October 27, 2025 • 39 mins
We explore how SEO is evolving into a broader visibility strategy that spans AI overviews, chat tools, and omnichannel marketing. Lindsay Halsey shares client-ready frameworks for education, measurement, and execution that turn complexity into clear next steps.
• shift from sessions to visibility and share of voice
• client education using visuals and live data reviews
• GA4 custom channel for AI tool referrals
• AI overview tracking and imperfect but useful signals
• LLMs.txt and crawl access considerations
• content that shows human expertise and authorship
• aligning CTAs to intent to boost conversions
• redistributing effort from top-of-funnel to mid-funnel
• omnichannel support including paid social and PR
• audience research and journey mapping to guide strategy
• practical plan: what, why, how, when cadence
Guest Contact Information:
Website: pathfinderseo.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lindsay-halsey
More from EWR and Matthew
Leave us a review wherever you listen: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Podcast
Free SEO Consultation: www.ewrdigital.com/discovery-call
With over 5 million downloads, The Best SEO Podcast has been the go-to show for digital marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs wanting real-world strategies to grow online.
Now, host Matthew Bertram — creator of LLM Visibility™ and the LLM Visibility Stack™, and Lead Strategist at EWR Digital — takes the conversation beyond traditional SEO into the AI era of discoverability.
Each week, Matthew dives into the tactics, frameworks, and insights that matter most in a world where search engines, large language models, and answer engines are reshaping how people find, trust, and choose businesses. From SEO and AI-driven marketing to executive-level growth strategy, you’ll hear expert interviews, deep-dive discussions, and actionable strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve.
Find more episodes here:
Follow us on:
Facebook: @bestseopodcast
Instagram: @thebestseopodcast
Tiktok: @bestseopodcast
LinkedIn: @bestseopodcast
Connect With Matthew Bertram:
Website: www.matthewbertram.com
Instagram: @matt_bertram_live
LinkedIn: @mattbertramlive
Powered by: ewrdigital.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
This is the unknown secret of internet marketing.
Your inside guide to the topmarket to crack the competition.
Ready to unlock your fullpotential.
Let's get started.
SPEAKER_02 (00:14):
Audi, welcome back to another fun filled episode of
The Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I'm your host, Matt Bertram.
Got another great uh podcast foryou today.
I have Lindsay Hazley with uhshe wears two hats.
Uh she's been doing SEO forabout 15 years.
Uh she has uh Pathfinder SEO,which helps uh other agencies
and freelancers and do all thecoaching that I keep saying I'm
(00:36):
gonna do, but haven't done yet.
Uh, and then she's also apartner at Web Shine.
And um I've been just doing anumber of interviews where I've
been bringing on um experts inthe field as well as agency
owners to kind of talk about allthe new changes that are going
on uh with SEO.
(00:57):
And uh Lindsay's on top of thechange.
There's a big curve for LLMvisibility uh and kind of
everything beyond Google,optimize everywhere.
There's a lot of other terms forit.
And I thought it would be goodto just bring another uh senior
voice on to share herperspective of what's happening
and what she's doing about itand telling people.
(01:20):
So, Lindsay, welcome to theshow.
SPEAKER_01 (01:22):
Thanks so much, Matt.
I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02 (01:25):
Well, let's just kind of go to set the table with
what's topical for you, what'son your radar.
Um, you know, how are you seeinguh the world of SEO change?
SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
Good question and great place to start.
And uh, and thank you for beingone of the voices out there that
I've been listening to uh as Ilisten to more podcasts, attend
webinars, um, trying tounderstand, like we all are, how
AI is reshaping search.
And I really started by umasking myself one question,
which was uh is SEO changing oris SEO evolving right now?
(02:01):
And I've always kind of in thelast 15 years and working in the
SEO space, used the phrase SEOevolves more than it changes,
because um, so much of what yousee out on social and what
people talk about is how muchchange is happening, and that if
you're not constantly umlearning, doing, et cetera,
you're gonna get left behind, orsort of this feeling of the rug
(02:23):
could get pulled out from underyour business if you're not
careful with SEO.
And in working with clients over15 years, some of which I've
worked with their businessesthat entire time, we haven't had
the rug pulled out fromunderneath us because we're
following kind of a holistic umreal-world marketing best
practices uh approach to SEO.
(02:44):
And in this evolution, I've beenkind of questioning is this
still the same?
Like, is it change or is itevolution?
And um, we keep hearing abouthow AI is reshaping search, and
I certainly agree with that.
Um, and I'm sort of a, you know,um on both sides of the fence.
On the one hand, I think umthere is a lot of change and is
(03:06):
a lot of evolution, but at theend of the day, we're still
talking about the same end goal,which is helping businesses,
whether they're local businessesor large brands, connect with
their audience online and helpthem get found, help them build
visibility and build thatvisibility uh on Google Yahoo
Bing.
But then also we're sort ofgetting this positive byproduct
(03:28):
of also what you're doing in theworld of SEO is often helping
getting found and showing up inuh in AI-based tools, chat GPT,
Gemini, Perplexity.
So I'm kind of in this place,I'm still calling it evolution,
and I really see this as aconvergence and that um the hat
we wear when we are thinkingabout um SEO and getting found
(03:49):
on Google is actually helpingpropel um us and our clients'
websites, et cetera, um, intothis new age of of search, which
uh some of which is nowhappening in the AI world.
SPEAKER_02 (04:01):
You know, I I can see evolve.
I can definitely, there'scertain things I feel are
certainly like evolving.
I also think things are activelychanging.
Um, I actually think uh even ona uh a tracking standpoint,
we're going back to uh the olddays.
(04:23):
And so I feel like it's almostlike uh uh epoch or something
like that is is happening, andwe're going back to the
beginning and first principlesand how we need to um rethink
marketing as a whole.
Um, I had heard for a long timeuh people talking about SEO
(04:44):
going away uh and it's beingkind of integrated into uh every
capacity.
And I I I do think that maybe onthe long term that that's
happening.
But uh the analogy I use with alot of this stuff is like uh I I
go back to this because there'slike a personal story here with
my mom.
(05:04):
My mom was like one of the firstemployees of Microsoft.
And um early on when Igraduated, I wanted to get these
like they weren't called RedBoxes, but they were like, um,
you know, I want to I I I wascalling on all these pharmacies,
and so I I wanted to put theseup and I wanted to have like a
residual business going going.
And my mom was like, no,everything's gonna go streaming,
(05:25):
everything, right?
And you know, Netflix did putyou know Blockbuster out of
business, but you know, Redboxis still around and DVDs are
still around, and there's thislong tail on the adoption curve.
So the bulk of people move over,um and but there's still this
very long tail.
(05:46):
And the thing I have to keepreminding myself is like we're
talking about chat GPT and andand visibility, you know, it
it's under 10% of the market.
I think um the leads are goodand it's actively growing.
But when I talk to people andbusinesses, they're not there
yet, right?
And um now attribution isbecoming a like a big thing too.
(06:10):
And attribution is I I justbrought on uh uh someone I I
believe is a thought leader inthe attribution space.
And it was like, yeah,attribution's gone, like it's
it's dead, like we're going backto it.
Even Ran Fishkin's talking aboutum, well, you know, run two run
two uh A B tests uh in similarcities of billboards, and then
(06:32):
when you see the uplift on one,that's the billboard you go
with.
And I'm like, whoa, like it'salmost like going back to the
stone age.
And so we're having to relearneverything and even like looking
at SEO, like not not not from atwo-dimensional standpoint, but
from uh, well, this is machinelearning.
This is a large LLM that we'vebeen speaking to, and the
(06:52):
language and how we interactwith it is the same.
So there's a lot of skill setsthat that you can adapt, but
there's also new skill sets outthere and also how people are
searching online, 50% of thetraffic is no longer on the
website.
And then you also have, youknow, informational traffic is
being found before they get tothe website.
So it's an evolution and there'scertain uh uh alignments there,
(07:18):
absolutely.
Um, and then there's like a lotof new stuff that's coming in
from left field and how peopleare evolving and and how they're
searching and AI search and youknow where that's going.
And then, you know, you you talkabout funnels, right?
These two-dimensional funnelsthat was never really a thing.
Um but it's it's just going backto like good marketing, like
(07:42):
good digital marketing.
And and I'm having a a crisis onthe podcast really of our, you
know, we've been talking aboutSEO for so long, but also the
name of the podcast is internetmarketing, which okay, digital
marketing, internet marketing,whatever, you know, but it it's
really about internet marketingand how it all works together
(08:03):
now, and and you can't justfocus on Google and and win.
SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
So yeah, I totally agree with that concept.
And I mean, we've been sayingfor a long time that SEO isn't
done in a back office.
So when I started an SEO, yousort of you could operate in a
back office, right?
A client could pay you, aretainer, you could do things
that they didn't understandbehind the scenes that like
didn't totally uh have aforward-facing impact on their
(08:29):
business, meaning you couldn'talways like see it on their
website, et cetera.
