July 8, 2025 • 14 mins
If you've done SEO on your website but you're still not showing up high on Google or in AI Search like AI Overviews, AI Mode, or on ChatGPT, then not only is it frustrating, it means something's wrong.
If you're going to take the time to work on SEO, you want to make sure it pays off. Find out why your SEO might not be working and what to change so that you start showing up more often in AI results and get traffic to your website.
We need to work on both today to be visible online.
Register now for the free live SEO class and find out the secrets to being found, generating leads, and making money from Google and in AI Search like ChatGPT.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/registration-seo-class
My free resources, including the Beginner's step-by-step SEO Guide and my free class, are available here.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/freebies
Learn more about 1:1 Elite Marketing Coaching, where we work together for 3 months on your business. I'll help you make more money.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/marketing-coaching
Join me in Simple SEO Content, my complete SEO and Content Marketing course that teaches you what to do step-by-step. It walks you through the entire process. (complete course)
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/yes
Join Simple Podcast SEO and learn how to grow your show quickly and easily in the self-study podcast SEO program.
https://www.etchedmarketing.com/enroll
My favorite marketing tools (affiliate links)
Podcast recording and editing - Descript
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hi, and welcome back to thepodcast.
Today I want to address aquestion that I got from a new
student before they joinedSimple SEO content.
And that was why is my websitenot showing up, even though I've
done SEO.
And that is such a greatquestion because it's also a
really frustrating situation,but it's something that I see so
(00:23):
many small business ownersstruggle with that I thought
this is an amazing podcast topicand it should help you to really
learn and understand why thework that you might be putting
in may not be paying off.
And if it's.
If you're in this situation,you've written content, you've
got your blog posts, you've gotyour website, you've chosen
(00:45):
keywords, you've written metadescriptions and title tags, and
you've, you're doing everything,but you're still not showing up.
There are probably a couple ofreasons why that's happened.
So what we wanna talk about iswhy does that happen?
Now, we're not talking aboutyour site can't be indexed at
all, meaning it's not inGoogle's index, it can't be
(01:07):
crawled.
There's a technical issueblocking it, something like
that.
We're talking about you arethere.
But you're like on page two orfive or 10, or you are not
showing up in the new AIoverviews AI mode.
Now we have to worry aboutshowing up on chat, GPT in
addition to Google.
(01:27):
Like there's a lot we've gottathink about if we wanna stay
visible.
So if you are doing the work,you are optimizing your website,
you are choosing keywords, youare creating content, all of
that, and you are not.
Seeing results, then you'remaking one of these mistakes.
So let's talk about'em realquick so you know what you need
(01:48):
to adjust.
So the first thing that I see.
People make mistakes with ischoosing the wrong keywords.
This is one of the most commonmistakes that I see, and I'll be
completely honest.
Choosing the right keywords isone of the harder parts for my
students to kind of wrap theirminds around and understand how
(02:09):
to pick those keywords and whatthe process is, and I go through
it very.
Very in depth in the course, andI give screen shares, but I
answer more questions in ourstudent group about this than
anything else.
So I know that choosing theright keywords is difficult and
it is confusing, but I also knowit's one of the number one
(02:32):
mistakes that I see people make,and it's why so often your SEO
is not working.
So either.
We choose a key word that's justtoo big and too competitive, and
our website's not gonna reallyhave a good chance of ranking in
Google for it.
Or we maybe choose one.
(02:52):
Where we actually have a prettygood chance of ranking.
However, it's not the word thatour customer uses.
So if we were to rank for it,it's great, but we're not
getting traffic because nobody'ssearching for that.
So if you're on my email list,you re you may remember an email
that I sent out about a monthago, even though in real time,
(03:15):
it was about an hour ago,because I'm batching my July
content right now whileChristopher's at a play date and
the house is quiet.
'cause you know, I'm, I'mjuggling everything this summer.
So I sent that email.
About a month ago in real time,as you're listening to this
podcast, asking you to tell mewhich word you used out of a
(03:36):
choice of two for threedifferent things.
One was to determine onlinevisibility versus website
traffic.
One was online sales versuswebsite sales.
One was digital marketing versusonline marketing.
Because I'm making some changesto the business, I'm probably
going to rename this.
Podcast in the next month ortwo.
(03:57):
And so I'm trying to reallydetermine what I want to do.
So I've looked at the searchvolume and I know how many
searches come in for each ofthese terms each month, but I
want to make sure not only am Itaking search volume into
consideration.
I'm taking real world.
What do my students and mylisteners and my readers think,
(04:19):
and what words do they use tomake sure that I'm connecting
with you with the right words?
