Prioritization Skills That Keep SEOs Relevant

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

Today, we’re joined by Elizabeth Linder. Elizabeth is the Director of SEO at Kick Point Inc., where she supports clients and other digital marketers in understanding how SEO works, how it fits into an overall business strategy, and how to prioritize tactics that directly support their business goals.

In this episode, join us as we talk candidly about something a lot of us feel but rarely say out loud: 

The anxiety of working in SEO while AI is rewriting the rules underneath us.

This isn't another episode about tools or tactics. It's about the soft skills that will outlast any change in algorithms:

• Prioritization
• Adaptability
• Developing self-learning habits
• The confidence to say "I don't know yet" without flinching

Elizabeth also shares how to build real learning habits, find the right community, and separate your professional worth from a skillset that's always evolving.

If you've felt behind on the AI conversation — or overwhelmed by how fast everything is moving — this episode is for you.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Why AI change feels more job-threatening than past SEO shifts
2. Prioritization is the core skill behind strategy, learning, and communication
3. Adaptability as a daily practice when plans change midstream
4. How to reframe “I am behind” and start with foundational technical SEO
5. Trusted resources for AI search and LLM learning
6. Managing your stress from AI overwhelm through community. 
7. Confidence for women in SEO and filtering out loud but inaccurate advice
8. Separating self-worth from technical skill and building a healthier work culture
9. A simple learning system using micro-goals, calendar blocks, and accountability

CONNECT WITH ELIZABETH:

• Visit the Kick Point Inc. website
• Connect with Elizabeth on LinkedIn
• Follow Elizabeth on Instagram @lizlinderseo

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Find mentioned resources on episode webpage.

Here's how you can support this podcast if you’re enjoying the episodes and finding them useful:

You can send me a donation at buymeacoffee.com/DMVpodcast. Any and all levels of donations are appreciated and will help offset the cost of producing the podcast. You should also subscribe to our email list so that you don't miss any news about the show or new episodes.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Change Feels Constant

SPEAKER_00 0:45

monthly show where we celebrate the market change makers and digital marketing great digital marketers of the change and show focuses on digital market points skills at marketing I'm your host Catherine Wattier and owner of W Strategies LLC. We focus on increasing organic discovery for F5 science science focused clients. Thank you for joining us. Let's get into it and celebrate our victory. Today we're joined by Elizabeth Linder. Elizabeth is the director of SEO at Kickpoint where she supports clients and other digital marketers and understanding how SEO works, how it fits into an overall business strategy, and how to prioritize tactics that directly support their clients' business goals. So this episode is going to be perfect for you if you're curious about how to navigate this period of constant change in the SEO space creating by all these AI improvements and changes while maintaining your sanity. It's going to be a very timely episode. And we're going to learn about the soft skills that are going to help you maintain your career regardless of what AI does and how to sound confident when you're talking about all of these AI changes. So Elizabeth welcome to the show. Hi thank you for having me. This is yeah very timely very timely.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

The changes never stop literally uh minute by minute.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

So can we just kick it off by you introducing yourself a little bit and how you got into SEO?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah so I'm Elizabeth we have uh wow you know how everyone says that and then you feel like you're repeating yourself. So we all know who I am now um I got into SEO I had gone to school for marketing and then I was just trying to find the right area that I was interested in. I think I first had an interest in event planning because I'll share a little fun tidbit because that's exciting when people hear it. I grew up watching which this is did not age well but I grew up watching the Victoria Secret fashion show and I was like I want to run this event though. I was like I want to do that for a job. I want to pick the music I want to pick the like I want to just put it on. And then as time went on I realized I don't want to move to New York City or do something like that. And what kind of events are where I am nothing exciting. So I moved into like just marketing in general tried finding roles and then I met someone on the internet and they said kickpoints hiring for an intern and I applied and I've been there ever since and learned and I just liked SEO and it was something that they asked what I was interested in and I had started reading about it a couple months before and yeah just following up and I started my own blog which I'm not going to say anything about uh it's gone now. No one look it up and yeah I just fell I fell in love. Uh no but I got in like I got interested in it and it just it fit and I've just been there ever since now. So it was a weird little line.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

