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- [00:00]
A
You have probably already realized that search on the Internet is changing, but for once, I actually think this is great news for photographers. With Google rolling out AI summaries and people searching Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest for visual inspiration, the way people find us is shifting really fast. But unlike a lot of the sort of new SEO trend panic that has happened at other times over the course of my career, this doesn't really seem to be a passing fad, right? Search engines are doubling down on quality because they can. Thanks to the power of AI, they are looking for real, trustworthy answers from people who actually know their stuff. And here's the thing. You already have the expertise, right? You already know your craft. You know the answers to the questions that people are asking you. You know all this stuff inside and out. This shift in search engines is simply about showing up in a way that plays by the new rules so that you get found by the people who are looking for exactly what you do. Last week at the Future of Marketing Summit, my marketing director, Dana Schaf, gave a talk on exactly this topic, how to adjust your content workflow so that you can spend less time marketing and more time doing what you love while still making the most of this once in a career opportunity to level the playing field. And today she's here on the podcast to walk us through it. We're going to dig into how AI is reshaping search, why this is a huge opportunity for small businesses, and how our new blog builder tool Inside the Consistency Club can make it ridiculously easy for you to keep up. You can check that out@thiscantbethard.com club but. But in the meantime, let's go ahead and dive in. Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Annemie Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it and I can show you how. Dana, it has been a minute since you were on the the Big Podcast that this Can't Be that Hard podcast. Welcome back. How are you?
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B
Yeah, I'm good. I know it's funny because we do this so often, but I do think it's been a minute since I've been on the Bigger, Badder podcast. So. Hello everybody. Thanks for having me back.
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A
Yeah, it's good to see your smiling face. I appreciate you Being willing to come on and sort of recover this topic. The summit, as we are recording this, just happened for the Consistency Club. Your talk was amazing. I feel like everybody just got so jazzed. The chat was, like, on fire the whole time. And the further you got into your talk, the more I was like, ah, this needs to be, like, plastered all over the walls of the world. Because marketing really is changing right now.
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B
And.
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A
And it's changing in response to the way that search is changing and the algorithm is changing and all of these different things. And it's not just social media, it's kind of a bunch of different things. I guess I'll just have you kind of dive right in because I know we have a lot to cover.
- [03:24]
B
Yeah. And I was gonna say, I think what's also interesting about this change, specifically with Google search, is like, we haven't seen a shift, a change like this, something that impacts the Google results like this in a long time. So this is a really big deal. And, you know, we see things impact social media all the time. But I think this is. And I said this at the summit, I feel like this is one of those very rare moments where you sort of see the tsunami wave coming. You're like, I see it coming.
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A
Right.
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B
And you can actually talk about it in advance as opposed to kind of getting, you know, bowled over by all these changes and then looking at it a year or two later and being like, oh, I see how all these things are changing now. Here's how I'm going to pivot it.
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A
Right. Proactive versus reactive. Yeah.
- [04:12]
B
And so my hope is. And I. Why I was like, absolutely, let's talk about this on the big podcast, is because I want everybody listening to hear this and make the pivot now, like, be ahead of the curve. This is a. You don't always get this opportunity, but this, I think, is an opportunity to be ahead of the curve. So let's talk about. I'm, like, teasing this up one side, down the other. Let's talk about what's happening, which is AI, like, AI has come on the scene and sort of changed the game. And, you know, we actually had a really great speaker at the summit who came on and she talked a ton about AI, and I love her take. She talked a lot about how AI, you know, we can, like, shift our perspective to look at it as a feminist tool where it's like, you know, doing a lot of the heavy lifting for us so that we can free up our time to do the creative things that we really love to do. And, you know, she talked about the environmental impacts and, like, all of that stuff, which I just don't want to get into too much here. I want to say, like, I acknowledge all that. That's a really important conversation, but that's too much to cover in this podcast, too. So I think, you know, like, if you're in the consistency club, go listen to Kinsey's talk. If not, you know, like, you can go and follow her and see what she has to say about that, because I think that is a really important part of it. But love it or hate it, AI is here, right? And it is changing everything, right? And specifically, how it is changing things for small businesses and creative small businesses is it is significantly impacting the way that people are being found and seen online. So I broke this up into two things in. In the summit, and I want to do the same here, which is how search has changed. Like, I'm going to say Google, I'm using the Kleenex tissue thing. But, like, Google has. Search has changed, and then how social media has changed, and then we'll kind of like, bring them together.
