Claude Sites Have a Serious SEO Problem: Too Many Words — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Satisfying search intent doesn't just
2. 0:02mean having the right content. It also
3. 0:05means putting forth content in a way
4. 0:07that is easy to consume. So that is why
5. 0:11I am so worried about claude sites. I
6. 0:14wrote this yesterday on X. I said one of
7. 0:16the major problems I have with claude
8. 0:18sites is they throw a ton of extra words
9. 0:20into random areas. But searchers only
10. 0:23want to read what is critical to their
11. 0:25search, not fluff. And these extra words
12. 0:28like eyebrows are just fluff. Eyebrows
13. 0:30are the things that appear above the H2s
14. 0:33or the headers. You you see them
15. 0:35everywhere on cloud sites. So in this
16. 0:37episode, I'm going to give you concrete
17. 0:40examples from three cloud sites of what
18. 0:43these wordy wordy pages look like, all
19. 0:46this extra words, what that actually
20. 0:47looks like. I'm going to explain why
21. 0:49this is a problem and then why this
22. 0:51becomes even more of a problem when you
23. 0:53try to scale your AI content. the
24. 0:56reasons that this actually sets off
25. 0:58alarms within Google, the mechanics
26. 1:01behind it, then I'm going to give what I
27. 1:03recommend instead. That's what we got on
28. 1:06this episode. So, this first example is
29. 1:10from icholon consulting.com, which if
30. 1:13you look at it on Seamrush, it is
31. 1:15spiking up in organic traffic. They're
32. 1:18going to the moon, but that's because
33. 1:20they're scaling content and they're
34. 1:21going to they're going to tank soon. And
35. 1:23this is a rank and tank in the making.
36. 1:26This is across their whole site, but I'm
37. 1:28going to just look at this one page. SEO
38. 1:30agency Toronto. Their URL slug is SEO
39. 1:33agency Toronto. First of all, the search
40. 1:36intent is off because the keyword is SEO
41. 1:39agency Toronto. But then when you
42. 1:41actually read the body text, which is
43. 1:44way below when you get to the page, it
44. 1:47says, "Icholon Consulting Group is a SEO
45. 1:49agency healthcare brands hire when
46. 1:51generic SEO has plateaued and AI search
47. 1:54starts pulling traffic away from the
48. 1:56regular index." So for this SEO agency,
49. 1:59it seems like they don't actually
50. 2:00understand the concept of search intent.
51. 2:02But you can be sure that they didn't
52. 2:04make this page. An AI made this page. If
53. 2:06your keyword is SEO agency Toronto,
54. 2:09you're not going to make the page only
55. 2:11for healthcare. They should have picked
56. 2:12a different keyword if they wanted that.
57. 2:14But let's look at how there's too much
58. 2:15unnecessary copy on this. So, first of
59. 2:18all, you see this we do it right section
60. 2:21repeated twice in the above the fold.
61. 2:24It's the same exact copy. The same exact
62. 2:27copy just repeated twice above the fold
63. 2:31before the H1. That's insane. That's so
64. 2:34bad. you are pushing down your critical
65. 2:38content with this unnecessary stuff. And
66. 2:40what it says at the top is we do it
67. 2:42right. The right diagnosis, the right
68. 2:44strategy, the right systems, giving
69. 2:46healthcare leaders the confidence to
70. 2:48make better decisions, build stronger
71. 2:50operations and achieve sustainable
72. 2:52growth. And you have so many eyebrows.
73. 2:55First of all, you have trusted by 150
74. 2:58plus healthcare and life science brands
75. 3:00right below the first we do it right.
76. 3:02Then you have breadcrumbs. Then above
77. 3:05the second we do it right, you have
78. 3:07another eyebrow. SEO agency healthcare
79. 3:10estimated 2018 Toronto. Then finally
80. 3:13after the second we do it right, finally
81. 3:15you get to the H1. Clear example of too
82. 3:18many words. What does a searcher
83. 3:20actually want to see? The searcher wants
84. 3:22to see the H1 that says their keyword so
85. 3:25that they know they're in the right
86. 3:26place. When you see your language
87. 3:28repeated back to you, you feel better
88. 3:31about the place that you're in. you feel
89. 3:32like this is going to give you what
90. 3:34you're looking for, then you want to see
91. 3:36copy that speaks immediately to you.