That's awesome. I also have a similar background like mind you I planned my first conference when I was 13 but I have a similar background in that I actually went to school for marketing and ended up in SEO. It's kind of interesting when you ask people this question because I've had people that did you know legal stuff uh we had people that were musicians before they flipped to SEO. The journey's always really really interesting. What the reason you're on the show is you wrote an article about imposter syndrome and SEO and AI. And I thought it was brilliant so that's why you're on the show. So what do you think makes this moment different from the past phases of insecurity around SEO? Because as you know SEO's got fast pace

Imposter Syndrome Meets The AI Shift

SPEAKER_00 4:32

built into it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Exactly I I feel like it's different because and I mean you know depending on how long you've been in the industry there's obviously I think been many of these types of changes. So this is probably one of my first major ones um but I think it just makes it different because I feel like it's impacting people's actual jobs more than it did before. And there's depending on like where you work uh if you're in-house at an agency that sort of thing depending on what pressures are put on that own workplace in terms of AI I you know I feel like it's just been a larger shift. It's not just a shift in our industry it's a shift everywhere. So I feel like that's kind of what makes it different and a little more scary for people when they're trying to understand it entirely.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

But what soft skills do you think people could deploy to stay a little bit more grounded as things are shifting?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

I always think prioritization that word is I think key being able to prioritize that's going to look different for I think everybody what industry you're focused on, where your expertise is what your day-to-day job actually looks like under the umbrella of SEO. So it's a little difficult to give very kind of specific tips on building that skill um but prioritization like that's just something you have to develop and I know that that's not easy doesn't come easy to everybody for sure. And

Prioritization And Adaptability As Survival Skills

SPEAKER_01 6:12

then adaptability I feel like that's a new word that keeps coming out but feeling comfortable switching paces. Because I think like building the skill of prioritization that's been forever almost in SEO, right? Every strategy you make like what's going to move the needle first like always knowing how to prioritize tasks, knowing how to prioritize what you're going to work on next. But then you get ingrained in this this is how I have to do it and I'm going to go through this strategy and I'm going to do that. And then when something cuts in it's like oh no what do I do? And just being okay knowing that everything is like a living and breathing document or a living and breathing plan, it can change. It's if you switch it up and change and adapt to other things, it's not going to ruin the entire strategy and just being okay with change um but that's hard to do I think I think it's easier said than done to feel comfortable with that. It's a bummer that you don't have a prioritization resource because I was totally going to ask you that I will say I am genuinely like working on something because I know my team's like we want to put like more resources out and that's something I've been working on because I'm trying to think about it and write it as like it addresses more areas not just an overarching like thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah I think it's a especially junior staff and then people that are going to go solo and starting their own business both of those groups have to learn how to prioritize right and if you're a technical OCO obviously that's the other skill set where you have to like know what to let go of and what to prioritize. On the adaptability I was actually thinking about my own backer and so I actually have a couple ideas especially if you're still employed by other people. So I worked at a startup and I will tell you that's probably going to teach you adaptability pretty fast. And the startup happened to be in the disaster recovery space and I will tell you the disaster recovery space will also tell you how to be very adaptable. And then the other work experience I had that definitely had me code like switching constantly was working at a PR firm doing SEO. Because I was working so many different clients people booking my calendar with like a new client I haven't even seen because it was a big global firm, right? And so you're constantly like okay who are we talking about and ground me in the marketing data so I could give you a you know all within like an hour. It's like um or or they'll come to you because particularly in PR they like the next shiny object a lot and so I for a while there for a whole year it was just me doing all social search and analytics. I was it globally and so they would come to you be like what are your opinions about whatever Snapchat whatever the sexy thing was and I'm like give me a few hours I will give you I'll give you some insight right I am a I am a pro Googler.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

