407 - How This SEO Agency is Implementing AI SEO with Lindsay Halsey

There are a lot of ongoing changes happening with SEO and how user behavior is changing with AI. It’s hard enough to keep up with as a web designer…I can’t imagine as a client!

But someone who’s doing a great job keeping their SEO clients in-the-know and updated every step of the way is Lindsay Halsey, co-founder of SEO agency webshine.com

She shares how they’re implementing AI SEO, how it’s changing their current offers, pricing and what they’re not changing.

Head to the show notes to get all links and resources we mentioned, along with a full transcription of this episode at joshhall.co/407

Transcript

SEO’s New Value In The AI Era

Josh Hall 0:59

Your investment in SEO goes further because it helps you also build visibility in the emerging space of AI-based tools. So if you want to be part of the conversation in Chat GPT or Gemini Perplexity Claude, et cetera, the foundation of what we're doing within your SEO campaign covers this whole area of generative engine optimization or GEO. And so in some ways, we're going further with our work. And in some ways, the old metrics of success are outdated. And we have to think about all of this in a much more holistic, less siloed way to be able to identify what the value is. Helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love.

Meet Lindsay And WebShine’s Focus

Lindsay Halsey 1:51

Hello, my friend. It's great to have you here. Now, you as a web designer know there's a lot changing in the world of SEO with AI. So I thought it would be awesome to have a conversation about this, specifically hearing from somebody who runs an SEO agency. So I'm pumped to bring on back to the podcast my good friend in SEO Land, repeat guest of the show, Lindsay Halsey. Now, if that same name sounds familiar, it's because you likely know her from the brand Pathfinder SEO, which is a tool for web designers to help them build their SEO plans. But if you didn't know, she's also the co-founder of an SEO agency called WebShine. You can find them at webshine.com. So in this conversation, we're drifting away from Pathfinder and actually getting into exactly what they're doing with their SEO offers, how they're implementing AI in their SEO plans, how they're letting clients know about it, everything and more in the world of AI and SEO. Speaking of, before we dive in, if you didn't know, I do have an SEO playlist that is going to cover all of the podcast episodes prior to this about AI and SEO. You can go to joshhall.co slash playlist and there there will be categories or categories of all of the different topics for the show. One of them is SEO. So if you didn't know, that's a free resource available to you to get caught up on this episode and all of the prior episodes about SEO. All right, without further ado, here is Lindsay. We're going to hear about what her SEO agency web chine is up to in the world of AI and SEO. All right, well, Lindsay, it's really good to have you back on as one of my trusted SEO confidants and gurus. You know, for years we've talked about Pathfinder SEO, which you've had a part in. I know you guys are going through some changes up ahead with that, at least at the time of recording this, because you're really headfirst into your client work and service work. So I figured we'd kind of jump into that on this one, specifically like what you are doing on the agency side as an SEOer, particularly with AI and how things are changing so rapidly, but also not changing as I've found out with SEO. So really excited to have you back on and to dive into that side of things today, if you're down for that.

Josh Hall 4:08

Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks so much uh for having me back uh to chat about SEO. And uh, and yeah, there's a lot going on in the world of AI, of course. And as we all help our clients navigate um how AI is changing search and what it means for SEO, um, we have been really active in this um at our agency at WebShine and really trying to help our clients, whether they're local businesses, e-commerce, um big national brands, like what do they need to be thinking about right now? What do they need to be doing? Does their strategy need to change? Um, how do they stay a little ahead of the curve?

Lindsay Halsey 4:44

So let's get like the foundation of what your service suite is with WebShine. Um, I know on your website it says you're doing Google Ads, SEO, Google Analytics, and then white label ads. Are those your main buckets or what what other services are you doing in your little suite of SEO services there?

Josh Hall 5:04

Yeah, so our agency focuses on basically helping businesses get found on Google, Yahoo, and Bing as the primary kind of orientation of our services. And so that means search engine optimization, that means Google Ads. Um these days, that also means on the paid side, we do help um our clients also with some paid social in Meta, Reddit, LinkedIn, et cetera. And then also on the SEO side, now we're starting to talk about well, what about when you want to get found and build visibility on AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity Cloud? So really we're in the marketing services industry space. We don't design and build websites, and that means most of our clients are on an ongoing retainer with us, and the partnership is all about helping them grow their business, um, generate more leads, generate more sales via marketing services.

When Bad Websites Block SEO Success

Lindsay Halsey 5:57

I have a huge question I'm so curious about for SEO agencies who don't do the web design. Like, do you have partners who you trust to build websites and then they come to you, or where you take on anyone who I mean, like what do you do if somebody takes a website to you and it's just god-awful? And you're like, we're not gonna invest in SEO if it's not gonna convert. Like, how do you handle taking over a website that you didn't build?

Josh Hall 6:21

So that happens where people come to us and say, I want to hire you for SEO, and then we look at their website and say, like, A, um, if I could build traffic to it, it's not gonna convert because the site is terrible. Or B, um, I don't want to work under the hood of this website because it's not secure, it's not well built, et cetera. So those are two like stoppers on our end. Um, and back in the day, um I had a hard time just being honest with clients, like, your website's terrible. We can't really work with you right now. And so I would bring them on and say, well, they asked me for SEO services. I'm gonna just go do my job. I'm gonna just go deliver the service. But what we found was those clients never stay on for more than three to six months because they don't see a return on investment. Um, we do the work, they get more traffic if we can, you know, do the work like under the hood and things are working, but um they get more traffic and they don't see more sales and leads because their website doesn't convert. And so we find now in this position of being just a little more confident and mature in um in our skill set and everything, that we're better having that transparent conversation of, hey, we'd love to work with you. Um, you know, and and here are a couple things that I think we might need to solve this before we solve more traffic. We might need to solve usability and design and and things like that. And then it gives us an opportunity to refer business back to the web designers and agencies that send us business on the SEO and Google ads. So that partnership um is really helpful in that we offer a really specific service. Um, a lot of times we can refer leads out to other great web designers and agencies, um developers, and then um when they're ready, they can come back to us.

