In this dynamic episode of the Page 2 Podcast, we reconnect with Sean Stahlman, SVP of SEO at Razorfish. Sean offers deep insights into generative engine optimization (GEO), the integration of paid and organic strategies, and how clients can smartly respond to declining traffic and new competition from AI content. This episode is a must-listen for SEO professionals, marketers, and digital strategists looking to stay relevant in an accelerating industry.
https://page2pod.com - What happens when a former skateboard brand founder becomes the SVP of SEO at one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the world?
In this episode, we sit down with Sean Stahlman of Razor Fish to dive deep into the evolution of SEO within large-scale agencies, how AI is reshaping the search landscape, and why SEO is increasingly being viewed as a brand channel. From career development to cutting-edge tools and strategy, Sean shares rich insights and stories that chart a fascinating journey through the highs and challenges of search at scale.
🌐 In This Episode
• Sean's unorthodox journey from skateboarding to SEO leadership
• How Razor Fish structures career growth in SEO
• Why SEO is becoming central to brand strategy
• The impact of AI on search and how to prepare for it
• Real-world strategies for generative engine optimization (GEO)
• Managing large SEO teams and cross-functional collaboration
• Reimagining metrics in the AI-driven search era
• The collaborative win behind mortgage.com and New York Life
• Advice for aspiring SEOs navigating today’s evolving landscape
Whether you're deep in SEO or exploring the future of digital marketing, this episode delivers practical wisdom and thought leadership from one of the industry's veterans.
👉 Subscribe to stay ahead in search!
💬 What are your thoughts on AI’s role in shaping SEO? Drop a comment!
📎 Mentioned Links & Resources:
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And Google shifts the rules. Who at the agency has to answer for a 30% traffic drop? Explain what generative engine optimization even is.
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Sam Stallman is the SVP of the SEO at razorfish, one of the giants in digital marketing.
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But his path to running search at scale started somewhere completely different.
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Building a skateboarding brand in Southern California
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and trying to figure out how to sell ducks online.
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This episode is about how SEO has evolved inside massive agencies like razorfish from a siloed, misunderstood specialty to a foundational piece of brand strategy.
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We talk about how Sean's team structures career paths, how they partner with paid media,
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and why search is increasingly being treated like a brand channel.
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But we also dig into the real questions clients are asking right now.
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How to prepare for AI driven search experiences.
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How to defend brand presence and new Serp formats,
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and what to make of the sudden flood of SEO focused AI tools.
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Sun is trying to lead a practice that's both scalable and deeply technical. While Reeducating clients and colleagues in real time about what I actually does and what it definitely doesn't
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go.
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And I have known Sean for over a decade.
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We work together, razorfish, and I've seen firsthand how he leads teams and handles the chaos of agency life.
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This was a chance to catch up and to really unpack how SEO has evolved at scale.
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Here's our colleague, our friend
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Sean Stahlman.
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Oh. Oh.
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Sean welcome to the page two podcast. This is, this is going to be an exciting one for Joe and I, for the audience who doesn't know, the three of us worked together at RazorFish for quite a few years back in these, like 2011 to about thousand and 15 for myself. Joe was there for a number of years longer, and it's been too long since we've had a chance to catch up.
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So this is exciting. And believe it or not, Joe and I do prepare for these. So we do some research on our guests, and it's fun to dig into you. And in a way that I haven't done in the past. And I thought one thing that was maybe fun to talk about, especially with your background in the skateboards, was how you originally got into SEO, which was, correct me if I'm wrong, but running a skateboard shop?
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Or was it a website? No, it was actually a skateboard company. So art school and then started like interning as a multimedia specialist, like whatever that meant, like programing in the Wear and Macromedia, shockwave, which weekend slash was then got bought by Adobe. And at the same time I was like just fanatically skateboarding, got like skateboard like all over the office and started the company with a bunch of friends and ran that for a while and grew that pretty big, and then actually build the website around it and started distribution company.
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And then I'll to friends with business. So we sold off the pieces of it is still alive and well in Southern California, which is amazing. But at the same time I got super interested in like, how do I actually sell this product that like we're putting like our heart and life into? And then that kind of just paved the way until I can figure it out here.
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Happened to start to figure it out for other brands. And that just led the trajectory to getting involved in marketing. This is incredible to me. I didn't know any of this. So how long were you running with that company? 5 or 6 years. Wow. Okay, so fast forward, you've been at RazorFish combined for about 17 years, which is awesome.
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Thanks for doing it. Well, because I did do the math and that was like, so I went to your LinkedIn. I was like, all right, I need to add up this joke. There was a stop at all stock in media with Ray, who's another sort of OG industry, and that's incredible. A lot to learn a little bit more about.
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So at Outspoken Media, you took on a little bit of a different role, right? Like not just SEO specifically. And then came back to SEO when you came back to razorfish, can you talk a little bit about what or maybe what the driver was to take on something like that, knowing that you'd been in SEO for so long, it was maybe a risk, not necessarily going to a new agency, but maybe taking on something that was a little bit out of bounds.
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I know what you've been doing for so long. Yeah, I think we all feel in our careers it is at the point you're like, I just keep doing the same thing over and over again. And the team was amazing. We had been going through a lot of transitions, like just being part of a big agency. It owned by a larger holding company and looking at the products that were coming in and you're putting out like amazing deliverables and like we can continue to drive growth, but you only have so much ability to actually like, impact what gets done.
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And talking to Ria, she was just like, look like I have this opportunity here. We're right in your backyard. She's literally like seven miles like down the road from. And we had like never really talked, but we operate in the same circles. And so we just started having a conversation around what would this eventually look like. And then just, just have this opportunity, like, I need someone to come in and run client services.
