October 20, 2025 • 43 mins
Search engines aren’t what they used to be - and your customers are noticing. In this episode, I’m joined by Kevin Vaughan of KTV Digital to talk about how AI is reshaping how people search, find, and choose businesses online. We explore the shift from classic search results to AI-generated answers, and what that means for small businesses trying to stay visible.
Kevin shares practical ways to adapt, from how to organize your content so it's easier to cite, to why lived experience and specificity matter more than ever. We also touch on YouTube, schema, and the new tools helping AI understand your business better. If you're unsure how AI search impacts your marketing, this conversation offers clarity—without the overwhelm.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Janice Hostager (00:04):
I'm Janice Hostager.
After three decades in themarketing business and many
years of being an entrepreneur,I've learned a thing or two
about marketing.
Join me as we talk aboutmarketing, small business, and
life in between.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Hey, hey, welcome to My WeeklyMarketing.
(00:30):
So unless you've been livingunder a rock, you know that AI
is coming in fast and furious.
And whether you know it or not,it is impacting your business.
And right now, customers, yoursand mine, are turning less
often to Google and other searchengines, and more often to AI.
In fact, I just did it today.
(00:51):
So since AI is changing search,after we all dutifully made
sure our websites were searchengine optimized, right?
What does that mean for yourwebsite and getting traffic to
it?
Honestly, most small businessowners are still trying to keep
up with traditional SEO, and nowit feels like AI just flipped a
script.
The good news?
(01:12):
Today's guest is here to breakit down and give you some steps
that you can take so you don'tget left behind.
I'm talking with Kevin Vaughan,founder of KTV Digital, and he
has more than 30 years ofmarketing experience.
When he realized that nearly80% of buyers are now using AI
tools to do their research andthat most businesses don't even
show up in those results, heknew something had to change.
(01:35):
You're gonna love thisconversation because Kevin
explains this complicated topicand tells us what to do next.
And he's gonna share a freetool that he's created so you
can find out how your websitestacks up.
So grab your coffee and let'sdive in.
Okay, well, welcome, Kevin.
Thanks for being here today.
Kevin Vaughan (01:55):
Thanks, Janice.
I'm happy to be here.
Thanks for the invite.
Janice Hostager (01:59):
Okay, so let's jump right in.
Let's start in some plainEnglish.
What is AI doing now to changehow search has done?
Kevin Vaughan (02:07):
So that's a very broad question.
There's a lot to unpack there.
There's what we have toconsider is over the past 20
plus years, we've been used todealing with Google or other
search engines like Google,where you'll type in a question,
you get a wall of links.
And the game was to climb ashigh up on that link order
because 80% of the you knowtraffic and conversions came
(02:31):
from the top five links.
So that was the game.
So AI has kind of leveled thatplaying field a little bit
because, yeah, and again, AI isreally not new at this point
because it was November in 2022when ChatGPT was first
introduced to the public.
And uh, you know, it's justbeen a rocket ship since then.
(02:52):
Uh, and when ChatGPT first cameout, it was a very constrained
data set.
So if you remember some of theearly searches you were doing
there, you know, askingquestions, you would only know
data up until like, I think itwas April 2021.
All of that has opened up,right?
So now all of these engines,ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude,
(03:14):
whatever, all have access to theinternet.
So they are scraping the sameinformation the way that uh uh
search engines do.
The difference is they're notgiving you a list of links and
you have to crawl through.
It's actually going through andscraping and consolidating,
parsing the data, and giving youa very uh uh concise answer.
(03:37):
And the beauty of it now whereit's evolved is that when you
get that answer, you're gettingto either, yeah, it depends on
the platform you're using, butit could have some internal
links, or if you use perplexity,it has all the source cards up
top.
Um, so that's changed thejourney because people aren't
going to Google first.
(03:58):
This is what the this is theinfluential thing with AI.
People are going to AI first toask questions, do some
research, because they can havea conversation.
You can start with a question,then you can ask a follow-up
question, you can whittle itdown.
You can't do that with a searchengine.
Um, so search, traditionalsearch as we know it, is still
(04:22):
very much vital, still very muchin play.
It's just not the first touchpoint anymore.
It's further down the line.
So where people start lookingfor products, services,
solutions to their problem,they're going to the answer
engines first and then workingtheir way down to Google to
(04:43):
verify.
And we can spend more time onthat if you want, but I don't
want to just take off on atangent here.
Janice Hostager (04:52):
No, no, that's that's a great way of putting it
because I think you'reabsolutely right.
It always starts for thecustomer, right?
It it's like, what are theydoing now that we have to pay
attention to?
And actually, it's not evencalled SEO anymore, right?
So well, the SEO is the old wayof doing it.
What is it called now?
Kevin Vaughan (05:12):
There are so many different acronyms out there,
and you'll it's alphabet soup.
All right, you're gonna getlost in it.
Don't overthink this.
First off, you're gonna hear alot of things.
If you're trying to keep yourfinger in the pulse, you're
gonna hear a lot of "SEO isdead." And I think that's the
wrong way to look at it becauseit's not a polarizing thing.
It's not this is SEO and thisis now AEO or GEO, and you know,
(05:34):
those acronyms are forGenerative Engine Optimization
or Answer Engine Optimization,and wait a week, it'll be back
and that's just the way it goes.
Um, so really this new AIapproach is really an extension
of SEO.
So SEO hasn't died, it's justtransformed, it's just different
(05:58):
now.
And again, part of that isbecause what we think of as
traditional SEO or landing onGoogle is a little further down
the experience from, you know,and it's it's funny because I
talk with other, you know,business owners and and not
necessarily other marketers, butother people that are just, you
(06:19):
know how it is, you get reallyclose to your business, really
get close to your product.
And sometimes it's hard to zoomout and get that that bigger
perspective.
But that's what we all need todo.
We all need to take a step backand just go, hold on, let's see
the big picture here.
And when I have theseconversations with folks, and I
say the journey's changed,people are going to AI first,
and they're like, Well, that'swhat I do.
(06:40):
Well, if you're doing that, whydo you think your customers
wouldn't be doing that as well?
Because that's that I meanthat's just the reality of it.
People are doing that.
But to get back to yourquestion, so it's really kind of
an SEO 2.0 now, instead of justSEO's gone away.
Um, and you just have theseother AI elements in there as
(07:02):
well.
But one of the critical thingsto keep in mind is that there's
no longer like it's not a linearprocess, it's very scattered
because there's so many touchpoints that could be affected in
the buyer's journey throughthis process.
You know, they can engage withyou and your brand, you know,
(07:23):
through search, what we'retalking about today, you know,
email marketing, social mediamarketing, networking events, if
you're running TV ads, becausebelieve it or not, there's a
whole different conversation tobe had about how TV ads are
running now.
Because with all of the smartTVs and things like that, these
TV companies know what thewatching habits are of a lot of
(07:47):
households.
And so if you're an advertisernow, you can hone in a local
commercial into a five zip codearea and target the demographic
in the household you want totarget.
So yeah, it's a crazy, there'sa lot of moving parts to all
(08:08):
this stuff, but it's all butit's all integrated and it's all
related.
Janice Hostager (08:12):
So the potential is enormous in terms
of marketing and all of this.
Kevin Vaughan (08:16):
Yes.
Janice Hostager (08:16):
Yeah, it is a lot.
I mean, marketing right now isalready a lot.
I mean, that's what keeps me inbusiness is that people come to
me, it's like, "I am sooverwhelmed.
I can't, I don't know what todo first," kind of thing.
So sticking just with searchright now because I think it's
enough.
I think it's enough.
In fact, I was with a clienttalking to a client this morning
who is just trying to searchoptimize certain pages on their
(08:40):
site.
Yeah, so what okay, where do westart with all of this?
So what's the first step tomake sure a website has a chance
of showing up in AI results?
Kevin Vaughan (08:53):
Well, I yeah, you know, when I'm talking to a new
client, you know, what I wantto do is is take a snapshot of
where they are.
I mean, and there's all kindsof analytics tools that we can
use to figure out, you know,where they are.
Do they exist in a traditionalsearch?
Are they showing up on Googleand not showing up on AI?
I mean, there's some tacticalthings you can do, but but you
(09:16):
know, basically it comes down tothere's some uh some
restructuring that you can do ifyou have existing data, right?
And you know, a vehicle for alot of us marketers is been
blogs for a long time.
You know, let's write somearticles, you know, blogs or
articles or features.
You know, blog for some folksis a dirty word, but it's it's
(09:39):
all the same thing.
You're just publishing a pieceof content about your business
or the solution that you saw toget it in front of your
customer.
But it can be optimized if it'son your primary domain.
And that's anotherconversation.
Don't put it in subdomain, putit on your primary domain.
So you get all the traffic fromthat.
Um, and then they're already inyour your uh your ecosystem,
(10:04):
you know, uh, to interact withyour brand.
But if if you have a lot ofblog content, then probably just
need to go through andrestructure that and make sure
that it's AI friendly.
So you want to have um, numberone, you want to have just good
scalable structure to yourpages.
So you want all of yourheadings, uh, you want to break
(10:25):
it down into a scalable format,so a lot of lists, a lot of
bullet points, things like thatthat people can easily go
through and digest.
