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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
I think the brands that do this, that
understand that AI search has this
fundamental difference of specificity
and what you're calling personalization,
and they have a content strategy to
match that, those are the ones that are
gonna see actual increases in leads,
in customers, especially if they have
self-reported attribution on their form of
people being like, "I found you on Claude.
I found you on ChatGPT.
I found you Gemini," wherever.
I don't think enough people are talking
about just how search habits are changing.
We're seeing more and more people
go from Google to AI search.
That's coming up in our own data,
and then we're also seeing that
shift happen in our clients' data.
The second thing is then just how
people are searching is changing.
The big pro- thing is, are
you even thinking this way?
Are you even trying to solve the problem?
Are you even building a
strategy with this in mind?
Because this is the reality
Welcome to the Grow and
Convert Marketing Show.
I'm Benji, that's Devesh.
Today we wanted to talk about something
that we're seeing in relation to GEO and
GEO strategy, which is personalization
and how that plays into what you should
be doing from a content perspective.
Um, in general, we just see that a
lot of people online, whether it's on
LinkedIn or Twitter or sharing in blog
posts, are kind of talking about tactics.
They're talking about things like
on-page stuff that you should do,
schema, um, the FAQs, and then there's
like the whole conversation around
third-party outreach, and I think we've
covered it on a couple episodes before
where there's stats like ninety-five
percent of your GEO is third, like, uh,
third-party mentions and things like that.
And that's largely where the conversation
has been online up until this point.
But what we don't really see anyone
talking about is how strategy or
content strategy should change in
the, like, AI world, essentially.
Um, and so that's kinda what
we wanted to talk about today.
And I think from just a high-level
perspective, something that I wanna
bring up is, is search has changed.
And I don't think enough people
are talking about just how
search habits are changing.
So there's a couple layers to this.
One, we're seeing more and more
people go from Google to AI search.
That's coming up in our own data from Grow
and Convert, the leads that we've gotten.
We've seen a lot more leads come in
from the last, I would say six months
from Claude and platforms like that.
And then we're also seeing that shift
happen in our clients' data as well.
So we're seeing on a lot of the client
accounts that we have, while the rankings
are super good, we're also seeing more
and more leads come from ChatGPT, Claude,
Gemini, and some of those platforms.
So that's one thing.
And then the, the second thing is, is then
just how people are searching is changing.
So LLMs, you don't really
type in short keywords.
You don't go in and you type in
best content marketing agencies
to go find a content marketing
agency, typically in ChatGPT or
Claude or any of these platforms.
Usually, there's a
long-running conversation.
And, and usually the, the
conversation doesn't start around,
"I'm trying to hire an agency."
It usually starts in some other problem
that you're facing in your business It
could be like, "I'm just trying to grow
leads, and these-- this is my channel mix.
What else could I be doing?" And then
maybe the LLM suggests five different
marketing tactics you could do, one
of which is content marketing, and
then says, "Okay, if I was trying
to create a strategy to go get leads
around content, how would I do that?"
Then you're like, "Okay, I don't
have the in-house resources. What
other options do I have?" And then
it may suggest Grow and Convert.
So just think about that,
and then I also want to bring
that over into Google as well.
I think as we're seeing search shift
from Google to LLMs, how people are
searching in the platforms is changing.
And I've noticed this in myself, and
there's people on our team that have
voiced the same thing where even if
I'm going into Google and I'm not
searching in ChatGPT or one of the
LLMs on my phone or on my desktop,
I'm typing in longer questions than
I used to or just longer phrases.
I'm not really typing
keywords in as much anymore.
And I don't really think that
the strategy-- like, the content
strategy has adjusted for how,
how search is changing now.
And what I mean by that is kind of
everyone's content strategy still
revolves around the thinking from
the SEO world, where you want to go
after these really short keywords.
And that made sense in the Google world.
In the Google world, you, you basically
try to rank for a keyword, and then
it was up to the user to kinda go
through the list of options, all the
different blog posts, and then what was
written in those blog posts, and then
come to a decision on the vendor that
they most resonated with, the product
or service that they wanted to try.
And that's completely opposite
of the way that AI search works.
In AI search, it's actually… the AI
platform is making the recommendation
for you And so you kind of have to
flip the thinking on its head here.