I can figure this out that's so true. And I think like with that adaptability you need to communicate and feel be okay not knowing everything. Yeah. And there's like two sides to that where it's almost like be okay not knowing everything but that whole fake it till you make it I mean don't internalize that to the point where you're just faking your whole life and lying no please still learn it but you just gotta go with it. Just say you know what I'll figure it out and feeling okay with that and there's there's this funny story that like where someone in an interview would interview people and ask like a very complicated question the person shouldn't have an answer and they don't want an answer but they just want to see what they'll say and it's the people that would say I don't know but I can figure it out those are like and just having that attitude like it's it's okay I can but I can figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

I think that might be the tip to any junior people listening is that uh a lot more of the work uh environment than you expect have people that are faking it until you make it. There's a lot of that going on. And there could be either smart people that eventually become experts in the subject or people just sort of faking it until that work thing gets off their desk. But either way, it happens quite a bit. So yeah being comfortable with that. And I was just thinking about the other work experience that actually wasn't work experience because I was working when I was 13. But anyway event planning will also encourage you to be adaptable. Uh and what I realized after planning Okay so this wasn't the first one. I planned six or something and then I was or maybe more than that uh and then I was actually working at National Forest Council. So this is a job um and the executive assistant to the head of the development department left kind of abruptly and she was planning a fundraising conference for folks around the country that were going to come in and have this entire program. Anyway, she left so abruptly that nobody kind of knew how to pick up the pieces and I was actually just an in was I an intern either an intern or like an associate level like very junior. But everybody knew I had planned conferences though. And so they put me on it and one of the things I realized pretty quickly is that the hotel block fell through. Right. So I actually managed to get a different hotel block which was not close to where all the meeting stuff was going to be and busing because I had to bust people in now. And side note it all went so well that they actually pulled their money together to kind of give me a tip at the end. That's amazing. I know I know so anyway like yeah conference planning every time you plan an event it actually doesn't matter if it's a conference it could be wedding planning. But every time you plan an event my modus operandi has always been like plan as much as you can because shit's always going to hit the fan with a live event. Right? Always and if you've planned to the nth degree everything you possibly can control, you'll have the space to handle this last minute chaotic thing because everything else is handled. And it's funny because I told my husband that when we planned our own wedding that I was being overly controlling and then shit hit the fan. I forget what it was and I was able to handle it and he was like oh you're right and I was like hey dude I've been doing this for like 10 years. That's not my first

Feeling Behind On AI Plus Where To Start

SPEAKER_00 13:45

rodeo yeah exactly. So a lot of digital marketers at the moment or I don't know if it's a lot I I think it's a bigger number than I would expect because here we are year three maybe of doing AI. I forget how long we've been doing this but I would say about year three right that sounds right yeah um but I'm still seeing people that are like I don't know how to do this AI thing like in 2026 which I find amazing. But um you know they feel like they're behind because they didn't learn fast enough. Now how would you help them reframe that and get started on the journey to integrate it both into their workflow and also ranking people in AI answers?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Two points. One there's going just always remember there's new people entering every and any career at any given day. And so they're just going to be starting too so just because and you have all of this other foundational knowledge and you have all of that. So it's just like you're not alone in not knowing um so just you know don't panic because you have nothing but time to learn and how much time that's different and depending on what's expected of you that's different. So um but there's gonna always be new people and if they can do it you can do it. Right. So that's sometimes how I just take a step back and I always think everyone's doing something for the first time in something. So it is what it is and you can't go back so you can only go forward. Um but I think the second thing is do it start learning but I think there if you have the sense of panic it's also this reminder that there's so many clients that we still get that come to us and just the basic foundations of SEO are still not even close to being covered or touched or key pages aren't even indexed or the sites all these technical problems like there's so many that continue to come. So there's still a ton of foundational SEO work. So maybe you're not involved in all of that yet in terms of AI but maybe that's where you can start with the workflow stuff at least and think of how can I make these this auditing faster how can I make all of this other stuff faster and better outcomes using it and that's a good place to start but I yeah I would never say oh relax you got time like no please start please start learning yeah but you know there there's you're not I just don't want to say you're behind because there's always going to be somebody that's more behind than you or companies that haven't even started and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah I mean so the the two I have two thoughts about this one is like the number of SEO programs here in the US I know you're Canadian but the number of university programs that you could join that would teach you SEO is very small. I mean I haven't recently searched but the last time I did was maybe eight programs total total right so most kids coming out of school have no clue. So there's that's a pipeline problem clearly but then the other thing I I happen to sort of specialize in real big websites that have never done SEO and there are so many of them I'm like large portions of federal websites or state.govs have never done SEO and I work with academic journals and a huge chunk of them have never done SEO never and you're right with some of these ones especially the big ones it might not even be the AI stuff that moves the needle you could be fixing a crawl trap and boom that's your like big win right up front. So uh yeah and everybody needs the SEO first for the AI stuff too. That's the other bit right so you got to like knock out the foundation and do stuff on top it's not like you do something totally disconnected from your SEO strategy. Exactly so yeah do you have a place that you direct people to actually get started to learn I mean for me I think it's the I pull rank guide um yeah but do you have any other place that you like to send people I like to send people to just follow aida solace um oh yeah just just cuz she's just on top of it at all times.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