Because if people can easily gothrough and digest that, then
that's how the robots arelooking at it as well.
Right.
So their AI, um, the way itputs together data, it does it
(10:46):
in chunks.
And if you start searchingthis, you're gonna hear like
chunkify and all these, youknow, different terms, because
that's how it's just getting itin small like word groups, these
chunks, and putting thatinformation together rather than
looking at like a large body oftext.
So that's why lists and thingslike that become very useful for
(11:09):
you to be cited and referredthrough those AI engines because
it's easy to organize and parsethat data.
And then when some whensomebody asks that question,
there's your response.
So the other thing is you haveto you have to reframe and maybe
restructure some of your dataor create you know new content
(11:30):
um where it answers thequestions that people would ask.
And that includes not alwaysthe good stuff.
People want to know when peopleare searching for a product or
service, they want to know,okay, what fixes my problem?
How much is it going to cost?
How long is it going to take?
What are the potentialdownsides?
(11:52):
And so many companies hide fromthat stuff.
They only want to show thevictories, they all only want to
show the win.
But if you really want toshowcase yourself as being
trustworthy and an authorityonline, you've got to cover all
those bases.
And I'll give you a quickantidote like a real-world
(12:15):
scenario.
So uh I run another company aswell, besides KTV Digital.
It's uh family business hasbeen part of for a long time
called uh TAVCO.
We're a technology reseller, wewe we support and service the
architectural engineeringconstruction space.
And we have this new productthat we brought on from HT.
We were one of the early accesspartners for this.
(12:36):
It just takes uh a sheets ofconstruction plans and converts
them into a CAD file that theycan drop into their software and
start working with.
Because prior to that, theydidn't have software that did
this.
And um they would have to drawby hand, so it would take them
two to four hours to do it.
Now we can do it in a column.
But as wonderful as thissoftware is, there's a few
(12:59):
things it doesn't do well,right?
So it doesn't do like 3Dobjects very well.
So if you have a 3D objectdrawn on a page, it just doesn't
know what to do with it.
Um, also, it doesn't dohandwritten handwritten notes
very well.
It can't read handwritten, it'sawesome at text, but not good
at handwriting.
So I would want to be honestwith somebody if they were
(13:21):
looking at buying the solutionand letting them know that this
is not a good fit if that is thestuff that you need to get
converted.
Uh and then so what I did is Iactually wrote an article on
that.
I'm like HP AI vectorized, thisis what it's not good at
because it's honest, it doesn'tdo these things well.
(13:41):
And if somebody is looking forthat online, they're gonna land
on that, and that's probablygonna end up as it you're gonna
hear this term a lot, you know,zero click searches.
And that's what everybody'sfreaking out about because back
in the Google days, right?
It's you wanted to get thoseclicks to your website, get
people to your website and tryto get them to hang around.
(14:01):
And now these AI summaries arecoming around.
Uh, a lot of folks are gettinganswers and then going, okay,
I'm cool, and they're moving on.
Janice Hostager (14:09):
And walk away.
Kevin Vaughan (14:10):
Frankly, it's it's not a big deal.
Um, it's really not as much toget worked up about, you know,
in my opinion, than some peopleare making it out to be.
And one of the interestingpieces of uh of data that I've
seen recently, I mean, withinthe past two weeks, is when you
look at dwell time, when youlook at people that land on a
(14:32):
web page and how at dwell time,how long do they stay on that
page?
How long do they look?
Well, dwell times across theboard have kind of increased
37%.
And the thought behind this isbecause people are doing the
research and the vetting on AIand zero-click things, the by
(14:53):
the time they're landing on awebsite because they've gone
that far down the funnel to takeaction, they're much better
qualified and they're much moreintent-driven to convert than
somebody who's just landing onyour page windowshop.
So it's it's just reframing thestrategy and the mindset of it,
(15:16):
you know, being up front, beinghonest.
If you uh subscribe to any ofthe methodology of Marcus
Sheridan, um, which, you know,in the marketing community,
people know who he is.
But I think he's on point.
He goes, you know, say whatothers won't say, show what
other people won't show.
And I think just by doing thatand and doing the mechanics of
(15:38):
it correctly really puts you ina good position to be cited and
and referenced uh through the AIengines as well as supplement
and optimize your traditionalSEO.
Again, it's a spectrum.
They all work together.
Janice Hostager (15:55):
Right, right.
Yeah, I can see where this kindof like what I work with is
something called the Trail tothe Sale.
So it if people will start atthe awareness stage and you it's
really based on the customerjourney, right?
So depending on where they howthey find out about you, and
then they go to the next stepand the next step and so on.
So what you're talking aboutwith AI though is let let's say
(16:17):
like your example, you have someinformation on your site that
the AI engine pulls into ananswer.
First of all, how do you knowthat your site was used for
that?
And second of all, how do howdoes that benefit your business?
Because they're not gonnaprobably click from there unless
you they ask for a citation.
(16:38):
So sometimes I will do thatwhen I'm working with ChatGPT
just to make sure it's validinformation.
I'll ask for a citation.
But unless you do that, you'renot necessarily gonna know where
that information came from,right?
Because it's generative.
Kevin Vaughan (16:52):
Well, and I'll use Perplexity as an example.
It's giving you a list ofsources that it's generating
that answer from.
So you do get you do get alink.
Um, it it doesn't serve thesame purpose as like a
traditional plank because abacklink is like, you know,
somebody is linking to yourcontent and gives you that
(17:12):
authority.
And backlinks, I mean, all ofthat stuff is still important.
All of that stuff doesn't goaway.
It's not a shift into this,it's just adding this new
perspective of uh this elementof it.
But I I look at it again to usethe analogy of zooming out.
If you're trying to buildbrand, you want to be as many
(17:36):
places as you can be wherepeople will see you.
You want to be in front ofeyeballs, right?
So having your traditionalresources in place and getting
that traffic is wonderful.
How awesome is it to be there?
Plus, if somebody searched onan AI to also see your brand.
Now, we don't have control ofthe citations.
All we can do is to optimizeour framework and our content,
(18:01):
the best way using the bestpractices to be found and to be
cited on those platforms.
But the best you can do is stayin touch with it.
I've developed a tool calledthe Search Score, which you can
input some information aboutyour company.
It's very minimal, it's thename of your company and a URL.
And it'll give you a snapshotof how you're performing on AI.
(18:25):
And the way that I've builtthat tool is I'm using API
access to ChatGPT, GoogleGemini, and Perplexity.
So I have those three channelsthat it's going out and using
the API call to bring thatinformation in to see what those
platforms have to say aboutyou.
Janice Hostager (18:45):
Okay.
So is there benefit to be well,I I would say that it sounds
like there is a if you're athought leader, if you're truly
a thought leader and you haveunique information out there and
your site has authority, thisis going to benefit you.
Is that right?
Kevin Vaughan (19:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you bring up a very goodpoint, kind of going back to the
blog thing, right?
I think where a lot of folkshave gotten excited about this
AI stuff, especially on themarketing side, because they're
like, great, I can just createand spend up a whole bunch of
stuff easily, but there's a lotof diminishing returns with that
(19:24):
because again, it's just if youthink of it like a vacuum
cleaner, it's just going outacross the internet and it's
grabbing all this informationand it's distilling it into an
answer and giving it to you whenyou ask it the question.
So if you're like, hey, I selldog food, right?
So write me an article aboutyou know the top 10 things to
(19:44):
know about dog food.
Well, it's gonna go out to uhthe internet and it's gonna pull
all this data and it's gonnacome back with a really nice
article.
And you're gonna read that andgo, that's pretty cool, you
know?
And I a little wordsmithing andit's ready to go.
The problem is that kind offalls flat because you're not
adding anything new to what isout there, it is recycling old
(20:09):
content.
And this is where there is justtrash and trash and trash
that's getting published andpromoted online, and it doesn't
add anything new, it's justspinning it into a new way to
say it.
So that's where if you reallywant to make an impact with the
stuff you put together, and youcan use the AI to get you
(20:31):
started.
There's nothing wrong withthat.
But what you have to do is youhave to sprinkle that with your
own expertise and successstories, customer case studies,
testimonials.
You have to add personalizationabout you and your brand and
your knowledge and yourexperience has to be included in
(20:54):
the article because that iswhat makes it unique.
And that is what is going togive you a leg up on everybody
else that's just doing the rinseand repeat routine out there.
Janice Hostager (21:05):
Right, right.
Kevin Vaughan (21:06):
And the thing is, it's not done much more work,
right?
So you just kind of get astarting point, you add your own
spin to it, inject it with yourpersonalization that speaks
about you and your business, andyou got a winner.
Janice Hostager (21:21):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's a good thing becauseI think for so long, people
were just sort of puttingcontent out to put content out.
And I think in this situation,you're right.
If you turn to ChatGPT to writeyour blog post, you're just
rehashing old stuff out there,and it's not going to benefit
you, even for SEO.
Kevin Vaughan (21:40):
Well, I mean, you go back to that that strategy
10 years ago.
It was all about keyword stuff.
Everything was a keyword,right?
It's like what's our keyword?
And then what's the primarykeyword?
And then what are alternateversions of that?
