The Real Reason Your Organic Traffic Dropped 80%

Tanner [00:00:00] what hasn't changed is Google's still king, right?

Tanner this month alone, Google has got more searches than in the history of its existence on a daily basis, right? So the market's there, the searchers are there, and while AI tools are presenting a new avenue and channel for searches,

Intro - Outro Welcome to Contrary to Popular Opinion, a podcast hosted by BougieDay Digital. In each episode, we bring you provocative topics and novel perspectives around leadership, business, and marketing that defy the norms, because exponential growth demands unconventional thinking and visionary action. So open your mind and let's get into this week's episode.

Kelly Hey, everyone. Kelly McGuire with BougieDay Digital. Excited to talk to today's guest. Hey,

Todd everybody. It's Todd, Kelly's partner. And wow, we have a three-part episode coming up with a subject matter expert [00:01:00] named Tanner. Tanner's on our team now, and Tanner's got a lot to say about, what's going on in the world of search engine optimization.

Todd Before you say it's dead, hold that thought. Tanner will opine on why it's not, and how it's evolving. That's what we're gonna get into. So today's show is episode one, of a three-part series which will go through, a variety of different sort of topical things and takeaways. So today's episode is SEO Isn't Dead, It's Just Evolving.

Todd Our next episode will be, what's changing with Google and, AI and the new search landscapes, and then after that we'll talk about what does it take to win in this new AI, SEO, GEO, LLM, AEO, five other acronym Os. coming up, we'll talk about all those things. Those will be in the next shows.

Todd Today we're gonna talk about is SEO dead? Tanner says no. so Tanner, I'm just gonna kick you off with this. if you had 60 seconds right now to say what's changed, [00:02:00] what would you say?

Tanner I'd say Google's really good at doing what Google wants to do, and that's providing the best result for the search at hand, okay?

Tanner It's been its core principle the entire time of its existence, and now better than ever, they're achieving their goal of keeping people searching, keeping people present on the domain, and providing relevant informational queries. So with those three principles in mind, we do have to try to track the trajectory of Google to realize, you know, how have we gotten here today.

Tanner And, you know, it's been a bit of a long haul over the last five years. and I started at working in SEO in 2019, and now we're already at 2026. And, you know, even in my tenure as a organic marketer, I've just seen a dramatic change within the search engine.

Todd Well, let's start there. So the evolution of search.

Todd So, so you started six, seven years ago, in this space. It's probably not changed more rapidly or radically, ever in the history since this last six or seven years. so take us back [00:03:00] the last, I don't know, pick three, five years, wherever you started to see things change. and, what's happened?

Todd What, what have you seen, change in these last few years that's fundamentally, you know, sort of shifting everything?

Tanner Yeah, absolutely. So I would like to kind of just start with the, you know, pre-2020 phase, right? Essentially, you had Google kind of ramping up, Google expanding its user base, starting to introduce more ads and monetize the SERP.

Tanner but it was still kind of the traditional Google site links, right? The blue links that we're all familiar with. And there would be an ad or two at the top of the page, but,you know, the robustness of the experience was still, you know, in its more rudimentary form. But since 2020, and when there was a huge pivot to digital with the pandemic and everything, you know, we've just seen an explosion in the number of features within the SERP, the number of types of results, as well as the increased monetization of the SERP, right?

Tanner Google wants you to search, Google wants to provide the best answer possible, and Google wants to make sure [00:04:00] it can serve ads within that space. So basically, over time, they've improved the user experience to such an extent where, their presentation of results has included the answers, right, that people are searching for without clicking through to the website, with different types of products and services that you can find through, ads.

Tanner And, essentially, it's just been this constant evolution towards keeping you on Google, keeping you searching, and then providing the most relevant results. that was kind of the last five years. But since the broader adoption of AI results, rolling out AI overviews, integrating, the type of, Q&A format that we're more used to seeing with large language models, the game's yet again changed, right?

