← Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
How to (and not to) use AI in your SEO
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- [00:00]
Tyson Stockton
The Voices of Search Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com welcome to the Voices of Search Podcast. A member of the I Hear Everything Podcast network, ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts. Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search Podcast, Tyson Stockton.
- [00:43]
It's been said a million times SEO is evolving with the development in AI, it's shifting the landscape and where we compete. It's also changing how we do our work. According to SEMrush's 2024 AI Content Marketing Report for SMBs, 65% of all companies achieve better SEO results thanks to AI. Yet we can't avoid the narrative in the media of SEOs dying and there's all this doom and gloom. And in general, I feel like there's a lot of anxiety that exists within the industry. So today we're going to balance the narrative and we're going to talk more about what, optimistically we have to look forward to and how search is evolving. This is the Voice of Search podcast. My name's Tyson, and joining us today is Jade Pruitt, CEO of hello SEO, which helps influential B2B brands succeed in organic and AI search through transparent SEO strategies. Today, Jade will share her experience within SEO to give us a little more optimism as we go into where SEO is going with that. Jade, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:47]
Jade Pruitt
Hey, I'm so happy to be here.
- [01:49]
Tyson Stockton
We had a little back and forth on scheduling, so I'm glad we finally got the chance to sit down and chat. As we're talking though, before we started recording, it's like feel like there's a lot of kind of fear and anxiety that's going around in the industry right now. And I felt like one of the refreshing things that kind of came through in just our introduction was, you know, more of a sense of like optimism of what's to come rather than this kind of fear anxiety state. So to first like level set with the listeners, like, how are you looking to the future of kind of search?
- [02:26]
Jade Pruitt
Yeah, yeah. To back up, I founded my business in 2020 and then ran it as a side hustle until October of 2022. And when I took that big leap, it was terrifying. And then of course, ChatGPT comes out like three weeks later, and I was like, great, SEO is officially dead. Like, what is this going to look like? And someone gave me the advice to always stay curious and move forward as opposed to panicking, resting on your laurels, or just trying to do ex what you've been doing for years while you slowly become less and less relevant. And that has seriously propelled me forward from then. And I feel like we all have this coin, and on one side is anxiety and the other side is excitement. And sometimes I have to mentally just flip that coin back to excitement in my head, especially when it comes to AI and SEO, because it truly feels like everything is changing. And I honestly thought I had more time. I was like, I'm going to keep my eye on this. I'm going to keep reading about it. But really, Google SEO is still, you know, where we're at. And then April 1st rolled around and I was doing reports for all of my clients and 25% of them were getting leads, like closed leads. They were making money from people who came in from AI. And I was like, where is this coming from? Like, and it's across industry. It was co working spaces, like local businesses, travel businesses, my own business. And it was mind blowing and was like, okay, it's here. We have to actually focus on this now.
- [04:05]
Tyson Stockton
I love that you kind of leaned in on the curiosity piece. I mean, whoever that was Sounds like great advice.
- [04:12]
Jade Pruitt
Yes.
- [04:13]
Tyson Stockton
But for me, it's like I was in a conversation just the other day and I was like, probably one of the characteristics that I think is most universal across good SEO, like, from just a personality type is curiosity. And some of this, you know, fear that exists in the industry is like, to be honest, it confuses me a little bit because as like an industry, none of us went to school for this, so we all fell into it from one place or another. We've always had to adopt and change and, like, allow that progression. So it's like, curiosity feels like an inherent strength of our industry as a whole. But yet it's like everyone's like, again, has this, like, fear and timidness. But it's like, if I compare like, our industry to other, like, marketing industries, from like a skill set standpoint, I feel like we are way more poised to take advantage of it rather than to be made relevant. Like, am I off on that? Like, how do you kind of weigh in?
- [05:13]
Jade Pruitt
I don't think so. And if you're really in the weeds of SEO every day, you have such a diverse skill set. Like, you have a technical background, but you're also creating written content and then you're doing backlink acquisition. So you have to be social at the same time. Like, there's so many different things that are happening. If SEO did die tomorrow, somehow I think we would all actually be okay as long as we are able to move forward. But also, I don't think it's gonna.
- [05:42]
Tyson Stockton
Die tomorrow, which is true. And like, to me, it's just like it's broadening and I don't know, I feel like there's going to be more verticalization. Like, that's not quite there yet, but I think we're going to like, kind of get to that point maybe like with your clients. Like, how are you looking at, you know, I mean, you made the call out of, hey, you saw actually closed leads come through AI search. Like, how are you viewing? I don't know, would you room as like separate channels within search? Like, how are you viewing? Kind of like these two different areas that we're competing in.
