we should pay attention to it. So here, here's the first, the first claim that's out there right now. Is that search traffic is so tiny, it's a small portion of what's responsible for your views anyway. It just kind of doesn't really matter anymore. And so the idea that if there's this search traffic that's so much smaller than browse, so much smaller than a suggested. And by the way, I even had to refresh myself on this. If you go into your YouTube analytics traffic sources, there's like 9, 10, 11 plus different sources. So the big three we think of as browse to suggested search. But then there's shorts, feed, end screens, playlist, channel pages, external. Like, there's actually a whole bunch of other traffic sources. So I think if we're gonna have this conversation as we go forward. And actually, here's my big. Here's my big thought right now up front, as I was thinking through these different traffic sources as a coach, and I've. I've made this mistake before. I just jump into strategizing the traffic source, and I just jump right into, like, how can we blow you up now? I would say the first question actually isn't the traffic source. And it's not even se. It's not even browse. I actually think it's more responsible to start with the audience, because as I was thinking through stuff, I'm like, oh, actually the audience should determine the traffic source and how heavy we weight it.
- [03:37]
A
Yeah.
- [03:38]
B
Because different audiences have different viewer behavior. There's different viewer signals is what YouTube actually calls it. And so I think that to start the conversation, I'm curious what you think about that, because I'm thinking through, okay, we could just jump into browser. Cause that's what everyone's favoring right now, it seems like is like, if you want to blow up on YouTube, lean into browse. And there's legitimacy there. But I'm also just thinking through one of our clients that are in our private client experience, Berman Golf. His audience is senior golfers. And I got into his analytics before jumping on here with you. And sure enough, the dominant portion of his traffic is search, because his audience is conducive to that method of consumption. They are searching things specifically. They're older, bless their hearts, that I got time to waste. They're specifically searching. Right. Like this golf technique or this swing or I'm having issues here. My back is doing this. And so that's showing up in his. In his back end. And so as his coach, I think it'd be a disservice to just be like, who cares about search?
- [04:32]
A
Totally.
- [04:33]
B
What is, like, such a Big portion of his audience, you know.
- [04:35]
A
Yeah, I think if we attack the claim. So the claim is search traffic is tiny, so SEO doesn't matter. And the actual stat on the YouTube platform is search is only responsible for up to 3% of views on all of YouTube. Now that makes it sound irrelevant.
- [04:54]
B
Yes, of course.
- [04:54]
A
Because only 3%, you might as well ignore it. I think the consideration though is YouTube is getting billions with a B of views per day. And so I'll take 3% of a billion, if respect. Yeah. If everybody else starts ignoring search, please. Yes, I'll take the 3% of a building of a billion. I think you said the exact right application though. We have to start from kind of first principles. If, if you're thinking my audience is in the shorts feed looking for entertainment, comedy or music videos, then is search going to work for you? Probably not. I think you could oversimplify and go even higher up if you're an entertainment channel.
- [05:39]
B
Oh man.
- [05:39]
A
Story based channel. Now I also think it's still an absolute. Let me just say that plainly. You know, search traffic is so tiny, SEO doesn't matter. I think it's false. It's still false.
- [05:51]
B
Yeah.
- [05:51]
A
And I'll explain more deeply why. However, if you are a heavy entertainment channel and your discoverability is going to be pure spectacle, pure story. Kind of like a Ryan Trahan. I stay at the worst hotels across America.
- [06:07]
B
Yes.
- [06:07]
A
That's the intent of watching a video like that is I'm coming to YouTube looking to be entertained.
- [06:12]
B
That's right.
- [06:13]
A
That sounds funny. That sounds crazy. It shows up on your homepage and you click on it and no doubt about it, Ryan's getting millions and millions and millions of views. So that's a virality piece. But we have to actually ask a better first principles question. Yeah, who's your audience? What are you trying to do? What are we trying to do? Because search is not dead. We're talking about millions and millions and billions of views that are still coming from search. But I think the other big thing to say up front is that just because search is a small traffic source, it doesn't like eliminate it from getting traffic elsewhere. And for a new channel, you want to be findable in the first place. How does somebody find me when they don't know me? And so if I start a channel that's going to help senior golfers and there's a specific question they're asking, and then I do a search based video, it trickles at the start. Maybe it's slow views, it still can get browse traffic. Eventually it can still then get found into the algorithm, but it starts in search and then eventually gets suggested. So it would be foolish to ignore search principles on YouTube in 2026.
- [07:19]
B
That is huge. And we can park here for just a quick second before we move on to the next claim. Here's what's interesting to me, Sean, is it's almost like a chicken or the egg situation to say that search is irrelevant now and it's all about what's YouTube recommending. That's the game to plug into. You got to figure that stuff out. I think actually it's interesting because the recommendations, and I was just educating myself on this before we hopped on here to make sure I'm not just saying stuff right in YouTube support articles. Yes. This is how nerdy I got. There are different viewer signals. Search history is a viewer signal. The viewer signals are what make up the populations on homepages.
- [08:01]
A
Yes.
- [08:01]
B
So it's actually to say part of YouTube recommendations is search history. It's like it's actually part of it, you know, so to say it's irrelevant. Wow. I mean, that's kind of just throwing out a pretty high intent viewer signal that YouTube explicitly says that it cares about. Are there other signals? Yes, it's not the only one.
- [08:17]
A
Sure.
- [08:17]
B
But that's kind of something I just want to say out loud is like, no, of course it still matters because YouTube says it does.
- [08:22]
A
You know, and before we move on, so disclaimer, I'm going to show you some real numbers from Think Media.
- [08:26]
B
Okay, let's go.
- [08:27]
A
And I understand that Think. Think Media is not an example of all the different channels on YouTube, but if you're an education channel, you would be super foolish to ignore search. So let's define Think Media is an education channel. And so when we think about search, you know, education works different. Someone wants a camera recommendation. They want help fixing something. They want advice on growing a channel. They want a tutorial. They want an explanation. They're in. They're searching for it. They are typing, typing it in. Or they're saying it out loud. Verbal prompts. They're asking YouTube directly. All right, real data from our channel. This is fascinating. On our YouTube shorts, 71% of viewers found our shorts on Think Media through search. And that attributed 17.5 million views.
- [09:16]
B
71%.
- [09:17]
A
71% of viewers found short or YouTube shorts. And this is, by the way, when you type in text searches on YouTube. Shorts are showing up on the homepage or on the feed.
- [09:28]
B
Yes, that's right. That's right.
- [09:30]
A
And so again, I mean, I get we got a lot more to have claims to go into, but like, already anyone who says SEO is dead. I mean, I get where they're coming from. And marketing a lot of times is about like, polarization and absolutes. Yes, but it's like, I don't, I don't see how 17.5 million views is dead.
