AI Search Engine Optimization: Why Visibility Matters More Than Rankings for SEO Now EP 172

Are you trying to do SEO or hearing people refer to GEO, SEO, AI SEO, or Answer Engine Optimization and wondering what the heck matters anymore and if any of it works? If so, you're in the right place. 

This week, I'm explaining why visibility in AI based search engines like ChatGPT and perplexity matter so much to your overall online marketing. If you want to be more visible online, generate SEO traffic, and leads, this episode will help you understand what to do. 

Transcript

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Have you heard that you no longer have to rank in position number one on Google to be visible online if you just went, yay, you're in the right place, my friend. It is amazing to know that you can grow your business, you can be found online, you can generate leads without having to rank at the top of Google because for so many of us, for so long, it's been challenging. Not to say that it's impossible because I do teach you how to rank at the top of Google in simple SEO content, and I show you how to find the keywords you can rank for and all of that. But I'm gonna be honest. It can be challenging, especially for those of us who are in competitive niches. I personally am in the most competitive niche out there because my niche is SEO, and guess what? Every SEO tool. It has a blog with lots of content on it because we all know how this process works. So I am so happy that there are things I can do to be even more visible online, and I wanted to share this with you because it's going to help you too. So now, thanks to AI based search tools like Chat, GPT, and perplexity, the AI overviews on Google, even AI mode. Our information can be found by people very easily. Whether or not we are already showing up at the top of the page on Google for specific keywords. Now, the reason this is so important, there's a couple things here. First off, I want you to understand that the last research study that I. It showed that 90% of the sites, that's almost all of them, were not on page one when it came to rankings for keywords related to the phrases that they were showing up for in AI based search. That right there is my favorite number I've heard in a long time. Because as a small business owner, it gives me so much hope for me and you and other entrepreneurs like us. So let's kind of jump into this and what is it and what does it mean to your business, and what should you be doing? So the very first thing that I wanna understand, make sure you understand, is that. Rankings are not the whole picture anymore. So yes, we still want to do traditional SEO. It still is very important. We still want to make sure that. We're using our SEO strategies and foundations to determine what type of content to create. We also wanna make sure we're thinking about our ideal customer, we're thinking about our business, and we're tying our content back to our products and services so that we are bringing people into our world who are interested in what we have to talk about and what we offer. However, we don't necessarily have to target the same type keyword that we've had to target for Google. Now, you know, with Google, SEO, it's all about the keyword you use and making sure you use it in the right places and making sure that your website has a good chance of ranking for it and all of that. AI based search is different. What we're seeing is that AI based search is really more about finding the answer. They're more answer engines. So think about it as you think about it, you know, and you're trying to understand and kind of make it make sense in your head. Think of SEO or traditional search engine optimization. It's searching. You're searching for information. The search engine is trying to give you information that might have the, in websites that might have the information that you are looking for. That's why they give you the list of websites and say, this one could help. AI based search. Think of it more as an answer engine, because that's truly what it's trying to do, is answer the person's question. It's not just saying, Hey, here's a resource. It's saying, Hey, here's a resource and this is what it says. And if you wanna learn more, you can go over here. And people do learn more and go over to that website. So that's what I want you to think about as we go into this. Like it's no longer just about ranking at the top of the page. It's about having the right information that people are searching for because AI based search is more of an answer engine than a search engine. So many of the websites that AI sites in their answers are not higher ranking sites. They are smaller sites because. They have better answers to the questions that the searcher is asking, and so they're looking for that match or that answer to a specific question. They're not looking for a keyword, so hopefully that makes sense. That's a big part of the difference between the two and why AI-based search is such an opportunity for us if we understand what to do and how to do it on our website. So they're really truly looking for that answer. They want to bring content to the searcher that helps them, and what we're seeing is that people are searching on ai. They like ai, they prefer getting that answer information. Um, the last research studies that I saw show that about 80% of consumers prefer searching on AI based search or using chat, GPT perplexity reading the AI overviews, because it can save you a lot of time. Think about yourself, like if you're going through and you're searching and you're just trying to find simple information, you can have a chat with your AI tool and it can give you the information that you're looking for and the guidance. If you want to dig further, that's where people will generally go back to Google and start searching for more information. And I'm seeing this a lot with my students. They're getting a lot of wins because they're starting to get traffic and more importantly, leads from our anser engines or our AI based search. And I was talking to. One of my students recently, she's a life coach. She works with parents who are estranged from their adult children, and she got a new client recently for one-on-one coaching because this person was searching and trying to find answers and trying to find help and resources and chat GPT related to that particular niche. And when they did chat, GPT actually recommended. Her website and said, you know what? This person works with people just like you. You should check her out. And so they did and they went over and they ended up deciding that yes, that was who they wanted to help them and they worked with. So she was the answer. That chat GPT gave to this person to answer their question or to solve their problem. Now, I'm also seeing at work, I have another student who is a therapist and she's had it happen. They're, they're all getting leads on a pretty regular basis now from. AI based search and Google, because they've been doing SEO for a while. This one is a therapist and she has been doing it for, she's been with me almost a year, so she's learned, she's implementing all of that. She got a client recently. Who went to chat GPT trying to get help to answer the question of like, what type therapy do I need? Who could help me? Where could I get insights? How do I get through this situation that I'm in? And I'll be honest, I don't know what the situation was because it's not, my business therapy is between the therapist and the client, the patient. I don't need to know what they were searching for, but they were searching for information about what type of therapy they needed. Then they took that information once they knew what to look for, they took that and they went to Google and they searched for that type therapy in their local area. Now, because my student has a website that is optimized, that has pages for the different