Aleyda Solis' 6 Elements of Effective AI Prompts for SEO

[00:00:00] Ramli John: SEO apocalypse is here. AI has come to take over the marketing world? Oh, no, don't think so. In fact, I think Chat GPD is no threat to the roles of optimizers copywriters SEOs and content marketers. Instead, it's a powerful tool that can. [00:00:16] Aleyda Solis: Help enhance our work as an SEO, as a copywriter, content marketer, whatever, I am able to have an input that I can very well already, or in the past, like you have already gotten in different ways with different SEO tools, marketing tools, et cetera. But through this chat bots, it's much more natural. You can also integrate this quite easily through extensions. [00:00:38] Ramli John: This Marketing parts episode, you learned first, the importance of understanding the user intent of AI prompts for SEO. Second, how to effectively leverage AI to create high quality content that ranks third, elated favorite chat chipd prompts for SEO activities. And number four, how being generous with her knowledge accelerated her career. Now, before I start, I've created a free Power cheat sheet that you can download, fill it, and apply latest six elements of better AI prompts for SEO. You can go to Marketing Powerups.com right now to download it or find a link in the show notes and description.

[00:01:10] How AI is Transforming SEO and Marketing Jobs: A Discussion with Aleyda Solis

[00:01:10] Ramli John: Are you ready? Let's go. Marketing powerups ready. [00:01:16] Aleyda Solis: Go. [00:01:19] Ramli John: Here's your host, Rambly. John really excited to be talking about AI and SEO. You just mentioned a little bit before we hit record how things have changed so much in the last five months. I'm curious. You've shared great posts and Twitter trends and blog posts. I'm going to link them all in the show notes in the description as well. But I'm curious. You probably already have been forming opinions about this, or you're seeing it. You've been in SEO since 2007 in marketing. Curious how you see AI impacting SEO and marketing jobs. Do you think it will take over our jobs? Probably not. Or will it be more like helping us do our jobs easier, faster, or better? What's your take on how SEO AI will affect marketing? [00:02:08] Aleyda Solis: Yes, so that definitely different scenarios and angles about it. So on one hand, from an automation of the tasks that we tend to do right, we can see that there are a lot of, let's say, tactical work that can be highly automated with quality of the output that we were not used to. And actually, we can pretty much develop complete workflows many times. The problem here is, of course, the quality, the validation, et cetera, et cetera. But for example, now that Chat GPT is integrated with the web, but being as a browser too, and the browsing plugins, et cetera, we can do a lot of stuff. Like at least check out the Top Rank pages for this query and let me know. Based on the title tags of these top ten Rank queries, suggest me one that is highly relevant, highly optimized, based on SEO best practices, and provide me one that is unique provide me five versions that are unique, provide me ten versions that are unique. So me as an optimizer, as an SEO, as a copywriter, content marketer, whatever, I am able to have an input that I can very well already, or in the past I could have already gotten in different ways with different SEO tools, marketing tools, et cetera. But through this chat bots, I believe that it's much more natural. And you can also integrate this quite easily through extensions. So, for example, the GPT for work or numerous AI extensions for Google Sheets that integrate with OpenAI API. So you can generate all of this in bulk, right? So it can highly, highly, highly facilitate your translation work, localization work, optimization work, and also even reward this recommendation for an audience that is not technical in case of SEO recommendations, right? Things like that can highly, highly automate other activities that you can also already automate from a keyword research standpoint, competition standpoint, but in a way that let's say can be feel a little bit more complete, easy, comprehensive, and validated that you can easily validate too. So there's that. On one hand, I think that the risk falls into asking the bot something very generic and that depends on the context. So, oh, provide me an SEO strategy to grow my website rankings in 2024 for cruise lines, guides in Europe, things like that, right? SEO, please. I mean, if you even ask Chad GPT about what are the top criteria or top factors or how to do an SEO recommendation or SEO out, it's going to be at the end of the day based on a lot of content out there that is not really 100% accurate. And it's going to be very, let's say, non strategical, not taking context into account. So there's that on one hand. And then on the other hand, a big part of our job as SEO, also as marketers is not only identify the issues and opportunities, identify a solution of the problem, but actually implement and execute on that which in many, many as an Irish is a much more difficult part. Especially in SEO, where we had to align technical development work, content optimization actions, promotional actions. So there's a lot of alignment, project management, et cetera, et cetera, going on, monitoring, identification of opportunities also along the way, et cetera. So it's very strategical. It has to do a lot with soft skills too. So this part I see much more challenging that but take over, right? So I will say that if you're a SEO or marketer who are focused on the strategical part of it, making things happen and are not like a one trick pony just generating title tax, you should be safe, right? You can leverage this tool also to accelerate the legwork that you otherwise need to do to be much more efficient to right to write or improve many times outreach URL and builder for example, outreach messages things like that. Also to investigate the profile or the context of the websites or the authors that you are reaching to get in touch with these type of things. Also to get support or validation of how to implement certain things within the code in case you don't have access to a web developer, right? As an SEO to implement certain things in the HD access or to generate regex, for example, when doing SEO reporting, for example, things like that can highly, highly help you in your day to day, but very tactical things like that. I wouldn't rely on this completely for much more strategical part.

