Full Transcript of Think Fresh - Episode 12
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;20;16
RYAN
We’re doing this.
JEN
All right. Hello and welcome to th – were you’re talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m Settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;06
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing. Insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life – and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;04;03
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about SEO and the impact of AI. So Jen, today we’re talking about SEO and covering a little bit about the impact of AI on that. So we’re bringing in an expert.
00;01;01;26 – 00;01;17;11
RYAN
We’re bringing in Ally Macha. Our digital strategy lead here at De Novo. She keeps us moving in the right direction with SEO and staying on top of things with AI.
JEN
Awesome, Ally, it’s great to have you. Even though I sit like four seats down from you in the office downstairs.
ALLY
That’s a long four seats.
JEN
It’s a long four seats.
00;01;17;15 – 00;01;38;13
JEN
I can, I mean generally hear what’s going on down there. And the general banter about SEO and AI and, I am I can’t wait to dig into this, but I just keep going back to the fact that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
ALLY
Absolutely. 100%.
JEN
Yeah. Well, speaking of things not staying the same.
00;01;38;15 – 00;01;59;27
RYAN
Oh my gosh. Yeah. My gosh.
JEN
What do you want to dig into first.
RYAN
I am we all know that this is now a sports podcast. You’ve all been following my journey, with venturing into the sports realm. The WNBA draft happened last night and it was exciting this is my second.
JEN
Ryan just goes into ESPN voice like the WNBA draft happened last night.
00;01;59;29 – 00;02;18;03
RYAN
I did pitch it down a little bit. I did. You know, I can’t go back up to my normal voice. But I really like that. This is my second WNBA draft, and I like the the pomp and circumstance of it. This is this is this is not sports, right? This is pomp and circumstance. This is pageantry.
00;02;18;03 – 00;02;38;22
RYAN
This is showmanship.
JEN
Outfits are better.
RYAN
Oh, hell. The men’s. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But it’s all marketing, really, if you think about it. Like they are trying to build the excitement, they’re amping it up. This is kind of a pregame. We’re just getting people ready. It’s, you’re dipping your toe into into the, the Hall of sports that you’re about to be getting in in a few weeks.
00;02;38;22 – 00;02;59;26
RYAN
But, it really introduces all of our new talent. Also. Did you guys watch?
JEN & ALLY
No.
RYAN
And that is fine.
ALLY
I was keeping up to date on my phone. I was actually preparing for this podcast last night, but, I was paying attention, so, of course, I saw Paige went first. We all knew that was going to happen.
00;02;59;26 – 00;03;22;15
ALLY
I with you. You mentioned earlier, before we started recording that you were surprised at how late. Haley. Hailey. Van Lith went, And I was too. I kept waiting for it to happen.
RYAN
So draft pick 11. But like you were saying, Ally, you were getting updates on your phone. So this is not just a one. You can’t you don’t just tune in to ESPN to watch this.
00;03;22;15 – 00;03;44;01
RYAN
Now you’re getting updates on on your phone from the ESPN app. You’re getting it on social media. You’re getting it everywhere.
JEN
I wasn’t. Actually Doug actually was giving me live updates here and there from his phone. But that was I kind of shut that shut that down.
RYAN
You you I think you had mentioned you turned off a lot of notifications on your phone, right?
00;03;44;01 – 00;04;06;15
JEN
I have almost no notifications on my phone these days. I basically could go back to a flip phone, got to stay focused somehow.
RYAN
Like, I get it, I get it because those notifications can be intrusive. And the WNBA, I will say the ESPN app or oh gosh, no, it was the WNBA app. They made the announcement before they even announced it on TV about Paige.
00;04;06;22 – 00;04;28;10
RYAN
So yes, I was watching live on ESPN. I get the notification on my phone that, Paige went first and the commissioner hadn’t even said it yet. So then it was time a little bit better, but I think they were working through some, some tech issues because the commissioner got the information from the the draft room, the war room, if you will, and then she would walk out and read it.
00;04;28;10 – 00;04;50;23
RYAN
So I think that maybe the, the team doing the, the app side of things also got that information and they’re like, oh crap, we got the information. Go live, send that notification.
JEN
I love it when screw ups like that happen. I really do.
RYAN
I mean, the same thing with large companies like, like Slack. Recently they had an email that they sent out that had the wrong link in it, and they updated it and sent it out.
00;04;50;23 – 00;05;10;20
RYAN
And it’s like, okay, these things do happen to large companies as well. So it is it’s a good reminder, but also a good reminder to proofread and check your links.
JEN
So while you marketing warriors out there who’ve sent out something incorrect or whatever, you’re not alone. Not alone, you’re not alone.
RYAN
When you when you work in marketing, take tips from everywhere, right?
00;05;10;20 – 00;05;28;05
RYAN
Like, just see what other places are doing. Everything is marketing, right? So just see what they’re doing, see how they’re handling it, and see if you can position that for your own brand or get inspired for your own brand in your own marketing efforts. So now outside of the WNBA draft, there is a lot of other stuff happening.
00;05;28;06 – 00;05;50;26
RYAN
One of those that is rising to the top in my head is tariffs. We’re calling this tariff talk.
JEN
Or trigger Jen whichever. Whichever one. So yeah I have I have thoughts on what’s happening out there in our economy. And I am I am still hopeful that some adults will be in the room and pull back on this.
00;05;50;26 – 00;06;12;05
JEN
But the the wild swings in uncertainty are really rattling more than just the market, because, you know, the market is not the economy, and the economy is not the market as they say. But, it is definitely rattling businesses. And I mean, we are feeling it here in Iowa. And as an agricultural based state, we stand to lose a lot.