- [09:46]
B
Yeah.
- [09:47]
A
Oh, yeah. What's different for you guys? Okay, well, I mean, we can have the debate, but like, okay, let's go deeper. Overall, on our channel, 3.4 million views per month, 54.8% of our views come from search, and then 14.8% come from home browsing, and then 8% come from suggested videos. Now I'm happy to enter the debate where they'd say, well, yeah, I mean, you're, you're getting 3.4 million views per month. The most viral creators are getting 30 view 30 million views per month. Yeah, fair enough. But again, we're talking about niche camera tutorials or like specific lenses. And then the iceberg of monetization underneath our business is like, we're not just relying on the AdSense there. It ties more directly to affiliates, high intent brand deals because of the quality of the audience that's actually searching. Something is not just sitting passively waiting to be entertained. They're looking for answers to specific problems. So this is a great conversation that takes us into like strategy itself.
- [10:44]
B
Here we go.
- [10:45]
A
Not all views are considered equal. And so anyways, I mean, I don't know if you want to hit anything before the next claim, but think media, and I think you could then zoom out and say, anybody? That is an education channel. You know, you're a coach, you're a course creator, you're a service provider, you're a business owner. Like, search is not dead. Search is strategic. But you also, I think, should listen to the end of the episode because there's going to be some layers to this of how it is changing this year. One of our secret weapons for YouTube success here at Think Media is the Vidiq. They make it super easy to come up with video ideas that get views, optimize your videos. And the new suite of AI tools has been a total game changer. And if you haven't tried Vidiq's AI coach or video idea generator yet, you've got to check it out. The truth is, creators that have better tools have an unfair advantage. So if you want to accelerate your channel's growth for just $1, hit the link in the description down below and start using Vidiq and today. Now let's jump back into the video.
- [11:44]
B
I think the second claim actually is a perfect segue into where we're. Where we're heading with this whole conversation, because already right here in our room, like, just about all of us were nodding our heads because we know at Think Media, it's not all about the views. Right. And I've. I've had to learn this too. You can get views, and views don't necessarily mean anything unless they're attached to some sort of strategy. If your strategy is just, I want to pop off as much as possible as fast as possible. Freaking. Yeah. Who cares about search? Let's figure out how to, like, dominate, browse. There's a place for that. Yeah, but. But this, this whole conversation around search is dead. I think it's. It's. It's a. It's a little silly to me if we're not also considering, okay, what's the point of popping off? Like, we all want it, but aside from the numbers and how that makes our channel look and our videos, in our videos look, what did something actually do for our business? And you and I both know, each and every day, each and every week, our community is finding wins through getting like 30, 50, 100 views on a video. But because there was a call to action. Yeah, because there was strategy involved. This real estate agent just closed X deal, and you know what I'm saying? So, like, define blowing up, I guess, is what I'm trying to get to. And I'm not trying to, like, dodge a question to be too Yoda and ambiguous over here. Like, define the success of whatever. But it's like, it's really. It's a real talk, you know, like, define blowing up.
- [12:59]
A
So claim two is search can't blow. Blow up a channel.
- [13:01]
B
This is it. Yes. Right.
- [13:03]
A
And the like, search exists, but it's too slow.
- [13:06]
B
That's right.
- [13:07]
A
Like, because you just mentioned. Yeah, which is true. Our community is getting big money off of 30 views, 100 views, 222 views. And so if. Fair. If you're measuring by. If a video doesn't get thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of views, it failed. Well, then by that lens. Okay, fair enough. And again, this would. By blowing up, if you want to go crazy viral, you want to go parabolic, I would agree with the claim that, yeah, search itself is not gonna blow up a video. Yeah, true, true.
- [13:41]
B
And here. Yeah. True song. Cause I'm like. I'm like, just want to go into coach mode. I'm like, okay, yes, overnight. Agreed. But I'm like a video can outlier years later.
- [13:54]
A
Yes.
- [13:55]
B
This is like a whole other conversation.
- [13:58]
A
I think why a lot of people also miss search is it's two different mindsets because. Okay, it would be great to blow up fast.
- [14:04]
B
Agreed.
- [14:05]
A
We just posted a video recently. Zero to a thousand subscribers in nine days, monetized in 15 days. That kind of stuff is going to happen because of viral strategies and that it's great. One interesting question about YouTube though is not just where are you this week or where are you this month, but where's your channel a year, two, three, four years later? I think because of my principal approach to YouTube, obviously our main program is called Video Ranking Academy. Maybe that's not obvious because there's new people here, but I became obsessed with ranked videos and I became obsessed with honestly, slow growth but consistent growth over time.
- [14:44]
B
Yes.
- [14:45]
A
And like right now I've got a 16 year old video that's still getting views today, still making money through affiliate links, still growing subscribers today. And it's 16 years old and a lot of times it's. This is a tortoise and the hare.
- [15:03]
B
Yes.
- [15:03]
A
Story.
- [15:04]
B
Yes.
- [15:04]
A
And the famous story of the tortoise and the hare, of course is you have this slow turtle and you have this fast rabbit, but that is also a little bit arrogant and overconfident. Beats the turtle. I'm crushing it. Look at you. It's so embarrassing. You're going so slow and all the, all the tortoise is doing is slow and steady. And then what the rabbit, the hare ends up doing is says, man, I'm so far ahead. I'm gonna take a nap, I'm gonna chill out.
- [15:32]
B
I'm good.
- [15:33]
A
I'm gonna relax a little bit. But the tortoise never stops. And then the hair oversleeps and the tortoise ends up winning the race.
- [15:40]
B
Yeah.
- [15:41]
A
The summary is slow and steady wins.
- [15:44]
B
Yes.
- [15:45]
A
Now if you can hit the gas, go viral, constantly be coming up with new ideas, constantly reinvent yourself, not burn out and do that, more power to you. And if you're in entertainment, things could be a little bit different. But if you've got a principle based strategy that's compounding. The other thing we talk about is it's like a farming analogy. It's, you know, watching grass grow is a discouraging activity.
- [16:08]
B
Yeah.
- [16:09]
A
Because you plant the seed, you come back the next day. Not much to see. You come back the next day, not a lot to see. But you you plant an apple seed today, eventually a tree grows.
- [16:18]
B
Yes.
- [16:19]
A
Then you eventually have fruit, then the apples fall off, there's more seeds, and eventually you could have an entire apple orchard. How patient are you?
- [16:25]
B
Yes.
- [16:26]
A
And. And I think it would, like this would be binary thinking. I think that's a. That's its own fallacy of being. Being like a forced binary. Like, yeah, SEO is dead and browse is the only thing exists. Like one hurts the. Like one channel could benefit from both.
