October 20, 2025 • 33 mins
Today we have a guest host for the podcast, my persona SEO Guru and Copy Strategist Michelle Bourbonniere who’s sharing what you need to know about the latest with AI SEO.
Specifically, five things that are changing, and five things that are staying in regard to “on and off-site SEO.”
Get my quote, contract & invoice templates (for free) with a 7-day trial of 17hats, the CRM I've been using for over 10 years!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh Hall (00:00):
Hello, my friend.
It's great to have you here fora special edition episode of
the Web Design Business Podcast.
And this one, we're actuallybringing on a guest host.
This is my personal SEO,copywriting, and keyword
specialist expert guru, MichelleBourbonnier, who is gonna be
sharing with you what you needto know right now as a web
(00:20):
designer in regards to AI andSEO and how things are changing,
but also as you find out, how alot of things are actually
staying the same.
So that's what we're gonna diveinto in this one.
One reason we're bringing onMichelle as a guest host is as
you may or may not have heard,my daughter is having a major
surgery at the time of thisepisode coming out this week.
So we are planning on a two tothree day hospital stay, and
(00:43):
then we're gonna have a veryintensive recovery period when
we get home.
So I'm gonna be stepping backfor two to three weeks here with
a lot of the content.
So we will be getting back toour normal interviews here very
shortly on the podcast.
But Michelle was kind enoughand gracious enough to fill in
for me this week to share withyou a very, very timely talk
here about AI and SEO.
This is actually based off atalk that she did inside of our
(01:05):
community, Web Designer Pro hererecently.
Just last month, she did aspecial guest training that went
really deep into AI and SEO.
So if you like this, I thinkyou're really gonna enjoy the
next level of where AI is in SEOright now.
So it's a great time to jumpinto Web Designer Pro, join the
community, get access to thattraining.
And before I bring on Michelle,make sure to go to the show
(01:27):
notes for this episode atjoshhall.co slash 401.
The link will be below as wellbecause Michelle has a free AI
and SEO cheat sheet for you.
Completely free that you cansign up for.
It'll be at the show notesbelow.
So make sure you check that outand nab that up.
And without further ado, here'sMichelle to fill us in as web
designers on what we need toknow about AI and SEO.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast with
your host, Josh Hall, helpingyou build a web design business
that gives you freedom and alifestyle you love.
Michelle Bourbonniere (02:02):
I am a curious person.
And about a year ago, I startedhaving my SEO clients come to
me saying, you wouldn't believewhat happened.
I got my first clients throughChat GPT.
Um and that to me was a bigsign that the small sites that I
like to work on, the smallsites that I've long worked on
as an SEO, have a chance in thisnew world of AI search.
(02:24):
And so I needed to know more.
And so I've been doing a lot ofresearch into how AI search
works.
So I've read Google Patents,I've read research papers, I've
read books, basically anythingthat I can get my hand on to
really understand how generativeAI answers questions.
Um, the results of thatresearch is a presentation that
I recently did in Web DesignerPro on how AI search works.
(02:48):
Um, and for this presentation,for the podcast, I wanted to go
a little bit higher level andjust explain to you the state of
the AI field right now and sortof what is happening, and in
particular, what is the same andwhat is different.
Because I think if you've spentany time on LinkedIn, you'll
see that there's a lot of peopleout there that are going to
tell you that this is a wholenew world and it's a whole new
(03:09):
set of ways to optimize.
And as somebody who's been inthe industry for a while, I kind
of see it differently.
I see it more as an evolutionof search, that the ways in
which people are findinginformation is changing and the
ways in which that informationis presented is changing.
But under the hood, it's quitesimilar.
So I have a list of five waysin which the new SEO is really
(03:31):
the same as the old SEO, andthen five ways in which it is
genuinely different.
So let's get into it.
Number one, the SEOfundamentals are actually the
same.
So anything that you havelearned about making
Google-friendly sites, anythingyou've done with alt tags, with
great site structure, withcrawlability and indexing and
(03:52):
page speed, all of these thingsare just as important as they
have always been.
And so as a web designer, Iwant you to like take heart that
the learning that you have doneis just as important as it
always has been, and that youdon't need to throw that away.
There's nothing likeparticularly new about how you
make sites that doesn't serveyou well in this new version of
AI search.
(04:12):
Um so the SEO fundamentals arethe same.
All those things, those, thosethings that you've long been
doing to make Google-friendlysites, you need to keep doing.
And SEO is still really quiteimportant.
Um, the reason why is numbertwo, which is that chatbots use
the same search index.
So just by way of story, a yearago, my clients started coming
(04:35):
to me and saying, you wouldn'tbelieve what happened.
I got my first lead throughChatGPT.
Um, and of course I just neededto know more, and then I did a
lot of research.
Um, but what's actuallyhappening under the hood is that
these chatbots, AI overviews,chat GPT, perplexity, all of
them are now using searchindexes to inform their answers.
Remember before when you usedto not be able to ask any chat
(04:59):
bots questions after a certaincutoff date?
That doesn't apply anymore.
Um, all of the chatbots areusing live search results to
inform their answers.
And under the hood, they areactually searching much like
humans do to compose thoseanswers.
So the end result looks reallydifferent, but how you get into
those answers is the same way asbefore.
(05:19):
It's the same way as rankingrelatively well for the types of
words and phrases that areimportant for the industry that
you're working in.
And so chatbots are using thesearch index instead of humans
using the search index, but likeit's the same search index.
And so it's just presenteddifferently, but under the hood,
it's actually quite similar.
So it's another way in whichthe old SEO and the new SEO are
(05:41):
kind of on the same foundation.
It's on the same foundationusing literally the same search
index.
Number three is that Google isstill the number one referrer of
traffic.
So I mean, forever, Google hasbeen the website in the world
that gives the most traffic toall websites.
And it still is the websitethat gives the most traffic to
websites, um, to the open web.
(06:03):
Um, the way I actually see thiscurrent moment is that I need
to keep two things true at thesame time.
Number one, traditional SEO isstill really important.
People are still clicking onranked results in Google search.
And to lose sight of that andto imagine that that's the old
SEO and it doesn't matteranymore is really a missed
opportunity because while thingsare changing, they're not
(06:25):
changing overnight.
And that old SEO, those rankedresults are still quite
significant.
Most of the time, people arestill clicking on links in
Google the same way that theyalways have.
And yet, at the same time, weneed to remember and recognize
that we see the writing on thewall.
We know that people arechanging their behaviors.
And frankly, AI organizedresults, AI-generated answers
(06:48):
are a really great userexperience.
Um, it's it's a way that peopleare finding information that's
much more personalized and muchmore tailored to them.
And they're finding things inGoogle that they've never been
able to find before.
And so, like, as user behaviorchanges, things are changing,
but it doesn't happen overnight.
So it's like both of thosethings are true right now.
And so, as SEOs, as webdesigners, we need to sort of
(07:10):
keep both of those things alivein our head at once.
Understand that we sort of seewhere the future is, but also
understand that like the past isnot over and that we'd be silly
to ignore traditional SEO atthis particular moment in late
2025.
Another thing that I think isreally the same, and this has
long been true, is that Ipersonally think that Google
still has a lot of unfairadvantages.
(07:32):
So there's a lot of ways that Ithink this is true, and this is
really more of my opinionrather than some sort of eternal
truth.