00;06;12;06 – 00;06;35;20
JEN
I think every state has its sectors that stand to lose a lot with this. But I am hopeful that that there will be some adult in the room at some point in time that that can, walk back some of this before the damage becomes permanent. So I think part of that uncertainty is that the walk back and then levying tariffs.
00;06;35;20 – 00;07;00;25
Unknown
So like there is literally a game every day, I think of like our smartphones going to be tariff like are if they are what’s a new iPhone going to cost. Oh gosh. And yeah. And so it’s interesting because they took that they took that tariff off. Right. On devices and electronics. And then they said they’re going to levy the chip on or the, the tariff on chips and semiconductors and everything.
00;07;00;25 – 00;07;27;05
JEN
So, it’s really just hard to tell what’s going to happen right now, but like, talk about like, if you’re going to piss off the cult of iOS, like, peace be with you, you know?
RYAN
Yes. Do not make any of the of the iOS team angry. I did see a report in I don’t know if it was the New York Times or where Washington Post maybe, but they said that the, the iPhone, if made 100% in the United States, would cost roughly $30,000.
00;07;27;07 – 00;07;54;12
ALLY
You know, just like a car, just an easy 30,000. Yeah.
JEN
Are you sure about that?
RYAN
We will pop that in the show notes, because yet yes, I was I was shocked and it just shows that we are a global economy, a truly global economy at this point.
ANNIE
Oh hey,. It’s me, Annie., Quick producers now, despite the confidence with which Ryan said that number, the accurate number is more like 3500.
00;07;54;15 – 00;08;17;03
ANNIE
Okay, back to the show.
JEN
So this morning, my husband and I read the newspaper from different rooms, and we’re typically on our computers early in the morning reading the news, checking stuff, email. And Doug says, well, I looked at our investment portfolio this morning and I’m like, what are you doing.
RYAN
Ally and I are both feverishly shaking our heads like, nope, don’t.
00;08;17;05 – 00;08;35;13
JEN
So I literally said, just don’t tell me. Just don’t tell me right now. And I don’t think that that’s really the right thing is to just not look at all. But, we do we do have to let this play out a little bit while like I said, hopefully some adults will be in the room who can who can dial some of this back, but I think there are a lot of people freaking out.
00;08;35;13 – 00;08;56;28
JEN
And, whether it’s their investment portfolio or whether it’s their company or whether they are just trying to figure out how are they going to price things based on, you know, what they might be facing. So I, you know, it’s this balance of stay that course, but also take action where you can. So we will we will see.
00;08;56;28 – 00;09;21;21
JEN
So this is April’s podcast. Let’s see where we are in May.
RYAN
Like right. Right now. Who knows. Who knows okay. Tariff talk. We’re considering that done. But tariffs aren’t on the tariff. We’ll see.
ALLY
Speaking of things that are changing all the time.
RYAN
There you go. There you go. Perfect Ali speaking of things that are changing, let’s move into our actual topic today.
00;09;21;21 – 00;09;55;11
RYAN
Why that? Why the folks are here. We’re talking about SEO. And I do want to to start things off with, a general question. What is SEO Ally?
ALLY
Well, that is the question, right? That’s the million dollar question. Search engine optimization is the official SEO. It’s a mix of different tactics and strategies that optimize websites to ensure that they are able to show up in search results, and that they’re showing up for the correct searches or search intents.
00;09;55;14 – 00;10;19;01
ALLY
There are three main components of SEO. Those are technical on page and off page. So your technical SEO is your base. It is the tactics that they do when they’re building your site. It’s done by web developers to ensure that your site can be found by search engines, and that it provides a good user experience. That’s where search, site speed comes in.
00;10;19;03 – 00;10;44;17
ALLY
Allowing crawlers, things like that. So that is the base. If you don’t have that, you can’t have any other type of SEO. You will not show up in any results. No one will be able to find you. On page SEO refers to the actual content on the site. So this is strategies employed to optimize for specific keywords or intentions, all on site.
00;10;44;17 – 00;11;03;06
ALLY
And then thirdly, off page. So off page SEO is any tactic that occurs off the site. This includes link building, business listings, social media, etc..
RYAN
So you you were saying it’s kind of the base. The technical SEO is the base. Does it really work like a pyramid, like your technical SEO. And then it kind of works its way up to the tip?
00;11;03;06 – 00;11;25;24
ALLY
Yes, very much so. In order of importance, if you want to think of it in that way, your technical has to be there. If you don’t have that base, you don’t have anything. Your on page SEO is kind of that middle, that meat. And then the off page SEO is everything that you can do on top of that to get the name out or get your website out in front of the public.
00;11;25;27 – 00;11;48;22
RYAN
So, Ally, do you have to do anything different for the different search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo?
ALLY
Not really. This would happen at the technical level. You just need to ensure that your site is set up to allow crawlers aka the technology that these, search engines use to read your site, that they are set up to be able to access, the pages on your site.
00;11;48;22 – 00;12;08;27
ALLY
This is again, this is a part of technical SEO. So this is done by the web developer. But when it comes to content, strategy remains the same.
RYAN
We have had sites that we’ve looked at, when a client either comes to de novo or we start working with them on digital, where the site is still blocked by crawlers.
00;12;09;00 – 00;12;23;25
JEN
That’s it’s not indexed. Yeah, it’s not being indexed by Google.
RYAN
So no matter what you can do, there’s like a switch or there’s a little line of code in there that says crawlers do not look at this website.
ALLY
Yeah.
RYAN
So you can have the best on page off page SEO. But the crawlers are basically told to ignore it.
00;12;23;25 – 00;12;47;16
JEN
Yeah. This is the second time I’ve been triggered in this podcast today. So like, nothing ticks me off more than amateur web development.
RYAN
Yes. Oh gosh.
ALLY
And there are different ways that you can do this. You can go in. And so this is getting in the weeds a little bit. But it’s called Robux robots.txt. And you can either allow all or you can go through and actually allow specific crawlers.