[00:07:24] Aleyda Solis Discusses Impact of Search Bots on SEO

[00:07:24] Aleyda Solis: Then, on the other hand, there is a completely different angle of it, just the impact on search as a platform, right, google as a platform to search and consume information and identify information that you want to buy or consume in general. And that is definitely shifting, right? I don't believe that from one day or another. It feels like very echo chamber because between us it's chat GPD. Chat GPD. But if you go out there and you do a survey in the streets of how many people still searches search on with Google and how many people are searching with any chat bot, you will see that it's very minimal. Sure, right. But I believe that it's a new interface, a new paradigm that is much more natural to interact with. So there's definitely a trend now, google has the big challenge here and Bing has already started doing it. And actually I think that in a particularly good natural with good user experience way integrating their chatgpt as a new tab, I think that separating well, in which context it is much more advisable or natural to have a chatgpt like experience especially when finding factual information and a lot of informational queries but then in which other aspects it doesn't actually solve your problem but also adds an additional layer of complexity. And I think that this is what Google is trying to sort out still, right? They have the technology, the technology hasn't learned as much, it's not as refined because of course it hasn't been out there so much as the Bing one, which relies on OpenAI. But I believe that the quality should improve, will improve. And what it is actually risky from an SEO standpoint and publisher and web owner standpoint is up to which point Google will push it as part of their current interface. Because at the end of day it's something also that they should want to try to keep up, right, to refer the traffic to the website ecosystem out there because there should be an incentive for websites to keep publishing content that they can learn from. That's what makes the web on one hand and then on the other hand to not alienate their own advertisers many times by keeping the traffic. But yes, there's definitely going to be an impact. I joined the beta test of the search engineerative experience a few days ago. And yes, you can definitely see that it's in beta, right? There are for certain queries, for example, SEO courses, it will try to geolocate the query, which was not geolocated at all. If you search it right now in the traditional the current search interface, right, you will get like the top curses from guides, reviews, et cetera, rather than a local pack map pack, which is what they do in the search interactive experience and something similar in ecommerce, right. They will try to show product carousel at the top, which is very similar than the product carousel that they're already featuring in the organic search results below. So it feels a little bit repetitive, right? So again, I think that the websites that actually have the risk to end up not getting as much traffic as before, real risk, I will say are those that are the middlemen, because Google one definitely wants to become the middleman. Those that rely completely on ads or affiliates that don't provide a unique take, an actual take something of value and provide the product or the service themselves. Which is funny, right, because all of the opportunity that exists right now to automate the content, the way to be able to keep relevant indeed will end up being having your own voice, being an actual expert in a subject matter, subject matter expert on your specific area, right? And Google also wants to integrate this more and more on the coming features that they have announced also, which is the perspective filter, giving more of a visibility to real people authors, right? So it's a little bit of a plan, it's going to change. I'm very excited at the same time, normal, also a little bit scared, but exciting times to be around for sure. [00:11:57] Ramli John: Because that fear is like being unknown of what's happening next. And you made a good point about Google. They had to find the balance of the Google ad business is such a big part of the revenue and they don't want to disrupt their cash cow. And maybe Microsoft and Bing has an opportunity because Bing ads is not a big part of the revenue. So that they can be more user centric versus Google to balance user and business and revenue 100%. [00:12:25] Aleyda Solis: But you know what, funnily enough, actually Bean has done a much better work on integrating citations and external links, going to websites where they take the content from with overlay links, citations at the end, referring to the actual websites at the bottom of the answers, et cetera, in a much more prominent, visible way than Google. So it's funny that you mentioned it because I 100% agree. And then funnily enough, ironically enough, google is not doing what it is expected to do because they have interesting, like much more skin on the game they do than being right and not doing it like that for their advertisers 100%. [00:13:06] Ramli John: That's super interesting.

