Josh Blyskal 🤖 Answer Engine Optimization 101 - AMA (AskMeAnything) Honest Expert Answers
By SEO Video Show
Summary
## Key takeaways - **AI Search: Same Muscles, Different Exercises**: AI search is exercising the same muscle groups as SEO but doing different exercises, using building blocks like schema, content, and URL slugs in very different ways to engineer content for answer engines. [13:04], [13:20] - **Semantic URL Slugs Drive Clicks**: ChatGPT prioritizes semantic URL slugs over random IDs like F8G9-241309 when deciding which pages to visit from Bing API results, providing crucial context for answer engines. [37:08], [38:16] - **Meta Descriptions List Answers**: Top-cited pages in corporate cards list specific answers like 'top five: AMEX Platinum, Chase Ink Business' directly in meta descriptions, signaling value to answer engines for clicks. [45:09], [46:11] - **ChatGPT Appends 2025 to 40-60% Queries**: ChatGPT appends the year like 2025 to 40-60% of its searches sent to Bing API, so pages with 2025 in titles, URLs, and metas get cited more often despite SEO trade-offs. [47:15], [48:04] - **Listicles Dominate 32.9% of Citations**: Listicles account for 32.9% of all 177 million citations analyzed, far ahead of blogs at 9%, as answer engines seek ready-made marketplaces to pull from without scanning multiple sites. [51:03], [51:33] - **llms.txt Showcases E-A-T Freely**: Use llms.txt to detail content metadata like author credentials and page value without length limits, helping answer engines hit the right pages and understand E-A-T, allowed explicitly in robots.txt. [32:42], [33:32]
Topics Covered
- Full Video
Full Transcript
[Music] Yo, hey, what's up? Happy Friday.
Welcome to another episode of the SEO video show. Today we have Josh Bliss of
video show. Today we have Josh Bliss of Profound and we'll be talking about AEO, answer engine optimization.
Some great stuff today.
Don't be shy, guys. Let me know where you're watching from.
Josh is from Profound. He was uh the SEO content strategist over at HubSpot
at one point and then he led the AI product AI greater I believe. Yeah, AI
website graater for HubSpot.
So, good stuff, guys. We got about seven more minutes to go. Be sure to get your questions ready. This is going to be a
questions ready. This is going to be a great one. As you know, we are in an AI
great one. As you know, we are in an AI search world. We want to make sure that
search world. We want to make sure that we learn a little bit how we can get ranking into AI overviews, chatb AI
mode, Gemini, all that good stuff.
[Music] Okay, let's see what's going on here.
[Music] Oh man, I see Josh in the back. My man.
Josh, can you hear me? Okay.
Oh, can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Can you Can you hear me? I can't hear you. Yep, I can hear you. How's it
you. Yep, I can hear you. How's it
going? All right. All right, welcome Josh. My man Stefan. Hi everyone. Happy
Josh. My man Stefan. Hi everyone. Happy
Friday.
Welcome Stefan. Welcome to you back.
My man Josh is uh you are in on the East Coast.
Yeah, we're based in New York. There we
go. We got the East Coast in the house.
Let me know where y'all are watching from in the live chat.
Oh yeah. So today we have Josh Bliscoll.
Did I say that correctly? Bliss. Yeah.
Blisco. Like we got Josh Bliscoll today on anti- engine optimization 101. We're
going to learn how to rank in chat GBT AI mode. AI overviews. Just all that
AI mode. AI overviews. Just all that good stuff today. So AI or is it AI or Al? Happy Friday.
Al? Happy Friday.
[Music] There we go.
We got less. We got about five more minutes to go. So Josh, basically I usually go over some videos in the very beginning, but um we have a lot to cover, so I'm just gonna go straight
into our interview. So once once I get into it. Yeah. All right. Love it.
into it. Yeah. All right. Love it.
Oh, we have AI is from Oregon. Oregon in
the house. Welcome.
[Music] Oh, it's Al.
Sorry about that.
Let's see here.
Do we Josh, did you have a chance to kind of check out the my my the agenda and the question? Yeah, I got I got a little I got a little idea of the agenda. Yeah. All right. It's going to
agenda. Yeah. All right. It's going to be great. Cool. Love it. Love it, guys.
be great. Cool. Love it. Love it, guys.
All right. Let's get some Let's get some some fog up in here. Get the lights going. That's
going. That's nice. Nice. Nice. Nice.
nice. Nice. Nice. Nice.
Now it's a party. There we go.
[Music] Don't be shy, guys. I see a bunch of you out there. Say hi to live chat. Let me
out there. Say hi to live chat. Let me
know where you're watching from.
[Music] Seattle Washington.
We have great topic today. Victor
[Music] Hey Josh and Dre. Kenneth. Hello
Kenneth. Happy Friday.
[Music] If you're just tuning in, we have Josh Blisscoll and we'll be talking about answer engine optimization. AEO Geo LM
O.
I search, whatever you want to call it.
Oh man.
Ernesto. Yo yo yo.
All right, guys. We got three more minutes to go. And again, I have like two more copies of the SEO in 2025 book.
If you want a free copy, shoot me an email at joyseo.video.
Just shoot me your address and you must be in the United States cuz shipping this book to Europe costs like double the price of this book.
So guys, if you're in the US and want a copy, this is free, guys. I'm covering
shipping. Just if you want it, just shoot me your address.
All right.
All right. We're live on Twitter, LinkedIn or X, and on Facebook, guys. So if you guys are on those platforms, if you want to ask some questions, come over to
YouTube because I cannot see your comments or questions on those platforms. There's only on YouTube. So
come over. We have Josh Briscoll today and we'll be talking about answer engine optimization and how to rank in AIO and AIM mode and all kinds of good stuff.
We'll be covering actually covering some of the some of the stuff he talked about on his Brighton SEO um talk which a lot of great stuff there.
What's the email? My email is dreseo.video.
dreseo.video.
dreseo.vide. Al, shoot me your address and I will send you the copy of this book.
[Applause] Any um any plans for Father's Day weekend? Oh man, hopefully just relax,
weekend? Oh man, hopefully just relax, grill a little bit. You know, looking back. Are you dad? Call my dad. Are you
back. Are you dad? Call my dad. Are you
Are you No, not yet. Not yet. There you
go.
But it's a good excuse to Oh, is it?
What is it? I'm a fur baby dad. I got
two. I got two puppies.
It's kind of a nice position to be in, though. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, we
though. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, we
got about a one minute to go. So, Josh,
I'm going to go ahead and put you on mute real quick. I'm going to do some quick intro stuff and then I'll introduce you in about a couple minutes.
there.
If you're just tuning in, we got Josh Blisco and we'll be talking about answer engine optimization. So, be sure to get
engine optimization. So, be sure to get your questions ready. It's going to be a great topic. If you guys are not
great topic. If you guys are not pivoting your SEO strategy, you are going to be left behind and you are the ones that will be saying SEO is dead.
So, this you know, you know, here SEO show this, this is where SEO is a lot of fun. So,
fun. So, [Applause] [Music] Yeah. Yeah. Hey, time to get it started.
Yeah. Yeah. Hey, time to get it started.
No delay. Let's work. Want to see you be an SEO expert. Paul Andre de Vera.
Steady dropping knowledge. Over 15 years in the game, so he knows all about it.
Master the art of SEO. You will be amazed. Time to get your brand off page
amazed. Time to get your brand off page on page. Dropping knowledge. Legendary
on page. Dropping knowledge. Legendary
for sure. Whether you're just getting started or self-employed entrepreneur.
