AI Isn’t Stealing Your Job, It’s Stealing Your Busywork

Worried that AI will edge out your creative work? Let’s flip the script. Shelby shares how she uses AI to win back hours each week, then invests that time into better research, clearer strategy, and stronger content. The goal isn’t to replace your voice; it’s to remove the busywork so your voice gets louder.

We unpack how Google’s AI Overview chooses sources and what it actually means for traffic and trust. The playbook is practical and focused: text-heavy website pages that answer real questions, descriptive alt text for every image, and precise metadata that maps your content to user intent. From meta titles and slugs to internal links, we outline the structural cues that make your site easier for search engines and AI systems to understand and cite. Then we turn to blogs as the engine of authority—how to pick focused topics, optimize each post, and refresh content so it stays current and useful.

Social media enters as a quiet force multiplier. Even if likes and comments feel light, consistent posts teach algorithms and people what you stand for. Share insights, link back to pillar content, and keep your brand’s message steady across platforms. Over time, this steady cadence blends with your on-site depth to build authority that AI can safely surface. We also talk about patience: you can’t control what AI pulls, only what you publish and how well it’s structured. Keep showing up, let your expertise compound, and you’ll start seeing your brand cited where decisions begin.

If this resonated or you know someone still skeptical about AI in marketing, share the episode with them. And if you’re finding value here, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us the next marketing question you want us to tackle.

Transcript

Host Intro And Creds

SPEAKER_00 0:27

What's up? Welcome back to another episode of You Guessed It Cause You Clicked On It The Marketing Happy Hour podcast. I'm your host, Shelby McFarland, the marketing broker. I've helped over 500 small businesses in the last 10 years really help increase their digital footprint on the internet. That's amazing, guys. It's crazy to think it's been 10 years. It's crazy to think it's been 500 people in businesses. Some of them have succeeded. Some of them closed down during COVID. Some of them were like kind of at the end. So they sold their business or retired. So I've helped so many businesses in different seasons of their life. But today, let's talk about the newest thing that everybody is talking about in marketing. And I rarely talk about it just because um there's so many opinions, and I want to make sure that what I say is correct and what I say is actually gonna work for you guys if you do choose to take my recommendations and my advice. But we're gonna talk a little bit more about AI today and how that can really be honed in with your marketing. I don't want you to be scared away by AI. If I'm not scared by AI, you shouldn't be scared by AI. There are so many creatives out there that are like, oh my gosh, AI is taking my job. No, it's not, guys. AI is not taking our job. We have to still be able to have a human factor when we are using AI. It is simply a tool, it is simply a resource that we can utilize as creatives, as agencies, as business owners to increase our time to make sure that we are using our time effectively. I told someone this the other day. I was like, you know, AI has helped me gain time in my day. They're like, what do you mean? There's only 24 hours a day. Absolutely, there's only 24 hours a day. But you know how many of those hours that I used to spend on uh let's take this as an example, podcast topics. I can go on on Chat GPT and be like, hey, outline me podcast topics for the next 10 weeks and give me that topic, and then I go and research the topic. I come back and I teach you guys about it. What better way for me to utilize my time more so researching it, understanding it, and then coming and teaching you guys about it than trying to create that list from my brain? Because ultimately, I don't know everything. You don't know everything, but AI is here to help us really increase our efficiencies, our processes, and giving us our time back of so that way we can then take that time that we've gotten back and put it to something else and invest more into it and get more out of it. So today let's talk about the AI overview. I know that you guys are on Google all the time. I'm on Google all the time, and when you were Googling something, it comes up with an AI overview at the very top, like best marketing agencies around me. Or maybe you should, if you're like, okay, um, what's a search topic? Why did my daughter react this way at five years old? I've definitely, definitely Googled that before. But it comes up with an answer, right? Well, that answer on AI overview is not just pulled out of the air. It's not just AI going like, yo, yo, yo, I've had a five-year-old kid, and this is my example, and this is what my experience was. No, that's not at all what it is. AI overview is pulling information from websites that Google trusts. So if you think that old school SEO is out, nah, no, it's not. It's still here. We still have to be the authority on our website. We have to be the authority on social media so AI overview will actually be able to go and pull that information and make sure that our stuff is pushed out there. So you've seen where AI overview is taking over. So people are getting answers, people are getting information without even visiting websites. Like I'll read AI overview without even clicking on the link that it came from. And as screwed up as that sounds, and you probably think, well, what's the whole point? Well, the whole point is that you're still giving information to these people, and if they choose to take the next step, they will click on the link and go to your website. If you, if it leaves just a little bit of a question at the end of it, they'll click on the link and go to your website and find out more information. But what the point of all this is, is making sure that we are educating the search engines, we're educating AI, we're educating people that are going to our website so that way they know they can trust us and we have more information than what our competitors do. So, how can you do that? When you have a website, I want it very text heavy. Like I want you to have text on every single page, I want you to have alternate text as well on all of your images. I want the back end of your, like for your meta descriptions, your meta tags, your meta titles, your slugs. I want all of that stuff to have as much information as possible. Very text heavy. Then if you want to take it to that next level, I want you to add a blog to your website. And you can add a blog, but if you're not optimizing it on the back end, then it's not gonna do anything for you. Just like you have to optimize the back end of your website, you have to optimize the back end of each blog as well. Add your keywords, your meta tags, and your meta descriptions on every single blog post. So that way it's then pushed even more to the top of Google. And on top of all that, that's text heaviness on your website, making sure that we are the authority. I want you to have a very strong social media presence. I don't care if you don't get a sale off of social media. Don't care. I don't care if you don't get engagement, I don't care if you don't get comments, I don't care if you don't get shares. I want you to stay consistent on social media because ultimately we are feeding the search engines. Ultimately, we are feeding the AI search engines with information. And if we can provide that education, if we can provide that information, they will then pull it and push it to the people that are curious about your industry, curious about your service. They may need you in the future, but then now they know, okay, well, I remember AI, this is what ChatGPT brought up, this is who it was from, because chat will give you sources. And if you are sourced on chat, then you are freaking winning. Okay, so what if we are doing all this stuff and we're not seeing ourselves pop up on AI? We're not seeing ourselves pop up on the AI overview. It takes time. We have to stay consistent. You and your competitor, more than likely, are both doing this at the same time. So I want you to stay consistent with it and don't give up. We have zero control, absolutely zero control over what AI is pulling. All we have control over is what we are pushing out to the internet, what we're pushing out to social media, how we create our website, who we partner with to make sure that these things are actually getting done correctly. That is what is important. I don't want you to waste your time and energy and efforts, and it's not paying back. I want you to be able to educate yourself or learn more about it or hire somebody that knows more about it so that way you can really find success through AI and AI summary, AI through chat, through grok, all the things and don't be scared of it. Jump in, be consistent, be the authority in your industry. If you need help, you know I'm always here, guys. You always know it. So if you've enjoyed this, if you know someone that is like super skeptic of AI, just send them this podcast. I'd love to educate them as well about how it can help their business. I'll catch you on the next one.