[00:13:07] Staying Relevant in SEO with AI

[00:13:07] Ramli John: There's so much that you said there that has so much value and Gem, one of the things that I've heard is that if SEOs and marketers want to stay relevant in this AI future world, they have to focus more on strategic and execution. Because a lot of the things that the typical intern would do, give me the top pages of this AI will be able to do that. Is that what I'm hearing? If you want to stay relevant, don't be a one trick pony, but also don't really focus too much on the tactical without having strategic because AI can't do that yet. [00:13:46] Aleyda Solis: Strategic 100%. I mean also the fact that if you know how to leverage these tools to make things faster, you don't want your competitors to at work you just because they are using this automation integrated with a lot of SEO tools. Also now integrates chatgpt like type of features like phrase for example, which is the content optimization tool that I use. It's also integrating a lot of AI for outlines, for paraphrasing, content writing, content FAQs, et cetera. For example, and not only for content also for example, for ongoing optimization and opportunities. SEO testing.com, which is a fantastic tool to identify, to monitor and identify opportunities, has integrated also with OpenAI API for those pages where they identified that there's content decay, that content is decreasing in rankings after a while because of lack of freshness, et cetera. They integrate the brickrive feature optimization feature to identify easy opportunities to optimize the content right there SEO. I think that there are very smart ways to leverage these tools to accelerate the pace of your task in SEO on one hand and then on the other hand, 100%. I mean, if you have been focused all of this time on selling, I don't know, I am going to write your metadata of 100 pages or 1000 pages for 999 package. These type of things that we tend to see from time to time, right? There isn't much value right now, but still somehow it's possible to sell it. I can see how that won't be the case in the future. So that is why you, as a copywriter, as an SEO, et cetera, you want to become much more knowledgeable, much more sophisticated, to be able to add this extra layer of strategical input in the work that you do. Taking into consideration the context of the business, the goal of the business, the context of your industry know how of the industry all this information that well the bots won't have to take and won't take into account when doing your work right? [00:16:03] Ramli John: It makes a ton of sense. I love that.

[00:16:06] The Future of AI in Education

[00:16:06] Ramli John: I think people start I had an interesting question asked me the other day about sure, people coming out of university. They might be at a disadvantage because typically their job starts off as that intern who's doing that task you mentioned. Do you see a future where prompt, AI prompts is actually taught in university, where they're actually teaching them how to build prompts. I'm just curious if that is a world that's actually a course on prompt engineering, which I've never heard of until this person asked me yesterday. [00:16:40] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, there is one, indeed. There are quite a few. I mean OpenAI published one. There are even a track of how to leverage AI also in Maven that was announced. A few different platforms are also releasing their own different courses for everybody to leverage the chat bots, right? And to make it easy. And I can definitely see how in the future remember when there was a time potentially you don't remember because you're too young, but there was a time when I was a kid and I didn't get it. But I remember when I was a kid, there were people who were teenagers already that they went to typing lessons. [00:17:22] Ramli John: I did, I went to typing lessons. [00:17:23] Aleyda Solis: They actually went to typing lessons once I got to that stage, that age that wasn't taught because PCs and computers and laptops were there were natural. So they expected you to already know it, to already learn it at home, whatever. So you went to computer class, YT class, whatever, and you already were typing somehow in one way or another, some better than others, but it was something already natural. Right? So I do believe that this is going to happen now that for some people, yes, prom engineering, how to leverage AI for kids now that are, I don't know, ten, whatever, when they are teenagers, that will be like natural for them to know, to understand how to interact with chatgpt. They will need a class for that. So indeed, for sometimes that will be needed in the long term, that will be completely natural as kids right now know how to use fun and to type. Yeah, the exact same thing.

[00:18:20] Ramli John talks to Aleyda Solis of Orianti about SEO and its future potential

[00:18:20] Ramli John: Before I continue, I want to thank the sponsor for this episode, 42 Agency. Now, when you're in scale up growth mode and you have to hit your KPIs, the pressure is on to deliver demos and sign ups. And it's all to handle this demand gen, email sequences, rev ops and more. And that's where 42 Agency, founded by my good friend Camille Rexton, can help you. They're a strategic partner that's helped B two B SaaS companies like Profitwall Teamwork, Sprout, Social and Hub Doc to build a predictable revenue engine. If you're looking for performance experts and creatives to solve your marketing growth problems today and help you build the foundations for the future, look no further. Visit 40 Twoagency.com to talk to a strategist right now to learn how you can build a high efficiency revenue engine. Thank you also to the sponsor for this episode. HS Free Webmaster Tools if you want to rank your website higher in search engine engines, you have to make sure that your website doesn't have any technical SEO issues. Because if you do, that's like trying to run a race with your shoes tied together, that's how you lose. And we don't want that. Luckily, Asia's free webmaster Tools can crawl up to 5000 pages to find 140 common technical SEO issues that could be holding your site back from generating valuable traffic. Can also help you find your strongest backlinks, as well as analyze keywords you're ranking for and see keywords search volume and ranking difficulty for each of those keywords, you can sign up for free@htraps.com webmastertools or find that link in the description and show notes. Well, let's get back to the episode. Yeah, that's a great analogy. You're right. I went to typing school and I can't imagine my kid or them teaching typing school at school. Right. [00:20:05] Aleyda Solis: It's just not I don't think so, is it? I wasn't taught at least even yeah. [00:20:09] Ramli John: That'S super interesting that you're putting that. So there's courses out there around this prompt engineering and a lot of the stuff you talked about, the first experience of SGE that you had, and as well as any prompts is on your website, I'm going to link that in the description. You also have written several Twitter threads around it that have gone viral. So I'll link to all of that in the description.