types of therapy that they offer, that also is targeting keywords related to their local area. They ranked at the top of Google when that new potential patient went to search. They found their website, submitted the contact button, and ended up becoming not only a lead, but a new paying client. This is how it works. So we don't wanna stop doing one or only focus on AI and forget about Google. We want to make sure we're doing both, but we wanna make sure that we are following best practices. So we are still focusing on keywords that we have a chance of ranking for. But we're also creating content that answers questions and helps our ideal customers. The last thing I want you to understand, and we've kinda talked on this a little bit, is just if you are visible online, when your customer searches, wherever they're searching, are they searching on Google? Are they searching on chat, GPT? Are they on perplexity? As long as you are visible, you are creating great content, you're answering questions, you're providing value. Your website is easy for the, um, the search engines to crawl and understand. You have header tags and copy and all of that. As long as you're doing what I teach you to do. Your website will then have a better chance of becoming a resource for people in who are searching either on Google or in AI based search, looking for answers to questions, looking for help, and looking for guidance. Once we do that. We just need to make sure that your website is set up to turn those leads or the that traffic into leads. Your website can't automatically turn people into leads unless you have lead generation set up and you've done some optimization on optimization on there. So we'll talk about that in a future episode just so you can kind of understand how do you turn the traffic you're getting into leads, and then ultimately turn those leads into paying customers, because that's really what you need. If you're going to spend the time creating the content, really building out this business, you need to also be able to capture that traffic and turn them into leads. Now we do that. We'll talk about it further in depth in a future episode, but we do that by having things like a lead magnet or an opt-in, or a valuable free offer, whatever you wanna call it. It doesn't matter. It's all the same thing. What it is, is something that you offer to somebody in exchange for their contact information or their email address, and the right to email them and keep in touch with them on a regular basis. So that when they are ready, you are the one that they think of. You are top of mind to help them because not everybody who comes into your world is going to be ready to work with you one-on-one or join your group or pay for your products immediately. I know I, me personally, when I look at. My data for my students, about a third of the people who join me in simple SEO content are new to my email list within about 14 days. Usually they've joined new during that first webinar that they're invited to that first class. Another third of them take anywhere from three to six months. To get ready. They tend to sign up for a couple of webinars or a couple of free trainings. Sometimes they signed up for two or three or four, but they haven't been able to join live, so they've missed the message. Sometimes it just hasn't been quite the right time. And then another third of them take at least six months, if not a year, and I have a few. Here and there who take two to three years before they're ready to join. So what you wanna think about is as you're bringing people into your world, you want to make sure that not only are they finding you, but that you are getting them on your email list so that you can continue to nurture them. When we talk about nurturing this podcast, my friend, this is a nurturing tool. I use this to help answer your questions, provide value, help offer insights and things so that as you're trying to do it on your own, you're learning, you're getting to know me. You get to the point where it's like, you know what? I am ready. To invest in my business. I do want to do this, and I know that I want to work with Rachel. Whether it's one-on-one or it's in a group program, that doesn't matter. What you are looking to do for your business is the same thing. So if you're paying attention, you're on my email. List all of that. Watch and see what I do. And how I do these things because that's a big part of how you nurture your audience and really take care of them. Staying consistent, sending a message each week, all of that because my friend, you're building a business and I want you to succeed. All right, so I know I went on a little tangent there, but I know that understanding how we turn that traffic into a lead is a little challenging. And I will be writing a blog post and I'll do a podcast episode on it. Um, hopefully in the next month or so, I'm, right now I am recording all of my March episodes, so I will be planning out April soon. So I'll probably take a, um, make a point of running one of those for you in April because I think that'll be very helpful. So for now, what you wanna think about is. Where do I want to show up? Do I want to worry about being at the top of Google for everything, or do I want to have more visibility in ai? Honestly, I want you to show up in both places, but I want you to remember showing up at the top of Google is not a requirement for showing up in ai, so some of those terms that are too competitive to rank on Google. That's okay. We just work on those. Specific to ai, I've been doing the same thing for myself and I am seeing an increase in my traffic and leads coming in from AI based search. I look at it in my analytics each month and I am very excited to see that the foundation that I'm laying is working and the specific blog posts that I have targeted for AI based search. Are getting traffic from ai, so I know I'm doing it right. You can as well. Alright, that's it for today. I'm gonna give you a quick plug that's gonna walk you through and show you how you get somebody on your email list. So. This is how you turn your, your listener into a lead. If you don't yet have a copy of my AI based SEO guide, you can download that. Go to the freebies tab at the website. That's etched marketing.com/freebies. And also I am going to be teaching. This is gonna be really fun. A live five day popup group that is all about all of this. We're going to use it to learn about AI based search and how to build leads and how to grow our businesses. There's also going to be. Two other training classes that week that are going to be the secrets to generating leads and sales from Google and Chat gt. You can get registered for that by registering for that webinar. I'll put that link here. It's also at the freebies tab, etched marketing.com/freebies. Very first one. Register for that. You'll choose your session. There's two options through the week of March 23rd. Register for either one. You will then be invited into the popup group. You'll have a quick live lesson with me each morning for five days. A chance to talk, ask questions, learn a little bit more, get some clarity, and then when you're ready. Okay. By the end of that week, we will do a cohort of simple SEO content where you are going to kick off as a group, because I think this is going to help you do even better as you learn this. So get signed up now for that webinar. Join the popup group when you get the email from me about that, and prioritize being there in person, asking questions, getting help, and then. If you've been thinking, I wanna start simple. SEO content, I wanna do this, I wanna work with you, Rachel, go ahead and pencil that in. Make sure that you get signed up because it is not going to be open again for several months. I'm moving it to cohort style because that's going to work better for my students. Alright, that's it for today. I will see you back here next week. Bye for now.