Yeah, let's go. Subscribe to the SEO video show. Hey.
video show. Hey.
Hey. Hey. Welcome to another episode of the SEO vision, where SEO is alive and fun. My name is Paul Andre Diver aka Dre
fun. My name is Paul Andre Diver aka Dre and I cur SEO videos released within the past week. It's about one minute clips.
past week. It's about one minute clips.
My favorite part of the show is when I get to introduce my guest. And today we have Josh Blisco of Profound. Before we
get started, let's say what's up to everyone in chat. I see Al, Ernesto, Kobe Kenneth Victor Carol Stefan.
Welcome everyone. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell. Now, let's get on with the show.
bell. Now, let's get on with the show.
Hey Dre, why did the SEO cross the road?
They wanted to get hit by traffic.
All right, some quick news. Since Google
is retiring a few structured data fe uh features as part of their ongoing efforts to simplify the Google search results pages, they will be phasing out support and a few structural data
features in search. Now uh this does not mean you can't still use them. You know
AI in particularly is the con in the context of search and information retrieval favors schema markup because it provides structured machine readable data that enhances and understands an
accurac accuracy of content. So, the
structured data enables AI algorithms to categorize information precisely, extract key entities, and establish relationships between different data points, resulting in improved search
results and enhanced AI powered experiences. All right, so let's get on
experiences. All right, so let's get on with the show. Right before we get um before I introduce my guest, here's a word from our sponsor. Did you know a press
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shared everywhere. Visit magipr.com today and take your brand to the next level. Now, let's introduce our guest.
level. Now, let's introduce our guest.
Josh is the former cont SEO on HubSpot.
He later became the AI engineer that was the product and architect behind the HubSpot AI search grader. He recently
became the second higher profound and the answer engine optimization researcher. He is a brighten SEO speaker
researcher. He is a brighten SEO speaker wrangler and loves AI and his implication in search. Please welcome
Josh Bliss.
[Music] Sorry about let me get you a right in here.
All right, let's get started.
There we go.
[Music] Yeah, my man.
Wait, what happened here? Hold on. Let
me get back, man. All these technical difficulties. What's going on here? Let
difficulties. What's going on here? Let
me go over here. All right. There we go.
There we go. My man Josh, welcome to the show. It's great to be here, man.
show. It's great to be here, man.
Excited to be here, man. It's exciting.
I love the energy. Love it. Love it.
Okay, everyone, let's give a round of applause.
All right, Josh, this is the first question I ask all my Yu professionals that come on here. And one last, how does Josh get ranking on page one of Google? Yeah, right now for AI search, I
Google? Yeah, right now for AI search, I mean, I am an AI strategist at profound.
So, what I do basically is I think about how to rank within answer engines like uh Google AI overviews, Google AI mode, you know, GBT perplexity. The name of the game right now is a mixture of
technical and then content optimizations. I always say that like AI
optimizations. I always say that like AI search really if we're thinking about it you're exercising the same muscle groups but you're doing different exercises. So
we're still playing with the same building blocks right your schema your content your URL slugs the same kind of channels as SEO but we're thinking about how we use those channels very differently. There are strategies we can
differently. There are strategies we can employ things we can do. So I think for me especially right now in AI search the name of the game is content. just
thinking about exactly how to engineer content to be picked up by these engines, how to make your content visible, how to make your brand visible.
That's what we're going to dive into.
That's what I'm excited to share. All
the the inside tips and tricks here for how to do those things actually. Love
it. First knowledge bomb of today. Hold
on. Let me rewind this quick. Hold on.
All right. Take us way back. Way back.
When did you first get into SEO? I got
into SEO at HubSpot. So, I wanted to be in marketing in the marketing space.
applied for an internship at HubSpot. No
idea what I wanted to do. And I was kind of drafted into the SEO team, not realizing how interesting the space was going to be. I was like, "All right, cool. I don't know anything about it."
cool. I don't know anything about it."
You know, I know there's, you know, Google and all these these search engines. Almost said answer engines.
engines. Almost said answer engines.
That's how deep I am in AI search right now. There's Google and all these search
now. There's Google and all these search engines. Um, but I I had no idea what
engines. Um, but I I had no idea what the implications were. Worked with a great team over at HubSpot. Just really
learned the ropes of content SEO. A
shout out to Asia Frost, Amanda Copen, Silon Sharpie, um just some of the some of the best leaders in SEO, some of the best um you know mentors. Uh but jumped
into really like AI and AI engineering from that point. So you start kind of fusing an appreciation for you know search plus this world of AI and LLMs
and chat GPT and then that's how you get someone who like cares so much about answer engine optimization. Love that.
Love that. Okay. Okay. First of all, so let us know like how did you first learn SEO?
Oh my god. I mean it was it was slow and steady. I mean I sol was great. I used
steady. I mean I sol was great. I used
learning SEO.io like honestly just like the tried andrue just watching webinars talking to team members like doing like blog refreshes. I mean I was in the
blog refreshes. I mean I was in the trenches when I was initially starting with SEO just like you know look like literally I had three monitors. I had
two monitors with like two competitor pieces of content. one monitor right in the center with the HubSpot blog post and I would audit by hand. All right,
here's the literal differences. All
right, this one has a table of contents.
Ours doesn't have a table of contents.
Write it in. Pass it along to the writers there. I mean, there's so many
writers there. I mean, there's so many little things that you pick up just doing every little kind of task at the ground level of SEO. Like if you're the one who is inputting the data, making
those, you know, data sets, really thinking about like a huge blog like HubSpot, you start to pick up on kind of the trends across the industry and things that are kind of shifting and changing. Like I remember when I started
changing. Like I remember when I started with SEO, like featured snippets were all the rage. Like that was what you wanted to do. You wanted everything to be a featured snippet. FAQ schema was really hot. Um, and just everything is
really hot. Um, and just everything is just continuing to evolve. I feel like it all all evolves from, you know, from my understanding when I started, it's like it all evolves from there. But I
mean I talked to people who started SEO in 2005 and they're like well it really all all evolves from like you know white text on white backgrounds. Oh yeah. Oh
yeah. Okay. So kind kind of take us to the transition of when you started going into more of the AI answer engine optimization. Yeah. Yeah. So I jumped
optimization. Yeah. Yeah. So I jumped into the AI engineering space at HubSpot. So JBT came out. I had joined
HubSpot. So JBT came out. I had joined as a full-time Red HubSpot and the the question that they had was like, Josh, do you think you would want to own
whatever this like chat GPT thing is? Uh
you're on the marketing team. Would that
be interesting to you? Like it's kind of this unproven technology. I don't know if it's going to go anywhere, but like maybe you could like give us a presentation on it like once a week.
That started everything down a road of like, all right, Josh is the go-to guy for SEO plus chat GBT kind of knowledge and building prompt templates and SEO
optimization automations on the SEO team, which eventually just got this whole like AI practice area spun up on the HubSpot marketing team, which was really interesting. So, we just started
really interesting. So, we just started basically doing marketing enablement um and like a little bit of microApps work on the HubSpot marketing team, which turned into HubSpot search grader. So I
was kind of the the product architect behind search grader. Basically as part of the SEO team they reached back out to me and said hey we've got this great idea for a micro app. Shout out to Asia
Frost. Asia Frost was like she was
Frost. Asia Frost was like she was thinking deep. She was like I think AI
thinking deep. She was like I think AI and search is going to be a pretty big moment and I want to build this thing with Josh Blissol. I think he knows and appreciates the search world enough as kind of an engineer who can build it,
but also an SEO who knows kind of what the SEOs are going to need and what they're going to be able to monitor within AI search. We released that in late mid to late 2024, which was exciting. I think it really came out in
exciting. I think it really came out in like July, August 24. Uh it was really one of the first on the market in terms of tools that could genuinely in real time tell you how you performed in
answer engines and search like chat GPT.
