Transcription
So, AI search is booming, but SEO is still not dead. Huh, interesting.
What's going on everybody? David Feldman, MRI, and in this video, we're going to dive more into this topic. Again, we're here to serve car dealers, local businesses, and e-commerce brands and beyond. And let's talk about I mean we've already had some videos that talk about the difference of that and we'll have much more to come but I want to talk about why if you have an SEO team why they are very well equipped to lead you into the AI future for your business. We'll get on some of the the common um the common solutions there. But the one thing I found pretty interesting right was actually here in the article. I'm not going to go through the whole article, but I thought again this is interesting.
Why SEO teams are the most qualified to help companies with AI search? As we learn more about how AI search works and how LLM work. What's an LLM? It's a large language model. How they retrieve and synthesize information becomes clear that many of the same tactics that generate AI search visibility turn out to be common SEO approaches. So this is what we're finding is that it's still search, right? Everything is still search.
So let me give an example. All right, so check this out. I changed my location to Dallas, Texas. I opened up an incognito window and I search more of a longterm or a longtail search query. Where can I get the best car deal on a new Ford truck? And what does it give me? Gives me AI overview, right? I mean, here I got vehicle ads right below. And we talk a lot about vehicle ads or uh formerly vehicle listing ads on this channel. I think they'll really be known and ingrained as VAS. Technically, they are VAS, but that's so like VA could be virtual assistant and all this other stuff. Whatever. It's a vehicle ad. So, we'll use VAS and VALAs interchangeably. I'm getting off on a tangent. That's not the subject of this video, but you have those ads here. But this is really what's going to dominate search. We need to focus on this, right? And we're using a car dealer example.
So, what does it say? To get the best deal on a new Ford truck in the Dallas area, consider visiting dealerships like Planet Ford Dallas, Lovefield, Town East Ford, and FiveStar Ford Dallas. These dealerships are known for their large inventories, competitive pricing, and special offers, including those during Ford truck month. So, and then when I open it up, it gives me a nice list here, right? It actually tells me explore the dealerships. So, it gives me a list of dealers to explore, look for special offers, and then consider your needs, and then negotiate, right? So, and then when I click on things here, you'll find that um you have the sources of information over here. Okay. So, if I click on this, if I click here, this is actually going to bring me to a Google search of planet 4. Notice it doesn't bring me to the website. Okay, this link here brought me to another Google search. You can see in this little URL when I hover over it, it actually brings me to another Google search. I don't actually go to the individual store website until I click here. So now if I click this because this is one of the sources new for truck month deals in Texas Baytown Ford I can open that and that actually takes me right to this page right so again where can we where can we be found on AI overviews so let's look explore dealerships so this might be local based it it knows Google's Gemini knows that these stores are actually in the locality Right. But then it says, "Look for special offers. Where can I get the best car deal in a new Ford truck?" Google's Gemini is understanding that when we look for special offers, we want to actually look for specials or car deals, it's more synonymous. So, the first one says, "For truck month. During Ford truck month, typically in March, you can find special incentives and offers on new Ford trucks like the F-150, potentially including no payments for 90 days, low APR financing, and bonus cash. Interesting little snippet. Okay, so where's the link to that? This is new Ford truck month deals in Texas Baytown, right? That's the one I just opened. So, when I open this page, what does it have? It has Ford truck month. View current offers. Take advantage of new Ford truck deals with truck month in Baytown. At Baytown Ford, we know you're always looking for a good deal on a new Ford truck like the F-150 Ranger Ford Superduty with more popular trucks than ever throughout our Ford truck lineup. This year's Ford truck month may be the best yet. What is truck month? It gives me a little explanation of it. Um, simple terms, your best chance to earn big savings on new Ford trucks. For new truck buyers, it's the excitement of Christmas with the anticipation of New Year's. Interesting. When can you save on a new Ford truck? But look at this. This purple highlight. I didn't highlight this. This is what what Gemini is showing that it pulls. Truck month incentives. You'll find a range of great incentives and offers on the new Ford truck models during Ford Truck Month 2025. Deals on the popular Ford F-150. No payments for 90 days. 4.9% APR for 60 up to 1,500 bonus cash. Complimentary maintenance. But look at this. Truck month ends March 31st. So, I mean, this really isn't that accurate. Like, deals in in dealer speak change all the time, right? So, if I look at this again, even though Gemini pulls this as one of the top sources for looking for special offers, it actually says typically in March, it's it's trying to get information, but it's knowing that this isn't the most recent information, but it still pulls it. Again, Google looks for relevancy. So, this shows me that there's a big content opportunity to create in our websites to better rank for AI searches. And it could be as simple as writing a couple paragraphs on your inventory pages to help enhance the rank, right? So, again, these are the applications, right? These are the little itty bitty applications that we can do to help improve improve our marketing and improve our site, right? Um, and it's going to be in the realm of content creation.
So, let's go back to the article. So, the reason I highlight common SEO approaches, I mean, this is an old school SEO approach. Just write a little snippet here and then hook it onto an inventory page and that's what you have. I don't think it's the best user experience, but from a marketing standpoint, it actually worked and it ranked and you got more impressions. I don't even believe this is a great example of content creation, but that's I think a a level of opportunity that there is in the market. No one really is providing a true content strategy for dealer websites right now and overall websites to answer the common questions. And that's why even this in my opinion crappy example or I shouldn't say crappy but basic example of content creation and even with you know well-outdated offers because it's August right now that's why that's ranking for this search query. So there's so much opportunity to do this the right way and it is common SEO approaches that AI is going to pull from.
