Is SEO Worth It Anymore? — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Is SEO worth it anymore? Honest answer,
2. 0:03no. Not the way most people do it. The
3. 0:05old way of doing SEO is finished and the
4. 0:07data actually proves it. It's a 68% of
5. 0:10Google searches in the US now end
6. 0:12without a single click. And if you think
7. 0:14about that, that's two out of every
8. 0:16three searches. Nobody clicks anything.
9. 0:18The answer just appears at the top and
10. 0:20people leave. So, if your entire SEO
11. 0:22plan is rank number one and wait for the
12. 0:25click, you're playing a game that mostly
13. 0:27stopped helping you a long time ago.
14. 0:29But, here's the other half of the
15. 0:31answer. The new way of doing SEO got
16. 0:3427,000 free clicks across five of my
17. 0:36websites in 90 days. Actually, on one
18. 0:38single website, we got 27,800
19. 0:41clicks from AI SEO and the website's
20. 0:44trajectory in terms of SEO is growing
21. 0:47nicely. I didn't write a single article
22. 0:48by hand on this. I've never even logged
23. 0:51into this website. So, SEO isn't
24. 0:53finished, but the old version is. By the
25. 0:55end of this video, you'll know exactly
26. 0:57what changed, the real numbers behind
27. 0:59it, and also like actual case studies.
28. 1:01So, research backed behind what's going
29. 1:04on in SEO, how it's changing. Stick
30. 1:06around because there's one number about
31. 1:09AI visitors that completely flips how
32. 1:12you should think about traffic. It's
33. 1:15actually the most underrated stat in all
34. 1:19of marketing right now.
35. 1:21So, let's start with why old SEO has
36. 1:23stopped working because once you see it,
37. 1:25everything else makes sense. So, for 20
38. 1:26years, SEO had one job: be the best
39. 1:29answer on Google. Marketers did exactly
40. 1:31what Google asked. They answered
41. 1:32questions better than anyone. They
42. 1:35covered every single angle and they got
43. 1:36so good at it that Google ended up with
44. 1:38clean, perfect answers to almost
45. 1:40everything. And that could be like
46. 1:42lyrics, or it could be weather, it could
47. 1:44be recipes, how-to guides. And once the
48. 1:46answers were that good, Google stopped
49. 1:48needing to sending you to the visitor
50. 1:50because it could just read the answer
51. 1:52out loud. Here's an example. So, if you
52. 1:54look at this keyword, you can see that
53. 1:56it just reads the answer out loud based
54. 1:59on the content we've created. And so,
55. 2:02that's what AI Overviews are, Google
56. 2:04just reading the internet's homework
57. 2:05back to people before they ever click.
58. 2:07And they're not a small feature anymore.
59. 2:09BrightEdge now tracks AI Overviews
60. 2:13showing up on 48% of queries across the
61. 2:16industries it monitors. So, up 58% in a
62. 2:19single year. In some topics, like for
63. 2:22example education, they trigger on
64. 2:23roughly 80% searches. So, half of Google
65. 2:26now answers before you get a chance to.
66. 2:28Now, let me run you through the numbers
67. 2:30because this is where it gets real, my
68. 2:32friends. And these aren't my numbers, by
69. 2:34the way. These are some of the biggest
70. 2:36studies published over the last year,
71. 2:37and together they tell one clear story.
72. 2:39So, example one, Pew Research. They
73. 2:41tracked 900 real people making almost
74. 2:4469,000 real Google searches. When an AI
75. 2:47summary appeared, Google saw that people
76. 2:50clicked a result just 8% of the time,
77. 2:52without one 15%. So, the AI answer
78. 2:55roughly cuts your click in half. And it
79. 2:57gets worse. People clicked a source
80. 2:59cited inside the AI summary itself just
81. 3:011% of the time, 1%. Example number two,
82. 3:04Ahrefs. They studied 300,000 keywords
83. 3:08using real search console data, and they
84. 3:10found that when an AI Overview shows up,
85. 3:14the click-through rate for the number
86. 3:15one result drops by 58%. And here's the
87. 3:18scary part about the speed of this. When
88. 3:20they ran the same study back in April
89. 3:242025, the drop was 34.5%. So, in about
90. 3:27eight months, the damage went from a
91. 3:30third of your clicks to more than half.
