#30 - Is SEO Dead? (I Wouldn't Bet Your Business On It)

You’ve seen the headlines: “Is SEO dead?” From AI chatbots to zero-click search results, it’s tempting to believe traditional search engine optimization is a thing of the past. But in this episode of Over The Bull, Ken Carroll sets the record straight — not just with opinions, but with insights from leading voices in the marketing space.

We break down what’s really going on in 2025, with takeaways from recent articles by Forbes, Business Insider, Neil Patel, Semrush, and SearchEnginePeople. You’ll learn how SEO is evolving — not dying — and what smart businesses are doing to stay visible in a world dominated by AI overviews, voice assistants, and shrinking organic click-through rates.

Whether you’re a business owner thinking of cutting your SEO budget or a marketer trying to make sense of all the noise, this episode will help you separate the myths from the must-dos.

RESOURCES:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2025/06/11/seo-myths-and-what-you-actually-need-to-rank-well-on-google

2. https://www.businessinsider.com/seo-aeo-ai-chatbots-search-startups-chatgpt-openai-google-2025-5

3. https://neilpatel.com/blog/is-seo-dead/

4. https://www.semrush.com/blog/seo-trends/

5. https://www.semrush.com/blog/is-seo-dead/

6. https://searchenginepeople.com/blog/seo-is-not-dead-2025.html (hypothetical based on common format)

7. https://www.creativepool.com/magazine/marketing/seo-isnt-dead-how-search-is-evolving-in-2025.28953

8. https://pwskills.com/blog/is-seo-dead-in-2025/

9. https://pankajkumarseo.com/is-seo-dead/

10. https://waterfrontgraphic.com/is-seo-dead/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut through marketing noise. Here's your host, Ken Carroll.