Lindsay Halsey 7:58

I mean, it's fun talking to you on the other side of being a referral partner because this is one of the hidden gems that I teach for getting clients, which is if you don't want to do SEO or you don't want to do long-term commitment kind of stuff or ongoing growth plans with SEO or ads, partner up with the you know, the Lindsay of your area. Like it's such a gold mine for both SEOers and marketers and web designers who want to do the build and strategy, but not the the ongoing stuff. How did you meet and connect with your referral partners who do the development and design?

Building Referral Partnerships That Last

Josh Hall 8:32

In communities just like this, um, but it was kind of before uh we all met and and created community online. It was a lot more in-person events. Um, but yeah, a lot of times just going to in-person events um or local events and being like, hey, um, you know, it's really fun. We we were we live in a tiny town, my business partner and I, and um, and so we live near Aspen, Colorado, and we actually have um like a WordCamp group that gets together. We used to go to WordCamps, but we get together and we're always amazed at like freelancers and agencies that come out of the woodworks when we put it on meetup, um, even today, and we go and um and meet up in our local tiny area that there are other people and they're like, oh, you love social media? I I'm not good at social media. I don't offer it as a service. Like, let's like hook up and let's like refer each other business and things like that. So that's worked really well for us.

Lindsay Halsey 9:23

So WordCamps through like uh either either probably WordCamp Central or or Meetup. Yeah, meetup.com is still incredible.

Josh Hall 9:30

Like there's still it's still pretty big. Um yeah, so meetups, um, we really encourage, we have a small team. Um we're a team of four, and uh, we really encourage our team members to be active too. So that like broadens our geographic range a little bit. Um, and whether it's um they go to something that, you know, really anything that interests them, it could be a small business meetup. Um, they're the only one in this like agency digital space, or it could be something more digitally minded where they meet other kind of referral partners, but really just getting out there in the world, whatever is um, and I always say it's like I try to make it so it's comfortable for me because I kind of want it to be fun, but I push myself a little bit socially into that like place where I'm like, oof, uh, you know, I don't know anyone here, or like this makes me feel nervous, or I have to speak at an event. Um, like just that little bit sometimes of saying, like, okay, you know, and giving yourself that little I can do it, like I can go to an event and not know anyone and try to navigate this, just like I try to make my kids do things like that from time to time. Um, so yeah, really just getting out there in the world has been our way of staying connected. Um, and then ultimately the referral partner is if you're a good referral partner, you're kind of gonna pick up good referrals back. Um and so just like always trying to be a good person that connects the dots between people and uh and it somehow is just sort of a um it just sort of happens um when when you're out there participating in that space.

Lindsay Halsey 10:58

Yeah, and then like you mentioned, of course, online. I mean, that's the beauty about especially with where communities are at today. I think with Web Designer Pro, with you know, you've had a big, big part in Pathfinder for years with bringing people into Pathfinder SEO. I'm sure that's led to some really good designers who are in your corner as referral partners. I think it's different than big Facebook groups now because it's really hard. I found I mean, maybe 10 years ago it was a little bit different because it was kind of all there were. But I think it's harder now in a big group of 10 to 20,000 people to build good relationships online. I really the the micro communities are where it's at with finding referral partners, I think now.

Josh Hall 11:40

I agree. And also like just the micro conferences, I think that's another one. You can go to like the two and three and four thousand person conferences, and I've been to plenty over the years of like SEO conferences and whatever they are. And I struggle with that. Like I come out with fewer connections and fewer meaningful conversations. When I go to like the more micro, like the 50 to 100 um, you know, person events, I feel like in the course of three days, you get to know like everybody in that room, and you actually can kind of remember more conversations and you walk away, like I used to walk away with stacks of business cards from like the big WordCamps and things like that. And nothing ever came of those. Like I just there was volume, but there wasn't kind of that depth of quality. And so I think whether you're talking a community like Web Designer Pro or going to events, um, I I actually like I tend to gravitate more now to the smaller communities and the smaller events because I feel like, yeah, from a personal level, there's more human connection. And then with that comes more learning, um, more referral business, just like more collaboration, um, a lot of like mutual high fives of success. And I think it's something that really differentiates our industry in the most fantastic way. Um, is that I remember going to a WordCamp and my dad was with me. He used to work in insurance, and he was like, he was just floored by how collaborative everything was. Like I would introduce and we would chat with somebody, and he's like, Isn't that kind of your competitor? I'm like, no, no, no, no. I don't like that's totally not how we operate. And so I think we're really lucky um in an industry space um that there is this just like shared um, we will all succeed together mentality, much more so than there is a competitive sense.

