Rethinking SEO in the age of AI | Eli Schwartz (SEO advisor, author)
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How is AI changing the fundamentals of SEO and why does it matter?
You've noticed a significant shift in how SEO works with the rise of AI answers being integrated into search results. Transparently, I thought this was gonna be an apocalypse.
Up until AI overviews, whoever won on that long form piece of content would get that first clip. But now that doesn't exist anymore.
What should people do to be successful in this new paradigm?
Think of SEO as a product. The product managers are the people that should be thinking about this SEO question because it's a product question. Product people need to think about how do we position this to the user that is not going to find out about this from a social channel that's not going to be attracted by an ad. This is a user that's doing their own self-discovery journey. If you can't answer the question about what is it that someone's going to do a search on, then don't do SEO.
To a lot of people, SEO is kind of this dark art. It is not a dark art. It is simple.
I think step one is the step that almost everyone misses on SEO, which is
Today, my guest is Eli Schwartz. Eli is a growth advisor specializing in SEO and has helped companies like Cora, Coinbase, Tinder, LinkedIn, WordPress, and Zapier develop and execute their SEO strategies. He's also the author of Product Led SEO and has a very refreshing take on how to think about SEO and win at SEO. Recently, he's been spending a lot of his time analyzing how SEO changes With the rise of LLM chatbots, Google giving you the answers straight in the search results, and also how to utilize AI in your SEO strategy.
Why should SEO be treated as a product and who should own it?
In this episode, we dive deep into everything that you need to know to be successful in this new AI paradigm. As Eli shares in the conversation, Google is just now rolling out changes to how search works and is greatly increasing how many searches include an AI-generated answer at the top of the search results. results, so things are gonna start shifting under our feet pretty quickly. If you're at all thinking about SEO, working on SEO, or are just curious about how search is evolving, this episode is for you. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and it helps the podcast tremendously.
With that, I bring you Eli Schwartz. Eli, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
It's a real honor to be here. You've had some amazing guests, and I'm honored to be counted as one of them.
It's completely my honor. You've been working on SEO for a long time. You've been helping companies figure out how to win at SEO for a long time, over a decade. And we were chatting about what's happening in SEO, and you told me that. You've noticed a significant shift in how SEO works with the rise of LLMs, with the rise of AI answers being integrated into search results. And so I thought it'd be awesome just to spend an entire episode talking about what people need to know about what's changing in SEO and how to be successful in this new paradigm of SEO with LMs and AI being prevalent. How does that sound to you?
That's an awesome idea. I I l really like what's happening with AI in general for SEO because it's causing everyone that cares about SEO traffic, whether that's a PM or whether it's a CMO, whether it's a CEO, to really be forced into pivoting their thinking about what SEO traffic means. Because the tactics around SEO haven't really changed. It's always been the exact same thing. Like I was uh Um when I was my last full-time job was I would Survey Monkey and I was a little I was moonlighting on the side and I was introduced to a CEO. a of a a big company and they were asking me about my approach to SEO and I wanted to close it. I wanted to get this consulting engagement. And the CEO says to me, So essentially what you're telling me is I need to find my keywords, put that into content, and then build some links.
Is there anything else you're going to do for me? Why should I pay you? And it it's it's done me into silence because essentially that is and was SEO.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How is AI changing the fundamentals of SEO and why does it matter?
0:00–1:31
2
Why should SEO be treated as a product and who should own it?
1:31–5:35
3
What are AI Overviews/SGE and how will they reshape search results?
5:35–13:54
4
What are the first steps to launch a successful SEO program in the AI era?
13:54–19:27
5
How do you decide if SEO is worth the investment for your business?
19:27–59:27
6
Can AI be used to create useful SEO content without harming rankings?
59:27–1:15:10
7
What’s the difference between programmatic and editorial SEO and when should each be used?
1:15:10–1:38:01
8
Which common SEO myths do marketers get wrong and how can they be debunked?
1:38:01–1:55:04
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