- [16:43]
B
Yes.
- [16:44]
A
So you could hit trending topics, you could hit browse, but you could also hit search. And so I suppose to be clear, search can't blow up a channel. Agree. That's actually true. Yeah. But at the same time, you also could do both on a channel. You could do both search, suggested browse and benefit from all the above. And they could all growth hack each other different. Different traffic sources. I want traffic. I want the right traffic.
- [17:09]
B
That's it.
- [17:10]
A
Period. And if possible, I'd love to tap into all the traffic sources of YouTube.
- [17:15]
B
I love it. I love that idea. It's just a holistic approach to this whole YouTube thing. I pulled this up and I want to share this with you, Sean. This is a screenshot and we can put it on screen because I have it saved. This is a screenshot of what a ranked video looks like. I just got off a coaching call with someone in our one on one coaching, our accelerator program just this past week.
- [17:32]
A
Yeah.
- [17:33]
B
And they shared this with me and they're like, nathan, we're ranking. And I was like, get out of town. This looks like after 500 days. Yes, 500 days.
- [17:43]
A
That's. That's patient.
- [17:45]
B
That's apple tree, man.
- [17:46]
A
Watch the grass grow for the first 500 days.
- [17:49]
B
So respect. But 500 days. Look at this curve. Tick off.
- [17:54]
A
Dang. That's crazy.
- [17:55]
B
You know what I'm saying?
- [17:55]
A
Yeah. And so now so. And it looks like it was under 12,000 views for 500 days, but now it's at almost. Not only is it almost at 37,000 views, this video, that is one of the clients you're coaching, but it's not stopping at this point. The line is parabolic at now day 1332.
- [18:17]
B
This is the thing. Day 1332. But now this is their most popular video on their channel.
- [18:21]
A
Yeah.
- [18:22]
B
It's eclipsed anything else that they've done over time. So this is why it's hard for. I had to like bite my tongue a little bit. Okay. The claim is search can't blow up a channel. But then it's like, what do I do with that? What do I do with that graph? Like it is blowing up.
- [18:34]
A
And fair enough. Because you have these two challenges in business or as a content creator that wants to start and that's like, I want to pay my bills today or I want to quit my job today or I want to make money in the next week or I want to, you know, go full time in the next month. Yeah. And that's cool. But at the same time, how patient are you? Are you invested in the long haul? Because that's a fascinating thought is a lot of listeners might not even be thinking about day 1332 of their channel.
- [19:04]
B
I wasn't when I was starting.
- [19:06]
A
What is this worth doing? I gotta wait till we just lost people. Sean, four years later.
- [19:13]
B
That's crazy.
- [19:14]
A
Yeah. But what is an asset worth of a library and that our core thesis build a library of ranked videos.
- [19:21]
B
That's right.
- [19:21]
A
Build a. Your YouTube channel is an asset that grows over time. It can have a mix of different content strategies. But if you miss out on search and I've seen this, what is actually fascinating too is sometimes haters hit us up in the comments. I think media kind of a lot. Maybe not a lot, but I mean this comment will come up.
- [19:37]
B
Sure.
- [19:38]
A
And they'll look at maybe a video.
- [19:40]
B
Yeah.
- [19:40]
A
Because you look at subscriber count, they'll see a video and it comes out. It's got 8,800 views and compared to millions of subscribers.
- [19:47]
B
Oh sure, sure.
- [19:48]
A
That'll be like you guys fell off.
- [19:50]
B
You think we're losing.
- [19:51]
A
Yeah, man. You guys, what advice, you know, how can you coach anybody? Well, one thing that's fascinating is those individuals respect and empathy. They don't zoom out and look at the actual channel. I mean in the YouTube education space, go look at the YouTube educators and just count the monthly math. Yeah, I don't know. Just go do the research yourself. I won't say anything here. You could see what you discover in the comments. And you know, Think media is pulling 3, 4 million, 5 million views a month. Think Media podcast close to a million views a month. And so some of the browse channels might be getting 550,000amonth, but they. They'll hit a video but then their whole library stops as opposed to having an going viewership and their. Yeah, their videos are not getting views 1355 days later.
- [20:37]
B
Yes.
- [20:37]
A
So I'm like, you know that person's. I'm like, you're commenting today. Hey, let's talk 600 days from now. Maybe here Comments link back up, man. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's an. It's an interesting perspective, which almost is like, this is the hidden strategy. It's still like a public. In public view. It's a secret strategy. Yeah. It's also a slow strategy that also is a reflection, I think of human nature right now, which it's like if it's not viral and it's not instant, and if it's not chachi BT finishing what, you know, this task in the next five minutes, it gets. Not valuable. Yeah, it's. It's kind of. It's like an. It's like an invisible. It's a shadow YouTube strategy to have a smart long term search game dialed in.
- [21:17]
B
I love that. Put that on a poster, Kyle. That's awesome. So good.
- [21:22]
A
One thing I want to get into because we have to hit all seven claims and. But I want to let people know this, I think brings the question. So someone might be asking and listening to this. Okay, Sean, Nathan, what then would be the right strategy for me or what would be the right mix? Because I think we are sometimes misinterpreted at Think Media to say, well, bro, but all you guys are doing is teaching people to do search. And it's like, no, not at all. Not even about 50% of even our core program speaks to jump on trends. Understand. Browse.
- [21:53]
B
Yes.
- [21:54]
A
We have an AI title tool and it really gives people three directions. And it's kind of like you could take any one topic and have a curiosity. Viral approach.
- [22:04]
B
Yes.
- [22:05]
A
A search approach to it. Yeah. Or kind of a hybrid approach to it. And so there's different strategies for different, you know, time and place, a lot of work to be done to reverse engineer your brand, your offer, you know, the deep work of YouTube. And I wanted listeners to know we actually are hosting a two day event in person.
- [22:23]
B
Yeah.
- [22:23]
A
So if people want to be with us, it's called Our YouTube Mastermind. You can apply at Think Media Mastermind. And again, it's not for everybody. And if it's a good fit, we'll jump on the phone with you and would love people to come because your question might be. Okay, cool. Well, now I'm kind of confused though. Do I go browse? Do I go search? Do I go suggested. What's the mix? What's right for me? We're gonna get fierce clarity in two days, plus go a lot deeper on some of these concepts. So again, that's in Las Vegas. It's probably about three weeks out at the time of recording thinkmediamastermind.com if you want to apply. Two day event will map your whole YouTube strategy for you. Reverse engineer your strengths and it'll be a fun day to also network and connect with other people 100%.