Um, and it it's been awesome ever since.
Like that whole space is really starting to flourish. So, it's really an exciting
to flourish. So, it's really an exciting uh it's exciting progression. Totally an
accident. I didn't intend for it. Love
that. So, now take us to the present. I
mean, now you're one of the first hires at Profound, right? So, I mean, what's what sparked the behind the idea and how did your role take shape into like this early days of you joining uh Profound.
Yeah. So, yeah, I'm this I'm the second employee here at Profound. uh our
founders James and Dylan, they were working at South Park Commons, which is just an incubator here in New York and San Francisco. We got a great presence
San Francisco. We got a great presence in both cities. Um the I mean the spark behind the idea was that they were sitting around one day and they just realized like we haven't googled in two
or three days. Like we just simply aren't using Google anymore. We're using
Perplexity. We're using chat GPT. We
can't be the only ones who are doing this. We can't be the only people whose
this. We can't be the only people whose behavior is being shifted. And that was in mid to late 2024 as well. So, you
know, AI overviews were still like, you know, a year and a half old. SGE was
like relatively I mean, it had already happened. So, it wasn't like this is
happened. So, it wasn't like this is totally new. It wasn't at that launch
totally new. It wasn't at that launch point, but you know, we're still we were still at a point where like you know, chat GPT shopping didn't exist. We're
still at a point where, you know, browsing wasn't enabled by default unless you were a pro user in chat GPT.
So even that like kind of early infantile idea like all right there's going to be people searching conversationally someone should be tracking that has really evolved into
this space where the the the tailwind the tailwind really seems to be behind this modality shift where you know Google now releases AI mode. To me, AI
mode is really significant because that is the idea that Google is finally willing to admit that okay, you know what, search the future of search is going to be conversational like the
conversational modality is going to win out against 10 blue links. It's not
really the question of if now it becomes the question of when and how we onramp to that and make sure that all the incentives are aligned. Excellent.
I love that. Yeah, I think that's the name of the game right now. So that's
what Profound is riding right now.
That's the wave we're riding and that's what we're excited about is just like tracking conversational search. So for
those that don't know Profound, like you know like can you briefly explain what what Profound is and what it does real quick? Profound basically Profound is a
quick? Profound basically Profound is a SAS tool. So we're we're a full-fledged
SAS tool. So we're we're a full-fledged platform and we enable some of the world's biggest brands, most iconic brands to track, understand, and really tangibly improve through actions their
actual visibility in chat GPT, Perplexity, Google AI overviews, Microsoft C-Pilot, and soon to be a whole host of other answer engines. We
provide the data. We also provide the support, the guides, the service, and the expertise to also just go out and just crush it right now in AI search.
Oh, nice. Nice. Love that. I love that.
Okay. So, um, for those that have been living living under a rock, I mean, can you briefly explain kind of what this landscape or what's changing here? I
know you kind of briefly talked about like what's what's changing in search right now that most SEOs aren't prepared for?
Oh my goodness. I think All right. So,
if you're there's there's two things I'm going to go with like the let's do surface level and then we'll do like the this like secret like sly insights kind of side of things. All right. Surface
level. I think the the name of the game is going to be conversations. Like I
think the world where we're tracking things based on keywords is going to be really it's going to be challenged quite directly. I think keywords themselves
directly. I think keywords themselves are going to have to adapt and change and maneuver to kind of fit into this new longtail world where you know
personalization and memories and context starts to really act as the foundation for many of these search experiences. So
like I think essentially speaking the uptake and the transition to actual conversational chats, you know, the Forester released, we love this
study, Forester released a study that 90% of B2B buyers are using AI chatbots in their buying decisions, which is great. It's like a lovely stat, nicely
great. It's like a lovely stat, nicely packaged. Everyone knows the Gartner
packaged. Everyone knows the Gartner stat, the 25% of all traffic is going to be reduced by uh 2026. That's a great stat as well. It's just like I think I
think at a high level we're in a world where the the shape of traffic is changing. Let's like let's I'll leave it
changing. Let's like let's I'll leave it at that. High level the shape of traffic
at that. High level the shape of traffic is changing. The nature of searching
is changing. The nature of searching maybe if I'll even say it a little more poetically. Searching used to be an end
poetically. Searching used to be an end and like it used to be the end to the means. Like you used to search to get to
means. Like you used to search to get to the thing you want. Now when you're using JGBT that is the experience like the search is the experience of acquiring that information or doing a thing. Like we find we have a huge data
thing. Like we find we have a huge data set of chatbt queries. Chat GBT queries don't really start with like I mean they do start with what like where when why a lot of it is like write me this how do I
oh yeah like make this for me let's do this let's do that I want to take an action rather than I need to know information to take an action. So we're
moving everything along one step further. Right. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I I
further. Right. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I I
just I just think about like my my my prompts like you're right. That's
exactly what I do.
I think the the sly insight right now like the the secret secret thing I don't think SEOs are prepared for is agent experience. Oh, agent experience. I love
experience. Oh, agent experience. I love
this term. Yeah. Okay. Agent experience
like a agent or AI agents, answer engines. It's I think I think that
engines. It's I think I think that definition is very fuzzy. Like what is an agent? Okay. I think we'll figure out
an agent? Okay. I think we'll figure out what an agent is. I think an agent right now is anything that is doing an action on your behalf. Like I'll keep it that that broad. I think for for AI and SEO
that broad. I think for for AI and SEO and what SEOs really need to think about is just how to make their site like a welcoming a welcoming door for
answer engines and these agents to actually use and utilize fully to bring the answer back to the user. I don't
think people think about the specific shift in user groups like the fastest growing user group right now for websites is AI agents. That's that's
your new user group. That's the new group of people we have to think about and build into this pie, right? Ah, how
we do that is up to us. Got it. Got it.
Okay. Okay. So, think about how to do that. I mean, like what do you think
that. I mean, like what do you think about traditional keywords based uh search, you know, SEO or is it becoming obsolete or, you know, is it evolving?
How how are we how are we researching this? I don't think obsolete is fair. I
this? I don't think obsolete is fair. I
think like if I wanted to be provocative, I'd be like totally it's totally obsolete. It's totally like
totally obsolete. It's totally like gone. I don't think that's the case at
gone. I don't think that's the case at all. I think what we're going to see is
all. I think what we're going to see is we're going to see a world where I think things are going to shift more into the medium tale. Like some of the research
medium tale. Like some of the research that we've got at least in progress right now is telling us that like within AI search you could optimize for these
like eight paragraph long queries like I don't know let me let me give you an example. It's like, I have a
example. It's like, I have a six-year-old son and my six-year-old son loves gummy worms, but not sour gummy worms, and he has a birthday party in 6 months, and we want to make sure that we buy enough gummy worms for all 12 of his
friends. Where's a good place to do
friends. Where's a good place to do that? What's the keyword? Right? And
that? What's the keyword? Right? And
like traditional search, it's like that's like a really hard thing to answer. With an AI search, that entire
answer. With an AI search, that entire question becomes something of an intent rather than a keyword itself, right? The
intent there is to purchase, you know, non-sour gummy worms. I think the way that we're going to think about search in the future is if you show up for like non-sour gummy worms as an example,
you're going to win the downstream longtail as well. Just as a consequence, like we work with some brands that they come into the platform and the first thing they want to do is they want to throw in 59,000 different prompts that
are every possible variation of every possible term that they've got. That's
just like it's super granular, paragraph long prompts. But I think at the end of
long prompts. But I think at the end of the day, it's almost like that bell curve meme. You've got like the genius
curve meme. You've got like the genius on one end and you've got kind of like the the simpleton on the other end and then in the middle you've got the guy like stressing out. Have you seen that meme before? Yeah. Yeah. You familiar
meme before? Yeah. Yeah. You familiar
with what I'm thinking? Yeah. It's like
I think the the simple guy's like, "Yeah, I just kind of want to optimize for the medium tail like kind of like non-sour gummy worms, you know, bulk."