And then so, okay, I'm going towrite an article.
It's going to be focused aroundthis keyword, and I'm going to
sprinkle in all these alternateways to say it.
Make sure it's in the title,make sure it's in the body, make
(22:02):
sure it's in the metadataagain, checkboxes, just make
sure it's all good to go.
That just doesn't work anymore.
It has to, it what it's it'swhat's behind the message counts
more now.
It's more intent-driven.
It's more on the semantics ofthe message that you're
conveying.
Now you still start with akeyword because I mean, that's
(22:24):
the topic, right?
So this is the topic of whatwe're going to talk about.
Here's my personal experienceswith it.
Here's, you know, what you knowhappened.
Here's how one of my customershad great success with it.
So anything that you can callout to personalize that to make
it absolutely yours and unique,different from everybody else,
(22:44):
um, it is what's gonna uh allowyou to be easily uh cited and
referred for a particularsearch.
And long tail, you know, typekeywords uh perform better.
So in summary, it's it's reallya quality over quantity um
(23:06):
equation these days.
Janice Hostager (23:08):
Okay, okay.
So keywords are not dead.
Kevin Vaughan (23:12):
No, they're not dead.
I mean they they're sorelevant, it's just you're
you're not gonna uh hang yourhat on the keyword and call it
good.
Janice Hostager (23:19):
Right.
Kevin Vaughan (23:20):
You gotta add you gotta add a lot more.
Janice Hostager (23:22):
Right.
Kevin Vaughan (23:23):
But it's yeah, it's a starting place for sure.
Janice Hostager (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which you shouldn't, no.
Anyway, I don't think, withSEO.
You should never justlike "whatever".
Right.
How do you know if AI is picking up your
content?
Kevin Vaughan (23:38):
I mean, a lot of it is just testing, uh testing
searches yourself.
But you have to be carefulthough, because all of these
engines have a bit ofpersonalization to them and they
start to kind of learn you andthen start giving you answers
that you want to see.
So, like as an example,Perplexity, I think you can do
it in ChatGPT too, but I knowPerplexity is an incognito mode.
(24:01):
So you can go down and you cantoggle into incognito mode and
it takes away all the personal,it's like doing Google in
incognito.
So it takes away all thepersonalization.
So that's gonna give you justmore of a baseline of what the
performance is.
But if you're constantlyputting in information about you
and your company and your URL,there's gonna be a personal bias
(24:23):
to give you that information.
So you just have to be carefulwith that.
And then you can use some othertools like our Search Score
tool that we've put together,and that's free to use.
Neil Patel has one on his Ubersuggest site, Mark Sheridan now
has one.
You're gonna see more of thesetools come to fruition.
(24:44):
Some paid, some, you know,premium or something like that.
But uh that's what we got.
I mean, it's kind of the wallwest, to be honest with you.
Yeah.
Janice Hostager (24:54):
Right.
Okay.
So let me go back to thequestion I was gonna ask.
So, other than like Q&A's,succinct lists, what other kind
of content out there or shouldwe put out there that AI is
gonna find favorable?
Kevin Vaughan (25:08):
Anything with authority that's that's
showcasing you as being anauthoritative voice on uh that
particular topic, you know,doing you know deep dives on the
uh on the topic itself andbeing very comprehensive.
And then again, showing thegood, the bad, the ugly.
You know, I mean, obviously,you want to frame that to be in
a positive light, or you'reselling the wrong product.
(25:30):
You need to just be honest andtransparent with people.
Um, again, that's you have tothink in terms of what are
people looking for?
And if they are able to goonline beyond just a Google
search and type in a question,have a conversation that
follow-up questions, they'regonna ask, you know, what what
is the solution?
(25:51):
How much does it cost?
How long does it take toimplement?
How complex is it?
Can I get help?
Um, you know, what is a serviceafter the sale?
You know, what are the negativethings I need to be concerned
about?
All of that stuff.
And it's gonna change for everybusiness in every topic that
(26:12):
that you want to promote.
And but you as the businessleader know the ins and outs of
your product and or service thatyou're gonna, these are the
conversations you're having withpeople anyway.
It's just kind of the oldschool thought is like, "I'm
gonna keep everything guardeduntil I'm a one-to-one
conversation," you know, clickfor a quote and get the
(26:35):
appointment, whatever, and thenyou're an open book.
But that's what's transformedis you almost have to just put
that stuff front and center.
By doing that, you're gonna bedoing something that you know
over 90% of the companies outthere, your competitors, are not
doing.
There's just so many peoplethat won't take that step.
(26:57):
It's a leap of faith.
I I get it, I get it.
I, you know, because I've hadto do it myself.
I've done it, I've done it withour other company, and I've
done things that have completelybroken rank with the industry,
but I feel that strongly aboutit and just want to be honest
and transparent moving forward.
Janice Hostager (27:17):
Yeah, and even before with SEO, I worked with a
company that sold pools, andone of the big questions people
asked was, "How much does theswimming pool cost?" And of
course, that's not an easyanswer.
It depends on your area, itdepends on so many different
factors.
But even just having that blogpost out there brought so much
traffic to their site.
(27:37):
It was it was crazy.
Even though they were theanswer was, well, it depends.
But having something like that,because people are always
asking this sort of things to toAI as well, right?
Kevin Vaughan (27:48):
Well, see, I I that's an excellent, that's an
excellent example and anexcellent point because
something like a swimming pool,no two are going to be the same.
There's a lot of customizationand construction, and is there a
rock they have to dig through?
You know, there's just arethere trees that have to be
there's just a lot of factorsinvolved.
But again, whoever's interestedin buying a pool, that's what
(28:13):
they're wondering.
How much is this gonna cost,right?
So they're gonna land on thatthat you made, and you're
probably gonna present it as arant.
You know, yeah, yes, at the endof the day, if you were to
summarize it in a sentence, theend is it depends.
Right.
But it depends because of thisand this and this.
So you start listing thefactors, and again, you're just
(28:34):
being honest with me and go, itcan cost you anywhere from I
don't know what pools cost, so$50,000 to $200,000, depending
on you know, the constructionand depending on, I guess, the
amenities that you put into thepool.
But you still showcase therange.
You know, typically it depends.
(28:54):
Every case is different, buttypically we see from this price
point to this price point, andyou can fall anywhere in the
middle.
You know, we should have atalk.
Here are the things you need tobe concerned about.
Here are the things that canplay a factor in the pricing of
your pool and talk to us.
Because what that does is whenyou when you publish that and
(29:15):
people land on that web page,all of a sudden you become a
voice of trust and authority onthat subject.
A, you're showcasing you knowwhat you're talking about.
You're not hiding any facts.
You're like, okay, here's allthe things that could affect the
cost, but we really need totake a deep dive and see how
that affects you, you know, foryour particular case.
(29:37):
And then so that drives theappointment, which is really
what what what the company wantsat the end of the day, right?
They want the appointment to uhpresent a proposal, right?
Yeah for building a pool.
So, no, I mean you're you'reabsolutely uh on point with
that.
Janice Hostager (29:54):
I built that no lacking trust factor, too.
Yeah, is what you're saying,right?
What about company?
Content that's not blogs.
What about like podcast contentor video?
Does that get crawled?
Maybe crawled isn't even theright word anymore.
Kevin Vaughan (30:09):
I mean again, it's this big web of stuff and
it's all connected.
Um, so when you're talkingabout video, are you talking
about YouTube primarily or likea Wistia channel?
Uh, you know, um, if you dosomething like uh a Wistia or
another platform like that, youcan kind of guard and gate that
content.
(30:29):
YouTube's got to be wide openfor the most part.
Um there's some schools ofthought that that, you know,
I've heard that your YouTubechannel could actually be more
valuable to you in the futurethan even your website,
depending on the traffic thatyou drive.
But I mean, video is its ownbeast, and it just depends on
(30:51):
how you want to put it together.
And a lot of people freak outabout video because they think
it needs to be like superproduced and polished, and it
doesn't necessarily have to beall that, but you don't want to
I I I get not wanting toshowcase your brand just from a
cell phone, selfie video all thetime.
So, you know, again, that's aspectrum too.
(31:13):
There's you know different uhuh levels of of quality that you
look for, but uh video isvitally important and it's just
gonna continue to grow becauseand it makes sense.
I mean, if you break it downinto you can tell somebody
something or you can showsomebody something.
And if you can show somebodysomething, but like the old
(31:35):
saying, a picture, you know,what is it, paints a picture of
a thousand words or somethinglike that, but video just
amplifies that infinitely.
So video is definitely huge,and you can incorporate that
with your other content that youhost online, you can embed
videos.
But I have seen in some search,especially if you're still
(31:56):
using Google, which has AIsummaries now, or if you're
using the Gemini platform, it'sdelivering YouTube videos.
So if you're optimizing yourdescription and basically
following the same practices ofwhat we're talking about, and
putting together some contentthat that will resonate with
(32:18):
people they care about, thenyeah, the video will do well and
it should be cited and referredon these AI channels.
Janice Hostager (32:26):
I feel like anything that Google already has
their hands in, they're gonnafind a way to incorporate into
AI for sure.
They already own YouTube, sothey're gonna be able to work
with that, I would bet, in thefuture.