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And I jumped at the opportunity for a while, telling her, like, I have no business like being in client services, but you're like, you're amazing at it. Like you won't talk to the clients like people, but you get things done. And I was like, sure, why not? We'll figure this out and work towards it. So it was a really interesting experience having that SEO background, but then talking to executives, talking to CMO and having that direct contact with people, looking for services and looking to advance their growth without having to go through like 17 different layers of like the RFP comes in.
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And here's how we respond. And this is what we're going somewhere. And then here's the pricing. And then you don't know why you win or why you lose along the way. At least at that stage in my career, I didn't know. So I had the very, very immediate opportunity to go. This is how we're going to respond. Working with Ria, working with her amazing team and what it was that they wanted to bring to the table.
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And if you've spoken to her, she's an absolute badass. She doesn't mess around. She's very particular about what she wants to bring of a client. She wants to take on. Wow, that was something new. I was like, wait, we're going to pick and choose. We want to work with. I was like, this is after faith. You can't pick a better opportunity to do that.
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Yeah. That's incredible. And so I imagine now as the SCP CEO at razorfish, you're probably doing a lot more of that sort of client service. You're maybe less in the weeds and the actual doing and much more of the business development rp's client management component. So I imagine some of those skills are now much more transferable to what you're doing today, correct?
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Yeah. Absolute trial by fire. Figuring that out, like working through that and stumbling and learning and figuring out like, how do I keep advancing there? But then when there was the opportunity to come back to razorfish and we've been talking the entire time, that was gone, like always talking. I was being friends and they were you hitting me up, being like, I'm like, working on this audit.
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Like I need some help. I'm like, no comment, knock this out. Yeah. Even going wrong at home, you're basically my bat signal. Yeah. Which I like. Yeah. It's a fun part of the role. So it's so coming back to you like I had that behind the curtains of oh like this is these are the questions asked these people to try to get to.
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And then how do you kind of eliminate that clutter to just really hone in this is what we can do. This is the opportunity of what we can bring to table. This is the growth that we can drive. And here's like the math and science of how we're actually going to make that happen. So that was a lot of the stuff that I really learned from her in my time.
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Outspoken media and working with the entire team there. Yeah. It's amazing. When I started to raise an official, it was my first official SEO role. And so I learned a ton from you. And I know my years there and even talking to people since I've left, always positive things about how you manage and how you give feedback. And I think you have a unique perspective compared to some of the other guests just around working at an agency the size of razorfish.
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So I want to dig into the game management component of it, because I think it's a sort of a unique point of view to start, like, how do you work across a team that's the size of razorfish, right? Do you have one on ones with each person? How do you wrangle like a team of that size and keep moving things forward?
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A lot of agency, a lot of openness, a lot of transparency. This is how things work and this is what we're all responsible for. I'm also like, you know this, I'm still on the BS. Like you'll try to work from my cold, dead hands. I think that's what I think. That's what kind of keeps me also like in-tune.
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This is not just like talking about this is what we need to do. And maybe let's check these three boxes and this wholesale or this is what we have to do to go through the motions. I love the work and I'm sure about the work. I get a little bit obsessive about it sometimes, but that's, that's I think that's what helps me thrive is like I have that connective tissue to like the entire team.
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I've got a team behind me that's got 40 core SEO team members on it, a separate group for like just the core leads and then a separate one with my colleague Ryan Jones, who I cover on the practice with, and then one with us and like our boss and like different teams and so just doesn't work for everybody but works for me.
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But always like being there and being like, tuned in and plugged in so that people don't see it like, oh, I just need to get like piece of someone's time. So get a perspective on something always being there, like every step of the way, I think has been really helpful. And I think that helps build transparency in the ability.
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Yeah, I'm having a problem with this or I don't know how to overcome this situation or this client and be not problematic because they have challenges. But what's the unique perspective on how do we solve their problem? Like how do we think about doing this? What can I reach out to? And that's something that I've learned from my manager and teacher, Rob silver along the way is a key part of this.
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Just knowing who to reach out to and who to plug into and who to go to for advice to keep things moving. Moving ahead. Could you tell us a little bit about how you and Ryan structure the SEO team? I'm curious what there used to be when John and I were there, but is there still like a growth path?
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People can come in from an intern and work their way all the way up. What are those titles now? How do you structure everybody? Yeah, I think our titling structure now is coordinator, strategist, supervisor, associate director. And then you're the VP level. So I think it's Gvp SVP, EVP. So we always maintain a level above us to like ultimately grow in.
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But search should change just so dramatically across the board. John knows this also like SEO has sat within every possible division within Racing fish over the 17 years. And then here on off we start within WebDAV, we set within tech, we start with media set within like data sciences. For a while we've always been like that weird like anomaly of like, where does this team fit?
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And we've ultimately found our home within media. And just like the cross-pollination that we have to media with display with all the different components of social and now getting into how do we interact with CRM and how do we help amplify their database and kind of play that off. So it's been very cool to see over the years that we went from this outlier where they can just drive traffic to, oh no, like they are the conduit and the catalyst to amplify all these other media channels.
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And it makes sense, right? Like SEO is one of those two, you know, practices that really does touch almost everything across the spectrum of services. But media seems like there's a much stronger alignment when you're looking for integration, right? And finding efficiencies and things like that. They moved into media I think, shortly before I arrived. So that was sort of the the world that I lived.
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And my time there. From a titling perspective, are you guys thinking about modifying anything to include all the references to I or one of these thousand acronyms that folks are throwing around is like the new CEO. Are you guys thinking about adding some sort of like job description bullet that is AI related or it's like knowledge about ChatGPT or something like that.
