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Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com
Matt [0:00:01]: You're listening to the Dave Gerhardt.
Matt [0:00:02]: Eighty percent of the CMOs we've talked to this year's say Ae is a top priority for them, and most of them don't actually know where to start because so much is changing in real time.
Matt [0:00:27]: So we brought in three people who are actually doing the work right in B2B marketing Matt, Vp of data at Mock rack.
Matt [0:00:32]: He just ran a full Ae led product launch and has the results to prove it.
Matt [0:00:37]: Jess is an SEO and Ae consultant who's building the playbook for how B2B brands show up at Ai search and Brett is director of Pm at Webflow, one of the most forward thinking teams on Ai ready web infrastructure.
Matt [0:00:49]: In this session, you'll get the full tactical breakdown.
Matt [0:00:52]: How Mu rack use their own Ai visibility research to earn press coverage that actually move the needle.
Matt [0:00:57]: Why L, reward verifiable specific claims and exactly how to write content that win citations, The Ae maturity model from zero to owning your category, how to think about tracking Ai visibility, which tools to use and how to separate signal from noise.
Matt [0:01:12]: Why comparison pages in list are a good place to start, but won't be enough and what bing web master tools are doing right now that Google hasn't cut up to yet.
Matt [0:01:21]: This came from one of our world famous Exit Five live sessions, We do them twice a month they're definitely not webinars We bring in people doing the work and go deep on one topic in B2b marketing to help you get smarter, and this session is all about Ae.
Matt [0:01:35]: Let's get into it.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:37]: Well, what's up everyone.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:38]: Happy Friday.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:39]: I think that it's Friday.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:40]: I'm looking forward to the weekend.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:42]: It's finally summertime here in Toronto.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:43]: So I'm looking forward to getting outside.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:45]: And, you know, I've been in this office all week, I haven't really got outside too much, so looking forward to it.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:50]: If you were expecting Dave today, it's not Dave.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:52]: It's me.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:53]: I'm the host today, Matt, the second best host at Exit Five.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:56]: Sorry, Dan.
Matt Carnevale [0:01:57]: You know, Second best it goes dave, than me then Dan right under.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:01]: But, my name is Matt.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:03]: I'm the head of community here at Exit Five, and we run the top community in the world for Bd marketers.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:09]: And I'm gonna be your host for today's live session.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:12]: Yes, I said live session did not say webinar just because Dave's here, doesn't mean the rules change, it's still a live session.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:18]: So if I catch anyone saying webinar, Allison, if you could just go fuck out remove from the webinar, banned from everything the future.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:26]: Not kidding.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:26]: For those of you who are near here, we do these live sessions twice a month.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:30]: And our goal is to take an hour on Friday to go into the weeds on a topic that is hot right now in B2B marketing, and today's topic is a e o, which I know a lot of you're thinking about.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:43]: But before I get into it, I wanna hear from you guys, what is the official turn?
Matt Carnevale [0:02:48]: Because, like, we're calling it Ae, but is that what you guys are calling it, So I don't know if you're calling it.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:52]: O g o l, e e I o, Allison, you wanna run the pole.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:58]: Let's get a vote going shot.
Matt Carnevale [0:02:59]: Let us know what you call it.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:01]: It looks like A o's is pulling ahead here.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:03]: No one really no one's guest, e I y I o.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:07]: Alright Well, give another twenty seconds here Until we crown...
Matt Carnevale [0:03:11]: We're gonna crown the winner today.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:13]: What is the name?
Matt Carnevale [0:03:14]: What are we calling now?
Matt Carnevale [0:03:15]: Alright.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:16]: Everyone's going, yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:17]: Aa is still pulling away by a launch shot.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:20]: There you go.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:20]: We just crown the new winner.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:21]: It's officially called Aa.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:23]: So Also, if you call a geo, that's also another reason that Allison gonna remove the other webinar.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:29]: So you can't say webinar, You can't say Geo.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:31]: Alright?
Matt Carnevale [0:03:31]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:32]: So to set the stage for today, I have personally spoken to hundreds of B2B to CMOs in the last since the beginning of the year.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:40]: And when I asked them what their top priorities are right now what they're thinking about Ae always comes up as a top three for at least eighty percent of people, which is no surprise.
Matt Carnevale [0:03:50]: Like, I feel like this reminds me of, like, the early SEO days where the people who really took advantage of that in the beginning were the ones who saw the, like, long term compounding results.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:01]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:04:01]: If you tried to get into the SEO game too late, it was kinda like, you were already super behind some of the companies that started early.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:08]: So it makes sense why all the smartest B2B marketers are thinking about it right now and trying to make a move there and, you know, that's why you all are here too because you're trying to get ahead and trying to beat the curve and use it as an advantage in your marketing.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:21]: And really, our goal today is to separate from the Linkedin hype.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:25]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:04:26]: So we're gonna bring three B2B marketers on stage, and they're gonna talk about what's actually working and more specifically, like, those small practical wins that you can go implement in the company Monday because I think that's really how you just make momentum on this kind of stuff is those small.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:40]: The small wins versus, like, treating, like, this big monster a plan.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:44]: Before we get into today's session super quick, I wanna give a quick shout to Webflows was our sponsor for today.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:50]: A lot of us are dealing with the same reality right now.
Matt Carnevale [0:04:53]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:04:54]: Team sizes are smaller or staying the same, budgets are getting scrutinized, and the crusher to grow as ever increasing.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:02]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:05:02]: The life of a B2B marketer.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:04]: And the website is a massive part of that equation.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:08]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:05:08]: That's where everyone's driven back to in your marketing.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:11]: And that's what Webflow is built for.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:13]: Flow lets your team build, manage and optimize your site without waiting on the development team, or duct taping your own tools together.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:22]: You stay in control move faster, and the sites are built to rank on both traditional and Ai search.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:29]: We had five personally use Webflow.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:32]: I'm always in there, so tweak we can copy you know, testing different layouts and pages, and I just like that it gives me the flexibility to go in and do that without waiting on a developer.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:42]: One more thing if this is a topic you wanna go deeper on.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:45]: I know Webflows is doing a conference September the first to the third in Boston.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:49]: Or you can go online, they're bringing together some of the sharpest minds in this space.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:54]: So if that's something that you wanna take advantage of as well.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:57]: You can grab your seat.
Matt Carnevale [0:05:59]: It's linked in the top right of the screen, so go put that up there and go check that out.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:04]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:04]: I think we're rates to get started Allison and why don't we bring the first guest on stage Matt?
Matt Dzugan [0:06:09]: Hey, everybody.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:10]: Great to be here at this nah his live session.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:14]: Even though I set it, and I've already said it twice.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:16]: So I should just cancel and have, but Gonna do that.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:19]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:19]: We got the second dust matt in the chat year.
Matt Carnevale [0:06:22]: Now why don't you give us sixty seconds just like, who you are introduction, what you're gonna be showing and then we can get into it.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:29]: Absolutely.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:29]: Yeah.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:30]: And I do like the proposal the chat live r.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:32]: I think that's good.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:33]: We'll use that.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:33]: Live.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:34]: My name is Matt Dug.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:35]: Great to be here.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:36]: Happy Friday.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:37]: I am our vp of data intelligence at a company called Mock.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:41]: Mu is a Saas platform for folks in P in communications, and we are, of course, increasingly focused on Ae or G, or E I, e I o.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:54]: That is one of my primary areas of focus within the company.
Matt Dzugan [0:06:57]: So I'm here to talk to you about a little success story that we've had in kind of doing our own optimizations for our brand.
Matt Carnevale [0:07:05]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:07:05]: Awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:07:05]: Let's get into it.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:07]: Cool.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:07]: Well, a little bit of background on one of the things that we did in the last year.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:11]: So is we had, major product launch that we were looking to promote, looking to drum up some publicity and drum up interest.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:18]: And of course, make sure that we were optimized by our Ai overlords.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:22]: And so one of the things that we wanted to do as part of this launch is, of course, we wanted to drum up earns media.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:30]: Of course, Mu rack is a P company, and so we do a lot of P ourselves.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:34]: And so heading into this major product launch.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:38]: Our product is called generative Pulse.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:39]: It's actually hit coincidentally, it is a product helping P folks understand Ai visibility in which journalists are important.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:47]: So there's a bit of a meta angle to this.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:49]: But what we did is we said, okay, before we launch this product, we're gonna do a big research report.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:54]: And we're gonna do a ton of findings, we're gonna find out which journalists are most impactful to Ai answers.