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A
Okay?
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B
But I think, like, looking at Google search, which I think as we as creatives, as photographers, we are aware of SEO, we are aware of being on that, you know, ideally, you want to be on that first page of search results, right? Everybody, like, understands that language. So when we used to search, we would search, you know, photographers, pet photographers in Phoenix, Arizona. And, you know, it would populate a bunch of things and it would be a bunch of websites, right? Maybe some blogs would come up and it would be, you know, a website. And then you would see, like, that little paragraph underneath, that's the meta description. And the way those were getting ranked was, you know, through SEO. And, you know, all of the things that Google had previously you know, put in place that we all sort of are aware of. Well, now AI has come on the scene and is really changing the way that we're searching. So now when you search something like that, the first thing that comes up is an AI summary. And what's happening is AI is going out and searching for what you're looking for and giving you a summary of the information. So let me back it up. When we would. When we used to search, we would like. Then we would look at all of those websites. We would click on them and kind of scroll through the website and be like, oh, yeah, like, maybe this is the info I'm looking for. Let me go back to the search results. Let me scroll down the page a little bit. Maybe there's a, a picture in one or like a little phrase that catches my attention or if it's a location.
- [07:38]
A
Based thing, there's a map and I can look at the map and see. Yeah, but yep.
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B
And so now AI is summarizing that for us and it's saying like, hey, here's what I think you're searching for. Instead of you having to go and click through a bunch of websites to kind of like gather all the information in your brain and you know, make a decision about what you're looking for, I'm going to kind of summarize that for you so that you can make that decision even quicker.
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A
So I'm going to, I'm going to like jump in with an example. So let's say that I am, you know, thinking about hiring or thinking about booking a family photo session this fall, whatever. And I search what should I wear for my fall family photo shoots. So instead of the first thing that I see is a bunch of different photographers websites locally because Google knows where I am so it's going to show me local results. Then I end up clicking around on these various photographers websites. I see a paragraph at the top that just kind of gives me an answer to my so on.
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B
Here's what's trending in fall of 2025 to wear in your photos and yeah.
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A
Right, and a summary and it gives you like some bulleted, you know, ideas, whatever. And when I think about that as a photographer, my first reaction is like uh, oh, but I want people to be clicking around. I want them to go through all these various websites and see my blog posts that I wrote about that.
- [09:01]
B
Yeah, so great point, great example. Although I'm going to kind of put a pin in that example because I don't know if that's exactly what people are searching on Google today, but let's run with that one. Okay, so now they're going to get a summary and they are maybe not even going to click on a single link because there is a paragraph summarizing the information that they want right at the top. That's what's called a zero click search. And 70% of searches on Google as of July 2025 are zero click searches.
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A
Now that is nuts because this feature has only been around for what like six or eight months? It's pretty new.
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B
Yeah, so we are already like that is a, that is a marked huge shift in the way that we are using behavior in behavior. Right? So now people are not getting like, so now the, the so Then there's a trickle down effect. So now you're not getting clicks to get ranked in the same way. Right. So what's taking the place of what's ranking you is is AI able to use your blog post to contribute to its summary? And you guys are listening, not looking, but when you do a search, if you can right now, go ahead and search for something. The example I gave in the thing was I was building a succulent wall, so I was googling how to build a second wall. Okay. So then when you search in the upper right corner, you're going to see these little bubbles that have like little icons or pictures in them and it'll say like it'll have three bubbles and it'll say like +13 or something. That's the sources that AI is citing. It's kind of like a research paper. For those of you who remember writing research papers, those are the websites it's citing in its search. So if you are in Those bubble, those 16, you know, like sources, you're getting, you know, you're getting like a credit. An A plus grade. Yeah, credit is a good way to say it from, you know, SEO for being in that AI search. Now if somebody like clicks and expands on the AI summary, there's often still a top search result. So we're not totally losing that you want to be, you know, top ranked for things you do. It's just that maybe the thing that would have been top ranked in an old, I can't even believe I'm going to say this old school Google searched.
