The AI Marketer's Playbook

26 | AI, SEO, and the Future of Search with Anna York

• Audrey Chia, Anna York • Season 1 • Episode 26

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How is AI revolutionizing search engine optimization? Marketing consultant Anna York joins The AI Marketer’s Playbook to break down the biggest shifts in SEO— from AI-powered research tools to optimizing content for conversational search engines like ChatGPT. Host Audrey Chia and Anna discuss LinkedIn SEO, AI-driven content automation, and how businesses can use AI agents to uncover valuable search trends. Plus, Anna shares why generic AI-generated content won’t cut it anymore and how brands can make their content more human and engaging. 

If you want to stay ahead in the digital marketing game, this episode is a must-listen!

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Audrey:

Hello and welcome back to the AI Marketers Playbook, where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI and marketing strategies in your business. I'm Audrey Chia, your host, and today I have with me Anna York. Now, Anna is a marketing consultant Who is at the forefront of integrating AI into search engine optimization, specializing in both SEO and AI. Anna has developed innovative AI agents that are transforming traditional SEO processes through advanced automation and intelligent analysis. Now, Anna, I am so excited to have you on the show. Welcome.

Anna:

Yes. Thank you, Audrey. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here with you. This is actually my first podcast. So yeah, let's see how it's going.

Audrey:

I am super excited that Anna is having her first podcast with us. And I am absolutely honored. Now, Anna, for people who don't know you, what do you do and how did you get into the world of AI?

Anna:

Yeah, sure. Let me introduce myself quickly. well, I'm a digital marketing consultant. and I help SMBs, so small and business, small and medium business owners to find, a marketing strategy that works for them and bring in revenue. And I also help them at the same time using smart AI technologies to automate some of their repetitive tasks. So yeah, that they can free up their time and concentrate on valuable business stuff. And, yeah, well I've been doing this since almost eight years now.

Audrey:

Wow,

Anna:

And yeah, I also have a little marketing e commerce agency as well, but maybe later something more. And, yeah, I have a strong background in SEO and yeah, I'm, I think SEO is changing rapidly, But yeah, let's talk about it later.

Audrey:

Well, awesome to hear. And I think, Anna, Like what you said, right? You have a digital marketing experience and yet you are really leaning into AI. So how did that change come about? Because not everyone has leaned into AI, you know, as much as you have.

Anna:

No, no, I think because, I started my career working with startups and startups are very innovative and always have a tiny budget for marketing. and, There are a lot of tools out there for marketing, but they are all expensive. So, and I was always on the search for marketing tools that were inexpensive, so that also startups can use them. And, I guess it's now two years. It's been, yeah, it's been now two years since I discovered ChatGPT And, I saw a huge opportunity, for a lot of businesses to combine, their marketing with ChatGPT because ChatGPT is such a powerful tool and you can, yeah, treat it like a, like a personal assistant, like your personal marketing, Marketing team assistant. I don't know. So, yeah, this is how I started.

Audrey:

Wow, I would love to know, Anna, so like you say, right, chat GPT has been almost like a game changer when you first, you know, found that tool. Were you intimidated or afraid, you know, at the power of AI or were you excited about that?

Anna:

Oh, I, I was, I was excited. I was, oh my God. I think I couldn't sleep for the first two days because I saw, yeah, I saw, it's a lot of potential. I saw it already and I thought, Oh my God, this is. The current version and, they said already that they have something more, but behind the scenes. And I was thinking, Oh my God, if this is just the standard version that, is now coming out. and after a few months they were launching, I think the version 2 and it was even more powerful. So I already saw a lot of opportunities. yeah.

Audrey:

Wow. That's amazing to hear. I think even for myself, right. My very first prompt for ChatGPT was, write a script for Nike. And I wanted to see like what kind of ads it would create. And wow, at version 1, I was like, it's doing really, really well already. And that's also how I knew that. There was so much potential to be unlocked with AI in terms of like content marketing and of course the SEO. But Anna, tell us more about the world of SEO. Right? So for people who don't really know what SEO is, can you give us like a brief overview of what is it and how does it work?

Anna:

I always say SEO is it's called, search engine Optimization.