You need to be doing the samething.
Now, you don't necessarily haveto.
Email 10,000 people to ask themwhat word you should use, and I
did email about 10,000 people.
So thank you so much forresponding.
It was so helpful.
(04:41):
But what I want you to do ismake sure not only are you.
Thinking about keywords, you'relooking at the search volume,
you're looking at thecompetition.
You're looking at who's showingup on page one for those
keywords, all of that to reallymake sure that you're choosing
the right keyword.
Now, I have one of my studentswho.
She had this situation.
(05:01):
She was ranking, she was gettingtraffic, but it wasn't
converting.
And what she realized when shecame into the course and learned
my way of doing SEO keywordresearch, which I've been
revising and teaching my.
Staff for 15 years that she wastargeting keywords that weren't
driving the right people to herwebsite.
(05:23):
So yes, she was getting traffic,but they weren't converting
because we weren't gettingpeople who were actually
interested in what she had tooffer.
So we had to adjust our keywordstrategy so that she could start
targeting keywords that wouldbring in potential customers
versus looky-loo, because youdon't make money with
looky-loos.
I mean, they're fun and all, butyou don't make money with them.
(05:43):
The only way you make money andbuild a profitable business is
if we bring the right peopleinto your world.
The second mistake that I'mseeing is that you're creating
content, but it's not goodenough.
Now, this is especiallyapplicable if you're using AI
tools to help you createcontent, or goodness gracious,
(06:03):
if you're using AI tools tocreate content.
For you because as they are,they are not going to create
content that is unique enough,different enough, helpful
enough, provides value to reallyhave Google want to rank you.
Google's actually updated theirranking criteria, and they
(06:25):
really do want to see that thecontent brings value, it
provides something new,something different, all of
that.
If they're going to rank youhigh in their search results,
because remember, Google's abusiness.
Google wants to make sure thatthe websites that go on page one
are the ones that are going toprovide the best resource, the
best information, the best valuefor the reader.
(06:48):
Because Google has morecompetition today than they've
had probably ever, and they haveto work to keep people coming
back and using Google.
They've actually lost a littlebit of market share in the last
year.
Now it's still like 88, 90%market share.
So they still have a huge shareof the market, but they don't
have the same share that theydid before.
(07:10):
And now if you are bloggingregularly, you're creating new
content each week, but you'renot getting traffic to that
content, you really need to lookat it and make sure, is this
helpful?
Is this really providing value?
Have I optimized it the rightway?
Because we do see that 90% ofthe content out there on the web
(07:32):
does not get traffic fromGoogle.
That does not get organictraffic according to a study
from, I believe it was Ah, refsthat did that particular study.
So we really wanna make surethat our content is unique.
It's helpful, it.
Answers are EEAT.
Our experience, expertise,authority, and trust that Google
is looking for as signals tounderstand who to show up, who
(07:55):
to show higher, who to includein AI overviews, who to include
in AI mode.
We've talked about all of thaton here recently.
I want you to make sure that ifyou're doing the work, you're
getting the results.
If your blog posts are short,they're generic, anything like
that, you're probably not gonnaget a lot of traction from them.
There is not a specific keywordcount.
(08:16):
I just had a student ask in thegroup, I need to go back in a
few minutes and answer thatquestion, but she just asked.
Off the top of your head, isthere a specific.
Word count for a blog post, andthere's not.
What Google's official guidanceon it is, is that we want to
make sure that we're beinghelpful, we're providing value.
You're doing your EEAT andyou're really answering the
(08:38):
questions.
You're anticipating thequestions that your ideal
customer, your reader wouldhave.
So that's really what you wannafocus on, is providing better
quality content.
Then you have a better chance ofranking if you have good quality
content that is helpful.
It's optimized using a keywordthat your website deserves, you
know, has a good chance ofranking for, but really deserves
(08:59):
to rank for where you really,truly are one of the better
results out there.
Then you will have a chance ofgetting more traffic to the
content that you're creating.
The third issue that I see isthat your site is not easy for
Google or now AI search enginesto understand if you want your
website to rank higher on Googleor to be included in AI search,
(09:23):
meaning AI overviews on the topof the search page on Google AI
mode.
That's the secondary tab that wetalked about last week.
Chat, GPT, perplexity, what?
Else pops up whatever othersearch AI search tool people are
using, then you need to make iteasy for Google and those other
(09:44):
tools to understand the contenton your website.
Meaning you need to follow yourcore traditional SEO best
practices because that is usedby both traditional Google, SEO.
And A-I-S-E-O.