Tanner one classic example I like to point to is how, in the last year of rolling out AI overviews, you'll see ads at one position and AI at the other, and then integrated. And essentially, you know, we're in this, you know, experiment for how do we balance, the [00:05:00] presentation of different results with the ever-changing SERP.

Tanner for companies to find that balance and really understand what type of keywords they want to perform for, what type of queries they want to show up for, it's really just gonna take a new approach to trying to be present more holistically.

Todd Yeah, it's certainly changed. Kelly, has your use of Google when you search for something, 'cause I know you don't even always use Google, we're gonna ask a bigger fundamental question or existential question about that later, has it changed a lot?

Tanner It has, yeah. Yeah. I, just because of the way that I find myself engaging with AI in my day-to-day work life,

Todd Would you say your use of Google has dropped dramatically?

Tanner No. I mean, I use Google as much, but again, the purpose in which I use it, which I- actually, is actually one of the questions I wanted to ask Tanner is, you know, 'cause he started out, Tanner, you started out by saying, you know, the purpose of Google is to give search results and to keep people sort of, [00:06:00] to give them the right answer and to kind of keep them on property.

Tanner And, and I believe that to be true, but I... It's interesting 'cause I see the purpose of search results, pure search results, and AI answers as potentially different objectives, right? Because for me, if I look at search results, that is a zero sum, I'm, I want something that solves this problem, right? I'm looking for the best burger near me, or I'm looking for, a veterinarian that's open or something like that.

Tanner That is a very much here's solutions to your very clear problem, versus the AI answers are a little bit more contextually relevant. It's a little bit sourced, it's a little bit- You know, are you looking for a highly rated veterinarian? Are you looking for a unique burger? Are you ... There's, there's more nuance in the engagement, and I, and I say that distinction because when you asked me, Todd, if my use of Google has changed, my amount of use I don't think has changed that much, [00:07:00] but the way and the priority in which I go through the answers is different.

Tanner If I am exploratory, if I'm thinking of a subject and I want answers, I don't know where I'm going, the AI answers are a lot more helpful to me 'cause I'm looking at, I don't really know exactly what I want, but I'm exploring a subject, and maybe that uncovers things I wasn't thinking about, and I love the AI answers for that.

Tanner If I'm literally just, I want a burger near me, or the best deal, or what are the hours that something's open, I really want those answers quickly, and it's in there. And I think that distinction is, is very critical in the behavior has shifted more in the last couple years than I think search behavior has ever shifted before, and I think that is what anchors a lot of this conversation, is the adaptation to how people expect and engage with Google is something that I don't know that everyone's keeping up with.

Tanner I think people are first asking the question, am I maintaining my traffic and my business results, which I, I totally understand why, but I [00:08:00] think that may be blinding to the bigger how is the actual usership and behavior shifting, and how am I adapting my business and what I can extract from the business accordingly?

Tanner I think that's gonna ... the new horizon that offers a lot more interesting opportunity.

Todd Well, let's go to, let's go to this, Tanner. What hasn't changed? We're talking about all the change, right? And everybody's talking about AI this and AI that, so you know, there's all this disruption in, in what we're talking about.

Todd are there things that haven't changed within foundational principles of being an organic marketer, having to contend with SEO, with content, with, the, the back end sort of on-page technical things, the off-page things? are there core things that haven't changed?

Tanner Yeah, I mean, you know, kind of just like breaking down what we're seeing in the industry, what hasn't changed is Google's still king, right?

Tanner this month alone, Google has got more searches than in the history of its existence on a daily basis, right? [00:09:00] So the market's there, the searchers are there, and while AI tools are presenting a new avenue and channel for searches,Google's overwhelming presence and usership base, continues to be the big, source of traffic for brands, businesses, companies.

Tanner and making sure that you can follow those guardrails is gonna be how you're able to monetize that organic interest that's out there, right? So what hasn't changed are two things. The technical side, your site needs to be set up in compliance with search engine crawlers and scrapers and bots, period.

