The Big AI Visibility Lie No One’s Talking About

Agencies and AI Visibility [00:17]

• Agencies might use "AI visibility" as a sales tactic, presenting it as a bolted-on add-on service to clients.
• For internal marketers in large publishing organizations, chatbots are currently irrelevant due to insignificant traffic referral.

The numbers are probably under 50 million unique weeks a month, which is significantly smaller than entities like the New York Times.

Perplexity and ChatGPT as Traffic Sources [01:29]

• Perplexity is considered a "write-off" as a traffic referral source, with numbers under 50 million unique weekly visitors.
• ChatGPT is of mild interest for tracking usage increases but not for direct optimization to appear on its platform.
• Both are too small as traffic referral entities, with less than 2% referral traffic from such sources being insignificant compared to top referrers like Google.

Chat GBT is is like of mild interest just to see how much it increases. But in terms of actual trying to create something that to appear on there, I would say that's irrelevant.

AI Overviews vs. Chatbots [03:52]

• AI Overviews are a "different beast" and should not be categorized with chatbots; they are considered important.
• AI Overviews impact about 12% of all queries, varying by sector.
• Optimizing for AI Overviews is a "false economy" due to high turnover and difficulty in tracking, with results changing significantly over a 3-month period.
• Ranking on Google with good optimization will likely result in appearing in AI Overviews anyway.

So So I just think it's kind of like what what are we actually optimizing here for? like probably SEO, right? Like that's what it all boils down to.

The "Compact Keywords" Method [04:44]

• A marketing method called "compact keywords" focuses on creating dozens of pages that sell to buyers, rather than answering informational questions.
• These pages are described as ranking on Google and converting much better than normal, requiring less work and being shorter (average 415 words).
• The method is presented as a "13-hour deep course on getting sales with SEO" that sets up an "SEO funnel" for long-term sales.

Compact Keywords is a 13-hour deep course on getting sales with SEO.

The AI Hype and Consultant Jobs [06:14]

• Stories circulate on platforms like X and Reddit about SEO consultants being fired for not focusing enough on AI visibility.
• This creates pressure for consultants to either fully commit to AI visibility (potentially by misleading clients) or to educate clients and managers.
• Educating clients and managers on what matters and what the future looks like is presented as a responsible approach.

Um, or they could try to educate the the clients or if they're in-house their their managers they could try to to in-house sorry to to educate the exacts and managers.

The Future of Agentic Browsers and AI Integration [08:05]

• The speaker is hesitant about agentic browsers becoming mainstream soon, citing user discomfort with AI taking action on their behalf.
• Google's strong market position (70% browser share, 96% mobile search) makes it very difficult for new players like OpenAI's Atlas to gain traction.
• Google is expected to integrate a strong agentic solution into Chrome by December with the Gemini 3 update.

So, when I see people going chat GBT uh Open AI just killed Chrome, etc., I'm just like, this is just so boring, isn't it?

User Trust and AI Hallucinations [11:03]

• A significant barrier to agentic browsers is user trust; people are not yet comfortable with AI taking actions for them.
• This is compared to the early days of e-commerce (around 2001-2002) when credit card security was a major concern.
• AI can hallucinate even with short transcripts (e.g., 10-minute podcasts), raising concerns about its ability to handle complex web contexts.

Hallucinating with a 10-minute transcript. How is it supposed to handle all the text on a page and take that into context with other pages that I looked at?

SEO and GIO (Generative AI Optimization) [19:03]

• The speaker largely considers SEO and GIO to be the same, as changes in AI retrieval methods (like RAG) are addressed by fundamental SEO practices.
• Google's advice to "just do the same as you were" regarding SEO for AI is seen as valid, with research showing AI ranking strategies often boil down to basic SEO principles like good content, authority, and citations.
• Aspects like comparison tables and optimizing for branded searches or reviews are highlighted as potentially more important for GIO but are still rooted in established SEO quality guidelines.

Um, but Google itself says well just do the same as you were like it doesn't and a lot of people in SEO say oh I'd never believe Google but it's a pretty good source to kind of look at that.

Background in SEO and Publishing [23:23]

• The speaker has worked in SEO since 2006, with experience in travel, agencies, gaming (Sega), and publishing.
• Key roles include Web Editor for Sega Europe and Head of SEO and Social Media at The Telegraph, a UK newspaper of record with 40 million unique users monthly.
• News SEO is described as distinct from standard organic SEO, involving competition within a select group of publishers and high-value opportunities in areas like "Top Stories."

I've always worked in SEO actually since about 20 2006.

Growth of History.com [26:17]

• A broadcast startup, History Hit, grew its website, History.com, from a basic WordPress site with 10,000 users to a significant revenue driver of 1.5 million by focusing on inbound marketing and SEO.
• Doubling down on content formats that respond to search queries (e.g., "list of facts about X," "things to do with who, what, where, why, and how") was a key strategy.
• This approach built an additional audience and provided traffic referrals to their core products (podcast network, video on demand).

