SEO, Automation, and the Secret to Sustainable Growth — with Ken Tucker of Changescape Web

In this episode, we sit down with Ken Tucker, Founder and Chief Marketing Strategist at Changescape Web, to unpack what it really takes to build a digital marketing system that drives predictable, sustainable growth — without wasting time or ad spend.

Ken has spent years helping small and midsize businesses master SEO, content strategy, local search visibility, and marketing automation. Today, he shares his battle-tested framework for turning chaos into consistency — and turning clicks into real customers.

If you’ve ever felt stuck trying to balance organic growth with automation, this episode is your roadmap to getting it right.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How to design a marketing system that consistently delivers leads
• The biggest SEO and local search mistakes small businesses make — and how to fix them
• Why marketing automation is the missing link between awareness and revenue
• How to use content and reviews to dominate local visibility
• The key to balancing “done-for-you” and “do-it-yourself” marketing strategies
• What every business owner should automate in 2025 to scale faster and smarter

🧠 Key Takeaways

✅ Marketing systems outperform marketing campaigns
 ✅ SEO and automation aren’t separate — they’re stronger together
 ✅ Consistency beats creativity when it comes to growth
 ✅ Your reputation is your marketing engine — nurture it daily

🔗 Connect with Ken Tucker & Changescape Web

📧 Email: [e-mail]

 🌐 Website: https://changescapeweb.com/ken-tucker/

Learn more about Changescape Web’s services in SEO, automation, and marketing systems designed for sustainable small business growth.

🌐 Connect with MarketSurge

🚀 Visit: https://marketsurge.io

🎯 Book a 15-Minute Value or Free Coffee Call: https://link.marketsurge.io/widget/bookings/15minutevalueorfreecoffee

🎙️ Listen to More Episodes: https://marketsurge.transistor.fm/

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💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsurgeio

🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/marketsurging

Creators and Guests

Host

Reed Hansen

Reed Hansen is a seasoned digital marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative strategies. As the Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, he focuses on leveraging AI-powered marketing tools to help businesses scale efficiently. Reed's expertise spans from leading startups to Fortune 500 companies, making him a recognized authority in the digital marketing space. His unique ability to combine data-driven insights with creative solutions has been instrumental in achieving remarkable sales growth for his clients. ​

What is Inside Marketing with MarketSurge?

Welcome to Inside Marketing with MarketSurge — your front-row seat to the boldest business insights, marketing breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial real talk.

Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge and a digital marketing veteran who's helped scale everything from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants, this podcast dives deep into what’s really moving the needle in today’s marketing world. Find us at Marketsurge.io

Each week, we’ll break down the latest marketing and business news (minus the fluff), explore tech trends you actually need to know, and feature unfiltered conversations with the most interesting minds in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Whether you're a founder, a marketer, or just a curious hustler looking to level up, this is where growth happens—loudly, smartly, and with just the right amount of sass.

Subscribe, tune in, and let’s scale something legendary. 🚀

Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hello
and welcome back to Inside

Marketing with Market Surge.

My guest today is Ken Tucker,
founder of Change Scape Web, Amazon

bestselling author and co-host of
two long running podcasts, marketing

guides for small businesses and
AI guides for small businesses.

Ken specializes in helping
small businesses bridge the gap

between cutting edge AI tools
and authentic human connection.

He's built AI driven marketing systems
that don't just automate tasks.

Also create real conversions and
stronger relationships with over 240

podcast episodes, conversations with
Legends like Guy Kawasaki and Jay

Bayer, and a new edition of his book,
content Marketing For Local Search.

Ken brings a rare mix of tactical
insights and big picture vision.

Ken, I'm so glad to have you on the show.

Thanks for joining.

ken: Thanks, Reid.

I'm excited to be here.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Great.

Well, so, you know, this is actually
a topic of interest because, you

know, I have a marketing agency
and we're always facing this push

and pull of the quantity and speed.

You can generate content with AI
and the need for human connection.

So what do you think a lot of
small businesses are getting

right and wrong with the way
they use AI in their marketing?

ken: Um, the biggest mistake I think
is that many small businesses are

intimidated and aren't even using ai.

So I think that's a big mistake.