Matt Dzugan [0:07:59]: Which journalists are these Ai systems always citing.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:02]: So we did all this research and we got it pitched to the journalists that our own research found is one of the most influential journalists in our niche.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:12]: And so what we did, you'll see here, That is this Eleanor Hawkins.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:16]: So in our niche and Mu niche of, you know, P r and communications, we found that Eleanor Hawkins by and large gets more citations by Ai systems than anyone else.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:27]: So what we did is
Matt Carnevale [0:08:28]: keep quick.
Matt Carnevale [0:08:28]: No.
Matt Carnevale [0:08:29]: How did you figure out that she was the right journalist to pitch?
Matt Carnevale [0:08:33]: I don't know if you're gonna get into that, but I...
Matt Dzugan [0:08:34]: Yeah.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:34]: I do have a couple...
Matt Dzugan [0:08:35]: I do have a customized on it, but, Yeah.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:37]: I'll give some best practices for that.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:38]: So stay tuned.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:40]: We found that she was the one.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:42]: We picture her this story.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:43]: You could see here she covered the story.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:44]: She links back to our report and our findings, which is on great.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:47]: That's everything that we wanted.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:49]: And what we then got is the result that we were ultimately after, which this is a hundred percent real.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:55]: You go into attaching t and you say, hey, as a P pro.
Matt Dzugan [0:08:59]: Right?
Matt Dzugan [0:08:59]: That's our core audience for Mu rack.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:01]: Our core user base.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:02]: I wanna pitch stories that are influential to Ai systems often cited in their responses, what are the patterns that P pros need to be aware of?
Matt Dzugan [0:09:10]: Well, guess what.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:12]: It gives an answer and it mentions us in the answer.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:17]: And so basically, my premise is, the reason I'm here to share all this with you guys this success story is like, if we could do this, I believe that any of us can.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:26]: You guys can all do this too.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:27]: And this is ultimately the goal that our brand had was to make sure that we're showing up in the answer to this type of question.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:34]: So back to your point, Matt.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:35]: Great name.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:36]: By the way.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:36]: Like, how do we do this?
Matt Dzugan [0:09:39]: Well, there's a couple ways to do this.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:41]: I mean, in the spirit of full transparency, like, we are kind of building out our own tool that we sell just to be very transparent that helps people find out which journalists matter the most, and that is our tool generative pulse.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:55]: But, I do encourage any of you can do the same pattern recognition.
Matt Dzugan [0:09:59]: Right?
Matt Dzugan [0:09:59]: Just do some props.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:00]: Like you see here.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:01]: I have a little chat Example, go in here.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:05]: You can see the prompts and then what you'll see is if you look at this citations, we can kind of drill into those citations, and we could just start to do some pattern recognition of ourselves.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:14]: Who are these journalists.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:15]: In this case, we see one from Caroline.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:18]: And so the more and more I do these prompts, I can start to build this pattern recognition, I can start to see who are those most influential journalists.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:25]: The next step, of course, kind of if I'm sharing the playbook with you all, is pitching those journalists.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:33]: And Mu rack, of course, P r is our bread and butter.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:35]: So we have all sorts of resources of how to write a good pitch how to make a successful pitch to a journalist.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:42]: I'll share this link in the chat when I'm done Y.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:45]: But, you know, we have tips about, like, how do you make a pitch that it's gonna resonate with a journalist.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:50]: And that's the exact sort of thing we did with Eleanor at Ax axiom.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:53]: We showed her data.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:55]: We know who her audience is.
Matt Dzugan [0:10:56]: We kind of specified the angle in a way that's gonna be something that she wants to share to her audience.
Matt Dzugan [0:11:02]: So if anything, the takeaway here is don't sleep on the role that burns media plays in kind of this Ae e o g o, e I e I o, game.
Matt Dzugan [0:11:13]: And hopefully, you can see kind of my story here as a success story of how we were able to take advantage of this and get the result that we wanted.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:21]: Love it.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:21]: Love it.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:21]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:22]: One question I have for you, this is great by the way.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:25]: Like, perfect example of, like, how to take advantage of this and, like, This is one where it's, like, I'm sure everyone's gonna be in a situation very soon where they have something new that they wanna launch, and they wanna get it in the hands of journalists, so it could show out the search results.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:39]: So very cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:40]: I feel like, also part of the equation with, like, getting your content picked up by journalist is, like, actually saying something interesting.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:47]: Like, it looks like here you guys did some original research.
Matt Carnevale [0:11:51]: Like, tell a bit about the content and, like, the influence that add on getting that each of the hands of a journalist.
Matt Dzugan [0:11:57]: Yeah.
Matt Dzugan [0:11:57]: That's a great point.
Matt Dzugan [0:11:57]: So a hundred percent, A lot of the meta analysis going on right now in Ge is that original research is one of the most compelling ways to get cited because, of course, we're living in a world where there's a lot of duplicate information and in the more original research you could have the better.
Matt Dzugan [0:12:15]: So that's the exact strategy that we deployed here.
Matt Dzugan [0:12:18]: The whole premise of this piece And the whole reason that Ax axiom picked this up is because it's not necessarily Ax axiom just picking up content about our product launch.
Matt Dzugan [0:12:28]: Although, of course, they did mention it, which was good for us.
Matt Dzugan [0:12:31]: That's what we wanted.
Matt Dzugan [0:12:32]: But the way that we sort of got our foot in the door was by presenting compelling research and compelling findings.
Matt Dzugan [0:12:37]: So to be very clear, the specific playbook that we followed was we sort of had this original research pre date our product release by about two or three weeks, and then we had this kind of, like, nice period of tons of press, tons of publicity, And then, of course, being in the Ai answers right ahead of our product release.
Matt Carnevale [0:12:57]: Very cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:12:57]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:12:58]: Got it.
Matt Carnevale [0:12:58]: Was the original research like part of the launch plan?
Matt Carnevale [0:13:02]: Like is that something like a strategy that you guys.
Matt Dzugan [0:13:04]: What is the active plan, of course.
Matt Dzugan [0:13:06]: Yes.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:07]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:07]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:07]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:07]: So I like that.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:08]: I like that.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:09]: It's, like, I think that's a really smart play.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:11]: And I like that point about, there's a lot of duplicate continental there and it seems like a regional research or something that these Ai tools wanna pick up and reference when people are searching for things, so I think that's a really, really good play.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:24]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:24]: Matt, this was great.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:25]: You know, I think some more questions will come up, But I think right now we'll move on to the next use case.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:29]: And then if there's any questions in the end, we'll come back to this one, but this was awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:33]: Perfect start.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:33]: Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:34]: Alright, Matt Thanks.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:35]: Alright.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:36]: Bring up the next person in.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:37]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:13:38]: It's going.
Jess [0:13:38]: I'm
Brett [0:13:39]: matt.
Brett [0:13:39]: Hey everybody.
Brett [0:13:39]: Glad to be here today.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:42]: Yes.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:42]: Nice to have you.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:43]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:43]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:13:44]: Why don't we start with just, you know, quick sixty seconds who you are, what you're gonna be showing us today, and then we can get into it.
Brett [0:13:49]: Yeah.
Brett [0:13:49]: That sounds great.
Brett [0:13:50]: Hey, everybody.
Brett [0:13:50]: My name is Brett.
Brett [0:13:51]: I am a director of product at Webflow.
Brett [0:13:54]: And so been here with the company for about six years, and I spent probably the decade before that as a marketer.
Brett [0:14:01]: All my background was in marketing.
Brett [0:14:02]: I came to product kind of non traditional route.
Brett [0:14:05]: And so all of the...
Brett [0:14:06]: How do we make sure that we are giving superpower to marketers that we talk a lot about at Webflow is near and dear to my heart, given.
Brett [0:14:13]: That's exactly where I came from as a user first.
Brett [0:14:15]: So, hey, mike glad to be with you all today.