Tanner If something is broken on your website, you will not be eligible to rank in those traffic-driving positions that you previously were able to capture traffic from. So that's the foundation of it, right? It's gotta be readable for bots. On the content side and what you present to search engines, it is essential to remember that if you're not answering the intent of the search that is going into the bar, you will also not appear.

Tanner competition's increased, ad space has [00:10:00] increased, monetization on the SERP has increased, and AI overviews have presented this new curveball, but those two fundamental questions have to be answered if you are still looking to leverage organic search as a scalable channel, which it fundamentally still is.

Tanner Let me ask you a question on that, 'cause you said something there that's really interesting to me. 'Cause I, I fully believe that Google's, the activity is certainly up in, in as much as it ever was. But I would say nearly every-

Todd I don't believe that for the record. I'm shocked by that.

Tanner But let's, let's hold the true, true or not, maybe that'll be part of the answer to my follow-up question then is...

Tanner 'Cause I would say almost every single client that we talk to or get exposed to or, or look at, I- it's anywhere from 30 to 80% down on organic traffic hitting their site in terms of what's in there. and I find that really interesting because, well, you say that Google's objective is to deliver the best result, which I totally understand that.

Tanner I would say equal if not arguably [00:11:00] more is their objective is to make money. And so if, if their organic traffic to most sites is down by that much- What does that say about the way that the reaction of the people who are losing that organic source and that opportunity to convert into monetization, because that's also everyone else's business element.

Tanner It, it's almost this weird existential question of like, are you serving the people and their interests or are you trying to make money off of it, and that balance between that. But if the activity on Google is flat or up or maybe not down 30 to 80%, but organic opportunity on the businesses relying on it are, what's happening there?

Tanner Is that people just getting the AI results and not needing to go to a search result and therefore the traffic excel- So the Google activity hasn't gone down, but the traffic redirect of Google has dr- dropped precipitously would kind of be my hypothesis.

Todd W- wouldn't that correlate, Kelly, to what you just said the behavioral difference in search types are?

Todd If you're not looking for a link to [00:12:00] click on 'cause you know exactly what you're looking for and you're looking more exploratory and you're using the AI summary, that would mean less clicks to a client website or to a website is causing that drop.

Tanner I guess that, that, that's what I'm looking to validate, right?

Tanner Like, have the idea that Google activity isn't down, but most people who rely on Google are seeing 30 to 80% down, there's something in the middle there.

Tanner Yeah. The, the middle is click-through rate, right? So we are seeing click-through rates slow down due to a increased monetization of the SERP and AI overviews providing the answers to those questions, right?

Tanner And each one of those things can be broke down into specific points, but focusing more on the latter, the AI overviews, what's becoming difficult is aligning search intents with what you're offering on your website, right? so if you are able to show up in an informational query that we would consider to be a non-conversion related search, right?

Tanner Someone researching a topic or some sort of subject, right, isn't intent on making a purchase inherently. but the trick is now [00:13:00] evolving around, okay, well, how can you show up in an informational query with something that introduces someone into your marketing funnel, right? So that's really what it is, and it- that is predicated on having really good content, right?

Tanner Being able to answer that s- question that they're asking, then to introduce them to your funnel, and then get a conversion out of it, right? So it- it is upping the task for marketers and brands because they have to be clear in what they're offering, and they have to have a specific angle, and they have to have a selling point that resonates for someone who's looking for an informational query.

Tanner Whereas in the past, it was just easier to rank, easier to get clicks, right? Now there is more effort that needs to go into the process.

Tanner Interesting, 'cause for me it, it really brings up this big argument where we're constantly in this battle of AI is supposed to make everything so much easier and cheaper and faster, and then there's the other side of it.

Tanner But it's actually making so many things more fragmented and changing behaviors, and the [00:14:00] chase on how to adapt to it feels like it requires a lot more strategy and thinking and creativity to adapt within that, within the systems. And, and the example I have to that is if the opportunity for in- I'll use your term, the intent-based searches, right?