Platforms Beyond WordPress And Flexibility

Lindsay Halsey 13:28

Gosh, that's so well said, Lindsay. Is it isn't that funny? Because it's such a corporate world thing. Uh, every time we have folks join pro who are from the corporate world, that's often the first thing they say is they're like, I can't believe I have a video testimonial on the homepage right now from Steve, who came from the corporate world, one of my Web Design Pro members, and said he's just been floored because he's like, We don't do this in the corporate world. Like, we don't help each other succeed. It's a dog eat dog. You know, if you help somebody, they're gonna take your position on the ladder. It's so different, which is just one of the many things I love about the web design world. So it's it's a really important mindset to have when going into these referral groups and these networking groups, too, even if it's just a casual meetup with other web designers, is to just be a referral person, like be a be a referrer, if that's the right word. Uh also, one thing I wanted to make note of was when you mentioned the the micro meetups and the micro conferences. I think it's important to remember too, if you make a better connection with like two people in a weekend and they become potential referral partners, they have a network. And so you can get access to their network very easily. So it's I feel like you can actually potentially get in with a network of people who could be referral partners for you just by meeting half a dozen people versus going to a 1,000-person conference. Because like you said, they're very shallow uh relationships initially. Like maybe you'll meet somebody who you dive with, but it's just a lot harder. So all that to say, like, yes, ditto on all that.

Josh Hall 14:59

Yeah. And that was our experience too in any of these events, is like those couple of really great relationships. And then you start partnering up and doing some things, and before you know it, you get introduced to their world and you introduce them, you know, vice versa. Um, yeah, and that's one of the things that makes kind of our industry really, I think, unique and uh one of the things I liked the most about it.

Lindsay Halsey 15:19

Are you are you guys working on websites that aren't WordPress?

Josh Hall 15:23

We are. Um so uh Web Shine when we started, and when I left, kind of the I used to work for a large digital agency as their like director of search marketing, and then I left to start um my own agency. And at the time I was all in on Drupal. Uh, and I was really good at Drupal SEO. And it turned out.

Lindsay Halsey 15:43

You and like seven other people around the world.

Josh Hall 15:45

It turns out it was really niche, and I uh and I was able to get like some good clients right out of the gate. And then I started to get frustrated with it for a million reasons that were more based on the platform and not based on SEO. And so we got more into WordPress and then Squarespace. And now these other content management systems really are um excelling in the world of search. So it used to be like, oh, if you want to, you know, blog a lot, you better be on WordPress because that's like the only thing that's gonna really like help your blog shine. And so we'll only work there. But now we find like, hey, blogs built on other platforms are doing pretty well too. And it's not so much the tool, it's how you use it. And so our we've we've definitely opened things up to working across um, you know, I would say uh eight, eight to ten different content management systems, et cetera. Um and uh and even have like one or two Drupal sites still in the mix.

Lindsay Halsey 16:39

How are you connecting with those people who are non-wordpressers? Do you do you do like just general web design meetups or marketing meetups, that kind of thing?

Packaging SEO: Strategy, Setup, Evolve

Josh Hall 16:47

Or those tend to come as more referred leads from our existing client base. So when we start to get out of the WordPress space, they tend to be more industry related. Oh, I work I work a lot in travel and vacation rentals. Um, uh, I work a lot in e-commerce. And so you sort of get a lead from an existing client. Um, and it turns out they were a WordPress site, but they're referring you to someone in their industry, but they have a different build. Um, that's kind of how those projects tend to come in. Um, and then also we bring in clients through SEO, which you know tends to fall more into that WordPress world that I spend most of my time in. Um, but we also bring in clients um that are looking for Google ad services. And Google ad services, if you have a well-built website, it really doesn't matter to us how it's built. Um, and so those clients tend to come in on all different content management systems. And then after running some ads with us for a while, they tend to want SEO services. So we I it's not necessarily the most scalable business model because we're on all these different content management systems, so no one thing is done exactly the same way. Um but in the world of SEO, um, most people that like it, they're like kind of that lifelong learner, like problem solving oriented um solution. And so the SEO strategy remains the same. It's really just the implementation where I have to look something up and be like, okay, I'm in Squarespace right now. How do I go and set up Google Analytics or how do I go and do this thing? And I can just Google it and find it or jump on Chat GPT and get like quick step by step, oh yeah, this is where I go. Because I don't store all that in my head. Um, I think the value and the the consistency is in how we craft strategy and how how we actually you know do the work. Um, the like the like nuts and bolts of where do you what box do you check and where do you go to do it is is something that's pretty easy to research and just uh and and make happen.

Lindsay Halsey 18:46

So I want to get into AI for an SEO agency, but before we do, I am curious, because I think it's important to understand for folks who are wanting to get further into SEO or maybe have an SEO growth plan or an SEO plan of sort. I'm curious, how are you selling this? Like, do you have a bit of an SEO strategy, like blueprint or a roadmap that you sell? I know that's been something that's really been working for Web Designer Pro members is to if they are going to do any sort of, we'll just bucket it under growth plan, which most SEO or SEO plans are some sort of growth plan. It's typically like we've seen basically paid discovery work really well to where it may be a thousand to two thousand dollars. It's a roadmap. And then once they have the plan for probably about a year, they can choose to move forward and actually implement that plan with a with a certain monthly amount, and then it's taken off. Do you guys roll with that type of model, or how are you selling an SEO plan?