But that I pull rank guide um Will Reynolds um sear uh their newsletter and their stuff they're always testing things so it's just kind of nice to have a place to read about that and to get that data and just kind of see what other people are doing it just because they have the mass amounts of data and the people to do those tests too. So those are kind of my go-to favorites but I really just try to focus on all of the industry experts make sure I'm following them make sure I have the newsletters up to date and if I'm not testing things myself I'm paying attention but oh wait no I do have a really good resource in terms of AI but it's more on the workflow side and it's more on helping you do stuff better. But uh Brittany Muller oh yeah like big time like follow her if you really also want to understand just how what AI is um what an LLM is like how it works that sort of stuff how you can use it to your advantage um her course AI wow for marketers um we'll I'll give you the link after this we'll add it I'm blanking right now I think she still has public guides too I think which walk you through like what an LLM is and and then as background so Brittany worked at Moz so she um it was an SEO but then she also moved over to Hugging Face which is in the LLM space so she like basically worked on an LLM so that's her background um yeah those are great resources and Alita I think actually now has you know how she has like the getting started with SEO landing page I think she has one for AI stuff now too I think yeah we'll put those in the show notes um so what do you what tips do you have around people managing their emotions in a field where stuff can change so fast and how do people particularly women maintain their confidence in a space that changes quickly like that's it's so hard. I think the first the first part of that I tend to I've been struggling with this for a long time is trying to make sure that I'm a good support because a lot of the times I'll just defer back to my own thought process and be like it is what it is you know and just letting it roll off and not everyone can do that. And it's difficult for me to try to support people but I think to manage your emotions is like I'm a big advocate for letting it out you know don't don't keep it to yourself don't try to like carry it all by yourself. Make sure that you have somebody on your team if you can that you actually work with day to day that you

Confidence Support Networks And Women In SEO

SPEAKER_01 21:13

can go to and talk with and have regular meetings like our own little SEO group at Kickpoint we meet weekly. Sometimes it's a long meeting sometimes it's a short meeting but it's just to catch up on everything, talk about stuff if there's something frustrating you, if you aren't sure if you understand something correctly, want to talk it out, share a resource, that sort of thing just so that it's touch-based just because we're all remote so it kind of keeps us a little more connected um but then joining any other resource or group or space like the women in tech SEO they have that Slack group amazing um it's just nice to just hear and see from others and especially I think if we're talking about as a woman trying to maintain that confidence the the I don't have like I'm not good enough or I don't know enough or that imposter syndrome it's set up in society for us to make us feel like we're not good enough at anything. And you know just trying to remember that like it's not because I don't know it's because everything's set up for that. And I think even in this industry I know a lot of people want to say the tech industry is very male dominated. I feel lucky enough to have worked in it surrounded by women and also finding all these other women that are doing a lot of work. So making sure to just find those spaces and find those people and get support because I think it's scary to go on LinkedIn and just get a lot of bros with the there's six different games and if you're not doing them you're out like it's like a lot and just a side note sometimes they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