- [23:04]
B
I love that we do this event. And just real quick before we move on, I had this exact conversation with someone at our last event who was like, pulled me aside and was like nathan, can I Show you my YouTube analytics? He pulled out his phone, YouTube studio and the exact feedback that I gave him was like man, things are looking really good but we're pretty heavily indexed in a few traffic sources. And my actual feedback to him was like I would love to see in your strategy a little bit more search based stuff to help round out these big peaks, feast and famine, you know what I'm saying?
- [23:33]
A
Yeah.
- [23:34]
B
So it's just hilarious like timing of talking about this. Like that's actually where that happened. And man. So I love the idea of what is, it's like what's your portfolio to use the nerdy term. Right. About like no investor who's managing someone's portfolio is going to over index over here in some crazy volatile thing that'd be like it's not good. Right? It's not good. Like management. So you think about. Okay, yeah, management. When I think about my portfolio and looking at the traffic sources like that, I know it's like a different way to look at all this stuff but thinking through where am I overly indexed in and thinking about where am I 13, 27 days from now if I just stay in this pot over here? Yeah, you know.
- [24:10]
A
Yeah, that's strong. Okay. The third claim, keywords, tags and descriptions don't matter. These claims were made in absolutes in a few different videos that were posted out there from different people in this space. I'm curious your take. You know, you're one of the lead think media coaches. Keywords, tags and descriptions don't matter. True or false.
- [24:30]
B
Okay, so false, false. To say they don't matter completely.
- [24:35]
A
Yeah.
- [24:35]
B
Do they matter less? I'll jump on board that ship. Yeah, for sure. Because YouTube is openly set. Tags aren't what they used to be like, okay, that's legit. But to say that they don't matter, I don't think is the whole story because once again, like I said at the top of the episode, I'm going to have weird dreams tonight, Sean, because of how deep in the articles of YouTube support that I was. But YouTube states that the, the, the words that you associate with your video, not just what the AI is analyzing. Right. There's what's like, okay, when you upload a video, your trans crazy stuff, the transcript. YouTube knows who's on screen. Is it a guy or girl? What's on, Is there a guitar there? Or whatever. Like that whole process is happening. But then there's also what you get to contribute to the video along with you pressing publish. And there's a few key areas that you get creative control over. One of those description tags. And YouTube has explicitly said what you put in your description actually helps search alignment. This is from what YouTube says about YouTube Search Ranking System. YouTube's system prioritizes three key elements for best results. Relevance, engagement, and quality. To estimate relevance, we look into many factors, such as how well key point here lean in. Such as how well the title tags, description and video content match a search query. Okay. It goes on to say engagement signals are about. Engagement signals are valuable too. So there's other things there. But just straight from YouTube's mouth on their current articles to say that the tags, description and all that stuff doesn't matter. YouTube's not saying that. They just said that helps with congruence, you know. So, yeah. What's your thought on this?
- [26:09]
A
Yeah, my thought is, I mean, percentagely, I've heard YouTube employees say that tags, if anything, carry 1% influence if almost zero.
- [26:17]
B
Okay. Yeah.
- [26:18]
A
And they also can be helpful for clarifying misspellings or like alternative spellings.
- [26:24]
B
Oh, no way.
- [26:25]
A
Yeah. So sometimes there's like a word that someone says verbally, but that could be said a lot of different ways. So you might be able to reinforce, Reinforce and clarify your videos. But I think grouping those together is the fallacy. Meaning I could almost get on board to say do tags matter anymore? And I'd probably say, no, tags don't matter. But you say do descriptions matter?
- [26:47]
B
And I'd be like, that's hard for me.
- [26:49]
A
I think your description matters and it matters on a couple levels. If we're just talking about getting views, that's one level. But also if it comes from branding or calls to action, but also a level of reinforcing. But the worst part of that claim is keywords don't matter. Yeah. Now I think what the claim means is like the old this is outdated. It doesn't work. Is also against YouTube terms of service, which would be like this idea of keyword stuffing.
- [27:14]
B
Okay.
- [27:14]
A
Yeah. I'm going to go find every list of the keywords.
- [27:17]
B
Yeah.
- [27:18]
A
And just like put them in my description as a way of like hacking the algorithm.
- [27:23]
B
Yes.
- [27:23]
A
Okay. Fair. Stupid strategy. Been outdated for years.
- [27:27]
B
Agreed.
- [27:28]
A
No influence. But. But the word keywords, they do matter. Keywords matter. Because what YouTube is saying is keywords can be included in your title. Keywords are your actual topic. Keywords are a strategic thing to think about. What, what am I actually targeting? And perhaps to a level of specificity, like a keyword singular is, is woman. And if you made a video titled woman, that's pretty vague, that might not do. Yeah, but so then what's a keyword phrase? Well, when you add more than one keyword to the phrase and that would include the concept of keywords. So you could say like a 40 year old woman already. Actually, that's getting a little stronger. We're a little bit more. You know, one of our people that we've collaborated with and done some coaching with and a good friend of the show, Chalene Johnson, is coaching women to kind of like to live well, midlife, 40 and above. She's 56 and it's all, it's like skin care and you know, these seven things reduce cellulite and do the vibration plates work or whatever. So she will call out in the titles, these seven things help reduce cellulite for women over 40. So now we're getting into what's a keyword phrase? Like a very search intent.
- [28:50]
B
Yes.
- [28:50]
A
And she's hitting in the, into the brow strategy as well. But it's like, okay, I'm a woman over 40 that wants to attack cellulite. Those are keywords in your title. That's all strategy, that's all topic like. And now having the right keywords in your title and missing storytelling or missing video or missing.
- [29:08]
B
There we go.
- [29:08]
A
Yeah, yeah, okay, fair enough. But again, these extremes I think are leading people astray. Honestly, the advice is harmful to so many people that are on the Internet. You got to be careful who you follow or who you look listen to.
- [29:20]
B
Yeah.
- [29:21]
A
And, and potentially some of the claims they make. We do our best, of course. Anybody can make a mistake. But like people speaking in absolutes might just be pushing their own agenda. And so I think you got to be careful because no keywords matter.
- [29:34]
B
There's a quote that just popped in my head from Star wars where Obi Wan is looking at Anakin after the betrayal has happened and he's not himself, he's just red eyed and everything and he's nuts, you know, And Obi Wan says only a sith deals in absolutes. And that has just stuck with me. I don't know. So there we go. Nerdy niche reference there. But to double down on that really quick something I was thinking about my drive over here today. It is important to really do your due diligence about who you're following. Because here's just as a coach, here's like where my coach heart comes on. No agendas against anybody, just you, me sitting here. Here's where my coach heart comes on. The advice of saying, of encouraging people. Two do something like this. Lean away from search. It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter. You gotta try to get into browse. Sean, you and I both know as coaches the immense pressure that that puts on the beginner.