Um, but Google invented thetechnology in 2017 that
underpinned the LLM revolution.
And so large language models,like the FEM, the Transformer
model, they invented that.
They have the expertisein-house to do this stuff.
(07:52):
And so just to say, even thoughit sort of looks like at the
current moment, open AI andChatGPT is quote unquote
winning, I still think thatGoogle has quite a few
advantages in this l in thisrace.
I mean, they also have, ofcourse, the most to lose.
Another thing that they havethat other um other companies
don't is they have a lot of ourdata.
(08:13):
They have our calendar, theyhave our, you know, so many
people live in their Googlecalendars, they have access to
Google documents, they haveaccess to Gmail.
And as these things get moreand more personalized, Google
has that context that othercompanies don't.
And that context is what'sgoing to make really great
results.
And so I think that that'sanother unfair advantage they
have.
And then finally, they justhave default user behaviors.
(08:36):
If there's one thing that we'velearned, it's that changing how
people do things is reallyhard.
And that like the default isreally important.
And so right now, most peopleare going to Google to get their
answers.
And as long as Google more orless keeps up, they're likely to
do that.
I'm not saying that peoplearen't going to Chat GPT or
perplexity for answers.
They absolutely are.
(08:56):
But that's pretty nichebehavior compared to the sort of
everyday person who just mostlygoes to Google because that's
what they've always done.
So I think that they have afirst, the the sort of the
background of Google remainslike quite strong.
And so they really do stillhave some advantages.
So one thing that is the sameis that sort of Google has at
(09:16):
least the potential to stay inthe lead because they have all
of this sort of a head start onother companies.
And then, of course, the finalthing that they have that no one
else has is the search index,right?
So they have um a much betterway than any other company of
understanding what's good on theinternet, what's authoritative
on the internet, what'strustworthy on the internet
versus what um is spam on theinternet.
(09:38):
And as all of the searchresults are being powered,
sorry, as all of the AIgenerated answers are powered by
search results, thetrustworthiness of the
underlying sources is actuallyquite significant.
So in the current moment, justlike forever, Google has a lot
of advantages.
Um the last point actually hasmore to do with you as a web
(10:00):
designer.
The last point of what's thesame is that websites are as
important as ever.
And I believe this so strongly.
It's so easy to sort of think,oh, everything's just gonna
happen inside of a chatbot now.
Who even needs a website?
And like I beg to differ.
The truth is that the websitesare still the point of
conversion, right?
(10:20):
The websites are still theplace where a brand shows up and
has complete control over themessaging, over the
organization, over how they arepresenting themselves on the
internet.
And even if clients are gettingrecommendations from Chat GPT,
it's still the website that doesthe conversion.
And if you don't have a strongwebsite, then people are gonna
(10:40):
bounce.
And so websites are still justas important as they have always
been because the sale ishappening on a website or the
lead is getting convinced on awebsite.
And so these websites that youare making, like you are not out
of a job because those websitesare just as important as they
have always been.
Because at the end of the day,a lot of websites are about
(11:01):
business online, and thatbusiness is still happening on
websites.
So those are all the thingsthat are the same.
But what is different?
What is genuinely differentabout this new moment in SEO?
Well, Google still is thenumber one referrer of traffic
on the internet, but the amountof traffic that they are sending
(11:21):
to the open web is declining.
So AHREFs did a study that whenan AI overview is present at
the top of the search results,clicks to the open web, clicks
to websites go down by 34%.
That is a huge number.
Um, Ren Fishkin has long calledthis the rise of zero-click
searches, meaning people searchon Google, but then they never
(11:42):
leave Google.
It's a zero-click environment.
So zero-click searches arecertainly going up.
And so, truthfully, like allwebsites are losing traffic.
And in particular, they arelosing traffic to informational
pages.
So a lot of blog posts thatpeople have written so lovingly
for years are now being likerephrased and put into AI
answers, put into uh AIoverviews or part of chatbot
(12:06):
conversations.
And while there is often acitation, so you know, there's a
link that you can click, it'snot usual behavior for people to
click them because they'regetting the information that
they need, they're getting theanswers to their questions
within Google or within ChatGPT.
And so Google traffic isdeclining.
And so that is something thatis genuinely different about
this new moment is that lesstraffic, less and less traffic
(12:29):
is moving out to the open web,and more and more of the action
is happening on other people'splatforms, either within Google
or within ChatGPT or perplexity.
Another thing that's reallychanging, and as an SEO, this is
kind of the most interestingpart of it to me, is that search
behavior is changing.
And so, you know, a long timeago, we used to put in three or
(12:51):
four words into the Googlesearch box.
That was the average length ofa keyword of a search.
And as we've come to recognizethat Google and Chat GPT can
answer deeper questions, cananswer multi-step questions, can
actually like give uspersonalized answers no matter
how specific we get, uh searchbehavior is changing.
(13:13):
And so as the machines becomemore advanced at finding the
right information for the rightperson at the right moment,
we're starting to get moredemanding of the search engines.
And we're sort of writing inmore of our problems and more of
our context into those promptboxes or into that search box.
And so search behavior isgenuinely changing.
And as people who makewebsites, we need to make sure
(13:34):
that the content that we arecreating is responsive to those
changed intents.
It's not so much that likethere's been a drastic shift in
what people want to find on theinternet, it's more that it's
now possible for them to findreally specific stuff in a way
that it wasn't before.
So I can imagine like a 34-wordprompt, which is actually the
average of a prompt in ChatGPT.
(13:57):
If you had put that into Googlelike five years ago, you would
have gotten absolute gibberishresults.
Like it wouldn't have beengiving you anything genuinely
useful.
And yet now that same promptgives people something that's
genuinely useful.
And so more and more people arelearning that they can do this
and then they do.
And so search behavior ischanging, and that's actually a
very big change in this newworld of AI search, and
(14:18):
something that as an SEO, weneed to really pay attention to.
I mean, this seems such a weirdthing to dig into, but imagine
how different it really is.
Uh, we used to get rankedresults that was, you know, one,
two, three, four, position one,position two, position three,
(14:39):
position four, with links out towebsites.
And now the results lookcompletely different.
And now it's much, much morepersonalized.
Google is much morepersonalized than it has ever
been.
Um, it's conversational, right?
It used to be that when yousearched something, more or less
you got answers, and that wasthe end of it.
Where now, when you're in achatbot experience, it's a
(15:00):
conversation.
Conversational search issomething that is genuinely new.
And then the structure of theresults is also very different.
So, and and really poses a lotof complexities for SEOs as we
try to like actually measure andunderstand how things are
working and what is working andwhat's not working.
Now we have free form textresults, and really we even have
images and videos beingembedded in these results as
(15:24):
well.
So, just to say that we've gonefrom a world of ranked results
where it was very easy to tellif you were doing well or if
you're doing badly, and now wehave freeform results.
We have free form text that'sgenerated on the fly.
Um, and actually, even justparsing how you're doing in that
is a is a whole differentworld.
And so the structure of what aresult looks like is just
(15:45):
completely different.
That is genuinely different.
Number four about what'sdifferent is that Google has
competition.
Um, so even though I do believethat Google has a bit of an
advantage at the current moment,even if they might not look
like they do right now, um, Ithink that the difference is
that Google is really does haveto compete.