If you don't know what thoseare, get a copy of my beginner's
guide to SEO because that willwalk you through that.
(10:06):
Now the difference is.
With Google, it's all about thekey word with ai, it's more
about the questions and thephrases and the formatting.
So AI is not looking for keywordmatches in your content the way
that Google is, you know, Googlelooks at each part of your
(10:27):
content.
For each of their SEO elementsfor the keyword to understand
what that page is about.
Your AI search engines workdifferently.
They look for the phrases,especially in your header tags,
those larger text tags in yourblog post, they look for key
phrases there.
(10:48):
They look for the content match.
They look for your content to beeasy to skim and easy to read.
Short paragraphs are importantfor ai.
White space is important.
If you look at.
How my blog posts are formatted,especially the new ones.
If you go straight to thewebsite, go to etched
marketing.com/blog, look at thenew posts.
(11:09):
Those are all formatted forGoogle and AI inclusion.
The other thing that AI likes isif you include like a key
takeaways or an FAQ section atthe bottom, you'll see that I
have that in.
Some posts, not all.
I'm still working on making someupdates and changes, but that's
something that we need to lookat and think about and work on.
(11:34):
Alexa, stop.
Sorry guys.
That's my timer to remind me togo pick up my kid.
I had a bunch of work to getdone.
This is the first time in twoweeks I've had the house to
myself to get work doneuninterrupted.
So anyone else with kids homethis summer probably, hopefully
can relate.
Alright, that's it for today'sepisode.
If you've been doing SEO for awhile and you've not been seeing
(11:58):
results, there's a good chancethat it's one of those three
things impacting you.
If you're tired of trying tofigure this out on your own,
join me in simple SEO content.
If you go through and take thefree class on the website, it's
right there on the homepage, orjust go straight in.
If you know you wanna take theclass, go straight into etched
marketing.com/yes, that's goingto get you the discount.
(12:22):
That's going to get you thecourse at$500 off.
So it's just 9 97.
You pay once you learn what todo, you make money from your
website for forever.
You know, it's just a one-timeinvestment.
You learn what to do and then.
Come in and ask me and I'm gonnahelp you with the questions and
we're gonna figure it out.
And yes, I am working, I'mworking part-time this summer,
(12:44):
but we're still having ourstudent calls.
We're still meeting, I'm stillanswering questions in the
group, like I'm still here.
I'm just not here as many hoursas normal because we're doing
camp about 50 50.
He's doing four weeks of campand six weeks at home.
So I'm juggling things thissummer, which is why the timer
just went off.
But that's life.
(13:04):
Alright, you guys have a greatday and I will see you back here
next week.
And I thought I was gonna recordthat episode right now, but I
don't know that I have timebefore I have to go pick him up.
So I will get that one recordedso that you have it ready to go.
Don't worry, I batch my content.
I will not miss a week.
All right, I'll see you backhere next week.
Have a great one.
Bye for now.
Hi, and welcome back to thepodcast.
Today I want to address aquestion that I got from a new
student before they joinedSimple SEO content.
And that was why is my websitenot showing up, even though I've
done SEO.
And that is such a greatquestion because it's also a
really frustrating situation,but it's something that I see so
(00:23):
many small business ownersstruggle with that I thought
this is an amazing podcast topicand it should help you to really
learn and understand why thework that you might be putting
in may not be paying off.
And if it's.
If you're in this situation,you've written content, you've
got your blog posts, you've gotyour website, you've chosen
(00:45):
keywords, you've written metadescriptions and title tags, and
you've, you're doing everything,but you're still not showing up.
There are probably a couple ofreasons why that's happened.
So what we wanna talk about iswhy does that happen?
Now, we're not talking aboutyour site can't be indexed at
all, meaning it's not inGoogle's index, it can't be
(01:07):
crawled.
There's a technical issueblocking it, something like
that.
We're talking about you arethere.
But you're like on page two orfive or 10, or you are not
showing up in the new AIoverviews AI mode.
Now we have to worry aboutshowing up on chat, GPT in
addition to Google.
(01:27):
Like there's a lot we've gottathink about if we wanna stay
visible.
So if you are doing the work,you are optimizing your website,
you are choosing keywords, youare creating content, all of
that, and you are not.
Seeing results, then you'remaking one of these mistakes.
So let's talk about'em realquick so you know what you need
(01:48):
to adjust.
So the first thing that I see.
People make mistakes with ischoosing the wrong keywords.
This is one of the most commonmistakes that I see, and I'll be
completely honest.
Choosing the right keywords isone of the harder parts for my
students to kind of wrap theirminds around and understand how
(02:09):
to pick those keywords and whatthe process is, and I go through
it very.