92. 3:32The trend line only points one single
93. 3:34way. Example number three, SparkToro and
94. 3:36SimilarWeb, the big one. In the first
95. 3:38four months of 2026, 68% of US Google
96. 3:41searches have ended without a click. In
97. 3:442024, it was 60.45%.
98. 3:46So, that jump is the fastest two-year
99. 3:50move since they started measuring. And
100. 3:53when you break it down by search type,
101. 3:55it tells you exactly where the pain is.
102. 3:56Informational searches, the how-to stuff
103. 3:59most blogs are built on, end without a
104. 4:02click 74% of the time. But buying type
105. 4:04searches only 31% end without a click.
106. 4:08So the question gets eaten by AI, but
107. 4:11people with buying intent still click.
108. 4:13You want to remember that because it
109. 4:14matters a lot later. Example number
110. 4:16four, and this one shows how fast
111. 4:18people's habits are moving. ChatGPT
112. 4:20passed 900 weekly active users as of
113. 4:23OpenAI's February 2026 update, handling
114. 4:27around 2 and 1/2 billion prompts every
115. 4:30single day. And Google's AI mode, the
116. 4:32full chat version of Google, passed 1
117. 4:34billion monthly users announced at
118. 4:36Google I/O 2026. On top of that, 37% of
119. 4:39consumers now say they start their
120. 4:41searches with an AI tool instead of a
121. 4:44normal search engine. More than a third
122. 4:46of your future customers open an AI
123. 4:49first, not Google, an AI. So if you put
124. 4:52those four together, AI answers now
125. 4:55cover half of Google, they cut cut
126. 4:57clicks in half where they appear, 2/3 of
127. 5:00searches end with no click at all, and a
128. 5:03billion people are asking AI tools
129. 5:06directly instead. That's what's changed.
130. 5:08That's why is SEO worth it is even a
131. 5:11question. And here's the fifth number,
132. 5:13the one that should actually give you a
133. 5:15bit of So Sistrix Interactive studied 53
134. 5:18brands, 5.47 million queries, and 2.43
135. 5:22billion impressions. And they found the
136. 5:24click didn't disappear. It moved. Brands
137. 5:26cited inside the AI answer earn about
138. 5:3035% more clicks than brands sitting
139. 5:33right below without a citation. So just
140. 5:35to recap, brands cited inside the AI
141. 5:38answer earn about 35% more clicks than
142. 5:41brands sitting right below without a
143. 5:42citation. Google's AI overviews aren't
144. 5:45just reducing clicks. They're redistrib-
145. 5:48huh redistributing
146. 5:50them, sending more traffic to the sites
147. 5:52they site, and far less to the ones they
148. 5:54don't. So, the game was like, "Never is
149. 5:56SEO worth it?" The real question is, how
150. 5:58do you become the name that AI trusts
151. 6:01enough to repeat? Because whoever gets
152. 6:03named gets everything now, and whoever
153. 6:05doesn't gets skipped, sadly. And that's
154. 6:08exactly what the rest of this video
155. 6:09shows you. I call this the everywhere
156. 6:12engine, and I've tested it across five
157. 6:14different websites, uh subreddit,
158. 6:16video content, and I'm going to walk you
159. 6:18through every single piece. The
160. 6:20five-site flywheel, the free Google data
161. 6:23trick that answers you your keywords
162. 6:25nobody else can see, and the one factor
163. 6:27that AI masters more than your own
164. 6:28website. And that last one comes from a
165. 6:31study of 82 ranking factors, and the
166. 6:33answer at number two shocked me. Quick
167. 6:35pause first, everything I'm about to
168. 6:36show you is broken down step-by-step
169. 6:38inside our free SEO course, link in the
170. 6:40description. You get all our best AI SEO
171. 6:42trainings, including topical map
172. 6:45trainings, how we used to plan content,
173. 6:47our keyword research methods, content
174. 6:49frameworks that keep quality high, free.