- [06:14]
Jade Pruitt
So what's really interesting, and of course we're still figuring out what the ranking factors are, and they're going to be changing just as quickly as Google changes as well. But what's really interesting is we're seeing that the ranking factors for showing up in AI are virtually the opposite of what we've been prioritizing with traditional Google search. So schema is back. I've been in the industry for 10 years, have really never cared that much about schema. Uh, my, my days of optimizing meta descriptions, I thought those were way behind me, and that seems to be back. Bing might be back. We might be, you know, getting into Bing Webmaster Tools, which I, I just like logged into for the first time in my entire life a few weeks ago. So it's definitely diversifying the way that we're building SEO strategies for clients, which is really cool. At the moment. They do kind of feel like different worlds with, like a lot of overlap. Even the way that I have to report on AI visibility feels like it's this whole separate thing as opposed to, you know, just jumping into Google Analytics and Google Search Console and sharing my screen with clients. It's just what I typically do. So it's, it's giving us a lot more to learn at the moment. But I think it's going to be incredible for our clients. And I think this is just the beginning of a new chapter of SEO as a whole.
- [07:36]
Tyson Stockton
I completely agree with that. And I think the reporting and measurement is an area that I think is interesting because it's like yeah, you do have kind of this mystery element where we're getting data and information on some kind of best practices or commonalities. And it feels a little bit like, I don't know, old days SEO in some ways where it's like when we're looking at kind of like ranking factors, reports and things like that. But a piece that I'm kind of like go back and forth with is the amount of variants that exist today. I feel like before, yeah, you had some of that within Google and you could always say that that was a case with different rank tracking tools where it's like, yeah, but where's someone located? What was their past browsing history? Are they logged in, are they not? And so you had some variance but I feel like it was still kind of representative to it with kind of like, I don't know, the longer context windows within some of AI search, the personalization potential which I think exists today. But I feel like it's going to progressing more. It feels also like there's a challenge in that like measurement and reporting side too.
- [08:48]
Jade Pruitt
Definitely. Yeah. And honestly I feel like the days of being like you're ranked in the second position have been gone for a little while. They're like kind of half here still. But I'll have clients who are getting clicks even though the reporting says they're in the 42nd position for a term. And of course like you know where they are locally and all that kind of stuff always is a part of it. But now that we're moving into AI search, yeah like ChatGPT or whichever LLM it is is going to know that person so well that it's not like oh, you're ranking for this particular query. People are putting in, you know, all of the time and that's kind of what you can report on. I like what Scrunch AI is doing. I've become like a secret influencer for them. But they, they tell you on a percentage basis how often you're showing up in a query similar to one that aligns with your target audience. So you kind of get like a snapshot which I think is honestly like a more honest way of, of presenting that anyway. Because even in Google search it's not like you're showing up exactly the same every single time either.
- [09:57]
Tyson Stockton
I actually really like that, that it's like audience based similar queries because if you're limited to just that exact prompt and like response then I think it's like so subjective to it. But so I think like that like I don't know, normalization. But I mean, even within Google, like aio, they're not using just the ranking domains for that specific question or query. Where, I mean, it was a meetup group in Bay Area search, like a little while back with Danny Sullivan and he was straight upset. He's like, yeah, no, like we're using similar related searches to populate Google AIO rather than just that one specific query. So it's like even within that, then you're like, okay, well what am I measuring to? And I had a debate recently with a friend and I was kind of saying too, it's like predominantly from my perspective, you have two main benefits of like the more traditional performance tracking. You have competitor intelligence as far as understanding what a competitor might be doing, where they're strong, where you're weak. Like, so it's like that external view that you're not going to get through GSC or something else. And then honestly too, it's like, it's internal management, it's like stakeholder management within the organization, managing performance, things like that. But I feel like maybe too often we're getting focused on those metrics rather than what actions we're going to be taking to actually make a difference. You called out schema markup and some of these, I don't know, I want to call them complete legacy factors, but it's like the resurgence of some of the older SEO factors. And so instead of focusing on that, we're focusing on like a keyword position, which seems a bit off to me.
