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Generative Engine Optimization: Is It Safe and How to Do It the Right Way — Transcript

by Edward Sturm · 15,581 words · 2,400 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00We are talking about generative engine
0:01optimization if it is safe with the
0:04primary ways that it is being done and
0:07then is there actually a right way to do
0:10it that is not going to get a website
0:13absolutely destroyed where they're
0:15losing all of their organic traffic and
0:17if they're losing their organic traffic
0:18then they're not going to they're not
0:20going to be found by large language
0:22models and that's what we're talking
0:23about. Harpreet Singh is joining the
0:25show once again. Harpreet, thank you for
0:28being here.
0:29Thanks for having me back.
0:30Uh all right. So, let me ask you. Is
0:33generative engine optimization the top
0:35ways that it is being done? Is it safe?
0:38Yeah, um so I think that there's a few
0:41different ways you can do um GEO.
0:44One of the ways that is being
0:45recommended, the most popular method is
0:48just publish more content. Make keywords
0:51for the query fan out. So, you know, in
0:52case the listeners aren't aware what
0:54query fan out is, when you make a search
0:56inside of ChatGPT or Perplexity or any
0:59AI tool, they take that one query and
1:01they fan it out, they spread it out into
1:03multiple other queries. So, you might
1:05look for
1:06the best running shoes, but then ChatGPT
1:09might search for best running shoes 2026
1:12in the background.
1:14So, what's happened is a lot of SEOs um
1:16they're saying we need to create content
1:19that matches the fan out. So, they want
1:21to create content for all of these
1:22different variations of keywords. But
1:24then you get some um GEO companies or
1:27AEO companies and whatever you want to
1:28call them, all they do is help you scale
1:30content. So, um
1:32they will help you rank for
1:34top-of-funnel keywords. They will say
1:37you can automate these processes. You
1:39need to create a blog post on this,
1:40this, and this. And what's happened is
1:43multiple websites using those tools and
1:45they've just scaled their content.
1:46They've gone from having 100 pages in
1:49their blog to having 1,000 pages in
1:51their blog within weeks and that's not
1:52sustainable. Initially, they all see an
1:56increase in traffic or most of them see
1:57a big increase in traffic.
1:59Um and then the companies take that
2:02increase in traffic and say that oh,
2:04we've increased AI visibility for this
2:06brand by 300%.
2:09But then comes along the crash where the
2:12keywords that, you know, they started
2:14ranking, um they start to decline. And
2:16we've named that in SEO, that's been
2:17named as um Mount AI, um rank and tank,
2:21there's many of different terms.
2:22So yeah, I'd say it's dangerous because
2:25the
2:26if your website gets hit by a Google
2:28algorithm update, it can take many years
2:31to recover. And that's not an
2:32understatement. There's so many case
2:33studies out there where, you know, some
2:35websites do take 2, 3 years to recover.
2:38Why take that risk in the first place
2:41for traffic that doesn't mean anything?
2:43A lot of these tools, they're just
2:44making keywords like how to do something
2:46or like um or what is
2:49or, you know, explain this this topic
2:51explained.
2:52That content is not generating revenue.
2:56It's not generating sales. I believe you
2:57have a course, um compact keywords. The
2:59whole premise of that course is
3:02you want to rank for stuff that makes
3:03you money. This method of marketing is
3:05so effective, I had to make sure it
3:07wasn't against Google's rules before I
3:09kept doing it. It's a form of SEO I call
3:11compact keywords. Whereas most SEO
3:14focuses on putting up articles to answer
3:16questions, how, what, when, compact
3:18keywords focuses on putting up dozens of
3:20pages that sell to searchers who are
3:23actually looking to buy. These pages
3:25rank on Google and convert so much
3:27better than normal that when I
3:29discovered this years ago, I couldn't
3:31believe this was allowed. It's less
3:33work, too. The average compact keywords
3:35page is only 415 words. Compact keywords
3:39is a 13-hour deep course on getting
3:42sales with SEO. A customer recently
3:44said, "Each lesson is dense with
3:47information. You're giving years worth
3:49of experience boiled down into
3:5115-to-30-minute lessons with no filler
3:54or fluff. I feel like I'm gaining a new
3:56superpower. Compact Keywords is about
3:58setting up an SEO funnel that brings you
4:00sales for years and years and years. It
4:03works with AI, it's less work than
4:05traditional SEO, and it makes way more
4:09money. You can get it now at
4:11compactkeywords.com.
4:12Back to the podcast. Some of these GEO
4:15tactics
4:16they deviate from that. You're just
4:18getting traffic for the sake of traffic,
4:20and a lot of the citations are fake.
4:22So, sounds like I'm going on a rant
4:24here, but
4:25you can rank or show up in AI for an
4:28infinite number of terms, and one page
4:31can be cited for an infinite number of
4:33terms. So, let's just take a keyword,
4:35how to get rid of mold. You can easily
4:38make that page with um with a with AI,
4:41but how to when you take the how to get
4:43rid of mold within AI citations,
4:46there's yeah, there's so many ways that
4:48that URL can show up. So, if it's coming
4:50from a brand, you can say how to get how
4:53to get rid of mold brand name. That's
4:55going to show up in AI citations, and
4:57you'll be able to say that oh, we've
4:58increased AI citations for this topic
5:00cluster, but that doesn't mean that
5:03you're more visible in AI. So, I think
5:05the whole system of like measuring
5:08measuring citations and measuring the
5:10way brands show up in AI tools, I think
5:13it's dangerous, and they're obviously
5:14just trying to
5:16sell their tools and sell their methods,
5:18but yeah, I personally wouldn't advise
5:20it. I don't think it's safe. There's
5:21multiple case studies out there where
5:23it's not where it's not where
5:25you know, yeah, companies have ranked
5:27and then and then tanked. So, you're
5:29saying that you're going to use these
5:32tactics. You're going to scale content
5:35for from 100 pages 100 blog posts
5:391,000 plus blog posts, and this is going
5:42to get you a lot of organic traffic, and
5:44then it's going to get and you're going
5:45to get cited in AI. It's going to get
5:47you a lot of traffic from Google and
5:48you're going to get cited in AI, but and
5:50then you're saying, but then, you know,
5:52Google is going to catch on to the
5:53patterns, you're going to get deranked,
5:56your site is going to basically get hit
5:57by like a penalty.
5:59And that's going to be really bad for
6:01your organic traffic, but if I'm
6:03if I just care about generative engine
6:06optimization, if I just want to show up
6:08in AI, why is that even a problem?
6:11It's a problem because AI systems use
6:15search APIs to get into
6:18to rank pages or to show pages. So it's
6:21it's quite common. I think
6:23it's it's common knowledge now within
6:26the AI industry that
6:28yeah, ChatGPT, Claude, when they go and
6:30search the web, they use an API that
6:33links to a search engine database,
6:34whether that's Google, whether that's
6:36Bing, there's lots of different debates
6:37out there.
6:39They use a search engine database to
6:41retrieve URLs. There's also many studies
6:43that show correlations between the
6:45better you rank in traditional search
6:48engines on Google and Bing, the better
6:50your chances your page is being
6:51retrieved when AI goes and searches
6:54searches the web.
6:54>> often or or can like a company try to
6:57get into the to LLM's training data?
7:01You can't. So that's the whole So the
7:02GEO tactics being And it's good you
7:04actually brought that up. So the tactics
7:08being promoted by these companies about
7:09create more content,
7:11that is not going to get you into the
7:13LLM training data.
7:14Getting into LLM training data, I
7:16personally don't think there's any true
7:19case study of any company doing it.
7:23Because you have to compare output
7:25between models. So if we want to get
7:27into the LLM training data,
7:29you have to ask AI to give you answers
7:31without searching the web.
7:33Because that's the only way you're going
7:34to know if the model has learned about
7:36you. Now, I've tried this. I'm not going
7:37to name drop the company,
7:39but 2 years ago, around 2 years ago.
7:42This company had a lot of negativity
7:45around how long their solution takes to
7:47implement for for enterprise companies.
7:50They were pulling from G2, they were
7:51pulling from Reddit, they were pulling
7:52from other places around the internet
7:54where
7:55the LLM didn't even have to go make a
7:57search. It said that oh, for an
7:58enterprise, this solution can take 9
8:00plus months to implement. And now over
8:03the over the months I've been following
8:05the different model changes, the
8:06different LLM tools,
8:08we've brought that down to 6 plus months
8:11for enterprise brands. So it's gone down
8:13from explicitly saying nine to six. So
8:15that is an example of LLM optimization
8:17in in my opinion. What these companies
8:19are promoting with their
8:21content creation side of things, I don't
8:23think that's going to influence LLMs
8:25because it's all
8:26based on web web retrieval.
8:29Okay, so you're saying that
8:30with with any
8:32with any term that has with any prompt
8:35that has sufficient commercial value,
8:38it's going to do a web search. And if
8:41you if your site is using these scaled
8:44tactics, you're getting hit within
8:48organic search, and so the LLM isn't
8:51going to find you in the first place.
8:52Yeah, that's basically that's basically
8:55that's correct. I'd also say that if
8:58people use the free version of ChatGPT,
9:00so this is just an experiment all the
9:01listeners can do.
9:03Make a search for something using the
9:05free version of ChatGPT, open a new tab
9:07in incognito, and then make a search in
9:09your logged in version of ChatGPT,
9:11especially if you pay for it, compare
9:13the difference in answers. So one of the
9:16things I've noticed with prompt tracking
9:17is I use a tool to track to track track
9:19prompts, and it gives me a screenshot. I
9:22won't name name the tool, but I use them
9:24they give me screenshots of the prompt
9:27I've tracked within ChatGPT. So the way
9:29these prompt tracking tools work is they
9:31take a screenshot of the page, and then
9:32they then they upload it into the tool,
9:34and you can and what it was.
9:36When I track ChatGPT, I'm finding my my
9:40It's pointless me tracking the answer
9:42because
9:43half the time now ChatGPT doesn't search
9:45the web in the free version. Maybe they
9:47know like a server or a scraper is
9:49a scraper is the thing that's making the
9:51action. But they have a lot of useless
9:54data in one of my prompt tracking tools
9:56just because it's the free version of
9:57ChatGPT. There's no citations because
9:59the tool didn't go and go and search the
10:01web. So, a good experiment for everyone
10:03just to see how these tools and systems
10:06work and how the answers can change.
10:08Open up incognito, make a search for
10:10something in ChatGPT, and then in your
10:12paid account or even in your logged in
10:14account, make the same search, and just
10:16compare them side by side. Do it again a
10:18few times. Maybe change the structure of
10:21your of your sentence and just see what
10:23you find, and you'll just notice how
10:25different the how different the answers
10:27are.
10:29And And so, you notice how different the
10:31answers are, but what what sort of
10:33insights does that give you?
10:35Um it gives you it tell Okay, it tells
10:37you what you need to focus on and what
10:38you need to do to what you need to do.
10:40So,
10:41every time somebody makes a search in
10:44these tools, the AI answer is going to
10:46be a little bit a little bit different.