So in AI search, again, it knows
all this context about you.
You're having a longer conversation, and
then the LLM is kind of deciding based on
everything that you've told me, here's the
product or service that's best for you.
And I just don't think anyone's
content strategy has adjusted for
this personalization aspect of search.
And that's k- kind of what we wanted
to talk about today, is that we
actually think that a lot of AEO and,
and visibility and getting visibility
for, for different companies is
actually a strategy change, and
it's not really just these tactics.
Like, again, everyone's talking about
on page optimization stuff, and I
could argue against that just by
saying, like the LLMs don't really
need help reading your content.
I… Like something that we talked about
yesterday that I thought was really
funny is like a lot of marketers are
trusting the LLMs to go, like, put an
article in and summarize it and, and
then they're like, "Oh, this is great.
I have all this information." Or they're
saying the, the LLM can replace a human.
Like, I'm gonna create an agent and the,
the AI is gonna do all this work for me.
Yet they're also saying, we need to add
schema and markup and like trick the
LLM into reading our content by chunking
or turning our H1s into questions.
Like, to me, it just doesn't
even make logical sense if
you think about it that way.
Like, why do you need to trick the LLM
into, to reading your content better
if you already trust it to summarize
information, to write content for you,
to kind of do all these marketing tasks?
Or to read your email.
There'll be like- Yeah … a marketer on
LinkedIn being like, "I don't even read my
email now. I just have it summarized." But
then when it comes to trusting it to read
your site, it's like, hold on, hold on.
We, we need to add bullet points for it
because it can't understand it otherwise.
It, it doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, so, so to us, like, that kind
of stuff is just not as important.
The third party stuff definitely
has an argument, and this
is a strategy that we use.
But again, I really think showing up in AI
search is a strategy shift that you need
to think about when producing content.
It, it's, it's not as much
about these other tactics.
It's everyone's mindset is still in this
world of SEO and trying to rank for the
highest intent and the highest volume
keywords, which to be fair, this is
something that we've advocated a lot when
we were talking about pain point SEO and
how to drive conversions through SEO.
But from the data that we're starting
to see, we think there's, there
actually also needs to be a shift in
just how you approach content for AI.
I will pause there.
Yeah, you said a lot.
I'd love to kinda talk about a
specific example to make this
resonate for the listener.
Sure.
So when you say search is personalized
and the c- and the strategy needs
to shift, l- let's just, let's
just give some specific example.
L- let, let's say I'm in the
market for some B2B software.
Like, let's say I'm looking for some
data analysis software to analyze all
of our client data or whatever, right?
And so I'm, I'm looking for some Tableau
or whatever, um, type Microsoft BI.
Walk me through or walk the listener
through what you said about in the
Google world, how I would look for that
versus in the AI world and what it, what
it means that search is personalized.
Yeah, so in the Google world you might
just type in, I don't know, business
intelligence tools or something like that
into Google to- Right … to try to find
a list of tools that are out there, and
then you would kind of come up with that
high level list and probably read through
a couple of list posts to just see how
they're categorized and s- and maybe
say, oh, actually Tableau does, doesn't
do what we need to do, or I'm, maybe
I want something a little bit simpler.
And then you, you might just
click into another tool and then
sign up for it and try it out.
So l- l- b- before you move to AI,
let me, let me pause, 'cause there's
a lot actually of s- nuance there
that's important for the listener.
Number one, you're saying all I'm
telling Google is, like, a broad
product category I'm interested in.
Yeah.
Business intelligence tools
or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or however I decide to phrase it.
Yeah, for whatever reason, in the,
in the way that Google works, I'm
sure that they have a lot of this
data, but they're not using it.
But in terms of- No, no, even
the users aren't typing it in.
For sure, but I, I'm just saying-
Like, may- maybe I add a qualifier
like for business- For small
business or something like that
small business, for agency, for marketing.
I could add that.
For sure.
And that's what we would in SEO
have always called, I don't know,
like medium or slightly long
tail or something like that.
Yeah.
And then the second thing I wanted to
pause on before you move to AI is also
how Google decides what to show me.
It is showing then results.
I know this sounds kind of
pedantic for everyone listening.
You're like, "I, I know how SEO
works, Devesh." But it's showing
you the results based on what?