Josh Hall 19:43

Yeah, so we sell SEO plans probably uh very similarly to the folks in your community. And we really I remember you um outlining in in some podcast recording or something I had heard from you like there's strategy, there's build, and then there's evolve. Like everything can fall into these three categories, and that's absolutely how um how we work. And so we think of the beginning of SEO is strategy, it should be a paid engagement. Um we call ours like an SEO assessment if the client already has an existing website. And um, what we're doing there is just simply identifying where are you today, where are you trying to go, and how are we gonna get you there. Um, and uh and it helps to basically build trust right out of the gate. Um, it is not this comprehensive audit that like gives you a laundry list of all the things that are wrong with your website from an SEO standpoint. We're talking like high level, and so it's an entry-level um offering, and um, and it allows us to basically build trust with a client, understand like the dynamics of what are going on in their industry, what their goals are, align expectations, and lay out a plan. Um, and so that we call an assessment. Um, and then we move into what we call a setup, and that's where I'm like hands-on, let's go do the foundation. So let's go and um check the box and make sure that the foundation on this website is sound, and then let's move into monthly, and that's where we're gonna evolve and grow together over time and make sure that as your business evolves, it's reflected in your SEO, and as the industry of SEO evolves, it's reflected in your website. So we always kind of joke that Google seems to keep us well employed on that retainer monthly front because it's always changing, and you can either get a little frustrated with that or you can just lean in and say, like, this is my job, security is that I'm gonna go and figure this thing out for my client, I'm gonna communicate it to them, et cetera. And along the way, um, while we are obviously results oriented, like that's why people hire us, um, when Google evolves in a way that maybe makes the game harder, which a lot of people are feeling right now, like if you have a lot of traffic coming into your blog, and then now the AI overviews and AI mode and people turn to Chat GPT for those informational queries. They're not always going through to websites these days. Um, you know, if we just look at like our success as being or our result being sessions increasing over time, um, that is not necessarily looking at this in the big picture sense of like, hey, well, it might be harder to actually win a session right now. So what are we doing now with our clients that's different? Like, how are we adding value in this era? Um, that's what that monthly SEO plan is all about. Um, and it's not always about just chasing sessions and rankings, it's about adding value and evolving and helping them evolve with the times.

AI’s Impact On Metrics And Mindset

Lindsay Halsey 22:40

Well, perfect segue, because that was what I wanted to dive into next was the nitty-gritty of like what you guys are actually doing to account for just the search industry changing and AI search. So, yeah, what are you guys doing in particular there? Uh, whether it's on-site with websites, whether it's yeah, I mean, what are all the details? Are you still doing backlinks? Are you still doing authority and working on domain authority? Uh, I've got plenty of thoughts I'd be happy to share on on my strategy over the next year or so. But what are you doing on the client side of things to evolve?

Josh Hall 23:13

Yeah, so the number one thing we're doing is communicating. Um, and that is that uh this is evolving quickly and uh and clients need to come along in the journey. So we've always said that SEO isn't done in a back office and it's not siloed, and that's more true today than it ever has been. So the first thing that we're doing is um trying to communicate better with clients and let them know how AI is changing search and what it means for them specifically, and then what we're doing, you know, to evolve with the times. And so that communication, my favorite way is via um a phone call with like a Zoom link or something where I can actually show them on a screen, like, hey, look at this search and look at this, and explain to them in um jargon-free, you know, vocabulary what's happening in um in the industry space. Um, I like to introduce to them a concept along the lines in these communications of like, in some ways this is getting harder, and in some ways your investment's going further than ever. And so the harder piece is um, you know, when you publish a blog post, uh it may not pick up as many click-throughs or or sessions, it may not generate as much traffic as it would have a year ago or five years ago. So, in that sense, we invest the same thing in creating the content and publishing the content. And you know, if you look at it as a very direct output, we may get less out of that individual piece of content if we measure it based on rankings and traffic. Um, that part of the game has gotten harder. On the flip side, your investment in SEO goes further because it helps you also build visibility in the emerging space of AI-based tools. So if you want to be part of the conversation in Chat GPT or Gemini Perplexity, Claude, et cetera, the foundation of what we're doing within your SEO campaign covers this whole area of generative engine optimization or GEO. And so, in some ways, we're going further with our work, and in some ways, the old metrics of success are outdated. And we have to think about all of this in a much more holistic, less siloed way to be able to identify like what the value is. So this is this is education that could take like months for clients to fully absorb and understand, right? Like you're talking about major shifting sands and changing the way they think about, they think about SEO as rankings, they think about it as traffic and sales. And now all of a sudden you're introducing a concept of visibility. You're introducing concepts beyond, you know, platforms beyond Google, Yahoo, and Bing. And you're starting to talk to them about um marketing that's so much less siloed because it's actually kind of what you're doing on other channels is influencing your overall sort of brand visibility and your brand growth. And so this is going to be what we're talking about, not just like in one conversation, but it's in that conversation. It's in if you do email marketing from your agency, if you send monthly reports from your agency, we're just having to come back to this time and time again and understand that um, you know, the foundation is still the same. The rug didn't get pulled out from under us, even as um all of this is is reshaping.

SEO vs AEO vs GEO Explained Simply

Lindsay Halsey 26:30

Well, I just told you before we hit record, I'm uh about to revamp my SEO course, which is just that. It is such a foundational course that is best practices that likely still holds true today. Like at the time of recording this, I'm not sure when this is gonna drop, it may be out by then. But the old version of the SEO course is still what I do and it still works. And it obviously I'm still being pulled up on ChatGPT now and other AI engines along with just good old classic search and snippets. But uh so that's good. That's good news that the foundation is there. But yeah, I think I mean for anyone who is gonna be remotely I mean, I mean, even the basics of these different SEO emerging categories now, I think should be covered. Why don't we cover that real quick? Is it fair to say that there's kind of three types of SEO now? There's SEO, search engine optimization, there's GEO, which you meant which you mentioned, which is generative engine optimization. I'd like to dive into more of that. And then AEO, answer engine optimization. Is that fair to say that those are kind of like the big three right now? Or is there overlap in between them?