10:48So, you need to know that Okay, should I
10:50focus on improving
10:52Do I need to completely focus on brand
10:55so I can heavily influence the training
10:58data, or can I get away with doing GEO
11:02that um
11:04through um through Yells. improving my
11:06pages and
11:07Yeah, through through through improving
11:09web pages because the AI search will
11:12often look for it look for it go to the
11:14web to to give an answer. I'll give an
11:16example. It's not business related, it's
11:18politics related. But the other day I
11:20was doing some research, and uh Canada
11:23got a new Governor General. So,
11:25something was changing in Canadian
11:26politics. They got a new Governor
11:27General of Canada. And there were some
11:29silly rumors on Twitter or X that Justin
11:31Trudeau is going to be the new Governor
11:33General of Gen- Governor General of
11:35Canada. Of course, he's not. So, I typed
11:38into the free version of ChatGPT,
11:40um,
11:41"Is Trudeau going to become the new
11:43Governor General of Canada?"
11:46And then I just typed in "Trudeau
11:47Governor General of Canada." So, I have
11:49both screenshots on my Twitter profile,
11:51but um, ChatGPT said no because he's the
11:54Prime Minister of Canada.
11:56Now, it's been a year since Trudeau left
11:58office. He's hasn't He's not the Prime
12:00Minister of Canada. Marc Garneau is.
12:01It's been 1 year.
12:03But, because ChatGPT did not go to the
12:05web,
12:06that's the answer it gave. So,
12:09in that sense, I'm going to be like,
12:10"Okay, so if you're a business and
12:12something's really outdated about your
12:13business, you need to focus on the
12:16sources that
12:18can have the biggest impact on LLM
12:20training data." I truly don't think
12:22everybody knows what that is. I truly
12:24don't think that everybody knows what
12:26that is, but we're saying it's things
12:27like Reddit. If you're a bu- If you're a
12:29business, it could be Reddit. If you're
12:30a business, it could be G2. If you're a
12:32business, it could be a local directory.
12:34And if you're a business, it could be If
12:35you're a local business, it could be
12:37your local board of trade. Make sure
12:38your profiles are updated in the local
12:40board of trade website. So, things like
12:42that. So, then you need to say, "Okay,
12:44I need to update I need to make sure the
12:46LLM training data,
12:48um,
12:49is up to LLM training data has the best
12:51possible chance of knowing everything up
12:53to date about my brand."
12:55But, then if you make a query and you
12:57see nine times out of 10, eight times
12:59out of 10,
13:00ChatGPT is going to the web to make a
13:02search, you need to make sure that your
13:05that the web searches are optimized. So,
13:08I'm going to take reviews now. So,
13:11um, brand name plus reviews. For that,
13:14ChatGPT might,
13:16more often than not, go to a review
13:19website to give the user reviews. So, in
13:21that case, if you're on Trustpilot, for
13:23example, um, Trustpilot is heavily cited
13:25in ChatGPT. You need to make sure your
13:27Trustpilot profile is optimized. If
13:30someone is leaving a bad review, you
13:31know, reply to them. If you're able to
13:33do that in the platform, reply to them.
13:35Um encourage people to leave good
13:37reviews on Trustpilot. So, then you need
13:38to do things like that. Um brand A
13:40versus brand B. So, a common
13:43GEO tactic is making comparison pages.
13:45Now, comparison pages were made well
13:48before the invention of AI search. Like
13:50um the mattress companies made them like
13:53um
13:54mattress one versus mattress two.
13:56Um
13:57What happened with
13:58>> 6 years ago. Yeah,
14:00ex- exactly. But, what happened with GEO
14:02is
14:03they said make tons of them. So, they
14:06took that concept. So, these tools took
14:08that concept and they just
14:11told brands to scale. And I see
14:14comparison pages on sub websites now
14:16where
14:17no one's even searching for that cuz the
14:19brand they're being compared to is not
14:22like no one no one this it's a nobody
14:24brand. Like no one's searching for it.
14:26The GEO tool companies are also asking
14:28brands to make comparison pages.
14:30So, I'm brand A, but I'm making a
14:32compar- comparison page for brand B
14:34versus brand C. Now, I don't think that
14:36I personally wouldn't do that. I'd stick
14:37to my own brand cuz why
14:39why like what optics does that give to a
14:42customer when you're making a page for
14:44brand B versus brand C when you're brand
14:46A? I don't think that's good marketing,
14:47but
14:48the tool companies are getting people to
14:50scale. But, that said,
14:52if you're
14:54a brand A and a customer is comparing
14:56you to brand B and in chat GPT,
14:58um the URLs are going to newly published
15:01pages. So, it might be Healthline, for
15:03example, cuz you're a supplement brand.
15:05Healthline might have a page A versus B.
15:06It might be G2 that has a page A versus
15:08B. Then you need to figure out
15:10something, and then you need to think
15:12about actually making that page on your
15:14own website because now AI has another
15:16source it can reference for that
15:18specific specific um
15:20specific term. Yeah, I want to get into
15:22I want to get into
15:24the safe ways and proper ways proper
15:27ways to do generative engine
15:29optimization in a moment. So, you
15:31mentioned that these companies they were
15:33getting these short-term spikes where by
15:37scaled by scaling content. You're you're
15:40scaling alternatives pages, you're
15:42scaling how-to pages, you're scaling
15:45best lists like this is the best for
15:47this. You're scaling all of these things
15:50and you're seeing actually like a really
15:52dramatic increase in organic traffic and
15:55your and citations. And so
15:59um and then you said these companies are
16:01going and shouting about like how well
16:04these tactics work. Even and this is at
16:06the height right before the
16:08right before uh the companies that are
16:11doing them are getting hit like are
16:14getting hit and losing all of their
16:15traffic. And so the companies that are
16:17screaming about how well this works
16:18without naming the companies like what
16:21do you mean? So, these are companies
16:22that will do this for other companies?
16:25No, so
16:26the GEO tool company well yeah actually
16:30yeah, so they work together. So, the GEO
16:31tool company or AEO tool company will
16:34have a case study on their website
16:36saying the company X
16:38they
16:41received a 500% visibility in in AI
16:44citations and AI mentions
16:47after doing A B and C. And generally
16:50it's
16:51they created content.
16:53They they always put a spin on it. So,
16:55they'll say stuff like they created
16:56content that serves the full funnel. If
16:58someone says that they made listicles.
17:01Um there's some case listicles is if in
17:04case anyone isn't aware is basically on
17:06your own blog post or on your own
17:08website you you write something let's
17:11just say the top five email marketing
17:13softwares.
17:14You put your own company in the number
17:15one is You can put competitor 2 3 4 5 6
17:187 or however many in the other remaining
17:20spots and you post that on your your
17:22blog. The goal is that when someone
17:24makes that search in in AI that your
17:27page is cited and your company is is
17:30mentioned for that long tail query. So
17:31that's basically a listical.
17:33Um they'll say stuff like we created
17:35comparison content, we created bottom of
17:37funnel content and we received X
17:39percentage visibility in AI tools. But
17:41there's a funny one. Um I think I will
17:44I'll name the industry. If you search
17:45for the best AI FP&A software
17:50and um everyone can try this out because
17:52it's still it's still working or it was
17:53yesterday. The
17:56top citation in Google's AI overviews
17:59is a new a newer player. So they're an
18:01AI they're an AI they're an AI focused
18:03player. They're a newer company
18:05and they are using one of these um GEO
18:08tool companies and if you know, if you
18:10just put that name into Google and type
18:12in AI optimization or whatever, I'm sure
18:15you'll find out which company they're
18:16using. But they are cited in the AI
18:19answer in the AI overview, but they're
18:21not mentioned. So the AI overview says
18:24that oh, these are the best companies
18:26for this software
18:28and it doesn't mention them, but it
18:29links to their web page.
18:31So is that a win or is that a loss
18:32because now someone can see that this
18:35company is recommending these brands as
18:37the top companies, but Google isn't
18:38listing that
18:40that brand.
18:42Uh how can you discern if you if if I'm
18:46a business owner and I'm
18:48and I'm deciding between hiring
18:50different GEO companies,
18:52how can I decide how can I discern the
18:55ones that will be good for the
18:57um and I was going to say long-term
19:00health of my company, but honestly, when
19:02you see these like amount AI patterns,
19:04when you see these rank and tank
19:05patterns, you see it working for
19:07literally a few months and then after
19:10like 3 months, it's it's done. It's hit.
19:12So, it not even it's like short-term,
19:14too.
19:15So,
19:16if I'm if I'm trying to decide between
19:20GEO companies that will be good for my
19:23company,
19:24what what are the red flags that I
19:26should look for and then what are the
19:28good signs that I should look for? Yeah,
19:31so I think the biggest red flag is do
19:34they have a content generator in their
19:36platform?
19:37If you Okay, so you can get different
19:40types of GEO vendors. Um
19:42My my take on this is that if you get an
19:44experienced SEO professional who's not
19:47trying to upsell you lots of stuff for
19:49this the AI,
19:50they are probably your best bet cuz
19:52they're going to give you a balanced
19:54approach.
19:55Um but if you're looking for a specific
19:57GEO vendor, I'd say that one of the red
19:59flags is yeah, like do they have a
20:00content generator? Go through their
20:02customer stories. Um what
20:04Look at their customers. Um so, don't
20:06just look at the logos on the homepage,
20:08but most established tools or even some
20:11of the newer tools, they have dedicated
20:12customer stories. Read the customer
20:15stories. Like see what they've done. See
20:16what they've done for their clients. See
20:18see what they've done for their clients.
20:20If some of the terminology is, you know,
20:22if you're a business owner and you're
20:23not you're not you're not doing SEO day
20:25in day out. You're not doing this day in
20:26day out. So, some of the terminology
20:28might go over your head.
20:30Take that page and put it into Claude.
20:31Put it into ChatGPT. Ask ChatGPT to
20:33explain it to you in layman's terms.
20:35Um that's what I would suggest people to
20:38do. And then when you look at the case
20:40studies, if there's a lot of case
20:41studies around how
20:43how
20:44we did this by scaling content, that's a
20:47red flag. If you're able to book a demo
20:50with these companies, so you might be on
20:51a bigger you might be wanting to get a
20:53bigger plan,
20:54ask them how they're performing now. So,
20:56legit just ask the sales rep. Um so, I
20:58see this customer story on your website
21:00with this brand. Can you tell me how
21:02they're performing now and how did this
21:04strategy hold up over time? And see what
21:07the sales person has to say. So yeah, my
21:09biggest red flag is um
21:11is um is is scaling content, but at the
21:15same time you know, I get inquiries. I
21:17get messages all the time around, "Hey,
21:19can we look at this company that will
21:21help us show up on Reddit?" And um this
21:24company was helpful to show us on Reddit
21:26and they're saying this is going to
21:27improve our AI optimization.
21:29Well, then you have to ask them what are
21:31they doing on Reddit. Again, look at the
21:33customers, look at the case studies.
21:35With Reddit, it's a lot easier. So if
21:36they have logos on their homepage
21:39you can just search for that company on
21:40Reddit and you'll be able to see Reddit
21:43threads. And a lot of the time
21:45they're just auto-generated. They're
21:47just AI-created posts that add no value.