We had a really good social presence for the brand and we invested quite heavily in a building history.com from say basically being fairly broken WordPress site of about 10,000 users to something that was a serious revenue driver of like 1.5 million.

The Synergy of SEO and Social Media [28:06]

• Social media is considered a crucial part of the marketing mix, often seen as separate from SEO but highly effective when used together.
• Understanding SEO algorithms significantly aids in understanding social media algorithms, particularly in keeping users engaged and hooking them quickly.
• Using keywords effectively in social media content, descriptions, and titles helps discoverability and can lead to audiences binge-watching content.

I understand SEO algorithms helped me a ton to understand social media algorithms.

AI Visibility Tracking Tools [31:34]

• Currently, investing in AI visibility tracking tools is advised against due to their limited relevance and lack of actionable data.
• While Google AI Overviews (12% of visibility) are significant, tools for ChatGPT and Perplexity are not relevant due to small referral numbers (under 1000 sessions for big websites).
• The internal workings of many AI visibility tools don't provide sufficient information, making it difficult to understand visibility and click-through rates.

Um, but I would say chat GP PPT and perplexity are not really relevant in this equation.

The "Devil's Advocate" Executive Perspective [36:33]

• An executive might argue that users of AI tools are likely paying customers ($20/month) and thus more valuable than average Google searchers.
• This perspective suggests that while AI assistants may not send much traffic, optimizing for them could yield higher-quality leads.
• However, the majority of ChatGPT users are on the free tier, have limited usage, and primarily use it for Q&A or learning how to use products, not for product-based search.

They're paying $20 a month for for a tool. But I think when we look at user data for chatbt, say that I don't know what the latest session count is.

AI Overviews and SEO Strategy Shifts [40:11]

• The core SEO strategy should not necessarily change, but the quality of content needs to be higher due to AI Overviews providing more information upfront.
• Competition has intensified, making it crucial to demonstrate authoritativeness, expertise, and trust (E-E-A-T principles).
• The cost of content production is decreasing with digital tools, leading to increased competitiveness across the web.

I don't I don't necessarily think that they should change their SEO strategy.

The Power of YouTube in SEO [42:10]

• Having a YouTube channel and creating authoritative content is presented as a strong SEO strategy, especially as AI visibility grows.
• YouTube is a major source of long-form content, with 30-minute videos containing thousands of words of information from potentially authoritative speakers.
• The increasing share of YouTube viewing on TV sets (13% in the US) and decreasing production costs make it a vital channel.

I would actually say one of the best uh kind of SEO strategies now in thinking about this more is like to have a YouTube channel and to put authoritative content on it.

Bottom-of-Funnel SEO and AI Surfacing [43:19]

• A specific method of bottom-of-funnel SEO targets scenarios where users know what they want but not the brand.
• These scenario-based transactional keywords are often under-targeted, requiring fewer words per page, backlinks, and ranking faster.
• Pages created using this method in 2019 are still ranking, and AI, including ChatGPT and AI Overviews, are surfacing this content.

And AI comes around and chachi PT starts surfacing what's in these bottom of funnel SEO landing pages that I made.

AI's Impact on Publishers and the Bargain [48:01]

• AI will significantly change the publishing space, particularly for informational content.
• The current bargain between AI chatbots/overviews and publishers is challenged, with traffic decreasing for many.
• Publishers may need to shift towards subscription models and license content directly to AI agents or for training.

I actually think that the the concept of a destination website, you know, is not going to change overnight, but I do think that there has to be a better trade-off between what appears in say chat bots and what the bargain is.

Cloudflare's Role in AI Content Control [50:35]

• Cloudflare's new feature allows website owners to block AI crawlers by default, giving them more power over who uses their content.
• This is seen as a positive step in returning power to website owners who haven't agreed to the current AI content bargain.
• Perplexity and Anthropic have faced lawsuits and settlements for using copyrighted work for training, highlighting ongoing legal and ethical challenges.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I I remember certain bits of this is that the number of scrapes. Oh, and they're blocking they're literally blocking AI.

Recommended AI Tools [58:36]

• Top AI tools include chatbots like Claude and projects for content creation and retrieval.
• For video editing, Firefly and Descript (for podcasts) are recommended for their AI-powered features.
• Midjourney remains strong for image generation, with a trend towards more model-agnostic approaches and integrated platforms like Envato.
• 11 Labs is highlighted for its voice cloning capabilities, offering a significant production advantage.

I think like basically the three chat bots like I love claw projects like and it's some hard sometimes hard to dislodge from chatbt but I think claw projects are just like an awesome way to like create content like quite quickly and having really good retrieval system