Josh Hall 27:35

Those are the three, like, yeah, that everybody's throwing around and doing a lot of like SEO versus AEO versus GEO type comparisons. Um, we're in a little bit more umbrella here, which is basically to say that this is all under one roof. Like this is all one space of building your business or your brand or your client's brand's visibility and all of the ways that people interact and you know make decisions on who to work with, purchase decisions, all the things. But it's it's all encompassing there. And so kind of what works in, you know, they're not, these are not siloed fields. We're not like, well, this month we're gonna focus on AEO, and next month we're gonna focus on GEO as part of your monthly retainer. But rather we're trying to say, like, here's the foundation. Um, and then here are things that we're like leaning into right now because they play well in the answer engine optimization or they play well in this generative engine optimization. So the foundation is the same, and then there's just areas that we're leaning into or shifting our focus into, um, sort of doubling down our efforts to make sure that we're really staying current and resonating with what's working today.

Lindsay Halsey 28:43

What is, if you could pinpoint or like in layman's terms, explain the difference between those three GEO, SEO, and AEO. I know you mentioned they are kind of an umbrella. There's already there's got to be some sort of difference. What are like the subtle differences between the three?

Josh Hall 28:59

So I like this is how I would describe it to a client.

Lindsay Halsey 29:02

Um, and that is pretend like I'm five.

Showcasing The Who Behind Content

Josh Hall 29:05

Like the very beginning, or like if I'm talking to like just like friends, what do you do? Or and they ask some questions. So search engine optimization, I've always said, is like the art and science of getting found on Google in the free or organic space, right? So we're talking about Google as the core, but really I also mean a little Yahoo and bing in there. Um, and and that is traditional, like, you know, showing up. Um it encompasses local, so it encompasses also getting found like with the Google Maps results, but it's building visibility on Google in the places that we don't have to pay Google for the traffic. So anywhere there's no Google ads. Um when I think about answer engine optimization, I start to think about the concept of people turning to Google, Yahoo Bing, and the AI platforms with question-based queries. And all of a sudden, we are in informational gathering, you know, human mode. And when we're doing that, we are playing towards how do we get included in the answers as an authority in the space. Um, and you know, you think of people also ask, like that kind of a feature on Google, you think about being included in those questions. And so when you think about answer engine optimization, you think about a lot of like the concepts of like I have a header that's formed as the form of a question, and then I answer it succinctly right below it, and then I unpack my answer and show my depth of expertise. Like that kind of structured approach would be an example of answer engine optimization in in the real world. Like I'm creating this dynamic of I'm here to share my expertise in this space and answer questions, and then that's going to get picked up in all of these places. Generative engine optimization is building that visibility um in the LLMs, in the Chat GPT AI world. Um, but at the end of the day, what works for SEO and like what I was talking About 10 years ago is still what works like across the board here in terms of the foundation. And so we always talked about like the four pillars of SEO being, you know, you need to have a strong site foundation with a fast, secure website with great user experience. I put that under kind of like technical UX piece, like that foundation where we started, like what do you do if someone doesn't have a good-looking website that's solidly built? It's kind of end of story, right? Like that's the that's the building block. Then you layer on there the content world, that helpful audience first content. Um, that hasn't changed. People's businesses' audiences haven't changed. So that that's still the game, the content game. Then you have on-page optimization, which is where you add context to your content. You're adding in those, you know, that alt text on images, you're adding in headers into your content to make it easy to scan, bullet points, page titles, and meta descriptions, all of the ways we can digest more from the content because it's more visually appealing, um, because um things are kind of user-friendly in the way that they're laid out, et cetera. And then you have that whole world of off-site SEO, building authority, backlinks, reviews, et cetera. So all of that is still true. Those four pillars of SEO are sort of the same four pillars of AEO and GEO. Like there's no um there's no differentiation in that foundation. What we're finding now, though, is if you care about um answer engine and engine optimization and GEO, and then also like what the search engines are really valuing today, there's some areas where you can really shift your focus once that foundation is complete.

Lindsay Halsey 32:41

So that's beautiful. Well said, great overview on all that. Yeah, as a from a client perspective, that makes sense too as to why you're not gonna have a month of GEO and a month of AEO and a month of SEO. It's like you you would probably, I imagine, just focus on like on-site work, um, optimization work, or content building work, or off-site type of SEO work, which would in turn affect all the three, the three EOs.

Josh Hall 33:07

Yeah, exactly. And so in the way our agency works, that foundation we initially build during that setup phase, and then we um we actually kind of like implement some of the ongoing components, like content doesn't really go away, right? We have to constantly be creating more content, and while we're doing it, we're thinking about on-page optimization, et cetera. So the foundation gets built, and then we're starting to like actually implement it. And then when we think about what we're layering in or where to shift focus, um, the things that are working now, for example, one is showcasing the who behind the content. So today the internet's flooded with average content created by AI. Um, and what can we do is really showcase like the our expertise behind the content. So it could be going back and revising blog posts so that they have like a more human and storytelling-oriented introduction to the post. So that's like this is coming from someone that has skin in the game and knows what they're talking about because they're telling a story or because they're sharing a first-person narrative, um, for example. Or making sure all of like your clients' blogs actually have an audience attached or an um an author attached to them. Like instead of it being this is the business's blog, let's go and pull the people out and say, like, this is the blog that belongs to this person, and here's who this person is and why you should care about this piece of content because this author really knows what they're talking about in this space. So, this concept of like showcasing the who, it can be adding testimonials to your pages. Um, it can be adding images that are of real people instead of stock photography, but like that all really shines through in the back end of a website and then in the front end um in terms of connecting the dot on something that resonates really well today.

Lindsay Halsey 34:56

My next question was how to specifically get into GEO, like how to make progress on GEO, which I know is so tricky. It's funny because um, Michelle Bourbonier, have you chatted with her yet?

Josh Hall 35:07

I haven't. I need to.

