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- [00:00]
Podcast Announcer
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]
Tyson Stockton
Hey, what's going on? My name is Tyson from Previsible IO, and joining me today is Chris Rolfe, who is the Founder and President Chief Visionary at Boulder SEO Marketing. Boulder SEO Marketing specializes in innovative and effective SEO solutions. The company focuses on transparency and tailored tactics to help clients dominate search results, boost conversions in an ever evolving digital landscape.
- [01:09]
Podcast Announcer
This podcast is also sponsored by ahrefs. What if I told you that you could monitor your website's SEO health backlinks and organic rankings at no cost? Sounds too good to be true. Well, it's not, because my friends at Ahrefs just launched Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. Ahrefs new Webmaster Tools product quickly helps you improve your site's visibility by pointing solutions to over 100 technical technical issues that might be holding your search performance down. Plus, AWT monitors for backlinks so you'll know the most linked to pages and how those links are affecting your rankings. And AWT shares what keywords your website ranks for and compares how you stack up against competitors for key metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty and traffic value. Look, monitoring your website used to require multiple expensive tools and now, thanks to Ahrefs, that's not the case anymore because AWT will help you monitor your SEO health backlinks and keywords for free. And no, it's not one of those 14 day free trial offers. It's a powerful site audit tool that will keep working for you for free. So check out Ahrefs webmaster tools@ahrefs.com AWT that's a H R E F S.com.
- [02:26]
Tyson Stockton
AWT today, Chris and I are going to be discussing Human Driven AI Assisted SEO. And with that, here's my conversation with Chris Ralph, Founder and President at Boulder SEO Marketing. Chris, welcome to the podcast.
- [02:41]
Chris Rolfe
Hey Tyson, thanks so much for the beautiful introduction and for having me on your show. I'm pumped to be here.
- [02:48]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah, so I mean, today we're looking at the intersection Human Driven but with AI, I think it feels like we're already just jumping right into one of the big questions that a lot of people have of how far do you use AI and where do you use human intervention? From your perspective, what's kind of some of the driving principles of knowing where to leverage what kind of tool or asset?
- [03:17]
Chris Rolfe
All right, great question to get this conversation kicked off. So let me take a step back. Back In November of 2022, ChatGPT emerged out of nowhere, right? It was, I think they got the most users in the short amount of time in history. So it's a revolution, right? I immediately recognized that this is a game changer. You know, remember back in, you know, 1996 when Google emerged, it felt like that we're back to that year where something groundbreaking is happening. So I got invited to talk about AI and how it's going to transform digital marketing in the future by a localization industry association company. And very little was known about, you know, AI chatgpt back then. So I went to YouTube and I found this conference called Transform X. It was basically the leading conference on AI, what was about to happen, you know, in digital marketing, etc. So I watched about 120 hours of YouTube videos to really become familiar what is happening, you know, with AI, how it's going to impact digital marketing and anything in our lives. So that's when I realized this is going to be massive where we're at now. This is what this conversation is going to be about. It's nothing. We're going to see so much more how AI is not only going to transform search engine optimization, digital marketing in general, but you know, the entire world. So I got very excited to dive into AI and SEO. And I soon figured out, you know, it has to be right now a human driven, but AI, AI assisted process. This is how agencies are going to differentiate themselves from other agencies. If you're not already using AI in basically anything that you do right now, on an agency level, you are behind the curve. So that's a bit long intro, but I think that's the foundation for our conversation here.
- [05:50]
Tyson Stockton
And I guess with that notion, and so we're kind of just looking at like the tip of the iceberg from how this will be integrated into our day to day, our workflows. I mean, even outside of SEO, what do you feel like are the kind of primary, like the foundational pillars that you'd advocate people either getting more familiar with, preparing themselves around, like what, what are kind of these like foundational building blocks that would enable someone to be at the forefront.
- [06:25]
Chris Rolfe
Yeah, great question. So what I did after I learned about what's going to happen with AI, I mean, I have, I believe I have a very clear picture where we're going over the next, you know, potentially two, three years until we reach the stage of AGI, artificial general intelligence. Basically these tools are going to be as smart as we are. We're not there yet. Right. But what I initially did is I created a visual representation of everything that we do at my agency, all the connections. You know, we're doing content development, you know who's involved in doing that. Right. We're doing technical SEO, we're doing functional web design, et cetera, et cetera, basically. So I'm dyslexic, so visual stuff works really well for my brain. I basically sat down and I mapped out sort of like a mind map, you know, what are all the things that we do for our clients and how are we doing them, you know, who's involved in doing them? Because then I can was able to make the connection. Okay, we're creating, let's just say a blog post, right. So we're using keyword research tools to do that. We're using this and that and these people to achieve that goal of creating a search engine optimized blog post that will have a chance to rank at the top in Google for the target SEO keywords. Right. I do recommend that you do the same thing. You don't have to do a visual representation, whatever works for you, but identify each and every step in whatever you're doing, and then do a search for what kind of AI tools already exist to supplement that process. It is mind blowing by how much more efficient my agency has become in a very short amount of time simply because we're using AI not to replace people, but to support those people's efforts in achieving the best possible results for our clients. I hope that makes sense.