Anna York:

optimization

Anna:

and businesses. are, optimizing their website to be found on Google. For example, if you are looking for new shoes and you are searching for, let's say, red shoes for summer, so that websites and businesses can be found on Google. So then, it pops up and, of course the users gets curious and is going to click on the first. link.

Anna York:

Well,

Anna:

yeah, on the secondary side. So yeah, it's a kind of organic search optimization for businesses.

Audrey:

yeah, and I think it's

Anna:

yeah.

Audrey:

it's very important for businesses to use that. Right. So like what you said about visibility, getting your name out there, especially if you're a small business and maybe you don't have the budget to run ads. Then SEO, of course, is a great long term strategy for your brand. But Anna, how have you seen like SEO change over the past two years with AI? How has the whole landscape changed, Yeah,

Anna:

Yeah, we can start. I don't know how. Yeah. one thing, maybe we can start. I, one thing I always tell my clients is SEO is no longer just about keywords. In the past, it was all about finding keywords and, mention keywords as much as possible. But now it's about. More about, understanding, intent, the platform behavior and delivering value to where your audience is. spends their time. for example, if you're in e commerce, optimizing for marketplaces like Amazon or Pinterest might be just as important as, For Google, but for B2B brands, LinkedIn SEO is something people often overlook, but it can drive incredible, organic reach. And, yeah, let's, let's not forget about the video platforms like YouTube or TikTok. These aren't just entertainment hubs anymore. They are now where the purchasing decisions, happens. So this is, yeah, there it's, it's a huge change currently, and it's really evolving from like really just doing keyword research, being visible on, on, on, on Google. And now it's really changing to where is your audience and, find where your audience is and optimize for these kinds of channels.

Anna York:

And

Audrey:

Wow. And does it require a completely different strategy from the past? So it seems like social platforms are something that we need to be optimizing for.

Anna:

Yes, yes, definitely. I also would recommend just, you can also have a look at Facebook niche groups. you just need to find where, where, where is your, where is your client. Is he looking on Instagram? Is he looking on Facebook for a solution? Or is he even, I don't know, I don't know, busy on Reddit finding, a solution for his problem. So there, this is now widely spreaded And you need to find out, so you, you need to, you, you're kind of researcher and you need to find out where is my audience.

Audrey:

Wow, that is Super cool, right? Cause now you're viewing SEO as something that goes beyond just, you know, searching for the top keywords, but even thinking about what is that buyer psychology, what is their behavior, where they're at, and can AI be used to, you know, help us to identify these buyer intents?

Anna:

Yes, yes, definitely. Definitely. You have, you can have AI agents, and they are looking for, let's say search terms. We have, an AI agent and this AI agent is looking for, let's say, tailored questions on Reddit. So he's just scraping Reddit, and it's looking, oh, who else has this kind of pain point? And if, for example, 20 users have a similar pain point, he's scraping these comments and then we can work with these information and create content around it.

Audrey:

Wow, that is super cool. And it's like you're getting AI to do that research for you, right? Research that would otherwise have taken so much more time if you had to do it manually.

Anna:

Yes, yes, yes, you can. I mean, also another example, is, for example, AI tools, can now, analyze search trends or generate even content briefs or even identify internal linking opportunities and everything at scale. So, yeah. You you still need a human because the human needs to be the one who's overseeing everything, knowing when to refine it or when to adapt a strategy or when to make it personal. So it's, it's a combination of course, of both of AI and human, but yeah, AI tools are a big helper. And I think if you are not using them, it's a big disadvantage.

Audrey:

Definitely. I love what you said about that human AI approach, right? And how you're always adding the human back in the loop. Because even as a copywriter, I always emphasize that you cannot just rely on AI for now. You still need to have that human touch. that personalization. I'm really add that in, but Anna, you were saying, you're talking about AI agents as perhaps, you know, one way to do, research. What other practical ways can people use AI to do research? optimize their SEO processes?