And that sort of worked.
I mean, it was a little bitshortcutty even 15 years ago,
but um, you could sort ofoperate siloed, right?
And uh, and over time, we've hadto come out of that silo and
we've had to start doing realworld marketing and uh and not
operate independently.
(08:50):
And so if you want to have um animpact on a business, it really
is across channels.
And so, yes, do you considerthat SEO work or like what hat
are you wearing, like whatchannel are you focused on, has
become uh a lot less of thecase.
And more of how do you put itall together in sort of an
omnichannel plan uh is is moreof what we're doing and helping
(09:11):
coach businesses do and doing inour own business, et cetera.
So, you know, I think a littlebit about that, like even just
what we're doing in our ownbusiness at Pathfinder right now
is saying, okay, a lot of peopleare talking about AI and SEO,
and our agency is evolving, likethe tasks we do, the strategy we
implement for clients, how wereport the value, how we track
(09:32):
and attribute that.
That's all evolving over at ouragency.
So lots of people are out therehaving these conversations.
We should blog about it.
So that's like starts kind ofwith that core principle of
sharing expertise and experienceonline.
So we should create blog posts.
And then we should take thoseblog posts and on the same theme
offer a webinar or two about itthat are self-hosted webinars,
(09:53):
right?
And you're building kind of thislike broader way of sharing
expertise.
Then we should be a guest onpodcasts and get out there in
the world and talk about it.
We should run some paidadvertising to those blog posts
that have, you know, calls toactions and downloads, et
cetera.
And that when we lean intosomething these days, we don't
just like write a blog post andcheck the box and say, okay, my
(10:15):
SEO work is done here or mymarketing work is done here, but
rather we look at it as anecosystem across paid, email,
um, you know, off off yourwebsite channels, um, and so
forth.
And should you be on Reddit anddoing all of these different
things?
I mean, there's so muchhappening now.
Um, but what I like about it isit's this quality over quantity
(10:37):
play.
Instead of I better go out anddo this thing four times at sort
of a low value.
What we really need to do isbuild that depth of expertise,
that depth of value across thesechannels.
And it's gonna be hard tomeasure the value.
Um, it's not gonna be someoneread a blog post and hit the buy
now or the sign up type button.
(10:57):
Um, but we're gonna be lookingat our businesses.
Are we on the rise as a whole?
And when we talk to clients atour agency, that's the hard
part.
We can't always just go in andsay you spent X on Google Ads,
you invested Y in the managementof your SEO campaign, et cetera,
because it is all operating kindof under digital marketing or
(11:18):
internet marketing, whateveryou, you know, a much broader
umbrella to drive success intoday's era.
SPEAKER_02 (11:25):
So, I mean, what how are you explaining like what is
the conversations that you'rehaving?
Let's go like very tactical.
And I think that other agencyowners and freelancers are
having a lot of hardconversations with clients about
where did the traffic go?
Where did the leads go?
Uh, how are things changing?
(11:47):
And clients are starting to wakeup to okay, this managed service
of SEO that's being done forthem, of what the heck's going
on?
What do I need to do?
Like all hands on deck.
And um, you know, I think thatwhat I'm getting uh from like
requests from from audience andand and listeners is how are you
(12:09):
having these conversations?
How are you educating uh clientson the change and what happened
and um what to do about it?
SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Great question.
So for us, um the number one waywe like to educate clients is by
actually getting on the phoneand talking to them and usually
having some kind of a screenshare happening, right?
You can create handouts and blogposts and Loom videos and all
the things, but the best way inour experience is either an
in-person or a Zoom type calland on a relatively regular
(12:44):
basis because there's a lot ofeducation that needs to happen
right now because the educationthen turns to action.
So there's like you've got tounderstand what's happening and
why it's happening and how thisimpacts your business.
And then we're gonna start tokind of morph and evolve the
strategy.
And if anything, as um agencies,we probably have to lean in
closer to our clients'businesses in this era, right?
(13:05):
We're gonna have to do morecollaborative work with them to
keep having an impact.
So it's not like, hey, go get aZoom call scheduled with your
client for next Tuesday and thentalk to them again in 2026.
What we're talking about islike, okay, there's sort of this
evolution of they need tounderstand what's happening and
how we're gonna evolve ourstrategy and what we're seeing,
and then actually start doingthe work together.
(13:28):
Um and they've got to come alongin that journey.
So that initial, those initialconversations um are happening
over Zoom.
And I'm personally, I don't knowabout you, Matt, but I use a lot
of visuals, right?
So I'm showing them, hey, theseare the the you know, ways
people search.
This is what an AI overview is,this is AI mode, um, you know,
(13:48):
showing them how this isimpacting the search results
because we we can't assume thatour clients are adopting this um
like we have been.
And so they need to understandvocabulary, layout what's
happening, um, start to seevisibility, and then we can talk
about some of the obviousthings.
Well, how do you think, youknow, this impacts click-through
(14:08):
rates on this keyword, etcetera?
So we do a lot of visualstorytelling, and then I like to
get into some data, sometimeslooking in Search Console
analytics and say, hey, now thatyou understand the big picture
of what's happening in ourindustry, let me show you what's
happening in uh in yourbusiness's data and what we're
seeing.
Are you feeling that?
What how's business, right?
(14:29):
So this is a bit of an educationstorytelling.
This is a bit of a data like,hey, this is what we're seeing.
And then I want to know how'sbusiness?
Like, what's going on?
And this AI, everything that'shappening in that is not
happening in a vacuum.
So they could be up or down,even though click-through rates
have shifted, et cetera, becausetheir industry isn't static
(14:50):
either, right?
They might have more demand orless demand for their product or
services in today's era.
So that could be happening too.
Their business could beevolving.
They could have launched a localbusiness, launched a new
location.
So you have like multiple thingsthat can be causing a business
to be growing or not growing orseeing more sessions or less
sessions.
(15:10):
And so this education is sort oflike this is one piece of this
very dynamic world we're livingin.
Um, and helping them tounderstand that is sort of where
I start the story, right?
Like stay in the world in our inour swimming lane and stay in
the world of SEO to begin with.
Go ahead, Matt.
SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Oh, well, one of the things that you said that um was
in a previous conversation thatI had that um really keyed in
for me is what you're talkingabout is if they're opening a
new location, if they're doingother PR work, like like pulling
your your SEO agency orconsultant or whoever is doing
it in on that because itreflects in the data.
(15:50):
And um the idea was uh havingkind of like a quarterly form
that they fill out to say, hey,what are the things that are
going on in your business thatwe might not know about that
could reflect in the data?
Um, we've had we've had uh allkinds of interesting stories of
clients doing stuff um atconferences, or uh we had one
(16:14):
client that had been our clientfor uh you know 10 plus years.
They ran a TV ad and didn't eventhink to tell us.
And we were like, what is goingon?
Um these things, these thingsaffect the the analytics and the
story that that's being told.
And and to understand that, Ithink the collaborative uh
(16:36):
efforts um with businesses areare are really critical.
I would love to even go evendeeper, if you will, and you
don't have to give away anynames of clients, but I would
love to like be a fly on thewall on some of these maybe um
really great uh conversations oreven really difficult
conversations and uh how how youuh chose or even educated your
(17:01):
team to navigate those uh thoseconversations because uh we've
we've actually seen with withEWR Digital, our agency, some
pockets um where there was kindof big decision points that all
at the same time there was uh umcalls coming in of like what's
(17:22):
going on.
And uh we've had to build plansto kind of preempt some things
that that are happening and evenGoogle updates um over time of
like, hey, there's a shiftthat's gonna happen, like you
need to be prepared for it.
Here's what to do, and andstaying close, like you said,
with with your clients.
So I'd love to hear some uh realuh experience, right?
(17:44):
If we were talking about GoogleEat, right?
Like what is it show me the thestories and the conversations
you have with clients on on a ona real micro level uh um of of
the conversations you're having.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Awesome.
So usually when we startconversations, we we try to
start with the question likehow's business, what's happening
in the real world, et cetera,because it's not always
reflected, as we've talked aboutwith attribution, et cetera, via
the Google Analytics, SearchConsole, rank tracking data, et
cetera.
So sometimes I go into a callwith my stomach in a knot
because I think uh things don'tlook so good right now.
(18:20):
And then I show up on the calland the client's like, business
is awesome, right?
And uh, and there's a disconnectbetween what I'm seeing in some
of the data and what they'reexperiencing.
And so the biggest thing I wantto know is when I kind of come
into a call, what is what is ourteam's, what's the agency side
sort of sentiment towards howthings are looking in the data
and what we're seeing?
And how's their real worldbusiness experience?
(18:43):
When you start to talk aboutclients that are in like lead
gen for you know high dollarvalue ticket items, real estate,
uh expensive services, roofingcontractors, et cetera, um, it
only takes them like one or twogood leads for them to think
we're like amazing, right?