Matt Carnevale [0:14:18]: Awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:14:18]: Awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:14:18]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:14:18]: Bottom don't me get into what you wanna talk about Show.
Brett [0:14:22]: Yeah.
Brett [0:14:22]: That sounds great.
Brett [0:14:23]: So I've got some slides and Walk through those, but as a quick setup.
Brett [0:14:26]: Obviously, at Webflow.
Brett [0:14:27]: And what I do today today is working with teams that we get to serve and that are running their digital experiences on Webflow, understanding what problems they're solving, needing to solve what tools they need.
Brett [0:14:39]: And at the same time, and we also have a marketing team at Webflow that's marketing the brand.
Brett [0:14:42]: And as we've been building tools and making sure that as you build and deploy your experiences on Webflow, we've been right at the edge of this big upheaval over the last year plus as the move from just traditional search like we're talking about to answer engine and Ai search, we've been right at the heart of that.
Brett [0:15:00]: And talking with our customers just like you all today here, that's not automatically a, like, oh, great.
Brett [0:15:05]: There's this new thing.
Brett [0:15:05]: I'm gonna go do it, but you first start to see it in.
Brett [0:15:08]: Wow, this is actually making impact.
Brett [0:15:10]: People are finding me differently.
Brett [0:15:11]: While I'm seeing a dip to performance metrics, and I need to figure out what's actually happening.
Brett [0:15:15]: And so while, absolutely, we wanna focus on building tools.
Brett [0:15:19]: We first started really by evaluating and understanding?
Brett [0:15:22]: What's actually happening?
Brett [0:15:23]: What's actually happening what matters out there, What are we seeing from sites that are performing well and then are showing up well and what or not.
Brett [0:15:30]: So what I wanna walk through today is really what we've learned and what we've been learning along the way.
Brett [0:15:34]: Hopefully, some helpful tips for folks here on the, live our of what you could take away because at the end of the day, our goal is marketers is we need to drive impact.
Brett [0:15:44]: We need to drive results making sure we're optimized for answer engines it's just one way house.
Brett [0:15:49]: So, let me share my screen I'm gonna walk us through a few things and go from there.
Brett [0:15:53]: Awesome.
Brett [0:15:54]: Great.
Brett [0:15:55]: So gonna start here, And this is a bit of, like a the statement.
Brett [0:15:58]: But as we think about what's happening, obviously, Ai traffic is really our answer engine, optimization or Ai search is really this new top level?
Brett [0:16:05]: And you think about even before we get into, what should I be doing to optimize for answer engines What is the goal?
Brett [0:16:11]: What's actually changed here?
Brett [0:16:13]: Because a lot of the conversation that really started was like, wow, answer engines and still can happen today is like, Ai search that's this brand new thing.
Brett [0:16:20]: But really as we started to break that down, it's just an evolution of what traditional search has been.
Brett [0:16:25]: And so when you think about what traditional search has been, the goal of traditional search was I want to get found, so then somebody comes to my site and I can deliver the answer.
Brett [0:16:34]: If you think about at consumers are really looking to get answers to their questions.
Brett [0:16:39]: Should I buy this?
Brett [0:16:40]: Where should I go for that?
Brett [0:16:41]: How do I solve this problem?
Brett [0:16:42]: That traditional search was basically saying, we wanna get found, your brand wants to be in those search engines so that you can deliver the answer over on your site?
Brett [0:16:51]: And when we look at what Ai traffic doing.
Brett [0:16:53]: It sits above that now because the idea is that you actually are getting the answer directly in Ai search.
Brett [0:17:00]: And so the goal isn't just yes, I eventually want people to make it to my site.
Brett [0:17:04]: But really, the goal is I want to get included in the answer.
Brett [0:17:07]: So now in if you're a vacation destination brand and then a customer saying, where should I go for spring break with my family, you wanna be included in an answer so that you can actually then get found that way versus just trying to get fine and deliver that answer on your site.
Brett [0:17:21]: So really it's this new layer?
Brett [0:17:22]: That sits top.
Brett [0:17:23]: And as we've been working with teams over the last year, what we consistently found and this is actually some stats from a recent study we did was that the vast majority of marketers were saying Ae is critical.
Brett [0:17:34]: I often say anytime I talk about this stat I'd like to meet the seven percent who are like, hey eight is not a big deal.
Brett [0:17:40]: They say Eight is critical, but the reality is is that the teams who are actually practitioners, the folks that are responsible for doing this every day, only about a quarter actually fully understand what they should be doing.
Brett [0:17:50]: And what does that actually mean it?
Brett [0:17:51]: How do I optimize for answering engines.
Brett [0:17:53]: And so, obviously, at Webflow, we wanna build tools and we wanna help sure and make you do that.
Brett [0:17:57]: But it really starts with the foundational what matters.
Brett [0:17:59]: And so one of the things that we really started doing over the last year is we first started by introducing this model.
Brett [0:18:05]: And there's nothing necessarily, like, rocket science about this model, but it takes something that can be abstract, and it starts to make it much more clear, which is the idea that SEO and Ae are actually very related and very connected There are many concepts that have always mattered for SEO that continue.
Brett [0:18:22]: To matter for Au.
Brett [0:18:22]: There's things that may have mattered that early signals or evolving signals with answer engines and various Lou is that, wow, those matter even more.
Brett [0:18:31]: And maybe there's some new disciplines.
Brett [0:18:32]: And so the idea is that as you really are moving to optimize for not only search engines but answer engines, there's actually a set of things that matter.
Brett [0:18:40]: And there's a set of areas that you should think about.
Brett [0:18:42]: The takeaway and we'll talk a few more minutes on this for today is, like, that often teams and you may find yourself in the same situation.
Brett [0:18:49]: Is like, I know answer engines.
Brett [0:18:51]: I know Ae is important.
Brett [0:18:52]: Where do I even start.
Brett [0:18:54]: That seems like this giant black box of things I should be doing.
Brett [0:18:56]: What matters what doesn't matter?
Brett [0:18:58]: This is where we started to break it down where there's really four key buckets that matter?
Brett [0:19:02]: Content, what's the content you're actually writing about and delivering on your site?
Brett [0:19:06]: Technical, which is how are you structuring your site and its pages, authority, How are you being talked about externally off of your site and measurement how are you actually understanding what's happening.
Brett [0:19:16]: And across all of these areas, there's tactical things that you can be investing in and doing to move the needle forward.
Brett [0:19:22]: And what I would say for the sake of today is, like, a lot of the emphasis often goes to should I go get a tracking tool or what are all the content things I should do.
Brett [0:19:30]: And there's key things that matter at both, but, like, a lot of this, like, where should I start quick win opportunity?
Brett [0:19:35]: Actually, I would dial in a few different places?
Brett [0:19:37]: And so I'm happy to do that, matt unless there's any questions you wanna surface up or things before I kinda go into that?
Matt Carnevale [0:19:43]: I think you should definitely get into the...
Matt Carnevale [0:19:45]: Where some of the quick wins And then if there's some questions after that, we'll get into them.
Brett [0:19:48]: Okay.
Brett [0:19:48]: That sounds great.
Brett [0:19:49]: So, honestly, one of the biggest areas that many teams have the quickest wins lowest hanging fruit if you will is on the technical front.
Brett [0:19:56]: And why does that matter?
Brett [0:19:58]: What is the technical front?
Brett [0:19:59]: Well, the reality is is that traditional search engines?
Brett [0:20:01]: And also, whether they're parts, traditional search engines or new Ll based crawl is that in order to actually be able to understand what site is about to actually be able to understand what your brand is about, it needs to access it in a performant way, and a semantic structured way, so we can actually understand.
Brett [0:20:18]: And so there's a lot of key opportunities on the actual technical management of your site that matter.
Brett [0:20:24]: And so things like structured data. Do you have clear and descriptive meta descriptions and meta titles and alt text descriptors, Are you using skeema.org to markup?
Brett [0:20:33]: All of those things are about how do you give a clear and semantic understanding of the pages and the site that you're building?
Brett [0:20:39]: Are you optimizing your, you know, your robots .txt?