And so I think they're beingpushed by other companies to
(16:06):
launch AI search products kindof more quickly than they would
have otherwise.
Um AI overviews in AI mode arebeing pushed out and really
being promoted within the Googlesearch results, much more so
than they maybe would have doneif they didn't have competition.
And they do have competition.
Um, so while still, you know,Google has much more user
traction than ChatGPT orperplexity, they do have real
(16:29):
competition that's nipping attheir heels.
From an SEO's perspective andfrom a web designer's
perspective, why this issignificant is that we can't
just do Google search trackinganymore.
It's really important that weare actually paying attention to
how brands that we care aboutare showing up in Chat GPT.
How are theirs showing up inperplexity?
(16:49):
Um, you know, in a sense, thethe old world of SEO where you
only had to care about Google,that was a really nice world
because it was real simple.
But right now, we do need topay attention to more, more
searches, more search platforms.
Um, I do want to though saythat doesn't mean that you need
to search, you need to trackeverything.
Um, a lot of the AI trackingtools right now are sort of
(17:11):
trying to outdo themselves withhow many different platforms
they will track.
But I want to encourage peopleto like focus on consumer
behavior.
At the end of the day, whatreally matters to us as SEOs, to
web designers who are trying toget results for our clients, is
that we're tracking things thatmatter, things that other
people are seeing, things whereconsumers are actually there
(17:31):
seeing the results.
And so I would encourage younot to worry about what DeepSeq
is saying about your brandbecause there's very few people
right now, this moment, that areusing DeepSeek to find their
answers.
It's not zero, but it's notworth optimizing for, at least
not yet.
So pay attention to real userbehavior, pay attention to real
consumer behavior, and track theplaces where people are
(17:54):
actually, you know, asignificant number of people in
your audience are actually usingthat product to find answers.
So personally, for me, what I'mpaying the most attention to
right now is Chat GPT, AIoverviews, and AI mode.
AI mode is, of course, Google'sum chat GPT answer.
And it's not even AI mode.
I track it not just because notbecause it has tons of traction
(18:17):
right now because it was justrecently launched, but because
it has Google behind it and youknow that they're going to be
pushing it within the Googlesearch results and it will get
more traction.
Um, so those are, I think, arethe most important ones to track
right now.
But keep your eyes open.
And like there are, there'svery much a possibility that
other ones are going to get asignificant amount of market
share, and then you should trackthose two.
Um, so that's number four aboutwhat is different.
Google has competition, andthat means that we need to be
(18:39):
tracking more than just Google.
And number five is that we haveless visibility and less
control.
So, I mean, on some level,we've all been losing control
and losing visibility into howwe rank in search.
Like increasingly in GoogleSearch Console, Google gives
less data about how people arearriving at our websites than
(19:00):
ever before.
Um, there's a lot of uhsearches that you just don't
know.
You you see that somebodyshowed up at your website, you
can see the click that ithappened and that they showed up
on a particular page on yoursite.
But when you actually dig intothe details, they're often not
giving the keyword that ledsomebody there.
They're called anonymizedsearches and they are very
common.
And yet, it's even worse inthis particular world.
(19:23):
In this particular world, wehave almost no visibility as to
like how we are showing up in AIsearch conversations.
Um and that's because there'sno, there's no equivalent to
Google Search Console that'smade by Open AI.
ChatGPT is not giving away thatinformation.
And even Google is notseparating out AI search traffic
(19:44):
from regular traffic.
So it's kind of meaninglessinside of Google Search Console.
Like those clicks aretechnically there, the ones that
are coming from AI mode, butyou're never gonna know that
they came from AI mode.
And so you don't really knowhow well you're doing in AI mode
because it's not being trackedseparately.
And I don't think that they'regonna add that as much as SEOs
would love it if they did.
I kind of don't think thatthey're gonna give us that
information.
(20:04):
And so we have less visibility,and so then that imposes on us
a responsibility to kind of makeour own data.
So, what I'm personally doingwith clients is coming up with
prompt lists, like actuallydevising custom prompt lists
about the customer journey forthat client and tracking that.
So the truth is, is that it thethe you can get that
visibility, but you just have tomake the data yourself and you
(20:26):
need to track things yourself.
The other thing, and I kind ofshoved this into number five,
it's almost a number six, isthat we have less control in
this new world.
And I want to explain this in ain a way that's in reference to
the old featured snippets.
So Google used to have featuredsnippets at the top of the
Google search results, right?
This is where they gave youlike a paragraph that was like a
(20:48):
two or three sentences from awebsite, and then they gave a
link, and then a lot of peoplewould click through to the
website to sort of read the restof the answer.
Now, as somebody who hasoptimized for featured snippets
for a long time, there was anart to writing those featured
snippets so that Google sort ofthought that it was the whole
answer, but that any humanreading it would realize that if
(21:11):
they really wanted the fullanswer, they had to click
through to the website.
We had a lot of control overthe actual words that were
showing up in the featuredsnippet.
In this new world, Googlerarely gives word for word
direct quotations for the forthe AI search results.
(21:31):
So both ChatGPT, Perplexity,anything, any Google product,
they've all sort of been toldnot to do direct quotations and
instead to paraphrase.
And so what this means is thatwe have less control over how
our information is beingpresented in the results.
Things are getting paraphrasedfrom our websites, sometimes
(21:52):
accurately, sometimesinaccurately.
And so it's kind of importantfor us to be tracking how our
words are being interpreted byAI answers because it's not word
for word anymore.
We don't have that kind ofcontrol that we used to have,
where we could pretty much besure that what we wrote on our
website is actually what showedup in the search results.
Now what we write on ourwebsite is being interpreted and
(22:15):
paraphrased and then showing upin the AI search results.
And that is a genuinedifference.
So those are the five ways inwhich I think that this is a new
moment and things that thingsthat you really should be paying
attention to that are changing.
So, what do you do about it?
Most of the conversation that'shappening online around AI
search optimization reallyfocuses in on enterprise level
(22:37):
SEO.
So these are like big brandswith big budgets, like very much
household names.
And that is not the world thatI live in.
I like working on small sites,and you probably also are mostly
working on small sites.
So I wanted to end thispresentation with a quick review
of what I'm calling the threeR's of AI optimization.
Like what are the new goals forAI search, even for small
(22:58):
brands?
Like, what should small brandsbe doing to make sure that
they're setting themselves upwell in this new world?
Um, so I have three R's, andthe first R is brand
recognition.
So brand recognition is justmaking sure that your brand is
showing up as a brand whenpeople look for you in AI search
engines.
This is analogous intraditional SEO to ranking
(23:19):
number one for your brand name.
Doesn't sound like a veryexciting target, but it's so, so
important because when youthink about it, you're gonna be
at a networking event and talkto somebody about your brand
name and they're gonna rememberyour brand name and search you
later.
And so it's really importantthat in traditional SEO you
ranked number one so that peoplecould find you when they were
(23:39):
looking for you.
In an AI search, the analogousthing is that you need to make
sure that AI engines arerecognizing the brand as a
brand.
So the way that you check thisis really quite simple.
You just go into an incognitowindow of something like ChatGPT
or AI Google's AI mode, andjust search something like tell
me about your brand name.
(23:59):
Insert your brand name thereand see what happens.
You're gonna get one of twopossible results.