Like, the on-page optimization that each
did for that keyword, the domain authority
of each of those domains, and some of them
could be like some software review sites.
Some of them could be the landing
page of some of these tools.
Some of them could be list posts.
And then y- you said something i,
i- when you were first introducing
this whole concept that's important.
I, the user, am then taking that
as the raw list, and I am doing
all this filtering in my head of,
okay, these software review site
mentions X, Y, Z thing, and then this
list post mentions this other one.
And I'm saying I know all of this nuance
over what we need a business intelligence
tool for, and I'm gonna do that filtering.
Yeah.
Okay?
And, and then so now how that
changes in the AI world is… Well,
okay, so I'm gonna separate Google.
So think about ChatGPT and Claude.
Yeah.
And, and- Let's say I go to Claude, right?
Common b- B2B thing most
business people are using Claude.
So I go to Claude.
So, so Claude already knows that
I run an agency, Grow And Convert.
If you've ever worked out of it, it
probably knows a lot more details about
your business, who your customers are.
It kind of just has an idea
of the business, and then
also who you are as a person.
Like I- Talk back and forth
with it for travel advice,
for other aspects of my life.
So it, it has a, a pretty good
understanding of who I am as a
person, what I care about, the
business, and all that kind of stuff.
And so now when you run that same kind
of search, put aside the, the longer
conversations, but even if I was just to
search for business intelligence tools
or, or whatever I just mentioned, um,
yeah, BI tools, it, it's gonna give me
actually a customized list based on what
it knows about me, and that list might
be very different from if Devesh was
searching on his computer or if someone
wasn't logged into their LLM, they
might see completely different results.
And so this is what we're saying,
that AI search is personalized.
It's personalized to the, to ind-
the individual user that is searching
based on everything it knows about you.
I'll pause there again.
Do you have anything you wanna add?
No.
I think, um, I, I would, I would almost
say y- you don't even need to put aside
the fact that it's a longer prompt.
I think that is actually what most likely
happens, that whoever is listening to
this, like, if you're doing AEO, your
customer isn't typing into Claude the
same thing they're typing into Google.
They're not typing in business
intelligence software.
They're gonna ty- And so I think I'd
like you to kind of layer that off.
But, but, but even, but even if they
were, the way search works still changes-
Correct … where, where you're getting
in Google a list of a bunch of different
articles or a bunch of different options
and you're filtering- Yeah … versus
AI is doing the filtering for you,
and it might only give you the list
of five companies or five products
that are the best match for you.
Yeah.
So- Yeah … so then it raises the
big picture question, well, how
is AI determining which products
to recommend to each person?
That, that is what you guys should
be thinking about when it comes
to strategy is, like, to me, it's
essentially a matching algorithm.
That, that is, that is what this
next iteration of search is.
It- instead of trying to determine in
Google which page is most relevant for
the search query, now it's trying to
determine which product or service is
best for this specific user based on
everything that I know about this person.
Based on a massive,
massive amount of context.
Yes.
And, and just before we get into to
where you're gonna go, if you wanna read
more about this, we have an article we
wrote called Invisible Prompts, and it
uses as a visual an iceberg, and above
the surface, it's a simple query like,
"Find me a content agency," and below the
surface of the iceberg is this massive
amount, we, like, schematically display
it as all this, like, computerized data.
That's all the stuff that it knows about
Benji's business, who he is, what his
budget is, when he s- says, "I need a
business intelligence tool." Even if
his prompt is short- It's gonna do this,
what Benji's referring to as a matching
algorithm, which by the way, I think
like anyone who's like an AI researcher
would like, th- their head would explode
if you called it a matching algorithm,
'cause I think- I'm, I'm just making
it as simple for people as possible.
It's like some super complicated- I
don't really care about… I don't
care about the super technical
people who like- It's like some super
complicated thing, which is like the,
the most complicated computerized
technology humans have made to date.
Anyway, it's like, it's like, it's
combining all of these things of
Benji's specific pain points, to,
to, to turn it into marketing speak.
Pain points, um, I don't know, like- I,
I, I do, I do wanna cover this again.
I know, I know we've talked about
it in previous episodes, but
I think this is such a perfect
example to illustrate what we mean.