And then the genius is thinking, "Yeah, all you need is the medium tail." And
then the guy in the middle is like, "No, you need every possible keyword, you know, variation possible, question mark, non-quest, period, space, two spaces,
three spaces, etc." Yes.
All right. All right. So, I mean I I mean I'm not I can't remember how how profound is actually um um monetized, but are you doing it by actual amount of searches like as uh by like prompts that is? So, we do it by prompts. You're
is? So, we do it by prompts. You're
looking for that. You're looking for that. You're looking for that guy that
that. You're looking for that guy that wants everything.
There's there's definitely there's definitely like a sweet spot to hit for sure. It's like All right. So, okay. So,
sure. It's like All right. So, okay. So,
we we've been calling it um answer engine optimization, AEO. I mean, uh even in the beginning of the um in the pre-show, like you I was saying AEO, LMO, GEO. There's all kinds of different
LMO, GEO. There's all kinds of different different um uh ways of what what what we're actually optimizing for. I mean,
so I mean, um what what do you see it as? Where is it going? Do you think it's
as? Where is it going? Do you think it's going to stick us to stick to SEO or you think it's going to be E AEO or you know um what are your thoughts on like this whole I love that you know people have
asked me this one before I I I grew up in an SEO world I have a deep appreciation for SEO so my mindset there's still a good chunk of my mind that's like SEO devour all things it'll all fold back into SEO at the end of the
day there needs to be a distinction for now I actually I think it's immaterial because it's like it's like well first First of all, I think the term should be
SEO because if people are searching for things, yeah, then they're going to be using an engine and people are going to be optimizing for it. I think that's fine. I think within SEO, if I'm
fine. I think within SEO, if I'm thinking of the hierarchy of like the world of SEO, it should be a little entry in the tree that says AEO is a subset of SEO. Like, you know, if we're thinking about, we have to figure out
the right word. I hate GEO personally because I think when I search for the letters GEO, I get nothing that I want.
When I look at AEO though, I get exactly what I want. And when we think about the exact like the exact action of like what we're doing here, what these
these engines are doing, what they're doing is they're they're like I said, they're they're providing the answer.
They're not they're not doing the the work to give the user the thing to do something. They are the full experience.
something. They are the full experience.
They're the question, answer, alpha, omega, beginning, end. They complete the loop entirely within themselves. And so
that's why I like the the word answer engine because that's what effectively what these models are doing. And we're
not people have said AI optimization.
It's like we're not making AI models.
We're not optimizing the performance of AI models. There you go. We're not also
AI models. There you go. We're not also optimizing like the gener like generative engines. I think in the
generative engines. I think in the future, like I'm going to give you a hot take here. the LLMs are going to get
take here. the LLMs are going to get dumber in the future. Like I don't think we should we should rely we should not pin ourselves into generative engines because as we start to proliferate this
search experience the LLM is going to become an insignificant part of that experience. The more important part of
experience. The more important part of this experience is I have I want to have a dumb fast really lightweight LLM that sits at the very front end that only does the language stuff. It doesn't know
anything. It doesn't know who the fourth
anything. It doesn't know who the fourth premier of the Soviet Union was. It
doesn't know anything. It doesn't know anything about molecular bonds or anything. I could never ask it a
anything. I could never ask it a question alone because it's linked into a knowledge base, an architecture that lets it get the answer it needs. And its
only job is to model the language. I
want to be able to use an LM on my Apple Watch, in my SUV. I want to be able to say, "Hey, Chad GPT, can you please order a birthday cake directly to my house within the next 6 hours? I'll pay
extra for it." and invite all of, you know, Charlie's sixth grade class to my house immediately and not have it do an API call. I want it to run natively. I
API call. I want it to run natively. I
think that's like that. I think that's the future. I think GPT5 or whenever
the future. I think GPT5 or whenever that comes out, that's an academic tool.
That's a tool for, you know, the researchers of the world. I think
people, normal everyday people are going to use models that if anything are faster and dumber than GPT40, faster dumber than 03.
Love that. Love that. So we have a um comment here from the audience. SU to me is just about helping people find what they are looking for. Yes. Yes. And you
guys people in the audience if you have any questions ask them anytime in in uh during our conversation and I'll address them in the order that they are received. Okay. Let's get into the
received. Okay. Let's get into the technical deep dive. Let's get into some of the stuff over here on on the technical stuff. So what specific
technical stuff. So what specific technical elements have helped content get pulled into answer engines like chat GBT and perplexity? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Where do we start? I think you you you know schema is always important. FAQ
schema. I'm going to go like lukewarm all the way to like heated. So schema is always important. I work with customers
always important. I work with customers who still don't have any schema, still not thinking about semantic HTML. I
think if we're thinking about really interesting things that help content get pulled in, there's things you can do with your robots. I'm going to just start listing. So if you want to stop me
start listing. So if you want to stop me and you want more clarity, just be like, "Wait, hold up. That's interesting.
Let's dive deeper." And audience also feel free to stop us, too. So um go ahead and ask. Okay. Cool. Let's go. I'm
a I'm a wild man. I'm just going to go for it. Uh robots.t txt is incredibly
for it. Uh robots.t txt is incredibly interesting. I've seen people have
interesting. I've seen people have really good success with redundantly just allowing certain pages on their robots.txt. They don't need to do that,
robots.txt. They don't need to do that, right? They don't need to say openai
right? They don't need to say openai searchbot allow these random blog posts, but by signaling that these blog posts exist, it improves answer engine thoroughut and pickup. It's really
interesting and that's what we recommend doing with the LMS.txt as well. So, if
you just release an LM.txt and you're like, what gives? It's not like doing anything for me. It's not really interesting. Allow it in your
interesting. Allow it in your robots.txt.
robots.txt.
You will see some pickup start. Yeah,
it's a big moment. Yeah. Right. Love it.
Drop them. Drop these dogs bombs. Keep
going. So, the llm's.txt is also an interesting piece. There was this
interesting piece. There was this moment. I think from like March to
moment. I think from like March to April, everyone was bullish on the LLM.txt. Now, from April to June, it's
LLM.txt. Now, from April to June, it's like llm.txt skepticism. Um, I think the the expectation on the LM.txt TXT should not be that your brand now immediately starts showing up more often in
searches. I think what it really needs
searches. I think what it really needs to be is that the LMS are hitting the correct pages to get the information that the searchers are asking for. So if
someone asks, you know, profound about what our take is on Grock, I want the answer engine that visits my llm.txt contextually to know that our take is
that Grock represents like a really good example of the future of how social and AI search are going to be merged. Uh,
and I want to give that context in the llms.txt. Like I want, so for me, the
llms.txt. Like I want, so for me, the philosophy on llm.txt is that the llm.txt is a place to let your your your metadata kind of sing. Like it's a place
where you're not character limited.