And I think, you know, there are
ways to test the water to get started

there, but for those businesses that
are using ai, um, my big fear and

what I've seen so far is that people
something in to, uh, chat, GPT, a

simple prompt they get the result back.

And they take that and they slap
it on their website or they.

Carve it up for social media posts,
whatever they were asking for chat,

GPT, they call it chat for a reason.

It's conversational.

You know, it gets better when you ask
it questions, when you challenge it,

when you train it on your business
and the voice of your business

and how your business responds.

So I think that that's the step that many
small businesses are missing right now.

Uh, they're just taking it.

Look, I mean, chat, GPT can generate
some really great quality stuff.

Sometimes it's good to go outta the
box, but that's usually because you've

already done some pre-work and some
prompting and some training on it.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay, so
maybe tell us a little bit more, right.

Obviously we want content to sound
realistic or, uh, personalized.

Um, how do you go about that?

what are your tools for that?

ken: Yeah.

what I like to do is I like to train,
any AI that we're using on behalf

of our clients on that business.

So, first and foremost, we generate a
robust set of frequently asked questions.

that's a huge missed opportunity I
think for a lot of small businesses.

They may have frequently asked
questions on their website, but

it may only be like five or 10.

and they may be pretty generic.

what we do, is we train the AI and
it's got a nice benefit for your

Google business profile as well,
when you develop a nice, robust

set of frequently asked questions
and then answers from the business.

And a lot of this can be.

Initially created and generated by.

chat but it needs to be human vetted.

You need to take the output and then
you need to work with your customer.

if you're providing marketing services,
or if you're doing this on your own as

a small business owner, go through those
answers and make sure that it aligns with.

Who you are, what you sell, what
your values are, and eliminate

anything that's not germane.

So, for example, a mortgage lender
that I've been working with here in

Albuquerque generated a set of, frequently
asked questions, pretty in depth.

one of the solutions that it recommended.

a great program here in New Mexico,
but it's something he didn't

want to touch, he didn't tackle.

it's outside of his realm of expertise,
and he doesn't think it's a great

solution for most of his customers.

So we eliminated that.

But then he went in and he also made
sure that when he read these, that it

was answering in his voice that it did
align and that it was actually accurate

because chat GPT isn't always accurate.

frequently there are errors, so
you have to review everything.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: You know,
it's interesting that, um, I just had a.

thought popped in my head, but
it's like, maybe in its way that

it's iterating and learning, it's
becoming more human and that it

becomes inaccurate just like a human.

ken: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: is a,
um, a drawback, I guess to learning

from our behavior and language.

ken: Yeah.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Um,

ken: you know, it's come a long
way in the last year and a half,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: yeah.

ken: But it's still not perfect.

And you know, the other thing that
I think is a really great thing

to do is to do deep research.

it's so valuable and you want to have a
paid chat GPT account to do that because

it's gonna give you far superior, results.

But ask complicated.

questions when you're asking it
to generate the deep research.

and it will give you fantastic
output that you can take and

use for tremendous insights.

It can build content calendars,
it can suggest, YouTube shorts.

that you might want to create things
like that, but again, it all needs to

be vetted and read and interpreted by
a human to make sure that it's accurate

and aligned with your business goals
and objectives and also, the belief

system that you have for your business.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

No, I, I think that's great advice
and, you know, really practical.

Um.

I wanna pivot a little bit.

Now you're bestselling author on Amazon.

You had some success with that.

You've had multiple books.

You were just telling me you
had three books on Amazon.

Um, I'd be interested to hear about
those books and, what they contain.

But then, also a little meta question.

How has the publication of those
books enhanced your own business?

Like, how has that supported
the growth of your business?

ken: Yeah.

So, um, two of the books are getting a
little long in the tooth, so to speak.

They're, written well before COVID, right
around, right before COVID, I should say.

one is on reputation management,
so online reviews continues

to be an absolutely critical.

Component for almost every business that's
out there, especially local businesses.

Uh, super, super important.

Uh, then I did another book on, social
media marketing for restaurants.

Again, a little outdated.

Many of the principles are still,
I mean, I generally try to look at

evergreen solutions where, you know, I
don't like to lead people down a path.

That's not gonna be an effective.

Strategy.

But you know, before I wrote
that book, TikTok didn't exist.

so, you know, it's certainly out there.