21:49They have no engagement.
21:51That's not going to
21:53that's not going to boost your
21:53visibility on Reddit. Like they're just
21:55making
21:56>> that they're that that these geo
21:58companies for Reddit are say are
22:01giving customer success stories that
22:04actually they're just like making up
22:05success stories or
22:06>> Yeah, basically. Yeah, they're saying,
22:07"Oh, we increased mentions on Reddit by
22:10X." But like what does that mean? That
22:12doesn't have like you can't tell me that
22:13has an influence on AI search or AI
22:15visibility.
22:16>> They're saying we we meant we increased
22:18mentions on Reddit and but they're not
22:19actually saying
22:21the goal that it's supposed to get you,
22:23yeah.
22:23>> Yeah. Well, what they say is we're going
22:24to post on Reddit and because AI loves
22:27to cite Reddit, we're going to you're
22:29going to see an improvement in X. So I'm
22:32just throwing I'm just like I'm crossing
22:34out that theory right now. What you need
22:36to do as a business owner, again, when
22:38if you're working with an SEO
22:39professional who's
22:41has a balanced take, they will do this
22:42for you.
22:43They will take your set of keywords that
22:46are really important to you. They will
22:47take your prompts and conversational
22:49queries that are really important to
22:50you. They will put them into an SEO
22:52tool.
22:54They will be able to see
22:56um or geo tool. They will be able to see
22:58what Reddit threads are actually
23:00influencing the queries that you care
23:02about. So, let's say I want a new um a
23:05new
23:06a new sink, a bathroom sink, or bathroom
23:08vanity. I'm going in on Chat GPT, I'm
23:11typing, "What are the best bathroom
23:12vanities?"
23:13Now, let's say someone is telling me
23:14like I run a bathroom bathroom store,
23:17and someone's like, "Hey, I can um
23:20improve your AI visibility. I'm going to
23:21do this on Reddit." But, now because
23:24I've gone to my SEO and I've
23:26and I've done the analysis,
23:28I've seen that the only Reddit thread
23:31being mentioned or being or being cited
23:33by AI
23:34is a thread that was started 8 years ago
23:37and that is now locked.
23:39Even if you create 50 pages on Reddit,
23:41you will not going to break into that AI
23:44answer for the best bathroom bathroom
23:47sinks
23:48because you're posting on Reddit because
23:49AI is using that Reddit thread from 8
23:52years ago. So, that's an example of what
23:53I'm saying. So, yes, Reddit is cited by
23:55AI,
23:56but you need to take your set of
23:58keywords and your set of prompts to see
24:00what URLs from Reddit are cited. You
24:02need to see what subreddits are cited.
24:04There's some subreddits out there that
24:06as soon as you mention a brand name, so
24:08you might even be trying to give a
24:09helpful answer, but as soon as you
24:11mention a brand name, they ban your
24:13account. But, that subreddit might be
24:15the one that is most heavily engaged.
24:17So, if you make another subreddit with a
24:19similar name,
24:21what's the point because you're not
24:22going to influence anything. You're just
24:24creating a page for the sake of creating
24:26a page.
24:27Mhm.
24:28That makes sense. And so,
24:31and how do you how do you evaluate
24:35geo companies?
24:37I'm saying geo companies because I still
24:39think if you're uh if you are a business
24:42owner, you're going to be looking for
24:43geo companies. Even yeah, you're going
24:45to I mean, yeah, so you're going to be
24:47looking for geo companies. So, then how
24:48do you actually evaluate ones that will
24:50be good for your brand, that will be
24:52effective, and that aren't going to
24:55aren't going to hurt you,
24:57They're going to destroy your organic
25:00traffic. Make it so you can't be found
25:01on Google at all. Yeah, my biggest thing
25:03would be if I'm consulting with someone,
25:05I'm helping them find a company, it's
25:07how long have they been around?
25:09Did they just pop up after ChatGPT came
25:12came along or
25:13have they got experience? Have Were they
25:15here in 2015, 2016, 2017? Obviously,
25:17people knew in the industry and there
25:19are going to be new people in the
25:20industry.
25:21But yeah, you need to
25:23kind of see how long they've been around
25:25and you need to talk to them to see what
25:26tactics they're recommending. So, of
25:29course, when you talk to a consultant or
25:31you talk to a company, they're not going
25:32to give you all of the They're not going
25:34to give you the full strategy. They're
25:36not going to give you the full sauce,
25:38but they're going to give you snippets
25:39of what they would They're going to give
25:40you snippets of what they will do. Um if
25:43they're focusing on scaling content,
25:45like I said, that's a big red flag. If
25:46they're focusing on Reddit mentions,
25:48um
25:49that's a yellow flag. Um it depends what
25:51they're going to do on Reddit. You need
25:53to ask them how they're going to post on
25:54Reddit. You need to ask them how they're
25:55going to engage with communities.
25:57Um if they're a GEO company, you need to
25:59ask them if they have a video strategy
26:01cuz video is performing very, very well
26:03in um in Google's AI overviews. Not sure
26:06about ChatGPT, but in Google's search
26:08experience, videos are getting heavily
26:10promoted. So, do they have Do they have
26:12a strategy for for YouTube? Um
26:15Do they have a strategy for social
26:16media?
26:17The GEO company doesn't necessarily have
26:19to make the videos for social media, but
26:21they can advise on what topics that you
26:23could be creating for. They can advise
26:26on saying that, "Hey, for these keywords
26:28in the AI overview,
26:30there's a YouTube video present.
26:32Because these keywords are so important
26:33for your business, we need to make a
26:35video on video on that." So, things like
26:37that um is what I would evaluate, but
26:39yeah,
26:40you have to talk to them. You have to
26:42ask them about case studies. If they are
26:44really going in on how we achieved
26:47whatever for this company or a specific
26:49company, ask them how that company is
26:51doing now today and ask them how that
26:53company is holding up. And oftentimes,
26:55if you have a subscription to an SEO
26:57tool, you can kind of see yourself. You
26:59can see yourself, too.
27:00You can use Semrush for free, as well.
27:02Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you can see, so
27:05a Mount AI, literally the traffic, it's
27:08what we're saying. It literally looks
27:10>> like a mountain.
27:11>> Yeah. Spike goes up, spike goes down. Um
27:14I would say that brands that have been
27:15around
27:17for a little bit longer,
27:18um when they engage in this,
27:20that peak lasts a little bit longer than
27:24newer companies. So, it's something I'm
27:25noticing now. So,
27:27if you're a startup that has lots of
27:30media mentions and people are Googling
27:32your name, you got a lot of branded
27:33search, you might get away with these
27:35tactics longer than a company that
27:38isn't as, you know, isn't as isn't as
27:41relevant, or if you're a small business.
27:44There's one tool out there. Um again, I
27:47won't say the name,
27:48but there's a tool out there that helps
27:50small businesses make make optimization.
27:53So, it's a tool marketed for small
27:54businesses. So, local plumbers,
27:57electricians, HVAC companies, and so and
27:59so.
28:00They do the same thing, and then Mount
28:02AI's are even are even even worse. Like,
28:04they're literal like
28:07they go up right away, and then they go
28:08down right away.
28:09Um
28:10so, yeah, I think the biggest biggest
28:12red flag is um is content, but talk to
28:14the company and see what else they're
28:16proposing.
28:17What would you say to the geo company
28:20who's like, "Yeah, look. Okay, sure, we
28:22have this up-and-down pattern, but
28:24actually where we finished is higher
28:26than where we
28:27Yeah, it's it's higher than where we
28:28started. So, it's still it's still a
28:30win."
28:31>> Yeah, I actually got asked that question
28:33um by someone a few a few days ago.
28:36I would say, "What is that traffic doing
28:38for your company? Are you making more
28:39money?"
28:40If you're getting more organic revenue,
28:42if you're getting more revenue through
28:43LLMs,
28:44then that's okay. Then, you know, you
28:46can say that's a win.
28:47But if you're not getting more revenue,
28:48that's not a win. And I personally don't
28:51think
28:53that these companies are cuz the traffic
28:55is top of funnel. That's how they're
28:57able to do this so fast.
28:59There's one company, um
29:02with the big finance company, they're
29:04case study on multiple company websites.
29:07They have heavily scaled content. And in
29:09March, there was a core algorithm
29:11update. So, right now, it seems like
29:14their traffic is more than where it was
29:16a year ago. There's no question about
29:17that. But, then I did some more analysis
29:20into that.
29:22Keywords with a difficulty over 30,
29:25the ranking tank has begun. But, this is
29:27a company, when you look at the overall
29:29traffic chart,
29:30things are still going up. The keyword
29:32keyword with a difficulty of over 30 in
29:34Ahrefs, um
29:36the tank has started and they're going
29:38up and and they're going down.
29:40The more difficult the keyword is, um
29:42the more like
29:44to keep things thankful, the more likely
29:46it is to be a competitive term, the more
29:47likely it is to be a more useful term
29:49for the business. Um those keywords are
29:51going down. So, even if traffic is up,
29:53again, my question is
29:55what impact is that having on the
29:57business?
29:58If it's not having a big impact, then
30:01strategy's not worth it. But, if it is
30:02having an impact on your business and
30:04you are making more money, then there
30:06are some edge cases where, okay, um this
30:09tactic is good. But, at the same time,
30:11can we even call that tactic good if in
30:13the next Google algorithm update
30:16they get hit and their core services or
30:18solution or product pages get affected.
30:21So, even if your traffic right now is
30:23higher than where it was after the after
30:25the after you've tanked, you still need
30:28to be wary of what's going to happen in
30:30upcoming Google updates cuz there have
30:31been cases,
30:32many, many cases where algorithm update
30:35one, you see decline,
30:37update two, decline, update three,
30:38another decline,
30:40and in 6 months or 7 months or 2 years
30:42down the line, you're a much lower point
30:45than where you were a year ago when you
30:47asked that question. And I think we even
30:49did an episode on this with Shopify.
30:51Yeah. I think their traffic now in 2026
30:54is
30:55it's just it's I think it was around 1
30:57million or 1 million and a half. And in
30:592021, they had 7 million users.
31:02Um what's Yeah.
31:04I don't
31:06I would avoid this tactic essentially.
31:08Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um
31:13you're going to you're going to see that
31:15spike. And then honestly, uh
31:18what what happens often times too is
31:22like the short In the short term, you
31:24will be better than when you started.
31:26And then in the long term,
31:28you're going to be not just like getting
31:31less traffic from Google, but it's going
31:34You might have a harder time for people
31:35just finding things when they're putting
31:37your name
31:38into Google.
31:39Like
31:39>> Yeah.
31:40>> for for real things that are going to
31:42make you money. And And as we talked
31:44about, LLMs are pulling from Google.
31:46They're pulling from search. This
31:49devastates businesses.