One thing I've noticed too isthat i in Google searches now, I
don't know.
Yeah, I think it's just aregular search, it will pull up
like posts from Reddit, whichwith AI, that makes me a little
(32:51):
nervous because there's a lot ofopinions on Reddit that aren't
necessarily factual.
It's the same with socialmedia.
If you're scraping data fromall of that, I think it's a good
benefit businesses, but it alsomakes me a little nervous.
I don't know.
Kevin Vaughan (33:05):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Like, how do you separate thesignal from the noise?
Yeah.
So break that down.
Unfortunately, that's just notsomething we're gonna have.
You or I have control over.
All we can do is use theresources that are available to
us to the best of our ability.
And I think as long as you justhave to put the information out
there and be comfortable withyour position on it, as far as
(33:29):
policing what happens on Redditor social media, how it
responds, you and I have nocontrol over that.
All we can do is be goodstewards of the information that
we're putting out there forourselves or for our clients to
maximize the resources that wehave.
I did think of one thing,though, that is absolutely, God,
(33:51):
this is compelling.
And it's I just heard this, Ithink, yesterday.
It's brand new.
But ChatGPT is announcing thatthey're integrating Shopify data
within their platform, whichmeans that if you're looking for
things and you're hosting yourproducts on a Shopify store,
(34:14):
then your products will show upin those results that people can
purchase right from Chat GPTwithout having to go to your
even go into your website.
Janice Hostager (34:25):
Wow.
Kevin Vaughan (34:26):
I don't think it's live.
I don't think it's live yet,but it's been announced.
And it's like up and coming.
Do you keep up with like GaryV?
Do you watch any of his stuff?
Janice Hostager (34:36):
Every so often, I just I didn't hear that.
Kevin Vaughan (34:38):
Well, I I haven't heard that from him, but for
the past year, he's been talkingabout social selling.
That's his thing.
I think it depends on thebusiness.
So, you know, my my experienceand and knowledge, you know, is
really tailored to be to B2B.
Um, B2C is kind of a differentanimal sometimes.
(34:59):
And Gary V is definitely a B2Cguy.
Janice Hostager (35:02):
Right.
Kevin Vaughan (35:02):
But he's talking about social selling where
companies are going to be ableto have like live QVC type
events and to do a live feed andjust be selling products uh
through social media channels.
So I see this being like a partof that.
I mean, regardless if you'reB2C, B2B, or B2B2C hybrid uh
(35:26):
entity.
Um and I bring I have my siteson Shopify store, so it's
wonderful for me.
I don't know how that's goingto work with some other
e-commerce platform, but theability to have that positioned
and available for uh saledirectly within a AI chat
(35:47):
discussion, I think is awesome.
I can't wait to see that cometo life.
Janice Hostager (35:52):
Right.
I mean, there's just so manychanges going on right now.
It's even really hard for me towrap my head around any of
this.
Well, not any of it, but mostof it.
Like yeah, I guess I'm tryingto figure this out myself, let
alone guide my clients as towhat to do next.
But I appreciate that you'vesummarized it really pretty well
for us.
So that I mean nobody has acrystal ball, right?
(36:14):
So we don't know exactly whereall this is heading.
So I guess buckle up and staytuned, right?
Kevin Vaughan (36:22):
Yeah, it's kind of like Texas weather.
You don't like it, wait fiveminutes, it'll change.
So this uh AI stuff is thesame.
I mean, the best we can do iskeep pace with uh with what's
going on.
But what I feel reallycomfortable with is that I've
incorporated a lot of thesephilosophies into my own
products and I've seen themresolve um on these online or AI
(36:47):
searches.
So I'm like, I I know it works.
I know that this system works.
And um just one other thingthat I don't know if we touched
on, uh, but that structureddata, all the technical SEO
stuff, vitally important.
So you need to make sure thatyour core performance and uh
Search Console um is up to parthat you're uh that you have a
(37:09):
fast site, that you're mobilefriendly.
Uh, make sure that all yourschema markup is there because
that's how the robots seeeverything from the back end,
but not the customer facial, butthe back side of the website,
um, that's how it gets indexedand organized.
Now there's another, and I'msure you've heard of like a uh a
robots file, right?
(37:30):
Robots.txt file.
Um so now there's an LLMS.txtfile.
So LLMs, and it's basicallykind of like a robots file, but
for large language models.
Um and I know that um it's kindof a monster if you want to put
(37:51):
it put it together yourself.
I'm actually working on an AItool that will generate that,
but because I'm both of mywebsites are on uh Shopify
stores, there's a third-partyplugin that just does it for
things.
Janice Hostager (38:05):
Okay.
Kevin Vaughan (38:06):
Depending on your uh on your uh your hosting
provider, your CMS, um, a lot oftimes there's the third-party
apps that you that can do yourSEO optimization, like for
instance, if a WordPress site,you know, Yoast or or I don't
know, what's the other word?
Janice Hostager (38:23):
Break Math.
Kevin Vaughan (38:24):
Yeah, math write or write math or whatever.
Janice Hostager (38:26):
Break math.
Yeah.
Kevin Vaughan (38:27):
Yeah.
So there's a couple tools likethat.
And like I know the Yoast,maybe the math one, but I know
Yoast for sure, like if you getthe paid version, we'll produce
the LLM text form as well.
So it's just you have to becareful for things that
auto-generate stuff and just tomake sure that it's doing it
correctly, because sometimesthey can just send off and go
(38:49):
crazy.
Um, but as long as you checkand and validate that it's it's
generating the right informationfor you, um, that will help you
a lot with uh optimization aswell.
Janice Hostager (39:01):
Okay.
Well, we have covered a lottoday.
Yeah, sorry.
I'm gonna go grab a paper bagand start breathing into it just
because there's so much thatit's here that we need to just
think about.
But I guess as in nature ofmarketing, it never really
stands still at all.
And it really never has.
Kevin Vaughan (39:18):
No, and there's a lot of moving parts to it.
It seems confusing, it seemsdaunting.
Sometimes if you could break itdown into simple terms, I've
been on this other career pathfor years and years and years,
but through my 20s, I was in top40 radio.
So, you know, programmed radiostations and was on air and all
(39:40):
that.
So a lot of my marketingexperience, you know, even was
seeded back then because it it'sall the same game.
We have content that we'recreating to reach a particular
demographic out there andresonate with them.
Whether we're programming musicand contests to bring listeners
(40:04):
in to generate ad revenue, orwe're trying to get people to
our website to convert them, todo things.
It's the same game.
It just changes tactics, andyou just have to kind of keep up
with that.
Janice Hostager (40:18):
Well, marketing is really based on human
behavior, right?
So, you know, it really is allabout just what people tend to
do.
And this is just another toolin the tool belt to think about.
So um, so you have a speakingof tools, you have a really cool
tool that you are offering thatyou touched on in here.
So, can you tell us a littlebit about that, the search tool
that you created?
Kevin Vaughan (40:39):
Uh yeah, it's called Search Score.
Yeah, and it's the searchscore.ktvdigital.com to get to
it.
Free tool to use.
And you just plug in yourwebsite, your brand name, kind
of a key term.
If you sell lawnmowers, youjust put in lawnmowers or
self-writing lawnmowers, andit'll give you a report and I'll
(40:59):
show you how you show up withthese bots.
You know, I touched on thisearlier, but it's all tied into
API access, which API is just afancy for application program
interface.
It's just a way for this toolto talk to another tool.
Don't get lost in theformalities of it all.
It's just a way for this thingto talk to this thing.
So I have it connected to uhGemini, Chat GPT, and
(41:23):
Perplexity.
So all three of those platformstie into this.
And then so when you run asearch, it's gonna look on all
three of those platforms on theback end to see how you perform.
And it'll give you a list ofsome things you can do, some
links that give you informationon how you can fix that
yourself.
There's also a link to our DIYtools because there's, hey,
(41:44):
there's a lot of small businessowners that like to get under
the hood and tweak itthemselves.
They just need some help.
So we have some tools to dothat.
Uh, the other thing is it givesyou a list of some example
prompts of what people may usein AI to search where you would
show up.
Does that make sense?
Like sample prompts of whatpeople would put in.
(42:06):
So what's good about that is ifyou are looking for ideas of
okay, like what can I create,what can I write and publish
that would resonate, that willgive you some good, some good
ideas.
Janice Hostager (42:23):
Perfect.
And I'll put the link to thatin the show notes.
Kevin Vaughan (42:25):
That'd be awesome.
Janice Hostager (42:26):
Well, thank you so much for your time.
You've given us a lot to thinkabout, Kevin.
And uh but I certainlyappreciate it.
Kevin Vaughan (42:34):
Yeah, thanks for having me and I really enjoyed
it today.
Janice Hostager (42:39):
Wow, there is a lot to think about, right?
As Kevin shared, it's notsomething we can ignore.
Fortunately, small shifts likethe ones we talked about today
can make a big difference in howvisible you are and how
confident you feel movingforward.
If this conversation got youthinking, take a good look at
your own website and contentthis week.
Ask yourself, am I making iteasy for AI and humans to
(43:02):
understand who I serve and whatI do best?