Anna:

I think. I don't know what others are doing right now, but we are really trying to, to automate the research process. then we have the topic, which is quite, important. And then, we have, we, we still have copywriters here. and the copywriters are going more, deeply into the topic because, you cannot create generic content that doesn't work anymore and people don't like it also. It's, not, this is not valuable content and you cannot use it anymore. So you really need also, we call them subject matter experts. So they have a deep knowledge, for example, of healthcare. Then we team up with those copywriters and, yeah, create great content. And after we are getting the content back, we optimize it for SEO. partly we are using, tools, but we also have to check it manually afterwards. Especially if you have big customers and you have high rankings, you don't want to lose these top rankings. by, by not checking it. So

Audrey:

you mentioned something about how generic content isn't working right now, right? I want to double click into that. So when you talk about generic content, I know a lot of AI tools out there. Create SEO optimized copy. What are your thoughts on those types of tools and are their content actually generic or, you know, how would you approach it?

Anna:

Yeah, it depends. For example, if you want to create a glossary. a kind of Wikipedia for your business, then of course you can use these content writers because it's just a library where people are looking up words. Let's say you, you, you have a business and you don't know, what the term, product market fit means, then of course you can make a glossary and say, Hey, product market fit. This is blah, blah, blah. And the meaning et cetera. So therefore you can use, these content writing, tools. It's perfect for these kind of, content, but if you, want to create, for example, for a health care company kind of tips, how to lose weight. Then, of course, you have to check the pain point. What's the customer's pain point? What can you say? What what is not allowed to say? Not that you give tips that are not, how can I say this? They are not bringing the client a benefit. so you, therefore you, you, you need the, the, the, experts, so I, I see a difference. yes, you can use them for, for kind of glossaries and for normal content, yes, definitely. Or to, to rewrite content, this is also a kind of option, But, for your,

Anna York:

as

Anna:

I would say, for your core content, I, you can use them as a helper, Now you can create a blog outline, etc. but still there, you need a combination of both. In my opinion.

Audrey:

Yeah, that's a very interesting thought, right? because I think a lot of people now think that AI just generates content for you and, you know, you can just hack the system and create. Just lots and lots of content and put it out there. but I do hear you on the fact that you still need to have quality, especially for some pieces of content that is more industry specific and has that deep research needed. Otherwise, I think that the audience is smart and savvy enough to figure out that this is AI generated and they perhaps won't see as much value in that. Ha

Anna:

yes, for example, If you write a LinkedIn post with ChatGPT and you had Chad GPT act as a social media manager and write a piece of content for me. He, Chad, GPT, is still putting so many emojis into the text and if people only copy paste it into LinkedIn, I see immediately that this is written by chat, GPT, so yeah, Or also I, yeah, I, I, I see it. I still see it a lot. Yes.

Audrey:

Yes, and the value of that post immediately drops because people would assume that it's a, you know, a 10 second AI generated post, which inherently has no or little value. So I think adding that human touch, adding those stories will help. and I also heard from some SEO experts that we need to make the articles a lot more relevant, a lot more human. So what other ways can we make articles more human like,

Anna:

oh, that's quite easy. Just add your personal experiences, your failures, failures, but also your, your, your wins. What are your experience, experiences you made with the product or with the service? Just give them a kind of journey. What is working? What is not working? Give them valuable tips or shortcuts. For example, I tried 10 truths for content writing, but I figured out for this type of business, that one is the best, something like this, so that you speak from your real experiences. I think this, this is what people are also looking for.

Audrey:

Wow, And it's so simple, right? But it's something that people overcomplicate, right? sometimes just adding your own human touch, your personal stories can already increase like perhaps the relevancy of an article to your reader, but for a small business, just starting out and trying to figure out SEO, how would you recommend like breaking down the workflow for them in terms of Where should they think about using AI in their workflows, you know, for someone who is just starting out in SEO?

Anna:

Okay, so you mean, as a kind of business owner or as a kind of SEO beginner?

Audrey:

Yes, so for a business owner because a lot of our listeners, you know, they run small businesses But they may not know what is SEO and even How to use AI in that process. So what would be like a simple guide for them to think about steps that they can take? And then where can they actually use AI in the process?