- [30:28]
A
Yeah.
- [30:28]
B
Like there is a skill gap here. And that's what kind of ticks me off the most, is because I feel like we're being irresponsible to the beginner. To ask a beginner to go crush browser that requires a skill set of like, of storytelling, packaging. You've got your title styled and you can do a thumbnail. You've got your editing, your ability to communicate. You like, that's actually more of like towards black belt on like the YouTube.
- [30:53]
A
I talked to my son, Sean Bradley, and I'm like, son, I understand you're five, but if you don't make it on the college basketball team this week, that's it. I am disowning you.
- [31:04]
B
That's the other son. Yes, son, but it's the energy. It's like, oh, so you want to start running? Great. The marathon's next weekend, you know, and you're like, I'm gonna die. So here's what I think is cool.
- [31:15]
A
Six month old. You have a six week old.
- [31:17]
B
I have a six week old.
- [31:18]
A
You're not running yet.
- [31:19]
B
Hallie, honey, this is because I love you run. No, but like, this is real talk. And so I think this is a big missed opportunity to just coach. Well, because there's the tactics and then there's like the psychology stuff, which is like how we all know we're gonna actually make change in the behavior stuff. And I know that if I have a beginner, I have a much better shot at them sticking through 1,322 seven days on YouTube that I know they need to see the success that they want to have by actually going through a search approach. You know why? Because the barrier to entry of that strategy is naturally lower. Because what do you have to do to be able to execute a search strategy? You actually don't. I'm curious what you think I would say you don't even need to have a perfect thumbnail. Your Titles don't even have to be perfect, you just have to be willing to go get clarity. And there's tools that are out there to help you figure out what your people are looking for. Right. And so the other side of just figuring out, oh, what are problems that people have, what are things people are searching for and how can I show up and be the person that helps them, you can just start creating because the pressure to just crush it in browse is actually a veteran skill set, I would argue.
- [32:30]
A
Yes. And I want to hit the next one quick, but let me give a quick checklist in 2026. Where do keywords matter now? Tags almost no influence. Description. AI can help you quickly do that. But there's actually three big areas where it really matters. Titles huge. Because people still read words and they're looking for that specific topic. Two chapters and timestamps. YouTube chapters are rankable themselves even on the homepage of Google in terms of snippets. So even a portion of your video can include strategic keywords and can be another source of traffic. And then another one is is the script and what you say out loud.
- [33:10]
B
Okay, so claim number four is that the algorithm is all about clicks and watch time. If you were to boil everything down, the algorithm lives off clicks and watch time.
- [33:20]
A
Yeah, here's my take. That is 100% right. But that does not mean SEO is dead.
- [33:27]
B
Because.
- [33:30]
A
At the end of the day, if any video is going to get views or rank in search, because we've validated that search still drives traffic, millions of views, you people still need to click on the video, but they also do still need to watch it. So thus the right tags, the right keywords or description or even what you say, if you don't hold any retention then then the video is not going to rank, it's not going to get traffic. So of course high click through rate and watch time is also then how you could get distribution in browse and suggested. And so if the algorithm is all about clicks and watch time, fine, that statement is a claim being made. But it doesn't reinforce the statement that SEO is dead. Sure. It just reinforces that of course at the end of the day anything that's going to get future traffic has to have a level of viewer satisfaction 100 and YouTube, that's the term to know key term listeners all need to understand is what is YouTube solving for viewer satisfaction? How do people vote with their satisfaction? YouTube actually gives about seven factors, but they're the biggest one is just with their time. Yeah, if they Click on the video and watch it. That is evidence that they didn't click off. They stuck around. So YouTube says, hey, you know, and when someone isn't satisfied, you know, you could get very specific to some of the most like snipered in search type of topics. You're searching for a new grill, you know, are you going to get the ninja wood fire electric grill? Do you want to get a charcoal grill? Are you going to get, you know, a Traeger or something? You're doing your research and so maybe you even narrow down to the type of grill you're research researching. But you click on a video and in the first few seconds, it doesn't grab your attention. The per. It actually does get recommended to you, but you click on it and for whatever reason, you leave. Man, this guy's not getting to the point very fast. Oh man. You know, the audio quality actually is not of a sufficient level. Like, I mean, he's from. It's so echoey in that room. Like you just some reason you don't stick around in that video. Okay, no, yeah. Clicks and watch time for sure. That's. That is the core of YouTube. But it doesn't mean SEO is dead.
- [35:38]
B
100%, I would say. Yeah, clicks and watch time is just that matters for any strategy you're going to do on the platform. Whether you're trying to go all. All search, you know, or all browse or just you care about suggest I'm like even in all traffic sources. For them to even show up in your analytics would require a click and a stay, you know, so yeah, a hundred percent.
- [35:55]
A
All right, claim number five. People aren't searching anymore. They're just exploring. This was actually said this would be fun. Maybe I'll have him on the podcast. Well, he's, he's been on the podcast many times, but by, you know, a friend of mine and love him. But this is an absolute statement. People aren't searching anymore. They're just exploring. It's too black and white. Yeah, it's. I mean, you don't want to join the sith. You want to be on the light side. Like if you speak in absolutes. Because. No, we've already proven it. You. You did a research on the senior golfing. Now, mind you, this individual has got insane views like. And it's crushing browse. Yes, that's cool. But it depends on what your end intent is. And, and what does that mean? Let's actually play back up that statement. People aren't searching anymore. They're. They're just Exploring that is a very true social media behavior.
- [36:51]
B
Yeah.
- [36:51]
A
A lot of people, they're realizing algorithms are so good.
- [36:54]
B
Yeah.
- [36:55]
A
That what I do is I just open up. I just rely on Graham.
- [36:58]
B
Yeah.
- [36:58]
A
And I just start watching what it shows me and I'm laughing out loud a lot. Like it's getting to know me.
- [37:03]
B
Yeah.
- [37:03]
A
I'm opening up YouTube. And actually maybe 99% of people watching or listening to this are actually like, no, I hate YouTube homepage now. They don't even give me long form videos anymore. All I want is long form. And all I'm given is shorts.
- [37:17]
B
Doesn't understand.
- [37:18]
A
Yeah. There's going to be problems. Like actually it used to be good. Now the recommendation. So I have to go search out and find what I want because YouTube has messed up the homepage lately. Well, which is why maybe SEO is actually being revived as we speak.
- [37:32]
B
Revival.
- [37:32]
A
The only way to get found because shorts are just being pushed on every feed everywhere and like to.
- [37:38]
B
So.
- [37:38]
A
But you know, a lot of people are exploring. They're just like, man, algorithm has kind of figured out. I mean there is, I. I think there's even different times of the day. Let me take you into a day of my life.