Either you're gonna getrecognition, which is really
clear, says, oh, this is what Iknow about this brand, and it's
gonna give like a nice littlesummary of what your brand is
really about.
I mean, the advanced version ofbrand recognition is trying to
make sure that the points thatit brings up when summarizing
(24:20):
your brand, like really matchyour branding, your messaging,
your positioning, your offers.
But the basic version is justmaking sure that it recognizes
your brand name as a brand.
If brand recognition has notyet been achieved, what you're
gonna find instead is that theAI is gonna kind of answer a
nonsense answer, kind of tryingto answer the words of the brand
(24:40):
name as if it were a question.
So if that's the case in thebrand that you're working on, if
you're seeing a lot of lack ofbrand recognition, there's just
a couple things that you can do,and they're all very simple.
So number one, rank number onefor your brand name.
Um the truth is AI Search isstill built on that same search
index.
So the easiest way to get brandrecognition is to make sure
(25:01):
that you're ranking number onefor your brand name.
And the best that you can, tryto own that whole search result.
So, like have your LinkedInprofile, your social media
profiles, your mediaappearances.
Like ideally, you want all 10of those results to be about
your brand, and then you'regonna have some great brand
recognition in AI searchengines.
The other thing that willreally help your AI search
(25:23):
recognition is being mentionedelsewhere on the web.
So first work on all your sortof owned properties and then
work on being mentioned onReddit, going on podcasts,
having mentions in the media,just showing up on the web,
participating in the World WideWeb with your brand name
attached is going to help thebroader recognition, and you'll
have a very like robustrecognition of your brand in AI
(25:46):
engines.
So, number one is work on yourbrand recognition, measure it,
measure it quarterly, make surethat the AI engines continue to
recognize your brand as a brandand start working on being
recognized well, like makingsure that your offers are really
shining through and that thatbrand recognition is like very
positive and kind of exactlywhat you would want the AI
(26:07):
engines to be saying about you.
Number two is brand reputation.
So obviously it's very normalbehavior that somebody who's
about to work with a brand isgonna search something like
brand name reviews or pros andcons of product or is brand name
trustworthy?
These are really normalbehaviors that people have
always done right before they'reabout to work with a brand.
(26:29):
And so this is really importantthings to check in AI search
because the results may surpriseyou.
Um so it used to be really easyto know if you had a good or a
bad brand reputation becausemost of the reviews about your
brand were very clearly on yourown profiles.
You know, every time you get areview on Google Business
Profile, it sends you an email.
So whether it was negative orpositive, you sort of knew.
(26:52):
In this new world of AI search,we have to go a little bit
broader.
Um, because AI is kind of justas likely to pull reviews from
Reddit as it is to pull reviewsfrom your branded Google
Business Profile or your trustpilot reviews.
Um, so it's really important topay attention to your brand
reputation outside of your ownplatforms because those are
(27:14):
really important sources of likereal consumer behavior for AI
search engines.
And really, in particular, payattention to Reddit right at
this particular moment, and thiscould change, but at this
particular moment when somebodysearches something like is brand
name trustworthy in Chat GPT,halfway down the page is usually
four or five references toReddit.
(27:36):
So pay attention to how yourbrand is or is not showing up in
Reddit.
Um, and one tool that I lovefor doing this, which is free,
is you can set up for F5Bot.
It's a free service.
You can actually get a get anemail every time that your brand
name is mentioned on Reddit.
So set them up in a filterbecause otherwise you're gonna
get a lot of emails.
(27:57):
Um, but by all means, kind ofcheck in real time how your
brand is being mentioned onReddit, because that's actually
a really important source forthese AI search engines.
What Reddit and Wikipedia arethe two most cited sources, and
so those are places that youdefinitely want to pay attention
to how your brand is showingup.
And then number three is thefun one.
Number three is brandrecommendations.
So, I mean, this is how I gotinto this myself is that my
(28:21):
small brands were actuallygetting recommended by search
engines.
And part of this is because ofthis deep level of
personalization that AI searchengines are really achieving.
There is a way in which thisnew world of AI search is even
more niched and even morepersonalized than Google ever
could be.
And so people are really beingconnected up with companies that
they maybe never would havefound before.
(28:42):
And so some of the most kind ofpositive aspects of this new
world of AI search is I've heardso many stories of people kind
of finding something that theynever thought existed through a
chatbot.
So one story that I've heardis, you know, somebody who for
years and years was just lookingfor the perfect ergonomic
keyboard for them.
They knew exactly what theywanted it to look like, they
knew exactly how they wanted itto work and they could never
(29:04):
find it.
And then they asked a chatbot,and lo and behold, it led them
to a keyboard that they had beenlooking for for years.
And then they bought thatkeyboard and they loved it.
And so just to say that likethere is some real potential for
small brands to show up in AIsearch because it's so
personalized.
And so, one way that you canencourage a brand to recommend
(29:27):
you at the appropriate momentsto the right people is to get
really niched down and getreally clear on who your target
audience is.
Like these personas, likepaying attention to your ideal
client avatar, has never been soimportant as in this moment
because finally AI chatbots areable to sort of play matchmaker
(29:48):
at a level of detail that Googlenever could.
And so I think that that isprobably the most, the most
encouraging thing for smallbrands in this new world of AI
search is that we get rewardedfor being specific.
We get rewarded.
Rewarded for being unique andthere's a moment of matchmaking
that's actually happening outthere right now that is more
detailed and more tailored.
(30:09):
And that means that that AIchatbots might not send a lot of
traffic to your site, but whenthey do, it's really good
traffic.
And that's just what I'm seeingwith my clients is that like
there it's playing a matchmakingrole that I don't think anyone
quite quite saw coming, but it'sactually quite positive for
small brands and not just forbig brands.
So those are my three R's of AIoptimization.
(30:29):
I think these are the goalsthat any small website should
really be aiming for, at leastin the short term and at least
over the next couple years.
If you work on these things,you're going to be set up well
in this new world of AI searchto sort of show up and show up
well in AI search engines whenpeople are sort of engaging with
your brand.
Now, if you enjoyed thispresentation and you want more
(30:50):
of it, I have a thing for you.
So I created this freeresource, which is called Cheat
Sheet to Showing Up Well in AIAnswers.
And in this cheat sheet, I getinto the five things that I
think web designers just need toadd to their SOPs.
One thing I've always lovedabout working with web designers
is that you guys know thefoundations so, so well.
You're so good at makingAI-friendly sites that you know
(31:11):
Google understands and show upreally well.
And like all of thosefoundational things that you
guys have long been doing are soimportant and they continue to
be important.
But I think there's five thingsthat you need to sort of pay
attention to in this new worldto add to your web design SOP.
And I have put them in thischeat sheet.
So if you head on over towordsontherise.com backslash AI,
(31:31):
you can sign up to get it.
It'll get instantly sent toyour mailbox.
And you'll also get added to mynewsletter.
So I talk about AI search forsmall brands every week in my
newsletter.
Um and I'd love for you to joinme there.
Uh the first emails that you'llactually get are kind of a deep
dive into each of those threeR's of AI search, like going
much deeper than I went in hereabout how to actually check for
(31:52):
them and how to actuallyoptimize for them.
Um, so you sort of know what'scoming, and then every week or
every two weeks, depending onhow much I have to say, um, I
will be sending out emails.