00;12;47;19 – 00;13;11;07
ALLY
But that would block new technology as it comes. So we generally do allow all, which would mean going forward, any of the new AI platforms are already able to crawl our sites.
JEN
Well, now that we’ve covered the technical side of that and we have explained it for Christine Ryan’s mom, now I’m going to ask you a complicating question how is AI changing SEO?
00;13;11;09 – 00;13;40;05
ALLY
That is a complicated question. It’s ever evolving. So right now we have seen some disruptions from AI and SEO, mostly with things like the AI overview in Google or people turning to generative AI platforms as alternative to search engines. However, at this point that is fairly minimal, to be honest. Google still has 83.5% of all searches being done through Google.
00;13;40;08 – 00;14;14;20
ALLY
ChatGPT does have 4.3%. So it is it is growing. But honestly, the biggest disruptions we’ve seen in the last year have actually come from Google’s own core algorithm updates. And then also a big shift in Google prioritizing for content from sites like Reddit and Quora over actual site results.
RYAN
And that was something we, we brought up, I think maybe last year when we had Ali and Julien on the podcast talking about digital, just adding Reddit to the end of your Google search, right.
00;14;14;20 – 00;14;35;22
RYAN
Just popping that in there. Then you get unfiltered commentary questions, things like that that take you right to read it. And you can sometimes get your answer even better.
JEN
Right? But is I also training on Reddit? I think I read that somewhere too, right? Yes. So that’s also interesting. And when you think about where you want to get your information from, do you want that all to come from?
00;14;35;25 – 00;14;58;06
ALLY
Right, exactly. And that is really where a big shift is coming from.
RYAN
So Ally, you mentioned using Google searches or Bing searches, but then you also said the other alternative is using generative AI platforms as a search engine. Can you explain that a little bit more?
ALLY
Of course. Yeah. I mean you can ask a questions, right? The same as a search engine and it will provide results in a different way.
00;14;58;09 – 00;15;20;21
ALLY
Generally it’s not. A list of results is going to give you a comprehensive answer, but you can use it in the same way.
RYAN
So using ChatGPT Gemini.
ALLY
Correct.
JEN
Okay. Okay. So a couple things come to mind. I mean first of all, like my my daughter who’s 21, uses ChatGPT now as her main search engine. And I keep saying you need to fact check that you need to fact check that you’re a journalism major.
00;15;20;21 – 00;16;00;16
JEN
You need to fact check that, but that’s becoming way more common. And also, I think ChatGPT is the, the engine that that, took Google below 90%, of that, of that search traffic, which is really interesting. But it leaves me wondering now, whether Gemini results are feeding back into Google search. So, which is also really interesting because my mother in law, who I can guarantee does not read or listen to this podcast, told me that she gave me some answer from the internet and I said, is that from AI?
00;16;00;16 – 00;16;25;26
JEN
And she said, no. And they said, show me your phone. And they said, this little purple star up here, that means it’s generated by AI. And I thought she was can throw her phone across it. So, but you know, whether people are taking that as fact, or not. But I think the really interesting thing is, is how is Gemini impacting Google search and keeping them as at the top of the heap, right.
00;16;25;26 – 00;16;53;01
ALLY
Yeah. And Gemini is interesting because of the way it actually pulls data. So ChatGPT pulls from a set of predefined data. So it already has that information essentially uploaded into its database. Whereas Gemini is actually searching real time results. So Gemini is using Google’s results and Google is probably using Gemini at the same time. And they’re building on each other.
00;16;53;03 – 00;17;20;21
RYAN
So ChatGPT kind of a set database, whereas Gemini Google AI overview that’s pulling it live. That now back to the WNBA. So for all of you last year, we all know that Kate Martin from Iowa was drafted out of the stands. She was not officially invited to the WNBA. That was in 2024. Right. There was another person who was, drafted off of UConn.
00;17;20;23 – 00;17;51;21
RYAN
I think her name was Caitlin Chen. I’m going to say Caitlin Chen. Same way she was drafted out of the stands, came with Paige. She was drafted out of the stands. I was googling was Caitlin Chen drafted out of the stands? And the Google AI overview said that that was one of the shocking moments of 2025 and the other shocking moment of 2025 was Kate Martin being drafted out of the stands as well, because people in their in their articles, they were saying, this is just like Kate Martin.
00;17;51;21 – 00;18;11;19
RYAN
So then I think me trying to think like I Google was like, oh, these are the same thing. This happened in the same year. So that I overview not necessarily correct. And that was just last night.
ALLY
Correct. So yeah that is the danger of just relying on AI. Right. It is only as good as the humans that it’s pulling information from.
00;18;11;19 – 00;18;39;11
ALLY
And sometimes it just interprets that incorrectly and is wrong.
JEN
Well, I want to go back to thinking about SEO professionals or people who have to at least be thinking about that and might be considering, you know, how this impacts them. How is a AI affecting SEO for websites right now?
ALLY
I think AI is making the most impact on the kind of content that people need to be creating, right?
00;18;39;13 – 00;19;17;28
ALLY
So I has made it so a simple question can be answered without anyone leaving Google or no extra information needed from ChatGPT. So what SEOs need to be doing is is really leaning into Google’s quality assessment framework. So that is EEAT right? Which stands for experience, expertise, authoritative ness and trustworthiness.
JEN
You said that with such authoritativeness.
ALLY
And so this is where people can really pull from their own firsthand experience and their expertise.
00;19;17;28 – 00;19;39;14
ALLY
They are the experts. They have the information. They’re not just one of a million voices being compiled. Right. And then really build that trust based on all of those things, to create content that goes beyond what the AI can provide for you.
JEN
Do you have do you have an example of what that might look like?
ALLY
I think this podcast is a great example.