So the data might be like, oh,your cost per lead or whatever
(19:03):
is down, but they landed theirbiggest sale of the year.
So they couldn't be happier,right?
So we see something in the datalike lower conversions or
something on a website likethat, but one or two of those
were really high value.
And so we've actually knocked itout of the park for them by
getting them the targeted leadthey were looking for, right?
So that's the first thing I liketo do is like just because my
(19:25):
stomach might be like, ooh, thisis gonna be a difficult
conversation, don't just makethat assumption.
Go in and ask some goodquestions at the beginning so
you understand what you'reseeing and they're seeing.
And then you can kind of combinethings and say, okay, we're in
the same, like, we're on thesame trajectory.
We're both in a position of thisis success, or we're both in a
position of, hey, things aren'tlooking so good.
(19:47):
What are we gonna dodifferently?
Or maybe we're seeing differentthings.
But I like to set that tone likeright at the beginning.
Um, and uh, and then I alwayslike to have that, you know, we
just talked about like how doyou provide a little education,
visuals, et cetera, and try tohelp understand the why next.
Like we just identified the whatbusiness is good, business is
bad, what we're seeing in thedata, whatever the what is, then
(20:09):
we want to move into the why.
And we don't always know the whywhen we jump on the call, right?
We think we know the why, we seethe ranking data, we see
click-through rates shifting, etcetera.
But let's also talk to theclient and understand if there's
anything else, like you'resaying from the big picture.
Why did we get more brandtraffic from, you know, Google?
Well, it's because you ran a TVcommercial and more people are
(20:31):
talking about your brand, um, etcetera.
Oh, you brought on a PR agencythat relates to us.
Let me educate you what theoverlap is between my wheelhouse
of SEO and that team'swheelhouse of PR and talk about
collaboration.
So I spend a lot of time in thewhat and the why.
And then uh we move into the howand the when, right?
So the uh the how is like, okay,great, how does this change our
(20:54):
strategy?
Is there something we did thatwe're gonna lean into because
it's going well?
Is there something that we didthat's not working that we
should stop and try somethingnew?
Um, how is our is our strategyevolving?
And that can mean anything fromeducating them on um, you know,
building AI-based visibility andwhat's happening with machine
(21:15):
learning and AI and learninglanguage models.
That could be something like,hey, let's divert some of the
resource we've been putting intoblogging, which is like very top
of funnel, and like focus moreon the mid-funnel transactional
keyword space where people stillare clicking through to
websites, et cetera.
So we talked about the how andwe talked about the when, and
then kind of wrap it up with alot of collaboration.
(21:36):
So that just general flow, um,kind of what, why, when, and how
together at the end.
Um, and then hey, when are wegonna meet next, et cetera?
It's just sort of on repeat.
Um, and so clients can expectthose conversations to kind of
go that way.
Um, and then that little knotyou had in your stomach, um,
sometimes you're like, ooh, likeit is things are bad.
(21:58):
Let's go in, like, let's takeaction immediately.
This client needs a lot of loveright now.
Or you walk away and say, okay,now I understand their business
better and how things are going,and I can reshape what my task
list looks like for that client,prioritization, et cetera.
So is that helpful, Matt?
SPEAKER_02 (22:14):
Sure.
I would love to hear what you'redoing uh from an LLM visibility.
I know on your Pathfinder,you're like Google and Beyond,
um, which uh uh, you know,there's some ideation with Chat
GBT there.
I've actually seen that come up.
I think that was a good tagline.
Um, I would love to hear kind oflike in in inside, like what's
(22:37):
going on internally, how you'retraining your team, what you're
doing.
I think that that's where a lotof the interest is right now,
because it's oh, whoa, it'sshiny new object, right?
Like so everybody is gravitatingto that, even though like maybe
uh the market's not there yet.
I I would just love to hear howyou're positioning for that.
What are the things you'redoing?
How have you changed yourworkflows uh or your checklist
(23:00):
to kind of incorporate some ofthat stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (23:03):
So I will be the first to say that I'm like a
mid-level adopter of new things,right?
So I don't have the newestphone, I don't have the oldest
phone.
Um, and when new technologycomes out, I want to stay
educated and informed andhands-on, but I'm reluctant to
just like drag my clientsquickly down that path, right?
So it's it's finding thisbalance, I think.
(23:24):
And if you feel like you've gotyour foot on the gas, but you're
not doing a lot, you're notalone, right?
We're starting to educate andinform and try to weave this
into our strategies.
Um, but this is still emergingand new and and changing and
evolving and all of the things,right?
So at our agency, um, some ofthe things that we're starting
to do or things that we we didin kind of months past that
(23:46):
you're not too late to do aresimple small things.
Um, like in Google Analytics, wewant to start to be able to tell
our clients how much tractionthey're actually getting from AI
tools.
What kind of traffic are yougetting from Chat GPT, Gemini
Perplexity, et cetera?
And so we can do that bycreating a custom channel in
Google Analytics.
And uh it takes like fiveminutes to do, it applies
(24:08):
retroactively.
So once you layer the channelin, you can see, hey, what's
happening?
And you can show the client thatfor most of our clients, the
number's pretty small, right?
But this shows that A, we'retrying to identify what's
happening, um, we're starting tosee it, and we can look at
engagement quality.
When somebody comes from one ofthese tools, are they highly
(24:29):
engaged?
Do we want more of these folks,right?
And the answer is usually yes.
Um, so small channel right nowfor most of our clients in the
grand scheme of things, but it'semerging.
And so we want to pull that datainto our reporting.
We want to start having thatconversation on a regular basis.
Um, the next thing we start totalk a little bit about is like,
(24:50):
well, how do we know if we'reshowing up in AI mode and AI
overviews beyond just doingsearches ourselves?
And we talk a little bit aboutold school SEO like rank
tracking, right?
And so at our agency, we useWinter and you can see how often
you're kind of getting featuredin the AI overviews, et cetera.
And so we're starting to layerthat into conversations and
treating it a lot like we did,like showing up in featured
(25:12):
snippets or the map pack orwhatever, right?
So starting to build, hey, thisdata is imperfect, but it's
starting to tell us a little bitof the story.
So we're weaving that intoconversation data analysis, et
cetera.
Um, and then starting to look atsort of uh changing what's
happening in our language andwhat we call success and moving
(25:32):
away from everything beingsessions oriented, how many
sessions did we get last monthfrom organic, how many from
paid, et cetera, and starting tobuild into our vocabulary with
clients more about visibility,how often were you part of the
conversation, what's your shareof voice, et cetera?
If you talked to a PR agency orum some paid media agencies,
(25:54):
this is how they already speak.
So if you work with a clientthat has a lot of agency
providers, this isn't like newto them.
Like they've been paying formagazine publications based on
this type of visibility andimpression data for like all of
their business history, right?
And it's just on us a little bitthat we're like, ooh, but I
can't totally measure it or tellit, right?
(26:14):
So starting to shift and weavethat in.
Um, and then we're starting tolean into okay, great.
What other like tactical thingscan we actually do to drive more
visibility?
So at our agency, like most ofour clients are on WordPress and
a lot use Yoast, for example.
So we're going in and buildingthose LLMS.txt.
That's like a tactical somethingthat it's still emerging.
(26:36):
Who knows if it really helps?
Um, but we're trying to likeweave in the strategic side with
bits of tactical work.
SPEAKER_02 (26:43):
Um, so Lindsay, just to speak to that, like the
LLM.txt file, we we had tried touh just put it in the robots.txt
file.
And then these rolling IPs, um,we we couldn't, we we kept
blacklisting uh LLMs, like andthere's the major ones, but
there's actually a ton of themout there, and you don't know
(27:05):
what bot traffic is is where.
And so actually we had to set upfor all our clients uh LLM.txt
file just so that there's achance to get shown up in the
visibility if it if it can'tread your site and that's the
only place that you're heavilypublishing content in a blog or
something like that, it it itlimits a big part of your kind
(27:26):
of mothership strategy uh ofwhat's going on.
And so so I think that theLLM.txt file, um not everybody's
doing that.
And that's one of the even likeone of the tools that I'm seeing
that that people are proposingare like, hey, like uh put your
website in here and we'll showyou if if you're if you're
getting blocked or not, right?
(27:47):
And I think it's a a a good uhwidget um that that people are
utilizing because you know Iwould say over 50% of the market
um d does not have that onthere.
Uh but I I have seen the data umback that it is working um from
what it's intended to do is tosay, hey, like we're gonna let
(28:09):
these LMs come check out ourstuff, right?
So yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
So that's a little bit about kind of from uh like
um some of the things that we'redoing.
And when I say we're not likecrazy early adapters of one
thing or like way behind thecurve, it's just sort of
incrementally chipping away atthis and staying up to date each
month and like moving ourclients through this without
throwing in the towel andsaying, like, stop blogging,
stop doing this, go do this.
(28:34):
It's a little bit of like, howdo we just weave some of these
um tactics and strategies intowhat we're already doing?