I send out emails to my listabout what's happening in AI
search, in particular for smallbrands.
So thank you so much, Josh, forhaving me.
It was a joy uh to be on thispodcast and have a lovely day.
Hello, my friend.
It's great to have you here fora special edition episode of
the Web Design Business Podcast.
And this one, we're actuallybringing on a guest host.
This is my personal SEO,copywriting, and keyword
specialist expert guru, MichelleBourbonnier, who is gonna be
sharing with you what you needto know right now as a web
(00:20):
designer in regards to AI andSEO and how things are changing,
but also as you find out, how alot of things are actually
staying the same.
So that's what we're gonna diveinto in this one.
One reason we're bringing onMichelle as a guest host is as
you may or may not have heard,my daughter is having a major
surgery at the time of thisepisode coming out this week.
So we are planning on a two tothree day hospital stay, and
(00:43):
then we're gonna have a veryintensive recovery period when
we get home.
So I'm gonna be stepping backfor two to three weeks here with
a lot of the content.
So we will be getting back toour normal interviews here very
shortly on the podcast.
But Michelle was kind enoughand gracious enough to fill in
for me this week to share withyou a very, very timely talk
here about AI and SEO.
This is actually based off atalk that she did inside of our
(01:05):
community, Web Designer Pro hererecently.
Just last month, she did aspecial guest training that went
really deep into AI and SEO.
So if you like this, I thinkyou're really gonna enjoy the
next level of where AI is in SEOright now.
So it's a great time to jumpinto Web Designer Pro, join the
community, get access to thattraining.
And before I bring on Michelle,make sure to go to the show
(01:27):
notes for this episode atjoshhall.co slash 401.
The link will be below as wellbecause Michelle has a free AI
and SEO cheat sheet for you.
Completely free that you cansign up for.
It'll be at the show notesbelow.
So make sure you check that outand nab that up.
And without further ado, here'sMichelle to fill us in as web
designers on what we need toknow about AI and SEO.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast with
your host, Josh Hall, helpingyou build a web design business
that gives you freedom and alifestyle you love.
Michelle Bourbonniere (02:02):
I am a curious person.
And about a year ago, I startedhaving my SEO clients come to
me saying, you wouldn't believewhat happened.
I got my first clients throughChat GPT.
Um and that to me was a bigsign that the small sites that I
like to work on, the smallsites that I've long worked on
as an SEO, have a chance in thisnew world of AI search.
(02:24):
And so I needed to know more.
And so I've been doing a lot ofresearch into how AI search
works.
So I've read Google Patents,I've read research papers, I've
read books, basically anythingthat I can get my hand on to
really understand how generativeAI answers questions.
Um, the results of thatresearch is a presentation that
I recently did in Web DesignerPro on how AI search works.
(02:48):
Um, and for this presentation,for the podcast, I wanted to go
a little bit higher level andjust explain to you the state of
the AI field right now and sortof what is happening, and in
particular, what is the same andwhat is different.
Because I think if you've spentany time on LinkedIn, you'll
see that there's a lot of peopleout there that are going to
tell you that this is a wholenew world and it's a whole new
(03:09):
set of ways to optimize.
And as somebody who's been inthe industry for a while, I kind
of see it differently.
I see it more as an evolutionof search, that the ways in
which people are findinginformation is changing and the
ways in which that informationis presented is changing.
But under the hood, it's quitesimilar.
So I have a list of five waysin which the new SEO is really
(03:31):
the same as the old SEO, andthen five ways in which it is
genuinely different.
So let's get into it.
Number one, the SEOfundamentals are actually the
same.
So anything that you havelearned about making
Google-friendly sites, anythingyou've done with alt tags, with
great site structure, withcrawlability and indexing and
(03:52):
page speed, all of these thingsare just as important as they
have always been.
And so as a web designer, Iwant you to like take heart that
the learning that you have doneis just as important as it
always has been, and that youdon't need to throw that away.
There's nothing likeparticularly new about how you
make sites that doesn't serveyou well in this new version of
AI search.
(04:12):
Um so the SEO fundamentals arethe same.
All those things, those, thosethings that you've long been
doing to make Google-friendlysites, you need to keep doing.
And SEO is still really quiteimportant.
Um, the reason why is numbertwo, which is that chatbots use
the same search index.
So just by way of story, a yearago, my clients started coming
(04:35):
to me and saying, you wouldn'tbelieve what happened.
I got my first lead throughChatGPT.
Um, and of course I just neededto know more, and then I did a
lot of research.
Um, but what's actuallyhappening under the hood is that
these chatbots, AI overviews,chat GPT, perplexity, all of
them are now using searchindexes to inform their answers.
Remember before when you usedto not be able to ask any chat
(04:59):
bots questions after a certaincutoff date?
That doesn't apply anymore.
Um, all of the chatbots areusing live search results to
inform their answers.
And under the hood, they areactually searching much like
humans do to compose thoseanswers.
So the end result looks reallydifferent, but how you get into
those answers is the same way asbefore.
(05:19):
It's the same way as rankingrelatively well for the types of
words and phrases that areimportant for the industry that
you're working in.
And so chatbots are using thesearch index instead of humans
using the search index, but likeit's the same search index.
And so it's just presenteddifferently, but under the hood,
it's actually quite similar.
So it's another way in whichthe old SEO and the new SEO are
(05:41):
kind of on the same foundation.
It's on the same foundationusing literally the same search
index.
Number three is that Google isstill the number one referrer of
traffic.
So I mean, forever, Google hasbeen the website in the world
that gives the most traffic toall websites.
And it still is the websitethat gives the most traffic to
websites, um, to the open web.
(06:03):
Um, the way I actually see thiscurrent moment is that I need
to keep two things true at thesame time.
Number one, traditional SEO isstill really important.
People are still clicking onranked results in Google search.
And to lose sight of that andto imagine that that's the old
SEO and it doesn't matteranymore is really a missed
opportunity because while thingsare changing, they're not
(06:25):
changing overnight.
And that old SEO, those rankedresults are still quite
significant.
Most of the time, people arestill clicking on links in
Google the same way that theyalways have.
And yet, at the same time, weneed to remember and recognize
that we see the writing on thewall.
We know that people arechanging their behaviors.
And frankly, AI organizedresults, AI-generated answers
(06:48):
are a really great userexperience.
Um, it's it's a way that peopleare finding information that's
much more personalized and muchmore tailored to them.
And they're finding things inGoogle that they've never been
able to find before.
And so, like, as user behaviorchanges, things are changing,
but it doesn't happen overnight.
So it's like both of thosethings are true right now.
And so, as SEOs, as webdesigners, we need to sort of
(07:10):
keep both of those things alivein our head at once.
Understand that we sort of seewhere the future is, but also
understand that like the past isnot over and that we'd be silly
to ignore traditional SEO atthis particular moment in late
2025.
Another thing that I think isreally the same, and this has
long been true, is that Ipersonally think that Google
still has a lot of unfairadvantages.
(07:32):
So there's a lot of ways that Ithink this is true, and this is
really more of my opinionrather than some sort of eternal
truth.
Um, but Google invented thetechnology in 2017 that
underpinned the LLM revolution.
And so large language models,like the FEM, the Transformer
model, they invented that.
They have the expertisein-house to do this stuff.
