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August 5, 2025 15 mins

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SEO is changing, it's evolving. User search behavior is changing and that means our strategy must adjust too or we're going to struggle to get traffic to our websites. Yes, website traffic is down but that's not a reason to panic, if you focus on being visible where people are searching today. 

We're seeing a shift in search, more people are starting with ChatGPT or other AI tools and then moving to Google to complete their research and convert. 

Join me in today's episode where I talk about what's happening with SEO, how it will impact your business, and what to do so you don't lose out as SEO changes. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, and welcome back to thepodcast.
Today I wanna talk aboutsomething that I am seeing a lot
of chatter, a lot of question, alot of concern, and that is.
Our website clicks down, andit's very, very likely that you
are seeing a decrease in websitetraffic or website clicks, even

(00:21):
if you've done SEO, even if yoursite is well optimized.
And I want to talk about whythat's happening and what it
means for your business and whatyou can do to protect your
online visibility.
And what website traffic you aregoing to get.
So yes, many of us are seeingwebsite clicks going down.

(00:43):
The reason behind that,honestly, is what they're
calling a zero click searchworld.
And what that means is that themajority of.
The searches are now beinganswered by ai, at least those
searches that are kind of top ofthe funnel.
They're the general, theinformational searches where AI

(01:04):
is able to give conversationalinformation, help somebody kind
of start to understand whatthey're looking for, help them
refine.
Then maybe they go on fromthere.
But what we're seeing is about60% of today's searches do not
actually yield a click to awebsite.

(01:26):
That's a big number.
It's more than half.
Now, with those, what we'reseeing is a lot of those
searches are, like I said,they're answered by ai.
So they're AI overview, AI mode.
Maybe it takes somebody toYouTube.
Or Google images or Google Mapsif you have a local business,

(01:47):
but they're not going on toanother website, so only 40% are
going on to click through to awebsite on any given search.
Now, that doesn't mean.
That SEO is dead, or SEO isover.
What it means is that in orderto stay relevant, to remain

(02:08):
visible, to continue to have abusiness online, you need to be
one of those websites thatGoogle and now Chat, GPT, and
others are referencing.
You need to be one that is.
Recommended by those AI searchengines.
You need to show up in AIoverviews or AI mode, or when

(02:31):
someone is searching on chatGPT, you need to show up there.
So now you're probablywondering, okay, how do I do all
of that?
What does that mean, Rachel?
So.
There's two different types ofSEO at play.
So it's not that we're doingaway with what I'm now starting
to refer to as traditional SEO,and that's what I've been

(02:51):
teaching you for years.
That's key words and creategreat content and optimize so
the search engines understandyour content, all of that.
What we also need to do, and westill need to do that because
that's still important.
What we also need to do is makesure that we are following AI
SEO best practices.
Now, if this is the first timeyou've heard it or you're just
beginning to kind of wonder whatai, maybe you've heard people

(03:14):
refer to it as, GEO, generativeengine optimization, whatever
you've heard it as, it's allkind of the same thing.
If this is the first that you'veheard of it, you are not sure
what to do about it.
I have a brand new guide to ai,SEO, how to get ranked places
like AI overviews, AI mode chat,GPT.

(03:36):
So if you're curious about that.
I'll go ahead and run to thefreebies tab on the website,
etched marketing.com/freebies.
You'll be able to find it rightthere so you can download it and
that'll help you start tounderstand.
There's also a free class thatnow talks about both Google and
AI search, AI, SEO, and how weshow up on Google and Chat, GPT,
both, and it's really importantthat we are focusing on both.

(03:59):
It's not one or the other.
It's, and.
Because consumer search behavioris changing.
People are using both, and so weneed to show up on both.
The other great thing about AIis that ai, SEO is really
building upon the foundation.
We've already laid for Googleand our traditional search

(04:21):
engines.
Because it also is looking foryour site to be easy to
understand, quick to crawl, um,fast load times, all the things
we talk about.
It's looking for you to havegreat content.
It wants you to be a resource.
It wants to have those EEATfactors that your experience,
your expertise, your authority,and your trust.

(04:42):
It wants all of that.
It's not looking at keywords theway that Google is.
So AI search is moreconversational.
It's not keyword based.
So we aren't worried aboutkeywords for the AI searches.
We are worried about being moreconversational, about having the
content that people are lookingfor, answering the questions.

(05:04):
We also wanna stay very focused,same as we do with Google, SEO.
We wanna stay focused on reallyanswering one question.
Per blog post because that helpsus have more information, which
gives us a better chance ofranking in AI search.
Now what we're finding.
Is it sites that rank well onGoogle that have good
traditional SEO foundationswhere their content has been

(05:26):
formatted for AI are more likelyto show up and be visible in AI
search?
So do not stop doing yourtraditional SEO.
It's very important that we doboth.
What we're seeing is thatconsumer behavior, consumer
search behavior is changing.
This is going to fundamentallychange SEO.

(05:48):
So in the past, people reallyonly searched Google or Yahoo or
Bing or whatever search enginethat they did.
They went, they typed inkeyword, maybe they typed in a
string of keywords or keyphrase, something more long tail
like we've talked about.
And 10 blue links showed up.
Maybe they also saw some ads, orthey saw some videos or images

(06:10):
or a Reddit, you know, a Redditthread, whatever.
Today many people are startingtheir search.
Using ai.
So they're going straight tochat GPT and asking, Hey, how
can I learn about doing X?
How can I do Y?
What can I do over here?
And then chat GPT is helpingthem.
Then they may be refining theirsearch on chat GPT before going

(06:34):
over to Google and searching.
So I had a great conversationwith some of my students
recently, and one of them sharedthis had happened with her with
a new Stu.
With a new client.
So she's a therapist.
That client wasn't quite surewhat type of help they needed,
so they went to chat, GPT andkind of had a conversation with
Chatty asking like, what do Ilook for?