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It's like you're it's like you're reading my emails. We're actually yeah, I support them. And we're in the midst of rewriting the entire career framework for razorfish. So hold on. Okay. Yeah. How do you remember this? I let's even see this. Yes, I wrote that, I found this, I found this, like, cleaning up my office, and there's, like.
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There you are right there, John. Oh my gosh. With glasses. That's. No I was like, okay, we have to completely overhaul. Like the job descriptions are archaic. What do people need for like a coding perspective from computer science is like degree perspective, like all these things that we're thinking about as search continues to evolve. It hasn't moved on beyond just SEO.
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And so is it. Search everywhere optimization, is it generative engine optimization? Whatever flavor of the day you want to pick. So yes, we are thinking about those things. And that's we like the task that we're we're working through over the next couple weeks of like how do we redefine this? And also how does that elevate people's career path within an agency and not just within an agency, but like, how do we help enable people, train people, coach people so that if they want to stay here, they have a very clear career path or how how can we help empower them to move on to that next stage?
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And I think that's one of the main things that I've learned from both of you guys, and also from just other mentors here is we want to help people get to where they need to be, whether that's here or whether that's somewhere else. And I think that's why we generally have such a amazing, tight knit community of search practitioners that we still talk to on a daily basis.
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Yeah, it's a great alumni group. Sure. Who's taking the lead on? Clients are already have questions. How do we optimize for AI? Is it the SEO team that takes the lead trying to answer that, or is it UX development? Is that you guys? No, no, it's entirely search because we're the ones who are going to have to answer for the, you know, consistent the clients and multiple road traffic.
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And also where do we need to be thinking about where they're going to be investing their spend in the next back half of the year or the next quarter, or even planning for 2026? And so we're really thinking about like, how do we want to structure that? Because within like big agencies, you're thinking about like those renewals like so far out is that that's maybe the downside of like big agency search marketing is there's a lot of layers, a lot of tools that you need to get through.
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So how do we start to set the stage? Oh, this is where this is where your industry is going. These are the trends is the areas that we need to invest in. This is what you need from an agency support perspective. But also this is what you're in need from your internal teams to actually make things happen. Because the agency can only do so much unless you want to give us the keys to the kingdom.
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And let us alter your content and implement like your tech changes, which we're more than happy to do. But a lot of times, like there are dedicated client teams to do that. And so you need to make sure that they're empowered, they've got resources, they plan for this. And then you roll in this monstrosity that is AI, and then the legal teams get fault and they take forever because everybody wants to do AI optimization at all time, to do AI optimization and use AI.
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Yeah. Do you guys are you guys here in the same time? Because that's kind of yeah, it's kind of like what I feel day in and day out. We work with a scale of client that's a little bit smaller than yours, and they're probably a little bit quicker too. So we've been able to do some interesting things already.
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But it's it takes a lot of coaching to get there. I think one of the biggest challenges is just the lack of understanding about what I actually is, is. And so I think there's like, something I really always did very well, which was there's, there's this education layer of what it is, right, and the smart ways to use it versus the noise that's happening over here about how people are using it.
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And then there's the the smart application of it, which is a whole other sort of track. And then the measurement of it. Right. Because just because it's the new shiny thing doesn't mean it's always going to work. And so was there a fight internally or not a fight, but was there a debate internally around who would own those conversations?
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Because it's such the shiny, like sexy thing? I can imagine a lot of teams would be interested in owning those conversations. No, I don't think so. I think there's there's AI and innovation just within the agency as a whole. So what are the tools that we're using? Like really, what's happening on the creative side of the house? What and how are they using that for almost like real time asset management, how you swap, you know, assets based upon where someone's coming in from.
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So that's one aspect like our perspective from search was like we have a we just have a unique perspective on this. And like we have a unique voice and we need to start having these conversations. And I think one of the amazing things about razorfish is like, we just we get the autonomy to go to clients and go look like this is where we think search is happening, and this is what's happening with your business, and this is how we think you need to start preparing.
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And we've ease into doing that just above and beyond, like our core SEO clients. So over the past few months, I've been reaching out to other client engagement leads. And I'm like, do you like like ones are doing SEO whatsoever? And I'm like, would you like a perspective on where the industry is going and how your clients are showing up in just the overall AI landscape?
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No recommendations. Let's just use this as a discussion. Jumping off point. And I think that's been pretty, pretty amazing. And the conversations that are starting to spark this is look like let's just level set because we're at here are the growth trends and how fast AI usage is growing. Google still the absolute dominant player. It's going to be there forever.
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But how do you start to prepare for like this new environment? And like before you start to prepare, which whoever wants to do, let's just sit back and learn, like where are we at? What's happening with Google Landscape? Is it going to impact your business like at all, but also like help educate clients and help them talk to others around this?
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These are things that we need to know. This is how we prepare for. And I think that's helped calm a lot of folks down so that you're not freaking out around. I'm so far behind. I need a new platform. Oh my God, these platforms cost $20,000 a month and I don't even know what I'm going to get out of it.
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I don't know the data sources and there's a new app popping up everywhere. Can I use this cheaper one over here? Oh hold on, let's just understand where we're at. And then what does that mean for us? And then where do we want to invest in from where do they want to in from the company perspective. And then how can you know the agency or their teams help drive that forward?
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And it's pretty hilarious, actually help people. We're talking about, generative engine optimization or whatever, nine months ago to six months ago, up to kind of like where we're at, right now. It's almost like years ago where you had all the different search engines out there, and now you've got like one, and now we've got all these different AI models.
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What's going to happen in six months? Are we gonna spend all this time trying to like, modify content and put it out there and try to game game an entity that's going to drive no more incremental traffic than what we have today. Yeah, I would guess for the size of your clients, there's no short term wins. You can't you're not looking for the little hacks to get you to the top of results next week.