- [11:26]
A
Times changing fast.
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B
Yeah, I know. Like what would have been ranked last year in a Google search versus what link will be top this year is different because AI is able to like is using information differently and wants different things from us than the search engines you like wanted last year. So that's very different. Right, but the other thing that's different is that people aren't even going to Google to search for things like that. So on back to your example. What should I wear? Right? Actually people are not going to Google that. They're going to go to Pinterest, they're going to go to Instagram, they're going to go to TikTok and they are going to search on those platforms what to wear for my fall family photos 2025 and that is going to bring up a bunch of posts and reels and carousel posts giving people visual inspo for these queries that they have. That's what we want to see. Now we don't want to Scrape through a whole, you know, like, website or, you know, I don't know. Like, I feel like what used to come up is Google would be like, here's a bunch of dresses to buy on Poshmark. And I was like, right.
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A
Right.
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B
Now it's like, you know, here are. Here's what people are wearing. So in order. Then they go there, they're searching. So in order for you to then capture them, you need to meet them where they are, which is on these social platforms. So now what that might look like is instead of your blog post catching them when they're Google searching something, instead they're searching it on Instagram. You have made a trending, you know, a reel or a carousel that's like, you know, my favorite, you know, outfits for the fall so far or whatever it is. Fashion is not my forte. We should have picked a different example.
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A
Sorry, it's not mine either.
- [13:25]
B
Yeah, I don't know why we went with that, but. Okay. And now they see that reel come up in their search results, and they click on it because it's, you know, it says it right there like a blog post with the title on it. So they click on it and they don't have to do anything. They just look at their phone and they're like, oh, look at this little movie that's playing for me that is showing me the inspiration. And then they're like, who is this person? Then they're clicking on your. You know, your name. They're going to your profile. From there, they're going over and maybe searching you on Google. Maybe they're following you. Maybe they're saving that post. Maybe they're sending it to a friend. So the. The difference that we're seeing is when people are searching for inspiration or ideas, they're turning to social. When they're actually ready to book, then they would go back to Google. So what that's going to look like full circle is, oh, yeah, I saved that post from that photographer. I really liked her work. Let me go back to my saved posts. Save, click, oh, her name's Megapixi. Okay, let me click that. Oh, let me go to her profile. There's her website. Got to be easy for me to find it. Click your website. Now I'm on your website. Now I'm going to book you from your website. Right, right.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Some people might even just book you from social, but that's how that, like, whole loop is looking.
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A
Sure.
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B
And so people are going to come over to your website and they are going to still be Bouncing around, and they are still going to be looking at your blog. So, like, those things are still arguably even more important at this point because we need to be like, you know, giving AI the info it needs. Right. But it just looks different, you know? Right.