Anna:

Okay, at first I can recommend, using some AI tools to help them. yeah, speed up, the SEO game. There are tools out there. that are incredible, easy to use, like, Surfer, for example, for content creation. but also, I mean, if you use SEMrush or Ahrefs and you only use the basic things, it's also okay, but you can, also use the, yeah, Google Search Console. Google Trends is also something I can recommend and these are all free tools. yeah, SEMrush and Ahrefs, no, they are paid tools, but, the Google tools are most, most of them are free. I think even all of them are free if I can, yeah, all of them are free. So, and I would just, Look, or try to have a look at, at their competitor and check what they are doing and see what is working and what is not working. And I would concentrate, focus on what's working for them and make it better. So this would be a kind of fast lane approach. Another way is, it really depends on the business. I, for example, if I, if I would sell, I don't know, hmm, what's hip at the moment, I think help healthy, drinks, Then I would check where is my audience. if my audience, for example, is on Instagram and on TikTok,

Anna York:

TikTok,

Anna:

I would focus on creating a great social media presence because it doesn't make any sense now to create a lot of content to rank high on Google. It would make more sense to have a great social media presence and attract those social media visitors. I would attract them to my website so that they are coming from social media to my store. This is also cost effective and I think you would see results much faster than going the traditional way Yeah,

Audrey:

about how much time you want to be spending on each platform and maybe where your audience is at. So if you're an e commerce business or like an energy drinks, you know, business. You might want to be where social media is, where people are at, and that could be a much more interesting strategy. Now, I also know you mentioned something about LinkedIn SEO. This is something that not many people talk about. Could you shed a bit of light about what on earth is LinkedIn SEO and how does

Anna:

also discovered this by incident because, I was googling, perplexity. Something with perplexity. How can I do keyword research with perplexity? And one of my posts came up on Google and I was thinking like, what?

Audrey:

Wow,

Anna:

And, then I, found out that if you optimize your text, For example, your topic is keyword research with perplexity. And let's say you mentioned three times the word keyword research and also in the comments, a lot of people who are commenting something about keyword research. Google is actually, Yeah, how can I say this? See this as, authority content and you will appear also in the search, yeah, in the searches. So, yeah, this is also a great way to come up, for example, for consultants, if they have a service, like, I don't know, we can take copywriting again and they, share valuable, content about copywriting. And. Other people are engaging on this content. You're coming up on Google. If you, if you search something about copywriting. So this

Audrey:

Wow, it's so powerful. I didn't know that. And I think this is like, perhaps really important for business owners, founders, you know, consultants who are leveraging their personal brand, right? If people on LinkedIn are searching for you, that's great. But if people on Google are searching for, you know, a solution and you appear, that's even better, right? Because you're already. Ranking there without putting in too much work. So that's super cool. And I would, I there's a question that I will have been thinking about, right? Because, you know, people are starting to search more on perhaps AI platforms like chatGPT and they're using it like a search engine. With that, how do brands start optimizing for an AI search platform? And is SEO gonna be different on an AI search engine versus, you know, the traditional one?

Anna:

Yes, yes, yes. It is. and I'm also really excited about it. So these large language models like ChatGPT, can become quite powerful, because we, we, we are also now seeing, that these tools transform how people inter, inter interact with search engines. And, And it's also a huge opportunity for brands. For example, when people use ChatGPT, or a similar tool, they are not just searching for a website, for a website, they are looking for answers, explanations and solutions all in one response. And as a business, you need to think about how your product or service shows up in these AI driven conversations. So, how can you optimize? For those, for these LLMs, I would say you can use KimaMarker. This is a type of structured data that helps search engines and AI to understand the context of your content. And by, By making up your product pages, and your blog posts, et cetera, you are giving, chat GBT clearer singers to understand your content and you can present it as an answer in a conversa conversational search. so, I would say try to, build pages on your website. That is chat GPT friendly.

Audrey:

Wow Wow This is gonna be like a new task for many businesses, right? As we enter into this new age where like AI is now the new search engine. and with that in mind, like how do businesses do that? So basically is it like, figuring out questions that people will ask on ChatGPT and creating content around it?

Anna:

yes. It's like, for example, how can I say this? people speak differently than they type. So, if you're looking for hot, for example, for, for, running sneakers, in a hot, for, for hot weather. you should have an FAQ on the bottom, bottom of your product page that answers these questions. Like, are these shoes also, Suitable for hot weathers and then you can you can even create this text with with a with a AI content writing tool and then you need to to explain it. Yes. These are also running shoes for hot weather because. And so, and, because ChatGPT, is then pulling this information out of the product page. I don't know if I can explain it, like,

Audrey:

yes, it

Anna:

you understand what I mean? Okay. Yeah. So you still need to provide a lot of content on your website to get into these LLL large language models. So it's still essential.