[00:20:33] Discussing the Importance of Specificity when Using AI for SEO Writing

[00:20:33] Ramli John: But I want to talk about like prompts itself because it seems like there are bad prompts lead to bad results and you gave one earlier, give me an SEO strategy for 2023 for this business. And you're like, that's a terrible prompt because it will not give you something useful. I'm curious, what are other red flags for you when you're like, that's a bad prompt there. What are those red flags that you see in other prompts or you will say will not give you good results? [00:21:10] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, those that are very generic and BWAs, that don't specify all of the characteristics, requirements, restrictions that are important to take into account. So for example, if you ask to generate title tax, right? I mean, tell them follow in SEO best practices. Right. So you need to specify well, and also give me title tax for, let's say a Genes page. No, give me the title tax for a jeans page. That is a product listing page that has a commercial intent and features Genes as products so it knows that or understand. And the answer is for content. That is a PLP, that is transactional, that has a commercial intent rather than informational because otherwise very likely it will tell you the best genes for whatever, like if it was a guide. Right. Or your risks on getting this right. SEO, the more specific and descriptive you can be with all of the input that you need the bot to take into account for the more accurate output the best will be. Right, and I understand that, especially at the beginning, that can take a little bit of refinement, right? I do a lot of like imagine that you are an SEO providing the context. Imagine that you're an SEO specialist developing a keyword research for a website that is this and provide very specific context in order to get more accurate answers. So that is why I came up with the five W's and the H, as you mentioned, right? [00:22:51] Ramli John: Yeah. [00:22:51] Aleyda Solis: Because typical questions, methodology for journalists to specify when doing an interview, right? To specify all the context, why, who, where, when, how and by providing all of this different specifications, characteristics, restrictions to take into account the context, the output will tend to be much better. [00:23:16] Ramli John: Right, that makes sense. And I love that the more specific it is, the much better. I never used that imagine before. That's genius. I've seen one where pretend you're Ted Lasso. I'm not sure if you watch Ted Lasso, the show where he's this really optimistic coach on Apple TV and write me a LinkedIn post as Ted Lasso. I never thought about it as like imagine you're an SEO specialist and you're very specific about providing it context so that it doesn't just output you. Generic stuff.

[00:23:51] Effectiveness of AI in Content Creation with Aleyda Solis

[00:23:51] Ramli John: The prompt that you mentioned around the gene, you kind of already started breaking down the five W's and H there. Can you break down a little bit more? What is the context you were talking about? Create five title tags and then where is it going to be used for? You're talking about it for Genes category. Can you break down an example of how the five W's and H fits into. [00:24:20] Aleyda Solis: Actually, I have quite a few examples in the website. Like examples like very specific, right? What is the expected task? So create five title tags. Where is it going to be used to be featured in a Y Genes category page? How is the format, language, structure, tone, length, characteristics, constraints? The content needs to be descriptive of products in English, relevant, engaging with a commercial intent, following SEO best practices of no more than 50 characters each, for example, because otherwise it might be who is the target audience? Potential gene buyers, right? When is it going to be used on an ongoing basis? Evergreen content, when you want to use why do you want to use the expected goals, right, to engage the audience and rank better in search results. So all of this together is create five title tags to be featured in a Y Genes category page. The characteristic to be taken into account are the following the target audience are potential genes buyers to be and it's going to be used at an ongoing basis to engage and run better in Genes category pages. So all of this, yes, is a bit long right. But will allow you to create an output that is much more accurate, that needs less refinements. And then you can create and I highly, highly advise that you have your Prom library. There are actually extensions that facilitate this aiprm is one of the promise extensions that exist. But you can create your own library even in your own Google Sheets. This is what I do too. So anybody that I work with can have access to this prompts that I know that are very well refined. For this use case, you probably need just to add the specific topic and the audience will change on the type of page. And for this is an area of title tax, or this is an area of metal description, or this is an areas of headings or FAQs. The output will be really, really good. Right. [00:26:36] Ramli John: This looks like the early forming of like a content brief almost, or like imagine you're outsourcing this to an intern or somebody. The more specific you are, the more likely they'll be successful at doing that task rather than do X. [00:26:54] Aleyda Solis: For me, I truly believe that if I am good at this, it's because I'm so used on working remotely. Right? I have been working remotely already for a while, since like even when I was an employee, right. 2014 I became also on my own, et cetera, et cetera. So I am very used to communicate well in written, be very specific, very accurate on given, requiring or asking or ordering. Very specific in a very specific way in the way I communicate. And if you're sloppy, if you're too generic or ambiguous and you don't know how to request stuff in a very accurate way, then you will have a harder time. If you're used to work remotely and know how important is to communicate well in written, then it will be much more easily for you. [00:27:45] Ramli John: Yeah, I feel like a hot take here is like, don't blame Jack GPT, blame you. Like blame yourself. If you're getting bad results, it's because you're not thinking through the stuff that you should be thinking about before you provide it to AI. So that you talked about generic. The reason why it's generic is like you're not digging through exactly what you're looking for. Who is it for the how, the why and everything else. [00:28:09] Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean, bad output is because your input was bad and you didn't validate it well. You didn't refine and you didn't validate it well too. I mean, the only person who you can blame for having bad quality content generated by AI out there is you, right? Because you didn't do a good job first with the input, with the prompts, or with the validation later on and you need to have a validation workflow. Interesting, having an actual expert double check validate that what has been the output is actually accurate, that is point, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Yeah. [00:28:51] Ramli John: That validation is about reviewing the results and kind of tweaking it like asking it follow ups, like changing stinks to it. Is that exactly what that is? [00:29:01] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, 100%. And then also if you're using it, for example, for generating title tax, for example, or generating content. FAQs, for example, you have an actual copywriter reviewing it. So they don't need to write from scratch all of the FAQ, but they are going to edit them and add value on them. Where are the FAQs? On an example, renting a car in London. So maybe you can leverage keyword tools as well as the chat bot to generate these questions and answers. But if you have an actual copywriter, who's a car expert, car rental expert that knows the business, know the know how, will know when a question potentially that is asked doesn't make sense. It's too generic or too repetitive, or the answer that has been given by the bot is too broad to be actually useful and actionable. So this person will add the extra layer of their actual experience and expertise to make it useful and make it actionable also within the website. Right? To do this, you can change this configuration of the website to obtain this type of cars or don't worry about this particular rules in London because they don't care about this. Things like that. Right. So literally something like I believe that there's tons of value on thinking of it like this. Like the first layer of content of information. Yes. It would be at this point not smart to not leverage these tools. However, in an era where content can be highly, highly automated by AI, you need an expertise layer that is going to be your own voice, your unique selling proposition. Otherwise your content will look exactly the same than any other content out there. Unique, uniqueness. What makes you unique? What is your tone of voice? Right? This is Marketing 101. [00:30:55] Ramli John: I feel like that's a whole thread and post that you can potentially write if you haven't written one yet. That's something that's often skipped where people think just put it in and then publish it. And you're like, no, wait a second. You're adding that expertise, that uniqueness. The stuff that that search engines look for, that credibility and things like that, that you can't really check with this. You started already kind of digging and giving examples. You have this, by the way, that article you mentioned around the five W's and H I'm going to link in the description. Great post.