- [08:38]
Tyson Stockton
Right, absolutely. It's a great point to just kind of double down on is it sounds like from this, like you're not downsizing your staff from it, you're using it as more like an enablement tool. So then the reach of their work is extended, whether it's in volume of production, number of analysis, being able to run, but it's like their velocity has been increased. Is that correct?
- [09:05]
Chris Rolfe
Awesome question. Yeah. So a lot of people are afraid of AI just like, oh my God, AI is going to take away my job. I think I immediately realized, no, it's going to allow me to hire more people. To do different things, you know, create positions that haven't even existed, you know, a couple of years ago. So when we updated our processes and started to infuse AI into, you know, basically most everything that we do here, we hired, we basically created positions for people in places. We have a team in the Philippines that we were able to train adequately. So we created a brand new, a couple of brand new positions for people over there that are really good at doing what we need them to do. This position, this job didn't even exist before and they're now experts at, you know, using the AI tools that we taught them to use for the process that we need them to implement. So to me it's, yeah, jobs will be impacted, but as with every new technology, it's going to create a whole new set of positions, you know, jobs. And that's just the way it is. Every new technology will change the job landscape. To me, I see it as an opportunity. I'm excited. We're excited about it here at Bold SEO Marketing and we're already creating, you know, many more jobs as a result of what we're doing here.
- [10:47]
Tyson Stockton
I feel like that's such a key point because in the general mass media it's like, yeah, this kind of hysteria around AI is going to take all of our jobs. And I think it is a really good point. Most analysis or more deep dives into the topic have all led to the kind of the same conclusion where if you look back when a new technology is introduced, sure, it's going to have a displacement, but in the bigger picture, there's going to be a net positive of opportunities or jobs created from this. Going back a little bit, you mentioned when you're looking at the varieties of the activities that the team's doing to look at different types of AI solutions and I think most people, we've gotten to the point that we just almost have this synonym association between AI and ChatGPT. Do you have any kind of like recommendations or tips for people to broaden their horizon as far as AI technology goes?
- [11:47]
Chris Rolfe
Oh, absolutely. You know, kudos to OpenAI for launching ChatGPT as the first generative AI tool. Right. First to market, very important. But if you think about it, Google, they basically have the most access to the most data on the Internet. So I've seen tremendous improvements with Gemini. It's probably the generative AI tool that I use the most right now. I think right now they're still in development. They're getting better and better as we speak. I also use Perplexity and Claude. So those are probably the four tools that I use the most. And to be honest, ChatGPT I've rarely used over the last month or so, now that you asked me that question. So I primarily use Gemini. I use the paid version which has improved dramatically. So yeah, it's a great question. Again, ChatGPT was first to market, so most people associate associate generative AI tools with ChatGPT. But man, there's a wealth of tools out there that are, you know, as good or probably better than ChatGPT. Yeah, great question.
- [13:16]
Podcast Announcer
Time for a one minute break to hear from our sponsor, Pre Visible. So you're looking for SEO help and you got a couple of options. You could start replying to spam from agencies that claim they can get you to rank number one on Google. You can pay an hourly rate for a consultant who will inevitably nickel and dime you with hourly charges, or you can work with a cookie cutter agency to quickly launch a strategyless project with low success rate. None of those sound very good now do they? Well, that's where Pre Visible's integrated consulting model comes in. Pre Visible draws From a collective 40 years of SEO and digital marketing experience to unlock your organic growth opportunities. They build custom solutions that combine strategy, technical expertise, content and reporting to effectively operationalize SEO for your business. Pre Physical's four stage approach ensures that your SEO programs thrive by starting off with a strategy first approach. Then they support you in your efforts to create quality content, help you identify technical issues, and most importantly, they'll work with your cross functional teams to integrate your SEO strategies to make sure that your SEO budget actually drives results, not just your agency's bottom line. So join brands like Yelp, eBay, Canva, Atlassian Square, all who rely on the SEO consultants at Pre Visible. For more information go to Pre Visible IO that's Pre Visible P R E V I S I B L E I O.
- [14:44]
Tyson Stockton
In the Gemini one. I've also been getting more and more interested by one of the things that I'm kind of excited about with that is we use Google Workspace, so all of our company's files and everything are stored in Google Drive. And with Gemini being able to reference specific folders, I think that's going to be kind of exciting as being able to reference past documents, templates, things like that, and be able to create documents from like specific reference points that you have. So you're able to ground it into one location.