Brett [0:20:42]: Those various pieces that traditionally that's sat in the technical SEO world, And that stuff still really matters?
Brett [0:20:48]: Because if these Lo and search engines can't quickly and access your site or understand what it's about.
Brett [0:20:54]: The content that you're write, may not even matter or you may be leaving a lot on the table.
Brett [0:20:58]: And so that's one key area, like, start eating out the basics.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:02]: Yeah, please.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:02]: Even on that, Like, yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:03]: I think that's a great point.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:04]: So essentially in a nutshell, it's like, if the technical side is not set up.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:08]: Properly.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:08]: It doesn't matter how much content you're creating?
Matt Carnevale [0:21:10]: Like, a big part of is it's not gonna get picked up anyway.
Matt Carnevale [0:21:12]: What is, like, the action there?
Matt Carnevale [0:21:14]: Is it, like, I should go hire a technical Ae person that's gonna do an audit and recommend things?
Matt Carnevale [0:21:20]: Or, like, what would you recommend I'm yeah fact.
Brett [0:21:24]: Yeah.
Brett [0:21:24]: It's a great question.
Brett [0:21:24]: And I think if your team has resources or it has those capabilities to, like, bring somebody in, maybe a fast route.
Brett [0:21:30]: There's actually a number of, you know, online free or nearly free tools that can help you with audits.
Brett [0:21:35]: There's also one of the things I've got it in a separate tab, and I'll bring it up in a second.
Brett [0:21:39]: Webflow, we actually have a free Ae maturity model assessment.
Brett [0:21:42]: And so we'll actually do a comprehensive audit of your full site and tell you where the key areas across all four of these dimensions you should invest in.
Brett [0:21:49]: And so on that point, doing an audit is a great first start.
Brett [0:21:53]: Within that, even if you don't do a holistic audit it, you can do a spot check audit it of going across your pages.
Brett [0:21:58]: And a clear way to start is, like, just literally start with the...
Brett [0:22:02]: Like, look for the gaps are you missing meta descriptions and alt text and sc.
Brett [0:22:06]: And again, if you're not familiar with Sc, go take a look at skeema.org get something that we've seen early indications that L actually really prioritize.
Brett [0:22:13]: And there's a lot of tools that can help you do that, But, like, look for gaps first.
Brett [0:22:17]: Before you even get into, like, how do I e out a little bit more performance, But a lot of those things is really about gaps, and there's a number of tools that you can do an audit.
Brett [0:22:25]: Again, Webflow has a free solution if you go to our Ae solutions page, you can put in your Url, get a free assessment to look across your whole site.
Brett [0:22:33]: That'd be on the technical side.
Brett [0:22:34]: And yeah, you're exactly right.
Brett [0:22:35]: They're like, there's a lot of things you can do on authority on content on measurement, but like, the technical is like, a lot of low hanging fruit that you don't wanna leave discover ability on the table simply from just how you're structured are not structured.
Matt Carnevale [0:22:47]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:22:47]: Alright.
Matt Carnevale [0:22:48]: Next quick win that you have.
Brett [0:22:50]: Yeah.
Brett [0:22:50]: Yeah.
Brett [0:22:50]: Next quick win is on the content side.
Brett [0:22:52]: And so what I'd say on the content side is this is where I think teams can often...
Brett [0:22:56]: You know, there's a lot of things you can do across a lot of dimensions.
Brett [0:23:00]: But let's think back what actually matters and what are you actually trying to solve for with answer engine optimization.
Brett [0:23:06]: When we go back to the goal of answer engine optimization is I want to get included in the answer so that you can then eventually, yes, make it to my site, But I just want to be included in the answer.
Brett [0:23:16]: And so when you think about what are the questions people are asking and what is the answer, the reality is that oftentimes that represents a gap of what are your customers actually talking about?
Brett [0:23:26]: What are they actually asking about for your brand?
Brett [0:23:28]: And do you actually answer that?
Brett [0:23:30]: Not to say you have to be the only answer.
Brett [0:23:32]: But if you have a clear signal there, your customers are asking about very specific things, they're naturally gonna be asking those questions and answer engines.
Brett [0:23:39]: And ultimately, if you aren't delivering an answer to those on your site, you are relying or hoping on Reddit on your customers on some other blog to be answering those on your behalf or for an Ll to just get it right.
Brett [0:23:51]: And so a quick win opportunity here that we often talk with teams about is use the word audit again, but, like, go look through some of the places where your customers already are and understand what questions they're asking and look at does your site answer those questions.
Brett [0:24:04]: So a couple good examples.
Brett [0:24:06]: If you use, like, a customer service platform where you're in emailing and messaging with your customers go do a raw export throw in Say, what are the top questions that are being asked here and go look at your site.
Brett [0:24:17]: Do I have a page Do Have an Faq?
Brett [0:24:19]: Do I clearly answer this on my site?
Brett [0:24:21]: If not, let's go do that.
Brett [0:24:23]: Go look at social forms.
Brett [0:24:24]: Go look at your own social pages?
Brett [0:24:25]: What are people asking about your brand And are you actually answering it because so often as brands and as brand marketers can be very focused on.
Brett [0:24:33]: This is the brand narrative I wanna say.
Brett [0:24:34]: This is the campaign I wanna influence.
Brett [0:24:36]: And your customers are asking you very nitty gritty questions or very specific long tail questions and a quick win opportunity is, like, just make sure that you have an answer for those.
Brett [0:24:44]: And Yeah.
Brett [0:24:45]: That's not gonna guarantee you're always gonna be cited, but it's gonna up your chance of actually being included in the answer in a minimum helping influence that the answer is actually the answer that you want to actually be the case.
Matt Carnevale [0:24:56]: Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:24:56]: I love that one.
Matt Carnevale [0:24:57]: That's a great point.
Matt Carnevale [0:24:58]: I remember at a previous company, like, I was trying to make the case to my manager to invest in SEO.
Matt Carnevale [0:25:06]: And It was really as...
Matt Carnevale [0:25:08]: Sure there are tools like a tracker, but it was really as simple as, like, the top five search results that we thought people would ask and our branch should show up.
Matt Carnevale [0:25:16]: We are in none of them, not even on the first page at the time.
Matt Carnevale [0:25:19]: And I just screenshot and put them into a slide and I was like, whoa, okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:25:22]: Like, let's fix this tomorrow.
Matt Carnevale [0:25:23]: And I think this is kinda like, the same idea where it's, like, just really simply, like, just like it was with SEO.
Matt Carnevale [0:25:29]: It's like, don't go audit whether you're showing up in the most basic of places that your brand should be or at least the places you'd want them to be.
Brett [0:25:36]: Yeah.
Brett [0:25:36]: Totally.
Brett [0:25:36]: And I think that's where it can feel daunting often when you're looking at, oh, my gosh.
Brett [0:25:39]: I now need to do a thing that, like SEO depending on your org depending on the complexity of your org, like, SEO may have been an area already where it's like, we're not investing as much as we need to.
Brett [0:25:49]: And now Ae which to your point to, like, we're in the past, marketers have had been having to try to push the, hey.
Brett [0:25:54]: We should invest in SEO Now the implication with Aes like, top of mind for, you know, almost all marketing leaders as executives and they're now asking for what are we doing about this thing, and there's like, okay.
Brett [0:26:05]: Wow.
Brett [0:26:05]: This can feel overwhelming of where do I start and a lot of times, especially if you're early on in the journey or you already don't have a defined program, starting with those core basics actually makes a really big impact.
Brett [0:26:14]: That's the last thing I'd say on authority and measurement is like, authority is really...
Brett [0:26:18]: It's honestly getting back to a lot of the things that traditional search engines wanted to prioritize our, you know, expert sources and confident places talking positively about you.
Brett [0:26:26]: One of the quickest win opportunities there is go into places like Reddit, find conversations where your brands being talked about, help answer questions on behalf of your brand and help influence that.
Brett [0:26:35]: And on the measurement side, this is a fast moving space and evolving space.
Brett [0:26:39]: And so there's a lot of tools that can solve these things.
Brett [0:26:42]: Webflow included, we just launched a tool around Ae analytics.
Brett [0:26:45]: But one of the big pieces is that while the data is not perfect.