Practical GEO: Depth, Signals, And LLMs

Lindsay Halsey 35:09

You guys are gonna be best friends. It's gonna be ridiculous. So she she's been my SEO, my personal SEO for years, and she's a founding member of Pro. She just did uh a training on AI search specifically and got really nitty-gritty with some of the research. If you get a chance, you should watch the replay.

Josh Hall 35:25

Check that one out.

Lindsay Halsey 35:26

It is good. I mean, it she's a researcher, if she's a PhD, uh like she gets into the nitty-gritty. So she really did some in-depth research on all this stuff. But it was it's really it kind of reaffirmed my hope, which is that these AI engines are just looking for trust. And they're more so looking for just good quality content. So, to what you just said, like focusing on those little micro details of like showing the author, giving real-world examples, stories, stuff that is clearly not regurgitated AI. I that's personally my strategy, is I'm really leaning into that. So is it fair to say, like with GEO, is that probably the main strategy to you know affect LL or LMM's um large language models and like how they're searching, whether it's perplexity or Chat GPT or Cloud or whatever?

Tracking AI Traffic And Visibility

Josh Hall 36:18

Yeah, exactly. You want to be out there and building this sort of cloud of context and meaning and value around a business or a brand. And so um, for instance, um, if you know, in the old days you would have just like published one blog post on a topic and then moved on, now maybe sink your teeth into that and with a little more depth. Like just, you know, publish a blog post, create a YouTube video, embed it in the in the post, um, get out there, build a couple backlinks because people might want to link to this content to build a little of authority, maybe be a guest on a on a podcast or in a webinar or get mentioned in the news or something talking about this topic. Like all of the context that you can give around um an individual or a brand's expertise in an area, that's what's training up and building that trust, um, are all of these different touch points. And so that's why this isn't done in a silo. This is done using um really a lot of real-world marketing skills. So, yeah, for the most part, um, you know, that's been sort of our approach is like, hey, we we just have to like dig a little deeper. So we can't just like on a client's website, like, let's just go blog once a month and publish the blog and then wipe our hands of it and call that like good to go. We need to get a little closer to the client and talk about um how we can really help them be thought leaders in their industry space. Like, what else are they doing and making sure all those signals are out there? Oh, you're you're an attorney and you're out there going to a conference and you're speaking on this topic. Like, well, let's make sure that's shining through somewhere on the internet so that the the this can get picked up and understood and the context around your authority and your business is really is prominent, like it is in the real world, but on the online world. So um, a lot of real world marketing is is kind of what's needed, um, which I find refreshing. It's a little harder work, it's a little less easy to just check a box and move on. Um, but it's more, it's more genuine and it's more valuable to the end user, the target audience. Um, so there's that piece. Then there are like new, more tactical type things, like you can build an LLMS TXT. I consider that like a tactical kind of add-on, kind of like you would have created an XML sitemap or a robots TXT. So there are elements of GEO that are sort of um LLM specific. Um, but the the big picture frame here is that you're trying to add context and add meaning and build trust in whatever way makes sense in your business environment. Um, if you're a local business, a lot of that is building trust, like with reviews. Um, more Google Maps reviews are going to help with the sentiment that the AI pulls, and you'll see phrases in the AI-generated results, like some people say, or many people say about this business, and it's synthesizing all of these reviews. Um, you know, you can see that being really valuable for local.

Lindsay Halsey 39:12

So a robots.txt file txt, that can I don't want to say persuade, but is that what you would go to to try to make like a direct impact on any uh Chat GPT or any other LLM model?

Josh Hall 39:28

So your robots.txt file is really just a set of crawler instructions, like how you want the search engine spiders or any other crawlers out there to navigate your website where you don't want them to go. And then I think about your XML sitemap as being really your website's resume. Like here are all the pages, here are when they were last updated, here's their relative importance, um, make it really easy for the crawlers to navigate the site and figure out where the meaning and value is. This LLMS TXT is a third file. Um, in WordPress, you can create it with a plugin like Yoast, and it's to help the LLMs um get trained up on their on the content. So it's a different format and it's a different file. Um, but the concept has some parallels. Like people, some people are like, oh, don't equate them to a robots.txt map. Like, well, there's some similarities here. It's a file that's behind the scenes that no humans are gonna look at that help to train, in this case, the LLMs about the content on your website. So there are tactics that fit into GEO that are very specific to GEO, um, but for the most part, it is this real-world like building of trust and it is this foundation that's helping to build the visibility. I think there's this whole other world when we talk about like, well, what are we doing at our agency? We're communicating this to clients, but then we're also starting to help them put numbers behind it and meaning behind it, which means our clients use Google or we use Google Looker Studio for our reporting. And so we've layered in, we've created a custom channel in Google Analytics for traffic from AI tools. So we can actually say, here's how many visitors you're getting from the chat GPTs of the world. Um, and here's what the quality is, and here's their conversion, and maybe even here's revenue if it's an e-comm site. Um, so we're tracking that in analytics, and then we're pulling that data through into our Looker Studio reports and adding a page in the report that's all about your AI visibility and tracking how much traffic are you getting from AI-based tools and watching it become an emerging channel has been another way of helping clients kind of understand, um, in this case, in a quantitative way, what's happening. And then, you know, um in the next month or two, we're gonna layer in more visibility tracking for brands. Um, and how do you actually track your visibility in these AI-based tools, which is um much more complex than just tracking how much traffic you get, um, but is an emerging space that software-based tools are starting to solve for in a way that's accessible to us as marketers.

Lindsay Halsey 42:10

Okay, great. So I was gonna ask exactly how you track the GEO side of things with with AI searches, just because it's so different than setting up keyword research and being very very like there's a very cut-and-dry results when you Google something, and that may vary drastically, you know, like a little bit, but usually you're gonna see like, all right, you moved up seven spots, you're on page one finally.