You're not limited by the length of a metad description. You're not limited by
metad description. You're not limited by the length of an alt tag or a URL slug.
You can just talk at length about what's in each piece, who the author is, the creds of the author. It's like a really interesting area to really let that EAT shine, right? Like, hey, this piece is
shine, right? Like, hey, this piece is really great. It's our cornerstone piece
really great. It's our cornerstone piece about um I don't know, let's say baby diapers. It's written by a
diapers. It's written by a board-certified pediatrician, Allison Yang, who completed her residency at Columbia. She has 19 books out about
Columbia. She has 19 books out about pediatrics. And this is a great piece
pediatrics. And this is a great piece for anyone looking to learn X, Y, and Z.
And this is in the this is discussed that in in the LMS. Exactly. Okay. For
those that don't understand what LMS Yeah. If people don't know what let's
Yeah. If people don't know what let's let's take a step back for those that don't understand what an LMS LMS.txt is. Um, can you just quickly explain the
is. Um, can you just quickly explain the difference between it and a robots.txt file? Great. Yeah, great question. I
file? Great. Yeah, great question. I
also don't know. People have been saying LMS. I'm calling it LMS. I don't know what the I've heard both. No, no, I don't. I've heard both. I want I want
don't. I've heard both. I want I want the the rest of the industry to tell me what what to start calling it. Um, so
the LMS.txt or LLM.txt, txt, whichever you might call it, is a markdown formatted. TXT
file. It can, it most often will live at the root of your domain. So, if you're a if you're Nike, nike.com/lms.txt.
Mhm. If you're thinking it's the same way as your robots. Nike.com/roots.txt,
right? It's the same kind of interaction in that file. The only strong requirement is that that file has to be written in markdown formatting. That's
it. Okay. Anything else you want to do with that file is up to you. So there
are there's a spectrum of things you can do. You could go all the way from just a
do. You could go all the way from just a list of URLs, nothing else, all the way to writing about each piece of content or talking about the hierarchy of your
products. Oh, the the the the Blissol
products. Oh, the the the the Blissol Labs consulting like product lives within, you know, Blisco Labs Plus and that's the hierarchy of this. Like one
thing we see is that we want answer engines to understand how our products work together, what the hierarchy of our brand and our business is, subsidiaries, cross-selling, different packages,
things like that. We want that to be accurate, you know, accurate pricing, stuff like that. It's a great place to test um especially since it's still those stakes for traditional SEO. Love
that. Love that. Okay. Okay. So, we got a a quick question from the audience here before you guys stop dropping some more knowledge bombs here. Does top of funnel content does top ofunnel content
matter anymore or just or is Google just going to swallow it up along with other LMS?
I think very very honestly top ofunnel content is probably approaching its most direct challenge ever like top ofunnel
content is going to be massively ch we have to figure out how to contextualize what what's going to be the you really have to follow the monetary incentive what is the monetary incentive to create
top of funnel content if the click-through rate if the search experience is going to be handled entirely in engine I think research is showing that for top offunnel queries
the click-through rates are really difficult to justify from a content production perspective and I think it's going to make it so that your top offunnel content I think is going to be
few and far between. I do hope that it it basically my hope is that it filters out top ofunnel content only to the most essential things that a brand really wants to say at the very top of their
funnel and trying to make sure that even without the monetary incentive the pieces of content are great. it really
ends up becoming more of an influence tool rather than a direct lead genen. So
it becomes more of an awareness play almost if anything else um rather than actually getting you even on the site.
It's like pre Yeah, it's even previsit which is tricky. I mean I work I mean at HubSpot, right? HubSpot's huge on top of
HubSpot, right? HubSpot's huge on top of funnel content. I mean we love it. So
funnel content. I mean we love it. So
it's an interesting space to be in. Love
that. Okay, let's continue on some of some of these knowledge bombs that you're dropping here on on on some of the technical deep dive. What's the next one on your list? Yeah. Yeah, next one.
Yeah, let's jump in. Oh my goodness. I
mean, semantic URL slugs are like the future right now, at least within AI search. So, let me talk a little more
search. So, let me talk a little more about what that means, what that is. So,
you know, if you're an answer engine and you are searching the web and you're trying to understand which resource to click, which web page to visit, you're going to be for ChatGpt at least, chatbt
gets presented a list of URLs, metadescriptions, page titles by the Bing API. That's how ChatGpt search
Bing API. That's how ChatGpt search works. The Bing API forwards through.
works. The Bing API forwards through.
All right. Hey, CHIGPT, here's the results. Chad GPT has to make a hard
results. Chad GPT has to make a hard decision. It has to figure out based on
decision. It has to figure out based on the limited data I have now, what is going to be worth my click and worth my time scraping and analyzing from the
web. So, Chad GPT does that by looking
web. So, Chad GPT does that by looking at in a like more outweightedly than anything else the URL slug. So if you have a URL slug that is F8G9-241309
Yeah. or you have a URL slug that is the
Yeah. or you have a URL slug that is the b the-bas corporate- credit-cards-2025.
Mhm. You're going to be providing two very different levels of context to your answer engine. Great optimization right
answer engine. Great optimization right now is to look at some of your content.
look at your pillar content because there are publishers that I've seen with great pieces of content but it's it's almost like it's obscured by a layer of fog from these answer engines because it's not clear what that content's going
to be.
Interesting. Huge. Love that. Okay.
Okay. Let's let's talk more about Bing then because you said you said um you said the Bing API. So I mean should we be optimizing for Bing like more like what's the difference between optimize optimizing for Bing and Google? you
know, it's like how can we have the balance between, you know, optimizing both Bing and Google? It's going to be the I I think tactically you don't have to spend too much you we have to have
Bing at least in our minds like we have to give a little consideration to Bing.
I don't think nobody wants to spend half of their day thinking about a search engine that represents 3% of all searches. But we've got to make sure
searches. But we've got to make sure that we're indexed. We've got to make sure maybe using the index now protocol, but we got to make sure that we're at least visible. I don't think that I
least visible. I don't think that I would undertake specific efforts to get ranking better within Bing because there's a few reasons. One, the first reason is that chat GPT even though it
uses the Bing API, it doesn't give it really does not give any care to the rankings that Bing ascribes to content within that Bing API. that we saw across
the Bing SER and the ChatGpt search results only 26% alignment between the resource that it chose and the top rank Bing results. Meaning that ChatgBT sees
Bing results. Meaning that ChatgBT sees this list of URLs and it's not it's not picking the top ones. It's plucking from the SER almost at random whatever it
thinks the best value is for the search.
Um, which totally is totally different than Claude. Claude is using the Brave
than Claude. Claude is using the Brave browser and Claude is super basic. It
just picks one, two, three right off the brave browser. Whatever you're doing in
brave browser. Whatever you're doing in Brave to rank, you win in Claw just by winning in Brave. So ChatGpt is doing a totally different thing. If you want to see like really interesting, if you want
to check it out, look up WebGPT like literally Google WebGPT OpenAI or you could chat GPT it. Um, and you'll be able to you'll be you'll be able to see
a web page that is it's a study slash uh like an academic paper released by OpenAI in 2021. That technology called web GPT is not web chat GPT search browser. It's actually the agentic model
browser. It's actually the agentic model that decides what content to pluck out of the Bing Surf. It is the actual, you know, in those like Alien movies where they like unmask the final villain and it's like a little guy sitting in a tiny
little chair controlling everything.
It's like almost like the Wizard of Oz.