Tanner The thing, the searches that occur where I am intending to make a decision or a purchase or go to something. If that is shrinking, your need to fight for when that happens, not losing the opportunity, the offensive/defensive that I've always said in, in search, right? There's the offensive of I need to go out and grab what's there.

Tanner There's the defensive of not losing what I would have maybe already gotten. Usually that's applied to brand terms, if you will. But I'm saying that to say is now we get into this, a conversation we've had, Todd, which is how much of the investment needs to be done in the pre-work of branding or anchoring of a selection or things like that?

Tanner Because by the time you get to the person who's [00:15:00] doing that intent-based search, that's not the first time you wanna be raising your hand saying, "Choose me." You want to have already planted some seeds and had some brand recognition, some website name recognition, some things that make it more likely that that person is in fact going to select you in the sea of options because you're fighting in a sort of shrunken pool.

Tanner And so then now you go, and then you go the sequential layer, right? Search has always been the most last touch ready to convert. Maybe that's not where the budgets need to go. Maybe you need to be fighting in the I'm in the exploratory phase, but I need to p- show up there, or I need to plant those seeds type of things.

Tanner And now you're fighting more campaigns, more KPI outcomes, more expected journeys. it's, it's an interesting thing when you think about something as simple as I search a term, I get a result. And what we used to operate, I feel like that's getting pretty deeply broken.

Todd Dan, you got a response to that or do you want, you wanna jump to the next section?

Tanner Yeah,it is [00:16:00] evolving, and it- the behavior is going where the tools are taking them, right? And I think that if we just zoom in a little bit more on, you know, AI or doing an AI search through Google, there are clarifying questions that are asked of someone who is researching a different product, right?

Tanner There are, elements that appear within refinements for different searches. There are different questions that the bots ask you, and each one of those questions or queries is serving the intent of the search to make sure that the result is as specific as possible. And that's why companies and brands need to be more coherent in what they present on their website, what their, indexable footprint is in order to make sure that they can appear and target those different touchpoints along the funnel that people are being, thrown into by Google's AI tools and searches

Todd All right.

Todd we're gonna do a little fun thing right now, and then we'll jump to the next section. So I got a couple of these for you, Tanner. We're gonna do a couple of, rapid fires. So this one's just true or [00:17:00] false, so just, just answer true or false. that's the only answer you can give. Nothing else. Kelly-

Tanner Can I argue with him if I don't like his answer?

Todd I was gonna say, Kelly- ... you have to, you have to answer true or false as well, but you can't argue with him, so this is, this-

Tanner I'll only weigh in if I have a difference of opinion. If I agree, I'll keep quiet.

Todd No, this is, this is rapid fire for you both, so-

Tanner Likewise ...

Todd traditional SEO is dead.

Tanner False.

Todd AI is gonna replace Google.

Tanner False. Google's going to evolve into AI search.

Todd Got it. Blogs don't matter anymore.

Tanner False.

Todd Keywords don't matter anymore.

Tanner Remarkably false.

Todd Backlinks don't re-matter, don't matter anymore.

Tanner Also false.

Todd ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, they're all gonna replace search as we know it.

Tanner They're going to change search as we know it

Tanner Yeah, I would, I would say disrupt, yeah

Todd Disrupt.

Todd you [00:18:00] still need thousands of pages of content to show up

Tanner False or false. specificity is what you need

Tanner It- well, so would you clarify that ta- Tanner, with, I think the content for a lot longer, I think the conversations matter now, right? This is why Reddit is so important. This is why social mentions and so forth.

Tanner So I think it's the, the real time relevance of conversation that is happening as a signal versus just hard crawled content. I, I, that, that's what I think is changing

Tanner I, I would totally agree with you, Kelly. Yeah, I think you're spot on. There's been a decentralization of information about different topics, right?

Tanner As AI tries to present unbiased results or the large language model tries to present unbiased results, their sources of information are gonna come from different places, right? Outside of brands' ability to control those. Now, in order to, research that, you have to see what AI's pulling information from, and then kinda work backwards from there.