- [14:59]
A
And I think that was the connection that at first I was like, not making. Cause I was like, great. So now AI is just summarizing the answers that people are looking for. So what is the point of me bothering to add that content on my own website? But I loved how you then brought it back to like, because we are actually the experts. AI doesn't know anything on its own. This, it is a large language model. It's not just looking for an answer. It is looking for the most recent answers, the most relevant to that person's location answers. You know, that like, all of that stuff. And so it seems in many ways that it's almost like this new search has leveled the playing field. Whereas before, and I have often said when I've talked to people on here about SEO, that I feel kind of unfairly lucky that for years back, starting in 2010, I was blogging like once or twice a week for I think it was six years. But the blog post that I was putting together. Oh, so sorry. I was gonna say it's almost unfair because I am still getting traffic, or was still getting traffic up until pretty recently based on this ancient blog that I haven't updated and that isn't even directly linked on my website anymore. But Google, you know, had indexed all these different pages with these keyworded answers to questions. So I got bumped up to the top page forever. But now, because it's looking for a very specific kind of content, it's looking for new content, all this other stuff, and it's using that as its like, authority source, Anybody, including a new photographer who hasn't been blogging for 20 years, can get like, re ranked way up the list if they are smart about the way that they are creating content on their website.
- [16:47]
B
And that is what's so exciting because like you said, it has been a little unfairly stacked Right. Towards people who have been around a little bit longer. And so if you're a bit newer on the scene, it has felt like trying to like, you know, claw your way up this mountain.
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A
Right? Kind of an impossible mountain. Yup.
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B
Well, guys, like you said, you said, level the playing field. I love that language. Here we are, like, this is your opportunity. So what AI is looking for now is people. So they call it eats, which stands for it's E A T. So it stands for expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. That's not like groundbreaking. But what they want to know is that you are an expert in your field. You actually have real experience doing these things. And they are looking at now the time. So like this blog that you wrote in 2010, they're like, okay, but that's 15 years ago. Which, by the way.
- [17:49]
A
What? Yeah, I know.
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B
Yeah.
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A
This week is actually my 15th anniversary of my business. Isn't that nice?
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B
Wait, is real? That is crazy.
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A
I know.
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B
Look, Happy anniversary. Thanks.
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A
I know, it's bananas. That's a long time.
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B
That is a long time. But it like, you know, it is, is remarkable that your business has stayed around that long. And it's because you did unknowingly those Right. Things back in 2010. Right, right. So if you're listening to this right now and you're like, hey, I want to be around in 15 years from now. I want my business to have longevity. This is your chance to hop on the scene and, you know, make your impression in the, you know, digital world. Tell AI. You know, I am a person who has current experience and authority and I am trustworthy because I'm, I'm trustworthy because I'm blogging frequently. I have authority because I, you know, I know what I'm talking about. I'm sharing things that other people, it's like cross referencing and being like, oh yeah, that's. Everyone is saying the sky is blue, so the sky is blue. You know, one person being like, it's purple. And you know, your expertise and experience are relevant and new. Right. So what blogs are not looking like is 2010. I think that is important. They are not these fluffy lifestyle. I met this great family, I'm doing a voice. But like, you know how the blogs used to be.
- [19:12]
A
That's what my blogs were. I loved working with the Smith family. Their daughter is so cute. I mean it was like the most, the least helpful blog post. Except for my client, you know, the client that I was featuring. Enjoyed it obviously, but it was, it was beautiful. Oh, thanks. But it was my edits perhaps a different story at that time, but it is definitely a totally different landscape what they're looking for like these days. And when we built the blog builder tool, you know, it's like we want your stories in the blog. So like when you can illustrate why somebody shouldn't wear neon colors, you know, and tell a story about that or give a helpful answer that's got like a fun little shareable pull Quote or, you know, set of bullet points or something like that and you're mentioning your local keywords and all that sort of stuff. That's the sort of thing where Google's gonna be like, oh, this person is legit. They know what they're talking about. I'm gonna make sure that they're getting.
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B
Bumped up in this search and they're being genuinely helpful. Like their blog answers exactly what people are searching for. So like the more that you can write a blog post that answers exactly what people are searching for, the more that blog post is gonna show up in searches and like again, then it's gonna be like an up spiral. I want to like deconstruct our thought process on how we got to where we were. So if you don't know what the Consistency Club is, I'm just going to quickly tell you. We started the Consistency Club because we were like, you know, every, it's marketing. Your business is like a full time job. It's like, I love your analogy. It's like doing laundry. It never ends. You always have to keep doing it. And you do a lot as a small business owner. So we wanted to help take one thing off your plate. So we started by writing email and social media templates.