It's like that's that's the WebGPT is that for ChatGpt. ChatGBT is this huge behemoth, but there's this little GPT3 bot actually controlling the clicks and the visits from ChatGpt and that's
WebGpt. Oh, guys, knowledge bomb right
WebGpt. Oh, guys, knowledge bomb right there. We got a uh I put the URL in the
there. We got a uh I put the URL in the live chat, so be sure to check that out.
Is that the right URL? Open AI. It's
Yeah, it's it was created 2021. Yeah,
December 16, 2021. Um WebGP. Yeah,
that's the one. That's it. Wow. It was
It's been out for quite some time now.
So check it out. I don't chat GBT. There
we go. There we go. There we go. Love
that. Love that. Nobody Nobody cared about it. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay, let's
about it. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay, let's
let's go into um you spoke about schema, right? I mean I mean like do I mean are
right? I mean I mean like do I mean are these engines like like use structured data like schema all the way? Like I
mean from is like because you know okay there's some there's there's a couple differences here. Like I actually
differences here. Like I actually mentioned this in the very very beginning on how Google's like cutting some cutting some schema markup markups up. So it doesn't mean like you
up. So it doesn't mean like you shouldn't use it. They're just not going to acknowledge it. But you know there's also schema.org right? Schema.org or has a lot a lot more schema markup uh princ
um parameters and and stuff that you can use rather than Google. So kind kind of like can you talk a little bit more about schema and how yeah I'm definitely I'm definitely not like a schema fiend
but I do have some in early initial perspectives. Okay. Um the deal is this.
perspectives. Okay. Um the deal is this.
It's like there's almost two layers of optimizing for answer. one is like marketing yourself well enough on that SER kind of thing that Chat GBT wants you like you're like you're marketing the cover of the book to get the click
then the schema itself is what so there's two things the schema actually gets you onto that list where you know chat GBT can pluck you out of the Bing results and then once ChatGBT does visit
you so it's kind of like both ends of the search experience then you want that data to be accurate you want that pull through to be as detailed as possible you want to offer as much context text
and as much detailed information to these answer engines as you possibly can because you have their attention. You
have earned chat GBT's attention. You
don't want to squander that which is where your schema.org which is where your um which is where your broader schema also comes into play. Um things
that we're seeing working like author schema is really interesting that's working quite well. Um as far as anything else I don't have too much of a I don't have too much of a deep perspective on like schema like specific
schema to include versus not to include.
I think the inclusion of schema as like a binary like you should do it is like a strong recommendation. I mean I
strong recommendation. I mean I definitely recommend it. I mean I'm pretty much a broken record. I don't
know anyone who wouldn't recommend it or recommends against it but it's it's still something that's excellent to do and that technology and that um that tactic is great. Love it. Love it. Yeah.
I do have some schema haters out there that just hate schema. But I was like, uh, again, there's there's some I I feel like it's something at least for the answer engines at least, you know, maybe not for SEO, but of answer engines, it's
totally totally different. Um, caller.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Love that. Okay, let's
go into um like more of like meta like metadata like um like the titles and descriptions. How have have they been
descriptions. How have have they been playing a role in like you know the engines for you? Like let's talk about that. Huge. So, we were working with a
that. Huge. So, we were working with a customer in the in the corporate card industry and they wanted to rank as the most cited article, right? And that's
something we could show in profound. We
can show you based on your industry who the most cited pages are, um, who the most cited domains are, which is really great because if you're working with this black box, if you can see the outcomes from the black box, you know,
oh, if I can see the people who are winning, if I make my pages look, function, uh, are built closer to these winning pages, naturally, likely within
time and applied at scale, my pages are going to start winning just like these top pages are winning. Mhm. And the
better thing to do is to look at those top pages and actually we outdo them, but that's a whole different story. We
could talk about what what that what that actually entails. So, we're working with this company in the corporate card industry and they're like, "We want to rank number one, be most cited." And
we're like, "That's great. This is
awesome." We check out all the top sighted pages in corporate cards. And
what's really interesting about these top pages is that each one of the top pages and they're from a wide variety of domains. There's like your nerd wallets
domains. There's like your nerd wallets expected. That's like totally normal.
expected. That's like totally normal.
But then there's like there's not it's not like the points guy. It's almost
like natecards.com.
Like no SEO cache, no traffic. It's like
what's Nate doing here? Like what?
That's interesting. I mean, check the metad description in the title. The
reason that I'm just making it up, but the reason that like your Nate's card kind of domain, this random domain that's super well trusted is showing up is because in the meta description, instead of saying something like explore
some of the top corporate credit cards, we see the top five corporate credit cards are the MX Platinum, the Chase Inc. Business, and the Capital One Cash
Rewards. Check out the list of 12 more
Rewards. Check out the list of 12 more here.
It literally offers the answer engine's value right up front.
Damn.
Dang. It makes sense, right? That does
make sense. And and I see why. So I
think people should really really kind of like rethink how they write their metad descriptions. Like provide
metad descriptions. Like provide answers. Your your provide answers. Say,
answers. Your your provide answers. Say,
"Hey, answer engine. Looks like
someone's probably asking what the best corporate credit card is. You want a page that does that? Check it out. I
gave you three answers right here. If
you want to click and find out the rest, that is like gold for the answer engine.
The answer is like, okay, that's worth a click. Let's go explore that page. And
click. Let's go explore that page. And
then that perspective becomes the default. Love that. Love that. All
default. Love that. Love that. All
right. All right. Let's get that. What's
more? Is there any more on the list that we missed? What's what's what what's Oh
we missed? What's what's what what's Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. Yeah. There's
my gosh. Oh my goodness. Yeah. There's
there's something really interesting about like I'll give you like a little fun one. This is a just a weird thing
fun one. This is a just a weird thing we're noticing, right? So when you put like a seven paragraph query into chat GBT, okay? Right. It's like super long,
GBT, okay? Right. It's like super long, super detailed. The the interesting
super detailed. The the interesting thing about that query is that that's that's not the actual query that chat GPT uses, right? You're going to ask like, I want the best men's running shoe because I've decided to start taking up
marathon running and I'm going to run every Saturday and I want to run six miles. What's the best shoe for me? And
miles. What's the best shoe for me? And
Chatty PT is going to read that and be like, cool, thanks. All right, the search is going to be best men's running shoe 2025.
That's the search. You don't own the search. Your query is not the actual
search. Your query is not the actual search that ChatGpt performs. So what you're optimizing for is what ChatGpt decides that you're searching for.
ChatGBT will take your big paragraphs and it it decides, all right, I'm going to pass best men's running shoes 2025 to the Bing API and get those results.
That's like huge, like crazy, right? But
even crazier is that between 40 to 60% of the time, chat dbt chooses to append the year term 2025 to the end of any of its searches. Can we see what the
its searches. Can we see what the implication is? It means that pages with
implication is? It means that pages with the title tag that have 2025 in them, with the URL slug that has 2025 and metad descriptions that have the literal, you know, 2025, the characters
directly in them simply get cited more often, rank better, and are more influential in AI search simply based on the inclusion of the term 2025 because
that's what chat GBT is trained to send off to the Bing API. Huge. Damn, you're
killing it, brother. All right, so I love that. So, but the thing is here,
love that. So, but the thing is here, uh, I mean, I I understand the 2025 part, but, like putting in the URL is kind of like as an SEO, you know, that's something that we don't do. We just
don't we just don't want to do that. But
but but you're saying it it is even people are still like the ones that are putting the year in there are actually Oh, wow. That's that that's creates a
Oh, wow. That's that that's creates a It's a painful trade-off because you're going to be you're going to be 301 redirecting that next year. It's just a whole thing. It's terrible. Or you have
whole thing. It's terrible. Or you have to come up with a new one. But it's um you know it does work right now. It does
work like Got it. Got it. That's some of the some of the stuff is like these the folks who built chat GBT are very it's not that they're you know some people say it's they're irreverent to SEO. I
don't think that's the case. I think
they the real the chatbt rag mechanism is really just an academic tool that's meant to be performant. Like they're not thinking about overoptimizers like us.