So, for example, in the contentgame, one of the things that
we've seen for a long time, um,but even more so today, is um
making sure the human is shiningthrough um throughout your
website, right?
And so right now, um that humanvoice and that that genuine
(28:58):
expert and expertise trying tolet that shine through.
So, how do we do that in, forinstance, a blog post?
Sometimes blog posts start withmore storytelling and first
person narrative, for example,or maybe it's helping a client
actually get um their authorshipprofile kind of built out and
supporting up all of their blogposts by saying this wasn't
created by brand X.
(29:20):
It was created by Thought LeaderY, the name, not the name of the
business, but the name of thethought leader behind the
content.
Um, coming in and reworkingthose intro, you know, to blog
posts, adding more structure toour content because we know um
Google and the learning languagemodels, everybody kind of likes
that structured approach, etcetera.
(29:41):
So getting back into existingcontent um and uh and trying to
eke more out of it is anexample.
Another thing that we've beendoing with a lot of success is
saying, okay, great.
We did this on a couple ofPathfinder blogs as a test.
Like we are we are seeing lesstraffic in the informational
upper funnel.
Space to our blogs across ourwebsite in our own business.
(30:03):
Our clients are seeing the same.
Click-through rates are downanywhere from like 30 to 50
percent, um, depending on kindof what your rankings look like,
uh, all sorts of differentdynamics.
Um, so we're dealing with lessvisitors coming to our website.
So we need to get more out ofthem.
How do we get more out of them?
Well, of course, great design,page speed, et cetera, but also
(30:24):
um aligning our calls to actionwith the topic of whatever meets
the person.
So if we do win the click whensomebody searches for something
like SEO proposal template,which I don't even know why you
search on Google for that, whenyou could go to Chat GPT and
it'll just create one for you,and then you can customize it
and add that human layer.
People are still searching forit.
(30:45):
They're not finding our blogpost about it as often.
But if we have a pop-up that uhon that blog post that is sign
up for our e-newsletter, it haslike a less than 1% conversion
rate, right?
So it doesn't really do a lotfor us.
Um, but we get a little bit oftraction.
But now we have, you know, let'ssay we were getting a thousand
visitors a month to that postlast year at this time.
(31:07):
Now maybe we're getting 500 or200 or whatever.
It could have tanked.
So how do I get more conversionsor leads?
Well, I reframe that call toaction to be the thing that the
person wants.
In this case, they want aproposal template.
So I'm gonna actually give thema download, exchange an email
address, et cetera.
So getting that mindset of liketrying to eke a little bit more
(31:29):
um out of every visitor isanother thing that we've done to
go back in to say, hey, here aremy top 10 performing blogs.
Let's do a call to action thatmatches the intent of how they
got there, what they'reinterested in, instead of some
generic like sign up for my dripseries of emails, et cetera.
So those are a lot of likedifferent little things, but
just um yeah, trying to keep ourfoot on the gas and not get the
(31:53):
rug pulled out in terms of leadgen.
SPEAKER_02 (31:56):
Yeah.
So I think that that leads intokind of something that um you
were reaching out uh aboutbefore was uh aligning strategy
with the customer journey,right?
And we we we touched on it alittle bit of maybe more
commercial and moretransactional searches, um, and
how to kind of realign thatfunnel visibility and then the
(32:17):
bottom of the funnel um likecontent, right?
Like that's what you're talkingabout with the downloadable,
what you're talking about withthe email drip um or the the
newsletter.
Um you're that informationallayer is happening all across
the web.
That's where 50% of the trafficwent.
They've already found that.
(32:38):
They're now in the ideationphase or selection phase.
And and so you need to have morecommercial content, you need to
more have more transactionalcontent.
And I'm finding a lot, youreally got to have those ICPs
dialed in or your ideal uhcustomer profiles dialed in.
And then mapping that customerjourney is really important.
(32:58):
I would love to hear more oflike your viewpoints around
that.
SPEAKER_01 (33:02):
Yeah, so that concept of that ideal customer,
the audience, um, that'ssomething where even with
clients we've worked with themfor like 10 years, we're digging
back into audience.
Like, and I and I frame it aslike audience matters more than
ever right now.
That's the thing.
Like that, we have to find theright audience.
So when it feels like maybe anuninformed or dumb question to
(33:22):
ask a client something kind ofbasic, we're still asking it
under the preface of like, Ireally got to get in the mindset
of your ideal audience.
What do they need?
What challenges are they facing?
What do they want?
How's their world changing rightnow?
Because as much as AI and SEOare all evolving, the whole
world is going through um a lotof evolution.
So, you know, understandingaudience is is super key as a
(33:45):
really good starting point uh toall of this.
So I think that's um yeah, agreat kind of component there.
SPEAKER_02 (33:52):
We're like pulling stuff in from their CRM.
Are you like you want to speakto that a little bit?
SPEAKER_01 (33:58):
Yeah, so I I wish we were doing a little more pulling
in from CRM to understandaudience and things like that.
And uh we're not uh doing thatright now.
So, but I do think if you're inthe lead gen space, um
connecting on the CRM side issuper important.
Um, the other thing that we'redoing is talking a lot about,
you know, if we're talking aboutaudience and we're talking about
(34:21):
um, you know, acquiring theconversion and we're talking in
this funnel, this customeracquisition funnel, we're trying
to do some mind mapping of like,well, how are we connecting in
each of these?
Like, what are the marketing umstrategies that are helping us
reach and how successful arethey right now?
So if you're not getting quiteas much out of your upper
funnel, like informational, youknow, multiple steps ahead of
(34:44):
their when they're ready to buyfor your service because your
blog isn't carrying you as far,what should we do about that?
Should we invest more in socialor paid social?
Should we actually run someGoogle Ads traffic to some of
our most important kind of leadgenerating oriented pieces that
are in that upper funnel, etcetera?
So sometimes saying we have tolean out of SEO a little here to
(35:07):
say if we are if we're worriedthat we're not filling the
funnel, do we need a commercial?
Do we need print?
Like what else?
And it doesn't mean you have tobe able to do all of those
things.
It means that you're coming inas an SEO consultant, you're
coming in trying to help have apositive impact on their brand.
You're helping them ask theright questions and understand
how what you're doing and whatyou're seeing might influence
(35:29):
other channels.
And then in themid-transactional space, again,
like, okay, great.
What kind of traction andvisibility do we have when
somebody actually gets ready tosearch for your product or your
service?
They're in, you're they'reready, they're, but they're not
using your brand, right?
So they're like notinformational, but they're not
brand query oriented.
How are we meeting those folks?
(35:49):
And is SEO sufficient?
Do we need um to build newpages?
Do we need to lean intosomething there?
Do we need to run some paid adsagain?
Um, kind of layering in andgoing through it and thinking
audience and then thinkingcustomer acquisition funnel and
thinking outside of just SEO.
SPEAKER_02 (36:06):
So, Lindsay, what are some unknown secrets of
internet marketing that aremaybe underutilized, people
don't talk about a lot, but someof the things that you're seeing
that people um really need tokind of surface a little bit
more?
SPEAKER_01 (36:24):
Good question.
Um, I think one of the biggestuh secrets to internet marketing
is sort of there there aren'tshortcuts.
And so um, and that a lot of thefundamentals still really work.
And so I think one of thesecrets that I really see in
businesses that are successfulis they take a lot of time to
think about the big picture andunderstand what's happening.
(36:46):
And then they decide where willI have the biggest impact?
What are the next three thingsto have the biggest impact?
And then they take action onthem.
So it's not that they uncover anactual like, you know, secret or
trick or something sort ofrelatively like short-sighted,
but rather the the businessesand the you know, web designers
(37:07):
and agencies and stuff that Ithink are having the biggest
impact on their sites and theirclients' sites are the ones that
can distill all of what'shappening up here in the data in
the real world, distill it downinto where will I have the next
if the most impact, and thenactually go and do the thing,
right?
And if you can keep looping thatlittle cycle together, um, your
(37:27):
brand is gonna be successfultoday and it's gonna be
successful in six months and twoyears from now, no matter where
things go.
I I try to stay out of like theprediction game because I think
especially right now, um, it'sreally hard to know where this
is all going.
But I feel good about thatflywheel, right?
Um, and I feel good about thetime I put into my own marketing
(37:49):
and the resources I put into myclients and what they're paying
if I keep on that flywheel.
Um, and uh yeah, so I don't knowif that's much of a secret, but
that's kind of how I think aboutit.
SPEAKER_02 (38:00):
Awesome.
Well, Lindsay, if someone wantsto find out more about um what
you're doing, I know you do alot of education on the meat and
potatoes of SEO and you have agreat agency out there.
You've been doing this a longtime.
What are the places that peoplecan find you and follow more
about what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01 (38:17):
Uh I'm best place uh if you're looking for a quick
like contact is via email.
That's where I'm the mostresponsive.
So Lindsay at pathfinderseo.com,and I'll reach back out to you.