But the one that I think is the one
that I'm most proud of is content

marketing For local search and it's
really specifically for local businesses

on how to create content, to help
them show up in local search results.

and we just updated that book, to
include the use of AI and how you

can deploy AI strategies to create
that content throughout that book.

So, having said that, how having a
book has benefited me is, I mean,

it's kind of the new business card,
if you will, to demonstrate that

you're an expert in your field.

You know, and I've been fortunate,
in this book I had John Jan

from Duct Tape Marketing.

I believe it was the intro I had Dr.

Ivan Meisner from BNI, actually wrote the
Forward, and Jay Bear actually wrote the

back cover, so anybody who knows anything
about marketing, whether it's network.

and referral marketing, or whether
it's digital marketing, you know,

having those voices, lend credence
to your work, is a pretty nice thing.

So, I didn't write it to
generate a lot of sales.

I wrote it to demonstrate my
expertise, and build authority

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
That's fantastic.

you know, been approached, by people
that, consult on, writing a book.

I haven't undertaken it, but I really
admire people that have, I think that's

a great vehicle to, like you said,
demonstrate expertise and authority.

ken: what I did for

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Sure.

ken: for local search is I actually
developed the outline, developed the

questions to build the outline, or to fill
in the details, I should say the outline.

And then, um, I cheated because this
was before ai, so I went and I got.

You know, four other marketing buddies
of mine, and we divided and conquered

and, you know, we all came from the
Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.

So we all come from the same strategy
first as you're doing your marketing

kind of approach, uh, and an omnichannel
driven approach for local SEO.

And you know, and then we
interviewed each other to capture the

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

ken: and

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

ken: you know, had an editor.

Kind of take it and all turn it into
a common voice, so that it sounds

like it was written by just a single
author, but, you know, having, and

then when you do that, you have the
benefit of having four other people.

Co-market that book at your launch.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

ken: that's really the way to go.

it's a technique I learned from,
bestseller in a Weekend, which was a

program I signed up for, gosh, years ago,
actually before I wrote my first book.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

ken: a great strategy, you know,
if you have, uh, an outline.

10 topics, and you develop 10
questions on each of those topics,

and you hand that over to somebody
and say, interview me on these topics.

Um, you know, and then you record
that session that's going to give you

probably 80% of the book that you need.

And so then it's just a matter of doing
the research to plug in the gaps, to

validate the concerns, to cite the right
sources, and then having a professional

editor kind of take that and clean it up.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: And
I love what you're describing.

You know, I think It is almost
like universally applicable that

that kind of collaboration results
in a better product overall.

Like you have different perspectives.

You also benefit from, four
authors that are promoting it.

They have ownership and skin in the game.

and you know, I think it could be
applicable just for a marketing campaign,

for instance, or, Other kinds of outreach.

I think that's fantastic.

You know, we kind of know the backlinks
PR principle in SEO that is very valuable.

ken: One of the things that, uh, I think
is a real secret for a lot of businesses

that they overlook is building a
formalized referral program and building,

uh, relationships with strategic partners.

Those people who can be golden go
goose referral sources for you.

So as an example, if you are a residential
painter, having a relationship with.

A realtor and an interior designer,
uh, and marketing heavily to them

to get them to refer you business,
you know, is oftentimes easier and

cheaper than trying to go out and
just reach a set of cold people who

have no idea who you already are.

Uh, you know, you've gotta
spend more money 'cause you've

gotta reach a broader audience.

Uh, you know, the targeting may not
be quite there, but when you can laser

focus your marketing efforts to speak
specifically to interior designers

or to, uh, you know, to realtors,
for example, as residential paint.

with the goal of getting, you know, a
couple of those, to be strategic partners

for you to be those golden geese referral
sources, that's a very powerful thing.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: I love it.

Now if you mentioned that.

You know, your process, but if you were
to start a new book today, do you think

you would, approach it any differently
and maybe what would be the role of ai?

Do you think you'd be leveraging AI
to help you build out the content?

ken: heavily.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: I.

ken: I, for example, start with deep
research, pick a topic and go through.

So, let's just say you were gonna write
a book on digital marketing for med spas.

as a marketing consultant, start with deep
research, understand what is going on,

what marketing is working for med spas.

what are the trends?

What's the lifetime value of a client?

What's the average transaction value?