Brett [0:26:48]: Again, we're trying to get directional understanding of how our brands showing up in Ll.
Brett [0:26:52]: Having visibility is important because at the end of the day, when you start making investments in technical and content, you wanna be able to know for yourself, but also share with your stakeholders to say, hey, we've been doing a lot of things, and we've been fixing steam across all these pages, and we've been starting to answer questions and you can see for the questions that we wanna show up and we're tracking, we are directional heading up into the right.
Brett [0:27:13]: And we've improved by ten percentage points in visibility.
Brett [0:27:16]: We're now showing up in seventy percent of answers where previously, we are showing up in fifty percent of answers.
Brett [0:27:21]: So you at least have something to benchmark that back against.
Brett [0:27:24]: And so I think from a measurement side, like, what I'd I recommend most folks get is, like, find a tracking tool, There's lots of them where you can actually be tracking the questions you wanna show up for.
Brett [0:27:34]: So you have a way to kinda close the loop.
Brett [0:27:35]: And obviously, with Webflow, we're building solutions that can do all of that integrated in the platform.
Brett [0:27:40]: So as you build, we're doing all those things connected because we know the, like, the connectedness and, like, the scale and the ease of use is important.
Brett [0:27:47]: But there's lots of ways that you can get that done as well.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:49]: Love that.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:49]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:50]: These are all really great points.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:51]: Some questions did pop up in the chat, but...
Brett [0:27:54]: Great.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:54]: What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna bring Jess up.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:55]: Let me do her part, and then when we come back for Q and a in the end, I'm gonna direct some these questions.
Matt Carnevale [0:27:59]: Your way, Brett.
Brett [0:28:01]: Okay.
Brett [0:28:01]: Great.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:01]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:01]: This is awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:02]: Thanks so much.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:03]: Alright.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:03]: Let's bring up the next...
Matt Carnevale [0:28:04]: Contestant.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:06]: Alright.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:07]: Jess.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:08]: My fellow Toronto tony.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:09]: Bon should give us the sixty seconds who you are, what you're gonna show and then let's get into the goods.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:14]: Alright.
Jess [0:28:15]: My Tl is.
Jess [0:28:16]: My name is Joshua.
Jess [0:28:17]: I've been in SEO A, Ge, Sorry, I'm ruining it already.
Jess [0:28:21]: L, E I for about fifteen years now.
Jess [0:28:24]: I started as a web dev moved into the marketing side, but still love to get my hands dirty and play around with site.
Jess [0:28:30]: So, like, I have client.
Jess [0:28:31]: And now I do freelance.
Jess [0:28:32]: I'm a freelance consultant, and I run my own business.
Jess [0:28:35]: We work with clients mostly in B2B Saas, so we work with wonderful clients who are on Web.
Jess [0:28:39]: Thanks, Brett for seeing that all up perfectly too, and do all kinds of wonderful stuff as we shift into this Ae.
Jess [0:28:46]: A eleven stuff.
Jess [0:28:48]: I'm shifting as per necessary.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:52]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:28:52]: What are you gonna show today?
Jess [0:28:55]: Okay.
Jess [0:28:55]: So I am gonna show you some results from a lovely little thing that I've been running.
Jess [0:29:02]: Thanks to you guys, which is all under route.
Jess [0:29:06]: So I'm gonna share some data from a lovely thing that I've been running So I've been running some
Matt Carnevale [0:29:11]: Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:29:11]: I give some context too, like, we had this private community with a bunch of Bbc CMOs, and I asked Jesse come in, and I said, hey.
Matt Carnevale [0:29:18]: If I remember, send you the website, can you take a look at their site and tell them how they can improve their a, what they can do.
Matt Carnevale [0:29:25]: Give us some actionable thing.
Matt Carnevale [0:29:26]: So just, you're gonna show some of that right now.
Matt Carnevale [0:29:27]: So sorry for Cutting get into it.
Jess [0:29:30]: No, please.
Jess [0:29:30]: I actually am even calling them audits because they're not audits.
Jess [0:29:33]: They're more like a snapshot.
Jess [0:29:34]: Right?
Jess [0:29:35]: So they just kinda give kinda top level because we're speaking to the audience that's in this.
Jess [0:29:39]: What are we calling at Live?
Jess [0:29:41]: That's in this.
Jess [0:29:42]: Yep.
Jess [0:29:42]: Yeah.
Jess [0:29:43]: So for...
Jess [0:29:45]: These are just, like, three top level things that actually paired to what Brett and Matt, we're both saying.
Jess [0:29:51]: I'm glad I'm going third because I can tie it all the other, and then we can ask your questions.
Jess [0:29:55]: So the biggest things that I found is one in three sites actually of technical blockers, which I'm gonna go into and as the first slide.
Jess [0:30:02]: So as Rat said, you know, all this Ae stuff is built off of SEO.
Jess [0:30:07]: So I think you need to understand how your sites being indexed ranked.
Jess [0:30:10]: Whatever we're calling these terms moving into this new space, but having your site being found by these Ais and these L is stage one.
Jess [0:30:17]: Right?
Jess [0:30:18]: And then number two is what Matt was talking about is the third party gap.
Jess [0:30:22]: So what people are actually saying about you on the other end.
Jess [0:30:25]: Right?
Jess [0:30:25]: So building up what we call, like, an entity if I'm getting really nerdy about it is really a large talking of about it.
Jess [0:30:31]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:30:33]: So the federal party gap is Dream saying that what the L are saying about you is not what you want them to be saying.
Matt Carnevale [0:30:38]: Right?
Jess [0:30:39]: Or that you don't show up at all.
Matt Carnevale [0:30:41]: Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:30:41]: Shut all.
Matt Carnevale [0:30:41]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:30:42]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:30:42]: Cool.
Jess [0:30:43]: Right?
Jess [0:30:43]: That you're not there.
Jess [0:30:44]: So number one is to build off of what Brett said, and it is technical debt is your problem.
Jess [0:30:50]: And it's not just like, ski and stuff is the sites that I've been auditing don't even have technical SEO on a base level.
Jess [0:30:57]: So things that get super technical, like canonical and duplicate pages, and Javascript heavy pages.
Jess [0:31:04]: As we move into this new space and all these Ai and People are doing a lot of what's called vibe coating.
Jess [0:31:09]: And with my coating comes a lot of code that doesn't end up being the most healthy code that goes into all these places.
Jess [0:31:17]: Right?
Jess [0:31:18]: So I think we just need to go back to the basics of, like, what's kinda code and what's kind of websites that need to be fed into these Ais and these L is the same thing that Google wants.
Jess [0:31:27]: Just like Brett said, you want robots .txt files, you know, and we're going back and forth on whether we want L .txt files, And all these things and this whole space is moving very quickly, but basic technical hygiene is my number one finding.
Matt Carnevale [0:31:42]: Got it.
Matt Carnevale [0:31:42]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:31:42]: And I like that to fix this week.
Matt Carnevale [0:31:44]: It says ask your dev team if the site content is in the rendered Html or loaded via Javascript.
Matt Carnevale [0:31:50]: Which one of the two do you want it to be?
Matt Carnevale [0:31:53]: Sorry it maybe if A separate?
Jess [0:31:55]: All day every day.
Jess [0:31:56]: Google will actually spend a lot of their years on their indexing and crawling stuff layering in Javascript It comes in as a secondary Crawl and stuff.
Jess [0:32:04]: So L m's aren't quite there.
Jess [0:32:06]: Right?
Jess [0:32:06]: So we need to make sure everything is just playing all the Html.
Jess [0:32:09]: You're serving it out to the people.
Jess [0:32:10]: Okay.
Jess [0:32:11]: Number two is, again, what Brett was saying on content.
Jess [0:32:14]: But I have a little bit of a nuance to the content.
Jess [0:32:17]: Is finding that the top layer, the tofu content that everybody loves to write is eaten by search.
Jess [0:32:24]: Right?
Jess [0:32:25]: And same with.
Jess [0:32:25]: L m's will be, and maybe already able to answer what is queries better than you can.
Jess [0:32:32]: Unfortunately.
Jess [0:32:33]: I hope this isn't news to anybody, but this is what's unfortunately happening throughout the web.