Um, but you can find us on ourwebsite uh at pathfinderseo.com
uh in the community side ofthings and coaching, and then
our agency is webshine.com.
(38:38):
And uh and from there you cansee some of our social channels
and things like that and contactforms.
But uh yeah, uh thanks so much,Matt.
This has been fun.
SPEAKER_02 (38:46):
Awesome.
Well, anyone listening that islooking to get those frameworks
and those fundamentals down,reach out to Lindsay.
She's got a great program outthere, she's been doing it a
long time.
So check her out.
Uh until the next time, pleaselike, follow, share.
I'm bringing back the Shaiko.
Uh, I guess people like that.
Um, you know, that uh we need ittoday more than ever.
(39:09):
So if uh you got any value, uhplease like, share, follow,
comment.
Uh really appreciate it.
And uh until the next time, myname is Matt Bertram.
Bye bye for now.
This is the unknown secret of internet marketing.
Your inside guide to the topmarket to crack the competition.
Ready to unlock your fullpotential.
Let's get started.
SPEAKER_02 (00:14):
Audi, welcome back to another fun filled episode of
The Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I'm your host, Matt Bertram.
Got another great uh podcast foryou today.
I have Lindsay Hazley with uhshe wears two hats.
Uh she's been doing SEO forabout 15 years.
Uh she has uh Pathfinder SEO,which helps uh other agencies
and freelancers and do all thecoaching that I keep saying I'm
(00:36):
gonna do, but haven't done yet.
Uh, and then she's also apartner at Web Shine.
And um I've been just doing anumber of interviews where I've
been bringing on um experts inthe field as well as agency
owners to kind of talk about allthe new changes that are going
on uh with SEO.
(00:57):
And uh Lindsay's on top of thechange.
There's a big curve for LLMvisibility uh and kind of
everything beyond Google,optimize everywhere.
There's a lot of other terms forit.
And I thought it would be goodto just bring another uh senior
voice on to share herperspective of what's happening
and what she's doing about itand telling people.
(01:20):
So, Lindsay, welcome to theshow.
SPEAKER_01 (01:22):
Thanks so much, Matt.
I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02 (01:25):
Well, let's just kind of go to set the table with
what's topical for you, what'son your radar.
Um, you know, how are you seeinguh the world of SEO change?
SPEAKER_01 (01:37):
Good question and great place to start.
And uh, and thank you for beingone of the voices out there that
I've been listening to uh as Ilisten to more podcasts, attend
webinars, um, trying tounderstand, like we all are, how
AI is reshaping search.
And I really started by umasking myself one question,
which was uh is SEO changing oris SEO evolving right now?
(02:01):
And I've always kind of in thelast 15 years and working in the
SEO space, used the phrase SEOevolves more than it changes,
because um, so much of what yousee out on social and what
people talk about is how muchchange is happening, and that if
you're not constantly umlearning, doing, et cetera,
you're gonna get left behind, orsort of this feeling of the rug
(02:23):
could get pulled out from underyour business if you're not
careful with SEO.
And in working with clients over15 years, some of which I've
worked with their businessesthat entire time, we haven't had
the rug pulled out fromunderneath us because we're
following kind of a holistic umreal-world marketing best
practices uh approach to SEO.
(02:44):
And in this evolution, I've beenkind of questioning is this
still the same?
Like, is it change or is itevolution?
And um, we keep hearing abouthow AI is reshaping search, and
I certainly agree with that.
Um, and I'm sort of a, you know,um on both sides of the fence.
On the one hand, I think umthere is a lot of change and is
(03:06):
a lot of evolution, but at theend of the day, we're still
talking about the same end goal,which is helping businesses,
whether they're local businessesor large brands, connect with
their audience online and helpthem get found, help them build
visibility and build thatvisibility uh on Google Yahoo
Bing.
But then also we're sort ofgetting this positive byproduct
(03:28):
of also what you're doing in theworld of SEO is often helping
getting found and showing up inuh in AI-based tools, chat GPT,
Gemini, Perplexity.
So I'm kind of in this place,I'm still calling it evolution,
and I really see this as aconvergence and that um the hat
we wear when we are thinkingabout um SEO and getting found
(03:49):
on Google is actually helpingpropel um us and our clients'
websites, et cetera, um, intothis new age of of search, which
uh some of which is nowhappening in the AI world.
SPEAKER_02 (04:01):
You know, I I can see evolve.
I can definitely, there'scertain things I feel are
certainly like evolving.
I also think things are activelychanging.
Um, I actually think uh even ona uh a tracking standpoint,
we're going back to uh the olddays.
(04:23):
And so I feel like it's almostlike uh uh epoch or something
like that is is happening, andwe're going back to the
beginning and first principlesand how we need to um rethink
marketing as a whole.
Um, I had heard for a long timeuh people talking about SEO
(04:44):
going away uh and it's beingkind of integrated into uh every
capacity.
And I I I do think that maybe onthe long term that that's
happening.
But uh the analogy I use with alot of this stuff is like uh I I
go back to this because there'slike a personal story here with
my mom.
(05:04):
My mom was like one of the firstemployees of Microsoft.
And um early on when Igraduated, I wanted to get these
like they weren't called RedBoxes, but they were like, um,
you know, I want to I I I wascalling on all these pharmacies,
and so I I wanted to put theseup and I wanted to have like a
residual business going going.
And my mom was like, no,everything's gonna go streaming,
(05:25):
everything, right?
And you know, Netflix did putyou know Blockbuster out of
business, but you know, Redboxis still around and DVDs are
still around, and there's thislong tail on the adoption curve.
So the bulk of people move over,um and but there's still this
very long tail.
(05:46):
And the thing I have to keepreminding myself is like we're
talking about chat GPT and andand visibility, you know, it
it's under 10% of the market.
I think um the leads are goodand it's actively growing.
But when I talk to people andbusinesses, they're not there
yet, right?
And um now attribution isbecoming a like a big thing too.
(06:10):
And attribution is I I justbrought on uh uh someone I I
believe is a thought leader inthe attribution space.
And it was like, yeah,attribution's gone, like it's
it's dead, like we're going backto it.
Even Ran Fishkin's talking aboutum, well, you know, run two run
two uh A B tests uh in similarcities of billboards, and then
(06:32):
when you see the uplift on one,that's the billboard you go
with.
And I'm like, whoa, like it'salmost like going back to the
stone age.
And so we're having to relearneverything and even like looking
at SEO, like not not not from atwo-dimensional standpoint, but
from uh, well, this is machinelearning.
This is a large LLM that we'vebeen speaking to, and the
(06:52):
language and how we interactwith it is the same.
So there's a lot of skill setsthat that you can adapt, but
there's also new skill sets outthere and also how people are
searching online, 50% of thetraffic is no longer on the
website.
And then you also have, youknow, informational traffic is
being found before they get tothe website.
So it's an evolution and there'scertain uh uh alignments there,
(07:18):
absolutely.
Um, and then there's like a lotof new stuff that's coming in
from left field and how peopleare evolving and and how they're
searching and AI search and youknow where that's going.
And then, you know, you you talkabout funnels, right?
These two-dimensional funnelsthat was never really a thing.
Um but it's it's just going backto like good marketing, like
(07:42):
good digital marketing.
And and I'm having a a crisis onthe podcast really of our, you
know, we've been talking aboutSEO for so long, but also the
name of the podcast is internetmarketing, which okay, digital
marketing, internet marketing,whatever, you know, but it it's
really about internet marketingand how it all works together
(08:03):
now, and and you can't justfocus on Google and and win.
SPEAKER_01 (08:08):
So yeah, I totally agree with that concept.
And I mean, we've been sayingfor a long time that SEO isn't
done in a back office.
So when I started an SEO, yousort of you could operate in a
back office, right?
A client could pay you, aretainer, you could do things
that they didn't understandbehind the scenes that like
didn't totally uh have aforward-facing impact on their
(08:29):
business, meaning you couldn'talways like see it on their
website, et cetera.
And that sort of worked.
I mean, it was a little bitshortcutty even 15 years ago,
but um, you could sort ofoperate siloed, right?
And uh, and over time, we've hadto come out of that silo and
we've had to start doing realworld marketing and uh and not
operate independently.
(08:50):
And so if you want to have um animpact on a business, it really
is across channels.
And so, yes, do you considerthat SEO work or like what hat
are you wearing, like whatchannel are you focused on, has
become uh a lot less of thecase.
And more of how do you put itall together in sort of an
omnichannel plan uh is is moreof what we're doing and helping
(09:11):
coach businesses do and doing inour own business, et cetera.
So, you know, I think a littlebit about that, like even just
what we're doing in our ownbusiness at Pathfinder right now
is saying, okay, a lot of peopleare talking about AI and SEO,
and our agency is evolving, likethe tasks we do, the strategy we
implement for clients, how wereport the value, how we track
(09:32):
and attribute that.
That's all evolving over at ouragency.