- [37:48]
B
Would you please?
- [37:49]
A
So I'm a big YouTube channel consumer. I consume on my phone. Maybe if I hit the restroom, maybe when I'm making coffee in the morning. I got three minutes while my AeroPress is brewing.
- [37:58]
B
Yeah.
- [37:59]
A
Two minutes and fifty seconds. The hot wires in there. I open up YouTube. And during the day, usually during the day, I'm actually in an education mindset. What else? What's happening in, you know, marketing, social media, etc. Like my evening YouTube practice is a television practice. Apple TV.
- [38:18]
B
Yeah.
- [38:19]
A
Apple remote.
- [38:19]
B
Yes.
- [38:20]
A
And yes. I usually am just exploring.
- [38:23]
B
Yeah.
- [38:24]
A
I open it up and I start clicking through that top line of videos, which is recommendations. What's getting my attention. So what is getting recommended? And then I never know where it's going to take me. But YouTube might know me. Maybe it's some weird personal. The downfall of the Starbucks. Why did Starbucks close 100 stores? Or it might be some, you know, the truth about ancient aliens and the Nephilim. I'm like, where am I? Like, what just happened? What. What's happening here? Okay. And you know, and, and then. Or maybe something political or something. Yeah. So that is a certain intent I am exploring at that point. But I think there's different people, different ages, different points of their day, different devices, different surfaces.
- [39:03]
B
Yes.
- [39:04]
A
And so, you know, to give credit to this yeah, no, a lot of people are exploring 100%. And that's what is blowing up channels.
- [39:12]
B
Yes.
- [39:13]
A
But it's an overreach to say they aren't searching anymore.
- [39:18]
B
Absolutely.
- [39:19]
A
Millions of people daily. Billions of people daily and around the world are still hitting the Internet with absolute search intent.
- [39:27]
B
100. And I'm even thinking about this newer feature that's on YouTube lately, which is. Have you seen this? It's this little box that pops up. It's got like the YouTube AI icon and it says like just basically describe the kind of content you're looking for. For. And it's an AI sort of thing, but you still have to articulate what kind of video you're trying to. And it wants you to put in a mood, it wants you to put in how you're going to feel. And so you still have to search like you're still putting your words out there and articulating what you're interested in.
- [39:54]
A
Yes.
- [39:55]
B
And so yeah, I think people are exploring, but I'm also just like, man, we all are searching for things just about every day, you know, depending on something that you've said for a long time. SEAN is on YouTube. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Right. And I know that's an education based sort of thing, but nonetheless, when people are ready to look for the thing that your niche can show up for, well, they're gonna search, you know, they're gonna start doing those queries.
- [40:19]
A
So yeah, I mean, recently I was trying to think about do I need when the student is ready. And this could be as simple as a product.
- [40:25]
B
Yeah.
- [40:25]
A
We make a big case for rsp. Review specific products.
- [40:29]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [40:30]
A
Even if you're not a review channel.
- [40:31]
B
Yeah.
- [40:31]
A
Because it can pull in a specific audience. And I was looking for a JBL speaker and I went down the deep. I actually started on ChatGPT.
- [40:39]
B
Okay.
- [40:39]
A
And then I went over to YouTube. What was the other one? I realized Chat GPT wasn't good enough. I want a human's opinion. So what I did though is I started. I started learning about all these generations of JBL speakers because I was curious which ones link together.
- [40:53]
B
Oh yeah, Party mode. Yeah.
- [40:55]
A
And like. And so there's a couple eras. Some of the old ones don't do it. Some of them will link together. The newest era opens like a radio channel is essentially what it is.
- [41:03]
B
Okay.
- [41:04]
A
And you could link almost like indefinite speakers to it, but then they would all need to have that. And if you get that one, it's not going to work. With your old one. And then I realized I was like, this is all a big scam because I already have three JBL speakers, but now I want to like totally get on board with the new technology. But then I started to think and what moved me, I went from ChatGPT to YouTube to start looking for real human perspective.
- [41:26]
B
Yes.
- [41:27]
A
Yeah. And starting to try to figure out like man, I actually. And so that's, it's, it's the journey. I actually have four things of this would be 20, 26. What does search look like now? So also things have changed and search isn't just typing words into Google or search anymore. That is number one, YouTube search because people do want tutorials or reviews or comparisons. That's number one. But search number two, voice search. People are talking to their Apple remotes, they're talking to their phone, they're talking to AI. AI is surfacing YouTube videos. So you AI will be giving you answers, but you can actually get discovered in AI platforms. Number three though, the search scroll behavior. Sometimes someone searches best vacuum cleaner, watches one or two videos, but now YouTube understands their interests and you mentioned that earlier.
- [42:15]
B
That's exactly it.
- [42:16]
A
So YouTube search optimization can position you for browse.
- [42:20]
B
Yes, that's exactly it.
- [42:21]
A
Because YouTube will start recommending your well optimized video. Because someone started with best vacuum cleaner, you didn't rank for that, but they clicked on a few different videos and now yours is being recommended.
- [42:35]
B
Yes.
- [42:35]
A
So you don't want to oversimplify these absolute statements. But number four is then AI search people are looking for clear answers. AI is pulling from structured content, AI is referencing trusted sources. AI uses transcripts and chapters, which means clear titles matter, clear structure matters, clear explanations matter. And so yeah, people explore for entertainment, but they search for answers.
- [42:59]
B
Yes.
- [43:00]
A
So yeah, if you're on the couch, it's a different situation and especially for the educators, business owners, but even the vloggers and entertainment channels because shout out to also we have a whole, you know, part of video ranking academy is not all education.
- [43:13]
B
No, that's right.
- [43:14]
A
There are entertainment individuals there. And portions of your library can be strategically positioned with search strategy to help you. You get new awareness and new discoverability. A lot of people, it's kind of like this all or nothing and they're weakening their YouTube growth by I think thinking in absolutes.
- [43:32]
B
Agreed. So along this whole lines of AI, a claim, the sixth claim is that AI killed SEO. So like the robots came in and just destroyed everything. So break that down for me because I even I'm still Wanting to learn and grow in this area as well. But like, to say that AI killed SEO, for me, it just. It doesn't quite make sense because I'm thinking through what you just walked us through, which is, well, the SEO still matters, because even if I'm talking to an AI, Gemini, ChatGPT, whatever, it's like, how is it scrubbing and surfacing things and bringing videos to me, bringing links to me, you know?
- [44:06]
A
Well, there are a couple of things. I actually think that, number one, again, that's an. That's an absolute statement, like a. I killed SEO, period.
