How to leverage your content in the days of AI

The digital landscape is shifting beneath our feet as AI reshapes how content is discovered, shared, and monetized online. For creators and business owners who've invested years building valuable online resources, this evolution presents both challenges and opportunities.

In this eye-opening episode, Maria breaks down how AI systems are fundamentally changing website traffic patterns and potentially undermining revenue streams for content creators. When AI tools scrape your website and present information directly to users, those users never land on your site – eliminating opportunities for ad revenue, lead generation, and sales conversions. But there's a solution emerging.

Maria introduces us to Cloudflare's groundbreaking new features that put control back in creators' hands. Launched July 1st, these tools allow website owners to decide exactly how AI interacts with their content. Want certain pages available to everyone? No problem. Need to protect proprietary information or images from being scraped? You can block specific AI tools. Most intriguingly, Cloudflare now offers a micropayment system that requires AI companies to compensate you when they use your content – creating a digital tollbooth for your intellectual property.

For designers and visual professionals, this represents a crucial development. Your portfolio images, which once might have been silently incorporated into AI image generators' training data, can now be protected. Your expertise, shared through years of blog posts and articles, can either be monetized or shielded from exploitation.

The conversation offers practical guidance on implementing these protections, acknowledging that while Cloudflare's interface isn't the most intuitive, the benefits justify the learning curve. The hosts emphasize the importance of strategic planning – deciding what content to protect, what to monetize, and what to freely share to maximize visibility while preserving revenue opportunities.

Ready to take control of your online content in the AI era? Listen now, then visit designerdiscussions.com to join our Academy membership for ongoing support, weekly live sessions, and expert guidance on navigating this rapidly evolving digital landscape.

If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, click on the link below:​

• https://www.desig

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Designer Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY

Episode Transcript

Mirjam Lippuner (00:00):
Okay, hi.
Welcome to Designer Discussionswith Jason, maria and Miriam.
Today, maria is going to talkto us about how to leverage your
content in the days of AI.
Welcome to the DesignerDiscussions podcast with Jason.
Maria and Miriam Tune in eachweek where we talk about

(00:24):
marketing, PR and businessadvice for design professionals.

Maria Martin (00:31):
Thanks, miriam.
So right now, we're allbecoming aware of how AI is
impacting the search that'slanding on our websites and
we're trying to figure out do wewant AI to recommend us or do
we want AI to scrape enough dataoff of our website that it just

(00:52):
regurgitates what content wehave put together and then they
never land on your website?
So how are you making moneywith that content that's on your
website?
And if you are a blogger,you've been making your money
through running ads, and themore people who come to your
website and the longer that theystay on your website is the

(01:14):
reason why you are getting paidfor your content and that's how
you're funding and running yourblog.
And so when we talk about likeMiriam was talking about in our
previous episode on how to usePR to get those recommendations
and referrals of your business,when you're doing a Google or

(01:38):
you're doing a AI search am Iright?
Is it engine search, jason?
What's the word A-E-O?
So what we want to talk aboutis that there is a resource and
a tool out there that, startingin July July 1st they released
control over AI and each page ofyour website.

(02:00):
They have a way you canmonetize when AI hits your
website.
They have a way to hide youfrom AI and they have a way for
you to pick which pages you wantto have AI have access to.
So what is this tool?
This tool is Cloudflare.
Cloudflare's business principleis that they want to make a

(02:21):
better internet and they provideservices to small content
creators, media, news and othertypes of businesses that are
available online and wants toprotect them and keep them from
losing their income through AI.
And I think we all should justbe aware that there are

(02:42):
consequences to everything thatis new that comes out there and
that there might be somesolutions, and currently this is
the newest and most innovativesolution out there.
So what?
As a creator, are your optionsright?
So you can allow access forfree for certain pages?

(03:04):
You can block access to some ofyour content.
The AI can't find it, but it'llshow up in Google Search.
They also have a payment perrequest from the AI bots before
they can scrape your website.
This is kind of an interestingconcept scrape your website, so

(03:25):
this is kind of an interestingconcept.
This would be the same idea asif you had a book and you chose
to publish some of thatinformation on the internet and
if you only want to pick certainAI tools like Perplexity or
OpenAI, you can say I want theseAI bots to have access to this
data and I'm going to chargethem.

(03:47):
It's a crypto token in whichyou can set up and establish
compensation.
This is currently in beta, butthis is their newest, latest and
greatest solution to try tocreate that better internet.
So any website that's set up onCloudflare I use Cloudflare

(04:09):
because it's free They'll youpay for your domain it's like
$10, but then they'll host itand they'll do all of the stuff
a normal web hosting servicewould do, and it's for free, so
you can have as many domainnames as you want, you don't get
charged for anything anythingand you can set up an account.
Is the interface easy?