All of that is great material
to take and put into your book.

And then from that, you can take
that deep research and you can

actually ask it to, outline.

Your chapters for you and even develop
key talking points, or key sections that

need to be covered within that book.

and you can even get to the point
where you could say, start writing

it for you, but the value is gonna be
when you read it and you add in your

expertise and your boots on the ground.

Knowledge about working, with
that particular industry.

AI made book writing, a lot more
accessible for a lot more people,

but it's also running the risk of.

Producing a lot of crap, if
you're going to do something like

that, you have to train the AI

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

ken: are the right authorities,
what are the right sources to draw

from, and the deep research can
be a really good start for that.

But, you need to provide additional
information and you need to challenge

it, you know, ask it continually.

Can you do better?

What am I missing?

You know, where are there
opportunities that med spas are

not taking advantage of today?

what are the tactics, and strategies
of where they need to double down?

You know, ask those questions
and then you have to vet.

You know, trust but verify, right?

I mean, so you take the results and
then you have to go make sure, okay.

Yeah.

That is legit.

That does make sense.

You know, if AI recommended
that they should, um.

Oh, let's see.

what's a good thing that a med spa
should, well, let me change from med

spas to, um, you know, to emergency
service type contractors like plumbers

or, somebody, that can go in and
fix a leaky basement, for example.

if it's saying you should put all
your money in Facebook ads, if

that's what the AI's telling you.

you need to challenge that because,
people don't go on Facebook when

they have emergency needs to hire
contractors to stop their leaks.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

ken: so, just

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
No, that's great.

ken: because it, you know, it's an answer.

And the information you get back, if
from chat, GPT, it's not always right.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Well that, I mean this, there's
a lot of good, practical advice.

I really appreciate you,
um, sharing so much.

Now I wanna pivot a little bit.

you're a prolific podcaster as well.

what would you say is
the role of podcasting?

I started a podcast this year myself.

how do you balance the time you
spend on it with the return?

what kinds of considerations do you have?

you have two podcasts.

I feel like my podcast can take
up a good chunk of my time.

how do you balance that all out?

ken: I partnered with a couple of
the guys, uh, one guy that I wrote

the book with, one guy who is my
technical guru on my team, and then

another long-term marketing friend.

And so we have a co-hosted podcast.

And so what we do to simplify is we've,
we've divided and conquered, you know, so

one person maintains their website, one.

Person, posts the podcast to the,
podcast networks, does the show

notes, all of that kind of stuff.

Um, I handle the, you know, the, typically
the booking the guests and running

and recording the podcast, getting
it professionally edited, and turning

it into, uh, we also do video, so we
put it on YouTube as well as video.

that makes it a lot easier because, and
then, you know, what we did is we said,

okay, whoever leads that episode, they
get the rights to put it on their website.

for the SEO value that podcasts have,
when you take the transcription.

And turn that into a blog post
and you put that on your website.

That's large amounts of quality expert
level content that you're putting on your

website that has tremendous SEO value.

So that's, you know, we started
it because we wanted to give back

to the community during and help a
lot of people make better marketing

decisions, you know, and understand
what's going on in the marketplace.

And, uh, you know, what we
think is important for people

to know and understand.

Uh, before they start, you know, marching
down, their own marketing programs.

Um, the second podcast is a
hundred percent AI created.

But a hundred percent vetted by me.

So the AI guides for small businesses.

Um, I've cloned my AI voice,
I've cloned my AI video avatar.

and I use AI to generate the title
of the podcast, the outline, the

description, and to generate the script.

And once I'm happy with that and I review
it, me or Paul on my team will review.

this whole creation process.

Uh, when I'm happy with it, we
push a button and it puts it into

my AI clone voice and it publishes
out there to Spotify and Apple.

And then I take that audio, I put it into
Hagen, uh, which is a ridiculous tool.

Everybody should be using Hagen.

I can't think of a better
tool on the planet right now.

Um, and, uh, take that audio and use
the AI clone version of myself to

produce, the video version of the
podcast, which I put on YouTube.

So, you know, when you have a
system, it can work pretty well.

so we actually.

Several people involved, in the creation
of the Marketing Guides podcast.

AI podcast is just me
and, my video editor.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Well.

You know, again, you are
really an AI content guru.

I think this has been really beneficial.

just one final question.