Very in depth in the course, andI give screen shares, but I
answer more questions in ourstudent group about this than
anything else.
So I know that choosing theright keywords is difficult and
it is confusing, but I also knowit's one of the number one
(02:32):
mistakes that I see people make,and it's why so often your SEO
is not working.
So either.
We choose a key word that's justtoo big and too competitive, and
our website's not gonna reallyhave a good chance of ranking in
Google for it.
Or we maybe choose one.
(02:52):
Where we actually have a prettygood chance of ranking.
However, it's not the word thatour customer uses.
So if we were to rank for it,it's great, but we're not
getting traffic because nobody'ssearching for that.
So if you're on my email list,you re you may remember an email
that I sent out about a monthago, even though in real time,
(03:15):
it was about an hour ago,because I'm batching my July
content right now whileChristopher's at a play date and
the house is quiet.
'cause you know, I'm, I'mjuggling everything this summer.
So I sent that email.
About a month ago in real time,as you're listening to this
podcast, asking you to tell mewhich word you used out of a
(03:36):
choice of two for threedifferent things.
One was to determine onlinevisibility versus website
traffic.
One was online sales versuswebsite sales.
One was digital marketing versusonline marketing.
Because I'm making some changesto the business, I'm probably
going to rename this.
Podcast in the next month ortwo.
(03:57):
And so I'm trying to reallydetermine what I want to do.
So I've looked at the searchvolume and I know how many
searches come in for each ofthese terms each month, but I
want to make sure not only am Itaking search volume into
consideration.
I'm taking real world.
What do my students and mylisteners and my readers think,
(04:19):
and what words do they use tomake sure that I'm connecting
with you with the right words?
You need to be doing the samething.
Now, you don't necessarily haveto.
Email 10,000 people to ask themwhat word you should use, and I
did email about 10,000 people.
So thank you so much forresponding.
It was so helpful.
(04:41):
But what I want you to do ismake sure not only are you.
Thinking about keywords, you'relooking at the search volume,
you're looking at thecompetition.
You're looking at who's showingup on page one for those
keywords, all of that to reallymake sure that you're choosing
the right keyword.
Now, I have one of my studentswho.
She had this situation.
(05:01):
She was ranking, she was gettingtraffic, but it wasn't
converting.
And what she realized when shecame into the course and learned
my way of doing SEO keywordresearch, which I've been
revising and teaching my.
Staff for 15 years that she wastargeting keywords that weren't
driving the right people to herwebsite.
(05:23):
So yes, she was getting traffic,but they weren't converting
because we weren't gettingpeople who were actually
interested in what she had tooffer.
So we had to adjust our keywordstrategy so that she could start
targeting keywords that wouldbring in potential customers
versus looky-loo, because youdon't make money with
looky-loos.
I mean, they're fun and all, butyou don't make money with them.
(05:43):
The only way you make money andbuild a profitable business is
if we bring the right peopleinto your world.
The second mistake that I'mseeing is that you're creating
content, but it's not goodenough.
Now, this is especiallyapplicable if you're using AI
tools to help you createcontent, or goodness gracious,
(06:03):
if you're using AI tools tocreate content.
For you because as they are,they are not going to create
content that is unique enough,different enough, helpful
enough, provides value to reallyhave Google want to rank you.
Google's actually updated theirranking criteria, and they
(06:25):
really do want to see that thecontent brings value, it
provides something new,something different, all of
that.
If they're going to rank youhigh in their search results,
because remember, Google's abusiness.
Google wants to make sure thatthe websites that go on page one
are the ones that are going toprovide the best resource, the
best information, the best valuefor the reader.
(06:48):
Because Google has morecompetition today than they've
had probably ever, and they haveto work to keep people coming
back and using Google.
They've actually lost a littlebit of market share in the last
year.
Now it's still like 88, 90%market share.
So they still have a huge shareof the market, but they don't
have the same share that theydid before.
(07:10):
And now if you are bloggingregularly, you're creating new
content each week, but you'renot getting traffic to that
content, you really need to lookat it and make sure, is this
helpful?
Is this really providing value?
Have I optimized it the rightway?
Because we do see that 90% ofthe content out there on the web
(07:32):
does not get traffic fromGoogle.
That does not get organictraffic according to a study
from, I believe it was Ah, refsthat did that particular study.
So we really wanna make surethat our content is unique.
It's helpful, it.
Answers are EEAT.
Our experience, expertise,authority, and trust that Google
is looking for as signals tounderstand who to show up, who
(07:55):
to show higher, who to includein AI overviews, who to include
in AI mode.