Josh Hall 42:33

Yeah.

Lindsay Halsey 42:34

With AI.

Josh Hall 42:35

It was a simple world, right? Back then.

Lindsay Halsey 42:37

Yeah, for anyone who thought it was complex, welcome. Welcome to 2025. So, what how are they tracking like so so Looker Studio that will actually track AI searches and results? Is that right? Because I because that varies too. Like my chat GPT is going to be different than yours from the results, depending on our our history and then how they're uh, I guess how you know what what's prompted.

Reporting, Looker Studio, And Custom Channels

Josh Hall 43:02

So Looker Studio actually doesn't track anything for us. It's just for us at our agency, it's our it's our reporting tool. So it's like an agency analytics. In this case, Looker Studio is free, which is nice. Um, but basically we have these like dashboards or monthly reports that we're sending to our SEO clients that help them understand their website performance. And our reports start on uh the big picture, like where are you getting traffic from, what's it doing across the whole world. Then we silo in on organic search, and that's where you think about looking at just organic search sessions and revenue and traffic, and then we look at things like ranking data. What I like about Looker Studio is I can pull data from a lot of sources. So I can pull data from analytics, I can pull it from Google Search Console to look at just SEO. We use rank tracking in Winter, so I can pull that in, and I can surface it all in one report. And so what we've been focusing on right now in the here and now is the thing we can relatively easily accomplish right now is telling clients this is how many visits you're getting from Chat GPT. This is how many visits you're getting from Perplexity. And the data in our case is collected in Google Analytics, but then we're displaying it to clients using Looker Studio. You can display it to them using Analytics as well. The next phase of this is to say, okay, well, that's great for when you win the click, right? Google Analytics, it's only going to look at it when you actually win the session. So, what about how do we track just being included in the conversation, being mentioned in Chat GPT? Even if I don't win the click, that's that's what we're trying to help our clients do, right? Is build that visibility in something where they never actually end up touching the website. So that's kind of the next thing that we're trying to solve for before the end of the year for our clients. And um, and that is the space that is emerging very quickly in in like what tools are out there to help you monitor like brand mentions and visibility, et cetera. Um, and we haven't personally at our agency sunk our teeth into like this is the tool we're gonna use, and here's how we're gonna integrate it. We're still in that exploratory mode. Um, but I'm telling myself that even if we change our tune uh in 2026, that by the end of 2025, we'd like to have layered something in there um around this kind of idea of brand visibility, brand dimensions um in the AI world and providing and surfacing up some data for clients there.

Lindsay Halsey 45:34

Does Google so Google Analytics is able to track ChatGPT? Is it um is it able to do the other ones as well, as long as they're all open source or public at least?

Josh Hall 45:44

Yeah, so any traffic that comes through to your website, assuming someone accepts the cookies, um, can get tracked. And Google can tell you it right now buckets um traffic from like a chat GPT under referral as a as a kind as a channel. So Google has built in like we're gonna lump all of these together and call these social channels. We're gonna lump all of these, this traffic together and call it organic search, or this all together and call it paid search. Well, there right now in Google Analytics isn't a channel for AI. So right now, your traffic from Chat GPT, Perplexity, Cloud, et cetera, they're all coming in as referral, as the as the medium, and then the source is the name of the website. So what we did in our clients analytics, and you can do today, is create a custom channel that is all things AI. It literally only takes like five minutes to do, and it works back in time, but it lumps all of the traffic from AI tools together in your analytics so that you can look at them collectively instead of having to be like kind of parsing it out under the referral side of things, if that makes sense. So this all sounds complicated, but again, it's like a little like five-minute task in analytics that that gathers up all the AI traffic into one channel that you can then tell your clients, you got 50 visits from AI tools like Chat GPT, and they stayed on site for three minutes. This is this is emerging. This is exciting. Like a month ago, you only had 10 or whatever it might be.

Lindsay Halsey 47:20

Gotcha. Okay. I wonder if that works on Fathom. I'm using Fathom Analytics.

Josh Hall 47:24

Good question. I don't know the answer on Fathom. Um, and I mean the traffic is in there, it's coming in as a referral, but how to group it up in a way that you can call it its own channel. Um, I haven't researched that one.

Lindsay Halsey 47:37

On the to-do list. All right.

Josh Hall 47:39

Yeah. And it could change, right?

Lindsay Halsey 47:42

It is funny though, because uh there's this framework, I guess I'll call it a framework. I talk about it in my business course, which in my business course it was all about sales, which is to connect, converse, then convert. But another frame on this idea, which applies to SEO, it applies to any sort of marketing, it applies to sales, is uh basically uh either visibility or awareness. Like like you said, with ChatGPT, just getting you seen, like getting a brand recognized out there. Typically you do that on a Google search, but now it's largely through any of these AI models. And then there's engagement of some sort, and then there's conversion. So it still all goes back to conversion. Um so it's like visibility, you see something, whether it's on social media or chat GPT or Google, you engage with it, you go to the blog post, you sign up for a freebie, you actually do something, you follow a social media page, and then conversion, you purchase or you book a call. So I just like that idea. I think it's a good reminder that with like all ever no, regardless of the changes or any evolution on all this stuff, it still boils down to awareness, engagement, conversion, or connect, converse, convert, any one of those.

Awareness, Engagement, Conversion Still Rule

Josh Hall 48:52

Totally agree. Yeah, that's really well stated. Yeah, in a lot of this, we're talking about these new things, and yet the the fundamentals and like these frameworks um are still holding true in this moment. And they help us to understand the complexity that's out there and then to ultimately be able to explain it to our clients.