175. 6:51And if you'd rather have a free SEO
176. 6:53strategy session, the course actually
177. 6:54comes with that, too. Link in the
178. 6:56comments description. Now, let's build
179. 6:58the engine step-by-step. So, piece
180. 7:00number one, the five-site flywheel. So,
181. 7:02instead of one website publishing one
182. 7:04article and hoping you run five small
183. 7:06websites. This is just what I'm doing,
184. 7:08not recommended it, I'm just showing you
185. 7:10what actually works for me based on this
186. 7:12one, this website, this website, this
187. 7:15one, and this one. You can see the
188. 7:16trajectory of each website. Traffic is
189. 7:18going up nicely. If we check out AI
190. 7:20search, it's also going up nicely. This
191. 7:23is something I've personally tested. It
192. 7:24works for me. Might not work for you.
193. 7:25But, let's keep going through. So,
194. 7:27basically, one keyword goes in, one real
195. 7:30case study goes in, the AI writes five
196. 7:32different articles, different titles,
197. 7:33different angles, different examples,
198. 7:35and they go out across all five sites
199. 7:38the same day. Every article links to the
200. 7:40others where it makes sense, And Google
201. 7:42gets pinged the same hour with Index
202. 7:44Exceptional as the API. So, it comes and
203. 7:47looks straight away. That means it's
204. 7:49just more likely to get indexed by
205. 7:50Google faster. A flywheel is a heavy
206. 7:53wheel that's hard to get moved. But
207. 7:55every push adds to the last one and
208. 7:57eventually it spins on its own. That's
209. 7:59exactly what's happening here. Every
210. 8:00article creates fresh impression data.
211. 8:03That data reveals new keywords. Those
212. 8:06keywords feed the next spin. So, if you
213. 8:08compare that to the old way, one
214. 8:10website, one article day if you fast,
215. 8:12getting from a tool that shows everyone
216. 8:14the same numbers, then waiting months
217. 8:15for Google to maybe notice, the gap
218. 8:17between these two approaches is the
219. 8:19whole point in this video. Piece number
220. 8:20two, the fuel. So, your own Google
221. 8:22Search Console data. A Search Console is
222. 8:25Google's free tool that shows you every
223. 8:27keyword your site appears for. Most
224. 8:28people don't really open it and don't
225. 8:30understand it, but it's the only keyword
226. 8:32tool on Earth showing data nobody else
227. 8:34can see because it's yours. And here's
228. 8:36something most people missed. In June
229. 8:382026, Google added a dedicated AI
230. 8:42performance tracker. So, you get reports
231. 8:44in Search Console. This only shows you
232. 8:45impressions, it doesn't show like what
233. 8:47you're actually ranking for, but Google
234. 8:48itself is now telling you how visible
235. 8:50you are inside AI answers for free. And
236. 8:52almost nobody checks it. There are two
237. 8:54patterns to hunt for in there. So,
238. 8:56first, gaps. One of my websites, for
239. 8:58example, was showing for AI SEO course,
240. 9:01650 impressions, position 21, zero
241. 9:04clicks. But there was no proper page for
242. 9:06it. So, Google was basically saying
243. 9:07like, "Give me a real page and I'll rank
244. 9:09it." So, you build the page. And the
245. 9:11second option is leaks. So, I'll give
246. 9:13you an example. Another keyword had over
247. 9:1514,000 impressions at position eight,
248. 9:17but less than 1% of people clicked. The
249. 9:19page ranked fine. The title and the
250. 9:22content just didn't earn the click.