[00:31:32] Innovative SEO Practices with AI Technology

[00:31:32] Ramli John: Another one you had was like prompts that can accelerate or help people with SEO activities. You've been giving a ton already around title tags and description. I'm curious, is that title tag something that you use often or what are other ones from that? This 20 that are often maybe your favorite or maybe ones that you use quite often for clients or for yourself? [00:31:59] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, I love to leverage it for ideas, right? Especially as a non native English speakers. Better ways to say something more professional ways to say something interesting. Also to do stuff in bulk. Leveraging the extensions, the Gushids extensions, rewrite me regenerate these titles that are too long by. Making them less than 55 characters while keeping the core key, keywords that you can see in this auto cell into account SEO, it will provide them to you. Right? So this type of workflows, I use them a lot or generate the FAQ for this group of pages in book equal sheets by looking into the most asked questions, the most popular question about their topic, taking into account that they are going to be featured in listing pages in this type of business. So you go, you take a look and then someone who's an actual expert in the business comes and review. So these type of scenarios, I think that they can be very powerful. I use them. I actually was using a little bit of that on my own websites that I have as a little bit of a test to and I have more and more clients are relying on the tech to help their marketers, to help their copywriters, not to replace them. Right? That is something very important. [00:33:22] Ramli John: That makes sense. I like that. I never even thought about that. I think even copywriters can use this, give me variations of this. So it's more like an ideation tool where you can give me other options where you can pick one that might make more sense for you rather than something else is exactly what I'm hearing. [00:33:41] Aleyda Solis: 100%.