(07:52):
And so just to say, even thoughit sort of looks like at the
current moment, open AI andChatGPT is quote unquote
winning, I still think thatGoogle has quite a few
advantages in this l in thisrace.
I mean, they also have, ofcourse, the most to lose.
Another thing that they havethat other um other companies
don't is they have a lot of ourdata.
(08:13):
They have our calendar, theyhave our, you know, so many
people live in their Googlecalendars, they have access to
Google documents, they haveaccess to Gmail.
And as these things get moreand more personalized, Google
has that context that othercompanies don't.
And that context is what'sgoing to make really great
results.
And so I think that that'sanother unfair advantage they
have.
And then finally, they justhave default user behaviors.
(08:36):
If there's one thing that we'velearned, it's that changing how
people do things is reallyhard.
And that like the default isreally important.
And so right now, most peopleare going to Google to get their
answers.
And as long as Google more orless keeps up, they're likely to
do that.
I'm not saying that peoplearen't going to Chat GPT or
perplexity for answers.
They absolutely are.
(08:56):
But that's pretty nichebehavior compared to the sort of
everyday person who just mostlygoes to Google because that's
what they've always done.
So I think that they have afirst, the the sort of the
background of Google remainslike quite strong.
And so they really do stillhave some advantages.
So one thing that is the sameis that sort of Google has at
(09:16):
least the potential to stay inthe lead because they have all
of this sort of a head start onother companies.
And then, of course, the finalthing that they have that no one
else has is the search index,right?
So they have um a much betterway than any other company of
understanding what's good on theinternet, what's authoritative
on the internet, what'strustworthy on the internet
versus what um is spam on theinternet.
(09:38):
And as all of the searchresults are being powered,
sorry, as all of the AIgenerated answers are powered by
search results, thetrustworthiness of the
underlying sources is actuallyquite significant.
So in the current moment, justlike forever, Google has a lot
of advantages.
Um the last point actually hasmore to do with you as a web
(10:00):
designer.
The last point of what's thesame is that websites are as
important as ever.
And I believe this so strongly.
It's so easy to sort of think,oh, everything's just gonna
happen inside of a chatbot now.
Who even needs a website?
And like I beg to differ.
The truth is that the websitesare still the point of
conversion, right?
(10:20):
The websites are still theplace where a brand shows up and
has complete control over themessaging, over the
organization, over how they arepresenting themselves on the
internet.
And even if clients are gettingrecommendations from Chat GPT,
it's still the website that doesthe conversion.
And if you don't have a strongwebsite, then people are gonna
(10:40):
bounce.
And so websites are still justas important as they have always
been because the sale ishappening on a website or the
lead is getting convinced on awebsite.
And so these websites that youare making, like you are not out
of a job because those websitesare just as important as they
have always been.
Because at the end of the day,a lot of websites are about
(11:01):
business online, and thatbusiness is still happening on
websites.
So those are all the thingsthat are the same.
But what is different?
What is genuinely differentabout this new moment in SEO?
Well, Google still is thenumber one referrer of traffic
on the internet, but the amountof traffic that they are sending
(11:21):
to the open web is declining.
So AHREFs did a study that whenan AI overview is present at
the top of the search results,clicks to the open web, clicks
to websites go down by 34%.
That is a huge number.
Um, Ren Fishkin has long calledthis the rise of zero-click
searches, meaning people searchon Google, but then they never
(11:42):
leave Google.
It's a zero-click environment.
So zero-click searches arecertainly going up.
And so, truthfully, like allwebsites are losing traffic.
And in particular, they arelosing traffic to informational
pages.
So a lot of blog posts thatpeople have written so lovingly
for years are now being likerephrased and put into AI
answers, put into uh AIoverviews or part of chatbot
(12:06):
conversations.
And while there is often acitation, so you know, there's a
link that you can click, it'snot usual behavior for people to
click them because they'regetting the information that
they need, they're getting theanswers to their questions
within Google or within ChatGPT.
And so Google traffic isdeclining.
And so that is something thatis genuinely different about
this new moment is that lesstraffic, less and less traffic
(12:29):
is moving out to the open web,and more and more of the action
is happening on other people'splatforms, either within Google
or within ChatGPT or perplexity.
Another thing that's reallychanging, and as an SEO, this is
kind of the most interestingpart of it to me, is that search
behavior is changing.
And so, you know, a long timeago, we used to put in three or
(12:51):
four words into the Googlesearch box.
That was the average length ofa keyword of a search.
And as we've come to recognizethat Google and Chat GPT can
answer deeper questions, cananswer multi-step questions, can
actually like give uspersonalized answers no matter
how specific we get, uh searchbehavior is changing.
(13:13):
And so as the machines becomemore advanced at finding the
right information for the rightperson at the right moment,
we're starting to get moredemanding of the search engines.
And we're sort of writing inmore of our problems and more of
our context into those promptboxes or into that search box.
And so search behavior isgenuinely changing.
And as people who makewebsites, we need to make sure
(13:34):
that the content that we arecreating is responsive to those
changed intents.
It's not so much that likethere's been a drastic shift in
what people want to find on theinternet, it's more that it's
now possible for them to findreally specific stuff in a way
that it wasn't before.
So I can imagine like a 34-wordprompt, which is actually the
average of a prompt in ChatGPT.
(13:57):
If you had put that into Googlelike five years ago, you would
have gotten absolute gibberishresults.
Like it wouldn't have beengiving you anything genuinely
useful.
And yet now that same promptgives people something that's
genuinely useful.
And so more and more people arelearning that they can do this
and then they do.
And so search behavior ischanging, and that's actually a
very big change in this newworld of AI search, and
(14:18):
something that as an SEO, weneed to really pay attention to.
I mean, this seems such a weirdthing to dig into, but imagine
how different it really is.
Uh, we used to get rankedresults that was, you know, one,
two, three, four, position one,position two, position three,
(14:39):
position four, with links out towebsites.
And now the results lookcompletely different.
And now it's much, much morepersonalized.
Google is much morepersonalized than it has ever
been.
Um, it's conversational, right?
It used to be that when yousearched something, more or less
you got answers, and that wasthe end of it.
Where now, when you're in achatbot experience, it's a
(15:00):
conversation.
Conversational search issomething that is genuinely new.
And then the structure of theresults is also very different.
So, and and really poses a lotof complexities for SEOs as we
try to like actually measure andunderstand how things are
working and what is working andwhat's not working.
Now we have free form textresults, and really we even have
images and videos beingembedded in these results as
(15:24):
well.
So, just to say that we've gonefrom a world of ranked results
where it was very easy to tellif you were doing well or if
you're doing badly, and now wehave freeform results.
We have free form text that'sgenerated on the fly.
Um, and actually, even justparsing how you're doing in that
is a is a whole differentworld.
And so the structure of what aresult looks like is just
(15:45):
completely different.
That is genuinely different.
Number four about what'sdifferent is that Google has
competition.
Um, so even though I do believethat Google has a bit of an
advantage at the current moment,even if they might not look
like they do right now, um, Ithink that the difference is
that Google is really does haveto compete.
And so I think they're beingpushed by other companies to
(16:06):
launch AI search products kindof more quickly than they would
have otherwise.
Um AI overviews in AI mode arebeing pushed out and really
being promoted within the Googlesearch results, much more so
than they maybe would have doneif they didn't have competition.