00;19;39;16 – 00;20;04;14
ALLY
We have this podcast, and then we also generally write a blog that goes along with it. Right? So we have multimedia opportunities for people to ingest this information. And I think it also comes back to looking at quality over quantity. A big part of the disruption that we’ve been seeing is actually a decrease in traffic from organic sources.
00;20;04;16 – 00;20;27;13
ALLY
And then just in general rankings being harder to get. And so you’re having to focus more on getting that high quality content and driving people to your site who are actually going to further your business goals rather than just trying to increase organic traffic.
JEN
Right. So in a way, it gives you the potential to have better, more qualified traffic per site.
00;20;27;15 – 00;20;50;05
ALLY
Yeah.
JEN
Got it.
RYAN
So Ally, we talked a little bit about how how things have changed, but also how they’ve stayed the same. We had a very similar conversation five years ago with Siri and Alexa. Right. Like just answering your questions. Everyone was so terrified that your website wasn’t going to be relevant anymore because Google or Alexa was just going to answer your question, is this similar?
00;20;50;07 – 00;21;11;16
ALLY
It’s 100% similar. There’s a question that’s going around is SEO dead? And the answer is as dead as it has been any other time. It’s died over the past 20 years, which is multiple times. Every time it dies, it comes back, fitting for this to be around Easter. You can cut that if it’s inappropriate.
00;21;11;18 – 00;21;44;02
ALLY
But don’t cut it, because every time it comes back, this is really just a shift. Every time people think SEO is dead, it really is just a change in how we either think of SEO or how we need to approach it. And every shift sense. The inception of SEO has gotten us to the point where we are.
JEN
So SEO professionals or marketing professionals need to be tracking conversions from AI as well, right?
00;21;44;02 – 00;22;08;02
JEN
Like what does that look like for them?
ALLY
Definitely. And right now that is kind of still up in the air. We’re not seeing a ton of traffic coming from these AI platforms at this point. There’s usually 1 or 2. We’ve seen some sessions from ChatGPT on some of our websites, but it’s not huge. And so that is something that is constantly changing.
00;22;08;02 – 00;22;37;04
ALLY
That could by the time this comes out that could be different, where everything has spiked. And so it really is still it comes back to just providing providing that quality content so that you’re getting in front of people when they are searching for that specific issue or need that information and building that trust and authority and then having it come back and turn into those conversions.
00;22;37;10 – 00;23;07;25
JEN
So a AI is really just adding a layer to the funnel, right?
ALLY
Pretty much. Yeah.
RYAN
I do have a prediction with with that official prediction. I think that the same way that they added in social traffic, like when you’re looking at the traffic of your website, you have direct referral, social paid, etc. I think that in the coming year or so, they’re going to actually have AI, and that is going to say this was either somebody click to source in ChatGPT, which took you to the Geneva website.
00;23;07;25 – 00;23;31;02
RYAN
So that would be like just your standard referral. But I bet they’re going to start tracking how often your information is used in those automated zero search, or those automated AI responses, because Google wants to keep getting credit, right, and they’re going to figure out a way to give themselves credit and to provide a little bit more insight to to people checking those analytics.
00;23;31;04 – 00;23;53;13
JEN
I have an official prediction to that. And I’m looking at our producers right now. We need a sting specifically for the words official prediction. So I’m predicting by May we’ll have one.
RYAN
Ooh, I like that. I like that.
RYAN
So so we talked about things that that were different or things that have changed over the years with, with the death of SEO over and over again.
00;23;53;15 – 00;24;19;03
RYAN
What what remains the same?
ALLY
Really at the heart of it, what remains the same is your a need to understand your audience. Right at the beginning it was knowing what exact search words they were using to find sites like you, your services, your business, whatever that might be. It was very strict, right? You wanted to do those exact specific keywords.
00;24;19;10 – 00;24;47;24
ALLY
No deviation. As technology evolved that got easier and it shifted more to understanding search intent more than search keywords. And even now it has evolved into understanding and even antis, updating your audience’s needs and pain points, and creating content that addresses or even solves those.
RYAN
So just keep adding going the step further and going the step further for for our audience and and for search engines.
00;24;47;24 – 00;25;03;29
RYAN
I love that because it used to be, oh, you have all these keywords on your website, the exact words people are searching like you were saying. You would just add those in the bottom of your website in white and just like cram it on your website, that doesn’t help anyone that isn’t helping.
JEN
And it’s shady.
ALLY
Yeah, it’s shady.
00;25;03;29 – 00;25;33;03
ALLY
It’s definitely shady. And thankfully Google has having you know, being the largest search engine has evolved with these changes as well. So if you’re doing any of those types of things, you’ll actually be priority sized. They, they know what you’re doing and they don’t like it. Google, as much as the user experience on Google has actually decreased, they’re still looking to present information that has really high user experience.
00;25;33;05 – 00;26;02;23
ALLY
A big shift that we’ve seen. And the reason why a lot of people are moving from Google to like ChatGPT is because there’s so much noise on Google Now. There’s so much extra in those search results. You have the AI overview, which used to be the the snip, the featured snippet. They Google wants you to stay on their platform, but it just it builds so much noise.
00;26;02;23 – 00;26;26;25
ALLY
There’s all of the business listings, there’s the map, there’s everything that they think is relevant when you’re just looking for an answer. And so that is a reason why a lot of people are switching. But yet Google’s also still focused on elevating content that is high quality. And so it’s kind of, an interesting dichotomy in that way.
00;26;26;27 – 00;26;49;23
RYAN
Yeah. Seeing how the different divisions of Google are working, like you’ve got Google search and you’ve got Google ads, and then you’ve got Google AI and Gemini, they all are showing up on that search engine ranking page, right?
ALLY
They’re trying to jam everything in there.