So lots of people are out therehaving these conversations.
We should blog about it.
So that's like starts kind ofwith that core principle of
sharing expertise and experienceonline.
So we should create blog posts.
And then we should take thoseblog posts and on the same theme
offer a webinar or two about itthat are self-hosted webinars,
(09:53):
right?
And you're building kind of thislike broader way of sharing
expertise.
Then we should be a guest onpodcasts and get out there in
the world and talk about it.
We should run some paidadvertising to those blog posts
that have, you know, calls toactions and downloads, et
cetera.
And that when we lean intosomething these days, we don't
just like write a blog post andcheck the box and say, okay, my
(10:15):
SEO work is done here or mymarketing work is done here, but
rather we look at it as anecosystem across paid, email,
um, you know, off off yourwebsite channels, um, and so
forth.
And should you be on Reddit anddoing all of these different
things?
I mean, there's so muchhappening now.
Um, but what I like about it isit's this quality over quantity
(10:37):
play.
Instead of I better go out anddo this thing four times at sort
of a low value.
What we really need to do isbuild that depth of expertise,
that depth of value across thesechannels.
And it's gonna be hard tomeasure the value.
Um, it's not gonna be someoneread a blog post and hit the buy
now or the sign up type button.
(10:57):
Um, but we're gonna be lookingat our businesses.
Are we on the rise as a whole?
And when we talk to clients atour agency, that's the hard
part.
We can't always just go in andsay you spent X on Google Ads,
you invested Y in the managementof your SEO campaign, et cetera,
because it is all operating kindof under digital marketing or
(11:18):
internet marketing, whateveryou, you know, a much broader
umbrella to drive success intoday's era.
SPEAKER_02 (11:25):
So, I mean, what how are you explaining like what is
the conversations that you'rehaving?
Let's go like very tactical.
And I think that other agencyowners and freelancers are
having a lot of hardconversations with clients about
where did the traffic go?
Where did the leads go?
Uh, how are things changing?
(11:47):
And clients are starting to wakeup to okay, this managed service
of SEO that's being done forthem, of what the heck's going
on?
What do I need to do?
Like all hands on deck.
And um, you know, I think thatwhat I'm getting uh from like
requests from from audience andand and listeners is how are you
(12:09):
having these conversations?
How are you educating uh clientson the change and what happened
and um what to do about it?
SPEAKER_01 (12:22):
Great question.
So for us, um the number one waywe like to educate clients is by
actually getting on the phoneand talking to them and usually
having some kind of a screenshare happening, right?
You can create handouts and blogposts and Loom videos and all
the things, but the best way inour experience is either an
in-person or a Zoom type calland on a relatively regular
(12:44):
basis because there's a lot ofeducation that needs to happen
right now because the educationthen turns to action.
So there's like you've got tounderstand what's happening and
why it's happening and how thisimpacts your business.
And then we're gonna start tokind of morph and evolve the
strategy.
And if anything, as um agencies,we probably have to lean in
closer to our clients'businesses in this era, right?
(13:05):
We're gonna have to do morecollaborative work with them to
keep having an impact.
So it's not like, hey, go get aZoom call scheduled with your
client for next Tuesday and thentalk to them again in 2026.
What we're talking about islike, okay, there's sort of this
evolution of they need tounderstand what's happening and
how we're gonna evolve ourstrategy and what we're seeing,
and then actually start doingthe work together.
(13:28):
Um and they've got to come alongin that journey.
So that initial, those initialconversations um are happening
over Zoom.
And I'm personally, I don't knowabout you, Matt, but I use a lot
of visuals, right?
So I'm showing them, hey, theseare the the you know, ways
people search.
This is what an AI overview is,this is AI mode, um, you know,
(13:48):
showing them how this isimpacting the search results
because we we can't assume thatour clients are adopting this um
like we have been.
And so they need to understandvocabulary, layout what's
happening, um, start to seevisibility, and then we can talk
about some of the obviousthings.
Well, how do you think, youknow, this impacts click-through
(14:08):
rates on this keyword, etcetera?
So we do a lot of visualstorytelling, and then I like to
get into some data, sometimeslooking in Search Console
analytics and say, hey, now thatyou understand the big picture
of what's happening in ourindustry, let me show you what's
happening in uh in yourbusiness's data and what we're
seeing.
Are you feeling that?
What how's business, right?
(14:29):
So this is a bit of an educationstorytelling.
This is a bit of a data like,hey, this is what we're seeing.
And then I want to know how'sbusiness?
Like, what's going on?
And this AI, everything that'shappening in that is not
happening in a vacuum.
So they could be up or down,even though click-through rates
have shifted, et cetera, becausetheir industry isn't static
(14:50):
either, right?
They might have more demand orless demand for their product or
services in today's era.
So that could be happening too.
Their business could beevolving.
They could have launched a localbusiness, launched a new
location.
So you have like multiple thingsthat can be causing a business
to be growing or not growing orseeing more sessions or less
sessions.
(15:10):
And so this education is sort oflike this is one piece of this
very dynamic world we're livingin.
Um, and helping them tounderstand that is sort of where
I start the story, right?
Like stay in the world in our inour swimming lane and stay in
the world of SEO to begin with.
Go ahead, Matt.
SPEAKER_02 (15:27):
Oh, well, one of the things that you said that um was
in a previous conversation thatI had that um really keyed in
for me is what you're talkingabout is if they're opening a
new location, if they're doingother PR work, like like pulling
your your SEO agency orconsultant or whoever is doing
it in on that because itreflects in the data.
(15:50):
And um the idea was uh havingkind of like a quarterly form
that they fill out to say, hey,what are the things that are
going on in your business thatwe might not know about that
could reflect in the data?
Um, we've had we've had uh allkinds of interesting stories of
clients doing stuff um atconferences, or uh we had one
(16:14):
client that had been our clientfor uh you know 10 plus years.
They ran a TV ad and didn't eventhink to tell us.
And we were like, what is goingon?
Um these things, these thingsaffect the the analytics and the
story that that's being told.
And and to understand that, Ithink the collaborative uh
(16:36):
efforts um with businesses areare are really critical.
I would love to even go evendeeper, if you will, and you
don't have to give away anynames of clients, but I would
love to like be a fly on thewall on some of these maybe um
really great uh conversations oreven really difficult
conversations and uh how how youuh chose or even educated your
(17:01):
team to navigate those uh thoseconversations because uh we've
we've actually seen with withEWR Digital, our agency, some
pockets um where there was kindof big decision points that all
at the same time there was uh umcalls coming in of like what's
(17:22):
going on.
And uh we've had to build plansto kind of preempt some things
that that are happening and evenGoogle updates um over time of
like, hey, there's a shiftthat's gonna happen, like you
need to be prepared for it.
Here's what to do, and andstaying close, like you said,
with with your clients.
So I'd love to hear some uh realuh experience, right?
(17:44):
If we were talking about GoogleEat, right?
Like what is it show me the thestories and the conversations
you have with clients on on a ona real micro level uh um of of
the conversations you're having.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Awesome.
So usually when we startconversations, we we try to
start with the question likehow's business, what's happening
in the real world, et cetera,because it's not always
reflected, as we've talked aboutwith attribution, et cetera, via
the Google Analytics, SearchConsole, rank tracking data, et
cetera.
So sometimes I go into a callwith my stomach in a knot
because I think uh things don'tlook so good right now.
(18:20):
And then I show up on the calland the client's like, business
is awesome, right?
And uh, and there's a disconnectbetween what I'm seeing in some
of the data and what they'reexperiencing.
And so the biggest thing I wantto know is when I kind of come
into a call, what is what is ourteam's, what's the agency side
sort of sentiment towards howthings are looking in the data
and what we're seeing?
And how's their real worldbusiness experience?
(18:43):
When you start to talk aboutclients that are in like lead
gen for you know high dollarvalue ticket items, real estate,
uh expensive services, roofingcontractors, et cetera, um, it
only takes them like one or twogood leads for them to think
we're like amazing, right?
So the data might be like, oh,your cost per lead or whatever
(19:03):
is down, but they landed theirbiggest sale of the year.
So they couldn't be happier,right?
So we see something in the datalike lower conversions or
something on a website likethat, but one or two of those
were really high value.
And so we've actually knocked itout of the park for them by
getting them the targeted leadthey were looking for, right?
So that's the first thing I liketo do is like just because my
(19:25):
stomach might be like, ooh, thisis gonna be a difficult
conversation, don't just makethat assumption.
Go in and ask some goodquestions at the beginning so
you understand what you'reseeing and they're seeing.
And then you can kind of combinethings and say, okay, we're in
the same, like, we're on thesame trajectory.
We're both in a position of thisis success, or we're both in a
position of, hey, things aren'tlooking so good.
(19:47):
What are we gonna dodifferently?
Or maybe we're seeing differentthings.
But I like to set that tone likeright at the beginning.