31:51Yeah. And I'd also add that you know,
31:55LLMs are aware of this tactic. Google is
31:58aware of this. So, what we are
32:00>> That's Oh, yeah. That's what I was going
32:01to mention. Yeah. So, Google literally
32:03the thing to know is Google has in their
32:06guidelines
32:07a
32:08passage about doing this and how it it
32:11goes against their guidelines. It's
32:13called scaled content abuse. They
32:15literally say, "Don't do this. Don't
32:18scale content using AI." And And so, you
32:21got to consider that if you are if you
32:24are if you're considering doing this
32:26yourself or going with one of these
32:28generative engine optimization
32:29companies, answer engine optimization
32:31companies who saying that they're going
32:32to do this for you, this little startup
32:35is going up against Google with their
32:38teams of the highest paid engineers in
32:40the world. With with an abundance of
32:44websites that have already tried this.
32:46All of the patterns for what this looks
32:48like. It is very easy for Google systems
32:51to detect this.
32:53And very easy. And and so if you were
32:55considering going with a GEO company,
32:57you just have to know you're going up
32:59against trillion-dollar Google and their
33:02their teams of engineers. Hey, it's not
33:04just Google. So back to the query
33:05fanout. So there was a period, I don't
33:07know if this is happening right now or
33:09if this was a test,
33:10but I'm going back around a month, a
33:12month and a half. So when you made a
33:14search on ChatGPT, so let's just say the
33:16best, I'm going to say the best email
33:18marketing software again. So what
33:20happened was all these GEO companies
33:21told their clients to make the best
33:23listicles where they put themselves
33:24number one and then they put that blog
33:26post on their website. So during the
33:28query fanout, ChatGPT started to use the
33:31site colon like g2.com
33:35and then in quotation marks a company
33:37name that's already well-known as part
33:39of their fanout.
33:41So that tells me that OpenAI are onto
33:44this as well. They know people are
33:45trying to game ChatGPT. They want people
33:49to get the best possible answers and in
33:50the background they are doing things or
33:53they are testing things to give people
33:55the best possible answer. So when you're
33:57hiring a GEO company, even an SEO
34:00company,
34:01you have to think about the tactic you
34:03are using.
34:06Is that going to give
34:08users who find users that find your page
34:11through Google or through an AI search
34:12engine,
34:13does that give them the best possible
34:15experience?
34:17Can you give
34:18Can you give just five specific
34:21questions that a company considering
34:23going with a GEO company should ask to
34:26that GEO company? Just five specific
34:28questions and then we're going to move
34:29on to actually the the right ways to do
34:32generative engine optimization and
34:33answer engine optimization.
34:34>> Yeah. So, let's see if I can think of
34:36five. Number one is going to be um how
34:39how do you think GEO is different to
34:42SEO? Um that I think that's a very
34:44important important question. Number two
34:47is going to be how long have you been
34:49how long have you been around? Um when
34:50did you start when did you start in the
34:53optimization business?
34:55Um number three
34:56is going to be can you tell me about can
35:01you tell me some recent case studies? Um
35:03and can you let me know how they're
35:05doing now?
35:06So, not what you've achieved for them
35:08like in the past, but how are they
35:09performing now? How have their
35:10strategies held up? Um
35:14what are your thoughts on offsite
35:17offsite SEO? Um what are your thoughts
35:19on incorporating video and social media
35:22into our into our strategy?
35:24And number five, um
35:27this is where I need some
35:29I need some help. Number five, what
35:30could the fifth question
35:31>> I was going to say I was I mean I would
35:32be like, are you are you putting up um
35:35lots of blog posts? Like, are you
35:36putting up hundreds
35:38plus blog posts? Something something
35:41like that. Um I would also say a red
35:44flag might be if they can't explain
35:47things to you in a way that you
35:48understand. So, if they're using lots of
35:51really fancy terms that make it
35:54that that just don't even make sense to
35:57you. If they can't explain it in a way
35:58that you understand, that's a huge red
36:01flag that the and this this goes with
36:04search engine optimization, too. This
36:06goes with many with many marketing
36:07agencies, to be honest, but especially
36:10with SEO you see this is very common. If
36:12a company can't explain it to you in a
36:14way that is very clear in plain English
36:17so you understand it,
36:19there's a good chance that they are a
36:21grifter and they are trying to
36:23overcharge. And you should find someone
36:26who can explain it to you really
36:27clearly.
36:28100% One more two more questions. Do you
36:31recommend implementing an LLM.txt file?
36:34If they say yes, we recommend an LLM.txt
36:37file, probably want to stay away from.
36:39And the other one is do you recommend
36:41implementing an AI info page? Cuz there
36:44was a guy on LinkedIn, not going to say
36:46his name,
36:47but he didn't have an about page on his
36:48website. Like he has no about page,
36:51but he does have an AI info page, and
36:53he's posting on LinkedIn
36:56how this AI info page is being cited by
36:59AI tools
37:01for questions about his brand.
37:03But like bro, like the AI info page is
37:06his about page. If you didn't have that,
37:09it would cite an about page. So I asked
37:11him about LLM.txt, ask him about an AI
37:13info page, ask them what they think
37:15about chunking. So if you're a little
37:17bit more advanced and you're you're more
37:19aware of these tactics,
37:21take some of these complex terms that we
37:23might put in the grifting category,
37:25and ask them questions about that and
37:27see what their response is. And if they
37:28play along with them, like yes, you need
37:30to chunk all of your content,
37:33you know, we're leaning towards the red
37:35flag.
37:36So, we were talking about
37:39actual ways that you could do this. And
37:41I want to go back to this discussion on
37:43influencing training data. This is
37:44something that a lot of people are
37:45interested in.
37:46Have you What
37:48What have you seen people testing? Have
37:51you seen anything work? Because we know
37:53that brands are in training data. Yep.
37:55Like it it and it's very common that
37:57like
37:58top people, top brands are already in
38:02LLM training data and they and
38:04all the time you will see that an LLM
38:07will not do a web search and will still
38:10mention a brand or will still mention a
38:12well-known person. And so, yeah, how
38:16How is that even happen in the first
38:17place? What have people done to try to
38:20recreate this and has any of it worked.
38:22Yeah.
38:23So, one thing with training data we have
38:24to understand is that LLMs have years
38:27and years of training. So, when we
38:30any tactic we do
38:32it's going to have a minor impact on the
38:35grand scheme on the grand scheme of
38:37things. Now, I'll give this case study I
38:39did about around implementation. So, we
38:41started this around 2 years ago. Like I
38:44said, the company in question
38:46when you asked about the implementation
38:48times for their software
38:50they were long. Like they were saying 9
38:51months plus, sometimes 12 months plus.
38:54And they were obviously from 5-year-old
38:57reviews from G2. So, even without a web
38:59search
39:00ChatGPT would say that it's taking this
39:01long and we know it came from G2 cuz
39:04that exact wording is on G2 that oh, it
39:06was a horrible implementation. It took
39:08like 2 years or whatever.
39:10So, I sat down with multiple people um
39:13opened up conversations with multiple
39:14people in an organization saying
39:16we need to address this. So, the first
39:18thing we did was on the website say that
39:21implementation can be as fast as 3
39:24weeks. Very simple thing, but we just
39:26said that exact thing on our website.
39:28Why did we do this? Because AI is a
39:30parrot. AI is going to repeat
39:32information that it sees. So, what
39:34better place to start than your own
39:36website?
39:37Then we took that we took that 3-week
39:40period
39:41and um
39:43we expanded it to social media. We
39:45started making posts.
39:47Misconceptions about the brand name.
39:49Myths about the brand name. And we got
39:51the founder to make videos. Um so, the
39:54founder posted videos on Instagram. Like
39:56through the company channel, but
39:58the from the founder. Like a
40:00misconception is that this company's
40:03implementation is slow and takes this
40:05many months. No, that's wrong.
40:07Implementation is actually dependent on
40:10multiple other things.
40:11We distributed that like crazy. So, it
40:13was on the website, it was in
40:15third-party articles, it was on
40:16Instagram, It was on YouTube. And now I
40:19can see that the LLM gives an answer of
40:226 months. So, it seems like
40:24that big infant that
40:27the distribution we did for that
40:29specific query, for that specific topic,
40:31seemed to have an impact on training
40:33data. Not the impact that we liked for
40:36these 3-plus weeks, but it took the time
40:38down from 9 months. That means AI now
40:40knows that, you know, this can be
40:42implemented in a in a shorter period of
40:44time. So, that's one example. You need
40:46to create content across multiple
40:48multiple multiple channels and uh uh
40:50channels. And if we're talking about
40:52what we need to do do for GEO, that is
40:54one thing.
40:56Create content for more than just your
40:57website. So, yeah, if you want to
40:59influence the training data, have it on
41:01your website, but what else can you do?
41:02And it costs money. If you want to do
41:04press releases,
41:05then that costs money that costs money.
41:07You have to,
41:08you know, invest in those releases. Um
41:11it it costs to invest in a social media
41:13person who's going to grow your brand.
41:16Do community do community engagement. If
41:18you're a local business,
41:19be known in your local city for doing
41:21something. That's all going to help
41:23improve your brand your brand presence,
41:25your brand standing. Um one thing with a
41:28law firm I noticed actually is um
41:30Glassdoor was being cited. So, when you
41:33ask for reviews around this law firm,
41:35Glassdoor ChatGPT was citing um
41:38Glassdoor. It was referencing Glassdoor.
41:40What we did was we improved uh we
41:43we went on like a, you know, recommended
41:46asking recommended the lawyer asking
41:48their employees
41:50to leave reviews on Glassdoor and, you
41:51know, give them an incentive to leave a
41:53review on Glassdoor. And now their
41:55Glassdoor rating is above four stars.
41:57And now ChatGPT doesn't use that as a
41:59review source anymore. It uses something
42:01else. Um so, yeah, there are a few ways
42:04you can do, I think, good GEO and just
42:07try and influence the um the LLM's. Put
42:10lots of content out there across
42:12different channels. and then when you
42:13make a search into ChatGPT,
42:16where is the sentiment being sourced
42:18from? Can you do something to address
42:20that sentiment? So, are you with this
42:22success story where the
42:25implementation time was originally given
42:27at 9 months and you got it down, it
42:30wasn't 3 weeks like you wanted, but you
42:32but you got it down.
42:33But are you saying that the LLM was not
42:36doing a web search and it was giving the
42:39it was giving this lower answer? Yeah,
42:41so right now, so the newest ChatGPT
42:43model cuz the cutoff date I think is
42:45August 2025, the newest ChatGPT model
42:49without a web search enabled is giving
42:51this is giving that is giving that
42:54answer. And
42:55>> yeah, go on. And yeah, I was just going
42:57to say that to me like that is LLM
42:59optimization because
43:01it's
43:02I've influenced the LLM or the company
43:04have, you know, altogether we've
43:05influenced the LLM. And that's the other
43:07thing about GEO, it's not a one-person
43:09effort. Like one For most companies out
43:12there, so obviously we have a diverse
43:14audience here with people working
43:15different companies, but for most brands
43:18GEO like one person isn't going to solve
43:21the problem. It's a company-wide thing.