We've talked about all of thaton here recently.
I want you to make sure that ifyou're doing the work, you're
getting the results.
If your blog posts are short,they're generic, anything like
that, you're probably not gonnaget a lot of traction from them.
There is not a specific keywordcount.
(08:16):
I just had a student ask in thegroup, I need to go back in a
few minutes and answer thatquestion, but she just asked.
Off the top of your head, isthere a specific.
Word count for a blog post, andthere's not.
What Google's official guidanceon it is, is that we want to
make sure that we're beinghelpful, we're providing value.
You're doing your EEAT andyou're really answering the
(08:38):
questions.
You're anticipating thequestions that your ideal
customer, your reader wouldhave.
So that's really what you wannafocus on, is providing better
quality content.
Then you have a better chance ofranking if you have good quality
content that is helpful.
It's optimized using a keywordthat your website deserves, you
know, has a good chance ofranking for, but really deserves
(08:59):
to rank for where you really,truly are one of the better
results out there.
Then you will have a chance ofgetting more traffic to the
content that you're creating.
The third issue that I see isthat your site is not easy for
Google or now AI search enginesto understand if you want your
website to rank higher on Googleor to be included in AI search,
(09:23):
meaning AI overviews on the topof the search page on Google AI
mode.
That's the secondary tab that wetalked about last week.
Chat, GPT, perplexity, what?
Else pops up whatever othersearch AI search tool people are
using, then you need to make iteasy for Google and those other
(09:44):
tools to understand the contenton your website.
Meaning you need to follow yourcore traditional SEO best
practices because that is usedby both traditional Google, SEO.
And A-I-S-E-O.
If you don't know what thoseare, get a copy of my beginner's
guide to SEO because that willwalk you through that.
(10:06):
Now the difference is.
With Google, it's all about thekey word with ai, it's more
about the questions and thephrases and the formatting.
So AI is not looking for keywordmatches in your content the way
that Google is, you know, Googlelooks at each part of your
(10:27):
content.
For each of their SEO elementsfor the keyword to understand
what that page is about.
Your AI search engines workdifferently.
They look for the phrases,especially in your header tags,
those larger text tags in yourblog post, they look for key
phrases there.
(10:48):
They look for the content match.
They look for your content to beeasy to skim and easy to read.
Short paragraphs are importantfor ai.
White space is important.
If you look at.
How my blog posts are formatted,especially the new ones.
If you go straight to thewebsite, go to etched
marketing.com/blog, look at thenew posts.
(11:09):
Those are all formatted forGoogle and AI inclusion.
The other thing that AI likes isif you include like a key
takeaways or an FAQ section atthe bottom, you'll see that I
have that in.
Some posts, not all.
I'm still working on making someupdates and changes, but that's
something that we need to lookat and think about and work on.
(11:34):
Alexa, stop.
Sorry guys.
That's my timer to remind me togo pick up my kid.
I had a bunch of work to getdone.
This is the first time in twoweeks I've had the house to
myself to get work doneuninterrupted.
So anyone else with kids homethis summer probably, hopefully
can relate.
Alright, that's it for today'sepisode.
If you've been doing SEO for awhile and you've not been seeing
(11:58):
results, there's a good chancethat it's one of those three
things impacting you.
If you're tired of trying tofigure this out on your own,
join me in simple SEO content.
If you go through and take thefree class on the website, it's
right there on the homepage, orjust go straight in.
If you know you wanna take theclass, go straight into etched
marketing.com/yes, that's goingto get you the discount.
(12:22):
That's going to get you thecourse at$500 off.
So it's just 9 97.
You pay once you learn what todo, you make money from your
website for forever.
You know, it's just a one-timeinvestment.
You learn what to do and then.
Come in and ask me and I'm gonnahelp you with the questions and
we're gonna figure it out.
And yes, I am working, I'mworking part-time this summer,
(12:44):
but we're still having ourstudent calls.
We're still meeting, I'm stillanswering questions in the
group, like I'm still here.
I'm just not here as many hoursas normal because we're doing
camp about 50 50.
He's doing four weeks of campand six weeks at home.
So I'm juggling things thissummer, which is why the timer
just went off.
But that's life.
(13:04):
Alright, you guys have a greatday and I will see you back here
next week.
And I thought I was gonna recordthat episode right now, but I
don't know that I have timebefore I have to go pick him up.
So I will get that one recordedso that you have it ready to go.
Don't worry, I batch my content.
I will not miss a week.
All right, I'll see you backhere next week.
Have a great one.
Bye for now.
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