It's not about chasing everytrend, it's about building a
clear strategic path thatconnects you with the right
customers.
For more information aboutanything we talked about today,
visit myweeklymarketing.comforward slash one thirty.
If you love today's episode,please make sure to follow the
(43:23):
podcast so that you don't missthe next one.
Thanks for tuning in today.
I'll see you next time.
Bye for now.
I'm Janice Hostager.
After three decades in themarketing business and many
years of being an entrepreneur,I've learned a thing or two
about marketing.
Join me as we talk aboutmarketing, small business, and
life in between.
Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Hey, hey, welcome to My WeeklyMarketing.
(00:30):
So unless you've been livingunder a rock, you know that AI
is coming in fast and furious.
And whether you know it or not,it is impacting your business.
And right now, customers, yoursand mine, are turning less
often to Google and other searchengines, and more often to AI.
In fact, I just did it today.
(00:51):
So since AI is changing search,after we all dutifully made
sure our websites were searchengine optimized, right?
What does that mean for yourwebsite and getting traffic to
it?
Honestly, most small businessowners are still trying to keep
up with traditional SEO, and nowit feels like AI just flipped a
script.
The good news?
(01:12):
Today's guest is here to breakit down and give you some steps
that you can take so you don'tget left behind.
I'm talking with Kevin Vaughan,founder of KTV Digital, and he
has more than 30 years ofmarketing experience.
When he realized that nearly80% of buyers are now using AI
tools to do their research andthat most businesses don't even
show up in those results, heknew something had to change.
(01:35):
You're gonna love thisconversation because Kevin
explains this complicated topicand tells us what to do next.
And he's gonna share a freetool that he's created so you
can find out how your websitestacks up.
So grab your coffee and let'sdive in.
Okay, well, welcome, Kevin.
Thanks for being here today.
Kevin Vaughan (01:55):
Thanks, Janice.
I'm happy to be here.
Thanks for the invite.
Janice Hostager (01:59):
Okay, so let's jump right in.
Let's start in some plainEnglish.
What is AI doing now to changehow search has done?
Kevin Vaughan (02:07):
So that's a very broad question.
There's a lot to unpack there.
There's what we have toconsider is over the past 20
plus years, we've been used todealing with Google or other
search engines like Google,where you'll type in a question,
you get a wall of links.
And the game was to climb ashigh up on that link order
because 80% of the you knowtraffic and conversions came
(02:31):
from the top five links.
So that was the game.
So AI has kind of leveled thatplaying field a little bit
because, yeah, and again, AI isreally not new at this point
because it was November in 2022when ChatGPT was first
introduced to the public.
And uh, you know, it's justbeen a rocket ship since then.
(02:52):
Uh, and when ChatGPT first cameout, it was a very constrained
data set.
So if you remember some of theearly searches you were doing
there, you know, askingquestions, you would only know
data up until like, I think itwas April 2021.
All of that has opened up,right?
So now all of these engines,ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude,
(03:14):
whatever, all have access to theinternet.
So they are scraping the sameinformation the way that uh uh
search engines do.
The difference is they're notgiving you a list of links and
you have to crawl through.
It's actually going through andscraping and consolidating,
parsing the data, and giving youa very uh uh concise answer.
(03:37):
And the beauty of it now whereit's evolved is that when you
get that answer, you're gettingto either, yeah, it depends on
the platform you're using, butit could have some internal
links, or if you use perplexity,it has all the source cards up
top.
Um, so that's changed thejourney because people aren't
going to Google first.
(03:58):
This is what the this is theinfluential thing with AI.
People are going to AI first toask questions, do some
research, because they can havea conversation.
You can start with a question,then you can ask a follow-up
question, you can whittle itdown.
You can't do that with a searchengine.
Um, so search, traditionalsearch as we know it, is still
(04:22):
very much vital, still very muchin play.
It's just not the first touchpoint anymore.
It's further down the line.
So where people start lookingfor products, services,
solutions to their problem,they're going to the answer
engines first and then workingtheir way down to Google to
(04:43):
verify.
And we can spend more time onthat if you want, but I don't
want to just take off on atangent here.
Janice Hostager (04:52):
No, no, that's that's a great way of putting it
because I think you'reabsolutely right.
It always starts for thecustomer, right?
It it's like, what are theydoing now that we have to pay
attention to?
And actually, it's not evencalled SEO anymore, right?
So well, the SEO is the old wayof doing it.
What is it called now?
Kevin Vaughan (05:12):
There are so many different acronyms out there,
and you'll it's alphabet soup.
All right, you're gonna getlost in it.
Don't overthink this.
First off, you're gonna hear alot of things.
If you're trying to keep yourfinger in the pulse, you're
gonna hear a lot of "SEO isdead." And I think that's the
wrong way to look at it becauseit's not a polarizing thing.
It's not this is SEO and thisis now AEO or GEO, and you know,
(05:34):
those acronyms are forGenerative Engine Optimization
or Answer Engine Optimization,and wait a week, it'll be back
and that's just the way it goes.
Um, so really this new AIapproach is really an extension
of SEO.
So SEO hasn't died, it's justtransformed, it's just different
(05:58):
now.
And again, part of that isbecause what we think of as
traditional SEO or landing onGoogle is a little further down
the experience from, you know,and it's it's funny because I
talk with other, you know,business owners and and not
necessarily other marketers, butother people that are just, you
(06:19):
know how it is, you get reallyclose to your business, really
get close to your product.
And sometimes it's hard to zoomout and get that that bigger
perspective.
But that's what we all need todo.
We all need to take a step backand just go, hold on, let's see
the big picture here.
And when I have theseconversations with folks, and I
say the journey's changed,people are going to AI first,
and they're like, Well, that'swhat I do.
(06:40):
Well, if you're doing that, whydo you think your customers
wouldn't be doing that as well?
Because that's that I meanthat's just the reality of it.
People are doing that.
But to get back to yourquestion, so it's really kind of
an SEO 2.0 now, instead of justSEO's gone away.
Um, and you just have theseother AI elements in there as
(07:02):
well.
But one of the critical thingsto keep in mind is that there's
no longer like it's not a linearprocess, it's very scattered
because there's so many touchpoints that could be affected in
the buyer's journey throughthis process.
You know, they can engage withyou and your brand, you know,
(07:23):
through search, what we'retalking about today, you know,
email marketing, social mediamarketing, networking events, if
you're running TV ads, becausebelieve it or not, there's a
whole different conversation tobe had about how TV ads are
running now.
Because with all of the smartTVs and things like that, these
TV companies know what thewatching habits are of a lot of
(07:47):
households.
And so if you're an advertisernow, you can hone in a local
commercial into a five zip codearea and target the demographic
in the household you want totarget.
So yeah, it's a crazy, there'sa lot of moving parts to all
(08:08):
this stuff, but it's all butit's all integrated and it's all
related.
Janice Hostager (08:12):
So the potential is enormous in terms
of marketing and all of this.
Kevin Vaughan (08:16):
Yes.
Janice Hostager (08:16):
Yeah, it is a lot.
I mean, marketing right now isalready a lot.
I mean, that's what keeps me inbusiness is that people come to
me, it's like, "I am sooverwhelmed.
I can't, I don't know what todo first," kind of thing.
So sticking just with searchright now because I think it's
enough.
I think it's enough.
In fact, I was with a clienttalking to a client this morning
who is just trying to searchoptimize certain pages on their
(08:40):
site.
Yeah, so what okay, where do westart with all of this?
So what's the first step tomake sure a website has a chance
of showing up in AI results?
Kevin Vaughan (08:53):
Well, I yeah, you know, when I'm talking to a new
client, you know, what I wantto do is is take a snapshot of
where they are.
I mean, and there's all kindsof analytics tools that we can
use to figure out, you know,where they are.
Do they exist in a traditionalsearch?
Are they showing up on Googleand not showing up on AI?
I mean, there's some tacticalthings you can do, but but you
(09:16):
know, basically it comes down tothere's some uh some
restructuring that you can do ifyou have existing data, right?
And you know, a vehicle for alot of us marketers is been
blogs for a long time.
You know, let's write somearticles, you know, blogs or
articles or features.
You know, blog for some folksis a dirty word, but it's it's
(09:39):
all the same thing.
You're just publishing a pieceof content about your business
or the solution that you saw toget it in front of your
customer.
But it can be optimized if it'son your primary domain.
And that's anotherconversation.
Don't put it in subdomain, putit on your primary domain.
So you get all the traffic fromthat.
Um, and then they're already inyour your uh your ecosystem,
(10:04):
you know, uh, to interact withyour brand.
But if if you have a lot ofblog content, then probably just
need to go through andrestructure that and make sure
that it's AI friendly.
So you want to have um, numberone, you want to have just good
scalable structure to yourpages.
So you want all of yourheadings, uh, you want to break
(10:25):
it down into a scalable format,so a lot of lists, a lot of
bullet points, things like thatthat people can easily go
through and digest.
Because if people can easily gothrough and digest that, then
that's how the robots arelooking at it as well.
Right.
So their AI, um, the way itputs together data, it does it
(10:46):
in chunks.
And if you start searchingthis, you're gonna hear like
chunkify and all these, youknow, different terms, because
that's how it's just getting itin small like word groups, these
chunks, and putting thatinformation together rather than
looking at like a large body oftext.