Tanner So totally [00:19:00] agree

Todd So the, the biggest behavioral change I think we can all agree on is that, so wh- when pr- prior to LLMs, there was only one place to find answers for the most part, right, and that was Google. If you needed an answer, you Googled it, and you found it either on Google or whatever website Google pointed you to, you found your answer.

Todd now you arguably don't theoretically or technically need Google. So Kelly, I guess this is more for the long form answer, not the short form. Quick answer to, like, business hours or I w- I know a pair of shoes I wanna buy, I'm just looking for, you know, the shopping deal. if that's, if that were not the case, do we believe that if people are just using the internet to find answers to things for the most part, does, again, does Google sort of fall by the wayside given it's providing its own AI answers, right?

Todd But I know anecdotally as a, as a proof [00:20:00] point here, myself, my d- my 20-year-old daughter, my wife, I probably use ChatGPT or Claude 50% of the time when I'm looking for an answer for something and I don't use Google anymore Is that, do we think that's universally true?

Tanner I think Google's probably lost its dominant default nothing else challenges it answer that it lived off of for so very, very long, right?

Tanner To your point, it was the default, I don't know what I'm looking for, I'm gonna search for it, and, there was very little things to challenge whether or not that was the way you went hunting. I do think that there is a diversification. I still think Google will be the dominant element once you know what you want, but, but I think that people will still engage in discovery, conversation, curiosity in other places that they never had before.

Tanner So yes, I [00:21:00] think that the default there's nothing else to challenge it has been eroded quite considerably.

Todd So here is my killer question before us. Is Google too big to fail?

Tanner Wait, I have, wait, I have a w- I want to go back on the rapid-fire one that might prompt you to go deeper, Tanner, but I want you to answer this.

Tanner My question for you on the rapid-fire yes or no is, is the idea of gray or black hat or gamification of controlling the answer, right? 'Cause again, if you go back to Google s- the idea of Google is give the best answer to what someone's intent is. Everyone's SEO work was make me the best answer whether that's true or not, and I used all the back linking and all the gamification and the gray hat and the black hat.

Tanner Has that, is that dead, or is that evolved, or what is, what is that world of controlling that look like?

Todd that's our next topic, Kelly. Generative, gen- generative engine optimization or answer engine optimization. Let's go there. [00:22:00] Tanner, let's talk about what is it? What's different about it? Is there a gray hat version of that like there has been for so many years of SEO?

Todd Is there a gray hat version of GEO or AEO?

Todd is it about ranking pages? Is it about making sure, you know, there's other types of content out there? Tell, tell us what it, what it is. What is, what it is, what it isn't, and is it hackable?

Tanner People are definitely trying. I mean, you know, you can definitely see different tactics being deployed out there, testing websites.

Tanner you know, there, there are attempts. I myself am strictly a white hat marketer, but, what I can say, and more interestingly enough, is the rate of Google algorithm updates has changed pretty notably over the last couple years. especially over the course of my career, there'd be maybe one or two big updates a year, and it's almost as if in 2026 we're seeing a Google core algo update every month.

Tanner A lot of those are spam updates, so while people are more creative in what they try to do to, you know, hack the results, Google's [00:23:00] ability to adapt and, find, those types of, tactics is increasing. And, we see that directly in their algo update, log because, the pace of which, it's incredible how quickly they're able to kind of change things or, update the game, if you will, to make sure that it is fair for businesses

Todd Okay.

Todd if that's the case, what would be an example of it? Do y- I mean, have you seen, like, examples of hacks? Like Kelly's asking, like what would be, what could be or what would be a version of a, of a gray hat sort of effort or activity around generative engine optimization? Because I don't even know yet if people fully, brands, m- organic marketers, people like you, I mean, do you really think you have a full grasp yet on what is shaping and impacting the GEO, AEO answers?