Jess [0:32:38]: But when you get down to middle funnel and bottle funnel queries of people doing consideration queries, which is basically the corner that I work in in the web, is you looking versus your competitor content, you wanna be able to kinda own that narrative or at least surface up the differences between what you're doing.
Jess [0:32:53]: Right?
Jess [0:32:53]: So you should be sharing that kind of content as much as possible in whichever way that works.
Jess [0:33:00]: I know there's a ton of ways, and I don't wanna win form a strategy on people out of this, but like, however, you can share that or have that presence on the web is definitely huge.
Jess [0:33:11]: And the fix from this week, like, you pointed it out last week is search for your category on G or capture.
Jess [0:33:16]: Those are the big ones in B2B Saas, but there's a ton.
Jess [0:33:20]: So, like, it doesn't have to be those two, there's a ton on the Internet.
Jess [0:33:24]: So find one that's, like, even yellow cages if you're a local business.
Jess [0:33:28]: Your pages exist throughout the whole world.
Jess [0:33:31]: We have clients that are in England and they're also on yellow pages, which I just learned a couple weeks ago.
Jess [0:33:35]: So
Matt Carnevale [0:33:37]: there you go.
Matt Carnevale [0:33:37]: I guess, yellow pages making and Come back over good old Google.
Matt Carnevale [0:33:41]: Question for you.
Matt Carnevale [0:33:42]: So, essentially, the fix is, like, go to these sites and search how your reviews compare to your competitors.
Matt Carnevale [0:33:48]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:33:48]: What if you're in a situation where, I'm sure many of us are.
Matt Carnevale [0:33:52]: It's, like, a are competitors are light years ahead.
Matt Carnevale [0:33:55]: And then also two, maybe we're just smaller and probably can't rack up the same amount of reviews, so you think it's still viable in that situation.
Jess [0:34:06]: A hundred percent.
Jess [0:34:07]: Everyone starts somewhere.
Jess [0:34:08]: So the gap can be closed a little bit, and then you can publish stuff on your own site as well.
Jess [0:34:13]: So this doesn't have to be external sites is you can actually start it by yourself.
Jess [0:34:17]: And sharing that differentiator.
Jess [0:34:19]: And if you can get ahead of your competitors in that space.
Jess [0:34:22]: Comparison pages it'll always a good way to go.
Jess [0:34:24]: I force those out clients of Puerto.
Jess [0:34:27]: So always good to happen on both sides.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:30]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:30]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:30]: I like the comparison page piece.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:32]: That makes sense as a way to fill the gap and that content, especially if, like, your reviews aren't necessarily there yet.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:38]: That's a good way to, like, teach the the difference in you and the competitors.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:41]: So very cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:42]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:34:43]: Let's look at the next finding.
Jess [0:34:45]: On to number three is my hardest partake.
Jess [0:34:48]: Is your home page is probably your worst performing page for Ai discover ability.
Jess [0:34:52]: The home homepage is where most of your traffic goes.
Jess [0:34:55]: Right?
Jess [0:34:55]: But Ai is inc your homepage as much because it gets the most fight in marketing divisions.
Jess [0:35:01]: Right?
Jess [0:35:01]: Like, brand comes in, the CEO comes in.
Jess [0:35:05]: Your painting team comes in.
Jess [0:35:06]: Everybody comes in, and that top section of your site is probably the most thought section of every single website.
Jess [0:35:13]: I've been in those meetings.
Jess [0:35:14]: Everybody in this call has probably been in those meetings.
Jess [0:35:16]: Right?
Jess [0:35:16]: But please for the love and cheese and crackers, tell me what you do.
Jess [0:35:20]: Top your website.
Jess [0:35:22]: Tell the rest of us what you do.
Jess [0:35:24]: Right?
Jess [0:35:24]: Tell everybody what you do.
Jess [0:35:26]: Even if you're in those super high, like, enterprise sites, I read so many enterprise sites now too, and I have no idea what they do.
Jess [0:35:34]: So if I don't know what you do, then an Ai is not gonna know what you do, then anybody's not gonna know what you do.
Jess [0:35:40]: So just please...
Jess [0:35:42]: Yeah.
Jess [0:35:42]: Work on...
Jess [0:35:43]: And then you can learn from, again, Breadth said, like, testing with those prompt tools or those Ai tracking tools, you can pull that stuff in and see where you're lacking and where you're lagging.
Jess [0:35:51]: And if even show up for any of the things that you care about.
Matt Carnevale [0:35:55]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:35:55]: Got it.
Matt Carnevale [0:35:55]: I like this.
Matt Carnevale [0:35:56]: So essentially, it looks like the role the home homepage is what helps you...
Matt Carnevale [0:36:00]: What helps L, like, it categorize your business whereas, like, the blog pages or more of the specific queries the longer tail words are gonna go there, but this tells, like, this is a company that does this thing, so it knows which conversations to Greet you in?
Jess [0:36:17]: Exactly.
Jess [0:36:17]: It's called entities if we really wanna get nerdy about it, but, yeah, Exact same thing.
Jess [0:36:20]: That's the perfect wording for it.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:23]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:23]: Awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:23]: And then to fix this week, read your homepage, title tag out loud.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:27]: If it doesn't say what you do and for whom change it immediately.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:29]: Okay?
Matt Carnevale [0:36:30]: I like that.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:30]: Like that.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:31]: I'll
Jess [0:36:32]: how much it changes if you say things out loud.
Jess [0:36:34]: Because I don't know how much time you spent at your computer all day, but I spent a lot of time at my computer not saying works.
Jess [0:36:40]: And it Yeah.
Jess [0:36:41]: Just the dynamic if you say things out loud.
Jess [0:36:43]: It might sound yeah pay it out loud.
Jess [0:36:45]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:36:46]: Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:46]: Totally.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:46]: Totally.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:47]: I have a small niche question on the...
Matt Carnevale [0:36:49]: This is your last finding, by the way.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:51]: Right?
Jess [0:36:51]: This is.
Jess [0:36:51]: Yeah.
Jess [0:36:52]: My last one just like thank you.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:55]: Guys.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:55]: Awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:56]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:56]: I love that.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:56]: I love that.
Matt Carnevale [0:36:57]: I have a small niche question just based on your last slide, and it was...
Matt Carnevale [0:37:00]: Let's say, I were to read our title tag?
Matt Carnevale [0:37:03]: And I'm like, yeah, This doesn't reflect what we do.
Matt Carnevale [0:37:05]: So I go in and change it.
Matt Carnevale [0:37:06]: When can I expect some kind of, like, will it pick it up tomorrow and categorize my company or, like, is it traditional?
Matt Carnevale [0:37:15]: Like six months down the road and see the impact of that.
Matt Carnevale [0:37:18]: I know it may not be a black and white answer, but give us your take on that.
Jess [0:37:21]: This is that it depends of twenty twenty six.
Jess [0:37:23]: Right?
Jess [0:37:24]: So as SEO have these catch raises that we like to throw out.
Jess [0:37:27]: As far as I understand in twenty twenty six, there's multiple ways at these cars.
Jess [0:37:30]: End up crawling it or not even crawling it, pulling it in.
Jess [0:37:34]: So there's the models that get shipped at certain intervals.
Jess [0:37:38]: And then as long as whatever they've put in their model is your site gets pulled into that, that's one way that it gets pulled in.
Jess [0:37:45]: And then the other way is as you're doing a query in any of these models, they do fan out queries, which do live searches to find the live data across the web.
Jess [0:37:55]: And we're learning right now where those do all the live fan out queries.
Jess [0:38:00]: Some of them go through bangs, some of them go through Google.
Jess [0:38:02]: Some of them go through Duck duck go if you wanna believe that in twenty twenty smiles.
Jess [0:38:06]: The comeback
Matt Carnevale [0:38:08]: the stone ages.
Jess [0:38:09]: Yeah.
Jess [0:38:09]: Okay
Matt Carnevale [0:38:12]: living under a cave here.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:13]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:13]: One quick question before we bring everyone back, Catherine asked because you can talking about the language in the homepage.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:19]: She asked specifically the hero or, I guess the entire homepage itself.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:24]: I think that's the question, Catherine.