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

Is search engine optimization dead on this episode of Over the Bull? No, it's not. Okay, guys. Um hi, this is Ken, and uh, I'm with Integris, and I'm your host for Over the Bull. And you know, unfortunately, we live in a world of cliches. And sometimes these cliches, they kind of gain their own momentum. And even though it's completely absurd, they still seem to just push right along, and then people intuitively share that with other people as though it has merit. But once you dig into it, you find out it doesn't. So I pulled up some cliches here that I thought would be fun. Follow your heart. I mean, really, follow your heart. Uh it suggests clarity, but you know, feelings are contradictory and unstable. I mean, one of the things that we know in marketing is we want to capture you on emotion because emotion is what's going to get you to make decisions, and that can lead to things like buyer's remorse and all these other things. And so if you're if you're marketing without uh considering the the buyer emotions where you strive to be, um, the next mechanism kicks in's logic. So you see that cliches really don't hold water, but unfortunately, this is one of those weird little things that's floating around out there. And you know, I at this point, I don't even know if it's really a cliche as much as it is just ignorance. I don't know where it where it falls. But search engine optimization, by no stretch of the imagination, is dead. As a matter of fact, it's more relevant than it's ever been, but it's not your search engine optimization of a year ago. And, you know, the the hard part about things like search engine optimization, uh paid advertising, all these things is that they're evolving so quick that, you know, it's for example, let me let me try to put it to you this way. Fifteen years ago, search engine optimization was say, let's just make it easy, let's just say a hundred things. And of those hundred things, there was like a lot of different side roads that you had to consider in those hundred things. Now, it's a lot more today with search engine optimization, but even last year it was different than it is today. But some people are still selling the things that were 15 years old as relevant that are no longer relevant today. Now you can imagine that if people are confused about what transpired over 15 years and they can't stay current over the last year, you can imagine how clumsy search engine optimization is going to get. And then if you couple that with some of these practices, which are just absolutely horrible, that I hear people doing, like uh using uh AI without human intervention to create blog articles and this kind of just crazy, crazy stuff. So what I want to do is I want to start with basically, I saw this thing, and it was on Vince Lombardi, arguably the greatest coach that's ever coached professional football. And from my understanding, based on what I what I heard the other week, was when he started training camp, he would walk into training camp and he would hold a football. And he would look at these guys who are professionals. I mean, you know, these guys are all they've done is football, you know. And he holds it up and he says, This is a football. Now, the reason that he did it was, I believe, was because of the fundamentals were very important in order to get people on the same page and to completely understand exactly what's going on. Now, I would bet you that when someone was sitting in there and listening to Vince Lombardi talking about this is a football, and then getting into the fundamentals of the game, I believe there was a lot of people who believed certain things, and it was clarified through what Vince Lombardi said. And I think that maybe we need to start there with search engine optimization. And let's really kind of talk about what it is, what it's meant to be, and the fact that it's not dead, but it's dramatically different. You know, I wanted to say like it's it's not your dad's SEO, but it's really it's like it's not the SEO of uh nine months ago. Okay, so let's talk about it a little bit. First, what it what is search engine optimization? Well, search engine optimization, um actually you technically you shouldn't be doing it intentionally according to to what Google publishes, but it's the idea of building credibility for your business. And you the more credible your business is on the internet, the more Google will trust it to serve it up in search results, and the more that things like now Chat GPT will refer to your business online. Now, how you build that credibility is what is known as search engine optimization. And now we can evolve the terminology because there are different terms that are used, but at its core, this is what you're trying to achieve through search engine optimization. Simply build the credibility of your company. Now, there's a lot that goes into building the credibility of your company. And the problem is that when you when you look at, like, say for example, let's just take Chat GPT and Google. What ChatGPT wants and what it considers valuable data could dramatically vary from what Google considers valuable data. Remember, these are two different companies with two different streams of thought and two different processes to determine what's valuable and not valuable. So now we've got this moving target to build credibility in a way that artificial intelligence models like Chat GPT like, but then we also have to serve traditional search engines like Google, and then Google is not rolling over, they're introducing their AI model and they're evolving it as well. And so we also have to survive in the interim. Now, some people would say, well, what's that do for paid ads? So here's another thing that's that's confusing some people is they think that paid ads are going to fall to the wayside. Absolutely