RYAN
Yeah. And they’re trying they’re fighting for territory. I think that that there’s going to be some shifts.
JEN
Well, there’s going to be shifts because Google can’t undercut their advertising business at the end of the day.
00;26;49;23 – 00;27;12;10
JEN
Right. So but it is interesting. I mean, when I, I remember searching for a way to turn off the, the Google AI overview, and of course you, you cannot but I still want to use Google and then I got used to it. But what I do appreciate is the source links that come with it. Yes. So how does that impact SEO?
00;27;12;10 – 00;27;46;17
JEN
Like the source links, you know, is that are those links optimized any differently, would you say,
RYAN
Or does it count as a backlink?
ALLY
I would say it’s not a backlink, okay. It would still be a an organic traffic source. And really the recommendations for getting being featured in that AI are the same as they were when they started doing those featured snippets or rich text results is a following.
00;27;46;17 – 00;28;12;25
ALLY
All of Google’s SEO standards and again, providing very clear, concise responses to these potential questions.
RYAN
So it seems like things are remaining the same in that sense. Do SEO to be helpful. Don’t act don’t do SEO to to do to do SEO.
ALLY
Exactly. It’s the same as can’t, right? Like don’t write content to write content. That is in the end going to be a waste of time.
00;28;12;25 – 00;28;46;02
ALLY
You should be creating content that is helpful in some way.
JEN
Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, Gemini is really a play to keep Google at the top of the search engine, right? And I just fact checked myself, it’s fallen below 90% for the first time since 2015. Which is interesting, but since Gemini is getting more sophisticated and it provides those source links, I wonder if that’s really that’s that’s truly the play to stay on top of the heap.
00;28;46;05 – 00;29;14;19
ALLY
Most definitely. And Gemini and Google in general have been playing catch up in a way after ChatGPT came on the scene. I mean, even looking at, you know, ChatGPT having 4.3% of all searches over the last year, that’s huge. That’s more than Bing. That’s more than any other platform except for Google and then YouTube.
JEN
Wow. So I have to ask your favorite AI platform, Ally?
ALLY
I am a traditionalist.
00;29;14;19 – 00;29;44;11
ALLY
I’m going to say, and ChatGPT is still the one that I will go to. But I definitely want to spend more time in Gemini, especially as it is still evolving. And I mean, Google is trying to make it as sophisticated as possible, as fast as possible.
JEN
And as easy as possible. I mean, if you’re using Google Workspace for your apps, it’s built in now to that apps and it’s like I would give it a C-minus right now for its functionality within the apps.
00;29;44;13 – 00;30;00;12
JEN
I was trying to use it to analyze some data in sheets. This morning, and it kept telling me it couldn’t. I’m like, it’s your freaking product, didn’t you can’t?
ALLY
I did the same thing with an email where it said, do you want to polish this? And I said, yes. And I was like, I can’t do that. So I just assumed it was as polished as it could be.
00;30;00;14 – 00;30;20;14
RYAN
You. You’re perfect.
JEN
Exactly A-plus on your email writing. But it is really interesting. And I’m getting used to Gemini. I was I was definitely team ChatGPT for a while. Gemini is definitely getting easier and I appreciate that. It appears to use more real time data. Or I could be telling myself it’s using more real time.
00;30;20;15 – 00;30;51;06
ALLY
No, you are correct.
JEN
Yeah, but I actually think ChatGPT does a better job kicking out that shitty first draft for me. Then Gemini does like Gemini is can’t seem to grasp my tone, which is always sassy.
ALLY
Yes, and you are 100% your feelings
JEN
About the sassy?
RYAN
Yeah, also true about that. Also true.
ALLY
But that is in general what other people are seeing is ChatGPT is a lot more sophisticated when it comes to matching voice and being conversational.
00;30;51;08 – 00;31;23;18
ALLY
Gemini has been found to be a lot better for academic research and providing like bibliographies and things like that, but ChatGPT is still for creating content, working through ideas like that. Superior.
JEN
These platforms are eating up the smaller ones so quickly too. So we had a a brief, run with a product called Waldo FYI, which now basically Gemini can do that with all the, links that it provides and the geography that it provides.
00;31;23;20 – 00;31;44;11
JEN
You can also really kind of dictate how you, what you’re trying to develop from there. So it’s just I feel bad for these companies that are trying so hard. Right?
RYAN
They become basically, the product development of these larger companies like, oh, you have a cool idea. Great. We’re going to make that a feature of our larger platform in our next iteration.
00;31;44;17 – 00;32;10;16
JEN
So being a Google Workspace company, having Gemini not only just transcribe, record and transcribe like a meeting, it also does a really pretty good job with, with the notes. And the summary except it cannot spell de novo. Right.
ALLY
Of course it can.
JEN
Of course it, it or it just won’t write like it’s just a contrarian.
00;32;10;18 – 00;32;24;18
RYAN
So we talked a little bit at the beginning about the differences in search engines. Google Bing, Yahoo. And it was pretty similar. We just covered how like different AI platforms are better for different things. But when you’re optimizing your site thinking I do, you need to be concerned about which AI platform you’re going for. Like, are there differences in how ChatGPT or Gemini are pulling or like producing those results.
ALLY
At this point? Not really. I mean, as long as you are allowing those crawlers from the different platforms to access your site, they’re essentially looking for the same thing, which is high quality content that either meets a need or answers a question for your audience. And I know I’ve been saying high quality a lot, and it’s really hard to put an actual definition on that, but I really like the definition that Shelly Walsh gives.
ALLY
She is, content, SEO content executive editor at Search Engine Land. She’s been doing SEO since the 90s, and she’s a really smart woman. She says quality is content that cannot be replicated by AI. Quality is a strategy that cannot be easily replicated by your competitor. Quality is about creative thinking and effort. And so it comes back to again, what can you do beyond what I can do using your own insights, your own expertise, using your ability to be creative to create this content?