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You got to think about representing that brand and being a good steward of that brand's history. You can't make quick decisions like some tiny little startup, could I? But what's interesting is that this whole like AI revolution has really opened their eyes for them to go. We are not the dominant player like other sites can own your brand name, especially within AI results.
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So that's now given us a bigger voice to know. We want some of your brand budget. We need to help manage like how are you approaching search from a brand and known brand perspective? Also, who are those like indirect competitors that you didn't care about in the past? We're now showing up because they're talking about your content in ways that you can't talk about, that we see that a lot within this fintech space, right?
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A financial services client can't talk about their cards, their rates, their offerings in the same way that an affiliate can, like a nerd wallet or a points guy. So they're like, now they're beating us. So what do we do to be join? We partner up with them. Do we give them more money because now they own such a different perspective like of our brand results to be from a content partnership.
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So those entire discussions are changing. And it was all being fueled from these, these SEO teams that are the ones who are looking at your traffic and or looking at your emerging competitors, or looking at who's going to actually start to dominate in the space that we've been optimizing for and owning and now, like significantly descending. So how do we continue to branch out?
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So it's no longer just like SEO on its own. Like we really need help of other channels out there to make this work. I know Mike King has been very vocal about SEO being a brand channel. I'm curious the conversations that you guys are having around brand is that we need budget for CRM, right? To make sure we're always on for brand terms?
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Or is it? No. We need budget for SEO so that we can help create content to defend or develop strategies to be more visible on LMS, etc. like, how are you guys thinking about that request for budget? From a branding perspective, it definitely comes down to partnerships with paid and organic teams. And so what's the full portfolio of a brand on brand terms that we're optimizing for when we bidding on, but then using technologies like the, one search, which was developed within Publicis, there's another one that we use with certain brands that you can go if I'm already if I'm bidding on brand and I'm already showing up number one and brand, turn that
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off and move that money somewhere else. And so we've used that to actually build the case. We're using this technology to fund additional content production or fund more competitive search campaigns. So that's one aspect. And the other one is really partnerships with PR teams on the client side of what are you doing from like a, from just like a brand perspective, are you doing sponsorships?
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Are you doing collaborations? Are you doing community involvements? Where are you talking about yourself? And so it's very interesting to see what's happened over the course of a couple of years. So one example was a brand that said are we were recommending you should really customize your individual agent sites for whatever. Give them the voice, get them to be able to talk about, like how do they show up and the services that they offer.
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But the structure was kind of like lockdown. And so what happened was people now talk about that brand in a different channel, maybe in unsavory fashion. So they have a less ability to control the narrative, because if you're not owning it across your owned assets, then it bleeds off to the LinkedIn's, the Reddit, the glass door. It's the other entities where you can't control what's happening.
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So we're starting to bring that conversation to the front. Also, what does your brand play? And then how can SEO jump in and help optimize that, amplify it and really help connect them all together? So maybe that's a good segue to you guys recently won the gold Ava Digital Award for New York Life and correct me if I'm wrong, but that was some that was an integrated strategy between media and SEO.
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Can you talk a little bit about or maybe build on what you just said as it applies to that's the case? Yeah, exactly. What it was is that we just noticed that we were bidding on on terms where we were showing up number one for and we're like, this just doesn't make sense. Like we we actually proved out that we're not getting any more like incremental traffic.
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If we can turn one off, so can SEO pick it up. And it was in this amazing to have a client that's willing to put that trust into us, go for it, test it out and show me. Does it work? Does it not work? And if you can prove that it's right, then yeah, let's put something into place.
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So that's exactly what we do. And we use Athena for that and seller for our we're bidding. We're number one pull that paid off paid campaign out of market. Let like search pick it up and constantly check all the way is traffic good R&D is good. And if everything's good then like we know it's working. We it's it's not that we need to go back to the drawing board to like figure that out again.
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Is that all going to change when we start to see more AI or reviews show up for some of these brand terms, sometimes you're a bit protected. If you fall to the your money or life category because they're not appearing. But that window is closing ongoing. So that's part of our go to market strategy that we actually uses.
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It's a holistic search mindset like paid organic. They have to work together in an industry. I'm sure. Sorry if people see that if you don't have people get it connected together, like it's just a massive inefficiency across the board. And I still can't believe it's teams out there who won't collaborate, will partner, won't share data when the client is funding both channels.
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Yeah, it was one thing that I really appreciated about my time at Razer Fish was their emphasis on the the merging of those two things together and the sharing of data. So I remember when I first started freelancing full time, like that was one of my pitches. You use the data together, right? And make smart decisions with more data, rather than only looking at these channels in a silo.
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So that was definitely, you know, something I think Razer Fish has been excellent at for many years. Another, I guess, big initiative that you guys recently put some press around was mortgage.com. And I remember working with Lou Cohen on the city business back when I was at Razer Fish. And they have so many incredible domain names, and we were always trying to think through, how can we use this?
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But it was such a big initiative, right, to get the budget assigned and then develop the content and assign the technical teams. If I read correctly, it was a four year process. Is that right? From like ideation to actually launch? Probably further back than that. I remember you and you talking about this being like we got like their domain list and we're like, why don't you do something with that domain?
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And it was incredible. Like, you can revolutionize your whole lending business. And I don't I think we talked about this on the subway. That's a lot of density for a bunch of like yard meetings. Like, how can we get to to like do sell this stuff. And so that yeah, the conversation came up probably around four and a half years ago.
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Again, it's okay. Like you've got this domain. Is there any value. And it was just like redirecting back to their mortgage learning center non-branded content. It's such a unique opportunity. If nothing else, it gives you another another property to put into the results. So you get double bang for your bot for all these different mortgage terms. And so just did a variety of different again, just just honest conversations.