not true. I mean, just look at what Google's revenue model is and how they generate revenue. They're not going to let that go. They're going to evolve that because that mechanism is part of the lifeblood of Google. Very simple processes here. And so building that credibility, um, so for example, let's go one step further. So let's say, for example, you're a plumber. And let's say you're in um, I don't know, um, Hartford, Connecticut. And so plumber's Hartford is a keyword that you want to optimize for or come up under. Um, to do that, you have to do certain things and optimize for that so that you come up under that search phrase. So traditionally, what we've done in SEO was we target keyword phrases like plumber Hartford, plumbers near me, things like that. And, you know, years ago, it was you were trying to work from the website, and then after the website, you know, we had the advent of social media. Now we got our local business profiles like Google Business, and then from there we have our paid ads, and now we've got artificial intelligence. And so the idea is if you think about it, when you're trying to build credibility, you want to obviously be the person that's creating credible content so that these things can assess your credibility. So if you take something like going to ChatGPT and saying, create me an article on plumbing for Hartford, Connecticut, and use these words, Hartford, you know, Connecticut, uh, plumbers, uh, Acme Plumbing Company or whatever it's called, and then you have an article generated to that, then you run into some issues because number one is if you're doing it that cheap way, other people are going to be doing it too. And remember, Google wants to pull up the most relevant results. And so if you have human content with human expertise, then that content is going to stand out amongst all the slop that's generated generically using rudimentary tools and AI because everyone can now do it. Now, don't get me wrong, our business, we have business versions of things like Chat GPT, and we do that for a reason. It's an incredible tool. And if you use it in the right way, it's amazing the things that you can come up with. If you use it in the wrong way, it's like shooting yourself in the foot. And so when you think about the companies that are search engine optimization companies, it's very attractive for them to spit out those articles using cheap tools because it looks like that company is doing a lot of work. And because the internet is evolving at the speed at which it's evolving at, then creating those articles using something like that may actually work. But in the long term, when Google starts to react and they're already reacting to this kind of content because it's hurting those search results, your website will be devalued because it doesn't want to serve up irrelevant searches. You see how this is working. So what do I mean by it's it's not dead? Well, the credibility of your business is incredibly important for you to get any visibility. And now you've got to exponentially consider where that visibility may be. It's not just Google anymore. Now we've got all these AI tools and everything, and it was it was the you know the 10-ton gorilla. But we're seeing is as things are evolving, we're seeing that, you know, and it's not a lot, okay, but we are seeing where when you see things like ChatGPT eclipse the number of interactions that, you know, once megaliths like um uh Bing or some of these others, and you're seeing it eclipse those numbers, you're going, well, this is real. This is very, very real. And we've got to be ready uh for that. So if anyone tells you that SEO is dead, it absolutely is not dead, and you should not really take that person seriously because they don't have their hand on the pulse of what's going on. You should also think about where else are they wrong too? So let me give you an example of that. Let's talk about paid ads. Now, a lot of paid Google Ads company still follow this process and really, really focus in on this. This is really important. What they'll do is they sell you a package where they control and manage your Google Ads. That's good to have someone who knows what they're doing. I mean, Google Ads, even though you can do it on your own, there's so much in there that you really need to work with someone who really understands it because it's it's not something you just like flick a switch, set up it, drop in a budget, and you start making money. You can actually lose your shirt on that if you don't set that up correctly. So it is right to hire a professional. Now, here's where the problem is. A lot of these companies, what they do is they build uh some call it a micro site, some call it a landing page, some will call it a squeeze page. And what they do is they put it out on the internet separate from your main business website. So if your business is mycompany.com, they may start a second website called uh callmycompany.com or getmycompany.com. And the problem is that this website that's sitting out there in Never Never Land has very little credibility and it doesn't contribute to the overall credibility of your business because it's sitting out there by itself. And so when you do that, you could imagine that if the game's all about credibility and they're still building these pages and sending ads to them, they're actually not doing what's best for you as a company. You see, it's pretty much that easy, but they're still selling it. And what's really frustrating for a guy like me is as I sit down and I listen to what they're doing, they're actually trying to make arguments that what they do is still relevant and it's not going anywhere. Now, the writing's on the wall. Your credibility is the most important thing you could do. This writing on the wall was actually there for a long time. So why do they do that? Well, it's pretty easy. The first reason