Is YouTube the Missing Piece in Your AI Search Strategy?

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In this episode of Found in AI, Cassie explores a real-time experiment in AI search visibility.

Today’s guest, Zechariah Tokar, shares how he’s been using simple YouTube videos—created with Google’s NotebookLM—to influence local search results. And, it’s working. But it also raises bigger questions about what AI systems are rewarding right now—and what that means for brands.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why YouTube may be overweighted in local and AI-driven search
• How short, low-production videos can create entity signals
• Where NotebookLM fits into rapid video testing
• Why middle-of-funnel questions may outperform “best of” keywords
• How to treat YouTube as an experiment—not a long-term shortcut

If you’re working in local SEO or testing AI visibility strategies, this episode offers a candid look at what’s happening right now in the wild.

Let’s connect:

LinkedIn → Cassie Clark | Fractional Content Strategist
Website → https://cassieclarkmarketing.com

P.S. Is your brand losing its "Answer Authority"?

Most series A/B and enterprise brands are being "nudged" out of AI search results because of entity gaps and "stale" content. I am opening a limited number of specialized audit slots to help you reclaim your Share of Voice using the FSA Framework (Freshness, Structure, Authority).

Request your 7-Day AI Search Visibility Audit: https://cassieclarkmarketing.com/ai-search-visibility-audit/