92. 3:38Niching down into healthcare if you're
93. 3:40searching SEO agency Toronto does not do
94. 3:43that. But let's read the rest of this
95. 3:44introduction. So it says Consulting
96. 3:47Group is the SEO agency healthcare
97. 3:49brands hire when generic SEO has
98. 3:51plateaued and AI search AEO starts
99. 3:53pulling traffic away from the regular
100. 3:55index. ICG does medical SEO, technical
101. 3:58SEO, content schema, internal link
102. 4:00architecture and AEO, LLM optimization
103. 4:03in a single integrated engagement,
104. 4:05healthcare only 150 plus active
105. 4:08healthcare clients across India. Why
106. 4:10does it say across India if the keyword
107. 4:13is SEO agency Toronto? Okay, let's just
108. 4:15ignore how the content is way off. The
109. 4:18first sentence would be good if the
110. 4:20keyword was about healthcare. The second
111. 4:22sentence shouldn't actually say what
112. 4:24they're doing. Somebody who's searching
113. 4:26and looking for an SEO agency does not
114. 4:28need to hear in the second sentence
115. 4:30about what exactly you're doing. They
116. 4:32need to hear why you are going to get
117. 4:34them results and why you're going to be
118. 4:36different and better than other SEO
119. 4:38agencies. That's it. Make that the
120. 4:40second sentence. And then underneath we
121. 4:42have more unnecessary words. Underneath
122. 4:44should be a call to action button.
123. 4:45Instead it says healthcare marketing for
124. 4:47Toronto practices run from Gurgon HQ.
125. 4:51And then two call to actions. Book free
126. 4:5330 minute diagnostic chat now on
127. 4:55WhatsApp. Two call to actions. It should
128. 4:58really just be one. And then we have
129. 4:59more words under that. AI powered
130. 5:01healthcareonly marketing agency 150 plus
131. 5:04brands and then a phone number. Having a
132. 5:06phone number could be cool underneath
133. 5:08only one call to action button, but you
134. 5:11would just give the phone number and
135. 5:12then a dash and say WhatsApp. There's
136. 5:14just so many unnecessary words here. And
137. 5:17if you are a searcher and you're coming
138. 5:19to this, you're not going to want to dig
139. 5:21through all this garbage. You're going
140. 5:23to be turned off by this. And the rest
141. 5:24of the page is no better. The rest of
142. 5:26the page is just so much unnecessary
143. 5:30content, so much fluff. Let's move on to
144. 5:32the next example. This is from
145. 5:34octalins.com, which I mentioned on
146. 5:36yesterday's episode because Octalins is
147. 5:39working on their SEO. They did cut a lot
148. 5:41of AI pages. They started focusing on
149. 5:44content at the bottom of the funnel, but
150. 5:46this is still an AI heavy page, and it
151. 5:48seems like they're putting out content
152. 5:50slower, so they might not feel the
153. 5:52effects of the bad user signals as fast.
154. 5:55If the keywords they're targeting have
155. 5:57any competition, searchers are going to
156. 5:59choose more concise results. So, we're
157. 6:02going to look at this page, Sprout
158. 6:04Social Alternatives 10 tools without 999
159. 6:07listening add-on 2026. The title is
160. 6:10fine, but this section right underneath
161. 6:12the title is a great example of all
162. 6:14these unnecessary words. And you can
163. 6:16tell that it's written with AI because
164. 6:17of the M dashes and just the way that
165. 6:19the site looks. You can tell that this
166. 6:21is made with Claude. So, right
167. 6:23underneath the H1, it says Sprout. So,
168. 6:25the the keyword is Sprouto alternatives.
169. 6:28It says underneath the H1, Sprouto
170. 6:30bundles publishing, scheduling, and
171. 6:32engagement and charges per seat with
172. 6:34social listening as a 999 per month
173. 6:37add-on. If you really just need to know
174. 6:39what's being said about you, you're
175. 6:41overpaying. We compared the 10 best
176. 6:44Sprout Social alternatives across
177. 6:46listening depth, platform coverage, data
178. 6:48access, and price, including three free
179. 6:51options. Instead, it should probably say
180. 6:53something like, "Our company Octalins is
181. 6:55a Sprou alternative you want because if
182. 6:58you really just need to know what's
183. 7:00being said about you, you're overpaying
184. 7:02with Sprouto." Then maybe a sentence
185. 7:05about why Octalins is better than
186. 7:07everybody else. That just makes it
187. 7:09really clear. I will also say if I was
188. 7:12going after this keyword, I would just
189. 7:13go after Sprouto alternative and then I
190. 7:16wouldn't have a list of different
191. 7:19products. I would just list myself as
192. 7:21the alternative. And if you do a good
193. 7:23job making the page, you'll satisfy
194. 7:25search intent well enough that people
195. 7:28also searching for alternatives plural
196. 7:30will prefer your page above these long
197. 7:33lists that nobody wants to read through.