This exchange back and forth was
probably the first inclination
that we had that search is working
this way and it's changing.
A- and so I don't know, Devesh,
if you wanna give the high level
story of what happened here.
Yeah, this is, this is
an active client of ours.
She runs, uh, I think I can
say her first name is Nicole.
She runs a, a, a financial
kind of business, and she found
us through ChatGPT, and she's
been a client for over a year.
And, and at some point we said, "Hey,
Nicole, for our own education, can you
send us that chat where it recommended
us?" She said, "Sure." When I look
at the chat, the prompt that got us
to be recommended was very short.
It says, "What are the best SEO companies
in your opinion, who have driven
massive results with endless leads?"
That's, by a side note,
that's like very Nicole.
Endless leads for people
in our kind of space.
And it, you know, has this preamble,
and number one, it recommends Grow
& Convert, and it gives specific reasons.
Like it says, "Strength, they focus on
bottom of funnel content that converts,
not fluff. Real case studies where
they 10X lead volume for SaaS and B2B."
Um, she is B2B, she's not
SaaS, the business type.
So I said, "Okay, let me see if I can
reproduce this result." Um, because
by the way, that's how, like, AI
visibility tracking works in our tool
Traqer and also in every other tool,
like Profound, Peak, Scrunch, whatever.
And so I opened up an incognito
window of ChatGPT because I was
like, okay, if I just do it in my own
ChatGPT, that has my personal context.
That's kind of nonsensical for me to
ask that 'cause it already knows that
I run Grow & Convert or whatever.
Um, so let me do it in incognito.
To say in our kind of space was
part of her prompt, endless leads
for businesses in our kind of
space, that also didn't make sense,
so I just put, like, the business
funding space or some short thing.
Totally different result that Benji is
displaying on the, on the page now, for
those of you that are just listening.
I, I… We screenshotted in the article,
like, a little bit of it, the beginning.
Not only is Grow & Convert not mentioned
number one, it's not mentioned at all.
The way that the introduction
to the answer is presented
is completely different.
It's just night and day.
And so what we said here, this
is this invisible prompt thing.
We have her literal prompt
that got us recommended.
Like, we achieved the AEO dream
in this, in this instance.
We were the first recommended,
highly recommended agency by ChatGPT
to the client who's a perfect
fit, who ended up being a closed
deal, all of that checked out.
And yet when I manually check it,
it's just a completely different
answer, and we're like, "What in
the world? How do you even…"
There was, like, a tracking issue.
Like, how do you even
track that as visibility?
But now this begs what you're
getting into, what this, today's
episode's about, which is leave
tracking aside for a second.
We've talked about that before.
We can talk about that at
the end of this episode.
It begs a strategy question.
Like you said, what is it
doing that it has decided
Grow & Convert is best for Nicole?
And how do you as a marketer now get the
LLMs, teach the LLMs, or somehow influence
them to say, "Well, here are the scenarios
where you should recommend our brand"?
Yeah.
So I, I think what's happening
is it's looking for two things.
It is looking for an agency that
matches what she wanted, which was
a company that has driven leads.
A bunch of leads.
Yeah.
So, like, proof of- Yeah … of
this on their website.
Or sorry, two things.
I, I just said both in one.
It, it's looking for a company that
does what she wants, and then it's,
it's looking to back that up with proof.
And I think the back it up with
proof thing is something that a lot
of content marketers or marketers
haven't really talked about too much.
But I think if we look at citation data,
it's why you see, uh, like the G2 Crowd,
the Gartners, the review sites on a lot
of the SaaS products if we look at the
citations, because it's trying to look at
reviews for proof that the product works.
It i- and, and in this case, it's
trying to see that we've done work for a
business like hers and has driven results.
And I think if you have that, if you
have the proof point that your product
or service says or does what it says,
it, it is more likely to recommend you.
Can I say what you're saying
in, in a slightly different way?
Sure.
I don't think we're disagreeing,
but, uh, the way I think of
it is not two separate things.
I think of it as one thing, which is
It is simply matching solutions to the
specific scenario or situation that
its user that's chatting with it has.
And, and let's just, in marketing speak,
we would say with the user's pain points.
And I think proof is one of a bunch
of things that it can look for.
Like, and there's probably
tiers of it, right?