Audrey:

Wow. So actually it's really figuring out questions and conversational questions that people will ask and then answering them in also a conversational way, in which chatGPT can pull responses from. So in a sense, it's really digging even deeper into their consumer psychology and figuring out how are they having these conversations? what are they asking and what do people care about?

Anna:

Yes, exactly, exactly. and the best way is also to have a kind of tool where you can interview, your customers and you just record it. You know, then, because people are natural, if, if they speak freely, they, yeah, you can pick up the words they use or the phrases they use.

Anna York:

So.

Anna:

yeah, this might be some idea how to catch the phrases from them.

Audrey:

And another interesting thing that, you know, might be something that people are excited about in this space is AI voice search, right? this is something that is up and coming as well. Tell us more about, you know, your thoughts on AI voice search and will it also affect SEO in like a, in a huge way? Hmm.

Anna:

something that's. that's been really game changing, I think, because, yeah, it's like, yeah. finally, the smarts because like Alexa. is working. I don't know, 10 years or five years ago, Alexa was like, okay, still super buggy, but now, yeah, it, it, it improved significantly. And voice search, is now a significant part of how people search online. for example, yeah, instead of Type, we we, we had this example, instead of typing best sneakers for running, someone might ask, what are, what are the best sneakers for running in hot weather?

Audrey:

Hmm.

Anna:

and this shift in in search behavior means you need to focus on optimizing for this conversional keywords.

Audrey:

Yes.

Anna York:

And,

Anna:

And this is also why I can recommend to focus then on long tail keywords. Long tail means a long phrase. So, because, yeah, people, people, how can I say this, people, speak just differently than their title. So, optimizing for these long tail, long tail keywords, yeah, would, would give you a huge benefit.

Audrey:

Yeah. Yeah, that is super interesting. I, I also realized that the AI, like, voice function has improved dramatically. In Singapore, there are a lot of people who also speak with different languages and different accents, and the amazing thing is, like, AI is able to pick that up so accurately, which is mind blowing.

Anna:

Yes. Yes. Yes. This is also something, something I experienced here because we here in Germany, we have also different accents. and if you're in Bavaria in the south of German, Germany, they speak, yeah, it's still the same language, but within the different kind of

Audrey:

accent

Anna:

and Alexa is not always getting it. But now, in, I don't know, since half a year or one year, Alexa is also understanding these kind of accents. And this is great.

Audrey:

It has been super cool to see the progress of AI, and I also cannot wait to see, like, what else is to come. Now, speaking of that, Anna, what do you think the future of SEO could look like for us?

Anna:

I think, It will be more multi channel SEO.

Anna York:

SEO.

Anna:

You will not just optimize for Google alone. You will optimize for, yeah, really where your audience, is online. If your audience is online on, TikTok, you're going to optimize your TikTok. Um, And, yeah, I think you also need to think of smarter strategies. For example, I also have a client and we, created a tool, a free tool. it was a kind of free background remover. So if you, you can upload an image and it automatically removes the background. yeah, back then it was a great, great tool. Nowadays also Canva is doing it, but back in these days it was great. And, so people were searching for, background remover image, I don't know, something like this, and the tool was coming up. And this also was driving a lot of traffic to their site. So I'm also a big fan of these kind of strategies, because then you don't have to create a lot of content. But again, it depends on your business and on your strategy and how much budget you have. But, yeah, if you can, if you go for this strategy, it also, yeah, gives you a huge advantage. So there are a lot of opportunities. it's, definitely not going to be boring.

Audrey:

Yeah, I think it's going to be a super exciting space for SEO, for content, for marketing. I think it's going to change so dramatically with AI and we have to keep up with it. You know, as people practicing in the field, people working with clients, I think this is something that We definitely have to keep a pulse on, otherwise we might get left behind. and, and for, for people, for example, for you and your clients, right. how have you seen AI help them to build their business? Do you have any like case studies or like real life examples of clients you've worked with? And how has AI been a part of that process?