is they have autonomy over that landing page. So some would use it as a uh a mechanism for controlling the account, things like that, which I personally don't like. Uh the other thing is they can make changes quickly and effectively without messing up your main website. That's another one. And if your main website has problems, they can avoid those problems. And I suppose the last thing is, is they can give you accurate data as to how much uh their ads are bringing you business. And that's how they justify what they're doing. And so it wasn't inherently a bad practice, but if you're talking about the credibility of your company, when you're diverting all those marketing dollars to a little website in Never Neverland that doesn't contribute to the overall momentum of your business, you're making a big mistake because you're paying for something that essentially could serve multiple purposes. Now, of course, this is going to be painful because that landing page has been fine-tuned over a period of time. And likely that landing page is when you switch or pull the trigger to change it, you're going to have to go through a learning phase or a learning cycle with it, or maybe upgrade your website's hosting or things like that to make it more effective. And so there's going to be some drop-offs. Maybe not, but more than likely there will be. And so you have to go through that in order to get up to date and also contribute to the overall momentum of your company. Momentum, credibility, credibility, visibility. Visibility means you have more success on the internet. But if someone's only considering Google Ads or running Google Ads for you without the wider context, you can see why they would want to ping on to what you're doing. So in the world of search engine optimization, this exact same thing is going on, but a little bit different. You know, because building a the last, let me give you an idea of this. I mean, the last proposal that I put together, and this is no joke, is I think it took me about six hours to build the proposal out. Because I look at the competitors, I look at what they're focusing on, I look for holes in the market, I look at their their current um website and the other stuff that they have. I look at their branding, I look at the whole thing, and then I put together a game plan. And that's not something you can just buller plate and just throw somebody a proposal with an ABC package. And today's world's not A B C packages. Today's world is actually partnering with someone who knows what they're doing, who cares about what they're doing, who understands your environment and helps you build a plan. And that that's just it's so much different than it was just a few years ago. Okay, so to further bring home the idea that search engine optimization is not dead, I went ahead and got some articles put together. And I just want to reinforce this because if you're talking to your people, what's going to happen is if they're going to try to fiercely defend what they're doing for you, they're going to maybe say things that is not going to be consistent with what I'm telling you here. And I want you to have confidence in what I'm telling you. Okay, so number one, let's talk about a company called Simrush. Now, Simrush or S E M Rush. Um, one of the pull quotes from their article, and I think the article is called Is SEO dead. No, but move my screen over here. But changes are coming. The pull quote that I decided to use from this article, and by the way, these are their articles. I have nothing to do with them. I'm just referencing them so you have a nice point of reference as we're moving forward. Um, the quote is all this means that SEO isn't dead. It's evolving into a more nuanced practice that rewards authenticity and expertise over technical optimization alone. So you see the evolution was um, you know, there there are technical things that go into search engine optimization. And sometimes you could really do things technically incredible, but now it's a little bit more than that, you see. So here's a synopsis of the article. This argue, this article, excuse me, argues that SEO is very much still alive. But the tactics must shift. It highlights data showing that many businesses are still seeing gains via SEO even in 2024 and 2025. The authors emphasize user intent, content quality, adaptation to AI search behavior, and authenticity, okay, now not just keywords, as an essential going forward. And so this is this is really cool because if you research the generations going after Gen X, and I did a thing on um, you know, who are the 30-year-olds today? You you know, time goes by quick, and 30-year-olds today are not the 30-year-olds you were targeting 10 years ago. And the idea is that as time progresses, we're seeing that in this world of uh trying to manipulate a lot of propaganda and things like that are so interlaced and sensationalism and all this stuff that people now are getting more skeptical. And the new generations are getting more skeptical, not less skeptical. And so what I love about this article is it does talk about authenticity, and this is a place where you can shine, because no one really believes a detergent company really cares about someone's lifestyle. No, no one cares. We we know that's not the case, but they do that to try to manipulate people into buying detergent. Well, when you grow up and you see the manipulation, you become skeptical of that manipulation, and then you start to change the way that you're you're shopping or you the people you listen to. And so being authentic is now becoming to the forefront because getting someone to your business is a small piece of the puzzle. They also need to look at your business, relate to your business, trust your business, and then go, these are the people I want to work with. So if you were to take something like um an AI um chat system you put