And they do have competition.
Um, so while still, you know,Google has much more user
traction than ChatGPT orperplexity, they do have real
(16:29):
competition that's nipping attheir heels.
From an SEO's perspective andfrom a web designer's
perspective, why this issignificant is that we can't
just do Google search trackinganymore.
It's really important that weare actually paying attention to
how brands that we care aboutare showing up in Chat GPT.
How are theirs showing up inperplexity?
(16:49):
Um, you know, in a sense, thethe old world of SEO where you
only had to care about Google,that was a really nice world
because it was real simple.
But right now, we do need topay attention to more, more
searches, more search platforms.
Um, I do want to though saythat doesn't mean that you need
to search, you need to trackeverything.
Um, a lot of the AI trackingtools right now are sort of
(17:11):
trying to outdo themselves withhow many different platforms
they will track.
But I want to encourage peopleto like focus on consumer
behavior.
At the end of the day, whatreally matters to us as SEOs, to
web designers who are trying toget results for our clients, is
that we're tracking things thatmatter, things that other
people are seeing, things whereconsumers are actually there
(17:31):
seeing the results.
And so I would encourage younot to worry about what DeepSeq
is saying about your brandbecause there's very few people
right now, this moment, that areusing DeepSeek to find their
answers.
It's not zero, but it's notworth optimizing for, at least
not yet.
So pay attention to real userbehavior, pay attention to real
consumer behavior, and track theplaces where people are
(17:54):
actually, you know, asignificant number of people in
your audience are actually usingthat product to find answers.
So personally, for me, what I'mpaying the most attention to
right now is Chat GPT, AIoverviews, and AI mode.
AI mode is, of course, Google'sum chat GPT answer.
And it's not even AI mode.
I track it not just because notbecause it has tons of traction
(18:17):
right now because it was justrecently launched, but because
it has Google behind it and youknow that they're going to be
pushing it within the Googlesearch results and it will get
more traction.
Um, so those are, I think, arethe most important ones to track
right now.
But keep your eyes open.
And like there are, there'svery much a possibility that
other ones are going to get asignificant amount of market
share, and then you should trackthose two.
Um, so that's number four aboutwhat is different.
Google has competition, andthat means that we need to be
(18:39):
tracking more than just Google.
And number five is that we haveless visibility and less
control.
So, I mean, on some level,we've all been losing control
and losing visibility into howwe rank in search.
Like increasingly in GoogleSearch Console, Google gives
less data about how people arearriving at our websites than
(19:00):
ever before.
Um, there's a lot of uhsearches that you just don't
know.
You you see that somebodyshowed up at your website, you
can see the click that ithappened and that they showed up
on a particular page on yoursite.
But when you actually dig intothe details, they're often not
giving the keyword that ledsomebody there.
They're called anonymizedsearches and they are very
common.
And yet, it's even worse inthis particular world.
(19:23):
In this particular world, wehave almost no visibility as to
like how we are showing up in AIsearch conversations.
Um and that's because there'sno, there's no equivalent to
Google Search Console that'smade by Open AI.
ChatGPT is not giving away thatinformation.
And even Google is notseparating out AI search traffic
(19:44):
from regular traffic.
So it's kind of meaninglessinside of Google Search Console.
Like those clicks aretechnically there, the ones that
are coming from AI mode, butyou're never gonna know that
they came from AI mode.
And so you don't really knowhow well you're doing in AI mode
because it's not being trackedseparately.
And I don't think that they'regonna add that as much as SEOs
would love it if they did.
I kind of don't think thatthey're gonna give us that
information.
(20:04):
And so we have less visibility,and so then that imposes on us
a responsibility to kind of makeour own data.
So, what I'm personally doingwith clients is coming up with
prompt lists, like actuallydevising custom prompt lists
about the customer journey forthat client and tracking that.
So the truth is, is that it thethe you can get that
visibility, but you just have tomake the data yourself and you
(20:26):
need to track things yourself.
The other thing, and I kind ofshoved this into number five,
it's almost a number six, isthat we have less control in
this new world.
And I want to explain this in ain a way that's in reference to
the old featured snippets.
So Google used to have featuredsnippets at the top of the
Google search results, right?
This is where they gave youlike a paragraph that was like a
(20:48):
two or three sentences from awebsite, and then they gave a
link, and then a lot of peoplewould click through to the
website to sort of read the restof the answer.
Now, as somebody who hasoptimized for featured snippets
for a long time, there was anart to writing those featured
snippets so that Google sort ofthought that it was the whole
answer, but that any humanreading it would realize that if
(21:11):
they really wanted the fullanswer, they had to click
through to the website.
We had a lot of control overthe actual words that were
showing up in the featuredsnippet.
In this new world, Googlerarely gives word for word
direct quotations for the forthe AI search results.
(21:31):
So both ChatGPT, Perplexity,anything, any Google product,
they've all sort of been toldnot to do direct quotations and
instead to paraphrase.
And so what this means is thatwe have less control over how
our information is beingpresented in the results.
Things are getting paraphrasedfrom our websites, sometimes
(21:52):
accurately, sometimesinaccurately.
And so it's kind of importantfor us to be tracking how our
words are being interpreted byAI answers because it's not word
for word anymore.
We don't have that kind ofcontrol that we used to have,
where we could pretty much besure that what we wrote on our
website is actually what showedup in the search results.
Now what we write on ourwebsite is being interpreted and
(22:15):
paraphrased and then showing upin the AI search results.
And that is a genuinedifference.
So those are the five ways inwhich I think that this is a new
moment and things that thingsthat you really should be paying
attention to that are changing.
So, what do you do about it?
Most of the conversation that'shappening online around AI
search optimization reallyfocuses in on enterprise level
(22:37):
SEO.
So these are like big brandswith big budgets, like very much
household names.
And that is not the world thatI live in.
I like working on small sites,and you probably also are mostly
working on small sites.
So I wanted to end thispresentation with a quick review
of what I'm calling the threeR's of AI optimization.
Like what are the new goals forAI search, even for small
(22:58):
brands?
Like, what should small brandsbe doing to make sure that
they're setting themselves upwell in this new world?
Um, so I have three R's, andthe first R is brand
recognition.
So brand recognition is justmaking sure that your brand is
showing up as a brand whenpeople look for you in AI search
engines.
This is analogous intraditional SEO to ranking
(23:19):
number one for your brand name.
Doesn't sound like a veryexciting target, but it's so, so
important because when youthink about it, you're gonna be
at a networking event and talkto somebody about your brand
name and they're gonna rememberyour brand name and search you
later.
And so it's really importantthat in traditional SEO you
ranked number one so that peoplecould find you when they were
(23:39):
looking for you.
In an AI search, the analogousthing is that you need to make
sure that AI engines arerecognizing the brand as a
brand.
So the way that you check thisis really quite simple.
You just go into an incognitowindow of something like ChatGPT
or AI Google's AI mode, andjust search something like tell
me about your brand name.
(23:59):
Insert your brand name thereand see what happens.
You're gonna get one of twopossible results.
Either you're gonna getrecognition, which is really
clear, says, oh, this is what Iknow about this brand, and it's
gonna give like a nice littlesummary of what your brand is
really about.