So let's keep going. If anyone is uniquely skilled and seasoned navigating daily changes, it's unquestionably SEO professionals. Yes, SEO professionals have to manage and and do a bunch of different things. Here are some of the most commonly cited tactics I've seen recommended as magic bullets for AI search visibility and why they are really just standard SEO approaches. Focus on conversational longtail searches generated during the query fanout process. What does that mean? Sure, many tools and methods exist to either directly collect and or emulate the new query fanout process used by LLMs, particularly in Google's AI mode. Some of these tools even pull the keywords directly from Google Chrome dev tools during chatbt searches would provide incredible insights. So that's essentially what this whole paragraph means is like um how Google is is actually Google and chatgbt like where are they pulling out their spread of information from. It's true that query fanout uses new technology to generate relevant questions based on intent, personalization, localization, and more. Fundamentally, SEOs have been doing this type of query research for years. Didn't we all obsess over conversational search with the rise of voice search? Didn't we start to include speakable markup in our conversational content? Haven't we used longtail keyword research generation tools like Answer the Public around 2016? Yeah, we totally have. So it's almost like the more we look at this SEO is needed for AI for as AI search and it's really understanding um it's really understanding like the big picture items and I think it's um a matter of I think it's a matter of being able to I always like this what's the small hinge that's going to swing the big door right and that quote is borrowed from Kas Muslam who I've gotten a lot So, it's not my quote, but I love it. Small hinge that swings the big door. What's the small little itty bitty micro change we can do that's going to have the biggest impact, right? And I know that for our business, for my business, posting content regularly has done that. And focusing on a niche and focusing on on concentration that has worked and we don't have to worry about search queries and in, you know, um in chat GBT or Gemini or whatever. We just understand what our customer wants.
So if we keep going down for this multimodal search, it's kind of interesting. One important aspect of AI search is that LLMs, again, what's an LLM? An LLM is large language models, AI system designed to understand and generate humanlike text. So it's like a like a almost like a human brain and how it associates, right? So large language models can process and understand information from images, videos and audio not just text meaning that AI search is multimodal. So that again when we think about content creation the content creation really needs to be very strategic in the fact that you know it's not just written words on a page like when we look at this this is just written words on a page and it ranked it ranked inside this AI overview here these are written words on a page but a Imagine if we had a video explaining what truck month meant. Imagine if we had that type of content creation, that level. Imagine what that would do for, I don't know, for the whole industry, right? We have to be able to execute on those little finite items. And once we're able to do that, once you had like a full content page that actually explains all the offers, updates every month, is regular, and has a video explanation about it too, so people can see all this different stuff, Google's going to recognize that, and Google's going to, and you know, not just Google, but Gemini, Chat, GBT, whatever. They're going to recognize that and and be all over it, right? So, it's really about consistent content creation and coming up with that content creation strategy. Um, I think that's the ultimate game changer, right? The ultimate game changer. Like we can read in all this stuff and it's great. You know, there's multimodal and this and that and blah blah blah blah, but like I think that, you know, this image, it's it's pretty interesting. Phase one, create content. Phase two question. Phase three, profit. The content distribution playbook, own channels, email, inapp, social channels, on-site banner, sales outreach, social media, other channels. Like, look at all this stuff. SEO has been nudging us toward optimizing images, creating video transcripts, ensuring audio content is accessible. Just kind of skimming here. Um, digital PR. I've heard a lot of this. Suddenly brand mentions in entity authority are buzzwords for AI search. LLM prioritize information from credible well-referenced sources. I've heard a lot about digital PR and it's like getting the name out there across a bunch of different items. I mean that's essentially like backlinking back in the day, but it's still important. So I don't know. I think that here content optimization. This one's almost crucial. Some of the new advice I've seen for LM friendly content. Write clearly. Direct directly answer questions. Use FAQs and Q&A. Structure. Use structured headings. Break content into readable chunks and passages. Focus on entities. Provide scannable bullet points. Cite your sources. Sound familiar? Yeah. Well, yeah. It's an updated version of the same advanced SEOs, same advice SEO have been given for on page optimization for decades. The content that performs best in AI overviews or chatbot responses often precisely the content that was already optimized for feature snippets people also ask FAQs and Q&As's. So what is this essentially saying? It's essentially saying you need a content strategy more than ever. And we believe in content building. Content building, consistent, well-thought-out, well-developed content building is the way of the future. The idea that we have and that we're developing is how can we provide a piece of uniquely rich good content every single day. Because when you do that and you focus on a niche and you focus on a problem solution and you have the brand authority and you redo that, you will have over time you will own a segment of it. You will own that market of it. That's the way to do it. And that's the content marketing strategy that I think will win. And right now it's like, you know, my business, we've been so focused on paid ads and owning the paid ads. And I think there's a place for it. But if you're really going to dominate search from now until the next decade or so, you have to have a really good content strategy, right? And my dog agrees cuz she's crawling, but that's in all seriousness, you know, like we can summarize all this stuff, but essentially it's you got to have good content. Let's make it simple. You got to have good content.
So, when we think about AI plus SEO, what's your content strategy look like? What's your content strategy look like? If you don't know, that's okay. Comment me. I'll help you and my team will help you. Even if you're not a client of ours, I just we love this stuff. And feel free to comment if you're if you're confused or you don't know where to start or maybe you're starting too much and you need to pull back in. Let me know in in in the comments. I'd be happy to help direct that.
So, um, yeah, we kind of went off on a tangent a lot, but if we circle back, AI search is booming, but SEO is still not dead. That's because common SEO principles are going to directly lead into AI search, right? And everybody's going to try and figure out the one little thing to help with AI, but what I've seen is do the basics and fundamentals correctly with content creation, which is a staple of SEO, and you'll win in AI search. That's my end of rant for now. David Feldman Marrius. We'll talk to you guys real soon.