Anna:

We implemented a lot of, a lot of, how can I say this content automation processes for blog posts. And, we, created an automation that, pulls, information, from, from, it depends sometimes it's Airtable, sometimes it's, Google Drive, So, there are, there are some information, we send it to, to JetJPT, JetJPT is creating content. out of it. someone's going to check it, approve it, and we are going to publish it. So, this is streamlining, the Stream Slams, the content, production, I would say, But, more importantly, I think this is around automation, but there are two kind of different use cases, automation and AI agents and AI agents. We normally use only in house, we don't give it to the customer because sometimes they cannot, they don't know how to use it. So you still need, a kind of basic knowledge, how to use them and what to do with them. So, these AI agents are our research agents. They search the web, what's new, what's trending, what can be, great for this business. is, is extracting the data, sending an email to us, with the new topics, which might be relevant for the, for this business. And we are creating content around it. Yeah.

Audrey Chia:

interesting

Audrey:

hear you talk about automation and then AI as Two different things. A lot of people mix it up, right? And they think it's one

Anna:

Yeah. No, no, it's not the same. No, no.

Audrey:

And like what you said, it's a combination of both, right? You have AI for AI use cases, and then you have automation to streamline work processes. But when you combine them both, I can see how they would be very powerful.

Anna:

Yeah. definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

Audrey:

And maybe one final question before I wrap up, it's like, how, how has your personal journey been, you know, building an AI first business? Because many people have tried, many people are still trying, and you are one of the leading voices in AI and SEO. How has this journey been for you? Yeah.

Anna:

is not working. Yeah, it was partly true. It was working, but of course you had to double check it. And, at the beginning, ChatGPT, created a lot of wrong information, but that was at the beginning. But over time, it improved a lot. So now it's, it's. I think 95 percent is good. so at the beginning, yeah, it was really not that fun, but now it's like, even clients ask me, do you use AI for this or do you use, kind of automation and I always say, yes, of course. I I mean, I can also do it manually, but do you want to pay me? I mean, I charge you per day, so I can also do it manually. I mean, it's your, your money. So now clients even are demanding that you work with AI. If you are not working with AI nowadays, They are like, hmm, maybe I will look for another consultant.

Audrey:

Yes, it is definitely a part of our workflows now. And I think clients are also more open and accepting towards that. Maybe in the past, they might be like, if you use AI, it means the quality of your work, you know, might not be up to standard. But I guess nowadays, especially for clients who are more open, they will realize that AI is just a way to speed things up, increase our productivity and get work done even faster that actually works, alright, and it keeps you, like, ahead of your competitors. Thank you.

Anna:

Yes, yes, yes. And I think you have to use now AI. I mean, now it's really time, At least, I would say, I mean, you, you have to get started. otherwise you, really cannot keep up. I mean, I, don't know how about you, but I have sometimes difficulties to keep up with the changes, with the improvements, with the news, etc. It's, also sometimes. hard for me, as I said, to keep up with everything.

Audrey:

I think with the change that is coming, what we can do perhaps as content creators, marketers, you know, SEO specialists is to then figure out, you know, how to best leverage our strengths together with perhaps important updates. So not being too overwhelmed and swept away by every new thing that is coming. pops up, but finding things that are relevant to you, figuring out, okay, this is a relevant update to me, then finding time to experiment with it, finding time to integrate it into your workflow, which I'm sure Anna yourself have done a lot. So with that, Anna, thank you so much for, for hopping on the show. What perhaps is one final piece of advice that you have for people listening who haven't yet adopted AI and are trying to do so.

Anna:

Okay. I would say, don't get lost because there are so many AI, AI tools out there. Just pick one, try, try out this one, just focus on this one and get good at it. And then, yeah, think of what can you do with it even more.

Audrey:

Awesome. Awesome to hear that. So Anna, where can our listeners find you and who should reach out to you if they need some support?

Anna:

Oh, I would say LinkedIn. It's, it's the best place for me. so yeah, if you have any questions, just reach out to me on LinkedIn. from Monday to Friday, I'm there. yeah.

Audrey:

Awesome. Now, if you haven't already followed Anna, I highly recommend that you hit the bell. She always has super actionable, amazing carousels and insights. That she shares about AI and SEO and thank you so much, Anna, for joining us. Thank you folks for tuning in as well. Don't forget to subscribe to the AI Marketer's Playbook and hit the bell for more actionable marketing insights. We'll see you next week.