So that's the other bit the bro attitude does not necessarily come with accuracy necessarily um you know actually inside women in tech SEO they have free trainings and I think they ran a confidence one last year. And if you're not female and listening to the show there's a great SEO community us also on Slack that I would recommend and that one John Mueller is lurking in. So that's the other added benefit of being in there. And I think they help each other out a bit uh there's this unique vibe in the Women Attack SEO that has not been replicated other places for men so I apologize. But in that in the female group you actually can post with a question and oftentimes you'll get a Zoom call for free with another friend in the group to help you troubleshoot which is delightful. And after being in the industry for 20 something years Very unique because prior to that it was Moz communities with bros leaving nasty comments and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Exactly. And no one wants to wake up to a weird LinkedIn message, you know? So No.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Or whatever forum it is. We've all got our own little stories. Um, so how do you help the SEOs, I'm assuming maybe on your team, uh separate their worth as an employee from their technical skill set?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Uh just I guess at kick point it's we're big on work-life balance. So I think it's just having that mindset and that culture already of, you know, separating yourself and then, you know, just having people it like in ownership say that, you know, we don't live to work, we work to live. And that what you do at work doesn't define your worth and what you do doesn't, you know, like we've always had that very separated. So I think a big part of it is culture, at least just kind of where I work day to day. But something I always try to tell people is, you know, you're not saving lives. You're not a paramedic on scene that you need to know CPR, you know, like this isn't this isn't that, you know, this is it's very separate and it's a specific skill that you can learn. And if you don't know it yet, you can know it and you will know it eventually, but that has nothing to do with what you do after work. Like I just always try to picture and tell someone, like, okay, when you close your laptop, what do you go do? What are you excited to go do? And that that's what matters. So when you come to work, it's if you can't figure something out right away, so can a bunch of other people. I think it's just a constant reminder. I feel like I could just go on and on and on, but it's just a refresh reminder and like being supportive. And I feel like a lot of people don't get that, and that's what's missing. So if you don't have any support at your workplace, I always recommend start by being that support and maybe seeing if it changes.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

So, what soft skills could uh help somebody redefine their values when those hard skills are evolving? So they thought that they were gonna be doing development, but now it's being outsourced to AI. This is maybe like a bigger question about the entire, you know, your career is shifting kind of question.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

That's a really hard question. Because I I think just going back, it's like even just when you're looking, I guess, at an actual project or client, like what is the ultimate goal, you know, and that goal might have changed. But I think just you have to kind of take a step back, be able to take a step back, be able to look at something objectively, and I think it's just getting in the weeds of things sometimes where it's like, oh, I was gonna do this, now I'm in this, and okay, now my skills have to change, now I have to do something more. Like, what's the point? I think I don't know, I feel like I've even been having this conversation where it's just sometimes it gets all too overwhelming or because you're so in the weeds of all the changes and everything, but yeah, I think it's just being able to breathe, take a step back, look at it from as a bigger picture, and then kind of refocus and reprioritize because I think it's so dependent on what what you're what's changing and what you're doing. But I think right now a lot of that is just a lot of the fear and just anxiety is just coming from so much changing that the like the old SEO role, even if that's what we're gonna like talk about, is that's completely evolved. So it's just it feels scary. And but it's when you take a step back, you realize, oh, it's it's still the same outcome. It's still the same goal.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I mean, I think for all those people that are worried that AI is gonna take their jobs. There's a few things. One, I I mean, I use AI. I train my clients on using AI. So I I'm like AI forward, but uh that said, I'm also very aware about how much they hallucinate and how sometimes the output is garbage. And I've current I've certainly researched enough to know that that's actually a native feature of LLMs that's not gonna be improved. Um so just sit with that for a second. The hallucination and the inaccuracy is possibly