- [44:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:18]
A
But I think we could talk actually about some of my concerns and some real problems that are happening right now. First, there is no doubt about it that there are plenty of people that are going to start in AI and never leave and find their answer. So in a. In a previous world, like, maybe it was like, what are the best running shoes?
- [44:36]
B
Yeah.
- [44:37]
A
And they watch a YouTube video. Well, now, the powerful thing about ChatGPT is, like, what are the best running shoes? Here's a picture of my foot. They start actually describing size.
- [44:48]
B
Yeah.
- [44:49]
A
Yeah. They go, well, I kind of have fallen arches. And then also, AI has a memory about you. And those are some of the conversations, you know, based on. You know, I was looking up study Bibles, and I was looking up different Bibles, and I think that's what eventually took me. That was the one recently I started in. In YouTube and ChatGPT.
- [45:08]
B
Yeah.
- [45:09]
A
And GPT knows me pretty well. And I was like, do I want to get a physical amplified classic which is out of print? You can find them, like, here and there. Yeah. Little rough some places, but some people swear by it. Do I want to get the new amplified and should I read that now? So I started there, and then I was like, you know, last year I read the nlt and this year, and I'm talking back and forth with chat GPT, and eventually I got frustrated.
- [45:35]
B
Yeah.
- [45:35]
A
And I was like, I want to talk to somebody.
- [45:37]
B
Yes.
- [45:38]
A
Which meant I want to hear from somebody.
- [45:39]
B
Yes.
- [45:40]
A
Which meant I want to talk to a human.
- [45:42]
B
Right.
- [45:42]
A
Which meant I wanted to go find a trusted authority. And where did I go next? I went to YouTube.
- [45:46]
B
Yeah.
- [45:47]
A
So then I started looking at people saying, you know, this versus that. Some humans that can give me context and story and nuance. And so. But let me go back to, like, the dark side of this. You know, AI summaries have come to YouTube.
- [46:01]
B
Yes.
- [46:01]
A
That's kind of scary.
- [46:02]
B
Yes.
- [46:03]
A
Because you post a good video, you still might get the view. But it could hurt your watch time because someone clicks on the video and they start reading. Reading the summary.
- [46:12]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:13]
A
And so I think that you got to be thoughtful about updating your strategy. Are people coming for perspective, nuance, stories, humor? You don't get that in the summary. But if all your video is just a list of information with no, nothing human.
- [46:27]
B
Yeah.
- [46:28]
A
You could be threatened in today's world. And yes, I think that, you know, some people, again, are having entire experiences in chat GPT. But then let's talk about the counterpoint. The counterpoint is, I think everybody let's, you know, let's talk about absolutes in general. Like, AI is going to kill everything. People are so quick to jump to, like some new social media platform, man. Instagram started stories and they stole stories from chat Snapchat. That's a fact.
- [47:04]
B
Yeah.
- [47:04]
A
Snapchat has stories. Instagram Meta understands that. Why, you know, we just steal them and start them ourselves.
- [47:11]
B
Yeah.
- [47:11]
A
And then all kinds of people on the Internet start spout sounding off and go, snapchat's dead. Rest in peace, Snapchat. This is it recipe. Snapchat just got hit by a bazooka. You know, like, and. Okay, well, let's, let's look at it now. I want to say that Snapchat's got a billion users as we speak, man. And so what does that mean? I think people don't understand the long tail of the Internet, period.
- [47:34]
B
Agreed.
- [47:35]
A
Like, oh, one new thing is on the block, so something else doesn't exist. Like, the old thing is dead. There's like so many Facebook's dead. Facebook's only for boomers. No, it's not. Facebook's still the biggest social media platform.
- [47:48]
B
Yeah.
- [47:49]
A
So you might think Facebook's dead or your friend group might think, and then you might be, might be aware of that.
- [47:56]
B
Yes.
- [47:57]
A
Like, you're, you're 19 wanting to reach other 19 year olds, like, being like, bro, I'm going all in on a Facebook fan page. I don't know, might not be like, yeah, okay. You know, you might be TikTok for you, might be Snapchat for you. So I think reverse engineering your strategy, but that goes back to like, searches only 3% of traffic on YouTube. Okay. So it's only billions of views.
- [48:20]
B
Yeah.
- [48:20]
A
And so, like, there's enough for your business, your, your prosperity. You're a thousand fans. Like, the world's way bigger than people think. And so I think it's a dangerous. There are dangers or changes that are happening.
- [48:35]
B
Yeah.
- [48:35]
A
And maybe I would call it fragmentation. The Internet is more fragmented than ever before. You know, Amazon's a search engine.
- [48:43]
B
Yeah.
- [48:44]
A
And so people can start their search on Amazon and watch content. There's content on, there's videos on Amazon, there's live streams on Amazon. Yeah, they actually launched a little TikTok thing. It kind of shut down. It was like a whole feed. But it's like. So some people. No, they're not even going. They're not going to chat GPT.
- [49:00]
B
Yeah.
- [49:00]
A
Or YouTube. They're starting on Amazon. Smart people are going to YouTube first. I actually do believe that, like, because like, like people that have good content are posting on YouTube first and then finding their way to Amazon. But like, I think like, don't judge. Yeah, don't. And don't project your own fallacies or limited beliefs on other people. You'll miss out on millions of audience reach by being, well, like, I don't do that. Which doesn't mean that nobody does that.
- [49:29]
B
Agreed. The thing that I hear here, Sean, is, and I see this a lot in coaching calls, especially onboarding calls, and sometimes continuously. Like I'm finding as a coach, part of my job and a strategist is to actually like re anchor folks. Re anchor people. Because I do this too. I think that if we're so threatened by these, if we hear these phrases come out, AI just destroyed, you know, SEO or whatever, search is dead or whatever. The thing is. And they happen like every week, by the way, right. There's a headline here, headline there. If you as a business owner, content creator, you are CEO of your YouTube channel. And so what that means is if you're not piloting your channel under some sort of strategy, you're going to be susceptible to everything. Yeah, right. And so I think that's really what I'm hearing is okay, if you're like constantly changing what you're doing based on the headlines and based on what people are saying, there's no traction to be had, you know, because you're consistently swayed back and forth. There's nothing anchoring you. There's no predetermined principled strategy that's holding you in place. And I'm realizing that's actually like one of my fundamental jobs as a coach is to give strategy, is to be aware of changes, is to be open handed and be able to adapt and pivot. But it's also just to be like, yeah, that's kind of happening over there. People are saying stuff, but look, here's you and you're over here and your audience is right here. And they just need this from you in your next video. So let's just do that, huh? You know, and instead of just spiraling and kind of going off the roller coaster, so to speak.