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A
And this is like since 2023. Yep. Which is. And so also nuts.
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B
Amazing. I know that's crazy time has flown. But like, you know, especially in the social media realm, but also in email, we were researching what are, what questions are people asking, what's trending right now? And then we would, we would take that research to, you know, the Consistency Club members and give them templates and they would use that and put their own voice in it and make their own content. So we were, you know, helping them do the, the heavy lift of the research and what's trending.
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A
What do I talk about? I don't even know what to say. I, you know, yeah, this takes too long solving those questions.
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B
People were like, can you do, can you write my blog post for it? Like, people kept, came to us and were like, what about blogs? Can you do blogs? Right? And we were like, well, we can't really give everybody the same blog template because Google will anti rank you.
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A
Not like that.
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B
Yeah, this is not a fan of that if everybody has the same blog post. And that's how we got talking about like, wouldn't it be so cool if we could like know what people, what people's potential clients are out there searching for? Not just worldwide, but like what are dog moms in Phoenix searching for right now. And how can we tell pet photographers in Phoenix what to write about? And you were like, we can do that because we have AI now.
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A
Right?
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B
So that was how we started the whole harnessed the power of AI to create this blog builder that not only, you know, we could spend a whole episode talking about how cool the blog builder is. Not only does it write in your exact voice, but I think for the purposes of this conversation, what's really cool about it is that it, it does that research for you. Like, if you're wondering what people are searching for, you don't have to wonder anymore. There are topics that have been searched for you and researched for you so that you can come to the blog builder and be like, what are people in my niche in my area searching for right now? What should I create content about? Here's the answer. You can take that part off your.
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A
Plate and then it knows what goes into that E E A T framework and how to feed that to Google in a way that Google can easily read. So, you know, you pick one of the topics that it tells you. Like the, these are the trending topics this, this month. Which one do you want to write about? You. You pick that and then you answer a series of questions that are like, tell us, you know, tell me about a time when you had a session where this was an issue. Or give five recommendations, your top five recommendations for somebody who's considering xyz, whatever the, the questions are. You just answer those you like, voice memo them into the block builder and then it, it creates this blog post that is, you know, you've got like your H1, your H2, your H3 subheadings, all this stuff. It gives you alt text for images, it gives you image recommendations. It, you know, writes the content for you, but it's using your language that you just answered all these questions in so that these are authentic to you. They are your stories and your experience and your opinions and then of course your photos. It just makes the whole process super fast and easy and Google friendly.
- [24:23]
B
Like literally five minutes, not even start to finish. But I do think we are glossing over the fact that the feedback we're getting from people is like not even how amazing the research topics are or how quick the blog is to be written. It is how much better this tool is at capturing their specific voice. Like people are like, this literally sounds like I wrote it, not like an AI version of me wrote it. It's like they are. So, you know, and that is the training that has gone into this tool and the, you know, the training that you, the, the user of the blog builder put into it at the beginning, but then it does all of that hard work for you. About like you said, the H1s, the H2s, the H3s, that AI is really leaning on that information. And that sounds tedious, dude. Like, that is alt texting and H wanting. It's like you could just burn through so much brain power being like, what should I make my H2? Like, you don't have to think about that now.
- [25:23]
A
Yeah, well, and that's the other thing. It's not even doing it. It's also knowing all of it. I mean, the amount of time in the 15 years that I have been in business where I have been learning about something that is completely off topic for photography. Like, I think that if I had a pie chart of information about business, like, I, at this point, I feel like, and I'm a pretty accomplished photographer at this point, like it would be less than 10% of my knowledge has to do with photography itself, which isn't bad. Like, I've enjoyed learning all these things, but I know a lot of photographers who really suffer to have to like, keep up with all the other stuff. And honestly, who, Well, I don't want to say who cares about. There are people who are really into SEO and strategy and all that stuff. But like, I just want it to work. I don't necessarily need to like know all the stuff behind the scenes.