What AI Cannot Replace At Work

SPEAKER_00 28:23

not gonna I literally saw a journal article article today that was saying that when you prompt them once with information, then you come back and you add additional information, they start losing the chain of thought and the answers become crappier. So what you need to do is actually structure your entire prompt and give them all the information on the upfront, which is great if that's the type of project you're working on. But if you have a type of project where you have to reprompt, just know that like the you're gonna start getting garbage answers. They're gonna start getting lost because this is not uh AGI. It's not general intelligence jet. This is clearly like Mad Libs, which is what Brittany will talk about actually all the time, is that LLMs are just like completing the next word, like it was a missing verb, and they stick the verb in there. That's actually all they're doing. Um so one, I I'm 50-50 about whether or not this thing is gonna continue, like all this using AI in our job, because you get these reasons like the other journal uh reporting comf coming through that says people that try to adopt AI in their companies aren't seeing like a good response from that, right? Instead, people are getting more busy with their jobs, it's not necessarily impacting the bottom line. Anyway, so the idea that your job is gonna completely disappear because of AI, I I at this point I'm kind of like wishy-watchy about it 50-50. Second, AI is not a human, so anything that requires a human is gonna be stuff that is gonna still be in the market, and that includes a crap ton of stuff that we do as an SEO. So trying to work with developers, like talking to another human, prioritizing, possibly not something that an AI could do as well as a human could, giving a presentation and training people, I still think some of that stuff could be human-related and anything that's related to what I call herding the cats, like coordinating the people and strategy. It's gonna be a human. It's not gonna be an LLM, is all I'm saying. So if I just mentioned a whole bunch of soft skills there, I don't know if you caught caught those, but those are ones you should double down on. So public speaking, listening, understanding how to talk to the executive suite, knowing how to put together a persuasive presentation. Uh I don't know what else I mentioned, but at least those. Double down on those skills because those aren't gonna go away. Um, do you have anything else in relation to that bucket that you think is gonna survive? Like I know the people that were uh spreadsheet people or just writing meta descriptions, those have gone, those jobs. But yeah. What's one practice you recommend for people that are feeling overwhelmed? A very tactical, this is what to do next. I have some ideas, but I'm kind of curious what your ideas would be. You're brand new to learning this LLM thing, you're feeling a little behind, you're overwhelmed. How do they get started?

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Get started is um I sometimes just look up who's doing it. Like I could the good old Google, you know, searching for different experts, go on LinkedIn, ask people who, you know, who's someone that's trustworthy, who's someone that you trust to learn from. Um joining groups, like where, depending on where you are at your career or where you're starting, if you have access to some people or you at least have a list of people that are knowledgeable, make a list, pick one thing. Just pick one thing, read it, digest it, summarize it, and breathe. I think like I don't I just don't think it's helpful to say, okay, do a course here, read this, do this, do that, or like create a plan first, because sometimes you won't even know what that plan looks like until you know what you don't know. So I think maybe the first step is like trying to find out what you're not comfortable in knowing yet. Because I think that's that's where you have to learn and that's where you should prioritize. And I think it's easy for I get a lot of people when they want to learn a new subject or not even a new subject, but they want to learn more about it or changes, they start from the very beginning because it feels comfortable, right? Because they're like, okay, let's just start from the ground zero. What is SEO? And they start off almost, and it's like you're gonna be spending so much time and it's gonna, you're never gonna get there. And I don't know why, but that seems to be a stick. And I think, yeah, I think fine first just try to find out or write down what you know you don't know, or uncover that and start there.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