- [50:55]
A
So I want to land the plane talking about what is ranking videos look like in 2026. What are the best practices? We'll end the conversation there, but I do want to give a call out and just specifically, if you're watching this video, you're listening on audio and you're like, man, this actually all kind of feels overwhelming. And I would just love help putting a plan together, really going deep and have a chance to meet you in person. Sean, hang out with Nathan and hang out with other creators and entrepreneurs that just want to take YouTube serious. They want to take their game to an elite level. You might just be starting or you also might be plateaued. There is one person who's registered to the Mastermind. They're bringing kind of a. A family member that is going to be re engaging in their channel. They've actually been on the highs of YouTube influence and fame and actually now been on kind of a rut and in a plateau. And they're coming. It's actually, it was kind of inspiring to me because it was sort of like a real humble mindset to say, like, man, I just want to retool my game, get in a different room, rub shoulders with other creators, entrepreneurs, business owners. And so it's a really cool room. Small room. We only have like.
- [52:04]
B
No, it's not. It's not like large.
- [52:05]
A
60 seats total. Yeah. And it's almost sold out now. The cool thing is we're doing multiple this year, but the next one's coming in in the next three weeks and that one is almost sold out. So whether that one fits or even a future Think Media Mastermind. If you go to think media mastermind.com just fill out the simple application and if you qualify, which again, we only work with people, that it would be a good fit for sure. And if you qualify, we'd love to jump on the phone with you. So we'll link that up in the show notes. Think media mastermind.com but one thing I wanted to hit as we are rounding out this conversation is I think first and foremost, search is not dead. SEO is not dead.
- [52:49]
B
We've covered this.
- [52:50]
A
Yes, SEO is not dead on YouTube. I wanted to hit these ranking. What's different about ranking right now? But I also want to point individuals. I'll put in the show notes to a video that I did on SEO in 2026. It's very inspired by some smart individuals like Eric Hsu and Neil Patel, who talk a lot about this. And what they also call SEO right now is that it's no longer search engine optimization, it's search everywhere optimization. Because it's, that's fragmentation. The, the viewer, the searcher, the audience experience is across Amazon and ChatGPT and the other LLMs and YouTube and perhaps written content. Although blogging could be, you know, tough in today's world, Google AI summaries just tells you what the blog say. And those poor blogs don't get any, you know, any traffic from it. There's a lot of disruption. And so I think getting a new tool set for 2026 is important. And by the way, even to that point of search was dead. I wanted to mention one thing. It probably would be shocking to some individuals to say it would be powerful for your content to rent on rank on Bing or to rent. To rank on Duck. Duck go.
- [54:05]
B
Yeah.
- [54:06]
A
Or to rank on these other. No. Do you know these platforms still get like hundreds of millions of.
- [54:11]
B
That isn't true, point man.
- [54:12]
A
Yeah, like people probably haven't even heard Bing. And they go, well, I don't use Bing. And you're like, well, millions of people do. And so there is something about search everywhere optimization and there's something about this. YouTube is the town square of the Internet. YouTube is the reference layer of the Internet. If you're positioned as an authority with clear structure, you don't want to just answer one question on YouTube. You want to be known as the person, person that answers those types of questions.
- [54:42]
B
That's right.
- [54:43]
A
And, and that's real authority. So ranking still exists. What does ranking mean? It, it, it, by our definition, it means if they type in a search, you're found. But it also just means if you're being recommended, if someone types in a search of what's the best vacuum cleaner, watches a couple videos and then later your video shows up on the homepage. That's ranked.
- [55:00]
B
Yeah.
- [55:01]
A
And a ranked video is any video that gets views for weeks, months and years to come. It's any video like you showed that at day 500 it started to take off and now it's day 1300, you know, 1,300 to 35.
- [55:13]
B
Yeah.
- [55:14]
A
And it's, it's going, here we go. That's what I want. I just want to do that all day. I want to see on YouTube doing that all day. So ranking has not disappeared, it's only expanded. I wrote down A list ranking today can mean showing up in YouTube search, being featured on the YouTube homepage, being suggested next to other videos appearing in Google search results. Still, major Google likes to surface videos. They might steal some real estate.
- [55:38]
B
Yeah.
- [55:38]
A
With their AI summaries. They do.
- [55:40]
B
Yes.
- [55:41]
A
And then they're sponsored posts and whatnot. But you're going to see them everywhere on the homepage of Google. I know Reddit is on the homepage of Google a lot, so things also change a lot. But videos are everywhere on Google, snippets are on there, videos are on there, and then also being referenced by AI answers. So ranking still exists. This. But if you're structuring your content well and also positioning yourself as an authority, is AI talking about you?
- [56:08]
B
Yeah.
- [56:08]
A
And if you're starting from scratch, what can you do today to have a strategy so that AI is talking about you?
- [56:13]
B
I love this.
- [56:14]
A
I.
- [56:15]
B
Before we close, I just had a crazy flashback that I don't think I would have ever had unless you mentioned duck, duck, go. Okay. And in my YouTube analytics way back, whatever it was three or four years ago, sure enough, a traffic source was DuckDuckGo and it was Bing. And I don't know why this is just embedded in my head. And I think it's because I looked at my analytics and I was like, the frick is DuckDuckGo. You know, but to your point, like, just because there's a number one search engine doesn't mean it's the only search engine. And that's such a good thing to remember going into the rest of this year is that I just think so much so your YouTube channel, your videos are capable of reaching so many more people than we might think or that people might tell us. Because there's a lot of people on the Internet and there's a lot of things that they need help with through searching and there's a lot of things that they're exploring by just letting things come their way. And so the mission throughout the rest of this year, I think is to okay, separate fact from fiction and be like, okay, what actually matters? What is my strategy? And what is the best path for me to go forward in light of the goals and people I'm trying to reach. That's like, that's my parting words as a coach is like, figure that stuff out. So you're actually tethered to reality throughout the rest of this year. Because if you spend a whole other year getting ping ponged back and forth between 18 different strategies. Yeah, I just like, I, I hurt for you because I know that that means you're not going to get the progress and momentum that you want as fast as you want it.
- [57:41]
A
That's good. And so listen thank you for listening to the Think Media podcast. Giving outros like this on YouTube videos in particular kills your view duration. But if you're still here man, we're grateful for you and it always means the world. If you like, rate and review wherever you watch or listen to podcast. And if you wanted to inquire and apply for ThinkMediaMastermind.com, just go to ThinkMediaMastermind.com, link in the description down below. I do want to encourage you to watch or listen to next that episode. You actually can't listen to it. You're going to have to go to YouTube for this one because cause it's over on Think Media. I did an update for SEO in 2026, went much deeper into a lot of the AI implications. So we'll link to that episode in the description of this episode. My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel. This is the Think Media Podcast and we can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.