So, like, tier one is it's saying,
"My user wants an, an SEO agency
that has driven a bunch of leads."
So tier one is, like, it's looking
at its, like, understanding of
the world of all SEO agencies.
It's gonna maybe Google it.
It's gonna use its own, like, you know,
understanding or model of the space and
training data worldview, and whatever it
just found on Google, merge them together
and be like, "Thing number one, do I
have any indication of which agencies
focus on lead generation?" So probably
as a marketer and a brand, thing number
one is, like, forget proof for a second.
Like, have you even said anything
about lead generation, right?
Like, is that, is that a value prop?
Is that something you've messaged?
'Cause if not, in this particular
instance of this particular user, you're
probably not in the, like, candidate
set of solutions it's gonna recommend.
For sure.
Like, if we had branded ourselves as
a thought leadership agency or- Or
bragged a bunch about traffic that we've
generated only Exactly, or link building
or something like that, it's gonna
say, "Okay, these people are loosely
on this topic of SEO or content- Right
but they don't really drive leads, so
we're not gonna recommend this over-
Right … another option that has a
better fit." Yeah, and then there's
probably just tiers under that of,
like, getting better and better.
And, and I think you and I have talked
about this in private conversations,
but it's perfect here, is, like, what
I kind of, uh-- Before I get into that,
proof is just one of those tiers, and
it's a really nice strong one, is what--
is kind of where you're getting at.
It's like, first of all,
do they message like this?
Do they talk about leads?
So anyone who doesn't even talk
about leads anywhere in the website
or anything that the LLM has
found, out of the consideration.
So you're down to a set
that talks about it.
Then it's looking for, like, other
nuances of which proof case studies
is a really strong layer, right?
You could be like, "Oh, all of these
people talk about this feature, but
look, this has, you know, case studies of
it." Another example could just be some
other really specific pain point match.
Like, it could, it could be, you know,
if you use, like, a consumer example,
if I'm looking for an exercise bike, it
could be like, look, there's, like, all
these exercise bikes, everything from
Peloton to, like, a $60 one on Amazon.
But then it's gonna look- Yeah.
Oh, it's on, uh, like if, if you were
searching for one with a live instructor
or live courses or something like that.
Right.
That's like a perfect example.
And that's not necessarily about
proof, it's just what I, what
I … In, in my framework or my view
of it, it's like, it's like layers of
matching to the pain point, you know?
And it's like … 'Cause it could, could
be that the user just says, "I just, I,
I use YouTube, like exercise bike videos.
I don't need some fancy thing, and my
budget is only 80 bucks. I just want a
cheap exercise bike," or what- whatever.
And in that case, Peloton could
have all kinds of case studies.
They don't matter for
that user's pain point.
The user is saying, "I need something
quick and dirty." And then it's like,
here's some stuff off Amazon or whatever.
And it's like these layers of matching.
And absolutely, especially for folks in
B2B, where you're promising a business
result or whatever, and apply to B2C as
well, if you have those detailed, you
know, what you're calling proof, it helps.
And then case studies, it's
like you can get into all kinds
of nuances of it matching.
Go ahead.
I'm probably stealing- Yeah, but, but it
… Yeah, it's not even just case studies.
It's more just your, your strategy
needs to change because what all of
us were doing in the SEO world was
just focusing on showing up for that
highest volume, highest intent keyword.
Yeah.
And, and what we're saying here
is, is now the search becomes way
more long tail in t- in terms of-
Yeah … people are identifying more
about themselves, what problems they're
trying to solve in their business.
And if you don't have the content that
matches exactly what those people are
looking for, you're not gonna show up.
So that, that i- th- that example is like
if you had just tried to rank for exercise
bikes before- Yeah … and someone is
looking for this really specific like,
"I want an exercise bike that has like
these classes built into it and like a TV
screen," and you've never written about
that anywhere on your site, but that's
something that your product does, and
you've never communicated how this works
for that s- that specific customer type,
you're gonna be completely invisible
when someone is searching for that, and
another product is gonna get recommended.
And so what we're saying is essentially
your strategy needs to change to
become way more specific in terms of
the topics that you go after and the
details that you write in the piece.
Because if you're just … W- let's,
let's tackle both of those separately.
Topics need to become way more specific.