- [26:16]
B
So yeah, I don't need to see the wires behind the scenes. Right, right, right.
- [26:20]
A
But yeah, I just want this light switch to turn on when I flip it. I don't need to know the whole power grid. But it is like, obviously you don't need this blog builder tool. It's just really important that you know that this is the way that search is working now and that you are able to respond, respond on the side of your small business because so there to your point, from the beginning, there are so few opportunities in the lifespan of our businesses where something major like this shifts and levels the playing field. And I feel like it's like, oh, now is the time. Take action now. Get these blog posts, get this content created. And of course blog posts do a really nice job then trickling down into emails and reels and carousel and yeah.
- [27:08]
B
Yeah, like, obviously I just want to touch on that quickly and say, so you wrote this amazing blog. You, whether you use the blog build or you did it yourself, you wrote this blog post. Now we're going to use that same researched Topic and this was what I was talking about at the summit is like instead of focusing your content around a trending audio or like what's cute and trendy on social media, now you're instead taking this researched topic that you know people are searching for. You've written a BL post about it, you write an email about it. Now you're going to create your social content around that. And this was actually the moment that the chat blew up because I was like. And guys, what that means is that this content, it might take you a little bit longer to create a reel that is like essentially, you know, a what to wear guide. But that content, the lifespan of it is going to be months and months, which we have not seen ever on social.
- [28:03]
A
Social, Right.
- [28:04]
B
It used to be like days, hours, like and so I was just telling people, try to post a minimum of three times a week. And now I'm saying to you, three times a week is plenty. In fact, two times a week is plenty if you are making really good content. So here's your homework guys. Go to your social search for a topic like, you know, how to build a succulent wall or you know, whatever. Look at the top trend, the top answers and I want you to to notice how old that content is. The succulent wall example that I gave, the top reel that had like 50,000 views was from April and it' August as we're talking right now. So like that is cool for people who are like, I am not a full time content creator. What I'm saying to you is you can pump the brakes guys. You can actually create less content. Just make it better and make it really, actually helpful for what people are searching for. And then it's gonna stay around for months and months. Right.
- [29:02]
A
Use your photos to illustrate, but focus on answering questions sort of, you know, those blog posts get broken up into mini blog posts that are, you know, become your social media content. And this is how like being strategic about your content creation. Like we all have to create content, but being strategic means that you get to spend a lot less time doing it.
- [29:24]
B
Yep. And it's going to like go for months and months. So, you know, I feel like the main question people are always asking me when I do, you know, one on one or, you know, people are asking me for marketing advice like, like what should I be doing to market my business in 2025? And my answer is going to be blogging. But not the old school blogging, like 2010 blogging in this very specific, helpful, AI friendly way that is answering questions, do your research so that you know what people are actually looking for in your area and then be smart about how you create your content and treat your social media like a mini blog. Like, yeah, that is what it should be. So those would be my, you know, my two pieces of advice and then, you know, as always, drive everything back to your email list. But.
- [30:13]
A
Right.
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B
That is how things are changing. And yeah, just to like, to go back to what you said at the beginning, it's like, guys, it's so rare in business, in life that we get an opportunity like this to see things are changing and you get to jump on it early. So please, as you're listening to this, take this in and, like, do make these changes in your business because in a year, in five years, it is going to completely change the landscape of your business.
- [30:42]
A
Totally. Well, thank you so much. I need to shout this from the rooftops as much as possible and you do a better job of that than I do in on this particular set of topics. So thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.
- [30:55]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Of course.
- [30:57]
A
Talk to you later.
- [30:58]
B
Bye.
- [30:59]
A
That's it for this week's episode of this Can't Be that Hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. If you like the show, be sure to check out thiscan'tbethard.com to explore all the resources we have for photographers. And of course, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review of the show on itunes or Spotify. As always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.