They're not thinking about like what SEOs are going to do with it. They're
thinking, "How can I make a performant rag methodology that like accurately gets websites?" And so they're like,
gets websites?" And so they're like, "Yeah, of course we're going to append 2025 to the end of 40 to 60 60% of search queries because duh, like we want recent results." When someone asks,
recent results." When someone asks, "What's the best restaurant?" They want the best restaurant this year. Like
that'd be great. Um the implications are that like there's just like there's going to be baked in biases in some of those searches. Yeah, it's interesting.
those searches. Yeah, it's interesting.
I love that. Okay. What about let's say internal links and like the content depth of of things? like what what what are your thoughts on that? You think
this is playing with with LMS and internal links are interesting. I don't
think the link so it's really interesting if you're doing backlinks and backlink strategy. I don't think the link itself matters besides uh being like a pointed like a point of interest
in the HTML like the answer engine can see the HTML. It's like, oh, that's cool. There's a link there. But more
cool. There's a link there. But more
importantly, the word being there, the semantic word of like, if I wanted, if I was Nike and I wanted Nike to appear in a listical and they were like, well, we can only give you a mention of the brand name Nike. We're not going to give you a
name Nike. We're not going to give you a link to your homepage for whatever reason. Sure. I would still be happy
reason. Sure. I would still be happy with that because semantically we still appear and the answer engine's going to see us roughly in the same way.
Got it. Got it. So, speaking of listicles, what do you I mean, I think that's the most common that's the most common tactic I feel like everyone's been talking about, right? Like, hey,
just create a listical uh create a best article and throw your throw your uh company in there and you'll get reference. I mean, uh give us some what
reference. I mean, uh give us some what are your thoughts on that? I mean, is it working? Is it I mean, do you see this
working? Is it I mean, do you see this just being abused or what what are your thoughts on this? It's working and I do see this as being abused. That's
correct. You're correct. as with
anything in SEO, this is like the this is what's in vogue right now, you know, like there's always that strategy that like everyone gives the side eye because yeah, it's going to work. And the
question really is like how well, how long, and like like how deeply like I think right now 30 we have a data set of 177 million citations. Like if you've
caught my Brighton SEO presentation, uh yeah, I know, right? Crazy. It's like
super it's a massive scale. We know that listicles account for 32.9% of all citations, which is the most cited single group of content. The second most
to show you how big the gap is between number one and two. Second most cited piece of content is all blog and opinion pieces at 9%. So it's a huge chasm. It's
like the chasm is massive between your listicles. So the reason lists work is
listicles. So the reason lists work is because answer engines there's a few things. One, answer engines are trying
things. One, answer engines are trying to create a marketplace out of answers.
In the answer engine ideal world, the way that these little guys think about the world, they want every brand to basically create a page that compares its products to all other competing relevant products. So that when a user
relevant products. So that when a user says, "What's the best men's running shoe?" The answer engine doesn't have to
shoe?" The answer engine doesn't have to go to Nike to Puma, to Adidas, to, you know, whatever any of scan through all the PDPs and form its
own opinion. it can just steal kind of
own opinion. it can just steal kind of this like marketplace results that is just like this source of truth and say all right I'm gonna pull number one two three off of Billy's list here and then
send that to the user and say the best one is the Nike Airfly 6 and the Hoka you know like the Hoka 7s or whatever and these are the best friends running shoes here's my source and you click it
and it's like the exact same thing but that's because the answer are lazy so there's this pressure towards marketplaces and then I think secondarily there's this world where you
know answer engines are trying to um you know create consensus I guess I would say is like they the reason this new there's there's this new strategy that
people have been talking about where you create a listicle you put your brand as position number one in the listicle and you create a LinkedIn pulse article oh yeah that is the exact same thing it's the yeah it's this classic strategy
because it it exploits kind of both of these things at the same time of like you're creating this marketplace place and because you're doing it on multiple sources, they look like they are two distinct sources of truth that are
aligning with each other and the answer engine there in is like great, this is the truth in the industry. I'm going to forward this on. This will ch I think this will change. I think this will change in the long term, but I think
right now it's it's not a bad idea for people to at least test out to see, hey, what what can we do for our brand at least with one or two listicles, you know, let's just try it. Let's see. And
worst case scenario, I mean, it's not like we're trying to drive that much traffic with the listicles. We're really
trying to drive influence and visibility. So, it's an interesting
visibility. So, it's an interesting strategy. I think listicles really are
strategy. I think listicles really are um really like the the the Cadillac of AI search uh content right now. Maybe
soon to be like maybe soon to be like a a beat up old like Chevy eventually, but you know, we'll see. There we go. There
we go. Okay, guys. We're coming close to the end here. If you guys have any questions, be sure to ask them before I ask the last my last few questions here.
But let's let's I mean I'm not sure I mean are you able to kind of show I mean cuz I've actually been talking about profound on my show like letting people know like you know this is the one that people are actually um well at least what enterprise companies are using for
to like you know track searches and stuff like that. Are you able to kind of give us like a like a quick like inside look of how what it does by sharing your screen? You bet. You kidding? Yeah,
screen? You bet. You kidding? Yeah,
absolutely. Let's do it. Oh yeah. Okay.
Go ahead and share your screen. I'd love
to demo it. All right. Yeah, let's I'll jump in and share. Let me see. Uh I'm
going to pick me do let me do one here. I'm going to pick a configuration here that looks pretty nice and it'll be we'll do corporate credit cards. I love corporate credit
credit cards. I love corporate credit cards. It's the one I love to use. All
cards. It's the one I love to use. All
right. Here we go. Screen sharing. Let's
do it. Let's jump in. All right. Welcome
to Profound, everybody. Um I'm going to jump right in. Profound is a tool that you know, as you know, we're monitoring answers across each of these major answer engines at the moment.
Perplexity, CHBT, AI overviews, co-pilot. Uh we're tracking any of the
co-pilot. Uh we're tracking any of the topics that you decide. These topics are just predetermined right now. We just
threw these topics in just to get an idea of, you know, some of this visibility. The first thing that we show
visibility. The first thing that we show in profound is your visibility score. So
your visibility score is the number the percentage of the time that you're actually showing up in AI answers. So
this is basically saying for AMX, you know, imagine your brand here, for your brand XYZ, you're showing up in 55.7% of all AI responses about your industry
as dictated by the topics that you put in. We run those topics. I mean, just
in. We run those topics. I mean, just over the last 7 days, we ran 6 and a half thousand prompts on behalf of AMX theoretically here. And you can even go
theoretically here. And you can even go in in our platform and audit each of the actual prompt like responses and completions and see or these are the actual citations that are influencing it and these are the brands that are
mentioned. Everything's also exportable
mentioned. Everything's also exportable which is really cool. We just released our API. We've got the ability to filter
our API. We've got the ability to filter down into your different topic areas.