43:23If your product or service is really bad
43:27you can do all the Reddit optimization
43:29you want, people are going to say bad
43:31things about your product on Reddit. So,
43:32now GEO is a product thing. Um brand
43:36reputation thing. If your CEO is
43:38questionable and is doing questionable
43:40things, you're going to have some
43:41negative sentiment associated with your
43:43brand. Um
43:45your
43:47communications team, when they are
43:48writing press releases
43:50or if they are when they are writing
43:52press releases or talking to the media,
43:54if they position the brand is let's say
43:57we're we're a company that does this but
44:00for the last 15 years you're known as
44:02the company that does
44:03A, B, and C
44:05and now you're saying you're a company
44:07does, you know, um D E and F,
44:10the AI is still going to say you do the
44:12the AI is still going to say you're a
44:13company that specializes in the thing
44:15you're thing you're known for. It's
44:16going to take a lot more than just a
44:18press release to do that. You're going
44:19to need to
44:20you're going to need to promote your
44:21messaging
44:23in other channels. You're going to need
44:24to take pick up sponsorships. You're
44:25just going to have to do way more. So,
44:26GEO is not just a one-person problem, I
44:28think. I think it's a whole company
44:30problem. Of course, one person can be
44:32the owner, but
44:35if you're working in a bigger
44:36organization, everybody needs to know
44:38what they can do to help with AI search
44:40cuz I think, yeah, now, because so many
44:42channels are affected, everyone has a
44:44role to play.
44:46Moving away from influencing training
44:48data, um
44:50the that's an aspect, but
44:53arguably a a bigger aspect is because so
44:55many prompts do result in a web search.
44:58So, okay, how can we how how can we
45:01influence as many prompts as we can
45:04because so So, the prompts are the the
45:06your prompt is being broken into
45:09multiple web searches, and the web
45:12searches aren't the exact same every
45:14time. They're slightly different.
45:16And so, these are called for people
45:17Yeah, well, like you said, these are
45:18called query fan outs if for people who
45:20are new to this.
45:22Um if your your query is being it it it
45:24it it or you are having your prompt
45:28into these multiple queries, kind of
45:30like a fan. It's like it cuz you'll see
45:32like one to three
45:34sub queries from your prompt.
45:37And so, it's like, all right, how can we
45:38actually for these sub queries show up
45:41on a really high in search so that we
45:44are getting cited? Um have you and
45:46there's a lot of a lot of tactics for
45:49this.
45:49Um and a lot of tactics that are safe. A
45:51lot of tactics that are safe.
45:53Um have you uh have you toyed around,
45:56I'm curious, um
45:58cuz this is something that a lot of
45:59people have come on the show and said
46:00that they're doing is finding
46:04finding maybe there is a listical that
46:07is getting cited overwhelmingly across
46:10prompts that you are tracking and then
46:13trying to get into that listical. Have
46:14you tried something like that?
46:16Yeah, I I have. Um
46:18but I go I don't go for company
46:21competitors. I don't go for them. So, if
46:22I see So, actually
46:24um for the listeners, when you monitor
46:28your visibility in most GEO tools and
46:31even SEO tools, then new AI dashboards
46:33have like a sources section or a lot of
46:35them do. They tell you what sources
46:37influencing the AI answer and they're
46:39like, "Oh, you're not mentioned in this
46:41source.
46:42You should try and be mentioned in this
46:43source." But a lot of the time that
46:44source is a competitor.
46:46If a competitor's listical is being is
46:48being ranked and you know, I'm not I'm
46:49not going to go ask them for hey, give
46:51me that. I've received emails I've
46:52received emails from competitor
46:53companies like, "Can we Can you put me
46:55into your listical?" I don't respond.
46:57I'm not going to ask ask a competitor
46:58either. I will go to the affiliates.
47:00That's where affiliate marketing comes
47:02in and that's what I said about SEO or
47:04sorry, GEO being a company-wide problem.
47:08So, there's some I was working at a
47:10grocery grocery retailer in the UK, like
47:12the biggest retailer they have.
47:14As an SEO, when I was the S when I was
47:18doing SEO,
47:19I don't have a say in what the affiliate
47:22marketer is doing. But now as a GEO, I'm
47:25going to ask the affiliate marketer,
47:27"Hey, um
47:29this affiliate website is highly cited
47:32in AI search. Can we run a program with
47:34them?" And then the affiliate will go
47:36out and you know, we they will um
47:38they'll engage in them. So, yeah, it's
47:39something I've done, but I only focus on
47:41the companies that
47:43like the real big companies that are
47:44actually being being listed cuz yeah,
47:46the brands, they go in and out, but your
47:48Healthlines for example, your WebMDs if
47:50you're in supplements, um
47:53Sleepopolis, I believe is their name.
47:55The mattress one of the mattress sites.
47:56>> Sleepopolis, yeah. Yeah, yeah. These
47:59type of companies, they're going to
48:00they're not going anywhere.
48:02If you're in credit cards, I forgot the
48:03company name, but a huge credit card
48:05affiliate.
48:07You know, these type of companies, you
48:08that's where you want to be listed.
48:11They're the companies you want to
48:13be a part of. You want to be a part of
48:14their affiliate program, even if it
48:16costs a little bit more than you want it
48:18to. I'd recommend trying it out. If you
48:21are in the affiliate game,
48:23sometimes they run tests with your
48:24brand. Like they'll put you in a So,
48:26these websites, they'll put you in a
48:27certain position on the on the in their
48:29listicle, and then they'll see what kind
48:31of click-through rate you get. So, yeah,
48:33I'm trying it out because
48:35you kind of have to be listed in those
48:36sites cuz like I said, now the query fan
48:39out also makes site colon searches, and
48:42it goes to specific websites to learn
48:44about brands. And if you're not listed
48:45in trusted websites,
48:47you might not show up in AI.
48:49Yeah, it's a So, or or you might find
48:53and sometimes you see this just some
48:55random niche blog that is that has a
48:58listicle,
48:59and
49:00this listicle is influencing a lot of
49:02prompts that are important to you. And
49:03it's like literally like a a random
49:06like like
49:08hobby blogger or something, and they
49:09don't realize the value that this
49:10listicle has. And you just email them
49:12and you say, "Hey, what would it take to
49:14to get in your listicle?
49:16How much would it cost?" And you're
49:17you're kind of explicit about it, and
49:18they'll give you a price. Okay,
49:21"$200." And maybe they think for them
49:23like that's a lot or $300. And for you,
49:26it's like now you're cited really high
49:28in this listicle, and because this
49:30listicle it or you're given really high
49:33in this listicle because this listicle
49:34is cited for so many of your prompts,
49:37now you're really influencing just a lot
49:39of the prompts that you care about.
49:40Yeah, this is
49:41>> And
49:42100% unethical
49:44GEO tip is
49:46make your own listicles on third-party
49:48websites. I'm seeing companies do that.
49:50Not recommending it, not condoning it,
49:51but it works. Um, you know, in Canada
49:53Postmedia is a huge news organization.
49:57If you go in the Vancouver Sun, the best
49:58hair transplant companies, um, the
50:01number one is a clinic in Turkey. Um,
50:03the number one is a clinic in Turkey.
50:05They sponsored that article in the
50:06Vancouver Sun. And when you Google best
50:08hair transplant companies Vancouver or
50:11whatever, you know, that listical ranks
50:13in number one. That listical influences
50:15the AI answer. And the Calgary Herald
50:18and Calgary Sun, there's law firms that
50:21have created um, so they didn't create a
50:23listical, but they made pages like why
50:26law firm X is the top-rated law firm for
50:29Albertans, for example. So, there's lots
50:32of things you can do in third-party um,
50:34in third-party websites.
50:36Whether it's ethical or not, it depends
50:37on what industry, you know, industry
50:39you're in. The disclaimers you need
50:41depends on the industry you're in. But
50:43I've also seen some companies buy guest
50:46posts like they used to do for SEO back
50:48in the day. And that's where they have
50:49the listical. Like you said,
50:51it could be in a $200 blog, it could be
50:53in a $300 blog, $50 blog. But sometimes
50:56these do show up more often in ChatGPT,
50:58and I've seen them have an I've seen
50:59them make a make a difference. But I
51:02think that's where your SEO person is
51:05going to come into play. If they know
51:06what's going on, they will tell you
51:08that, "Look, these are the sources that
51:10are influencing ChatGPT, influencing
51:12Grok, whatever where whatever your main
51:14AI is. This is where we This is where we
51:17need to This is where we need to be. Our
51:19competitor has it." Or you can do a
51:21simple link analysis. Um, like SEOs used
51:23to do link intersects back in the day.
51:26Like, what where's uh This company has
51:29this many links from these websites. We
51:30have this many from these websites. Go
51:32through your competitors backlink
51:34structure. Um, and see what's a
51:36listical. See See where they're buying
51:39guest posts.
51:41Try and do the same thing. For bigger
51:43companies, it's probably not guest posts
51:45in the $20 blogs. It's probably more
51:48you know, like the Marketing Dive or
51:50like the CTO times or whatever, like
51:52some bigger industry publications. But
51:54if you're a smaller
51:56smaller company, you're doing local SEO,
51:59you can do this type of stuff in um
52:02in cheaper in cheaper magazines, in
52:03cheaper sites.
52:05Something that Something that works
52:06really well, and it's completely
52:09completely ethical, is just putting up
52:11product pages and landing pages
52:14literally targeting
52:17um
52:18like terms that people are searching
52:21with very high intent. Because when the
52:25query fan out happens, when
52:28multiple prompts are broken into these
52:30subqueries that are being searched,
52:33oftentimes
52:34they will come across these landing
52:37pages, these product pages that you are
52:39making. And product pages and landing
52:42pages are getting cited a ton, and it's
52:45very
52:47very ethical to just put up pages on
52:48your site about
52:51what you offer and and all the different
52:53use cases that you fill, all the
52:55services that you offer. Yeah, exactly.
52:58Um I see this in e-commerce. So, very
53:01similar to what you said.
53:03So, within e-commerce, the Google search
53:06engine results pages, there was a bit of
53:07a shift maybe two to three years ago
53:10where some of these affiliates were
53:11actually ranking less. And e-commerce
53:13companies, they their category pages
53:15started to be called like best um best
53:18fragrances for men, for example. So, the
53:20SEO page title of the category, like if
53:23you're a fragrance website, the category
53:25page might be best fragrances for men.
53:27And rather than having like 1 2 3 4 5 6
53:297 8 9 10, the product grid is the
53:32the product grid that they have, like
53:33where they have the one product, two
53:34product, three product, like that is the
53:37same that's the same thing. The H1 on
53:38the page will be best fragrances for
53:41men, for example. So, yeah, you can just
53:43do that as well. You don't have to make
53:46a listicle to rank for a bottom of
53:47funnel
53:48query. Like, you can do that through a
53:50product category page. You can do that
53:52for your service page. Just yesterday, I
53:54even saw a page for a law firm that
53:57said, um,
53:58"Brand name voted as the best
54:02law firm for this in Toronto." And all
54:05it was is they've paid a third-party
54:08affiliate. And it's like marketing, like
54:11law marketing Canada or Canada or
54:13something. Like, there's a marketing
54:14There's a law lawyer magazine. They pay
54:17obviously they're a part of that
54:18affiliate program. That affiliate
54:19program put them in the number one spot.