So that's why lists and thingslike that become very useful for
(11:09):
you to be cited and referredthrough those AI engines because
it's easy to organize and parsethat data.
And then when some whensomebody asks that question,
there's your response.
So the other thing is you haveto you have to reframe and maybe
restructure some of your dataor create you know new content
(11:30):
um where it answers thequestions that people would ask.
And that includes not alwaysthe good stuff.
People want to know when peopleare searching for a product or
service, they want to know,okay, what fixes my problem?
How much is it going to cost?
How long is it going to take?
What are the potentialdownsides?
(11:52):
And so many companies hide fromthat stuff.
They only want to show thevictories, they all only want to
show the win.
But if you really want toshowcase yourself as being
trustworthy and an authorityonline, you've got to cover all
those bases.
And I'll give you a quickantidote like a real-world
(12:15):
scenario.
So uh I run another company aswell, besides KTV Digital.
It's uh family business hasbeen part of for a long time
called uh TAVCO.
We're a technology reseller, wewe we support and service the
architectural engineeringconstruction space.
And we have this new productthat we brought on from HT.
We were one of the early accesspartners for this.
(12:36):
It just takes uh a sheets ofconstruction plans and converts
them into a CAD file that theycan drop into their software and
start working with.
Because prior to that, theydidn't have software that did
this.
And um they would have to drawby hand, so it would take them
two to four hours to do it.
Now we can do it in a column.
But as wonderful as thissoftware is, there's a few
(12:59):
things it doesn't do well,right?
So it doesn't do like 3Dobjects very well.
So if you have a 3D objectdrawn on a page, it just doesn't
know what to do with it.
Um, also, it doesn't dohandwritten handwritten notes
very well.
It can't read handwritten, it'sawesome at text, but not good
at handwriting.
So I would want to be honestwith somebody if they were
(13:21):
looking at buying the solutionand letting them know that this
is not a good fit if that is thestuff that you need to get
converted.
Uh and then so what I did is Iactually wrote an article on
that.
I'm like HP AI vectorized, thisis what it's not good at
because it's honest, it doesn'tdo these things well.
(13:41):
And if somebody is looking forthat online, they're gonna land
on that, and that's probablygonna end up as it you're gonna
hear this term a lot, you know,zero click searches.
And that's what everybody'sfreaking out about because back
in the Google days, right?
It's you wanted to get thoseclicks to your website, get
people to your website and tryto get them to hang around.
(14:01):
And now these AI summaries arecoming around.
Uh, a lot of folks are gettinganswers and then going, okay,
I'm cool, and they're moving on.
Janice Hostager (14:09):
And walk away.
Kevin Vaughan (14:10):
Frankly, it's it's not a big deal.
Um, it's really not as much toget worked up about, you know,
in my opinion, than some peopleare making it out to be.
And one of the interestingpieces of uh of data that I've
seen recently, I mean, withinthe past two weeks, is when you
look at dwell time, when youlook at people that land on a
(14:32):
web page and how at dwell time,how long do they stay on that
page?
How long do they look?
Well, dwell times across theboard have kind of increased
37%.
And the thought behind this isbecause people are doing the
research and the vetting on AIand zero-click things, the by
(14:53):
the time they're landing on awebsite because they've gone
that far down the funnel to takeaction, they're much better
qualified and they're much moreintent-driven to convert than
somebody who's just landing onyour page windowshop.
So it's it's just reframing thestrategy and the mindset of it,
(15:16):
you know, being up front, beinghonest.
If you uh subscribe to any ofthe methodology of Marcus
Sheridan, um, which, you know,in the marketing community,
people know who he is.
But I think he's on point.
He goes, you know, say whatothers won't say, show what
other people won't show.
And I think just by doing thatand and doing the mechanics of
(15:38):
it correctly really puts you ina good position to be cited and
and referenced uh through the AIengines as well as supplement
and optimize your traditionalSEO.
Again, it's a spectrum.
They all work together.
Janice Hostager (15:55):
Right, right.
Yeah, I can see where this kindof like what I work with is
something called the Trail tothe Sale.
So it if people will start atthe awareness stage and you it's
really based on the customerjourney, right?
So depending on where they howthey find out about you, and
then they go to the next stepand the next step and so on.
So what you're talking aboutwith AI though is let let's say
(16:17):
like your example, you have someinformation on your site that
the AI engine pulls into ananswer.
First of all, how do you knowthat your site was used for
that?
And second of all, how do howdoes that benefit your business?
Because they're not gonnaprobably click from there unless
you they ask for a citation.
(16:38):
So sometimes I will do thatwhen I'm working with ChatGPT
just to make sure it's validinformation.
I'll ask for a citation.
But unless you do that, you'renot necessarily gonna know where
that information came from,right?
Because it's generative.
Kevin Vaughan (16:52):
Well, and I'll use Perplexity as an example.
It's giving you a list ofsources that it's generating
that answer from.
So you do get you do get alink.
Um, it it doesn't serve thesame purpose as like a
traditional plank because abacklink is like, you know,
somebody is linking to yourcontent and gives you that
(17:12):
authority.
And backlinks, I mean, all ofthat stuff is still important.
All of that stuff doesn't goaway.
It's not a shift into this,it's just adding this new
perspective of uh this elementof it.
But I I look at it again to usethe analogy of zooming out.
If you're trying to buildbrand, you want to be as many
(17:36):
places as you can be wherepeople will see you.
You want to be in front ofeyeballs, right?
So having your traditionalresources in place and getting
that traffic is wonderful.
How awesome is it to be there?
Plus, if somebody searched onan AI to also see your brand.
Now, we don't have control ofthe citations.
All we can do is to optimizeour framework and our content,
(18:01):
the best way using the bestpractices to be found and to be
cited on those platforms.
But the best you can do is stayin touch with it.
I've developed a tool calledthe Search Score, which you can
input some information aboutyour company.
It's very minimal, it's thename of your company and a URL.
And it'll give you a snapshotof how you're performing on AI.
(18:25):
And the way that I've builtthat tool is I'm using API
access to ChatGPT, GoogleGemini, and Perplexity.
So I have those three channelsthat it's going out and using
the API call to bring thatinformation in to see what those
platforms have to say aboutyou.
Janice Hostager (18:45):
Okay.
So is there benefit to be well,I I would say that it sounds
like there is a if you're athought leader, if you're truly
a thought leader and you haveunique information out there and
your site has authority, thisis going to benefit you.
Is that right?
Kevin Vaughan (19:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you bring up a very goodpoint, kind of going back to the
blog thing, right?
I think where a lot of folkshave gotten excited about this
AI stuff, especially on themarketing side, because they're
like, great, I can just createand spend up a whole bunch of
stuff easily, but there's a lotof diminishing returns with that
(19:24):
because again, it's just if youthink of it like a vacuum
cleaner, it's just going outacross the internet and it's
grabbing all this informationand it's distilling it into an
answer and giving it to you whenyou ask it the question.
So if you're like, hey, I selldog food, right?
So write me an article aboutyou know the top 10 things to
(19:44):
know about dog food.
Well, it's gonna go out to uhthe internet and it's gonna pull
all this data and it's gonnacome back with a really nice
article.
And you're gonna read that andgo, that's pretty cool, you
know?
And I a little wordsmithing andit's ready to go.
The problem is that kind offalls flat because you're not
adding anything new to what isout there, it is recycling old
(20:09):
content.
And this is where there is justtrash and trash and trash
that's getting published andpromoted online, and it doesn't
add anything new, it's justspinning it into a new way to
say it.
So that's where if you reallywant to make an impact with the
stuff you put together, and youcan use the AI to get you
(20:31):
started.
There's nothing wrong withthat.
But what you have to do is youhave to sprinkle that with your
own expertise and successstories, customer case studies,
testimonials.
You have to add personalizationabout you and your brand and
your knowledge and yourexperience has to be included in
(20:54):
the article because that iswhat makes it unique.
And that is what is going togive you a leg up on everybody
else that's just doing the rinseand repeat routine out there.
Janice Hostager (21:05):
Right, right.
Kevin Vaughan (21:06):
And the thing is, it's not done much more work,
right?
So you just kind of get astarting point, you add your own
spin to it, inject it with yourpersonalization that speaks
about you and your business, andyou got a winner.
Janice Hostager (21:21):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's a good thing becauseI think for so long, people
were just sort of puttingcontent out to put content out.
And I think in this situation,you're right.
If you turn to ChatGPT to writeyour blog post, you're just
rehashing old stuff out there,and it's not going to benefit
you, even for SEO.
Kevin Vaughan (21:40):
Well, I mean, you go back to that that strategy
10 years ago.
It was all about keyword stuff.
Everything was a keyword,right?
It's like what's our keyword?
And then what's the primarykeyword?
And then what are alternateversions of that?
And then so, okay, I'm going towrite an article.
It's going to be focused aroundthis keyword, and I'm going to
sprinkle in all these alternateways to say it.
Make sure it's in the title,make sure it's in the body, make
(22:02):
sure it's in the metadataagain, checkboxes, just make
sure it's all good to go.
That just doesn't work anymore.