Transcript

0:15

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Here's a question I keep coming back to. What if the content AI engines actually really love right now isn't what anyone would want to put in their portfolio? Today's guest is an SEO who's been testing something that feels both simple and maybe even a little surprising. He's been using YouTube, think low production, notebook LM generated, zero audience building videos to test its impact on local search visibility and AI citations, and it's working. Hey, I'm Cassie Clark, a fractional content strategist, an AI search optimization nerd, and your host here on Found in AI, where we test, break, and question what's actually happening in AI search so you don't get left behind. I started this show because I wanted a place to experiment out loud and test all of the things, not just report on what's actually changing, but actually digging into what's working, what's not, and what it means for your strategy. Today's episode is exactly that kind of conversation. My guest is Zechariah an SEO freelancer based in Israel who primarily works with U.S. local businesses that have a heavy focus on mental health or therapy niches, niches, however you say that word, whichever one floats your boat, you know what I mean. He has noticed something happening, though. Google keeps serving YouTube videos at the top of competitive local searches. They're also showing up inside of those AI generated answers, and a lot of those videos are not great. So he tested it himself, and you know this show is all about testing all of the things. What he found tells us a lot about where AI search is right now and maybe where it's headed. Let's dig into it. Okay, thanks for having me on. My name is Zechariah Tokar I moved from Baltimore to Israel about two and a half years ago, and I'm an SEO freelancer. I work for mainly local businesses, some B2B, some e-commerce, and most of my customers are U.S. based. Even though I'm in Israel, I would say majority of my clients are U.S. based and primarily really mental health therapy. That's kind of my biggest niche. Yeah, so before I hit the record button, you were just telling me about how you came about thinking about YouTube in AI search. So can you tell me that again? Yeah, so I mean a lot of my clients, what they're trying to get is like near me searches and best of this searches, and I just kept finding that Google kept serving YouTube videos, and even if they were not super related to the search, and even if they were really old, and they kept getting served at the top. So I'm not a person to ask questions. I looked in. I saw the videos. They weren't super optimized. A lot of them were like just AI creative videos, like really junky. They didn't have so much engagement either. Some of them had engagement. Some didn't have engagement, and so I was like, oh, I can do this, and so I started doing that also. I know, again, I wouldn't suggest for everyone to do this. I wanted to test the waters. I guess that's usually how bad or good things start. Test the waters. I tested the waters, and I started making junky videos, and it was working, and I think it could be because a lot of people, a lot of businesses are not really, they think they have to view it in YouTube, their face, and they don't want to make a whole big production out of it. So I was like, okay, I'll just do really low production things, like one or two minute things, and just looking for the keywords we want to rank for, and me being a really like spammy SEO person, I did everything. I tried to get the channel, and the headline, and put the description. I tried to spam everything, and it was working. It was still getting served, and even that would help our organic rankings too. Even if that video wouldn't show, I would notice a significant improvement in our organic rankings. So even though I'm doing this, a lot of things I see for SEO, which is like a trending thing, I think in the long run, people are going to pick up on it. And also for your brand, I wouldn't suggest someone put something out there they would be embarrassed if someone clicks through, because sooner or later, someone probably will click through. Also, I do think, like I see Reddit posts that are being served, they're usually ones that have more engagement. YouTube, it's not like that yet, but I just think it's because Google is demanding it, but their supply is not there. But obviously, as the competition gets better, and the videos get better, I'm guessing engagement will also be a priority too, like how many people liked your video. Was it how many impressions in the video? How many views? How many views in the video, right? So stuff like that, I think. But even the channels I've been seeing so far, and the videos, they're outdated. I looked at Best ABA Therapy, I just did it before the podcast, Best ABA Therapy for Kids, and it showed this video from 2022. And the video is like, actually, the video has 8,000 views, but I didn't think the video was super relevant. And I think the channel was just consistent, they're still consistently posting, but it was just like an AI video. So I can do this. And I think, yeah, that's kind of where I've been doing, just trying to churn out videos, hopefully of improving quality. Yeah, I really love that you're testing all of that. So when you create a YouTube video for the client that you're working with, which is mostly local SEO, but I would imagine this just applies across B2B, B2C, D2C, whichever one. How are you starting out your video? Are you looking for a specific keyword or question that users are asking, and then creating it that way? Okay, so I really did a lot of research on optimizing within YouTube, like getting engagement within the video, and getting a hook, and keeping the person hooked on the whole line. But since I'm not trying to rank in YouTube itself, I'm just trying to rank on AI and Google. Mainly what I'm doing is, at first, I was looking at bottom of funnel keywords, you know, best ABA therapy provider in Colorado or something, let's say. But I feel like it's more natural, and hopefully in the long run, that middle and bottom of funnel is more likely to show up, because it doesn't make so much