Um, and uh, and then I alwayslike to have that, you know, we
just talked about like how doyou provide a little education,
visuals, et cetera, and try tohelp understand the why next.
Like we just identified the whatbusiness is good, business is
bad, what we're seeing in thedata, whatever the what is, then
(20:09):
we want to move into the why.
And we don't always know the whywhen we jump on the call, right?
We think we know the why, we seethe ranking data, we see
click-through rates shifting, etcetera.
But let's also talk to theclient and understand if there's
anything else, like you'resaying from the big picture.
Why did we get more brandtraffic from, you know, Google?
Well, it's because you ran a TVcommercial and more people are
(20:31):
talking about your brand, um, etcetera.
Oh, you brought on a PR agencythat relates to us.
Let me educate you what theoverlap is between my wheelhouse
of SEO and that team'swheelhouse of PR and talk about
collaboration.
So I spend a lot of time in thewhat and the why.
And then uh we move into the howand the when, right?
So the uh the how is like, okay,great, how does this change our
(20:54):
strategy?
Is there something we did thatwe're gonna lean into because
it's going well?
Is there something that we didthat's not working that we
should stop and try somethingnew?
Um, how is our is our strategyevolving?
And that can mean anything fromeducating them on um, you know,
building AI-based visibility andwhat's happening with machine
(21:15):
learning and AI and learninglanguage models.
That could be something like,hey, let's divert some of the
resource we've been putting intoblogging, which is like very top
of funnel, and like focus moreon the mid-funnel transactional
keyword space where people stillare clicking through to
websites, et cetera.
So we talked about the how andwe talked about the when, and
then kind of wrap it up with alot of collaboration.
(21:36):
So that just general flow, um,kind of what, why, when, and how
together at the end.
Um, and then hey, when are wegonna meet next, et cetera?
It's just sort of on repeat.
Um, and so clients can expectthose conversations to kind of
go that way.
Um, and then that little knotyou had in your stomach, um,
sometimes you're like, ooh, likeit is things are bad.
(21:58):
Let's go in, like, let's takeaction immediately.
This client needs a lot of loveright now.
Or you walk away and say, okay,now I understand their business
better and how things are going,and I can reshape what my task
list looks like for that client,prioritization, et cetera.
So is that helpful, Matt?
SPEAKER_02 (22:14):
Sure.
I would love to hear what you'redoing uh from an LLM visibility.
I know on your Pathfinder,you're like Google and Beyond,
um, which uh uh, you know,there's some ideation with Chat
GBT there.
I've actually seen that come up.
I think that was a good tagline.
Um, I would love to hear kind oflike in in inside, like what's
(22:37):
going on internally, how you'retraining your team, what you're
doing.
I think that that's where a lotof the interest is right now,
because it's oh, whoa, it'sshiny new object, right?
Like so everybody is gravitatingto that, even though like maybe
uh the market's not there yet.
I I would just love to hear howyou're positioning for that.
What are the things you'redoing?
How have you changed yourworkflows uh or your checklist
(23:00):
to kind of incorporate some ofthat stuff?
SPEAKER_01 (23:03):
So I will be the first to say that I'm like a
mid-level adopter of new things,right?
So I don't have the newestphone, I don't have the oldest
phone.
Um, and when new technologycomes out, I want to stay
educated and informed andhands-on, but I'm reluctant to
just like drag my clientsquickly down that path, right?
So it's it's finding thisbalance, I think.
(23:24):
And if you feel like you've gotyour foot on the gas, but you're
not doing a lot, you're notalone, right?
We're starting to educate andinform and try to weave this
into our strategies.
Um, but this is still emergingand new and and changing and
evolving and all of the things,right?
So at our agency, um, some ofthe things that we're starting
to do or things that we we didin kind of months past that
(23:46):
you're not too late to do aresimple small things.
Um, like in Google Analytics, wewant to start to be able to tell
our clients how much tractionthey're actually getting from AI
tools.
What kind of traffic are yougetting from Chat GPT, Gemini
Perplexity, et cetera?
And so we can do that bycreating a custom channel in
Google Analytics.
And uh it takes like fiveminutes to do, it applies
(24:08):
retroactively.
So once you layer the channelin, you can see, hey, what's
happening?
And you can show the client thatfor most of our clients, the
number's pretty small, right?
But this shows that A, we'retrying to identify what's
happening, um, we're starting tosee it, and we can look at
engagement quality.
When somebody comes from one ofthese tools, are they highly
(24:29):
engaged?
Do we want more of these folks,right?
And the answer is usually yes.
Um, so small channel right nowfor most of our clients in the
grand scheme of things, but it'semerging.
And so we want to pull that datainto our reporting.
We want to start having thatconversation on a regular basis.
Um, the next thing we start totalk a little bit about is like,
(24:50):
well, how do we know if we'reshowing up in AI mode and AI
overviews beyond just doingsearches ourselves?
And we talk a little bit aboutold school SEO like rank
tracking, right?
And so at our agency, we useWinter and you can see how often
you're kind of getting featuredin the AI overviews, et cetera.
And so we're starting to layerthat into conversations and
treating it a lot like we did,like showing up in featured
(25:12):
snippets or the map pack orwhatever, right?
So starting to build, hey, thisdata is imperfect, but it's
starting to tell us a little bitof the story.
So we're weaving that intoconversation data analysis, et
cetera.
Um, and then starting to look atsort of uh changing what's
happening in our language andwhat we call success and moving
(25:32):
away from everything beingsessions oriented, how many
sessions did we get last monthfrom organic, how many from
paid, et cetera, and starting tobuild into our vocabulary with
clients more about visibility,how often were you part of the
conversation, what's your shareof voice, et cetera?
If you talked to a PR agency orum some paid media agencies,
(25:54):
this is how they already speak.
So if you work with a clientthat has a lot of agency
providers, this isn't like newto them.
Like they've been paying formagazine publications based on
this type of visibility andimpression data for like all of
their business history, right?
And it's just on us a little bitthat we're like, ooh, but I
can't totally measure it or tellit, right?
(26:14):
So starting to shift and weavethat in.
Um, and then we're starting tolean into okay, great.
What other like tactical thingscan we actually do to drive more
visibility?
So at our agency, like most ofour clients are on WordPress and
a lot use Yoast, for example.
So we're going in and buildingthose LLMS.txt.
That's like a tactical somethingthat it's still emerging.
(26:36):
Who knows if it really helps?
Um, but we're trying to likeweave in the strategic side with
bits of tactical work.
SPEAKER_02 (26:43):
Um, so Lindsay, just to speak to that, like the
LLM.txt file, we we had tried touh just put it in the robots.txt
file.
And then these rolling IPs, um,we we couldn't, we we kept
blacklisting uh LLMs, like andthere's the major ones, but
there's actually a ton of themout there, and you don't know
(27:05):
what bot traffic is is where.
And so actually we had to set upfor all our clients uh LLM.txt
file just so that there's achance to get shown up in the
visibility if it if it can'tread your site and that's the
only place that you're heavilypublishing content in a blog or
something like that, it it itlimits a big part of your kind
(27:26):
of mothership strategy uh ofwhat's going on.
And so so I think that theLLM.txt file, um not everybody's
doing that.
And that's one of the even likeone of the tools that I'm seeing
that that people are proposingare like, hey, like uh put your
website in here and we'll showyou if if you're if you're
getting blocked or not, right?
(27:47):
And I think it's a a a good uhwidget um that that people are
utilizing because you know Iwould say over 50% of the market
um d does not have that onthere.
Uh but I I have seen the data umback that it is working um from
what it's intended to do is tosay, hey, like we're gonna let
(28:09):
these LMs come check out ourstuff, right?
So yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
So that's a little bit about kind of from uh like
um some of the things that we'redoing.
And when I say we're not likecrazy early adapters of one
thing or like way behind thecurve, it's just sort of
incrementally chipping away atthis and staying up to date each
month and like moving ourclients through this without
throwing in the towel andsaying, like, stop blogging,
stop doing this, go do this.
(28:34):
It's a little bit of like, howdo we just weave some of these
um tactics and strategies intowhat we're already doing?
So, for example, in the contentgame, one of the things that
we've seen for a long time, um,but even more so today, is um
making sure the human is shiningthrough um throughout your
website, right?
And so right now, um that humanvoice and that that genuine
(28:58):
expert and expertise trying tolet that shine through.
So, how do we do that in, forinstance, a blog post?
Sometimes blog posts start withmore storytelling and first
person narrative, for example,or maybe it's helping a client
actually get um their authorshipprofile kind of built out and
supporting up all of their blogposts by saying this wasn't
created by brand X.
(29:20):
It was created by Thought LeaderY, the name, not the name of the
business, but the name of thethought leader behind the
content.
Um, coming in and reworkingthose intro, you know, to blog
posts, adding more structure toour content because we know um
Google and the learning languagemodels, everybody kind of likes
that structured approach, etcetera.
(29:41):
So getting back into existingcontent um and uh and trying to
eke more out of it is anexample.