[00:33:44] SEO Strategies for Staying Relevant Amid Declining Traffic

[00:33:44] Ramli John: One other question I had around before we ship around career power ups is I've heard a lot of specifically I work in B, two B, SaaS, and a lot of SaaS companies have been hit traffic wise, organic traffic. I noticed that you're like providing a bunch of templates on your site and I've heard, I don't know if this is correct, where that value add of adding templates or like Google Sheet or even videos is a way to stay relevant in this AI feature search world, so to speak. I'm curious, what are some practical tips you have for marketers and SEOs who have seen their traffic go down because of maybe I or in the past few months and they're trying to figure out exactly what the future of things they can do to continue to stay relevant. [00:34:34] Aleyda Solis: What I will say is that you do a good benchmark. You take a look at what is getting visibility right now in the SERPs and what is getting your traffic. So for example, if you see that Google is shifting the results because they have identified that the intent of the user, the search behavior of the users has changed and of course you are sort of giving outdated content that doesn't really fulfill that need of the users that Google is finding right now. You need to update that content or to create new content that actually fills that need. So from time to time, indeed, especially until now, like after core updates that happen every three or four months or so, we'll see that many times for some queries broader queries. Well, Google were ranking, for example, listing pages. All of a sudden they are not ranking as many link listing pages, but they are now ranking guides. And then all of a sudden it's not that they have shifted the type of content that they are ranking now, but now they are showing a prominent video carousel or a map pack, or a map pack, or an image pack, or a product carousel right in the feature. So all of the clicks go there rather than on your website, even if you haven't lost positions, literally SEO. What it is important is to understand first, why is that changing? Google is changing their search and search results, their interface of the results, because of a need of the user that is shifting. So can you produce content in videos, in images, or generate feeds in order to make the most out of all of these features that Google is showing in your results and are eating your clicks, your traffic, that is the first thing. If it is doable for you, then when it actually makes sense for you to do it. So in a way that has an ROI Posit impact on your business, right? Maybe you cannot do this for every single query, for every single content, but you can start assessing the impact for a few very important money making queries for you where you can see that these type of snippets or features are shown and you have the capability to create them. That can be a way that can be one of the ways for me, especially with the new surgeon narrative experience that will be released in the next few months after trial test. Whatever bed type needs to be on Tweaks, they need to have, and I'm certain and hopeful that they will continue referring traffic to the websites with proper citations and links, as Bing is doing. There's certainly going to be a shift, so we need to understand how it's shifting to be able to keep relevant and continue connecting with the users in one way or another. An example, yesterday I was seeing and I was playing around with the new Google search generative experience, Snapshots, and seeing that for branded queries, if you work with a very well known merchant, an example, right, retailer, an example, Nike sneakers. If you search for this branded queries like this for a product line of a very big brand, you will tend to use that the category pages, the listing pages of that big brand website will tend to be there all the time. This is pretty much traffic that they own, big brand, let's say, type of experience. At the end of the day then with the new search generative experience, you realize that Google is pretty much generating their own listing above the organic results and they are listing directly the products there. So the traffic that used to go to the category page of Nike sneakers or NORFACE jacket will now be attracted to go to specific pages that are now featured at the top. You know the thing, the funny thing is that these product pages, when you click on them, a Product Knowledge Panel is displayed. And in the Product Knowledge Panel, you don't only have the link to the product page of the official brand, but also all of the distributors online stores oh my goodness. That distribute their product. So, yes, you can see how the net effect for the typical listing page will be negative if this is released as it is in beta right now. What can you do? So it is about working and understanding the shift of the behavior of the user on one hand with these new results and how these results are displayed to identify opportunities for these brands to say okay, then, a new type of page is required, or make your PLPs or your listing actually different, to have a more prominent, visible way to connect with the users in another way right of the journey. Or maybe they are not necessary at all all of a sudden. And then you need to focus completely on your product pages and making them much more comprehensive, much more unique, all the structured data, et cetera, et cetera, to ensure that you get the top visibility there again. Or maybe you even need to generate much more informational content. So Google source that content at the top of their snapshot, which is what they're doing with money guides. And then they are, let's say, pressure to link to you in this other way. So again, it's about, I would say, being very strategical, keeping your eyes open and see every time that you are getting less traffic. Why? Is this because I have lost positions or not? I am keeping position. Is the click to rate that is decreasing? And why is the click to rating decreasing? Is because there is a big feature above my result that wasn't there six months ago. What is changing? Can I leverage that or not? Or is because people are not search engine much this type of products and they are searching them in another way. Should I create new content to tackle and target and address these other queries? So again, you need to identify this. So as you can see this type of stuff, I don't see a bot replicating this type of behavior quite easily. You need to understand the market. You need to understand the context. You need to be proactive and identify opportunities like that. And pretty much this is why SEO tends to be complex, because you need to be paying attention like this every time there's an ongoing change. And then also it's about aligning the resources to validate your hypotheses monetize, develop tests, and then replicate in a way that is actually cost effective for the websites. [00:41:30] Ramli John: I just love how you like really dug into it like a detective broke down. What you would do. Like this is like this investigative something died. Now we got to go dig into the clues and figure out exactly how to fix it. Really, thank you for sharing that and digging deeper into that.

[00:41:51] Aleyda Solis's Approach to Content: Unlocked Value for Wider SEO Impact