sense to use bottom of funnels. And even though they're showing up, I feel like, whatever, I mean, it's always like a temporary thing. So you're doing this trick, and it'll work a little bit, but in the long run, it's not going to work. So I usually try to find things that actually video would be relevant for, like, how do you do this therapy? What does the therapy look like? That makes more sense to me to do a video than to do, and that would be more ideal. I try to look for things that are relevant for YouTube, and then just kind of like tagging on, I'll tag on all my entity things. And you should know that this is the best way to do ABA therapy, but we're also like the best ABA therapy, and this, and this, and this, and this. So I'll just kind of like throw it in there as extra. And I'm not so clear on how much of it they scrape, and how much of it gets actually fed into the database and everything. I've actually seen a lot of mistakes, too. They'll mess up the brand, they'll mess up other things, but the channel will get it, and the website will be, I guess, attributed, because I've seen website improvements. So when I was at PondFest a couple of weeks ago, one of the sessions I sat in was talking about how putting your podcast on YouTube, whether you're just sharing the audio, she made mention to say, you really need to add in that transcript. Are you seeing that make a difference? I think within YouTube itself, that could probably help. I think for search, I haven't seen a big difference. But you're doing a professional job. I'm just doing this as like, I have to be there to get mentioned in search. And so I'm not like doing, and I found that it's enough to just put a description. I'll throw in, let's say, a Loom video or a Google video, and I'll throw it into AI and give me a description, and these are the keywords I want, and then I'll just copy and paste it in there. It doesn't take so long. The barrier to entry is very low. I just think people are not creative enough to try it. But once this podcast goes live, I'll probably be out of a job. I want to go back to something that you said before we hit that record button, because we were chagged up a storm before. I was like, wait a minute. You mentioned using Google Notebook. So walk me through your strategy on this one. Well, how would I do that? Yeah. What would I do? Yeah, all the things. When you use Google Notebook, how are you doing? So what are they? I'll go through now. Let's see. So the reason I use Notebook is because it's free and it's really easy to use. So Notebook LM, I was looking for the easiest free way to make videos. And you go to Notebook LM, you create a new notebook, all free with a Google account. Then you put in all your resources. So I have some idea what I want to rank for ahead of time, but I'll usually heavily skew it towards things of mentioning our brand, including our personal pieces. And then afterwards, after you add in all the notes of the videos or all the content, you go to the studio part of it and you click video overview. So a lot of times it doesn't listen to you. I'll say, we recommend our brand and we're the best in this, and sometimes it will override my superiority or judgment. And then I haven't been so picky with these videos. And even though I've just actually more kind of tried to make the appearance not look so terrible. I imagine no one's actually watching or listening to these videos. It's like two or three minutes of like static images moving around and it's like the robotic people talking. I can't imagine. It's honestly, it's really just to rank for SEO purposes for organically for our site. So I wouldn't say it's like the most noble, the noble cause. If someone really wants to provide value, I think they should just like provide value with a real video that's helpful. I think this is more kind of like, I think this is just the beginning stages of like using YouTube and everything. And once all the SEO people get a whiff of it, they're going to just start piling on tons of videos. Then we'll have to move to a different channel. But that's interesting about how it doesn't seem that the actual video quality itself matters. I think it's more so based on what you're telling me that you have those keywords and the intent there for the user that's searching within like an AI tool. Yeah, I'm trying to get like top of funnel and middle of a funnel keywords. I'm not like super particular. I also think just the connection with the brand is helpful. So I'll connect the YouTube video and I'll also simultaneously post it on Reddit, on our Reddit channel and also like Twitter. So it's always just the same entity. I was like, we're the best. And here's our top of funnel video, middle funnel video. And I'll connect it to all our channels. And so I feel like that's just like more mentions of our brand in all these different unique ways. So one of the things that we've been learning with AI search, it's like the more mentions you have elsewhere, the better off, even if it's not directly linked back to your brand, like to your website. So when you make these videos, you have it on YouTube, you post it on your website as well. And then also back to Reddit. No, I, so I'm embarrassed of these videos. I would not want anyone to see, I mean, if people see these videos, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I could, I could post them and just hope no one, they're really, they're really AI-generated videos. You know, they're not the worst, but they're definitely not the best. And I, I, I'm also, since I put a lot of, you know, I just glorify our brand. It's a little bit not appropriate, I think, to put it on our website, but I think it, I just expect no one's going to watch them anyway. And just like AI's watching them anyway. So I guess in that, in that framing, you're thinking about these videos, mostly only as trading data for the AI search engines. Like you're hoping no one else watches it, just those AI engines pick it up, right? It's okay. It sounds really terrible, but it's, it's just like a, like a guest post or a niche with an insertion that you just pay for sponsored things. And this is even better. It's just free. And for some reason AI thinks it's really