It has to, it what it's it'swhat's behind the message counts
more now.
It's more intent-driven.
It's more on the semantics ofthe message that you're
conveying.
Now you still start with akeyword because I mean, that's
(22:24):
the topic, right?
So this is the topic of whatwe're going to talk about.
Here's my personal experienceswith it.
Here's, you know, what you knowhappened.
Here's how one of my customershad great success with it.
So anything that you can callout to personalize that to make
it absolutely yours and unique,different from everybody else,
(22:44):
um, it is what's gonna uh allowyou to be easily uh cited and
referred for a particularsearch.
And long tail, you know, typekeywords uh perform better.
So in summary, it's it's reallya quality over quantity um
(23:06):
equation these days.
Janice Hostager (23:08):
Okay, okay.
So keywords are not dead.
Kevin Vaughan (23:12):
No, they're not dead.
I mean they they're sorelevant, it's just you're
you're not gonna uh hang yourhat on the keyword and call it
good.
Janice Hostager (23:19):
Right.
Kevin Vaughan (23:20):
You gotta add you gotta add a lot more.
Janice Hostager (23:22):
Right.
Kevin Vaughan (23:23):
But it's yeah, it's a starting place for sure.
Janice Hostager (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which you shouldn't, no.
Anyway, I don't think, withSEO.
You should never justlike "whatever".
Right.
How do you know if AI is picking up your
content?
Kevin Vaughan (23:38):
I mean, a lot of it is just testing, uh testing
searches yourself.
But you have to be carefulthough, because all of these
engines have a bit ofpersonalization to them and they
start to kind of learn you andthen start giving you answers
that you want to see.
So, like as an example,Perplexity, I think you can do
it in ChatGPT too, but I knowPerplexity is an incognito mode.
(24:01):
So you can go down and you cantoggle into incognito mode and
it takes away all the personal,it's like doing Google in
incognito.
So it takes away all thepersonalization.
So that's gonna give you justmore of a baseline of what the
performance is.
But if you're constantlyputting in information about you
and your company and your URL,there's gonna be a personal bias
(24:23):
to give you that information.
So you just have to be carefulwith that.
And then you can use some othertools like our Search Score
tool that we've put together,and that's free to use.
Neil Patel has one on his Ubersuggest site, Mark Sheridan now
has one.
You're gonna see more of thesetools come to fruition.
(24:44):
Some paid, some, you know,premium or something like that.
But uh that's what we got.
I mean, it's kind of the wallwest, to be honest with you.
Yeah.
Janice Hostager (24:54):
Right.
Okay.
So let me go back to thequestion I was gonna ask.
So, other than like Q&A's,succinct lists, what other kind
of content out there or shouldwe put out there that AI is
gonna find favorable?
Kevin Vaughan (25:08):
Anything with authority that's that's
showcasing you as being anauthoritative voice on uh that
particular topic, you know,doing you know deep dives on the
uh on the topic itself andbeing very comprehensive.
And then again, showing thegood, the bad, the ugly.
You know, I mean, obviously,you want to frame that to be in
a positive light, or you'reselling the wrong product.
(25:30):
You need to just be honest andtransparent with people.
Um, again, that's you have tothink in terms of what are
people looking for?
And if they are able to goonline beyond just a Google
search and type in a question,have a conversation that
follow-up questions, they'regonna ask, you know, what what
is the solution?
(25:51):
How much does it cost?
How long does it take toimplement?
How complex is it?
Can I get help?
Um, you know, what is a serviceafter the sale?
You know, what are the negativethings I need to be concerned
about?
All of that stuff.
And it's gonna change for everybusiness in every topic that
(26:12):
that you want to promote.
And but you as the businessleader know the ins and outs of
your product and or service thatyou're gonna, these are the
conversations you're having withpeople anyway.
It's just kind of the oldschool thought is like, "I'm
gonna keep everything guardeduntil I'm a one-to-one
conversation," you know, clickfor a quote and get the
(26:35):
appointment, whatever, and thenyou're an open book.
But that's what's transformedis you almost have to just put
that stuff front and center.
By doing that, you're gonna bedoing something that you know
over 90% of the companies outthere, your competitors, are not
doing.
There's just so many peoplethat won't take that step.
(26:57):
It's a leap of faith.
I I get it, I get it.
I, you know, because I've hadto do it myself.
I've done it, I've done it withour other company, and I've
done things that have completelybroken rank with the industry,
but I feel that strongly aboutit and just want to be honest
and transparent moving forward.
Janice Hostager (27:17):
Yeah, and even before with SEO, I worked with a
company that sold pools, andone of the big questions people
asked was, "How much does theswimming pool cost?" And of
course, that's not an easyanswer.
It depends on your area, itdepends on so many different
factors.
But even just having that blogpost out there brought so much
traffic to their site.
(27:37):
It was it was crazy.
Even though they were theanswer was, well, it depends.
But having something like that,because people are always
asking this sort of things to toAI as well, right?
Kevin Vaughan (27:48):
Well, see, I I that's an excellent, that's an
excellent example and anexcellent point because
something like a swimming pool,no two are going to be the same.
There's a lot of customizationand construction, and is there a
rock they have to dig through?
You know, there's just arethere trees that have to be
there's just a lot of factorsinvolved.
But again, whoever's interestedin buying a pool, that's what
(28:13):
they're wondering.
How much is this gonna cost,right?
So they're gonna land on thatthat you made, and you're
probably gonna present it as arant.
You know, yeah, yes, at the endof the day, if you were to
summarize it in a sentence, theend is it depends.
Right.
But it depends because of thisand this and this.
So you start listing thefactors, and again, you're just
(28:34):
being honest with me and go, itcan cost you anywhere from I
don't know what pools cost, so$50,000 to $200,000, depending
on you know, the constructionand depending on, I guess, the
amenities that you put into thepool.
But you still showcase therange.
You know, typically it depends.
(28:54):
Every case is different, buttypically we see from this price
point to this price point, andyou can fall anywhere in the
middle.
You know, we should have atalk.
Here are the things you need tobe concerned about.
Here are the things that canplay a factor in the pricing of
your pool and talk to us.
Because what that does is whenyou when you publish that and
(29:15):
people land on that web page,all of a sudden you become a
voice of trust and authority onthat subject.
A, you're showcasing you knowwhat you're talking about.
You're not hiding any facts.
You're like, okay, here's allthe things that could affect the
cost, but we really need totake a deep dive and see how
that affects you, you know, foryour particular case.
(29:37):
And then so that drives theappointment, which is really
what what what the company wantsat the end of the day, right?
They want the appointment to uhpresent a proposal, right?
Yeah for building a pool.
So, no, I mean you're you'reabsolutely uh on point with
that.
Janice Hostager (29:54):
I built that no lacking trust factor, too.
Yeah, is what you're saying,right?
What about company?
Content that's not blogs.
What about like podcast contentor video?
Does that get crawled?
Maybe crawled isn't even theright word anymore.
Kevin Vaughan (30:09):
I mean again, it's this big web of stuff and
it's all connected.
Um, so when you're talkingabout video, are you talking
about YouTube primarily or likea Wistia channel?
Uh, you know, um, if you dosomething like uh a Wistia or
another platform like that, youcan kind of guard and gate that
content.
(30:29):
YouTube's got to be wide openfor the most part.
Um there's some schools ofthought that that, you know,
I've heard that your YouTubechannel could actually be more
valuable to you in the futurethan even your website,
depending on the traffic thatyou drive.
But I mean, video is its ownbeast, and it just depends on
(30:51):
how you want to put it together.
And a lot of people freak outabout video because they think
it needs to be like superproduced and polished, and it
doesn't necessarily have to beall that, but you don't want to
I I I get not wanting toshowcase your brand just from a
cell phone, selfie video all thetime.
So, you know, again, that's aspectrum too.
(31:13):
There's you know different uhuh levels of of quality that you
look for, but uh video isvitally important and it's just
gonna continue to grow becauseand it makes sense.
I mean, if you break it downinto you can tell somebody
something or you can showsomebody something.
And if you can show somebodysomething, but like the old
(31:35):
saying, a picture, you know,what is it, paints a picture of
a thousand words or somethinglike that, but video just
amplifies that infinitely.
So video is definitely huge,and you can incorporate that
with your other content that youhost online, you can embed
videos.
But I have seen in some search,especially if you're still
(31:56):
using Google, which has AIsummaries now, or if you're
using the Gemini platform, it'sdelivering YouTube videos.
So if you're optimizing yourdescription and basically
following the same practices ofwhat we're talking about, and
putting together some contentthat that will resonate with
(32:18):
people they care about, thenyeah, the video will do well and
it should be cited and referredon these AI channels.
Janice Hostager (32:26):
I feel like anything that Google already has
their hands in, they're gonnafind a way to incorporate into
AI for sure.
They already own YouTube, sothey're gonna be able to work
with that, I would bet, in thefuture.
One thing I've noticed too isthat i in Google searches now, I
don't know.
Yeah, I think it's just aregular search, it will pull up
like posts from Reddit, whichwith AI, that makes me a little
(32:51):
nervous because there's a lot ofopinions on Reddit that aren't
necessarily factual.
It's the same with socialmedia.