- [11:49]
Jade Pruitt
Yes. And a lot of that is from how we have trained our users to interact with us in a way. Like our clients. Most of my clients still want like a blog a month and they want to see that they're ranking number one for these, like, particular things. And it's kind of like we need to re educate them on what's really going to matter moving forward. And I think we would all agree it doesn't really matter, you know, if Ahref says you're ranking in the like, 60th position if the revenue's coming in. So I think it's going to challenge us to report better, but I think it's going to make us better marketers overall.
- [12:26]
Tyson Stockton
Now maybe like expanding on, you know, how you're working with clients. Have you felt like more of the recent change or how you're looking forward is on the prioritization of activities or are you completely shifting like your strategy and approach with your clients?
- [12:47]
Jade Pruitt
At the moment, I'm not particularly shifting everything at once. Google still holds what, 89% of the market share. That's still incredibly important to everyone. We're kind of, yes, anding and adding some more things on. So for my clients who are up for it, we're getting them into Scrunch AI again. I need to get an affiliate link from them.
- [13:08]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah, shout out Scrunch. Get an affiliate link. She's preaching the gospel here.
- [13:13]
Jade Pruitt
Oh, my gosh. But then we're optimizing for schema. We're, you know, following the trends. My clients know we're a scrappy team and we are going to be optimizing them as we're learning new things. So most of my clients are up for some experimentation, which I really appreciate. I'm lucky to work, or I'm lucky to work with small enough businesses that I'm, you know, directly in contact with the cmo, if not, you know, the founder of the company, and they're always down to try new things. As long as you can kind of back it up with a little bit of data.
- [13:45]
Tyson Stockton
Fair, Fair. And then looking ahead a bit more on kind of like the future aspect. Like, I kind of framed up in the intro. It's like in my mind you have the landscape shifts of where are we competing or changes within the SERPs themselves as well as like the tactics that we're taking, whether it's leveraging AI for certain, I don't know, initiatives, task, or even like the prioritization and the call outs that you mentioned, like schema markup or backlinks or whatever it is. How are you looking ahead? And like, and I guess too, like, a secondary question to that is like, what's giving you that confidence and optimism of the health of like the practice in the industry?
- [14:33]
Jade Pruitt
Yeah. So I just got back from SEO Week, which was a roller coaster of an event. Every speaker had a different opinion and I don't think any of them were particularly wrong. But sitting there, it's like, oh, my gosh, is SEO dead? Oh, SEO's thriving. And then we're back to it being dead. And I kept having to just step outside and process what I was learning. But when I actually did have time to sit down and really think about it, there's so many good little nuggets that came out of that experience. And one came from Will Reynolds, which gave me a lot of hope. And that is that AI. First of all, there's so many different LLMs at the moment. We don't have a monopoly in search anymore. I mean, we, we basically still do, but it seems like it's, it's starting to diversify, thankfully, and they hold each other accountable. So there was an instance where ChatGPT really wanted to keep something to itself, but then Deep seq is like, no, I'm going to go share all that information with everyone. And so then ChatGPT has to follow up and share that information as well. And, you know, for the past 15 years, we've just, you know, Google's been able to do whatever they want and we just have to respond. And now there's a conversation happening between these large search engines, so that's super exciting. But also, I think the days of just the massive, massive companies just occupying a query forever are over. The ways that these LLMs are serving up results are very different and they're going to serve small businesses and startups better. And Will Reynolds again used the illustration of what happens when you Google ethical genes. And when you Google it, you get Banana Republic, because they've shoved a bunch of ethical gene keywords at the bottom of a page. They've been around for a million years. They have an incredible domain authority. Of course, they're just going to rank immediately for that keyword. But then if you go into ChatGPT, you get this small business called Newties that literally will not make a pair of jeans unless they have to. Like, they would rather repair jeans and actually be the most ethical company they can be in that space. Like, they're actually practicing what they preach. It's not just like, oh, we're ethical because we use cotton. I don't know. So I think that these brands that really care about what they're doing are finally going to get that recognition within search. Oh, and Nudies is ranking, I think, like 64th in Google, so they're like not getting anything from the ethical genes keyword.