54:21And they just took the little sticker
54:23and logo they gave them and they put a
54:24page on their site saying that this
54:27magazine thinks we're the number one law
54:28firm in Toronto for car accidents. And
54:31yeah, there you are. Like, now
54:34they're ranking for a bottom of funnel
54:35query. And I saw them show up for best
54:37personal injury lawyers in Canada. I saw
54:39them show up for that keyword through
54:41that page.
54:42Yeah, I mean, dude, even, um, actually I
54:45I include this I included this in
54:47compact keywords in my SEO course. I
54:49said like, "Personal injury law NYC
54:52isn't as competitive as everybody thinks
54:55like as a keyword." There's actually not
54:58many
55:00websites that are targeting that keyword
55:02properly despite having such a high cost
55:05per clicks, despite it being such a
55:06valuable keyword. It's literally just
55:09going after things that are scenarios,
55:12just making pages for things that are
55:14common scenarios for your brand, common
55:16services that you offer can be so
55:18effective. Also, want to I want to, um,
55:20give credit to you for finding out about
55:24the press release strategy with cheap
55:25press releases. This is something that's
55:27really safe, too. And cheap press
55:29releases influence influence LLMs a ton
55:34with with searches. It They're
55:35influencing AI overviews, they're
55:38getting recommended by ChatGPT, and
55:41these press releases can cost like 80
55:42bucks. And you put this out, and it can
55:45be immediate.
55:46Yeah, exactly. Like there's so many ways
55:49that you can do, I think the uh
55:52like ethically, or I'd say the safe way.
55:54Like press releases is not even So,
55:56what's a press release? Let's Let's just
55:57Let's Let's give a walk-through for
55:59that. You use AB Newswire because
56:01because AB Newswire is the least
56:03expensive. That's the only reason. It's
56:04the least expensive.
56:05>> Yeah, so I just did it as an experiment.
56:07I had no personal gain from doing these.
56:10I just wanted to prove a point that you
56:12can make something fake. Oh, I did
56:14videos about people who have done this
56:15and who have done it and gotten personal
56:18gain. Yeah, it works. So, back then I
56:20wanted no personal gain. I just wanted
56:22to prove a point that I can make a
56:24random company, and I can
56:26get AI to say that it exists.
56:29Uh yeah, used AB Newswire as like a $5
56:31release, and um
56:33made a website, said that we're
56:35five-star rated company, or an AI
56:37five-star rated SEO agency, and then
56:41that's it. The AB Newswire put it on the
56:42wire. They They distributed into
56:44multiple websites like financial
56:46content, um Yahoo! News, Globe Newswire
56:50No, Globe and Globe and Mail at the
56:51time. I don't know if they're still part
56:53of the network, but the Globe and Mail.
56:55And then when you asked AI about this
56:58company,
57:00AI was confidently saying that they're
57:01five-star rated. They've got hundreds of
57:03reviews. Then the experiment in GEO I
57:05even got emails. I got leads from this.
57:08I was like, there were people messaging
57:09me saying that we're looking to do GEO.
57:13Um Can you Can you Can you help us? So,
57:16it it it worked. And this This is
57:18especially important if you want to
57:20change the narrative about something.
57:21So, let's say you've got some reputation
57:24management to do. Um I think press
57:26releases are good. Company
57:28announcements, of course, always, but I
57:29think this strategy might be more
57:31beneficial for those of you that yeah
57:33there's a bit of reputation management
57:35to do. Um this works so we're
57:37maybe you're sponsoring a local sports
57:39team. Cheap press release is a good way
57:42to distribute that cuz on your website,
57:43if you're a local business,
57:46Google doesn't care if you're sponsoring
57:47a local sports team. You need to make
57:48some noise about it. Maybe you can buy a
57:50cheap press release and say
57:52the top plumber the top plumbing company
57:56in New York is sponsoring the Little
57:58League
58:00baseball, whatever, right? Whatever. Um
58:03that's then going to
58:05be syndicated by all of these top news
58:07websites or big news websites and it's
58:09going to influence the LLMs. Your your
58:11the LLMs are going to know more about
58:13your brand. So when a local when someone
58:15researching about your company
58:17um is this plumbing company good? Do
58:19they have good reviews?
58:21AI does that thing where it gives you
58:23more information than you need. It will
58:25say that this company has been recently
58:26been in the news for
58:28sponsoring this team or donating this to
58:31this charity or doing this or doing
58:33that. So yeah, press releases are great
58:35to try and change the narrative about
58:37what AI is saying about your company.
58:40Yeah, I mean even even without branded
58:42searches, even if you're not even asking
58:44about a specific brand. So I'll give
58:46example of Matt DiAmante. He's allowed
58:49he's allowed me to share this and I've
58:50made multiple videos about it in the
58:51past. So Matt DiAmante came out with an
58:54SEO book. Matt is a SEO. He has an
58:56agency called Hey Tony.
58:58And he came out with an SEO book and he
59:01used AB Newswire. So AB Newswire, if you
59:03buy um 500 press releases for No, no,
59:07sorry. If if you buy I think it's like
59:1083 press releases for a year, there's a
59:12$500 per year package which gives you 83
59:15releases which makes it so that each
59:18release comes down to like six bucks. If
59:21you want to just buy a single press
59:22release from AB Newswire, it's $80. And
59:25so Matt got this like single $80 press
59:28release, puts it out, and and
59:31puts the term best-selling SEO book in
59:34his press release title, in the press
59:36release subheading, and in the first
59:39sentence of the press release. Then when
59:41you asked ChatGPT about a best-selling
59:44SEO book, or when you just
59:47search best-selling SEO book, the AI
59:49overview is citing him. ChatGPT is
59:52citing him, and his press release is
59:54showing up number one in Google for
59:57best-selling SEO book. And and you see
1:00:00that the press release is citing his or
1:00:03sorry, you see that the AI overview is
1:00:05citing his press release. And like this
1:00:08is this is this is an example of
1:00:10something that
1:00:11works really, really well. And and you
1:00:14know, we've talked about this before,
1:00:15and I asked you, "Do you think this
1:00:16tactic is going to stop working anytime
1:00:19soon?" And you said, "No, you don't see
1:00:20how it could."
1:00:22Yeah, and I still don't, unless ChatGPT,
1:00:26Google, OpenAI, like all these
1:00:28companies, they fundamentally change the
1:00:30way they train themselves. Like how can
1:00:33this stop working?
1:00:34Like it can't, because the real
1:00:36companies use press releases. Like I
1:00:38made a
1:00:39I made a presentation, for example,
1:00:40about Toyota and their brand messaging.
1:00:43So
1:00:44Toyota is known as the most reliable
1:00:46car. If you ask ChatGPT or any AI for
1:00:49the most reliable car, it's going to say
1:00:51Toyota. But it's not just because they
1:00:53do press releases, but Toyota on their
1:00:55website, they have a hundreds of
1:00:56instances where they say most reliable
1:00:59car. Every press release they put out,
1:01:02that line, most reliable car, is in
1:01:04there. So like big companies use press
1:01:06releases as part of their communication
1:01:08strategies. The news is informed by
1:01:10press releases, like business news. So
1:01:11when a company like a company's going to
1:01:13announce their financial statements, for
1:01:14example, they put it in a press release.
1:01:17Press releases is used so much that how
1:01:20can these companies stop using them? And
1:01:22there's always going to be the ability
1:01:24to There's always going to be the
1:01:25ability to to game them in my opinion.
1:01:28Yeah. Something something else that we
1:01:30need to talk about is just like actually
1:01:32looking at the language in the query fan
1:01:35out. Looking at the searches that an LLM
1:01:38is doing. Um you can you can Perplexity
1:01:41will show the searches visibly. You
1:01:44There are ways to You can see the
1:01:45searches with ChatGPT if you like This
1:01:48is more complicated, but if you want to
1:01:49try this yourself, it's it's still
1:01:51really easy to do. Make a search
1:01:54Give a prompt to ChatGPT, wait for it to
1:01:57see like searching the web,
1:01:59then um right click, inspect,
1:02:03and go to the network tab, uh then
1:02:06you'll see like a
1:02:08you'll see like a filter
1:02:10of a filter search thing.
1:02:12And what you do is you copy the part of
1:02:14your URL that comes after
1:02:16{forward-slash} c, paste that into the
1:02:18filter search area, refresh the page,
1:02:21and when you refresh the page, you'll
1:02:22see these like orange brackets with the
1:02:25string that you copied, the string that
1:02:27from the URL that comes after
1:02:28{forward-slash} c. Then you'll see like
1:02:31a response tab. Go to the response tab
1:02:33and search that for the word queries.
1:02:35And in that, you will literally see the
1:02:37searches. You can see the searches that
1:02:40ChatGPT is doing. And And when you know
1:02:42how to do this, if you if you just by
1:02:44the way, if you if you search anything
1:02:46like what I just told you into Google,
1:02:48video tutorials that I've made about
1:02:50this will come up.
1:02:51And then when you do that, you see that
1:02:54ChatGPT is using different searches than
1:02:57what your prompt was. But you can see
1:02:59the exact searches that ChatGPT is
1:03:01doing. And then you know the language.
1:03:04You do it a few times, and you start to
1:03:06learn the language that the LLM is using
1:03:09to get its information. And so then you
1:03:11take that language, and here's the thing
1:03:12about most websites. Most websites are
1:03:14extraordinarily bad at targeting
1:03:17language specifically with SEO, with
1:03:20their websites. Rank Just ranking in
1:03:22Google by being really targeted. So, now
1:03:25you know the language that and that the
1:03:29LLM that the large language model is
1:03:31doing
1:03:32is using. And you take this and you put
1:03:35this language in your page title, you
1:03:37put it in your URL slug, you put it in
1:03:40your H1, you put it at the beginning of
1:03:42your first sentence. What you are What
1:03:45you are doing is you are literally
1:03:46optimizing pages on your website for
1:03:49this language. And so, by doing that, if
1:03:53if especially if you have people linking
1:03:57to your site and sharing your site, you
1:03:59have what's called an SEO authority, now
1:04:01you're going to show up in search really
1:04:03high for this language. And then when
1:04:07the LLM does a web search like it
1:04:09invariably does because so many prompts
1:04:12results in web searches, when the LLM is
1:04:14doing web search, it's going to come
1:04:16across your content. And you control the
1:04:19narrative in the content. You say what
1:04:20you want it to say and the LLM, like you
1:04:22said Harpreet, is going to parrot
1:04:24whatever you write.
1:04:26Yeah, basically that's what it is.
1:04:29And you know, we can say GEO kind of
1:04:30comes down to that. And GEO is going to
1:04:33parrot whatever you write and whatever
1:04:35third party
1:04:36Whatever
1:04:37people outside of your business write
1:04:39about your business. Um So, yeah, try
1:04:42and
1:04:43get the parrot to say good things and
1:04:45you can't get the parrot to say good
1:04:46things though.
1:04:49Be mentioned in all these other review
1:04:51sites. Say the right things about your
1:04:53product on your website. Put the
1:04:54information there like pricing is a big
1:04:56one.
1:04:57So many companies, SaaS companies, they
1:04:59hide their pricing.