And it sounds silly, I think, but I feel like a lot of people don't know that sometimes I think you you you you touched on touch base on on one thing I did actually want to cover, which was you understand things better when you summarize it or teach other people. So when you're learning something new, think about even if you don't publish the blog post, think about how you're gonna explain it. And I would actually really encourage either a presentation or writing, because you will retain it so much better and you'll realize where you're lost when you have to try to train somebody else on it. Um, so that was like one clear tip. The other one is that when it comes to if you don't already have a professional development habit as an SEO, we should talk about how to create that habit because that's critical for uh being successful in the industry. And um, hopefully you're already somebody who's passionate about it and loves constant learning. You've already been vetted for some of that stuff because if that's not your personality, just go find a different job anyway. But if you're in the space and you love constant learning, the tip is you have to actually write down your moment and block your calendar for your professional development, or it will not happen. And you don't need budget to go to shows particularly, but you do need to have some sort of accountability. And I'll tell you what I do because it's just me, myself, and I over here. I have a Google form where I do a check-in at the beginning of the week and I outline what I'm gonna tackle. And I have on there, first of all, I have personal stuff on there, spending time with my kids, but I also have um, did I work on automation? Because my automation is my thing for this year and last year. And then at the end of the week, I ask myself, did I do it? I also ask, what did I learn at the end of the week? And that keeps me like from, oh wait, I didn't actually dig into something, right? So it might not be automation, but I highly recommend you come up with some system like that if you're by yourself, where you like put down your goal, micro goals. This week I'm gonna do X. I've blocked my calendar. At the end of the week, you're like, I did X. And mind you, on my list, there's also I didn't make it, but you can like explain why. So you can give yourself an out because life happens. So, like if your mom ends up in the hospital like my mom did this week, you know, you're like, okay, so that's why everything didn't happen. It's fine, I got to pass, right? But in general, come up with an accountability. You could be accountability buddy, you could join a group that's an accountability group, you could be accountable with your coworker, but you have to think through how to make the learning stuff a habit and a block on your calendar.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

That's a hundred percent required. If you're not, yeah, yeah. I I really like the the form like at the beginning and end, like being saying to yourself and the micro goals. I I feel like I want to scream that over and over and over again. I think it's so easy to say like this year I want to do this, or like this quarter, or that it's so easy for it to get pushed because especially I think if you work even agency side, I mean probably in-house too, but agency side when so many other clients and so many things or a new client pops up, or time shift, it's so easy to put off learning or put off working on this stuff. Um, and sometimes I know at some people's jobs they're not given any time to learn. So trying to vouch for that for yourself and communicate the importance of time for education and workloads. I think I would really recommend everyone to have try to have that conversation or to put that together to some higher ups just to make sure that try, right? Like the worst they could say is no, you know? But I think um I like the micro goals. Like, what's something actually digestible that I can do now? And I think um, yeah, a lot of those, a lot of those self-help books are kind of great for all those little hacks that you have. Um, but yeah, writing down what you like and some summarize it. Like, how would I teach this to someone else?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Like if I just read this and I had to explain it to my mom, what would I be a family member, and that would be great actually, because your family member is probably closer to your client. Exactly. They don't know, they have no idea what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I mean those those are like the hacks. So I highly recommend we you take your bigger goal of like, I don't understand this whole AI thing and just chunk it. And so you got like a calendar block on Monday, and that's when you're gonna read the first half of Britney's LLM thing, because I think it's in two pieces. So, like, you know, okay, that's what I'm doing, and I'm understanding that I'm writing down whatever I don't understand. And then next Monday I'm gonna read the second half. I'm gonna write down whatever I don't understand, right? Whatever that is, but yeah, if you don't have a habit of figuring out how to learn stuff in the SEO space on your own, you gotta figure out how to do that. Um so if you were to label like one soft skill that you think successful SEOs and digital marketers will need over the next 10 years, what would be the one that you tell everybody that you have to double down on?

SPEAKER_01 38:05

I keep going back to prioritization because even what you what you just said, right? Like take a take your bigger goal, even just when it comes to learning habits, when it comes to like just learning on the job, when it comes to communicating what to communicate for, I feel like it always keeps coming back to how to prioritize things and all the other soft skills fall into that, like chunking or doing one thing first. And why am I doing that first? Even knowing that