198. 7:36If you see an alternative page that
199. 7:38positions you as clearly better than the
200. 7:40thing that people are searching in the
201. 7:42ways that people care about, there's a
202. 7:44good chance you'll just be satisfied
203. 7:46right there and you won't need to shop
204. 7:47around. And the heading image for this
205. 7:49is the ultimate guide to Sprouto
206. 7:52alternatives. It says that in the
207. 7:53heading image. How about just an image
208. 7:55of Sprouto? And it just says top
209. 7:58alternatives. Also ultimate guides.
210. 8:00That's 2015 SEO. And then there's this
211. 8:03long section, why teams look for a
212. 8:05Sprouto alternative. Super long, crazy
213. 8:08unnecessary. If you're searching for
214. 8:10Sprout Social alternative, you already
215. 8:12know why you are looking for Sprout
216. 8:14Social alternative. You don't want to
217. 8:15read through a long section before you
218. 8:17get to the meat, saying what you already
219. 8:19know. Then there's another long wordy
220. 8:21section on how the alternatives were
221. 8:24evaluated. All of this can probably be
222. 8:26written with one sentence. Finally,
223. 8:28after all this fluff, there's a part
224. 8:30that people actually care about, which
225. 8:31is the comparison table. After so much
226. 8:34fluff, and it's buried. All right, last
227. 8:37example. This one came up. I use Rand
228. 8:39Fishkin's alert mouse. I really
229. 8:41recommend this tool. It's such a great
230. 8:43tool. It's better than Google Alerts to
231. 8:46track brand mentions. And if you want to
232. 8:48use it free, they give you 10 mentions a
233. 8:51day. For small brands, that's pretty
234. 8:53much all they need. And so I got
235. 8:55alerted. This is from Stefan Morera who
236. 8:58mentioned me. It came up in my alert
237. 9:00mouse alert. And it's this article, who
238. 9:02is the king of AEO. Stefan Morera, here
239. 9:05is the 2026 contest and the experiment.
240. 9:09If you don't know who is the king of AEO
241. 9:12is the funniest keyword in SEO and AI
242. 9:15search right now. Every day there's more
243. 9:16and more people competing for it. And
244. 9:18it's kind of a joke because people who
245. 9:21are actually looking for AEO services
246. 9:23aren't actually searching it. So it's
247. 9:25just a bunch of people in the SEO
248. 9:27community going after this keyword
249. 9:29trying to beat each other. And it's
250. 9:30mostly James Douly who's winning but
251. 9:32also David Quaid. Both David and James.
252. 9:35They've been on the show many times.
253. 9:36Friends of the podcast. And then I'm
254. 9:38making content on this and so people are
255. 9:40seeing that content and they're like I
256. 9:42want to play this game and they're going
257. 9:43into it too. And this is one such
258. 9:45example. So again the title of this is
259. 9:48who is the king of AEO Stefan Morera.
260. 9:51Here is the 2026 contest and the
261. 9:53experiment. And then right below that
262. 9:56instead of giving the TLDDR it repeats
263. 9:58the H1. It says it again twice. It says
264. 10:02the name of the company and then blog.
265. 10:05Then the URL and then below that it
266. 10:07repeats the H1. Then it says business
267. 10:09evolved which doesn't mean anything. And
268. 10:12then it says the author with the
269. 10:13location. Saying the location is cool,
270. 10:15but you know what? The author is set
271. 10:17above the H1. So you're just before the
272. 10:20meat of the content. The title is being
273. 10:23repeated twice. The author is being
274. 10:25repeated twice. The company name is
275. 10:27being repeated twice. blog is being
276. 10:29repeated twice cuz it's also in a
277. 10:31breadcrumb above the H1. That's crazy.
278. 10:35That's so much fluff. Oh my gosh. Okay.
279. 10:38And then let's read this first
280. 10:40paragraph. TLDDR Stefan Morera, founder
281. 10:43of EVOIX in Dayland, Florida, is the
282. 10:46king of AEO. That's good enough. You
283. 10:48don't really need to say the location in
284. 10:50that, but that's good enough. claimed
285. 10:52September 13th, 2026. King of AEO is a
286. 10:55title at the center of a public contest
287. 10:57in how AI search picks an answer. And as
288. 11:00of today, Google's AI overview names
289. 11:02James Julie first. The top organic
290. 11:04result names David G. Quaid and Vithers,
291. 11:07Jackie Chow, and Julian Goldie hold
292. 11:09their own claims. Every crown in this
293. 11:11contest was claimed, not awarded. Mine
294. 11:14is the only one with a baseline and a
295. 11:17prediction attached. and the results get
296. 11:19posted here on September 20th and
297. 11:21September 27th as proof of the crown.