I mean, the advanced version ofbrand recognition is trying to
make sure that the points thatit brings up when summarizing
(24:20):
your brand, like really matchyour branding, your messaging,
your positioning, your offers.
But the basic version is justmaking sure that it recognizes
your brand name as a brand.
If brand recognition has notyet been achieved, what you're
gonna find instead is that theAI is gonna kind of answer a
nonsense answer, kind of tryingto answer the words of the brand
(24:40):
name as if it were a question.
So if that's the case in thebrand that you're working on, if
you're seeing a lot of lack ofbrand recognition, there's just
a couple things that you can do,and they're all very simple.
So number one, rank number onefor your brand name.
Um the truth is AI Search isstill built on that same search
index.
So the easiest way to get brandrecognition is to make sure
(25:01):
that you're ranking number onefor your brand name.
And the best that you can, tryto own that whole search result.
So, like have your LinkedInprofile, your social media
profiles, your mediaappearances.
Like ideally, you want all 10of those results to be about
your brand, and then you'regonna have some great brand
recognition in AI searchengines.
The other thing that willreally help your AI search
(25:23):
recognition is being mentionedelsewhere on the web.
So first work on all your sortof owned properties and then
work on being mentioned onReddit, going on podcasts,
having mentions in the media,just showing up on the web,
participating in the World WideWeb with your brand name
attached is going to help thebroader recognition, and you'll
have a very like robustrecognition of your brand in AI
(25:46):
engines.
So, number one is work on yourbrand recognition, measure it,
measure it quarterly, make surethat the AI engines continue to
recognize your brand as a brandand start working on being
recognized well, like makingsure that your offers are really
shining through and that thatbrand recognition is like very
positive and kind of exactlywhat you would want the AI
(26:07):
engines to be saying about you.
Number two is brand reputation.
So obviously it's very normalbehavior that somebody who's
about to work with a brand isgonna search something like
brand name reviews or pros andcons of product or is brand name
trustworthy?
These are really normalbehaviors that people have
always done right before they'reabout to work with a brand.
(26:29):
And so this is really importantthings to check in AI search
because the results may surpriseyou.
Um so it used to be really easyto know if you had a good or a
bad brand reputation becausemost of the reviews about your
brand were very clearly on yourown profiles.
You know, every time you get areview on Google Business
Profile, it sends you an email.
So whether it was negative orpositive, you sort of knew.
(26:52):
In this new world of AI search,we have to go a little bit
broader.
Um, because AI is kind of justas likely to pull reviews from
Reddit as it is to pull reviewsfrom your branded Google
Business Profile or your trustpilot reviews.
Um, so it's really important topay attention to your brand
reputation outside of your ownplatforms because those are
(27:14):
really important sources of likereal consumer behavior for AI
search engines.
And really, in particular, payattention to Reddit right at
this particular moment, and thiscould change, but at this
particular moment when somebodysearches something like is brand
name trustworthy in Chat GPT,halfway down the page is usually
four or five references toReddit.
(27:36):
So pay attention to how yourbrand is or is not showing up in
Reddit.
Um, and one tool that I lovefor doing this, which is free,
is you can set up for F5Bot.
It's a free service.
You can actually get a get anemail every time that your brand
name is mentioned on Reddit.
So set them up in a filterbecause otherwise you're gonna
get a lot of emails.
(27:57):
Um, but by all means, kind ofcheck in real time how your
brand is being mentioned onReddit, because that's actually
a really important source forthese AI search engines.
What Reddit and Wikipedia arethe two most cited sources, and
so those are places that youdefinitely want to pay attention
to how your brand is showingup.
And then number three is thefun one.
Number three is brandrecommendations.
So, I mean, this is how I gotinto this myself is that my
(28:21):
small brands were actuallygetting recommended by search
engines.
And part of this is because ofthis deep level of
personalization that AI searchengines are really achieving.
There is a way in which thisnew world of AI search is even
more niched and even morepersonalized than Google ever
could be.
And so people are really beingconnected up with companies that
they maybe never would havefound before.
(28:42):
And so some of the most kind ofpositive aspects of this new
world of AI search is I've heardso many stories of people kind
of finding something that theynever thought existed through a
chatbot.
So one story that I've heardis, you know, somebody who for
years and years was just lookingfor the perfect ergonomic
keyboard for them.
They knew exactly what theywanted it to look like, they
knew exactly how they wanted itto work and they could never
(29:04):
find it.
And then they asked a chatbot,and lo and behold, it led them
to a keyboard that they had beenlooking for for years.
And then they bought thatkeyboard and they loved it.
And so just to say that likethere is some real potential for
small brands to show up in AIsearch because it's so
personalized.
And so, one way that you canencourage a brand to recommend
(29:27):
you at the appropriate momentsto the right people is to get
really niched down and getreally clear on who your target
audience is.
Like these personas, likepaying attention to your ideal
client avatar, has never been soimportant as in this moment
because finally AI chatbots areable to sort of play matchmaker
(29:48):
at a level of detail that Googlenever could.
And so I think that that isprobably the most, the most
encouraging thing for smallbrands in this new world of AI
search is that we get rewardedfor being specific.
We get rewarded.
Rewarded for being unique andthere's a moment of matchmaking
that's actually happening outthere right now that is more
detailed and more tailored.
(30:09):
And that means that that AIchatbots might not send a lot of
traffic to your site, but whenthey do, it's really good
traffic.
And that's just what I'm seeingwith my clients is that like
there it's playing a matchmakingrole that I don't think anyone
quite quite saw coming, but it'sactually quite positive for
small brands and not just forbig brands.
So those are my three R's of AIoptimization.
(30:29):
I think these are the goalsthat any small website should
really be aiming for, at leastin the short term and at least
over the next couple years.
If you work on these things,you're going to be set up well
in this new world of AI searchto sort of show up and show up
well in AI search engines whenpeople are sort of engaging with
your brand.
Now, if you enjoyed thispresentation and you want more
(30:50):
of it, I have a thing for you.
So I created this freeresource, which is called Cheat
Sheet to Showing Up Well in AIAnswers.
And in this cheat sheet, I getinto the five things that I
think web designers just need toadd to their SOPs.
One thing I've always lovedabout working with web designers
is that you guys know thefoundations so, so well.
You're so good at makingAI-friendly sites that you know
(31:11):
Google understands and show upreally well.
And like all of thosefoundational things that you
guys have long been doing are soimportant and they continue to
be important.
But I think there's five thingsthat you need to sort of pay
attention to in this new worldto add to your web design SOP.
And I have put them in thischeat sheet.
So if you head on over towordsontherise.com backslash AI,
(31:31):
you can sign up to get it.
It'll get instantly sent toyour mailbox.
And you'll also get added to mynewsletter.
So I talk about AI search forsmall brands every week in my
newsletter.
Um and I'd love for you to joinme there.
Uh the first emails that you'llactually get are kind of a deep
dive into each of those threeR's of AI search, like going
much deeper than I went in hereabout how to actually check for
(31:52):
them and how to actuallyoptimize for them.
Um, so you sort of know what'scoming, and then every week or
every two weeks, depending onhow much I have to say, um, I
will be sending out emails.
I send out emails to my listabout what's happening in AI
search, in particular for smallbrands.
So thank you so much, Josh, forhaving me.
It was a joy uh to be on thispodcast and have a lovely day.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.