What is something that you're most
excited about in the next, few years?

I mean, I guess it's hard to even forecast
anything in years terms when it comes to

ai, but, what do you think is next that
really excites you about AI and content?

ken: well, I think right now, you
know, most small businesses, there

are so many statistics that will
just blow you outta the water.

Um, you know, so many small
businesses never follow up on

leads for a variety of reasons.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

ken: working in their business.

You know, if you're up
on a roof as a roofer.

are you gonna take a call when
you, when you get that call?

Uh, maybe, maybe not.

You may not have anybody in your office.

Uh, you may not wanna be calling for, you
know, call centers because they can have,

you know, pretty dicey quality as well.

but.

Let me tell you, statistics
are overwhelming.

Uh, if you're not, first,
you're last to quote Ricky Bobby

from Talladega Nights, right?

And, and so, uh, you know, if you are
first, the statistics are overwhelming.

You have an 80% better chance of closing
that business regardless of price.

so you could be the most expensive.

So if you're tired of racing to the
bottom to win business on price and

price only, best answer to that is speed.

The lead, you be the first to respond.

You're gonna shut everybody else out.

Most people after COVID, they're
just looking for a solution.

They want to get it done.

When they're ready to buy.

You need to take advantage of that.

You can't afford to miss any lead.

80% of phone call if for a cold lead.

80% of people who get your voicemail
will not leave a voicemail.

They'll just go on to the next company.

And we've all experienced this,
you know, right now, you know,

like a perfect example is after
a hailstorm moves through, we're

both, you know, spent a lot of time.

You're currently in the
Midwest and I just recently

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

ken: Midwest.

When there's a hailstorm and you call
a roofing company, uh, you're gonna

have to call probably five roofing
companies and you may get one callback.

Because they're so darn busy.

But those roofing companies don't realize
is there's a cost to missed opportunity.

Not only are you missing the revenue,
but your competitors love it because

you are giving them the business
because you're not taking advantage of.

Somebody trying to reach out and, and
hire you to, to do some work for 'em.

So speed the lead is critical.

I think ai, voice answering systems,
um, they are conversational.

Uh, they're better than those
horrible phone trees where you

have to listen to like 15 options
before you can even do anything.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

ken: ai, you know, a phone assistant is
gonna handle that in a conversational way.

So if you wanna say, I need to
speak to an agent, or I need to

speak to the sales department,
it can transfer that right away.

But the AI voice is also gonna
handle all spam calls, so it's

not gonna waste your time.

It's gonna keep you from having to
make a decision, uh, if you're a med

spa or a, you know, hair salon owner.

Do you answer the phone?

Because if you don't answer,
you're gonna miss that potential

appointment from a customer.

And interrupt somebody who's
actually sitting in your

chair paying you right now.

You know, are you gonna piss
off that customer because

you're answering phone calls?

you don't wanna be in that situation.

So, um, you know, a lot of people, um,
you know, they just want to get it done.

And so if they're calling your
business, I don't think you can

afford to miss any phone call.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

No, that's a excellent point.

Ken, if people would like to work with
you or learn from you, um, I mean, you've

listed off your books, your podcast,
of course I'll include all these links.

But where's the best place to find you?

ken: Well, probably
[e-mail],

my website, um, I mean, we do lots
of different things, um, and, uh, you

know, I'm always happy to hop on a call.

People can go there and book
a discovery call with me.

Or if they're specifically interested
in, understanding how they might

be able to take advantage of ai.

I've got an AI success call that
I'm happy to do with people.

I think that's probably the best place.

our YouTube channel is also where
I'm actually doubling down and

putting, most of my content focus
right now because YouTube shorts.

Seems to be the best performing
channel for what I'm doing.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

ken: so it's just, uh, youtube.com

at slash at is our channel.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

ken: all of our marketing
guides podcasts go.

That's where the AI guides, that's where
all of the shorts that I'm doing, you

know, with tips about how you could take
advantage of using AI for your business.

Um, so that's probably the best place.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Ken, thanks
so much for joining and this, uh,

was very informative and you know, I
look forward to future conversations.

ken: Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks so much, Reid.

I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: Want to stay ahead of what's
actually working in marketing right now.

Head over to Market surge.io

and see how we're helping businesses
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That's market surge.io

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