Another thing that we've beendoing with a lot of success is
saying, okay, great.
We did this on a couple ofPathfinder blogs as a test.
Like we are we are seeing lesstraffic in the informational
upper funnel.
Space to our blogs across ourwebsite in our own business.
(30:03):
Our clients are seeing the same.
Click-through rates are downanywhere from like 30 to 50
percent, um, depending on kindof what your rankings look like,
uh, all sorts of differentdynamics.
Um, so we're dealing with lessvisitors coming to our website.
So we need to get more out ofthem.
How do we get more out of them?
Well, of course, great design,page speed, et cetera, but also
(30:24):
um aligning our calls to actionwith the topic of whatever meets
the person.
So if we do win the click whensomebody searches for something
like SEO proposal template,which I don't even know why you
search on Google for that, whenyou could go to Chat GPT and
it'll just create one for you,and then you can customize it
and add that human layer.
People are still searching forit.
(30:45):
They're not finding our blogpost about it as often.
But if we have a pop-up that uhon that blog post that is sign
up for our e-newsletter, it haslike a less than 1% conversion
rate, right?
So it doesn't really do a lotfor us.
Um, but we get a little bit oftraction.
But now we have, you know, let'ssay we were getting a thousand
visitors a month to that postlast year at this time.
(31:07):
Now maybe we're getting 500 or200 or whatever.
It could have tanked.
So how do I get more conversionsor leads?
Well, I reframe that call toaction to be the thing that the
person wants.
In this case, they want aproposal template.
So I'm gonna actually give thema download, exchange an email
address, et cetera.
So getting that mindset of liketrying to eke a little bit more
(31:29):
um out of every visitor isanother thing that we've done to
go back in to say, hey, here aremy top 10 performing blogs.
Let's do a call to action thatmatches the intent of how they
got there, what they'reinterested in, instead of some
generic like sign up for my dripseries of emails, et cetera.
So those are a lot of likedifferent little things, but
just um yeah, trying to keep ourfoot on the gas and not get the
(31:53):
rug pulled out in terms of leadgen.
SPEAKER_02 (31:56):
Yeah.
So I think that that leads intokind of something that um you
were reaching out uh aboutbefore was uh aligning strategy
with the customer journey,right?
And we we we touched on it alittle bit of maybe more
commercial and moretransactional searches, um, and
how to kind of realign thatfunnel visibility and then the
(32:17):
bottom of the funnel um likecontent, right?
Like that's what you're talkingabout with the downloadable,
what you're talking about withthe email drip um or the the
newsletter.
Um you're that informationallayer is happening all across
the web.
That's where 50% of the trafficwent.
They've already found that.
(32:38):
They're now in the ideationphase or selection phase.
And and so you need to have morecommercial content, you need to
more have more transactionalcontent.
And I'm finding a lot, youreally got to have those ICPs
dialed in or your ideal uhcustomer profiles dialed in.
And then mapping that customerjourney is really important.
(32:58):
I would love to hear more oflike your viewpoints around
that.
SPEAKER_01 (33:02):
Yeah, so that concept of that ideal customer,
the audience, um, that'ssomething where even with
clients we've worked with themfor like 10 years, we're digging
back into audience.
Like, and I and I frame it aslike audience matters more than
ever right now.
That's the thing.
Like that, we have to find theright audience.
So when it feels like maybe anuninformed or dumb question to
(33:22):
ask a client something kind ofbasic, we're still asking it
under the preface of like, Ireally got to get in the mindset
of your ideal audience.
What do they need?
What challenges are they facing?
What do they want?
How's their world changing rightnow?
Because as much as AI and SEOare all evolving, the whole
world is going through um a lotof evolution.
So, you know, understandingaudience is is super key as a
(33:45):
really good starting point uh toall of this.
So I think that's um yeah, agreat kind of component there.
SPEAKER_02 (33:52):
We're like pulling stuff in from their CRM.
Are you like you want to speakto that a little bit?
SPEAKER_01 (33:58):
Yeah, so I I wish we were doing a little more pulling
in from CRM to understandaudience and things like that.
And uh we're not uh doing thatright now.
So, but I do think if you're inthe lead gen space, um
connecting on the CRM side issuper important.
Um, the other thing that we'redoing is talking a lot about,
you know, if we're talking aboutaudience and we're talking about
(34:21):
um, you know, acquiring theconversion and we're talking in
this funnel, this customeracquisition funnel, we're trying
to do some mind mapping of like,well, how are we connecting in
each of these?
Like, what are the marketing umstrategies that are helping us
reach and how successful arethey right now?
So if you're not getting quiteas much out of your upper
funnel, like informational, youknow, multiple steps ahead of
(34:44):
their when they're ready to buyfor your service because your
blog isn't carrying you as far,what should we do about that?
Should we invest more in socialor paid social?
Should we actually run someGoogle Ads traffic to some of
our most important kind of leadgenerating oriented pieces that
are in that upper funnel, etcetera?
So sometimes saying we have tolean out of SEO a little here to
(35:07):
say if we are if we're worriedthat we're not filling the
funnel, do we need a commercial?
Do we need print?
Like what else?
And it doesn't mean you have tobe able to do all of those
things.
It means that you're coming inas an SEO consultant, you're
coming in trying to help have apositive impact on their brand.
You're helping them ask theright questions and understand
how what you're doing and whatyou're seeing might influence
(35:29):
other channels.
And then in themid-transactional space, again,
like, okay, great.
What kind of traction andvisibility do we have when
somebody actually gets ready tosearch for your product or your
service?
They're in, you're they'reready, they're, but they're not
using your brand, right?
So they're like notinformational, but they're not
brand query oriented.
How are we meeting those folks?
(35:49):
And is SEO sufficient?
Do we need um to build newpages?
Do we need to lean intosomething there?
Do we need to run some paid adsagain?
Um, kind of layering in andgoing through it and thinking
audience and then thinkingcustomer acquisition funnel and
thinking outside of just SEO.
SPEAKER_02 (36:06):
So, Lindsay, what are some unknown secrets of
internet marketing that aremaybe underutilized, people
don't talk about a lot, but someof the things that you're seeing
that people um really need tokind of surface a little bit
more?
SPEAKER_01 (36:24):
Good question.
Um, I think one of the biggestuh secrets to internet marketing
is sort of there there aren'tshortcuts.
And so um, and that a lot of thefundamentals still really work.
And so I think one of thesecrets that I really see in
businesses that are successfulis they take a lot of time to
think about the big picture andunderstand what's happening.
(36:46):
And then they decide where willI have the biggest impact?
What are the next three thingsto have the biggest impact?
And then they take action onthem.
So it's not that they uncover anactual like, you know, secret or
trick or something sort ofrelatively like short-sighted,
but rather the the businessesand the you know, web designers
(37:07):
and agencies and stuff that Ithink are having the biggest
impact on their sites and theirclients' sites are the ones that
can distill all of what'shappening up here in the data in
the real world, distill it downinto where will I have the next
if the most impact, and thenactually go and do the thing,
right?
And if you can keep looping thatlittle cycle together, um, your
(37:27):
brand is gonna be successfultoday and it's gonna be
successful in six months and twoyears from now, no matter where
things go.
I I try to stay out of like theprediction game because I think
especially right now, um, it'sreally hard to know where this
is all going.
But I feel good about thatflywheel, right?
Um, and I feel good about thetime I put into my own marketing
(37:49):
and the resources I put into myclients and what they're paying
if I keep on that flywheel.
Um, and uh yeah, so I don't knowif that's much of a secret, but
that's kind of how I think aboutit.
SPEAKER_02 (38:00):
Awesome.
Well, Lindsay, if someone wantsto find out more about um what
you're doing, I know you do alot of education on the meat and
potatoes of SEO and you have agreat agency out there.
You've been doing this a longtime.
What are the places that peoplecan find you and follow more
about what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01 (38:17):
Uh I'm best place uh if you're looking for a quick
like contact is via email.
That's where I'm the mostresponsive.
So Lindsay at pathfinderseo.com,and I'll reach back out to you.
Um, but you can find us on ourwebsite uh at pathfinderseo.com
uh in the community side ofthings and coaching, and then
our agency is webshine.com.
(38:38):
And uh and from there you cansee some of our social channels
and things like that and contactforms.
But uh yeah, uh thanks so much,Matt.
This has been fun.
SPEAKER_02 (38:46):
Awesome.
Well, anyone listening that islooking to get those frameworks
and those fundamentals down,reach out to Lindsay.
She's got a great program outthere, she's been doing it a
long time.
So check her out.
Uh until the next time, pleaselike, follow, share.
I'm bringing back the Shaiko.
Uh, I guess people like that.
Um, you know, that uh we need ittoday more than ever.
(39:09):
So if uh you got any value, uhplease like, share, follow,
comment.
Uh really appreciate it.
And uh until the next time, myname is Matt Bertram.
Bye bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.