ALLY
However, there are differences in the way that these AI platforms are actually producing the results. So again, as I mentioned, ChatGPT is using a predefined data. It actually last I had checked is data from before October 2023. So it might not even be up to date at this point. I know they are working though on creating.
JEN
So, don’t ask it about last night’s draft.
ALLY
Don’t ask it about the draft. It will not know. It doesn’t even know about Caitlin Clark. You guys.
RYAN
Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. So something to keep in mind. Like where is this getting its data and. Its period. Yeah.
ALLYWhereas as we mentioned, Gemini is actually pulling real time. And I’m sure this is something ChatGPT is working on at this very moment to try to compete with that, because, I mean, over the last year and a half, how much has happened?
JEN
Just a few things, little things, just just a just a small amount. So ChatGPT really can’t answer my questions about tariffs.
ALLY
I don’t think so, unless it’s historical information and seems
JEN
Like the one thing that pushed our country into the Great Depression?
ALLY
it would know about those. I think everybody knows about those, don’t they Jen?
JEN
Maybe not.
Sorry. So let’s let’s take it back because to one of the things I’m really curious about is, you know, how does using AI generated content as the primary source of your online writing? How will that impact SEO?
ALLY
It will impact it, and not necessarily in a good way. So a lot of people are wondering, can we just use AI to create content like, that’s easy, it’s fast, let’s do it.
And the fact is that Google knows when you’re doing that and they actually don’t like it. So research has shown that Google will index sites that they can tell are using large amounts of AI generated content
JEN
And AI generated content can be writing, but it can also be imagery, and it can also be code. Right? Correct.
ALLY
Yes. And I don’t know how Google does it in the black box.
It’s in the black box, along with, exactly how they get their AI overviews. But they do know.
RYAN
Like that was kind of one of the things that the a when they had their big like AI World Conference, all the major places were saying they were going to add in little tiny watermarks to AI audio, AI, video, AI graphics in order to make sure we can determine when things are AI.
So they add these little tiny watermarks. We’re used to seeing them on websites like Shutterstock, right? It’s a big watermark that says this is a stock image. You have to buy it in order to remove it. AI companies are adding little tiny watermarks into these graphics, into these videos, ones that we as humans can’t see so that we can’t go in and remove them.
RYAN
So they’re adding it to AI audio, video and graphics so that you can scan it and determine if it’s AI. It’s genius. So that we can then determine. But it also just means that Google and the search engines, they know when you’re using AI, even if you’re trying to be tricky.
ALLY
Exactly. They know. And that is again, bringing back that need for authority and and trustworthiness.
The EEAT, if you like to sound it out like I do, that comes from real content generated by real people. Keep creating high quality content, stay up to date with these changes so that if there does come a point where you need to be doing something special to be showing up in these results, that you are aware of it and continue, I mean, continue to follow all the best practices, but still just focus on your audience and what they are looking for in an answer and how you can do that in a way that is unique and in a way that goes beyond what AI can provide for them.
JEN
Right. And I think that as marketers, I mean, there’s this push to create content just like constant content. And I think as marketers, we see this as a way to feed that need to some extent. But I think we also just have to be aware that there can be consequences for using it in an inauthentic way.
JEN
Yes. Or just cranking out nothing but I. Right. Yeah. So we don’t know how it gets proven, but we know Google doesn’t like it.
ALLY
Right. So yes. All right.
JEN
So just to bring this full circle for our listeners, if you work in SEO or you work in marketing, how do you balance using AI to generate the content that you need without creating something that gets deprioritized or D indexed or gets flagged as AI content, or even worse, turns off your audiences, right?
ALLY
And that I think that’s the question that a lot of people are asking. And AI is great for idea starters. It’s great. I think you mentioned as, you know, a crappy, crappy first draft shitty, first shitty, but I can say that on the shitty first draft. But you need to be putting your own information. You need to be tweaking it, making sure that it really does sound like it’s coming from you and putting in areas of your own expertise.
ALLY
Giving examples can be really powerful, providing evidence that you’ve seen in real life that come back to a more localized experience that’s authentic to your brand.
JEN
And look at that, comes back to brand always, always comes back to brand.
RYAN
Now it’s time for our segment called Create a Brief. This is where we dig into a marketing campaign, company or a recent product acquisition like we’re covering today, and see what insights we can glean from from their marketing moves.
Today, friends, I bring us poppy. I want to start by asking Ali and Jen, have you ever had a prebiotic or probiotic soda?
ALLY
I mean, I’ve tried it.
JEN
Ew, Yeah. I’m not a fan, although I do like kombucha, but I don’t like any of the prebiotics. Oh, does. And I’m with Ally in that I don’t think they’re soda.
ALLY
I will also try. They can try and they can yell soda at us if they want. But it’s it’s not it’s a it’s not a soda in one.
RYAN
I’ll be honest I haven’t had any of these. I also haven’t had kombucha. I haven’t had anything. Vinegar drink. Apple cider vinegar drinks. I haven’t had any of them.
JEN
What rock have you been living under? I just avoid it. I love Diet Pepsi. I like, I like, you know, you’re you’re a Diet Pepsi boy, for sure.
ALLY
I’m a Diet Pepsi girl to see if it is knowing the chemicals digesting.
RYAN
And then I’m fine with it. I’m fine with that. But one could argue that you’re saying this is not prebiotic.
Sodas are not sodas. The other side of that is arguing prebiotic sodas are not prebiotic. And they are just sodas. They are just pops. But I want to go outside of the, is this a prebiotic soda? Is that beneficial?
JEN
We’re not solving that debate here today.
RYAN
Yes. I want to talk about the rebrand of Poppy. Poppy is you guys have seen it.