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You have this domain. Here's what you can. They would say a lot of forecasting exercises. Enter a global pandemic thing just got shut down. Money gets diverted round. And we finally just have the opportunity to meet up with the right partners within city. We're like, yeah, we actually see some value in in making this happen and able to talk about the home learning space in a non brand perspective with like brand oversight, which was also pretty pretty unique to do.
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And we'll see that happening within the fintech service space also. So you have the Dagg rates like buying at sites and you got credit cards owned by them. So a very similar mindset. So put them into the space. But talk about on lending the challenges. How do you get around that in a way that the core client was a committed market with?
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And so yeah, the entire experience was built all within racer fresh from ideation, creative UX. It kind of goes back to the days of when SEO was built within all those consult on build projects where we were like SEO required and non-negotiable. We don't deviate from. And then working closely with content strategy, copy analytics and hopefully roll that out to like conversion rate optimization down the road.
35125 - 35664
Unknown
But it's been super fun to see. It's been so long since I've had the opportunity to work on something. We can actually launch something like put something, do it to market as opposed to working design or a migration or a consolidation. So I plucked out something that you were quoted as saying, and I'm going to get the exact quote wrong, but it's something to the effect of we tried to identify topics that didn't have a ton of coverage.
35665 - 36278
Unknown
I think she said something to the effect of it's NerdWallet, bank rate and all these other like big affiliates are already ranking for that term. Do we even need more content? And so I was hoping you could dig into that process a little bit. Like how did you because traditional keyword research, like usually you're trying to go for volume, especially when you have a domain like mortgage.com like you, you have a leg up and can probably rank for pretty competitive terms if you wanted to.
36278 - 36872
Unknown
And you had the strength of city that you could point links into mortgage com to help facilitate that. So when you approach that keyword research process, like how did you like niche down into those keywords that maybe didn't have as much coverage? That question makes sense. Like how? Yeah. How did it differ from like a normal maybe keyword research exercise, stakeholder interviews, prospect interviews, really understanding what's happening within the home lending space?
36872 - 37506
Unknown
And what was the white space that was it being addressed by brands and then the non brand Dominators like a like a NerdWallet sample or like a rocket. Who was it playing in that space and was there an opportunity when you start to sum up like the volume of searches, the interest around those, and then also being able to launch content within a very short timeframe to address like consumer questions and consumer needs within a wild housing market and rates skyrocketing.
37506 - 37921
Unknown
It just there was a unique opportunity in like that's what gives us like a yield perspective, on the business as opposed to just going after the same terms. Our long after and then playing in a sea of sameness makes sense. I'm, I don't know that you can say, but are you guys thinking about launching any other domains across their their awesome list?
37921 - 38484
Unknown
If of if I was given the opportunity, I would absolutely love to. I didn't we didn't make this one the success first. Yeah, yeah I got into some wonderful domains though they do have maybe and maybe this will help segue into the topic that everyone is talking about, which is I. But I'm curious, did you guys use any sort of AI application to, I don't know, content creation or maybe even assist with the keyword research along that way?
38484 - 39008
Unknown
Or I feel like I feel like everyone's using it to, to some degree. We built a model for another client where we were really tasked with incorporating AI into the agency enabled content production model. And so I think that started two years ago. So again, you had your bank rates or your credit cards. I com you had certain sites out there that were just like using AI digital content, and they had a little spammers.
39010 - 39381
Unknown
This content was created with the assistance of AI. We were like, that's pretty wild. Would you make a would you make a financial decision with content built by AI? And then you start to see all the stuff that backfired with no, this, and does it mean that and know the formula behind how you calculate mortgage rate was completely wrong.
39381 - 39745
Unknown
And so we're like, okay, like we can't have that happen. I think our rules were do not put the brand in any harm's way. And if you do, there'll be hell to pay. So don't do that. So we built out this model where it was like I assess for full R, a full AI automation and every step along the way.
39745 - 40304
Unknown
And then whereas I jump in and whereas a human jump in and how do we have like a series of checks and balances. We went super deep on this. We recorded every prompt that we put in, every prompt that we came out, we scored every single prompt that we came up with this hybrid approach of we can use AI from a resource perspective, from a outlining perspective, slight review perspective, definitely not full blown, but the robust to everything out there.
40304 - 41072
Unknown
But got to a point where it was it was pretty successful and able to get that through a series of like legal reviews. But being like, no, look, this is really good. Like this checks like all the boxes, brand, tone, brand, voice, content, accuracy, it's really good. And so taking that mindset and being like, okay, let's use a similar approach and like how we build up content, some content is all completely like human generated, but we are using everyone's using AI to assist in the research component, the fact checking components, and then actually finding gaps in content that we want to create versus what content is actually out there in market.
41072 - 41466
Unknown
So from a competitive analysis perspective, absolutely amazing. And then building out tools like internally here and then trying to like we like swim through all the other tools that are popping out there that are like using AI and being like, no, this is Bill Co-Founder. This content is still coming back to we need to build content that addresses the concern, need.
41466 - 41948
Unknown
That's not being talked about. And then how does the client have a unique solution to that question? Is there a platform that you guys are finding more success with like perplexity chatbots? Are you training your own models around brand guidelines and requirements? How are you? Are you testing across that crowded landscape to to find one that really worked?
41948 - 42328
Unknown
Well? I think everyone's still there. I don't think we found one yet. I was just looking before I jumped on this call, like a document that was shared out around. These are the recommended approaches for winning within different AI engines. And it's it's hilarious. Then like my colleague Ryan shows up and it was like, why are people talking about this stuff?