251. 9:23Totally different fix. You rewrite and
252. 9:25improve the page instead of building a
253. 9:26new one. Your own data tells you which
254. 9:28situation you're in and what to do next.
255. 9:31So, there's no guessing. And this is how
256. 9:33the engine finds its next target every
257. 9:35single day. Piece number three, quality
258. 9:37control. And let's be honest about
259. 9:39something. Google isn't against AI
260. 9:41content. Google is against bad AI
261. 9:44content. There's a difference, and it's
262. 9:45a difference between ranking and getting
263. 9:47ignored. The way you avoid bad AI
264. 9:49content is a written set of rules the AI
265. 9:53follows every single time it writes.
266. 9:55Mine is 13 steps. I add real case
267. 9:58studies. This is a source of truth. So
268. 9:59every fact comes from something that
269. 10:01actually happened. I have five unique
270. 10:03articles per keyword. Never duplicate.
271. 10:06Titles are under about 60 characters
272. 10:09written to earn the click. A relevant
273. 10:10case study near the top of every page. A
274. 10:12clear call to action. And a
275. 10:14self-improvement step at the end so the
276. 10:16file gets sharper every time it runs.
277. 10:19Here's why that file matters. Anyone can
278. 10:21ask an AI to write one blog post, but
279. 10:23the rules file means article number 400
280. 10:26follows every rule as perfectly as
281. 10:28article number one. You and me, we'd
282. 10:30forget the rules by like article 12.
283. 10:32That's just being a human. The system
284. 10:34doesn't forget. And the ingredient that
285. 10:36makes the content actually good is your
286. 10:38own experience. Real tests you've run.
287. 10:40Real case studies. Real results, good
288. 10:42and bad. Real client work. That's called
289. 10:44information gain, adding something to
290. 10:46the internet that wasn't there before.
291. 10:48Nobody can copy it because it only
292. 10:49happened to you. And if you can describe
293. 10:51your own work, you can feed this engine.
294. 10:53That's the entire skill requirement.
295. 10:54Now, piece number four, the one that
296. 10:56changes how you think about everything.
297. 10:58Your own website matters less than what
298. 11:01the rest of the internet says about you.
299. 11:02MP Digital, for example, studied 82
300. 11:05different factors that influence whether
301. 11:06ChatGPT recommends a brand. Number one
302. 11:09was relevance. Fine, expected. But
303. 11:11number two, ranking above your own
304. 11:13site's authority, was brand mentions
305. 11:15across the rest of the web. What other
306. 11:17people say about you moves the AI more
307. 11:19than what you say about yourself. For 20
308. 11:21years, SEO was about pages you control.
309. 11:23Now, the thing deciding your fate lives
310. 11:27on pages you don't. So, for example, you
311. 11:29couldn't edit a of thread. You can't
312. 11:30rewrite someone else's review. You can
313. 11:32only become the kind of brand the
314. 11:34internet mentions in the right places
315. 11:35next to the right topics, which is
316. 11:37exactly why the everywhere engine
317. 11:39publishes beyond your own website. So,
318. 11:41we create a subreddit and post our
319. 11:43content there. In the last 30 days, I
320. 11:46actually pulled over 244,000
321. 11:49views. You can see the average
322. 11:50performance over time for our subreddit.
323. 11:52That's not all from SEO, but that's from
324. 11:54like the platform as well. And when the
325. 11:55AI engines crawl the web, they see our
326. 11:57brand mentioned next to our key terms on
327. 11:59Reddit, on our five websites, on our
328. 12:01social media, everywhere. So, several
329. 12:03sites keep connecting your name to the
330. 12:04topic, and the AI learns connection.