If you're scraping data fromall of that, I think it's a good
benefit businesses, but it alsomakes me a little nervous.
I don't know.
Kevin Vaughan (33:05):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Like, how do you separate thesignal from the noise?
Yeah.
So break that down.
Unfortunately, that's just notsomething we're gonna have.
You or I have control over.
All we can do is use theresources that are available to
us to the best of our ability.
And I think as long as you justhave to put the information out
there and be comfortable withyour position on it, as far as
(33:29):
policing what happens on Redditor social media, how it
responds, you and I have nocontrol over that.
All we can do is be goodstewards of the information that
we're putting out there forourselves or for our clients to
maximize the resources that wehave.
I did think of one thing,though, that is absolutely, God,
(33:51):
this is compelling.
And it's I just heard this, Ithink, yesterday.
It's brand new.
But ChatGPT is announcing thatthey're integrating Shopify data
within their platform, whichmeans that if you're looking for
things and you're hosting yourproducts on a Shopify store,
(34:14):
then your products will show upin those results that people can
purchase right from Chat GPTwithout having to go to your
even go into your website.
Janice Hostager (34:25):
Wow.
Kevin Vaughan (34:26):
I don't think it's live.
I don't think it's live yet,but it's been announced.
And it's like up and coming.
Do you keep up with like GaryV?
Do you watch any of his stuff?
Janice Hostager (34:36):
Every so often, I just I didn't hear that.
Kevin Vaughan (34:38):
Well, I I haven't heard that from him, but for
the past year, he's been talkingabout social selling.
That's his thing.
I think it depends on thebusiness.
So, you know, my my experienceand and knowledge, you know, is
really tailored to be to B2B.
Um, B2C is kind of a differentanimal sometimes.
(34:59):
And Gary V is definitely a B2Cguy.
Janice Hostager (35:02):
Right.
Kevin Vaughan (35:02):
But he's talking about social selling where
companies are going to be ableto have like live QVC type
events and to do a live feed andjust be selling products uh
through social media channels.
So I see this being like a partof that.
I mean, regardless if you'reB2C, B2B, or B2B2C hybrid uh
(35:26):
entity.
Um and I bring I have my siteson Shopify store, so it's
wonderful for me.
I don't know how that's goingto work with some other
e-commerce platform, but theability to have that positioned
and available for uh saledirectly within a AI chat
(35:47):
discussion, I think is awesome.
I can't wait to see that cometo life.
Janice Hostager (35:52):
Right.
I mean, there's just so manychanges going on right now.
It's even really hard for me towrap my head around any of
this.
Well, not any of it, but mostof it.
Like yeah, I guess I'm tryingto figure this out myself, let
alone guide my clients as towhat to do next.
But I appreciate that you'vesummarized it really pretty well
for us.
So that I mean nobody has acrystal ball, right?
(36:14):
So we don't know exactly whereall this is heading.
So I guess buckle up and staytuned, right?
Kevin Vaughan (36:22):
Yeah, it's kind of like Texas weather.
You don't like it, wait fiveminutes, it'll change.
So this uh AI stuff is thesame.
I mean, the best we can do iskeep pace with uh with what's
going on.
But what I feel reallycomfortable with is that I've
incorporated a lot of thesephilosophies into my own
products and I've seen themresolve um on these online or AI
(36:47):
searches.
So I'm like, I I know it works.
I know that this system works.
And um just one other thingthat I don't know if we touched
on, uh, but that structureddata, all the technical SEO
stuff, vitally important.
So you need to make sure thatyour core performance and uh
Search Console um is up to parthat you're uh that you have a
(37:09):
fast site, that you're mobilefriendly.
Uh, make sure that all yourschema markup is there because
that's how the robots seeeverything from the back end,
but not the customer facial, butthe back side of the website,
um, that's how it gets indexedand organized.
Now there's another, and I'msure you've heard of like a uh a
robots file, right?
(37:30):
Robots.txt file.
Um so now there's an LLMS.txtfile.
So LLMs, and it's basicallykind of like a robots file, but
for large language models.
Um and I know that um it's kindof a monster if you want to put
(37:51):
it put it together yourself.
I'm actually working on an AItool that will generate that,
but because I'm both of mywebsites are on uh Shopify
stores, there's a third-partyplugin that just does it for
things.
Janice Hostager (38:05):
Okay.
Kevin Vaughan (38:06):
Depending on your uh on your uh your hosting
provider, your CMS, um, a lot oftimes there's the third-party
apps that you that can do yourSEO optimization, like for
instance, if a WordPress site,you know, Yoast or or I don't
know, what's the other word?
Janice Hostager (38:23):
Break Math.
Kevin Vaughan (38:24):
Yeah, math write or write math or whatever.
Janice Hostager (38:26):
Break math.
Yeah.
Kevin Vaughan (38:27):
Yeah.
So there's a couple tools likethat.
And like I know the Yoast,maybe the math one, but I know
Yoast for sure, like if you getthe paid version, we'll produce
the LLM text form as well.
So it's just you have to becareful for things that
auto-generate stuff and just tomake sure that it's doing it
correctly, because sometimesthey can just send off and go
(38:49):
crazy.
Um, but as long as you checkand and validate that it's it's
generating the right informationfor you, um, that will help you
a lot with uh optimization aswell.
Janice Hostager (39:01):
Okay.
Well, we have covered a lottoday.
Yeah, sorry.
I'm gonna go grab a paper bagand start breathing into it just
because there's so much thatit's here that we need to just
think about.
But I guess as in nature ofmarketing, it never really
stands still at all.
And it really never has.
Kevin Vaughan (39:18):
No, and there's a lot of moving parts to it.
It seems confusing, it seemsdaunting.
Sometimes if you could break itdown into simple terms, I've
been on this other career pathfor years and years and years,
but through my 20s, I was in top40 radio.
So, you know, programmed radiostations and was on air and all
(39:40):
that.
So a lot of my marketingexperience, you know, even was
seeded back then because it it'sall the same game.
We have content that we'recreating to reach a particular
demographic out there andresonate with them.
Whether we're programming musicand contests to bring listeners
(40:04):
in to generate ad revenue, orwe're trying to get people to
our website to convert them, todo things.
It's the same game.
It just changes tactics, andyou just have to kind of keep up
with that.
Janice Hostager (40:18):
Well, marketing is really based on human
behavior, right?
So, you know, it really is allabout just what people tend to
do.
And this is just another toolin the tool belt to think about.
So um, so you have a speakingof tools, you have a really cool
tool that you are offering thatyou touched on in here.
So, can you tell us a littlebit about that, the search tool
that you created?
Kevin Vaughan (40:39):
Uh yeah, it's called Search Score.
Yeah, and it's the searchscore.ktvdigital.com to get to
it.
Free tool to use.
And you just plug in yourwebsite, your brand name, kind
of a key term.
If you sell lawnmowers, youjust put in lawnmowers or
self-writing lawnmowers, andit'll give you a report and I'll
(40:59):
show you how you show up withthese bots.
You know, I touched on thisearlier, but it's all tied into
API access, which API is just afancy for application program
interface.
It's just a way for this toolto talk to another tool.
Don't get lost in theformalities of it all.
It's just a way for this thingto talk to this thing.
So I have it connected to uhGemini, Chat GPT, and
(41:23):
Perplexity.
So all three of those platformstie into this.
And then so when you run asearch, it's gonna look on all
three of those platforms on theback end to see how you perform.
And it'll give you a list ofsome things you can do, some
links that give you informationon how you can fix that
yourself.
There's also a link to our DIYtools because there's, hey,
(41:44):
there's a lot of small businessowners that like to get under
the hood and tweak itthemselves.
They just need some help.
So we have some tools to dothat.
Uh, the other thing is it givesyou a list of some example
prompts of what people may usein AI to search where you would
show up.
Does that make sense?
Like sample prompts of whatpeople would put in.
(42:06):
So what's good about that is ifyou are looking for ideas of
okay, like what can I create,what can I write and publish
that would resonate, that willgive you some good, some good
ideas.
Janice Hostager (42:23):
Perfect.
And I'll put the link to thatin the show notes.
Kevin Vaughan (42:25):
That'd be awesome.
Janice Hostager (42:26):
Well, thank you so much for your time.
You've given us a lot to thinkabout, Kevin.
And uh but I certainlyappreciate it.
Kevin Vaughan (42:34):
Yeah, thanks for having me and I really enjoyed
it today.
Janice Hostager (42:39):
Wow, there is a lot to think about, right?
As Kevin shared, it's notsomething we can ignore.
Fortunately, small shifts likethe ones we talked about today
can make a big difference in howvisible you are and how
confident you feel movingforward.
If this conversation got youthinking, take a good look at
your own website and contentthis week.
Ask yourself, am I making iteasy for AI and humans to
(43:02):
understand who I serve and whatI do best?
It's not about chasing everytrend, it's about building a
clear strategic path thatconnects you with the right
customers.
For more information aboutanything we talked about today,
visit myweeklymarketing.comforward slash one thirty.
If you love today's episode,please make sure to follow the
(43:23):
podcast so that you don't missthe next one.
Thanks for tuning in today.
I'll see you next time.
Bye for now.
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