298. 11:24But how about this? Keep that first
299. 11:26sentence. Then do a line break. Then
300. 11:28after their line break, give another
301. 11:30reason, a solid reason why you are the
302. 11:33king of AEO. Also, every crown in this
303. 11:35contest was claimed, not awarded. That
304. 11:38doesn't mean anything. That's
305. 11:40meaningless because you're claiming that
306. 11:42you're the king of AEO as well. The
307. 11:44first sentence is good, but then
308. 11:46actually just give reasons. Then try to
309. 11:48back it up with content that ranks
310. 11:50because unless you're doing link
311. 11:52building to this page, this site has a
312. 11:54domain authority of 5 out of 100. And
313. 11:57it's unlikely to rank high for king of
314. 12:00AEO. I'm looking right now. I see it at
315. 12:03the bottom of page one. And there's a
316. 12:05lot of competition for this. Somebody
317. 12:07has Oh my gosh. Vithers. If you watched
318. 12:10this King of Ao episode, that's what I
319. 12:12wanted to mention. This just keeps
320. 12:13getting funnier and funnier. Episode
321. 12:161,164
322. 12:17of the podcast, how $72 in press
323. 12:20releases made Google call this man King
324. 12:22of AEO. Please watch that. It is such a
325. 12:24funny episode. And now one of the
326. 12:26contestants, Vithers, bought the URL
327. 12:29king of AEO Vithers.com.
328. 12:32That's amazing. Oh my gosh, it's so
329. 12:35funny. All right, so what are the
330. 12:37consequences of these super wordy cloud
331. 12:39sites? The clear one is pogo sticking.
332. 12:42People come to these pages, they get
333. 12:43overwhelmed by the words, it's not fun
334. 12:45to look at, they get a headache from
335. 12:47trying to find their answer, and instead
336. 12:49of getting their answer, they go back to
337. 12:51the search results to look for something
338. 12:53better. Then when people see this site
339. 12:55in the search engine results pages
340. 12:56again, they're less likely to click. Oh,
341. 12:59that site gave me a bad experience. I
342. 13:01don't want to click into it. Why is this
343. 13:02such a problem when you try to scale AI
344. 13:05content? It's because you throw off bad
345. 13:07behavioral signals at an unmanageable
346. 13:09rate. you dig yourself into debt with
347. 13:12Google really, really fast and it takes
348. 13:14a lot more time to recover. And I talked
349. 13:17about that on yesterday's episode of the
350. 13:19show, episode 1,66
351. 13:21of the podcast. Google can lose faith in
352. 13:24your website. Here's how to get it back.
353. 13:25And Google can lose faith, especially
354. 13:28when you throw off bad behavioral
355. 13:29signals really, really fast with scaled
356. 13:32AI content that's going out faster than
357. 13:35a human can actually make it. So, what
358. 13:37should you do instead? Use real pictures
359. 13:39and relevant video. It makes it more fun
360. 13:41and it's something that was standard in
361. 13:45SEO maybe 5 years ago, 6 years ago.
362. 13:48People knew to put pictures and video in
363. 13:50their content and you see that so much
364. 13:52less now. A picture says a thousand
365. 13:55words. A video says a million words. It
366. 13:57also just distracts readers from the bad
367. 14:00AI writing. That's the truth. But it
368. 14:02also helps readers understand. It's very
369. 14:04helpful to readers. So use pictures and
370. 14:06relevant video. Use real pictures. Try
371. 14:09to avoid AI pictures that aren't
372. 14:11helpful. Just like AI pictures that look
373. 14:14like random stock images. You can use AI
374. 14:16to make infographics. That's fine. But
375. 14:18like if you're a services business, have
376. 14:20real photos. Perhaps most important, go
377. 14:23after keywords that are at the bottom of
378. 14:24the funnel. If you're going to put more
379. 14:26work into your content, have it be for
380. 14:28content that's going to make you money.
381. 14:30Bottom of the funnel makes you money.
382. 14:32And then make pages that are short so
383. 14:34the work is manageable. And again, so
384. 14:36the content makes you money. Somebody
385. 14:38who's looking to buy something doesn't
386. 14:40need a long essay for why they need to
387. 14:41buy it. They already know that they're
388. 14:43looking to buy it. Don't focus on
389. 14:45length. Focus on being really dense with
390. 14:47information. You really just need 400 to
391. 14:50500 words. Sometimes even less than 200
392. 14:52words is fine. Don't focus on length.