331. 12:06Then it starts recommending you inside
332. 12:08its answers. Your content network
333. 12:10literally teaches you see AI who you
334. 12:12are. Almost nobody's playing this game
335. 12:13yet. And this proves that it actually
336. 12:15works. Our sites now rank inside Google
337. 12:17AI overview, sometimes multiple times
338. 12:19inside a single answer. We rank in AI
339. 12:21mode, rank in regular Google, same
340. 12:23content, same engine showing up
341. 12:25everywhere. The question gets answered
342. 12:27uh sorry, asked. And there's one more
343. 12:29study that should get the small business
344. 12:31watching this excited. So, MP Digital
345. 12:35asked 100 content marketers, "What
346. 12:36actually gets you cited by AI?" The top
347. 12:38answer by a huge margin was freshness,
348. 12:40keeping content current. 91% said that.
349. 12:43Being an old, established, authoritative
350. 12:45source comes last at 17%. So, the AI
351. 12:48doesn't care how big a brand you used to
352. 12:49be. It cares how recently they mattered.
353. 12:52A small, sharp brand that keeps showing
354. 12:54up and stays current can get quoted
355. 12:56right over a sleepy giant coasting on an
356. 12:59old reputation. 10 years ago, you
357. 13:01couldn't really outrank the big sites,
358. 13:03no matter what you did. Now, the door is
359. 13:05wide open, and most of the giants
360. 13:06haven't noticed. And now, the number I
361. 13:08promised you at the start. So, the one
362. 13:09that flips how you should think about
363. 13:11traffic entirely. Everyone panics about
364. 13:13losing clicks. Almost nobody looks looks
365. 13:16at the quality of the clicks that
366. 13:18remain. So, here's what the research
367. 13:19found about visitors who arrive from AI
368. 13:22answers. Adobe answered and analyzed
369. 13:25more than a trillion visits to US retail
370. 13:28sites and found AI-driven traffic
371. 13:30converted 42% better than non-AI traffic
372. 13:33with those shoppers spending 48% more
373. 13:36time on product pages. Ahrefs reported
374. 13:38that AI search referrals were just 0.5%
375. 13:41of their total sessions but generated
376. 13:4312.1% of all their sign-ups. A study of
377. 13:46312 companies, these were B2B companies,
378. 13:49found AI-referred visitors converting at
379. 13:5214.2% versus 2.8% from Google organic,
380. 13:55roughly five times higher. An SE Ranking
381. 13:58found AI visitors spend 68% more time on
382. 14:00your site. Why? Because the AI already
383. 14:03did the comparing for them. Microsoft
384. 14:05Clarity describes it as AI working like
385. 14:08a pre-qualification layer. It filters
386. 14:10out the casual browsers before they ever
387. 14:12reach your site. So, the people who do
388. 14:14arrive carry much more and higher
389. 14:16intent. So, when someone lands on your
390. 14:18site from Google search, they might be
391. 14:20like one of 10 tabs they opened. When
392. 14:23someone lands on your site because an AI
393. 14:25recommended you by name, they've already
394. 14:27half decided. So, yes, you get fewer
395. 14:29visitors, but in this new world each one
396. 14:32is worth far more. Losing junk traffic
397. 14:35and gaining better quality traffic isn't
398. 14:37a loss. Most people just never look past
399. 14:40the traffic line see it. Now, let me
400. 14:42deal with the three thoughts probably
401. 14:43running through your head right now.
402. 14:44Number one, Google doesn't rank AI
403. 14:47content. We have nearly 1,500 AI-written
404. 14:50posts across these websites and the
405. 14:51traffic has grown the whole way through.
406. 14:53Once I actually went from CR 325 clicks
407. 14:56at its peak and keeps climbing. Another
408. 14:57one went from over two clicks a day to
409. 15:00over 60. And Google penalizes like lazy
410. 15:04AI content and rewards useful content
411. 15:06and it genuinely doesn't care who typed
412. 15:08it. Here's the proof. Google now shows
413. 15:10AI-generated answers above every human
414. 15:12result on the page on nearly half of
415. 15:14searches. So, Google made its position
416. 15:16on AI content pretty clear when it did
417. 15:18that. Now, thought number two might be
418. 15:20I'm not technical enough for this.