- [17:00]
Tyson Stockton
There's which, I think, I mean, that in itself brings a ton of optimism into this totally. Because, like, so much of the narrative within or like, I don't know, criticism towards Google, it's like, yeah, you have the zero search that's happening. Rand's been doing a great job kind of putting a lot of information out on this. And it's like, technically speaking, Google is still sending more and more referral traffic because of so much users and so much activities. It doesn't mean the percentage has always been the same, but it's like if you look in the absolute numbers, but then it's like where it's going has gone more and more to the bigger brands. And I think, like, you know, there's this chicken or the egg bias of that where I don't know, maybe I'm just too optimistic in some ways. But with that it's like, okay, like Google probably didn't intend for that to happen, but maybe through some of the metrics within like Nav Boost and like kind of more of like some general human nature elements where if someone's familiar with a brand, they're probably more likely to click on that. So if you're rewarding a high click through rate, the bigger brands will naturally start surfacing up more and more. Then you get into a higher position. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. So it's like to me it's like a little bit of a fracture in that traditional search piece. And so like these points that then you're bringing up to me, especially if I'm a smaller business, should be a lot of hope and a lot of like, hey, there's ways of taking down the Goliath because we know our practice, we can. And Will's example, like if you are passionate about sustainable genes, you can be the leader in that space regardless if you don't have kind of the domain authority, the engagement metrics that maybe the big players do because of it. And so like I also share that optimism that maybe like through this competition we're going to see like more opportunities for competition in different ways. And I think, you know, the bigger players will always have a leg up from budgets and practices, but the smaller players can always be faster, more reactive. You can out pivot these larger brands totally. And so I think that's a huge piece that also comes into the practice of SEOs. We have always been these kind of underdogs that are able to pivot, adapt and evolve through that. So I think as an industry we should be more excited of the opportunity that it's bringing rather than fearful of it taking it away.
- [19:51]
Jade Pruitt
Absolutely. And that's a good point. And also, you know, it's Google so they have to serve the masses. So of course they have to choose a brand that's gonna work for the most people to rank number one for ethical genes, I suppose like Banana Republic, but with the LLMs they're getting to know the user so well and understand like the types of businesses they like to shop at and you know, more things about them as an individual and they can make those choices of who they're going to serve up because of that too. So understanding the user very, very well I think is going to be a massive part of SEO in the future. It should have been all along, but there's always been some hacks to get around that.
- [20:33]
Tyson Stockton
True. Yeah, no, that is a good call out that for years we've been saying in SEO follow, and I mean, even, hell, even Google's been saying it of like, go after the user. And it's like, I don't know, I grew up playing ice hockey, so I like throwing in, you know, the Wayne Gretzky coat. It's not, you know, go where the puck's going and like that. And so we've always said this around the user, yet at the end of the day, we tend to kind of like, I don't know, forget it in some ways, right? And it is refreshing that it's like, yeah, there is a revitalization on that front.
- [21:10]
Jade Pruitt
Definitely. I was also thinking for, for myself and the way that ChatGPT has gotten to know me, I asked it the other day, like, oh, should I try out this specific SEO tool? And it knows my business for better or worse. And it was like, oh, like that one might be okay, but like, you do a lot of content, heavy work, so like, maybe try these other ones. And it like, made me a graph of like, why I should try these different tools.
- [21:33]
Tyson Stockton
So.
- [21:34]
Jade Pruitt
And that was the moment I realized how much I trust ChatGPT to know me and what I'm doing. Because I immediately booked demo calls with the three companies that it mentioned. And if I just googled something, I probably would have just read a bunch on their website and been like, I don't know if these are for me or I would have looked at the price too soon or something like that. But I think the user is going to grow to really trust these LLMs. And there's pros and cons to that, but from an SEO perspective and just, you know, purchasing things perspective, I think it's going to be pretty cool and really good for these, these small businesses, 100%.
- [22:13]
Tyson Stockton
And yeah, it's like, I'm not going to lie, there's elements of it that's like a little creepy and like, okay, like, yeah, there really is a lot of information, all of us. But like, at the same time, to your point, there's an advantage to that too. So it's like, I think there's always two sides of the coin. There's a glass half full, glass half empty. And so it's refreshing to hit on some of these kind of opportunity sides rather than the more kind of doom and gloom aspects of it. All right, so with that, that wraps up this episode of the Voice of Search podcast. Thanks again to Jade Pruitt, founder of hello, SEO, for joining us. If you'd like to get in contact with Jade, you can find a link to our LinkedIn LinkedIn profile in the show Notes, or be sure to go over and check out her company's website@helloseo.com if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing knowledge in your podcast app, hit that subscribe button on your podcast app. Or go ahead and like and subscribe in YouTube and we'll be back in your feed soon. All right, so that's all for today. Thanks for some by the Voice of Search Podcast and and we'll see you in the next episode.