on your website, what are you telling people? You're telling people this is the way that we work. We don't we work more through AI and not through dealing with people, using people directly. And so you're you're sending a message, regardless if you want to or not. And a lot of people are going to make decisions based upon that message. All right, so let's move on here. Number two, let's stick with uh Simrush. And by the way, the other thing you you want to do is when a company is built around search engine optimization, of course they're going to defend search engine optimization. Okay, that just common sense. Just like your Google Ads guy who's building these squeeze pages is going to fight till his last breath of defending that until he can't defend it anymore. It's just the way it is. But this company's really reputable. I mean, we personally don't use the product. Uh, we stopped using it some time ago, but but their data is still good. So listen to this. Uh the pull quote from the article, nine biggest SEO trends of 2025 and how to leverage them. So it says zero-click searches have changed search behavior. Only 40.3% of U.S. Google searches result in clicks to organic results from March 2025, down from 44.2% in March in the previous year. Now, keep in mind when you generalize statistics, different markets will show this in different percentages, but it still is relevant. It's a relevant signal, even though your business vertical, like, you know, it may not affect a plumber as much as it would a retail store or something like that, but the trend is still relevant. Okay. Now, this term zero-click searches is one of those things that is a new term, uh, relatively speaking, where it means people aren't necessarily going to the website. They're making decisions based on their interaction with artificial intelligence. So, as you could imagine, it's really important to optimize your content for AI if a lot of people are making decisions without going to your website. So, then of course, this is the next question is well, why have a website anymore? Well, your website is extremely relevant, and it's more important than ever to not use do-it-yourself systems and flood-fill it with generic content. It's actually more important that you have a strong presence, a reputable presence, so that tools like Chat GPT will cite your business and refer to it in those chats, which will encourage engagements. So you see, the the logic, you've got to be careful with the way the logic goes, because if you if you start derailing the train, then what you're going to do is find yourself in places that aren't really true. And then you're going to find yourself susceptible to buying these for in my world, these ridiculous do-it-yourself website builders that do nothing but make the people who have the website builders money. And uh so you need, if you're doing that, get away from it. Just bite the bullet, get you someone who knows what they're doing, and get a good website and quit playing with this concept of uh going and spending a few bucks a month and thinking that you're going to compete with people who take it seriously. You won't, okay? Bottom line, you won't. All right, so here's the synopsis. Um this is a trend, this is trend-oriented and tactical. The article lays out key shifts, AI visibility, conversational keywords, zero click optimization, and gives practical advice on how to lean into them. So it's helpful when you want to move from the myth to the uh the trends that you want to watch. And so uh these articles, by the way, will be in the show notes. Um let's move on here. Um is SEO dead in 2025? How AIO, AEO, and GEO are rewriting the playbook. I felt like I was going to sing like the bingo song, you know, There Was a Farmer. Anyway, I I digress, but it you know, kind of felt like that when I was reading the quote or the uh the title of this article. And this is from uh search engine people. And let's look at this takeaway from them. SEO isn't dead, but it's involving, as always, Google's AI mode and AI overviews change how results appear. Users click less when AI summaries show, but Google still dominates US search at 86% market share. Now they're quoting us as July of 2025. So as you can see, Google is still the 10-ton gorilla, but that number is decreasing. Okay, I have people right now that I respect highly, and they no longer use Google. They say, why do it? They talk to chat as though it's a person in their cars or going home, they get their notes, they're done. And so you can imagine the power of what that is. By the way, uh you if you want to, you can go back and look up these acronyms. Um, but AIO is basically artificial intelligence overview. Um, and so when you uh let me read the synopsis here and get this out, and then we'll kind of cut back around on it. This article examines how new frameworks like AIO, AI optimization, AEO, answer engine optimization, and GEO, generative engine optimization, layer on top of classic SEO. It argues that while click patterns are changing because of the summaries, that's what when you if you go do a search on Google and you you type in something, you'll see the little summary at the top. That's what your your AIO is. Um SEO fundamentals, still uh power visibility. And so this is a good article, the bridges changes to the new models of optimization. And so, as you can see, no one's saying throw out the baby with the bathwater. What they're saying is the complexity is actually getting more elaborate because now you have to be authentic. Now you've got to think about the mechanisms that will help drive your visibility on these other search uh tools or conversational tools or however you want to consider artificial intelligence to make sure that you still have that visibility factor. So let's go back here and look at this article. And basically, all these acronyms that make your eyes glaze