42328 - 42658
Unknown
He's like, it's in the chat. It's like just nobody goes and reads the patterns. If you go and read the patent, then you would know how to, like build up your content to win across the board. I guess the question is like, where do you need to win? And it is, or is it A11 solution to win all you go for the lowest common denominator?
42658 - 43032
Unknown
I'm not sure why, but no, I think we're still in that testing phase of what works well for the right client and within the right work. And that's like also the bigger challenge, because there's more time of research had to be spent in doing that, whether you're in fintech or you're in pharma or you're in health care or you're in CPG.
43032 - 43607
Unknown
Yeah, it definitely helps if the brand and I know raise a fish, there are probably better documentation around this just because the size of the clients. But one thing that we've been trying to do is if we don't have a really good brand document, we try to start recording like all the feedback and basically building our own, and that becomes part of the instructions for the custom GPT or whatever.
43607 - 44119
Unknown
As it's creating that content. I always use the trademark symbol or whatever it is that we found is like a core component of just table stakes. Like, you have to have this before you even start trying to generate anything. Otherwise, the legal feedback and the process to get it approved becomes much more cumbersome. And that's one of the luxuries that we have is, is a as a closed loop AI environment that doesn't seed back out.
44119 - 44647
Unknown
So you can put in brand guidelines, you can put in all this information, it won't go train anything else. And then it's like training your dragon build like you're like building your AI entity and continuing to refine that until you get to that sweet spot. But what we've learned also is that you could have just created that content from scratch to save yourself all that time that you will do on the AI model, and had a very similar output at the end.
44649 - 45135
Unknown
Can you? I don't know how the rules say this will just hurt the internet with just AI content that just learned from that. It's like Remy living in the movie Idiocracy at some point. So you didn't mention like an SEO content writer is one of the titles that you give people through the hierarchy, but I assume it's the SEO tomb that is starting you drafting outline.
45135 - 45702
Unknown
There's a big role for creating content within the SEO team. How has the role of your content people changed in the last like 12, 18 months? It's definitely gone from kind of like table space content optimization to really long form, like, like in-depth content expertise. And so we has have we have an amazing team of writers. It's almost let's take a writer and teach them SEO as opposed to taking SEO to teach them how to write.
45702 - 46135
Unknown
Because you have to believe, right? It's so specifically for an individual brand and how that brand talks about the products. And then how do we within the optimization and then how can that content also be used across other channels? How can be used for pay landing pages, having user pay social campaigns? How can you use in like media activation, offline assets.
46135 - 46689
Unknown
And so we're actually really like the kind of the source for how that content gets shared out. So it's definitely expanded well above and beyond when they would let me write SEO copy, which nobody should ever get in the ability to do. If you were going to give advice to someone just out of college wanted to get started in SEO, what kind of advice would you give them today to launch a career like yours for the next 17 years?
46693 - 47142
Unknown
I know you can't do that. Like what? What advice would you give a 20 year old tripped and stumbled into this industry? I don't I don't also have a good answer on that one. I've just found that people who have a passion are a lot more successful than people who just have skills and expertise. If you're passionate about an industry or you're passionate about craft, I think you can take that.
47144 - 47616
Unknown
I think you take it really far. I'm not sure if that makes a lot of sound. I think it does. If you don't have passion for this industry, probably won't find this exciting as a career. It's such that it it's always been a very dynamic industry in the last couple of years with AI, it's even more so if you're not invested in learning and staying on top of all these changes.
47616 - 48041
Unknown
I think it's a tough industry to be in, honestly. So if you don't really have that passion, you're not going to have the drive to stay on top of all these changes. I think the answer makes sense, honestly. Yeah. Passion, creativity, curiosity is a big one. Why does why does this work? Why is this happening when results are changing day over day?
48042 - 48565
Unknown
And then how are you? And then being able to like turn that into an action final. Great. Okay. Like this is a new world that we live in now. It's not just reporting on what's happening and come up with solutions on like how we start to mitigate this. How do we solve this? How do we pull in other channels to kind of offset these declines, like that sort of creativity, that sort of passion and that sort of curiosity, I think is what what really helps make a great search marketer.
48565 - 48956
Unknown
And it was so weird because, you know, at one point it was like you came from a computer science background and from a marketing background. We came from, just a general like search background. And now it's like people come into this from other angles, people who have PhDs in a completely unrelated field, people who have had no college experience.
48956 - 49447
Unknown
People came from a writing background like it's wild. Like our team has just like some of the most diverse individuals Championship nationally ranked water ski champion, pinball champion, like you name it. Like people just come from all walks. And I think that's what takes to make like an amazing individual. But you said it's got to be it's got to be creativity and passion and just a lust for learning more.
49448 - 49922
Unknown
I think about the next 12 to 18 months is like the period of great experimentation, when we haven't had one of these in SEO in more than ten years. For the most part, there's been a very tried and true approach we could take and find some successes, but it feels like the next year and a half are just going to be, like, really fun to experiment with is I think it's a mix.
49922 - 50303
Unknown
I think it's in a super exciting time for a search like like you said, like it's just been the status quo for so long. And that was just changing super, super fast. So you're either like dreading it and you're like, this is terrifying. Or you're like, no, this is awesome. This is like back in the day. Like we can continue to like, test and figure things out.
50305 - 50605
Unknown
I think it's made people excited about search. I think it's given search a much broader aperture into like, how can this be used as a lens. So drive visibility my business because it's the first thing that people go is, oh, what's happened to my traffic? How do I get it back? Can I help you solve that?
50605 - 50680
Unknown
I think the most amazing thing is clients are leaning in.
50682 - 51259
Unknown
We would get request for proposals and things like that. And it was just like, yeah, we need SEO now. It's, hey, we need SEO, can we get that proposal tomorrow? It's like the whole energy around the industry is just wildly different. Yeah, it's gone from I need a service to we've been seeing a significant decline in performance, and we need a partner to help figure out, like how do we move forward and chart the next couple of years and what is that?