So if we had just res- ranked for
content marketing agency before What
happens if now our clients are searching
for something related to GEO or AI?
We're not even gonna show up
because we've been completely
messaging only one way before.
No, no, no, no, no.
And then they're- The, the, the,
that, that, even that is broad.
Let me, let me make your
example even more specific.
Take the Nicole thing.
She asked for a SEO agency.
If we had r- even if we had achieved
a dream, like th- r- ranking on Google
number one for SEO agency is not easy.
You can imagine why, because
who are your competitors?
SEO agencies.
Even if we had done that, that doesn't
guarantee we get recommended to Nicole.
Yeah, that's- Because it's, it's
looking for a specific detail that
Nicole asked for- Yeah … in our
kind of space, B2B endless leads.
So you need to bring the key
pieces of your positioning to
the forefront from, like a topic
perspective and just in the writing.
You, you need to add these elements of,
like your positioning and messaging that-
In detail, the detailed positioning Yeah.
Yes.
So from a content strategy standpoint
You're essentially gonna need to go
more long tail, is what we're saying.
So like pieces that you wouldn't have
thought to write before because there's
maybe no volume going after it, or
it's like too obscure of a topic.
Those are things that we're actually
targeting now and seeing good results.
The second piece that I wanna
talk about is the writing aspect
of it, because again, this is--
Like, there's so many people trying
to shortcut the writing process.
So for example, trying to fully do
their argumentation with AI or use
different AI tools that like kinda
piecemeal the process together.
Like go do this research on this
topic, come back with arguments,
and like assemble it that way.
If you're not bringing in the core pieces
of your positioning and messaging into
those pieces, details, examples about
real customer stories, real use cases,
you're not gonna be able to show up really
when it comes to the AI visibility part.
Because again, what we're saying here
is people are identifying who they
are as a person, so certain personas.
They're saying exactly what they
need in a product or solution.
And if you leave out those details and
the proof points in each of the different
articles that you're producing, you're
not gonna have that best, that best match.
And another company who is writing
the details about who their customers
are in their piece, exactly what
they were doing before, how, how
this product or service helped change
whatever process that they were doing
to like a more positive outcome.
And you have those details about their
experience before, after, the results.
And someone else that has that
same kind of customer type is
also looking for a solution.
It's gonna say, the company that has
the detail in the piece that is on
this topic that's important to this
person is gonna be a better match than
that general best content marketing
agency piece from the example before.
So from a high level, this
is, this is what we're seeing.
We're seeing a l- like
proof on multiple accounts.
It kind of give us, gives us the early
feelings when we had written Pain Point
SEO, that we had stumbled across a
strategy difference in how you should
approach going targeting keywords.
Now we think we've kind of stumbled
into another iteration of that for
how to approach content strategy
from an AI perspective, which is go
after these really specific topics.
Unlike before Unfortunately, we're
not gonna be, uh, giving you the
actual keywords or topics that we're
targeting because the world has
changed, and I feel like strategy
becomes much easier to replicate if
we were to give you all the answers.
But we wanted to give you a high-level
overview of what we're seeing on real
client data, and then kind of the
shift in thinking and the shift in
way that we're approaching this going
forward, and kinda leave it to you guys
to, to come up with the, the strategy
that may work for your business.
I'll, I'll say also in terms of, like,
the specific strategy, another reason
is I, I think it's not as predictable.
Yeah, that's true.
Like in SEO, we could've been like, "Hey,
this was our pain point SEO keywords for
this accounting business," and you can
kinda just figure out how to translate it
over for your whatever, whatever business.
Very true.
But in this case, I think to, to expand
on what you're saying of, like, if you
don't write these detailed stories of
customers that you've helped, whether
it be case studies or not, or, like,
situations where your product is the best
fit, your service is the best fit, the
LLMs, if they can read that and find that
about some other brand, that brand is
more likely to be recommended than you.
Another reason for this is that unlike
SEO, where we were looking at things
with known search volume that Google
themselves published, here you can't
predict a priori all of the nuances.
I wasn't gonna predict the, like,
you know, Nicole's thing, right?
Yeah.
Like, it's because she sent it to us,
or I showed you, told you an example
of How my wife was looking for a
surf skateboard, and she has these
really specific things 'cause she's
a certain height and a certain level,
and it's just, like, so specific.