Jess [0:38:27]: I love both honestly, as I fight for every single spot that I can get information on, but I just know that the hero is the most expensive real estate on every single site.
Jess [0:38:36]: So you might not win that battle, Catherine.
Jess [0:38:38]: I apologize.
Jess [0:38:39]: So if you can win a little bit further down the road and get in some Faqs that answer your Ic p's questions off the hop, like, that was saying as well, take the win.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:50]: Cool, Allison, Why don't we bring everybody back and then we'll cover some of the questions that were asked in the chat.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:56]: Welcome back.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:57]: Welcome back.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:57]: That was great.
Matt Carnevale [0:38:58]: Everyone gave really awesome examples, super super valuable content.
Matt Carnevale [0:39:02]: There's a couple things in the chat that I had glazed over a bit, and I want to saved in this part.
Matt Carnevale [0:39:06]: So First off, if you're still here still in the chat with us, feel free to ask your questions because I'll try and get as many as I can right now.
Matt Carnevale [0:39:14]: But the first one that I skipped over was Jill had asked if q and a content is still effective.
Brett [0:39:21]: That can jump in here.
Brett [0:39:22]: I mean, short answer is yes.
Brett [0:39:23]: Obviously, with any of these things, there is and it depends.
Brett [0:39:26]: So the idea of just goes stuff, everything on your site with q and a, and will that automatically improve is, like, not a guaranteed yes, But I think, like, it is an effective way to implement the are you answering questions.
Brett [0:39:38]: So I'd still think about content, hierarchy and your content strategy.
Brett [0:39:41]: But if you think about something where you wanna answer a question, and it has a bunch of sub questions on it of, like, things you might also ask, like, Faqs are a really great way of rather than saying, well, I gotta go write a whole article about this.
Brett [0:39:53]: It's like, we'll just include those.
Brett [0:39:54]: Again, the idea, and Just was talking about this as well, But the idea, basically being that when an Ll wants to understand what the answer is It's just going to try to create a relationship by looking across datasets.
Brett [0:40:06]: And so what you wanna say is like, the reality is is that if your brand is not there already or if the answer, it's most likely that there's just not a very clear definitive data.
Brett [0:40:15]: And you just wanna contribute to that.
Brett [0:40:17]: And so it's like, those additional Faqs or Q and a's are really great ways of, like, you know, to be able to give a clear answer.
Brett [0:40:24]: And then, again, you're investing in the other signals for L to pick it up, included in their dataset, including in live searches.
Brett [0:40:29]: So short answer, yes, But I think there's nuance always where you're it's like.
Brett [0:40:33]: And we're gonna put Q and A's on every single thing, and that should work for Ae.
Brett [0:40:37]: Right?
Brett [0:40:37]: And it's like, well, there's a method and art and science and everything.
Brett [0:40:40]: So that'd be my answer there.
Matt Carnevale [0:40:42]: Love it.
Matt Carnevale [0:40:42]: Love it.
Matt Carnevale [0:40:43]: Anything to add just not.
Jess [0:40:46]: No.
Jess [0:40:46]: Brett got it down.
Jess [0:40:47]: The only thing is that I think faq sc has been removed from Google.
Jess [0:40:51]: They don't really give a flying hoo about it anymore.
Jess [0:40:53]: But, don't run to your devs and be like, removed.
Jess [0:40:56]: Yeah.
Jess [0:40:56]: I sc because that's not the move either.
Jess [0:40:59]: I think it might have value in the long term.
Matt Carnevale [0:41:01]: Oh, love it.
Matt Carnevale [0:41:02]: Alright.
Matt Carnevale [0:41:02]: We got a question from Kevin on Reddit, which is a really good one.
Matt Carnevale [0:41:06]: Because I think Brett you had mentioned just being active in the threads where your company is being mentioned.
Matt Carnevale [0:41:11]: So what Kevin asked was, like, do you jump into conversations and answer questions under the brand name or do you go stealth mode as if you're not a member of your company and answer that with?
Brett [0:41:25]: Sure.
Brett [0:41:25]: Yeah.
Brett [0:41:25]: I mean, I can get a thought, but again, I I don't wanna hog the mic here.
Brett [0:41:28]: The thing I would reference is a great partner that we have a Webflow and we work with a number of things is the graphite, which is an SEO and eight consulting company as well.
Brett [0:41:37]: And they've done a bunch of evaluations on studies on what's happening.
Brett [0:41:40]: What's working.
Brett [0:41:40]: Because a big part of SEO and Often is try something and see what happens and how do you then cod the implications.
Brett [0:41:46]: One the things that they would talk through is, like, actually the, like, either or, but basically, like, as a person going in and saying, hey, here's who I am.
Brett [0:41:53]: I'm with this organization, often takes care of that versus the idea of, like, should it be the brand Should it be the other is, like, the idea that, like, it's an authentic response.
Brett [0:42:02]: And so I think from...
Brett [0:42:03]: I don't feel like there is a clear and definitive, it has to be this way or that way, but I'd say it's a general rule regardless of, like, show up as a person, not as a brand, you know, trying to give brands speak, But, like, because that's what those platforms are.
Brett [0:42:15]: They're intended to be authentic communication.
Brett [0:42:17]: So if it's the brand, hey, this is so and so from the brand or the other way around.
Brett [0:42:20]: So that'd be my quick I'll add...
Matt Dzugan [0:42:23]: So big plus one to that, I'll also add that, especially in B2B space.
Matt Dzugan [0:42:28]: Right?
Matt Dzugan [0:42:28]: A lot of these kind of reddit conversations happen in, like, dedicated, like, for those of you who aren't familiar with Reddit there.
Matt Dzugan [0:42:36]: Kind of broken it into these communities called subreddit.
Matt Dzugan [0:42:39]: So, you know, there will be a community for, like, finance apps.
Matt Dzugan [0:42:43]: So community for any niche under to this on has its own reddit community.
Matt Dzugan [0:42:46]: Each of those communities usually have their own kind of, like, almost terms and policies when they have a panel of moderators.
Matt Dzugan [0:42:54]: So I would also look to see for the, kind of relevant community to your niche, your quote subreddit, see what the moderators are doing because some of them have really kind of crack down on Ge Aa stuff, and they've said, look, if there's anything that we suspect is, like, a brand promoting themselves, we're gonna nuke it, and some of them to Brett point.
Matt Dzugan [0:43:14]: Are, like, yep.
Matt Dzugan [0:43:14]: Just disclose yourself, and it's all good.
Matt Dzugan [0:43:16]: So I would also offer, like, look in the sort of guidelines of the relevant communities to Reddit.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:23]: Love it.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:24]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:24]: Lots of questions coming up now.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:26]: You know that's it.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:27]: Classic.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:28]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:28]: Jasmine said, on the competitive front, I've heard mixed things about the efficacy of owned comparison content slash.
Matt Carnevale [0:43:36]: Take down content doesn't align with our brand philosophy, but we still wanna ensure we are visible when people evaluate our category on L, any suggestions for owned content there.
Jess [0:43:48]: I have a whole...
Jess [0:43:49]: Like, I could talk for an hour on this alone, honestly, is I have fought for comparison pages all the way up the chain to, like, enterprise organizations, and they all take different flavors, honestly.
Jess [0:44:00]: Everyone seems to start out with.
Jess [0:44:02]: I don't talk about my competitors and then six months later.
Jess [0:44:04]: They're, like, maybe we can try it with a paid campaign.
Jess [0:44:07]: And so it's not too bad.
Jess [0:44:08]: And...
Jess [0:44:09]: But I agree that the standard comparison pages as well as list because you can jump all this into this.
Jess [0:44:16]: Into the same kind of stuff is very programmatic easy to write and easy to scale and is easy to ship, but I don't think it's going to be as valuable in the future.
Jess [0:44:26]: So layering in your key differentiator.
Jess [0:44:29]: Is really where I find the value.
Jess [0:44:32]: We do a lot more work on Ic and finding out your ideal customer profile and, like, speaking to that instead of just giving people a chart of checks and x's.
Jess [0:44:41]: Yeah.
Jess [0:44:41]: We're really specific.