I'll make this real quick. You can see each of your different topics. But I
think even even more cool, even more interesting, you could even go in and understand. So if MX came to us and
understand. So if MX came to us and said, you know, Josh, we need to win for this exact prompt. I need to know that MX will always be mentioned 100% of the
time for most effective corporate card credit corporate credit card options. We
can do that. We can show you that. So
right now, what I'm seeing, MX is 71% visible in Chat GBT for that prompt. MX
is literally always mentioned by Perplexity. It's got a ton of mentions
Perplexity. It's got a ton of mentions from AI overviews. It's not super mentioned by uh Microsoft Copilot. We
can see the completions and we can even see the citations. These are the sources of truth that influence what brands show up for this prompt. Being mentioned here
is the reason that MX's visibility is even so high in the first place. We can
go through all this like I mean we could show you by platform how visible you are by regions. And my favorite page of all
by regions. And my favorite page of all is the citations page. This is really where you start to build out that like here's the source of the truth. Here's
who who's influencing the narrative.
Here's the Nerd Wallet, right? Nerd, all
their top pages, which platforms get cited, uh which platforms site them, and then each of the individual pages along with analytics on how often you're mentioned in those pages. So, this one they're mentioned on. But hey, this Tech
Republic page is a great opportunity because AMX isn't even mentioned here, and it's the second most influential page in the entire corporate credit card world. And when we work worked with PR
world. And when we work worked with PR agencies, they come to us and they say, "What? Like, what? This list is so
"What? Like, what? This list is so different than anything that we've seen before, anything we've ever recommended a client because these these news articles are not your Forbes, not your New York Times, not your Business
Insiders. Totally different. I'm going
Insiders. Totally different. I'm going
to jump through this one last thing.
Okay, we got this really really cool new uh area of the platform we just released. It's called Conversation
released. It's called Conversation Explorer. This is the first This is the
Explorer. This is the first This is the industry's first real keyword volume tool. We are able to actually view real
tool. We are able to actually view real keyword volume from chat GPT in real time across a week by week for something like if I let me look at like Memorial
Day. Uhhuh. You'll see you'll see it'll
Day. Uhhuh. You'll see you'll see it'll peak during Memorial Day. It's great.
This is like my favorite little calibration to do. We'll jump in. We'll
started February. We'll go to June. We
look here. Boom. Memorial Day jumps up.
This is what people are actually searching on Chanty BT. This gives you the ability to prioritize everything that you're tracking. We have we put so much love and care into creating this
data set. This has been just like this
data set. This has been just like this is the pride this um yeah it's a really exciting product. How I mean is um can
exciting product. How I mean is um can someone can a can a customer just get access to that through an API or is this something that has to be part of the whole suite as you get this is part of the whole suite. This is one of the
newest features, so you have to be on the enterprise plan to get it. But if
you're interested, please, we'd love to demo you. Just reach out. I mean, we're
demo you. Just reach out. I mean, we're also super early stage, so there's plenty of room to try to get everybody in here. We want, we don't want to
in here. We want, we don't want to gatekeep AI visibility. Like, this is a space we believe every brand is going to need to get invested in. So, um, happy to demo, you know, anyone here. Just
jump in. Say you came from, you know, the show today. We'll get you in there on a demo. Oh, yeah. You heard that guys mentioned the SEO video show and you can get all this information demoed for you.
Uh I'm curious does it integrate with other pro uh software like Google search console searching screaming frog?
Yeah the plan is for let me see am I am I on camera here? Am I visible here?
Yeah you can come back to come back on.
Let's see here. You get you let me get back on here as well. So yeah. All
right. So uh we have a we have a quick question here uh from the audience. How
does profound deal with the complexity of actual LLM queries as opposed to old way of tracking keywords?
Yeah, for the for the conversation explorer, basically what we're doing is we're clustering those topics up into those like parent topics. So everything
related like we just started this tracking, we get a we get tens of millions of queries every single month piped into our system. So the way that we're basically doing it is like everything about Memorial Day is
basically ascribed up into this like topic level kind of parent phrase match version of it. And then every variation is just encapsulated. But I think with honestly with tracking longtail prompts,
you really need to be flexible. You need
to have a lot of grace for the differences and how those prompts are going to manifest. And so it's still something that I think the industry is working out. Like I think right now the
working out. Like I think right now the broader the match the better. Like if
you're trying to track keywords in AI search, you're really going to look for you know the relative like how often that keyword is mentioned per query, how important it is as the subject of some of the sentences. Like we we basically
use a bunch of different models to identify like out of a seven paragraph question, what's the real keyword there?
It's a it's a really interesting infrastructure. We got we got great data
infrastructure. We got we got great data scientists doing some work there. Love
it. Love it. This is the last question here from the audience. What has HubSpot been seeing works as the search landscape is changing? Oh man, it's been
a while since I've been at HubSpot, but what I could say is that I believe that they are some of the most cracked SEOs out there. I think what
they are doing and their adaptability to the space is I think they're probably g I mean I know that they're meeting the moment with tons of different types of
content things like micro apps. Shout
out to Amanda Copen who's leading the micro apps over there. Understanding
that people are looking for experiences that do things and really getting ingrained into products and and really high quality experiences in a way that an LLM can't even replicate itself. I
think that's the future of your top of funnel. It's like how do we even beat
funnel. It's like how do we even beat the LLMs at the experience side? Oh, I
love that. Love that. Great things to think about there. Okay, so we are actually at time. Um I we pretty much covered a lot of things here, guys. And
uh if for I mean for this last question I ask a professional to come on here. If
someone want to get into the SEO game, become an SEO professional themselves, what would your advice be to them? Oh
man, I hope you haven't heard this before, but just start testing stuff.
Just start breaking stuff, especially in AI search. All you can do is break stuff
AI search. All you can do is break stuff right now. Um, I know that's probably
right now. Um, I know that's probably super common. I think the advice I got
super common. I think the advice I got that really started me on my path was to create a site. Create a site and see how you can populate that site. With AI
search, the pickup times are like on the scale of days. You could ostensibly create a personal website, brand yourself as, you know, the world's best version of whatever your title is, put a
LinkedIn pulse out there, and see the results the next day. Like, do it. Try
it. It's incredible. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. I did just that. If you search um who is the YouTube SEO king or who is the king of YouTube SEO, you I threw up a quick site was ranking within 24 hours in AIO and AI mode. So, check that out guys if you want to check out the test.
I'm actually running live a live case study if you want to search that. Who is
the YouTube SEO king or who is the king of YouTube SEO? All right. So, uh for the for this episode to feel complete for you, uh how can people get a hold of you? Any last comments for the audience
you? Any last comments for the audience out there? Yeah, email me at
out there? Yeah, email me at joshattrifound.com.
joshattrifound.com.
That's my best spot. I mean, honestly, if you just get in touch with Profound and ask to talk to me. Uh, we're we're still a small lean team. We've got about 25 30 of us. We can chat. There you go.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn, you know, connect with me, talk. I mean, right now we're at the stage where we just want to be we want to be talking to everybody.
It's a really interesting space. We just
want to talk about it. It's a great place to share. We're happy to share with you. So excited. All right. Love
with you. So excited. All right. Love
it. Love it. I definitely um everyone, let's give a round of applause.
All right, Josh, can you hold on for one quick second? Hold on for one quick
quick second? Hold on for one quick second. Yes. All right, guys. That
second. Yes. All right, guys. That
concludes another episode of the SEO video show. Don't forget to like,
video show. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell. And don't forget to visit our
bell. And don't forget to visit our sponsor, magicipr.com. And don't forget
sponsor, magicipr.com. And don't forget to check out my live case study on AI optim AI AI overviews and AI mode. Uh just search
uh who is the king of YouTube SEO or who is the YouTube SEO king. Until next
time, I'll see you guys next week. Peace
out.
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