These surf skateboard companies
are not, like, creating a strategy
that, what are they gonna do?
Find some specific scenario for her?
And what about the other 4 or 5,000
customers they're gonna have this
year that are gonna look for it?
And they have their own,
like, specific scenarios.
So I think that's another thing that
we're doing with our clients is, uh,
that str- content strategy has to
shift from we know beforehand what
searches and scenarios- What the keyword
landscape would be and, and keyword
to more like you, you don't know that,
so you need to create a content strategy.
And what we're doing for clients
is creating a content strategy that
highlights, both in the topics we're
picking and in the way we're writing
inside pieces, highlights details about,
like, the nuances where they are the
perfect fit, where they solve these
detailed problems, why and how they solve
them, and putting that out there published
on their website, on their website.
For those, I know some people are gonna
be, like, commenting on YouTube or asking,
like, "Do we do this on the website or
third party?" Do it on your website.
That's where you can
control your narrative.
On their web- fine, you can
do it on third party, too.
We publish that so that the LLMs have
this context of where you're best,
and that's sort of, you know, ends
up getting you these recommendations.
Yeah, and I'll give people hints.
Like, the, the, the content strategy
should come from customer research.
It should come from your
sales team's conversations.
It should come from understanding
what motivates people to buy.
It should come from Questions that
people are making decisions between your
product and other products in the space.
It's just way more detailed
than the, the keyword stuff.
So keywords, it was very easy before
you even got into the customer research
to come up with, like, the higher
level category keywords at least.
Maybe in the jobs to be done it
was a little bit more difficult to
figure out what those exactly were,
but you kind of knew the competitor
and alternative keywords, and you
kind of knew the category keywords.
But now to come up with the AI strategy,
you need to get way more into the details.
You need to get into the language
that customers are using.
You need to get into the questions
that they're asking, what they're
talking about on sales calls, and
that is what is going to formulate
your, your AI strategy going forward.
Yeah.
I think a, a big picture thing
I, I'd wanna leave people with is
this analogy to, um, SEO done well
versus just chasing vanity metrics.
I think the brands that do this, that
understand that AI search has this
fundamental difference of specificity
and what you're calling personalization,
and they have a content strategy to
match that, those are the ones that are
gonna see actual increases in leads,
in customers, especially if they have
self-reported attribution on their form of
people being like, "I found you on Claude.
I found you on ChatGPT.
I found you, um, Gemini, wherever."
Versus the brands that are gonna
be like, "Hey, like, we have these
fi- 10 prompts in Peak or Profound.
We seem to be visible for them But
we're not-- Our leads are stagnant.
That's the equivalent of what we said
eight years ago with Pain Point SEO of
people, brands who were, had high SEO
traffic volume because they were ranking
for top-of-funnel keywords in their space,
and they got a bunch of traffic, and they
came to us and said, "Hey, we have a bunch
of traffic, and it's not converting."
This is the AI equivalent of that,
is, "Well, we have visibility on
these big, broad categories," and
they're like, "Well, our lead, our
overall leads are stagnant," because
people don't search in AI like that.
They, they don't just come in and type
blah, blah, blah software anymore.
Is they're saying, "I have this problem.
What should I do?" And in the
course of that natural conversation.
And so people who adjust their strategy
to account for this, to ma- to, to, and
can measure this, and all kinds of nuances
that we don't have the time to cover.
Like, the big pro- thing is,
are you even thinking this way?
Are you even trying to solve the problem?
Are you even building a
strategy with this in mind?
Because this is the reality, and you
know it's the reality, by the way,
because you're doing it yourself.
Every single person that uses AI is having
this kind of like deep conversational
detail, is not typing broad things.
Like, the brands that know this and
adjust, they're the ones that are
gonna see actual increases in leads.
Yeah.
So again, shift your thinking from how
do I just show up in my category to
how do I show up for my best customer?
When you're looking at your customer
data, you need to organize all your
customers by which customers are
the best for us, and let's focus on
those first, and let's, let's own
the topics around our best customers
first and then expand out from there.
And I think when you view the topics
that way and you view your customers
that way, you'll get a lot of ideas
about how you should approach content
strategy a little bit different than
how you were thinking about it before.
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