RYAN
It’s in it’s in 30,000 stores. But Poppy started as a company called mother. This goes back to, the apple cider vinegar side of things. I think that when you are, there’s something which can be,
JEN
Yep. It’s. I mean, the mother, it’s this slimy thing that exists in your kombucha barrel, and it’s, it’s really gross.
And, they call it the mother, and I just looked it up. It’s symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, and it is as disgusting as it sounds in my very, very brief, time trying to make kombucha in my house, which resulted in a fruit fly infestation of which you cannot even imagine. I, I had one of those floating.
RYAN
I hate that it was so gross. I hate that, but that is that is to say, that is that was the name of Poppy before they before they rebranded mother. So that gross floating ball that is in your kombucha or in other things. Yikes.
JEN
But it is interesting to think they went with that, and they were probably going after a particular audience.
Right? They were looking for, you know, the people who are looking for that totally natural, beverage, probably like kombucha and like some of those apple cider vinegar drinks and are really thinking about it from a health perspective. It’s gotta, you know, if you look at the branding, it had a very kind of hippie feel to it.
Definitely not a sophisticated looking brand. And then they made this full shift, like full shift away from that. They are going after a completely different market.
RYAN
Yeah. Now they’re going mass appeal like they I bet when they were initially creating mother, they would have scoffed at being compared to a soda. Right. But now all of a sudden they’re like, we’re a soda.
Like we’re a soda. We’re prebiotic soda. The other piece of this, it all started on Shark Tank, like a lot of like a lot of these startup companies, and that the shark that invested in them had one rule, he said that they needed to rebrand, and they did. And we did just get a producer note. One of the reasons that they had to do this rebrand was because mother can’t be trademarked, so they had to create a brand that truly was a brand versus a word.
RYAN
This was years ago, and over the years they have grown. They have used social media influencers. They’ve looked at their market, they’ve realized that their market size is not just that small demographic of people who are looking for an apple cider vinegar, probiotic or probiotic drink. Their market is now everybody who drinks soda, and this all led to Pepsi purchasing them.
Jen and Ally, do you have any idea how much Pepsi would buy a prebiotic soda company for?
JEN
Ooh, I, I don’t know. Do we have any hints on what their, what their valuation was before that? I, I love this stuff.
RYAN
I will say Pepsi did buy and this is, Pepsi bought a company called Quaker Oats in a little, kind of a little company called Quaker Oats that owned Gatorade, owned all the cereal companies.
It owned all of those, so Quaker Oats Company had roughly 200 brands inside of it. And Pepsi bought Quaker Oats for $12 billion. So I bought 200 brands for $12 billion. And we did just have another producer note. Thank you so much to our researching producers when they were on Shark Tank as Mother, they had a $4 million valuation, a $4 million valuation.
JEN
Well, I have to just completely admit to cheating. And, Gemini I, oddly enough, is telling me what PepsiCo acquired pop before. So if it was valued at 4 million before they rebranded it, that rebrand worked.
RYAN
That rebrand worked really well. I’ll jump in $2 billion, $2 billion for one brand. Poppy only has prebiotic sodas. They do not have anything else.
There is nothing else in that company. It is purely the prebiotic sodas. They got into this market for $2 billion. So that is crazy. I could have sold that kombucha in my kitchen for $2 billion. And it’s it’s really interesting too, because Pepsi this enters now a larger conversation of the battle between Pepsi and Coke. Right. They want to see who can get into that market first.
And they wanted to be
there before Coke did. So they were probably eyeing, eyeing Poppy, maybe looking at Ali Pop. And they’re like, okay, which one do we want to buy? Because Coke is probably going to buy the other one. And they jumped first. They went for Poppy and they said $2 billion. This now means that Coke OlliePop probably just jumped in price as well, because now they know that their number one competitor just sold for $2 billion.
That then puts a roughly $2 billion price tag on OlliePop for Coke. But Coke kind of pivoted. They decided to make their own, starting the brand from scratch, with their Simply Lemonade brand. So now they have a new company called simply pop.
JEN
Is it just Sour Lemonade?
RYAN
It basically, yes. All the reviews say that it is nowhere as good as Olliepop Poppy or any of those.
But they’re trying. They’re trying to do it themselves versus buy, buy a brand.
JEN
So Olliepop fun fact is still privately held. So if I’m going to drink a disgusting probiotic soda, I think I’m going to go with Ali Pop going, you’re going Ali pop, I’m going Ali pop. Until they get bought.
RYAN
Now, taking this one step further with this brand and kind of doing a test roll out a product or a service, how can other brands help in smaller businesses, even our clients?
How can they do a similar? How can they test run a product or service?
JEN
The Midwest used to be a great place to trial products and see if they could catch on, because we’re just we’re we’re very middle of the road here. And, you know, when you’re doing product research and product testing, that’s one way that you see it done.
But, you know, it’s also doing it in an in a limited way and seeing how it goes. It’s not really that different than AB testing. When we do that from the digital perspective as well. So it’s rolling it out, as a limited edition or, you know, it’s something that you can only get for a while, put a little scarcity behind it, and see if their audience picks it up without too big of a huge investment.
RYAN
I love that.
Yeah, test it as a limited run, a little scarcity. And then see if it’s see if it’s worth it for a larger production.
ALLY
Yeah. You can actually use the keyword research and, and Google search trends to find what people are looking for as well. Are people searching for an alternative to Poppy? Are people searching for prebiotic sodas?
How is that search trend going? Is it growing? Then you can use that data to inform any future rollouts.
RYAN
So at the end of the day, Jen, Ally, was the rebrand from mother to Poppy effective?
JEN
Undoubtably. Considering they started it for million and evaluation and they sold for 2 billion. I mean, I would say the founders definitely think it was a success.