- [15:23]
Chris Rolfe
Oh yeah. I mean so. And I think this is the reason why Google was not first to market with you know, back then it was called Bard Assistant Bard before it was renamed to Gemini. So Google was working on the Gemini AI technology that is now infused in basically each and every Google product from workspace to whatever. This was a massive, massive, massive undertaking for a company of that size to revolutionize each and every one of their products with AI. This is why they were not first to market. But now that Gemini is being infused into each and every one of their products, more people are learning about Gemini. So, you know, Google was not the first search engine out there. You know, we have Yahoo, you know, all these other search engines before. So they, I have absolutely no doubt Google will dominate the AI game. I, you know, I use probably Gemini 80% of all the time. So, yeah, good point there.
- [16:37]
Tyson Stockton
So I feel like it's always a very, very difficult question to ask of, like shaking the magic crystal ball. Looking into the future, what do we expect? And in this space it's obviously developing so quickly that it's very difficult to anticipate something too far into the future. But in the more near term, maybe kind of like between now and end of year, are there any areas that you're looking to further leverage, whether it's workflows or emerging technologies, like anything in this kind of near term that you're looking at.
- [17:12]
Chris Rolfe
So I push limits a little bit right now where I think if you're using AI, you have to use it responsibly. Right. It's a brand new technology that is being deployed globally on a very, very rapid pace. Right. So I do think that a lot of people are abusing it. I do think that these technology companies, they will catch up with the abuse. For example, Google has to deal with a massive amount of AI generated content. Anybody can go to one of these tools and spit out hundreds of, you know, crappy content that just spawn content. It's going to cost these tools a lot of money. So I do think that while I'm going to push the limit, I'm going to try to figure out what's the best way to get the most out of these tools within a sort of like a framework that allows me to get the best possible results for our clients and my company. I do think that we need to be responsible enough to embrace this technology and to not abuse this technology. Sadly, I see a lot of people in the industry that they're so excited about this new technology and they're abusing the heck out of it. I do recommend, if you want to emerge as a winner, do the right thing. Don't do any kind of black hat, gray hat use this new technology responsible but go to the limit. That's what we're doing here at Boulder SEO Marketing. So hopefully that's a good answer to your question. But I think hopefully that rounds up what we talked here about.
- [19:10]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah, I think it's a great point too that with the uncertainty, if you're stretching the limits too far and it's kind of getting into into that more black hat realm, that would be something that I would assume too that's going to be very high suspect of causing issues.
- [19:28]
Chris Rolfe
Yeah. So we're already seeing companies, they're getting caught, right. By just using AI tools to generate a ton of content and are being blacklisted by Google. That's exactly what I'm referring to.
- [19:42]
Tyson Stockton
Yeah. And I think too a kind of obvious example of it would be just really high volumes of low quality AI generated content. Quite easy to detect from a search engine side. Totally get why a search engine would also have concerns around that around just crawling and indexing costs. So I think that's one too where it's like, no, the question isn't is AI content good or bad? It's yes, it's how it's being used and there is a risk from like potential page bloat constraints that if you're just mass producing pages, that would likely happen. Adverse impact.
- [20:21]
Chris Rolfe
Yeah, absolutely.
- [20:23]
Tyson Stockton
Well, with that, that wraps up this episode of the Voice of Search podcast. Thanks again to Chris Ralph from Bowler SEO Marketing for joining us in part two of this conversation, which we'll be publishing tomorrow. Chris and I are going to continue the conversation and discuss AI and SEO Meet Micro SEO strategies. If you can't wait until the next episode and you'd like to learn more about Chris, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in the show Notes. Or you can contact him on X where his handle is swisschris, or visit his company's website at boulderseomarketing.com okay, thanks.
- [20:58]
Podcast Announcer
To Tyson Stockton, our guest host. If you'd like to get in touch with Tyson, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show Notes. You can contact him on Twitter where his handle is TysonStockton. Or if your team is interested in SEO consulting, consulting or organizational education, you can always head to their company's website, which is Previsible IO that's P R E V I S I B L E I O. And a special thanks to Ahrefs for sponsoring this podcast. Monitoring your website used to require multiple expensive tools, but that's not the case anymore, thanks to Ahrefs, because they just launched their Ahrefs Webmaster Tools product, which monitors your SEO health, helps you keep track of your backlinks, and gives you the insight into what keywords are performing for free. So check out Ahrefs webmaster tools@ahrefs.comAWT that's Ahrefs a h r e f s.comAWT just one more link in our show Notes I'd like to tell you about if you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to voicesofsearch.com, where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, and you can even send us your topic suggestions or your marketing questions, which will answer live on our show. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is voicesofsearch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or you can contact me directly. My handle is Ben Jschapp B E N J S H A P and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing insights in your podcast feed, we're going to publish an episode every day during the work week. So hit that subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, remember, the answers are always in the data.