1:05:01But when you ask ChatGPT about the
1:05:03pricing of a B2B SaaS company, it is
1:05:06going to tell you. If you don't have
1:05:08something on your website, it's going to
1:05:09make some It's going to make something
1:05:10up. It's going to pull it from G2. it's
1:05:12going to pull it from Reddit, it's going
1:05:13to get it from somewhere. So, you might
1:05:15as well try and influence the pricing.
1:05:17If you want to hide your pricing, that's
1:05:19okay, but you can say starts from
1:05:2110,000, starts from 5,000, starts from
1:05:2350,000. Even if you say that, Chat GPT
1:05:26will reference your website and say that
1:05:29this company does not specify its
1:05:31pricing, but they do say they start from
1:05:33this. That is better than Chat GPT
1:05:35linking out to a Reddit thread that
1:05:37says, "Oh, you this was way too
1:05:38expensive. They quoted me 40,000."
1:05:41So, that's something
1:05:42you can something you can do as well.
1:05:44>> in the wild, we were talking about
1:05:46LLMs specifically searching like G2
1:05:50not even when you don't ask it to.
1:05:52You're not saying go search G2, it's
1:05:55literally just doing that. Have you
1:05:56actually seen that happen in the wild?
1:05:58Yeah. Yeah, I have. Um this is the query
1:06:00funnel I noticed um last
1:06:03I think last week, a couple of weeks
1:06:04ago, I've noticed this where I'm
1:06:06searching for
1:06:08I'm searching for let's just say the
1:06:09best uh best email marketing software,
1:06:12and I've seen Chat GPT put G2 in the
1:06:15in its query funnel title. So, it'll be
1:06:16like Actually, now it's even more
1:06:18interesting cuz it'll put in company A,
1:06:20company B, company C, and they're
1:06:22usually well-known companies, they're
1:06:23not newer companies, and it will add
1:06:25like G2 reviews as the query funnel. So,
1:06:27I've had that as the query funnel before
1:06:29as company A, company B, company C, G2
1:06:32um reviews. Has it been Has it been with
1:06:35the initial query funnel or has it been
1:06:37with like
1:06:38a pattern that I've seen is
1:06:41the LLM will do an initial search and
1:06:45then gather companies to look into and
1:06:47then do further searches within the same
1:06:50prompt, do further searches
1:06:52into those companies then searching G2.
1:06:56So, it's not starting with the G2 search
1:06:57or have you seen it starting with the G2
1:06:59search? I've seen it start with a G2
1:07:01search. That was my That's my and that's
1:07:02my initial That would be my initial
1:07:05query funnel prompt, yeah. I've I've
1:07:08seen it start with the initial. Well, it
1:07:09comes it comes down to then what it
1:07:11comes down to what you're saying, like
1:07:13also try to have a good product because
1:07:14if you don't, you're going to get these
1:07:15bad reviews. And And if if you will have
1:07:18a If you have a brand that is doing a
1:07:20sufficient amount of business,
1:07:22customers are going to say if they had a
1:07:24bad experience. Yes.
1:07:25>> Try Try to prevent that. But the other
1:07:27thing I'd say is don't just focus on one
1:07:29third-party platform. Like today it's
1:07:31G2, tomorrow it could be Capterra,
1:07:33right? And I've I've seen it like um
1:07:36today it's Reddit, tomorrow could be
1:07:38Trustpilot. Like we remember that time
1:07:39in September or October when Reddit
1:07:41completely fell out of OpenAI's results.
1:07:45And everyone was like, "Oh, the Reddit
1:07:46stock went down cuz
1:07:48OpenAI is not citing them anymore."
1:07:50Never put your eggs in one basket with
1:07:52with GEO. Try and make sure your reviews
1:07:56are optimized on every platform, right?
1:07:58If you're on Trustpilot, TrustRadius, I
1:08:00don't know how many of these they are.
1:08:01Make sure you don't have a bad review
1:08:03You can't make sure you don't have bad
1:08:05reviews, but make sure you have good
1:08:06reviews across the across the board. Um
1:08:10set up alerts. Set up a monitor that if
1:08:12this random review website, someone
1:08:15leaves you a one-star review,
1:08:17um you can go there and address it. Make
1:08:19sure your Yelp profile is optimized.
1:08:21Even if you don't use it, make sure your
1:08:22review rating is good. Make sure your
1:08:25profile description matches what you
1:08:26want to be known for
1:08:28what you want to be known for right now.
1:08:30So yeah, it's more just
1:08:32scan the internet for your brand.
1:08:35Wherever your brand can be and just make
1:08:36sure that thing is is optimized and make
1:08:38sure good things are said about your
1:08:40company.
1:08:42You know, it's this uh
1:08:44the original concept for this episode,
1:08:47which I I think we should touch on, is
1:08:48how
1:08:50there's a possibility that the web is
1:08:53going to get reshuffled because of all
1:08:56of these major companies that are
1:08:58falling for the spam tactics, the rank
1:09:02and tank mount AI spam tactics that we
1:09:04talked about at the beginning of the
1:09:06episode. And so, the a lot of major
1:09:09companies are falling for it. They don't
1:09:11have their
1:09:13their marketers are not sophisticated
1:09:16enough. Their C-suite is not
1:09:18sophisticated enough to know what
1:09:20happens or or to know that you're going
1:09:22to get in trouble if you're scaling
1:09:25these listicles with very clear
1:09:27patterns. And
1:09:30Yeah,
1:09:30they just don't know. And so, you
1:09:32literally are seeing this happen with
1:09:34lots of major major major companies. And
1:09:37the concept is that the web is going to
1:09:39get reshuffled and there's going to be
1:09:42now tons of room to take the SEO real
1:09:47estate
1:09:48that these big companies once had
1:09:51because they are tanking themselves.
1:09:53Yeah.
1:09:54I
1:09:55You know, I'd I'd agree with that. And
1:09:56I'd say that the internet is already
1:09:58being reshuffled by
1:10:00the way people search themselves. So,
1:10:02like Google's AI overviews, AI mode,
1:10:04ChatGPT, Claude, that's reshuffling the
1:10:07internet in itself because um
1:10:10I'm looking at Home Depot's uh traffic
1:10:13right now. Not to say that they've done
1:10:15anything bad, but I remember a few years
1:10:17ago they were seen as like a
1:10:18best-in-class website for how-to
1:10:20queries. So, like how to get rid of
1:10:22mold, how to fix a leaky how to how to
1:10:24water your lawn, how to get rid of black
1:10:26mold, how to install a French drain, how
1:10:29to patch and repair drywall.
1:10:31And these were seen as best-in-class
1:10:33pages because they ranked for the term,
1:10:35they had a video, and then they
1:10:37explained how to do the thing.
1:10:39But now you search for that inside
1:10:41Google's AI overviews. Um you Google
1:10:43that search, how to get rid of mold or
1:10:45how to how to patch and repair drywall.
1:10:48The AI overview tells you, what's the
1:10:49purpose of this Home Depot page now? Cuz
1:10:51there's even a video in the AI overview.
1:10:54So, I'd say the internet's already being
1:10:56being reshuffled. And like you said
1:10:57about all these companies losing
1:10:58traffic,
1:11:00yes, like there's com- there's there's
1:11:02companies making pages, gaining the top
1:11:03of funnel traffic, then losing it
1:11:06because that domain gets hit on an
1:11:08algorithm level, you know, for a couple
1:11:09of years if they don't start doing the
1:11:10right things. That gives an opportunity
1:11:12to another company to take that place.
1:11:14Now, because the AI overview is there,
1:11:16because the AI answer is there, they're
1:11:18not going to get the traffic that they
1:11:20got 5 years ago. Like that's that's
1:11:22gone.
1:11:23But they're going to get some exposure.
1:11:25Um
1:11:26AI overviews
1:11:28in the linked box, sometimes your logo,
1:11:31you can see the company logo. That's a
1:11:33brand impression. You might be able to
1:11:35get your brand or website listed right
1:11:37underneath the overview. That's a brand
1:11:38impression. And we know companies love
1:11:40to pay for brand impressions. People
1:11:42they do that on billboards, TV ads, and
1:11:43so and so. So now I think being on page
1:11:46one of Google or just underneath the AI
1:11:48overview and in the AI overview, yeah,
1:11:51it's not just about the click. It's
1:11:52also, in my opinion, it's also a brand
1:11:54impression. Someone can see your logo
1:11:56and be like, "Okay, that's one
1:11:57impression. I know who that company is.
1:11:59No, that company is
1:12:01company Y." So yeah, I think the web is
1:12:03being reshuffled. I think the way we're
1:12:04doing marketing is being reshuffled.
1:12:07The one thing I don't think that's being
1:12:08reshuffled is marketing tactics. Well,
1:12:11actually no, that's wrong. Marketing
1:12:13tactics are being reshuffled, but
1:12:14there's nothing new. The order of the
1:12:16importance of tactics are just changing.
1:12:18Like even we talked about, you know,
1:12:20what are we doing for GEO? What are we
1:12:21doing for SEO? There's things that we
1:12:24can do for GEO now that we stopped doing
1:12:26for SEO in the last 5 years, but we did
1:12:29do them 10 years ago
1:12:31type of thing. Um so I just think that
1:12:34yeah,
1:12:36tactics are remaining the same, but
1:12:37there there are things that are being
1:12:39being reshuffled.
1:12:41At any given point, you as a brand, as a
1:12:43company, just need to make sure that you
1:12:45don't do anything
1:12:47that will put you on the bad side of an
1:12:49algorithm. Like just question yourself.
1:12:51Like when I'm scanning content, what
1:12:53impact is this going to have to me in
1:12:542-3 years? If you're If you run a churn
1:12:57and burn website, if you run a website
1:12:59built for short-term gains,
1:13:02some of these tactics are fine. Like, go
1:13:03ahead. Like, that's your business model.
1:13:05But, if you're a real business with real
1:13:07customers and you have a 10-year plan,
1:13:0915-year plan, you want to be around for
1:13:11a long time,
1:13:12you can't afford to do some of these
1:13:14tactics even if you get a short-term
1:13:15short-term gain.
1:13:17You wrote to me I I like this comment.
1:13:20You You You wrote to me
1:13:22uh over DM. You said, "Look at Google AI
1:13:25mode. Looks like SEO is going back to
1:13:27the old days where product pages and
1:13:29categories and the home pages are
1:13:31ranked."
1:13:31>> Yeah.
1:13:32Yeah. And I see that more and more now
1:13:35actually compared to a few months ago.
1:13:37And I think Google is trying to take
1:13:39action on some of these top-of-funnel
1:13:40pages. So,
1:13:41I look I was looking for the best
1:13:43e-commerce website platforms.
1:13:46And there were some listicles cited by
1:13:49Google.
1:13:50But, the brands mentioned, you could
1:13:52click on them and go directly onto their
1:13:54home page. But, all of these brands that
1:13:56were mentioned for that time, they also
1:13:58had a listicle on their website. So,
1:14:00what was the point of making the
1:14:01listicle? Because now Google's sending
1:14:02you to the home page or it's sending you
1:14:04to the product page.
1:14:05Um when you look for services, it's the
1:14:08same It's the same thing.