[00:41:51] Ramli John: In terms of yourself, I noticed you share a lot of Google Sheet templates and it's not gated. I'm curious if that's more of you trying to be being really helpful to folks or is that like an SEO? It's an SEO play at all where just open it wide and it's not something that once again, it's a value add that Google can't just crawl. You have this template that they need to show or something. [00:42:20] Aleyda Solis: This is a great question. Thank you. And I think it tied with what we were talking a little bit before we started our recording. Riley, there's this balance and layer about you as a professional, as a market, as a consultant too. Are willing and able and happy to share for free out there to give back to the community, to establish yourself as an authority also in your sector, et cetera, which are things that of course I want to do. And then also how much you don't want to give away because should be part of your know how that you sell ultimately right to your clients. And a lot of people say and are like, okay, but if you are going to give away this, at least leverage it to get into this users or into your funeral already, right? SEO, I prefer a wider reach. I think that life's too short to gain stuff around many ways to get stuff anyway. I highly dislike this trend that I see over Twitter. Like, oh, I have this template about X or Y. Retweet me and follow me and I will send it to you over DMs. Like, oh, my God. Why? Look, if I am sharing stuff for free without being gated, et cetera, I know that people will find me valuable enough. And if I do it at a consistent basis and the value versus noise ratio is good enough, people will eventually, like after the third time, consider themselves that it's valuable to follow me. Follow me because I am sharing good stuff all the time rather than me requiring them to do it just to share the first. Right? So I am much more aligned with being much more natural, providing value, being more organic. At the end of the day, I am an SEO, and that is what I love. This way to do marketing because it's more aligned with good UX. Rather than pushing people around to do X or Y without them being necessarily all in there yet making their mind that this is the actual right thing for them to do. Right. So I prefer to give nudges and that they realize that there's value following me and reading my newsletter the same rather than gaining everything and requiring access like that. [00:44:54] Ramli John: Yeah, I love that you're really optimizing for impact. You can impact more people because people will be turned off when you get it. Oh, I don't want to give my email like you're actually trying to share it and distribute it to as many people and help as many people as possible, SEOs and marketers alike. [00:45:12] Aleyda Solis: And it will make the people who follow me also more engaging. Also, if I am requiring that, for example, to grow my newsletter list, for example, very likely a lot of these people will never open my newsletter anyway because they have been pushed to subscribe to it in that way. Right. I prefer that they decide to do it so because they have seen that I share value and they are incentivized to open the newsletter because they know it's useful. Right. [00:45:39] Ramli John: I love that that's a perfect place to switch gears. And I feel like this is already starting to push towards that around things that helped you accelerate your career.

[00:45:48] Interview with Aleyda Solis on advancing SEO career and sharing knowledge

[00:45:48] Ramli John: Now, you've been in SEO now since 2007, and I'm curious what's something that's helped you level up and accelerate? It could be just what you mentioned, helping as many people as possible, but it could be going on more podcasts or talks or starting your own show. I'm curious what's one thing that's helped you level up your career? [00:46:10] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, 100%. I think that what you mentioned actually has been like the key differentiator in my journey, right. Sharing. And I do it because I love it, because it's the way that I also learn. I mean, to be when when you share something, when you educate on something, it's because you have tried it, you have tested it, and you also learn along the way things that work, things that done, and get feedback from other people and interact much more with the community. Of course, I will say that it's something that should be natural for you to do something, that it's not something difficult or that will add some extra layer of complexity in your life. That doesn't make it enjoyable. Right. For example, when I mean sharing too is sharing in so many different formats. For me, speaking is also sharing just in speaking format. When you do presentations, when you do webinars, when you go on stage or in podcast. Sharing is also writing blog posts, writing guides, sharing templates that is sharing too. So a lot of people is like, oh, how you ended up deciding that you wanted to speak. Because speaking was another way of sharing potentially a little bit more stressful and complex one, but also one that I also enjoy more because allow me to travel to places and I love to travel and interact with the community. And since I work remotely, that is a way that I have to see more people and interact and meet more like minded people, et cetera, et cetera, SEO. It becomes very natural for me to do so. But of course, you need to enjoy it. So whenever someone tells me, oh, I want to become a consultant or develop my career in a way, and I want to develop, establish my personal brand, but I don't love to speak, right? I was like, no worries. There are so many different ways to share with guides, wet podcasts, with this, with that. So you don't need to be pushed on doing it in a way that doesn't spark joy, right? It's not natural for you and it's not enjoyable. At the end of the day, that's so good. [00:48:22] Ramli John: I love how you brought us sparking joy there doing a podcast or sharing templates or even speaking, whatever makes you spark joy.

[00:48:30] Aleyda Solis Discusses Her Love for SEO and the Motivation Behind Sharing Her Knowledge