Todd I hear a lot about Reddit,

Tanner You'd have to talk to Reddit. Yeah, I, I, I would love to ask a Google engineer that [00:24:00] question. you know, we can only infer what we see in the day-to-day. but one great example of this kind of, you know, gray hat sort of, interesting change that I've been tracking over the last couple years is just the sources of information for different result types.

Tanner you know, recently in the last, 24 months, we've seen a surge in Reddit visibility, right? and that that has kind of, come up especially within the review space or the research space. We saw forums integrated as a cert feature that is taking up more real estate within results. however, over time it seems that now YouTube and other video-based platforms are starting to replace Reddit's space.

Tanner YouTube is owned by Google, you know, having more, you know, indexable content. yeah, I, my, you know, theory on this is,Google and Reddit worked together on training LLMs, right? And then Google was able to use its YouTube data to train large language models. So you can almost see which way the [00:25:00] algorithm is diverting people.

Tanner and I think it's in the benefit of the company to provide the best result possible.

Todd Okay. Kelly, I know you got a couple more things as we sort of steer towards the end of the episode here and get, get a lead-in out there for the next one. I've got one more lightning round to go through, but why don't you get through, your two things and, and then we'll do the lightning round last.

Tanner Okay. So my two things are, the first one is along the lines of what we just talked about. Tanner, do you see or do you have any thoughts around- The evolution of SEO and AO where traditionally because Google was dominant, you really were trying to look at and learn the best practices for sort of one destination, right?

Tanner What does Google respond to? What do-- They like backlinks. They like, conversations. They like, certain structures and blog data and all of that, and that's how I rank better in Google, and if I achieve that, I win. Does it change at all where you [00:26:00] may need to be thinking about what multiple different outlets care about and pick up and care about?

Tanner Like, you know, you're may-- you may not be writing one blog that just Google cares about. Maybe you do need it to answer different, you know, ChatGPT or these other things. Like, how does that change the ability of trying to serve multiple masters with your strategies and your gamification, your white hot, whatever it is, and how it impacts the results in multiple engines versus just the historical, if as long as I serve Google, I'm doing my job element?

Tanner it is a really interesting question, and you can see that there are different result types across different models and across different,engines, right? So comparing results from Claude or Gemini or Perplexity or Copilot, all are different, right? and, and it is making it more difficult to track, how you're supposed to approach each or which is more, most important to you.

Tanner However, it does seem, to me at least, that within the LLM [00:27:00] industry, once a model is released, others have access to it and are able to kind of, figure out what they're doing within their, you know, new result types. So that means that there is a little bit of a convergence between different models, so I don't think we have to worry as much about the different models and their result types because I do think that there's a little bit of, you know, a little bit of a catch-up game going on whenever a new release is put out.

Tanner So they will eventually, I believe, converge because they learn from each other. I think what, when looking at different models should be considered, is who uses which model, right? So we know that ChatGPT is free, that,there's a broader adoption for young people or non-paid users versus, Claude or Copilot, which is definitely at the enterprise level, right?

Tanner Or people at work, right? So thinking about what model or LLM your audience is most likely to use will allow you to know which one to keep an eye on most closely, as opposed [00:28:00] to trying to do so many things across different tools.

Todd That's interesting. That's the first time I've thought about different LLMs being used differently by different audiences for different purposes.

Tanner So, like, for people or companies that are on a, you know, Microsoft Teams, right? They have to use Copilot. So if you're a B2B company, you might want to consider keeping a closer eye on Copilot results as opposed to, ChatGPT or Groq.

Todd What's the background that... or the back-end engine of Copilot?

Tanner it's a Microsoft.

Todd Is it its own? It's not running on something else?

Tanner I believe it is. Yeah.

Tanner Yeah, I think Microsoft has their own, so it's not Anthropic, OpenAI. Like, I think, I think it's their own backbone. Not sure though. Okay, so my, my very, very last one, I'll let you go into rapid fire, but I think I wanna save this one as a cliffhanger for the follow-up episode, but I'm gonna kinda tease it out so that I don't forget it when it goes into there.