(04:29):
No, it is not extremelyuser-friendly.
However, chad GPT can walk youthrough it step by step, and I
you know keep in mind I am yourtechnology friend and AI works
as your technical assistantAnytime you need to have a
little bit of help or ask itsome questions.
I clicked this.
This didn't work.
Do you see a different solutionso you don't have to go to like

(04:52):
the chat and then look atcommunity responses and try to
find the one that exactly linesup with you.
Consider using chat as one ofyour tech support tools and
consider looking at Cloudflareto do your hosting for your
website.
It has very simple solutionswhere you can pick certain pages
and you can say I want to getpaid per crawl, I want it to be

(05:15):
blocked or I want it to be openand free.
So you may want, like yourcontact page, what you do and
all that kind of informationbecause you want to be found on
the internet.
You'll have all of that open,right if you're looking for a
business referral.
However, if you have a book, ablog or content that you have

(05:36):
other people paying you for,this would give you an
opportunity to open that contentup on the internet, whereas you
may have been hiding it toprotect your copyright because
AI was going to steal it.
This is a way you can open thatcontent up and it could only be
found by people in which theywould get a direct link to you,

(05:56):
or you could have it where, ifany of these AI tools come and
look at it, that theyautomatically have to pay to
have access to that page.
So this is a really interestingconcept and it's, if you're not
a super big I need to have a lotof stuff on the internet person
if you don't have, like areally popular blog or

(06:19):
newsletter, or if you don't havea lot of online content that
you feel like should beprotected.
This is one of the ways to helpyou control that.
For example, if someone issearching in perplexity, your
link will be featured if theyfound the information from you,
whereas OpenAI's is hidden downa little bit further, harder to

(06:42):
get to and so complete that theynever need to go to your
website.
So you can start to gain alittle bit more control, and
this is going to be the way ofthe future.
Otherwise, there's no point inputting a lot of time and effort
into your website.
So how does this likepay-per-crawl work?
Right, and still it's in beta,so it's not available, right?

(07:03):
This second, it does like atollbo kind of thing, where if
one of these services wants tohit your website and scrape it,
they'll say okay, who are you?
So then it has to respond whichplatform it is that's searching
and then it'll say if you'rejust like some rogue, random AI

(07:26):
scraping tool, it'll block it Ifit's one of the bigger search
engines that you know is beingused as a referral tool or
something that a lot of peopleare accessing.
You can say you know if you'regoing to hit my website 40,000
times in one day, each one ofthose hits is going to be

(07:46):
something that you need to payme for and that way just kind of
keeps that information thatyou've been putting out there.
Maybe it's pictures, maybe it'severy answer to questions.
You may have years and years ofcontent online where you've
been answering every questionabout a kitchen remodel and
you've been answering, you know,certain things for people and

(08:09):
you want to have some way ofgetting someone to your website.
This may be the solution foryou when you get those settings
set up.
So if you don't want your imagesbeing stolen by AI to create
mid-journey images because, keepin mind, if someone searches

(08:32):
for kitchen remodeler in my area, it may give your business or,
like your Google businessprofile as one of the things,
business profile as one of thethings but if someone's
searching for like whitekitchens, it may create an image

(08:54):
and they may steal youraesthetic right Create a kitchen
that's designed by this famousdesigner.
So now what you can do isprotect the images on your
website where only humans canlook at it, or if a tool like
MidJourney wants to copy yourlook and your design aesthetic,
that it can be blocked so it nolonger uses your whole catalog

(09:14):
of design images to create thosedigital images that you see
online.
So the bot is either going tohave to pay you and it's
cryptocurrency um, it's called amicro payment system.
So this is not like big dollars, guys, but just you know, if
you you want to have someprivacy, if you want to get
compensated, if your stuff'sgoing to get used, you can set

(09:38):
up your website in a way whereyou are leveraging what content
you have on your website.
You hide the stuff you want tohide, you can charge for the
stuff you want it to search anduse, and then you can also load
it with that forward content,like Miriam was talking about in
our previous episode.

(09:59):
So definitely make sure you goback, listen to Miriam's episode
about how PR is your secrettool for AI and how to get the
referrals and how to get found,because SEO is changing and we
want you to know that you dohave some control over your
information and your content onyour website.

(10:20):
This is the stuff that, when AIinitially rolled out, everybody
was scared that AI was stealingfrom them and your previous
content has been stolen.
But you can then start planningto protect your ongoing content
so that you aren't plagiarizedand your images aren't being

(10:41):
used to train these bots.
But if you are interested, it'scalled Cloudflare.
They do tons of website hostingtools and solutions for you.
Like I said, the interface isnot exactly easy, but if you
have someone who's doing yourwebsite and your website domain
maintenance, ask them.

(11:02):
Ask them if they'd beinterested in moving you over to
Cloudflare.
Start looking at your contentfrom the perspective of what do
I want to protect, what do Iwant to have out there and also,
like Miriam said, planning thatyour future content is geared
for those referrals that you'regoing to want through the use of
AI.
Through the use of AI.

(11:22):
So if you want to be found bynew people AI bots scrolling
your website it's going to help.
Are you going to get thewebsite traffic you want from it
?
Probably not, but if someone'sin like an AI chat and they ask
a question like who should Icall in town to help me out with

(11:46):
that, this is where you aregoing to get that referral.
It's going to look at how manypress placements you have, if
your content is relevant to whatthey're looking for, and any
kind of thought leadership oreducational content is also
going to benefit from that.
But you do have to keep in mindthat tools like chat they don't

(12:09):
give you credit in its defaultmode at this time.
Perplexity can give youattribution, but not always, and
meta AI no right.
So we want everybody to have afull, comprehensive awareness on

(12:30):
what your website is for you,what that tool looks like and
are you using it right, and whatdoes the future look like?
And since I'm here to alwaystalk about tech and I'm an early
adopter, I want you all to beaware that this tool exists and
I really think that you aregoing to like what it can do for
you.
So have fun, enjoy AI, andmaybe it's time for you to get

(12:54):
on Cloudflare.

Mirjam Lippuner (12:56):
Thanks so much, Maria.
That was super interesting.
I'm going to check outCloudflare and we'll see you all
back here again in two weeksfor Designer Discussions.

Jason Lockhart (13:05):
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