(06:56):
This is what I wanna work on.
What kind of therapist do Ineed?
Can somebody help me with this?
And so.
It helped them refine what theywere looking for, so once they
knew what type of therapist theywere looking for, they then went
to Google and searched for thattype therapist, plus their local
area because they wantedsomebody local to them.
They wanted in-person help.

(07:18):
At that time, the website for mystudent.
Popped up high, they clickedthrough and became one of her
clients.
This is what we're seeinghappening more and more.
We're seeing Google searcheswith an assist from ai, whether
it's that somebody has actuallystarted on chat, GPT.

(07:39):
Perplexity somewhere else, or ifthey started with Google, but
they got the information in theAI overview or now the AI mode
tab.
Then asked a couple of refiningquestions and then went to
Google to actually click.
So while we may be seeing an.
Decrease in our search trafficor search volume or our website

(08:04):
traffic from Google.
What I'm also seeing is thatit's a more experienced, more
interested, closer to theconversion visit, so people are
getting the information theyneed from ai.
Then they're making therefinements.
Then when they're ready to makea decision, they're going to

(08:25):
Google to search, to visit thewebsite.
So what does this mean for you?
It means that your contentstrategy really needs to focus
on both topics that are going tobe more likely answered by ai.
And topics that are going to goto traditional search.
So when you're creating content,you want to think about what is

(08:47):
somebody going to ask in aconversational way at the top of
the funnel, if they're trying tolearn about me, they're trying
to get information, they'retrying to figure it out, you're
going to want to create thatblog post.
Then you're going to want tothink about what else are they
going to ask?
What else do they maybe need toknow?
How might they refine thisquery?
You probably want to have a poston that or have that information

(09:09):
in your original post then.
You're going to want to thinkabout what would they be
searching for when they're readyto convert.
So in the example of my student,it was what type therapy, and
then how could they find someonein their local area?
So taking that therapy typeinformation from chat GPT, they

(09:31):
took that information over toGoogle.
Put that in and their websitecame up because not only was it
optimized for the local area,they also optimized and had
information on that particulartype of therapy and the fact
that they were in that localarea.
So when we're looking at this.
Your key words are going tomatter more for the content

(09:52):
where your traffic is going tocome from Google.
So those pages that are furtherdown at the bottom of the sales
funnel, they're not going torealistically matter quite as
much for the ones that are goingto be answered in AI as.
Especially if they're searchingchat, GPT, perplexity, et
cetera, because they're notdependent upon keywords.

(10:12):
What's going to be moreimportant there is the
conversational tone.
The way you're formatting yourcontent, if you're using the
right header tags, if youcontent is easy to read.
There's all of the things thatwe need to do from an.
AI, SEO formatting standpoint.
And like I said, if you don'tyet have it, and most of you

(10:33):
don't because it's brand new, Ihave the AI SEO guide.
It's on my website.
Go to the freebies tab and getthat, and it kind of breaks down
for you what it is and how we doit and how we format for AI SEO.
Now, I personally am seeing alot of that assist.
My content is.

(10:53):
In AI and I am getting trafficfrom it, and so that's what I
want for you because consumerbehavior is changing.
The last report that I saw said66% of consumers expect AI
search to take over traditionalsearch within five years.
I believe it was also 80% ofthem are, they prefer the

(11:15):
experience in AI search, theconversational tone, that nature
of it.
Over the traditional searchlinks.
Now Google knows that theirmarket share is at risk because
of this.
So Google has changed.
That's why we have AI mode andwhy we have AI overviews, and
that's not going away.

(11:35):
At this point in time, Googledoes not care if they send
people to your website.
They're more concerned aboutkeeping people within their
ecosystem very much like it'sbeen with social media
algorithms for years.
So in order to be one that isgoing to continue to get traffic
and be visible and all of that,you need to make sure you're
doing SEO for both AI and.

(11:58):
Traditional Google.
Like I said, the good news istraditional Google.
SEO works for both.
Then we need to look at how weformat specifically for ai.
That really is the bigger partof it.
So if you've not yet done this,if you've been listening to the
podcast for a while, had, youknow a new student who said it?
Yeah.
I listened to your podcast forlike a year before I signed up.
If you've been listening for awhile, you're here.

(12:19):
First of all, thank you.
I appreciate that you are hereand you listen, and you trust me
to help you learn how to dothis.
Second, it's time to join me inthe class because this is
changing and it's changingquickly, and I don't want you to
be left behind.
If you've been working on thison your own and you've been
trying to figure it out on, onyour own.

(12:39):
Take the free class.
Learn a little more about howall of this is working.
When you take the free classthat gets you into the funnel,
that gives you that discount sothat you can join me in simple
SEO content.
You can get that$500 discount.
Don't pay full price.
There's a discount for youbecause you're here.
You're within my world.
You know who I am.
You listen to the podcast, youcome through that training

(13:00):
class.
Find out how to do this.
Get signed up.
Let's work on this together andlet's get this taken care of for
you so that your business cancontinue to thrive online even
as everything changes.
The other thing I'm gonna ask isif you're.
Listening to this podcast and ithelps you, would you do me the
biggest favor and leave a ratingand really a review that really

(13:22):
helps spread the message aboutthe podcast.
The podcast app algorithms, lovefollowers, ratings and reviews.
So if you do that, if you havenot yet followed or subscribed.
Rating review if you'll do that,that helps me so much in the
podcast app.
And if you have a podcast, ifyou're not yet asking for those,
make sure you do because they domake a big difference for you.

(13:45):
Alright, that's it for today.
I'll see you back here nextweek.
Bye for now.
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