[00:48:30] Ramli John: I'm curious what's motivating you to share. You talked a little bit about meeting with other folks, but is it to have as much impact on the world, maybe more outdoors? Obviously, there's also the business side to it where growing your personal brand generates potential clients. What's still motivation for you specifically that's helping motivating you to continue to share great content that once again I'm going to link in the description. Also a big fan of your newsletter, which I'm telling everybody to subscribe to it. But what is that motivation behind all of this for you? [00:49:10] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, well, I'm very curious and this is one of the things that actually attracted me to SEO, that SEO is a little bit of content. Technical marketing is a mix of everything. Pretty sure I have ADHD undiagnosed because I'm like this all over the place. But yes, this is what actually attracted me to SEO and I love about it. And then when I became independent, Also, and even before, I always was attracted to I'm like blogging on the side, doesn't necessarily need to make money, but it's something that I enjoy sharing on social media, going to events even if I didn't and wasn't thinking at the time, becoming independent, having a consultancy. And then afterwards, it's something that I am more mindful about, about how I'm very thankful for the career that I have had and how I have been able to evolve myself. Thanks for the information that I have been able to get in one way or another. So I want to simplify that and make it much more easy, so newcomers can have all of, for example, with learning SEO IO to have all of this aggregation of knowledge that is accurate, that is up to date, that is provided by people who will provide the know how and will help them to get there much faster. So that is why I created Also as a way to give back, let's say, because, yes, sometimes it's like, oh my God, I'm so lucky. And I'm very thankful for all the evolution that I have had professionally, right? So it's also a way to do something that I enjoy and to give back and also to play around, to test around. I am also using the websites that I create to test things with SEO FOMO. Actually, I never expected email marketing and newsletter to be, oh my God, I am hooked now, right? To be so good, to be successful. I'm like, organic SEO. And I'm like, oh, my God. If you want an engaged bottom of the funeral customers or fans or audience, go there, create your list and play around what works or not to grow. It the same when I started Crawling Mondays, my video series podcast, right? I started at the beginning of 2019 or so to test YouTube as a channel, organics channel to optimize for and took it from there, right? So I'm always testing new things and doubling down on those that work. So, for example, I have launched Marketing FOMO, which is the digital marketing newsletter weekly, because I saw that SEO FOMO was very successful and there was a need for marketing digital marketing that is not SEO focused, but content marketing, digital PR, paid search, et cetera, to have something similar and try to get there much faster. Right? So these type of things I love to play around and thankfully, while being independent, right. They provide me the flexibility to do this stuff. [00:52:12] Ramli John: I love it. I feel like what I'm hearing is like, you're just naturally curious and you're doing all of this and you're sharing it in public. Just like, oh, this is what I learned and this is something that's helped me, that can help you. That's super, super cool.

[00:52:26] Giving Your Career a Boost with Proactivity: A Conversation with Aleyda Solis

[00:52:26] Ramli John: In terms of second to the final question around, if you can send a message back to a younger version of later, what advice or tip would you send yourself who might be starting out in SEO, who might be starting out in marketing? What would be that tip or advice or nugget of wisdom that you can share to your younger version of you? [00:52:50] Aleyda Solis: Yeah, I will say, don't double think it. Be proactive. Give yourself your own opportunities. Right? I think that especially when I was very young and starting as an SEO, I was always looking for expecting someone like a good boss or mentor or something like that to see my value and provide me the opportunity to grow my career, better job, more salary, better this and that. And then I realized that I needed to provide that opportunities to myself. So, an example, if you're looking people and expect them to ask you to speak at a big conference, right, but they haven't seen you speak ever, right? Can you get into their radars? Give yourself that opportunity first by even creating your own webinars, creating your own video series, or starting to speak. And then with this examples that you know how to speak well, you propose little by little to smaller channels so they can invite you. Then bigger and bigger online stages. And then at some point it's like when there are now forms to pitch to be conferences like examples that you can speak well, you can already send quite a few, right? So it's very hard for them to say no, but given yourself or getting to that point where it's very hard to dismiss you or to overlook you or to not give you opportunities because you're so good. I believe that there's a lot we can do for ourselves rather than just asking for help. It's like, oh, I don't have the support or I don't have the validation. You need to validate yourself many, many times and get and push yourself towards this part where it's impossible to not take you into consideration wherever you want to go, right. Independently of where you want to go. So I think that we can do a lot around that. And I will say myself because my early 20 something took risk, yes, but I believe that, yeah, I will have pushed myself much harder on doing being much more proactive, starting on my own, et cetera, rather than looking for to others to give me opportunity like that, or applying to jobs, things like that, right? [00:55:00] Ramli John: I love that. There was this other conversation I had with Brendan Hufford. He talked about this book called Be So Good That They Can't Ignore You by Kyle Newport, which is exactly what you're saying. You're just like honing your craft and really sharing and it all kind of works together, what you just said. Like you sharing, you honing your craft, you building up and asking for it kind of builds up to where you are today. [00:55:27] Aleyda Solis: Love to hear that. [00:55:28] Ramli John: You can find out more about ladies work online. She's doing a lot, actually. She has a podcast called Crawling Mondays. You can find on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. She has a newsletter SEO FOMO at Seofomo Co. She has SEO consulting@orient.com courses at Learningseo IO. You can find all of those links, including her LinkedIn and Twitter profile on the show.

[00:55:51] Marketing Powerups Podcast: Alita's Interview

[00:55:51] Ramli John: Notes and Description thank you to Alita for being on the show. If you enjoyed this episode, you'd love the Marketing Powerups newsletter. I share the actionable takeaways and break down the frameworks of world class marketers. You can go to Marketingpowerups.com subscribe and you'll instantly unlock the three best frameworks that top marketers use to hit their KPIs consistently and wow their colleagues. I want to say thank you to you for listening and please like and follow Marketing Powerups on YouTube, Apple, Podcast and Spotify. To feel like extra generous, kindly leave a review on Apple podcast and Spotify and leave a comment on YouTube. Goes a long way in others finding out about Marketing Powerups. Thanks to Mary solidon for creating the artwork and design. And thank you to Fisal Kygo for editing the intro video. And of course, thank you for listening. That's all for now. Have powered update marketing powerups until the next episode.