Build A Learning Habit That Sticks

SPEAKER_01 38:33

helps with communication. Like it just I think I think it's just prioritizing and knowing you do that has got to be a skill that you have. And if you don't have it, then it's time to get on that.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah, also there's so much information on the internet, and every year it just grows because there's more people publishing, more like whoever publishing. And if you can't figure out how to narrow the scope of that, you're gonna waste your entire time futzing on the internet, finding information and never actually taking action.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Well, exactly. It's just you gotta, it's like when they say about working out, you know, you just have to do one thing, just start like what start yeah, 10 Nike said it best, just do it. Um, but yeah, if it's 10 squats a day, one article a week, even like I'm even like if it's really like you're new to this or anything, just like one, just start with one and but yeah, you have to empathize empathy for yourself. I think, you know, just take it easy. We're all in this together, we're all riding this wave. You're not alone in it. It's just we're all at different stages. And I just think it's like finding that community and trying to prioritize as best you can with what makes sense based on your actual workload. Like, what are you working on? What clients, what industry, what like start there? Because what even you said earlier about if this affects your industry or client more, if you're working with e-commerce clients or local SEO or anything like that, focus on the AI stuff that hits that first and worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Honestly, if you work in pharma, I don't even know if you can do any of this stuff. Pharma is so highly regulated that it's possible that there's not much you could do. Because it all has to come along with that waiver saying this this med might kill you, whatever, that kind of thing. Uh so I mean there's some industries where you just don't have flexibility, right? And it's possible that you just can't do anything. And then there's other ones like the federal government where it's gonna move so slow that it impacts your strategy, right? And that doesn't mean you're not gonna still do some stuff, but um yeah, like one of my clients is actually in a space where uh you know AI likes to reference fresh stuff. Do they have any strategy or ability to pivot to update their content at that kind of pace? This particular one? No. They have like a new report that comes, but they can't like go back and massage their old stuff and make it fresh. It's not part of their workflow, right? So we just reduce expectations across the board. I was like, okay, well, we're gonna do what we can do, but just know that after this stuff ages a certain amount of months, you possibly are gonna lose the LLM traffic. And he was like, Okay, it is what it is.

unknown 41:19

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Education, communication, you know, it's just and yeah, see, it's not, it's not all a be-all end all. Everyone's gonna die. It's oh my god, it's over. Uh every industry is impacted differently, your workloads are different, knowing what you need to know and knowing what you don't know. And do not die on every hill. Don't just yeah, definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

So this has been great. Um, do you have any uh additional resources you want to share that you haven't talked about already?

SPEAKER_01 41:49

It was uh pretty much Britney Muller's I made note to talk about her actual AI for marketers course. And I did bring I remembered to bring that up. So that's a big one. That's a really big one. I think it really helped with just like getting in the space, and then you get to join this awesome community after as well, which is super helpful. Um, and everyone, you know, gets to talk about their projects, their workflows, they all help each other. There's ongoing kind of like hackathons that they call them, where you get to work on things together and ask questions. And I just think it's a way to join a community that's directly about learning this stuff. So um I would strongly recommend just to feel more comfortable in it. That's a great course. I took it myself, so I'm gonna vouch for it. And this is not sponsored at all. This is just me loving it.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

So well, and when you come up with a prioritization resource, you're gonna let me know. Absolutely. So, how can people learn more about you?

SPEAKER_01 42:47

I uh I am unreliable. No, I'm gonna work on being more reliable online, but uh, I'm in the women in tech SEO group, Slack. Uh, I'm there, LinkedIn, I'm on it all the time checking. So I've been trying to make some kind of TikTok and Instagram, uh Liz Linder SEO. I have no promises there on the quality of that content, but if you enjoy watching those things, you can follow me there. But I think if you ever want to talk or have some support and rant about changes and if you're feeling behind, I'd say message me on LinkedIn or meet me in the Women in Tech SEO Slack group.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Awesome. That was great. So thanks you thanks for joining me today. It's been great. Yeah, this has been awesome. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. To find out more about the podcast and what we're up to, go to digital marketingfictories.com. And if you like what you heard, subscribe to us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. Rate us, comment, and share podcast, please. I'm always looking for new ideas, topics, and guests. Email us at digital marketingfictories at email.com or Twitter at email. Thanks, go.