Jess [0:44:43]: And that doesn't have to be comparison content.
Jess [0:44:45]: That can just be, like, however you wanna slice and dice that kind of information.
Jess [0:44:49]: Right?
Matt Carnevale [0:44:50]: Yep.
Matt Carnevale [0:44:50]: I like it.
Matt Carnevale [0:44:51]: Yep.
Matt Carnevale [0:44:52]: Gotcha.
Matt Carnevale [0:44:52]: Was
Matt Dzugan [0:44:53]: I was gonna add to that.
Matt Dzugan [0:44:54]: There's a similar question too that I saw.
Matt Dzugan [0:44:55]: From grace about, like, feels ina when, you know, everybody says we're number one.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:00]: Like, totally agree.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:01]: And for the same reasons that Jess was talking about, the L, they're not super smart, but they're smart enough to know.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:08]: They try to build consensus.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:09]: Right?
Matt Dzugan [0:45:10]: And so they can't build consensus when everybody says, we're all number one.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:14]: But what they will definitely pick up on is if you give very objective and verifiable claims about how one thing has something that another does it.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:25]: So, you know, we have shoes with black souls.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:28]: This company does not have shoes with black souls.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:30]: Like, if you can give it a discreet thing that, again, keyword is verifiable, then that is the type of content that the Ais will eat up.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:38]: So word number one is not verifiable.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:40]: Claiming that you have this feature and the competitor is not at is verifiable.
Matt Dzugan [0:45:45]: So that's how I would think of it.
Matt Carnevale [0:45:46]: Nice.
Matt Carnevale [0:45:46]: Oh, I agree.
Matt Carnevale [0:45:47]: And thanks for getting to that question because I was That was next on my alexa.
Matt Carnevale [0:45:51]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:45:52]: Oh, by the way, super quick if you are still here with us, we just ran a poll to rate today's session one through five.
Matt Carnevale [0:45:57]: If you rate a below five, I will find you and hunt you down and kill.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:01]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:01]: But, yeah, if you could please give us you rate the session for us today, so you can know how we did.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:05]: But next question I have here from Drew is what about the importance of Q and a platforms Quo for Ae visibility?
Brett [0:46:14]: I almost said Ko it directly as I was saying Reddit?
Brett [0:46:17]: Because I think the idea on the authority if you go back to that maturity model we were talking through, like, the authority piece is really like, Obviously, you wanna talk about yourself, you wanna answer questions yourself, but like, that's not the only signal.
Brett [0:46:28]: It's how are other people talking.
Brett [0:46:29]: And so a big bucket is like, where is or authentic conversation happening and people contributing to that is a great place to help influence that authority side.
Brett [0:46:39]: So core is another great example of that.
Brett [0:46:41]: There's a number of other ones that kinda fit in the bill of, like, this is where people are talking, social media platforms are another great place, like, as a general principle.
Brett [0:46:49]: So I my quick two sensor.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:51]: Nice.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:51]: Of that.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:52]: I love that mental model just like where the authentic conversations happening.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:55]: And how can we as a brand get in those?
Matt Carnevale [0:46:57]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:58]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:46:58]: I think we have time for one more question.
Matt Carnevale [0:47:00]: You see one that there's lots here.
Matt Carnevale [0:47:03]: So sorry I can't get to all them guys, but I do, like, one here from Michael, which is How are you identifying the most important turns to track inside of Ae tools, traditional keywords as a launch point or high intent long tail phrases.
Matt Carnevale [0:47:15]: Some recordings.
Matt Carnevale [0:47:18]: So
Jess [0:47:19]: here what are you said?
Brett [0:47:20]: Yeah.
Brett [0:47:20]: Yeah.
Brett [0:47:21]: I So there I think there's a few different ways.
Brett [0:47:23]: I think one of the...
Brett [0:47:24]: You just kinda mention this on the fan out idea or the fan out concept of queries, like, a great way to start from in terms of what questions you should track.
Brett [0:47:31]: One is take the keywords that are already important to your brand and run those even through an Ll, and basically say, what are the core questions that are likely connected to this.
Brett [0:47:41]: And so again, keywords are traditionally, again, I'm I'm a big golfer so the idea of, like, best golf clubs is like, a way you may have used to search in search engines But in an answer engine, you like, what is the best type of golf club for me who is this who lives here, and it's like, there's a bunch of those kind of perm limitations if you will, of those.
Brett [0:47:57]: So one is a great way, like, take the keywords that already matter to you and determine what are the likely questions that connect?
Brett [0:48:04]: I would actually also bucket another area, So I would think about what are the things you already think you should be showing up for well.
Brett [0:48:09]: That's kinda your brand.
Brett [0:48:10]: And then where the areas that you actually want to increase your visibility, and maybe like, be more like niche or long tail or customer specific And that is a lot of where it's like I was mentioning, Like, go look at your help desk tickets, Go look at your customer transcripts.
Brett [0:48:25]: Go look at your social platforms.
Brett [0:48:26]: But I think bucket them differently, especially if you're gonna upload in these tracking tools so that you can distinguish signal from noise.
Brett [0:48:33]: Because if all of a sudden you know a big drop in your brand visibility for the things that you should be slam dunking, that's a big deal.
Brett [0:48:39]: Something's things happened because you already should be happening there versus the other, which is like, hey, we're gonna make investments to start showing up here.
Brett [0:48:45]: Wanna be able to separate those kind of points out.
Brett [0:48:47]: So that...
Brett [0:48:48]: Those would kinda be the biggest two ways that I would suggest on how to get started on that front.
Matt Dzugan [0:48:52]: There's also an emerging phenomenon, like, where many of the Ae and Geo visibility tools are starting to offer access to what they call panel data, which is basically just, like, brazilians of people's, chat And Google, Ai overview, conversation.
Matt Dzugan [0:49:10]: So that data is starting to make its way out there so Be on the lookout for them as well.
Matt Carnevale [0:49:15]: It's a good point.
Matt Carnevale [0:49:16]: Chest.
Jess [0:49:17]: Point, on top of all of it is...
Jess [0:49:19]: I know I'm not supposed to say this as an SEO, but also lean on your paid friends.
Jess [0:49:22]: The data that they've been doing as campaigns is also very helpful because if you couldn't rank for it in Google in the Og days, you might be able to layer that into your Ae strategy.
Jess [0:49:31]: Right?
Jess [0:49:31]: And to that point, sign up for big Web master tools because they are giving you first party Ai data out of Copilot.
Jess [0:49:38]: They are the first ones to do this.
Jess [0:49:40]: Come on Google.
Jess [0:49:41]: Where are you?
Jess [0:49:42]: But I knew another one who would have seen bing for twenty twenty six, but sign up for bing my master tools.
Jess [0:49:48]: They're giving you lots of good data.
Matt Carnevale [0:49:50]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:49:50]: What was the tool you just set to sign up for just?
Jess [0:49:54]: Bing web Master tools.
Jess [0:49:55]: Same as search console, but like for bing.
Matt Carnevale [0:49:58]: K.
Matt Carnevale [0:49:58]: Was there one before that or I was being the one said?
Jess [0:50:01]: With one.
Jess [0:50:01]: Yeah.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:02]: Being one.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:02]: Go.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:03]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:03]: Awesome.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:03]: Okay.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:04]: Cool.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:04]: There's a lot of more great questions.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:05]: Can't get to them all.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:06]: I'm gonna give her over one a couple minutes to drop get ready for the next meeting.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:09]: Jess Matt, Brett, this has been incredible.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:11]: You guys gave such amazing examples in content a super engaging session.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:15]: I learned a ton even as a host.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:16]: Ever enjoy weekend.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:18]: Remember, it's Ae.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:19]: We officially grounded today.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:20]: Aa is the word.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:22]: And remember, next time it's actually a live in our.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:25]: That is the Us best.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:27]: I think whoever send out, I gotta send you a cup of coffee or a lunch or something on me.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:31]: But doorbell bills, everyone have a great weekend.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:34]: Thanks so much everyone.
Matt Carnevale [0:50:35]: Bye now.
Jess [0:50:36]: Dr bye.
Matt [0:50:41]: Hey.
Matt [0:50:41]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
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