Tanner So in my, I'm gonna use my analogy of in my Doctor Strange sort of multiverse seeing [00:29:00] different paths of what could happen, one of the ones that I really think has a high probability, doesn't mean it will happen, absolutely not, but I think it is entirely possible, is, as you mentioned, Google has all these updates and constantly going out with the spam and all of that.

Tanner And I think that we're in a world where people are using AI to develop and to combat or to address SEO and AEO. And so you have so much of the content being written by AI and so much of the best practices and the, the tagging and everything being done by AI. And I foresee a potential car crash down the line of that where eventually Google's like, "Well, we don't want, you know, we want authenticity behind what we're getting."

Tanner And I could see a big knocking down of everything that ranked because AI drove it being all of a sudden penalized and almost reset in a world where it's like if it is [00:30:00] obviously AI content, AI-driven, then all of a sudden you go back to go, right? It's the, it's the Sorry game or it's the Chutes and Ladders where you go back down.

Tanner And I'm not saying it will happen, but I can absolutely plausibly see a scenario where you're doing we- great, and all of a sudden you just get crushed because AI decided, "Well, we don't want all this AI-driven stuff being the answer that's in there." And it's something that I thought about not that long ago.

Tanner I was like, that's really interesting on that. So can answer it now or we can leave that as a cliffhanger.

Tanner No, no, I, I think that's awesome, to consider. There are whole fields dedicated to make sure that the inputs to AI and large language models are clean and not outputs of other AI, right? So there are different sub-industries within the field that, try to account for that issue.

Tanner But yeah, AI teaching AI is really not what you were hoping for, with these broader tools, and I'm, you know, super bullish on human content that is well-developed by experts.

Tanner But that's not efficient. That's not cheap.

Tanner It's not, but, you know, doing things the right way [00:31:00] usually isn't

Todd Now let's try to get people to pay for doing things the right way.

Todd That's- all right, so we'll wrap up. next episode we're gonna talk a little bit more, we're gonna go a little bit deeper and more specific about the state of search, what are some of the core principles. we're gonna talk about zero-click searches, shopping experiences, things that are a little bit more in the gravel of, of what's going on there.

Todd so before we wrap, final thing is, so this is one last lightning round for you, Tanner, and Kelly, you can jump in. these are one word or short answers. lightning round. Best SEO tool?

Tanner Screaming Frog.

Todd Most overrated SEO metric?

Tanner Impressions.

Todd Most underrated metric?

Tanner session duration, onsite engagement.

Todd like that. biggest ranking myth?

Tanner Quantity over quality. One[00:32:00]

Todd thing every CEO misunderstands about SEO? It's

Tanner scalable, and it, it sets you up for success over a long time horizon.

Tanner I have my answer to that one. I'm gonna jump in on that one, 'cause this is the one that Tanner listens to me every single time we go on a pitch- ... is that, is that you can wait, that there's not a time factor to it, right?

Tanner That it's, that if I do it next month or six months from now, I'm not gonna be further and further behind. I think there's a gross miscalculation that this stuff isn't moving and you're not falling further behind the longer you take to address it.

Todd Agree. okay. For, for both of you, Google or ChatGPT?

Tanner Google. I use ChatGPT more. Well, d- d- d... it's, I'm very purpose-driven, but I, I-

Todd Gotta pick one, Google or ChatGPT.

Tanner ChatGPT.

Todd All right, 50/50. I think the rest aren't all that exciting of my... Technical SEO or content, Tanner?

Tanner Yeah, both. [00:33:00] You can't have one without the other. You got the yin and the yang.

Todd that's good enough for today then.

Todd we'll come back with episode number two and then episode number three, which will bring in our, paid side of the equation, in that conversation with you, Tanner, so you have paid and organic represented in episode number three. Tanner Zaromsky, thank you. You are a subject matter expert of a lot of information in this space, and we're glad to have you here on our team and on our podcast, and we'll do more.

Tanner Thanks for the time, everyone.

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