over, all this basically is saying is that the complexity is getting more intense, and the need to address these is really important. Now, remember our Vince Lombardi, this is a football. We're not saying that we're playing tennis. We're still playing football, but the game's gotten a lot more complicated. Now, let's move on. Um, this is a PW skills blog. I'm not ultra familiar with them, but their article is, is SEO dead in 2025? Nope, but it's evolving fast. So their pull quote I wanted to use here is is SEO dead in 2025? No, but it's evolving fast. So pretty much the title there. Uh so this is a guide that is more of a state of the union take. It lays out how AI, Google updates, and evolving user behavior are transforming the role of search engine optimization. This article will also offer actionable suggestions on how site owners can stay visible. So again, we're we're at this point. So I'm really trying to hit home this idea that SEO is more important than it's ever been. And for someone to proclaim that it's not, you can imagine that, okay, you know, before we had say, well, let's just call it 12,000 variables. Well, now we've got to consider how to make irrelevant for a lot more than that. And so you can just see the exponential nature of it and how more nuanced it's getting and how important it is to stand out. Well, let's circle back around to this blog concept. And so, one idea is if you're creating original content based on your expertise, and everyone else that you're working with is hiring companies that are just putting out this junk using AI and without human intervention, guess what? You just stood out. And these search engines are serious about this. And so they're going to seek real content. Now, how this course correction is going to be fully understood, I don't know. But I do know what we call EEAT principles, which is expertise, written content that's based on authority, is going to stand out and shine among all this junk that's being presented. So you have a great opportunity if you don't cheat. So here's the pull quote. Um, search isn't dying, far from it. It's transforming. 2025 has made SEO more complex, more nuanced, and more essential than ever for businesses trying to be found online. I absolutely agree with this. And this is the thing. Like, I this is what I call it, and it's just a way to explain it to a client. It's like it's it's like a snowball effect. Because when you start considering all these factors in SEO, that little snowball starts to gain traction. And then the more you do it, it gains more traction and more traction. Now, the momentum that it's going to take is one, patience and you finding somebody who knows what the heck they're doing. But then once you do that and you stick with it, then you're going to gain that momentum over time. And so the idea is tracking it and being diligent and being able to properly fund it and quit looking for cheap stuff. Okay. Just forget the forget this cheap stuff. Forget thinking that you're going to use do-it-yourself graphics programs, do-it-yourself website builders, and you're going to compete with people who eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff. I mean, just on the Google Ads uh cert, which is one of their basic certs we have to do every year with them, I spent three or four hours going through that. And there was some good stuff in there. There's a lot of stuff already kind of new, but there's a lot of stuff that's really good in taking that course. Now, most people, I can tell you from inside experience, most of these agencies aren't taking these courses. Most of them aren't really going through the content, most of them aren't keeping up on new trends. Okay, so here's a synopsis. Let's go ahead and pull out this. Uh, this article confronts common misconceptions about SEOs dying and argues that what's actually died are outdated tactics, like something called keyword stuffing. It encourages businesses to shift toward depth, trust, usability, and meaningful content. So this article is good for framing what's no longer working. So you can lean on what does work. And again, these these will be in your show notes. And again, from me, that this sounds right. This feels right, this is what's working for us as an agency. And uh, by the way, keyword stuffing is a very old concept. It's where you would take um keywords and throw them into weird places like what we know as alt tags, which are just ways to uh label pictures for people that may have disabilities, things like that. Um, so so there's different ways that people have tried to do this. And um anyway, it's just showing that now the idea is creating meaningful and conversational copy. So you see, even the tone at which you write things need to be more conversational because now we're trying to address things like ChatGPT that speak in conversational mode, and so it's attracted to that kind of content. Kind of basic, right? So let's move on to number six here. I'll try to move a little bit quicker. Uh is SEO Dead understanding its evolution in 2025? And this is from digital engine times. The pull quote is SEO evolving, aligning with user intent, AI-driven algorithms, and sustainable digital marketing strategies. Synopsis. This article breaks down major shifts in SEO, user intent, AI algorithms, authority signals. Then we've got our authority signals, and you're not going to get that through creating generic junk, and argues that older SEO shortcuts are obsolete. Remember, think think uh putting a list of all the cities or towns that your business supports in the footer of the website. Think that stuff. It positions a modern SEO strategy as a holistic, user-first, and agile. Uh use this uh, well, let's go ahead and look at this. Um basically what this is doing. I've read my notes, I'm gonna cut to the chase here. This is showing you what you must do to adapt. And the idea