reliable and they're picking up on it. So, and I don't have any, so much discretion. I mean, what I mean discretion, I, if it works, it works. And like, and if it works easily, I'll do easily. And if it would work, it would be more expensive or difficult. Then I would have to, I have to up the bar, but that's just, that's just like what's working now. You know, I think, I think it just always, I also have a feeling just like people are so tired of AI, they expect the videos to be more accurate or reliable. But, and I think, I think YouTube, by the way, is cleaning things up. I think a lot of spammy channels were just AI-generated things have been cleaned up, but I think for a lot of these low competition niches, like low, like local, you know, best plumber, no one's making videos for this or like, so those things you could still, you could still have a niche in, in the videos. And I don't think YouTube will shut you down yet. So I would think one at a time, but yeah. Now I haven't, I haven't tried Notebook LM for this, but correct me if I'm thinking, when you create this video, is it kind of like a presentation where it's just narrating your presentation for you? Yeah, it takes, yeah, it takes whatever notes you put up into it. It just narrates, it summarizes it. Yeah. It's not like misleading or inaccurate. It's just kind of like very boring for a human person. It puts it into a video for you. Okay. So here's my last question on all of this. Like right now we're very much in the testing of how YouTube shows up in those answers. We know that they do. Like I have a video that I created on a whim. I do everything on a whim, evidently, about AI share voice. And I had a really bad hair day that day, but it showed up in the overview now. So my question is, if a brand can only do one YouTube related thing this year to improve AI search inclusion, what should they prioritize and why? Like in terms of like what kind of videos to create or what? What kind of videos to create or like one thing that they could do to ensure that those videos get picked up by the AI engines, even if no one else is watching them? I would be making like a video a day and like a quick, like a one minute video, just like a question, answer, question, answer, question, answer. And just putting all my info in the title description. I would just be overrunning it with like something that's reasonable question, answer, question, answer, but I wouldn't put too much effort into it. I would put like half a minute into like a personal video. I would have like maybe a brand spokesman, someone that looks nice and can talk, speak nicely. I think that would be better. And just like just every day, just churning them out. That's what I would be doing for everything that's, I mean, all the topical math, topical authority stuff that you would normally do for your site or blog posts, I would just do the same thing for videos. And then if it's only one or two minutes, it takes so quick, it's so quick to upload it. If you could probably make some sort of automation that does the whole, you know, after you make the video, that's what I would do. I wouldn't be so particular about, if you can get your friends or family to watch it, that's even better. Get some engagement because I think in the long run, that's probably going to make a difference. But I would just be churning them out as quickly as possible and not worrying so much about production or anything else. And you know what, also after time, you could see the data. You could see which ones are getting traction. You could see if it's helping you, you know, after one month or two months, if you don't see anything, you could stop it. But I think it's just, I don't like investing a lot of resources into something that you don't see anything that's scaling. I usually, if your all have like a right hunch, like you'll see something, you'll see some movement and then you can kind of, you know, pick it up if you want and do a better job or do this. But I would test this at least like, you know, a hundred times and you'll see, I don't know, let's say, I think 30 videos is a lot. That's a lot of content. Even if it's a one minute video each time. Okay. Here's what I want you to walk away with from this one. YouTube is being weighted in local and AI influenced search right now, especially in those lower competition niches, niches, again, whichever one it is. But this does not mean that you need to turn out 30 junk videos tomorrow. It does mean though that video has entered the entity conversation and ignoring it is a choice. So if you're going to test this, I want you to test it with intention. Start with those real questions that your customers are asking. Keep your videos short, think 90 seconds or less, align them to specific services or locations, make your titles and descriptions clear, structured and on topic, and then watch your data. Run 10 or 20 videos. If you see movement, refine the quality. If you don't, pivot. That's it. That's the experiment. I do want to add that your YouTube channel should also have that same language that you're using on your website, just for alignment with authority building. Here's the thing I keep coming back to though. AI search rewards signals, but brands win customers on trust. Visibility is only useful if it strengthens authority, not just your presence. So whatever you test, make sure you're proud of what it is that you're putting out there. So if someone finds it and they actually click through, they know that you're actually serious with what you're doing. If this episode got you thinking about whether your brand shows up in AI search right now, that's exactly what an AI visibility audit is designed to answer. It's one of the main ways I work with brands, figuring out where you're showing up, where you're not, and what to do about it. You can find more information at CassieClarkMarketing.com or the show notes below. I have a tiny favor I want to ask. If you're getting value out of Found in AI, I would genuinely love if you'd take 30 seconds and leave a rating. It helps more people find the show and I do read every single one of those comments. All right, I will see you in the next video... episode. Until then, stay visible.