51263 - 51913
Unknown
Which is I think it's a super fun industry to be to be like, okay, like I get to help solve like how your business is going to like win. Yeah. I mean, so before we jump on to before we started recording, we were talking about RFPs and things like that. And I am curious, like the RFP requests that are coming in, are they more centered around AI or I guess how are those RFP question is changing because for RFP is a lot of the questions are the same for your clients.
51913 - 52351
Unknown
What vertical tell us about your technical SEO process. How do you do key. Are those questions now changing a little bit with everything that's happening in the industry, or is it still a lot of the same types of, I don't know, baseline questions? I'm just say from the ones that I seen, it's a little it's a little slow on how they're being weaved in.
52351 - 52758
Unknown
And I don't know if that's because procurement gets involved and they have to, you know, that all the questions that are being asked because then it opens up a can of worms. So it's a general one is what is your approach to generative engine optimizing. Right. And that's okay. Ask me again like in two weeks and this will all go a complete what are the tools that you're using.
52758 - 53372
Unknown
What is your philosophy on this. But outside of that no one's really getting to detail until detail out your process of how you're doing this. Those out, those tend to be a lot of the conversation that happened after the initial conversation that happened in a room where it's not documented, where you're like, okay, let's have a real conversation around, hey, how I actually works and how it's impacting your traffic and how you need to be thinking about this, that you don't get involved with someone who's going to deliver on false promises because they don't know what you're talking.
53372 - 53908
Unknown
Yeah, I watched the conductor webinar with you and Ryan Jones when it first came out. I actually went back and rewatched it in prep for this conversation. And you guys talked about matrix and you shared a slide that was the guiding principles of AI, and I'm guessing you probably use that internally, but also as a client framework. If you guys are thinking about using AI, here's some structure around how to think about it.
53910 - 54374
Unknown
That would seem like a great deliverable or answer to that generative AI question, but I'm also curious. So that was you guys recorded that I think about two years ago or half ago, half ago. So has that evolved at all in terms of those guidelines? Are they still the same or because there's everything that has happened since then is like light years, right.
54374 - 54751
Unknown
So has that framework evolved at all? Yeah. And I think it's going to continue to evolve. I don't think it's ever going to just it's ever going to sit still. And if it's if anything, it's just morphed into here's our philosophy on this. But okay, if you're in this industry, here's I can think about it. And then also what are your goals?
54751 - 55210
Unknown
Do you just have an awareness goal or do you actually have like conversion and lead gen goal. And then from there we will modify it and customize it and then present that as here's a potential framework of like where we start to pull in AI and here's how we're thinking about using AI. And now the next thing is what I was talking about is the actual measurement of those recommendations and those outputs.
55210 - 55722
Unknown
And then how are we quantifying? Is it actually having an impact as opposed to just checking that box and being like, no, yeah, we're thinking about it and we're doing the thing. But do you want to touch on measurement real fast? I think all the interviews we've had so far, there's only been 3 or 4 so far, but every one of them have has hit on the need for either a new view into traffic.
55722 - 56183
Unknown
Right? So maybe it's paid and then all other traffic or thinking about different KPIs like rankings are not as important anymore because you could still rank number one and see even less traffic. So how are you guys thinking about or preparing clients for maybe that evolution in how things are being measured? I'll send it to you after this.
56183 - 56680
Unknown
I the other like a conversation starter deck around here is everything. But actually like in reality, when I did an analysis of 50 different clients like across our organization from a bunch of different verticals, it's less than 1% of all traffic is coming from like AI engines, and it's 99% coming from chatbots. So let's think about this and let's prepare for it.
56680 - 57142
Unknown
But also let's not completely freak out. Let's worry more about like, why is your traffic declining on Google? And who are those new indirect competitors that are taking away your visibility? And how do we start to have those conversations? First? And I'm a firm mindset of if you start to chip away at that issue, to start to help solve that, you're going to be rewarded with everything else.
57142 - 57634
Unknown
Because what are they consider? They consume content. So if you're putting out content and we're diversifying how we're doing that and not just being focus on, I need to optimize my site and my one site to rule them all. It's not the case anymore. It's like going back to like almost like the old ways of SEO. So not press release optimization, but like, how are we actually getting our content out there with content partnerships?
57634 - 58318
Unknown
And how are we talked about how are we doing site and how can all that stuff kind of work together, like in simplest method? Like that's how I think it's going to come together when at least in the short term, at least in the things that we can also control. Yeah. You mentioned press release optimization. I still use the framework of coming up with a couple of different bylines, rotating them with different anchor texts and stuff like that that we established at some point when I was a resistance, or maybe it was already there when I started, I don't remember, but it's such a such an easy application for, for PR it is.
58318 - 58817
Unknown
But with that example I talked about earlier, like that's where that's where those mentions are being pulled from. Like they're being pulled from, these are open to use. And so it's like, why not lean into that conversation of why not influencer as opposed to like letting somebody else around. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So two two last questions. What do you wish people would ask you about SEO that they never do?
58817 - 59348
Unknown
Oh man, is it a satisfying career path? I joke about that. But it's it's hard. Like you put you guys get it. Like you put so much time into, like, research and ideation and like, no deliverables the same like they all have a lot of creativity behind it. And it's like response to an RFP. It's like you built a strategy and you like, hand it off, and then you've got to be prepared to be like, no, like, we don't like your idea.
59348 - 59779
Unknown
It's like I'm back in like art school doing like, critiques. And people are like, screw your paintings ugly. You're like, yeah, we a part? I'm like, this set me up for success in SEO. I think that's I think that's I think that's one of them. I'm curious by you guys. Here's what you were. I was I want to just add to that because a lot of times we spend a lot of time on these great presentations.