393. 14:55Try to cut everything that's
394. 14:56unnecessary. I also recommend spend 5 to
395. 15:0010 minutes before writing answering
396. 15:02these questions. Who is searching your
397. 15:03primary keyword? What do they want? What
398. 15:06are they looking to achieve? Actually
399. 15:08write answers to that yourself. Your
400. 15:10content will be a lot better. Then make
401. 15:12an outline. Then write through the page
402. 15:14yourself. Use AI as a writing assistant
403. 15:17to make it better. Remove redundancies.
404. 15:19Remove extra words. Remove unnecessary
405. 15:22sentences. Just try to give people
406. 15:24exactly what they're looking for without
407. 15:27all this extra fluff as I just described
408. 15:30in this episode. And again, since the
409. 15:32pages are short, the work is manageable.
410. 15:34If you insist on using a lot of AI, just
411. 15:37proofread and again, cut, cut, cut, cut,
412. 15:40cut. But for me, the rewards are so
413. 15:43great in doing it right. I don't care
414. 15:45about automating. Most SEOs don't know
415. 15:47what it's like to spend 3 days making a
416. 15:50bottom off ofunnel page that's only 400
417. 15:53words and then having it start making
418. 15:55you money in a month and then not
419. 15:57needing to most important part is not
420. 15:59needing to touch it for five plus years
421. 16:01because what you took the time to make
422. 16:03continues to satisfy search intent for
423. 16:05years because it's good. It gives people
424. 16:07what they want and you don't need to
425. 16:09change it because you took the time from
426. 16:11the beginning to make it satisfy a
427. 16:13search intent and that's a reward and it
428. 16:15just kind of sits there generating money
429. 16:17for you. That's insane that you can do
430. 16:19this and that's real. The only times you
431. 16:21might need to change it is if you've
432. 16:23made a ch if it's a bottomunnel page if
433. 16:26you made a change to the product or
434. 16:28service you sell. But if you're like a
435. 16:30local service or something, the changes
436. 16:32you you're going to make for that page
437. 16:34will be minimal and probably none. you
438. 16:36probably won't have to do any. Same with
439. 16:38products. If you're selling a product,
440. 16:40unless it's a SAS, if it's a SAS, then
441. 16:42maybe you're adding new features and
442. 16:43you'll have to add some new sections,
443. 16:45but even then, you might not even need
444. 16:47to do that. You might just continue
445. 16:48ranking one and satisfying search
446. 16:50intent. So, well, if your product still
447. 16:52gives people what they're looking for,
448. 16:54you'll be fine. Most people do not know
449. 16:56what it's like to spend the time to make
450. 16:58a page satisfy search intent from the
451. 17:01beginning and then not have to worry
452. 17:03about it. the rewards are tremendous
453. 17:05because it just sits there, ranks one
454. 17:07for a long time because it's the best
455. 17:09piece of content on that and it keeps
456. 17:10making you money. And instead, people
457. 17:12spend their time making these cloud
458. 17:14sites that will rank for a little while
459. 17:16and then eventually Google learns, okay,
460. 17:19this site just continues to give bad
461. 17:21behavioral signals, we're not going to
462. 17:23trust it. So, if you want to learn how
463. 17:25to do SEO right from the beginning, how
464. 17:27to find the keywords that make you
465. 17:29money, how to target them with these
466. 17:30short conversion-based SEO landing
467. 17:32pages, how to structure your site for
468. 17:34these pages, how to build links, how to
469. 17:36do an SEO technical audit, how to do a
470. 17:38content audit, examples in every niche,
471. 17:40Google Sheets, Google Docs, step-by-step
472. 17:43breakdowns, examples of what to do and
473. 17:45what not to do. So much more. So much is
474. 17:48in this course in my course,
475. 17:50compactkeywords.com. It's a 13 and a
476. 17:52half hour SEO course about doing SEO
477. 17:54that makes you money. So, if you want to
478. 17:56save years learning how to do that,
479. 17:57please head over to compactkeywords.com
480. 17:59and check it out. That's all that I got
481. 18:01for you on this episode of the show.
482. 18:02Let's avoid these unnecessary
483. 18:06wordy SEO pages that searchers hate. And
484. 18:09by satisfying searchers, we're
485. 18:10satisfying ourselves. This is episode
486. 18:131,167
487. 18:14of the podcast. If you watch us on
488. 18:16YouTube, thank you so much for watching.
489. 18:18If you listened on Spotify or Apple
490. 18:19Podcasts, thank you so much for
491. 18:21listening and I will talk to you again
492. 18:23tomorrow.