1:14:10Um oftentimes Google will either
1:14:11underline the clickable like the company
1:14:14name, they will underline it. If it's
1:14:15blue, you go directly to their website.
1:14:18If it's a dotted black line, then it
1:14:20opens up another search for that for
1:14:22that brand name.
1:14:24When that happens,
1:14:25the citations on the right are kind of
1:14:27mute cuz you're not going to click on
1:14:28those and go to the citations. You're
1:14:29just going to go to the brand directly
1:14:31or you're going to search for the brand
1:14:32directly. So, that's another way
1:14:34that things are being reshuffled. I
1:14:36think the blog section like long-form
1:14:38content, it is having less of an
1:14:40importance. But, now this ties into all
1:14:43the other stuff we just talked about and
1:14:45being mentioned in other places and
1:14:46being recognized for what you do.
1:14:48Because if you're not going to be
1:14:49recognized for what you do,
1:14:51you're not going to be listed by Google
1:14:53as, you know, a solution for whatever or
1:14:56as a service for for whatever it is you
1:14:59sell.
1:15:00I also want to go back to what you were
1:15:01saying about top of funnel content cuz
1:15:03personally I I like I make a lot of
1:15:05episodes about this. I just think going
1:15:07after top of funnel content, putting
1:15:09your effort towards top of funnel
1:15:11content is such a waste. It was I think
1:15:13it was a waste actually before. This is
1:15:16where a lot of people
1:15:18I wouldn't even say disagree with me,
1:15:19just no one even stopped to think about
1:15:21it. But even before chat GPT, I think
1:15:24making top of funnel SEO content was a
1:15:26waste. I I like the thing about bottom
1:15:29of funnel content is it's very easy to
1:15:31rank for. It's very non-competitive. The
1:15:33most high intent terms are the least
1:15:36searched terms and because they're the
1:15:38least searched terms, they have the
1:15:40least competition. And just because like
1:15:43most marketers are going where all the
1:15:45search volume is, where all the traffic
1:15:46is. But if you instead go where all the
1:15:49intent is, there's paradoxically less
1:15:51competition there. And and when the AI
1:15:54is citing you, you are being cited for
1:15:56something where somebody wants to go to
1:15:58another website to convert. They're not
1:16:00looking to get information and leave.
1:16:02They are literally looking to take an
1:16:04action.
1:16:06Yeah, that's that's right. And I think
1:16:07with top of funnel traffic, a lot of the
1:16:09thing was back in the day people wanted
1:16:11to monetize with AdSense.
1:16:13And I think of that AdSense or I forgot
1:16:15what the other platforms are called, but
1:16:17their whole thing was they just wanted
1:16:18clicks and because there were so many
1:16:20case studies about getting clicks with
1:16:22top of funnel content,
1:16:24other brands started to do this too
1:16:25because they thought more organic
1:16:27traffic means more sales. It doesn't
1:16:28necessarily pan out
1:16:30for businesses, but if your model was to
1:16:32get traffic through, you know, AdSense
1:16:34and stuff like that,
1:16:36it did work out. And I I agree with you.
1:16:37I think with top of funnel content now,
1:16:39let's just say like what is um
1:16:42what is financial reporting as a just as
1:16:46an example.
1:16:48You can make a page for that keyword,
1:16:49but AI is going to tell you what it is.
1:16:52Um
1:16:52but if you're a brand and you're a an
1:16:54accounting brand or whatever,
1:16:56you want to have an opinion in your top
1:16:59of funnel content that no other company
1:17:00has or you want to have a point of view
1:17:02and you want to try and shape the
1:17:04narrative of that term. In that case,
1:17:07top of funnel content would be good, but
1:17:09for a lot of companies, they're cuz
1:17:11they're not at that superstar level
1:17:12where what they say makes a difference,
1:17:14right? A lot of companies, you can put
1:17:15stuff out, no one really cares about
1:17:18what you're putting out. But if you're a
1:17:20top brand, like if Apple put out
1:17:22something in their blog for a top of
1:17:23funnel keyword, but they wanted to frame
1:17:27something new or they brought like a new
1:17:28narrative into the mix,
1:17:30people would listen. So in that sense,
1:17:32top of funnel is good cuz they've
1:17:33already got an audience. They've already
1:17:35got the authority to have an audience.
1:17:36But yeah, if you're a
1:17:38if you're a small brand and you're just
1:17:39making a page for what is financial
1:17:41reporting, like what's the point cuz AI
1:17:43is going to answer the question. The
1:17:44best thing you can hope for is like I
1:17:46said, the brand impression.
1:17:49But at the same time, when you've got 50
1:17:51other things to do,
1:17:53you know, your effort is better gone
1:17:55towards just making the bottom of funnel
1:17:57content that's going to have an impact
1:17:58on revenue. And when you have more
1:17:59resour- resources and more time, you can
1:18:02do some of the other the other marketing
1:18:04stuff.
1:18:05Yeah, it's instead do like financial
1:18:07reporting software for small businesses
1:18:10or you could even literally niche down
1:18:12further. You could do financial
1:18:14reporting software for brick-and-mortar
1:18:16businesses. And the further you niche
1:18:19down, the less competition there is. And
1:18:21you know what's what's cool, too, is
1:18:23that a lot of people, the way that they
1:18:25are using LLMs, is they're giving really
1:18:27long prompts. They're telling the LLM
1:18:30all about themselves. And so it the LLM
1:18:34will now actually do a more specific
1:18:36search. And so if you're saying that you
1:18:39can sat that you address all these
1:18:42different customers, the LM is coming
1:18:44across that in its searches. Yeah. Yeah,
1:18:47exactly. Exactly, and you're going to
1:18:48find that, like you said, through the
1:18:50through the query funnel. So, yeah,
1:18:52there's a lot of research that needs to
1:18:53be done in in in my opinion.
1:18:56If you have an SEO person, if you have
1:18:58an SEO team, if you have an SEO agency,
1:19:00ask them these questions, you know, ask
1:19:02them
1:19:03for our main keywords, what kind of
1:19:05funnels are showing up? And you know,
1:19:07and they'll do that analysis. A lot of
1:19:09keyword tools now, when you measure
1:19:11prompts, they do give you the funnel,
1:19:13but you can they can also do this
1:19:14manually, and sometimes you have to
1:19:16sometimes you just have to put in the
1:19:17time. You have to see what else is
1:19:19showing up. If you want to rank for best
1:19:22running shoes, but the query funnel is
1:19:25always citing
1:19:27let's just say like REI or like a big a
1:19:29big running store, you kind of have to
1:19:31make sure that your you're mentioned in
1:19:33that website that's being cited. So,
1:19:36GEO, there's lots of things that are
1:19:37easy, but it all starts with research.
1:19:40Where is the AI getting its information
1:19:42from?
1:19:43Now, you're going to reverse engineer to
1:19:44get yourself
1:19:46shown in
1:19:47shown in AI answers.
1:19:49Yeah. So, all right. Let's let's wrap it
1:19:52with just some overview questions. So,
1:19:55the standard ways that people are doing
1:19:58generative engine optimization right
1:19:59now,
1:20:00is that safe?
1:20:02No. No, it's not, and we can see that
1:20:04from the case studies. Yeah. And then,
1:20:07if you were to just like summarize the
1:20:09right ways to do it, just to leave
1:20:11people with like just a summary of what
1:20:13we talked about, what would you
1:20:14>> Yeah, so I'd say yeah, I'd say 80% of it
1:20:16or 70% 70 to 80% of it is good SEO, so
1:20:19making sure you have your website is
1:20:21technically sound, making sure, like you
1:20:23said, have the pages for the products
1:20:25you services that you offer, right?
1:20:27That's just basic basic marketing. Have
1:20:30a page for what you offer. If you're in
1:20:32a If you're location-based, have pages
1:20:34for those locations. Um have content for
1:20:37the things you offer. Not every list is
1:20:39bad. So, if you're selling If you're a
1:20:41toy store, for example, have the top the
1:20:44top 10 birthday gifts, for example, and
1:20:46you can position certain toys or
1:20:47whatever in in like position 1 to 10.
1:20:50So,
1:20:51do that. Then, once your SEO is on
1:20:53point, once you've got an SEO strategy,
1:20:55now go beyond your website. What else
1:20:57can you do? So, um for the for your
1:20:59target keywords for your target
1:21:00searches, who is showing up? Um are they
1:21:03affiliates? Okay. Can you now reach out
1:21:05to those affiliates and can you be
1:21:07mentioned on those websites? Are videos
1:21:09showing up for your set of answers?
1:21:11Okay. If they are, what's your video
1:21:13strategy? Do you have a video strategy
1:21:14in play? Are people searching for your
1:21:16stuff outside of AI and outside of
1:21:19Google? In TikTok, a lot of travel video
1:21:22a lot of travel stuff like five things
1:21:24to do in Vancouver or like 10 things to
1:21:26do or best restaurants in Lisbon or
1:21:28whatever. People are searching in
1:21:29TikTok. People are searching on
1:21:30Instagram. Do you have a presence there?
1:21:32Are you searching it for those type of
1:21:34terms? Um and then, of course,
1:21:37Reddit. What are people saying about
1:21:38your product on Reddit and can you
1:21:40actually influence it? What threads What
1:21:43threads are showing up um in in AI
1:21:45answers? Can you influence those
1:21:47threads? Do you need to own your
1:21:49subreddit? If someone's saying bad
1:21:50things about your brand, maybe you
1:21:52create a subreddit for your brand name.
1:21:53So, these are some of the things you can
1:21:54do to get started with GEO. But, like I
1:21:57said, 70 to 80% is just good SEO. And
1:22:01then, the rest of it
1:22:03builds on that SEO and you're going to
1:22:05talk to your marketing team about
1:22:06affiliates and social and your community
1:22:09presence and things like that.
1:22:10And reputation management.
1:22:12>> Yeah.
1:22:13Yeah.
1:22:14Exactly. Yeah. Harpreet Singh, thank you
1:22:16for joining the show.
1:22:18Where uh for for new people, where can
1:22:20they find you?
1:22:21Uh you can find me on X under Harpreet
1:22:23Chatter underscore. Uh you can also find
1:22:25me on TikTok and and and YouTube, but
1:22:27all my links will be in the in the
1:22:29description. Yep. All right. This is
1:22:31episode 1,039
1:22:35of the Edward show. 1,000 If you're new
1:22:37to this show, I've done this for 1,039
1:22:40days in a row without missing a single
1:22:43day. I've had so many interesting SEO
1:22:46conversations, geo conversations,
1:22:49marketing conversations for 1,000 30
1:22:52It's a lot of solo episodes, too. But
1:22:55for 1,039 days in a row. If you watch us
1:22:58on YouTube, thank you so much for
1:23:00watching. If you listened on Spotify or
1:23:02Apple Podcasts, thank you so much for
1:23:04listening. And I will talk to you again
1:23:06tomorrow.
1:23:08Bye now.

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This page contains the full transcript of Generative Engine Optimization: Is It Safe and How to Do It the Right Way by Edward Sturm, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 15,581 words across 2,400 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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