59779 - 60302
Unknown
With all this research behind it. We present it. It seems like the client is really warm to the idea, and then they just can't move it along internally because there's no development resource to help publish. Stuff like that can be frustrating. So I think you see it as a rewarding career. You've got to disassociate yourself from your work and other people's responsibilities to stay happy with the work.
60303 - 60684
Unknown
Yeah, you just to do it for the love of it. It's like the it's it's not the end point. It's like that journey along the way and it's and I find that's why I say I love being in the weeds. I love staying relevant to the research and the outputs and like what it could drive for somebody. And if they want to take it and run with it, awesome.
60684 - 61121
Unknown
If they don't the next quarter, we've learned something along the way, and it's just something I try to reminding my teams of. Don't be disappointed if our recommendation doesn't get implemented like you brought in great thinking and that will pay off and maybe not pay off today. It will pay off for some client in the future, and you'll see amazing results, because you know that when you see the results, you're like, this is absolutely amazing.
61121 - 61649
Unknown
Like I made a massive impact on Big brain like that, doesn't that? I think I think some of that goes back to the passion for the industry, which I think the three of us definitely have. We pitched a really big opportunity earlier this year, and we thought for sure we were going to get it and we didn't. And it was that punch in the gut, like it bothered me for two days, but not because of the passion and we knew we could help them.
61649 - 61976
Unknown
But at the same time, it's like the cold calling, right? Like you just get hung up on so many times. But over time, right, they start to add up and you build a business and or seven and a half years into it. So you just have to keep that perspective knowing it's it'll and it will, it will pay off.
61976 - 62350
Unknown
And I feel like sometimes I just want to be like, can I? So that's cool. If you don't want to go at the work, we may not be for everybody and maybe you got like a different mindset or your plans changed, or you threw out a different budget than what you really had. But I'm always like, I just want to know, tell me what you like, because let's do it all day long.
62352 - 62786
Unknown
I think the question that I would wish people would ask more is probably like in-house or agency. Yeah, that's an interesting one. I think there are pros and cons to both, but I would not give up my experience that raise a fish for anything or the other agency or activate that. I think you're just not to say there aren't smart people in house.
62786 - 63237
Unknown
Of course there are. But I think just when you're at a full service agency like that, you get exposure to so many different things. And if you want to work in the SEO industry, you need to be able to talk about all those different things. You definitely don't have to be an expert, but having general awareness about how all those things are interconnected definitely is.
63239 - 63821
Unknown
I think it's incredibly important for this industry to be successful. Yeah, you're interesting because you were agency, in-house agency, in-house owning an agency. Yeah, I get that right. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So I bounce back and forth and again pros and cons to both. But I think my experience of razorfish I met you guys I don't try to think there's very few people outside of the two agencies that I worked at that I stay in touch with as much as we do.
63821 - 64261
Unknown
So I think that's testament to that too. I feel like some of my that's actually interesting. I had the opportunity to hire a few of my clients, and I hired them away from group because I'm like, if you can navigate like this conglomerate like you can navigate in-house because you know, the levers to pull, you know, who you need to talk to, and they become very successful.
64261 - 64751
Unknown
But then I've also seen individuals that come from an agency background has gone in-house and just been like, I can't no one's gotta fire. No one's like trying to like, move things along quick. Yeah. That's right. All right. One last question. So we started a semi tradition. We call it the page two podcast prediction. So if you go to google.com in 12 months what do you expect the search experience to be.
64751 - 65209
Unknown
My God. And you could just say go to google.com and a month and see what it's going to be. I think it's just going to go back to being like, definitely more AI driven, definitely more customizable and personalize results. Also heavily monetized. God, I just see that coming in everywhere. It's just you have to monetize it. Like, how are you going to create going to fund all that stuff?
65209 - 65656
Unknown
It's the whole name of it like Google's. What's my mindset like every step of the way, they're just doing more things to keep you in the Serp. And like we all know that. So lean into the game. Like, how can you continue to own more of that additional real estate? Is it not just your site? Is it a network of sites that you're now running to try to own that space, and then also like how are you?
65656 - 66075
Unknown
Yeah, how are you properly monetizing it and trying to convert at every step of the way because the traffic that people are getting is more qualified traffic. And then also like you need to just do a better job of converting that traffic that you have, but you can't afford to like be losing clicks, especially with this massive decline in the rate and spike and impression.
66075 - 66701
Unknown
If I get you to a page like how do we made that experience, all the better. And so that's where one of the things it's like SEOs now go into two teams and zero chance of being like, fix this. Like we know what I like. I know other point, my career have had more access to CRO tools like full Story and crazy and being like like SEOs are running this thing, like, now here's we've got you the traffic, like, take this, take this, get now let's help you figure out how do you like convert that traffic to meet our goals because we're a help real to goals.
66701 - 67028
Unknown
But like I can get the traffic to the days but like no, I need help converting that traffic and having realistic expectations. Or what are those new goals that SEO is going to draw? Because I think that's going to change also, and it's going to have to go into change to have successful long term relationships. Love it. This is great, John.
67030 - 67396
Unknown
Yeah, this will be incredible. Thanks again for joining me at the start, Joe. Go ahead. I was going to say when you can get the Scott team in the CRO team all marching in the same direction at the same speed, like there's nothing we're good things that are going to happen. Both have been awesome, Sean, and we really appreciate it.
67396 - 67604
Unknown
Getting a chance to reconnect after all these years has been really great. So if you enjoyed the show, please remember to subscribe, rate and review and we'll see you next time. Bye bye!
67604 - 67833
Unknown
Oh. Oh.