419. 15:22Honest truth, I can't even log into
420. 15:24these websites. So, they're not on
421. 15:25WordPress, there's no plugins, there's
422. 15:27no dashboard. The agent just syncs
423. 15:29directly with the API on Netlify, which
424. 15:31means it handles the publishing, the
425. 15:32formatting, and the indexing. My only
426. 15:34job is supplying a keyword and a real
427. 15:36example from my own work. If you can
428. 15:37describe what you do for your customers,
429. 15:39you meet the technical bar. And some
430. 15:41people say, "Well, this takes too long."
431. 15:43So, if you look at the trajectory of
432. 15:44these websites, that's a fair point. One
433. 15:46of my sites, for example, sat like
434. 15:48completely flat from January to April,
435. 15:51publishing constantly 30 to 60 clicks a
436. 15:53week, chart doing nothing. So, if you've
437. 15:56tried SEO, you know that feeling. Like
438. 15:58every week, a little voice asks you,
439. 16:01"Why are you bothering?"
440. 16:02And then it actually went from 81 clicks
441. 16:05a week to 293 to 405, straight up.
442. 16:08Completely new sites, they sit flat
443. 16:11whilst Google learns to trust them. So,
444. 16:13it's completely normal and precisely
445. 16:15where most people quit. Like 10 posts
446. 16:17in, nothing back, they walk away. But
447. 16:19the ones who quit never find out the
448. 16:21curve that was like 3 weeks ahead of
449. 16:23them. So, when the system runs it
450. 16:25instead of you, the flat months don't
451. 16:27even matter. Like it doesn't matter if
452. 16:29you don't rank for a few months cuz the
453. 16:31system is running in the background.
454. 16:32You've got Claude, or you've got Codex,
455. 16:34or you've got your other AI handling
456. 16:36this for you. So, what you actually do
457. 16:37with all this? You know, I would start
458. 16:39with what you know. You know, write down
459. 16:40three to five real results from your
460. 16:42business, a client that helped you. You
461. 16:43know, it could be a testimonial, it
462. 16:45could be a before and after. These
463. 16:46become the case studies that make your
464. 16:47content impossible to sound like AI
465. 16:50fluff. You can open up Google Search
466. 16:52Console, check the new AI performance
467. 16:54report to see if you're showing up in AI
468. 16:55and stuff. Then you can hunt the gaps,
469. 16:57keywords getting impressions and no page
470. 16:59built for them, and the leaks. So, for
471. 17:01example, pages ranking fine, but nobody
472. 17:03clicking. So, you want to fix the leaks
473. 17:04first. They're the fastest wins because
474. 17:06Google already trusts these pages. Then
475. 17:08set a rhythm. So, for example, one
476. 17:10keyword a day, 30 keywords a month,
477. 17:12compounding with fresh content going out
478. 17:14daily. That's a 91% freshness factor
479. 17:16working for you whilst the big
480. 17:18established players sit on this 18% and
481. 17:21publish your own site. So, you want to
482. 17:22be publishing on your own site answering
483. 17:24questions in communities where your
484. 17:26customers hang out. That could be
485. 17:27Reddit, that could be school, it could
486. 17:28be LinkedIn, whatever. If you do that
487. 17:30consistently, typically, you will start
488. 17:32ranking. And if you want a free SEO
489. 17:34course on how to do all this, link in
490. 17:35the comments and description. And you
491. 17:37can also book in a free SEO strategy
492. 17:39session once you sign up. So, it's
493. 17:40pretty cool and it's free. And you might
494. 17:42as well check it out. It's got all of my
495. 17:43best trainings on SEO in there. Thanks
496. 17:44for watching. Bye.