Lindsay Halsey 49:13

Yeah, well, gosh, uh this has been great, Lindsay. We covered a lot in a short amount of time here. Uh I really appreciate you being transparent with what you and your agency are doing. Um, one final question for you as we get ready to wrap this up, but where should folks go to connect with you and uh to see what you guys are up to?

Josh Hall 49:29

Yeah, check us out. Um, our agency is webshine, um, webshine.com. And uh and you can always reach out to me at lindsay at webshine.com. I'm most responsive over email. Um, so uh feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions or there's anything I can do to help.

Lindsay Halsey 49:45

Well, and um talk about like building referral partners being on podcasts is a great way to uh to build referral partners. And for folks who are like, thank God I don't want to do this, hire Lindsay in the team. Because you guys do white label stuff, right?

Josh Hall 49:58

We do white label. We do uh yeah, a lot of direct uh working with clients. And uh and so, yeah, and then we also just have a referral program. So some uh some web designers and agencies refer their SEO or Google Ads clients to us, and then um we we give them 10% back um as kind of a referral commission. And uh and you know, white label is great, but a lot of this you can see is working really closely with clients and communicating well. And so one of the challenges I think in that white label dynamic is you you have a like a little bit of a communication train. And so um, yeah, our referral program has been pretty popular um this year, just knowing that um we can work directly with clients and um and then throw a throw a recurring thanks um you know back to back to whoever referred us.

Lindsay Halsey 50:46

Awesome. Well, my last question is what are what's one thing you're doing different in 2025 with SEO?

Josh Hall 50:57

That is a really good question. Um, I think we've been the like, and this is not a big thing, but just um it kind of just comes top of mind is really trying to help clients more with their reviews, um, getting more reviews, consistently responding to reviews, and going beyond just reviews on Google Maps. So this has been something we've always helped clients with, um, but we're really seeing added value in this sort of external trust building piece. Um, and so that's been one area that I think we've we've been placing um a greater emphasis in terms of kind of tactical work that we're working with clients. Um but I'd say the overarching thing that we've been doing this year is um communicating more than ever. Um, because without communication, you sort of stand for clients to not understand how this world is evolving. Are you staying current, et cetera? Um, so yeah, the communication piece number one, but then some tactical things like reviews um have been in the mix.

Reviews, Communication, And 2025 Priorities

Lindsay Halsey 51:56

Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Lindsay. This has been great. A little bit of a masterclass here. Uh, but uh yeah, awesome to hear about where you guys are at with the agency, how you're rolling this stuff out to clients. Uh and luckily, I don't feel overwhelmed. If anything, I feel good about like, okay, it's it's still the basics, it's still the foundation, it's still the fundamentals. You can go way further if you want to. Uh, and obviously, you know, this changes per client, like you said. But um, yeah, this has been great. I feel good. I feel good about SEO. I was a little nervous. I was gonna be like, okay, where, you know, I've like a Michelle just did a live training in pro on AI search. We had this conversation. I've talked to some other SEOers recently, and luckily everyone has left me feeling like, okay, you know, AI didn't destroy the SEO industry like it was doomed, uh, like everyone said it was last year. So feeling good. We're good.

Josh Hall 52:45

Good. Yep, and that's how I'm feeling too. And uh, and I think that's what we can share with our clients um so that they kind of know what's going on now and and uh can rest assured that we're on top of it, that we're evolving, and uh, and that they're in good hands.

Lindsay Halsey 52:58

That's wise counsel, by the way, because you never know when a client's gonna see some article that's like SEO is dead.

Josh Hall 53:04

Yeah, they're gonna see that or they're gonna get pitched and you could lose, you know, you have a client you've been working with forever, and they're like, well, I'm gonna switch because this client, this agency is also offering GEO. And you're like, oh, wait, but we're we're already handling that. I just didn't communicate it to you. Um, I I know in our agency life there's nothing I've felt more of a failure in than moments where our client's been like, oh, we're gonna go hire this other agency because they offer Google Ads services. I'm like, oh, we offer Google ads. How have we like been working with you on an ongoing basis? And you didn't even know like our suite of services and and things like that. So yeah, it's a it's a good time to lean into clients. And my favorite way isn't, hey, let's talk about your SEO. It's let's talk about what's going well in your business, just like a general check-in. Um, and then you kind of wander your way into um into getting to a place to provide that education and then potentially an upsell. Um, right? You may have some clients that aren't investing in these things that need um that need to be thinking about it.

Lindsay Halsey 54:04

Boom. No better way to wrap that one up. Well, thank you, Lindsay. Until the next one. Let's see how SEO looks in 2026. Next round.

Josh Hall 54:13

Thanks so much, Josh.

Lindsay Halsey 54:16

So there we go, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this one again from somebody who is literally off, you know, on the front lines, boots on the ground, implementing this. There are still a lot of gray area. There's still a lot of things up in the air and a lot of things that are gonna continue to change. But I hope that seeing what Lindsay and her agency have done to keep their clients informed and up to date on everything, I hope you apply that as well. Even if you're not a full-blown SEO agency, even if it's just a part of what you do, I think it's really important to relay some of what hopefully you learned here to them. So just remember this podcast, you can use it as an upsell for your clients. Let them know you're listening to this, you're staying fresh on what's going on in the world of web design and SEL, and hopefully it helps you craft your SEO offers as well. So hope you enjoyed this one. Stay subscribed. Again, the show notes for this episode are going to be found at Joshell.co slash 407. We'll have links to everything that we covered here with Lindsay, including a link to her uh agency site, which is website.com. Big thanks to Lindsay. Big thanks to you for listening, and I will see you on the next episode.