is you're seeing the rhythm here. And what I love about this is aligning user intent, understanding where they're at in their whole intent of engaging with your business, and then understanding that the algorithms are changing, which is a fancy word for saying the value of what makes your business credible is changing. Just think of it like that. And sustainable digital marketing strategies. Okay, now I'm gonna pull out just a little bit on this, and and you really need to understand this. Um, I've had some people think that email marketing is dead. Now, email marketing is a small piece of what we do. You know, it's not something that I go, well, I've really got to hang my hat on your email, you know, email marketing because uh I don't have to. But here's the deal third party data is getting harder and harder to do. So when you when you use third party, so third party is a fancy way to say if you're referring to someone else like Google or or whatever to to get your data or to to to do that, what you're seeing is they're they're tightening up on this. And first party data is really important, meaning you want to own the people that come to your website. And so part of it is when someone comes to your website, we know the majority of them are going to leave. Well, part of making your business sustainable in the digital marketing world is to own as much as you can. So email marketing is a small tool that can help you get more people's information to stay in front of those people because most people will not make a purchase the first time they engage with your company. And so it's important to be able to get in front and stay in front and then own that content. So you see, that's a sustainable strategy. Depending on someone else, like especially, man, if you're in the um uh vacation rental business, you know what I'm talking about. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Those algorithms on those big platforms that are doing vacation rentals, they're changing, aren't they? And some of you are lost in never never land on those platforms and used to trust them. And so that's not sustainable. You had one outlet, and that one outlet bit you on the tail. And so being able to own your content and do using email marketing is just one of the strategies that by far is not dead. It's one of those that you need to use, and you need to use it in its proper perspective and treat it seriously. Don't say sign up for my newsletter. Um, anyway, let me move quicker through here. Uh, number seven is SEO Dead, the truth uh about its AI evolution. Um, I cannot pronounce this person's name. Paink Jai Kumar SEO. AI is the latest chapter, and it's like every disruption before uh it rewards adaptability. I think that's that's pretty dang brilliant. I I agree with that. Um you're gonna be rewarded based on creating real human content, understanding and adapting your website. Like a very high-level thing is making sure you're using the proper schema for each page. Just do a little work on schema. You'll be able to see that. Um I'm not going to pull the synopsis on that. I think that was self-evident. And plus, I don't want to bore you to death for the next 14 hours. Uh you can send me a thank you note if you want to. Um, will SEO become obsolete? Uh, not at all. It's evolving. Uh waterfront graphic. Um here, here's their pull quote. Uh the phrase SEO is dead gets thrown around a lot, but is it? The short answer. SEO isn't dying, it's evolving. So here's another reference. You see, we know this. Us on the inside who are really getting into this, we know that. And so it really should be an embarrassment to anyone who even makes that suggestion. And I think I think it's really hitting home here. Um, and then here here's the uh so this this is maybe where some of the noise is. Um, and this is a quote from Business Insider. And their topic is forget SEO. The hot new thing is AEO. Here are some startups, here are the startups chasing this AI phenomena. Pull quote, there must have been 30 AEO product launches in the last few months, all trying to do what SEO did 20 years ago. Um, okay, now this piece is a little more forward-looking and trend forecasting. It highlights the rise of answer engine optimization as a potential successor or companion to SEO in the AI-first world. It gives you language and evidence uh for how the marketing world is evolving and not abandoning SEO. And so what I like about this is that you're seeing that the acronyms may evolve. There'll be layering that could happen. There's different people that are going to chase different aspects of those layers, but it doesn't show a signal that a lot of the practices in which the internet has evolved in order to give you the most relevant search results is dying. It's it's just changing. And so the concept behind this is to make sure that you're you're on the forefront because as these models are doing more and more, if you forget it and you're not diversifying across the platform, just like these vacation tour companies or uh property owners who have depended on that one big platform. And again, I know you guys know what I'm talking about. If you're uh if you're in that world, uh you disappeared, didn't you? So you don't want to disappear. And the idea is that, you know, in certain demographics and geos, you're going to find out that I think what you're going to see is markets are going to diversify how they look for things and how they survive. And it could dramatically change based on GO2. And I think I think that's going to be really interesting in the coming uh months and certain certainly uh years. But the one thing that you don't want to do is is just throw away things. Now, I think one of the biggest mistakes that people are going to make, and I see this all the time, okay? And and I know, you know, if you're in my world, you know this happens. It's the chase the shiny. You know, AI is the shiny, beautiful little thing that's out there. And most people are going to gravitate toward the shiny new thing, and then by virtue, think that all the previous stuff is no longer relevant. Now, one example of that is let's just talk about something I'm enamored about, and I really want to talk more about it, but it won't be today, is AI being used as a conversational tool for sales. Um, if you get a chance, go check out air air.ai and listen to that demo. It's pretty mind-blowing on how that thing works. Um, but some people are using AI to answer phones after hours and things like that. And there's this one product that I'm I was participating in and listening to. And the claim was that by using an AI system to answer your calls after hours, you're going to close more deals. Now, here's my thought. In some markets, that may work, in other markets, it may not work. You really want to A-B test it. Because what I'd be curious in some geos, it may be better to not give them an AI system. A lot of people are finding these things kind of like dismissive to them, to where it's almost insulting, like you don't care enough about me to let me talk to a person. And so it could have the opposite effect to you. Now, air.ai is uh it again, check it out where things are are possibly going. Um but what I would suggest is try A B, where you send some people to an answering service and it says, thank you for calling in company XYZ. Uh, you've reached us after hours. Um, please go here to to book online and you know, something like that. I'm curious which one's going to work better. Now, I don't know, but I think that for a lot of people, this AI thing is insulting. I know for me it is. You know, when uh like we have some pretty pretty significant tools with our agency, and when I go into want to chat with someone who's helping me with something, I definitely just bypass the whole chat thing, and I bet you do too. So you don't want to chase the shiny too much, but you don't want to ignore the shiny. You want to lair the shiny on what's working, and you want to have this develop into a recipe for your business that makes the most sense for your business and how your customers want to engage with your company. And so uh be careful, don't chase that shiny thing. Don't ignore opportunities like email marketing, or don't ignore opportunities that you think are going to be completely replaced because you know what, it may work for your friend in the next state, but it may not work for you in your market, and you may actually alienate your market if you don't get that mixture just right. And I can tell you, we have clients all over the U.S. We have a client, I don't forget how many we have in Canada, and we got them uh on some tropical islands too. And and so the idea is that every one of those demographics, they change. And they change sometimes from city to city and state to state. And so you you need to do A-B testing and understand what parts of the new shiny you need to work with, which ones you don't want to ignore that maybe you need to grow into or your customers get uh accustomed to using those tools, and where the traditional uh overlaps. And I think this is all part of how the uh the war is going to be won for your business. The other thing that I think is incredibly important is don't fall into this automated answer stuff. Don't do it. I mean, we have tools that do that. Where we can actually automate uh for our clients uh reviews on Google Business, for example. But we always recommend go in, answer these. You know, if you start with AI, touch it. Give it a human touch. Make sure that it's not just something that you're just setting and forgetting. Because remember, when Google comes out or YouTube, which is a part of Google, when it when it comes out and it says they're going to start to demonetize AI content, they're doing that because what they're seeing is their platforms becoming irrelevant and too noisy, and now people are getting less interested in it, and so they're reacting to that. So I hope this helps you out today. I hope this was informative, and I hope that it helps you to avoid solutions or people or cliches that are that may sound good, and it may make you think, oh man, I got to buy that AI thing, or oh man, I need to quit doing this and put that money in another place. Be really careful about that. Because everybody, man, I can't tell you how many new services I've looked at over the last three to five years. And some of these are people that say they work within a certain segment, like plumbers or electric plumbers are a big one, but the the plumbing market, if you're a plumber, God bless you, you have so much you have to filter through to make a good decision. But I can say, gosh, I would I would argue a hundred percent. I don't even think it's 99. 100% of the tools that I've looked at that clients that are in plumbing have asked me to look at have been sensationalistic, overpriced, don't work, and their claim is because they live in that world that their product works better. It never happened, guys. It never happened. So uh find somebody good and hopefully this gets you somewhere some uh, you know, helps you survive as things are changing and evolving. You've got a great opportunity. Just make sure that uh you're sticking with it and moving in the right direction. Okay, I've rambled enough today. Thanks again for tuning in to Over the Bull. I look forward to talking to you next time. I look forward to uh sharing more thoughts and ideas, and I do hope that this helps you propel your business and ride this wave of change that's going on the internet because you do have great opportunity as you see more and more people trying to cheat and fudge and get sidetracked. That's a great opportunity for you if you can stay focused. Until next time.

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