And I do think that one’s leading in the market these days. So, yep, I’m going to I’m going to give that one a thumbs up.
ALLY
And I’ll admit the branding is pretty.
RYAN
Yeah, yeah, I, I will say after this, I’m going to head on out and we’re going to get one, we’re going to get one of these.
We’re all going to try it.
ALLY
I’m not.
RYAN
That just goes to show that you are you are not your target market. We all don’t think that a probiotic soda is is a treat right. We don’t really enjoy that. But that is a $2 billion market from one company. So keep looking outside yourselves, friends.
JEN
That’s a wrap on this podcast.
Ally, thank you for being here.
ALLY
Thank you for having me.
JEN
And when I say here, I just mean upstairs from where you normally sit for four desks away from me. Yes. So thanks.
JEN
Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh.
RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on wherever you listen to your podcast on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info at thinkdenovo.com with the subject line dear de novo so we don’t miss it.
JEN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog, Fresh Thinking at Blog That think de novo.com. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance and be making fun of Ryan in the next episodes to come.
RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring. Bye friends.
JEN
Are we swearing on this or no?
RYAN
We’re doing this.
JEN
All right. Hello and welcome to th – were you’re talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m Settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;06
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing. Insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life – and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;04;03
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about SEO and the impact of AI. So Jen, today we’re talking about SEO and covering a little bit about the impact of AI on that. So we’re bringing in an expert.
00;01;01;26 – 00;01;17;11
RYAN
We’re bringing in Ally Macha. Our digital strategy lead here at De Novo. She keeps us moving in the right direction with SEO and staying on top of things with AI.
JEN
Awesome, Ally, it’s great to have you. Even though I sit like four seats down from you in the office downstairs.
ALLY
That’s a long four seats.
JEN
It’s a long four seats.
00;01;17;15 – 00;01;38;13
JEN
I can, I mean generally hear what’s going on down there. And the general banter about SEO and AI and, I am I can’t wait to dig into this, but I just keep going back to the fact that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
ALLY
Absolutely. 100%.
JEN
Yeah. Well, speaking of things not staying the same.
00;01;38;15 – 00;01;59;27
RYAN
Oh my gosh. Yeah. My gosh.
JEN
What do you want to dig into first.
RYAN
I am we all know that this is now a sports podcast. You’ve all been following my journey, with venturing into the sports realm. The WNBA draft happened last night and it was exciting this is my second.
JEN
Ryan just goes into ESPN voice like the WNBA draft happened last night.
00;01;59;29 – 00;02;18;03
RYAN
I did pitch it down a little bit. I did. You know, I can’t go back up to my normal voice. But I really like that. This is my second WNBA draft, and I like the the pomp and circumstance of it. This is this is this is not sports, right? This is pomp and circumstance. This is pageantry.
00;02;18;03 – 00;02;38;22
RYAN
This is showmanship.
JEN
Outfits are better.
RYAN
Oh, hell. The men’s. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But it’s all marketing, really, if you think about it. Like they are trying to build the excitement, they’re amping it up. This is kind of a pregame. We’re just getting people ready. It’s, you’re dipping your toe into into the, the Hall of sports that you’re about to be getting in in a few weeks.
00;02;38;22 – 00;02;59;26
RYAN
But, it really introduces all of our new talent. Also. Did you guys watch?
JEN & ALLY
No.
RYAN
And that is fine.
ALLY
I was keeping up to date on my phone. I was actually preparing for this podcast last night, but, I was paying attention, so, of course, I saw Paige went first. We all knew that was going to happen.
00;02;59;26 – 00;03;22;15
ALLY
I with you. You mentioned earlier, before we started recording that you were surprised at how late. Haley. Hailey. Van Lith went, And I was too. I kept waiting for it to happen.
RYAN
So draft pick 11. But like you were saying, Ally, you were getting updates on your phone. So this is not just a one. You can’t you don’t just tune in to ESPN to watch this.
00;03;22;15 – 00;03;44;01
RYAN
Now you’re getting updates on on your phone from the ESPN app. You’re getting it on social media. You’re getting it everywhere.
JEN
I wasn’t. Actually Doug actually was giving me live updates here and there from his phone. But that was I kind of shut that shut that down.
RYAN
You you I think you had mentioned you turned off a lot of notifications on your phone, right?
00;03;44;01 – 00;04;06;15
JEN
I have almost no notifications on my phone these days. I basically could go back to a flip phone, got to stay focused somehow.
RYAN
Like, I get it, I get it because those notifications can be intrusive. And the WNBA, I will say the ESPN app or oh gosh, no, it was the WNBA app. They made the announcement before they even announced it on TV about Paige.
00;04;06;22 – 00;04;28;10
RYAN
So yes, I was watching live on ESPN. I get the notification on my phone that, Paige went first and the commissioner hadn’t even said it yet. So then it was time a little bit better, but I think they were working through some, some tech issues because the commissioner got the information from the the draft room, the war room, if you will, and then she would walk out and read it.
00;04;28;10 – 00;04;50;23
RYAN
So I think that maybe the, the team doing the, the app side of things also got that information and they’re like, oh crap, we got the information. Go live, send that notification.
JEN
I love it when screw ups like that happen. I really do.
RYAN
I mean, the same thing with large companies like, like Slack. Recently they had an email that they sent out that had the wrong link in it, and they updated it and sent it out.
00;04;50;23 – 00;05;10;20
RYAN
And it’s like, okay, these things do happen to large companies as well. So it is it’s a good reminder, but also a good reminder to proofread and check your links.
JEN
So while you marketing warriors out there who’ve sent out something incorrect or whatever, you’re not alone. Not alone, you’re not alone.
RYAN
When you when you work in marketing, take tips from everywhere, right?
00;05;10;20 – 00;05;28;05
RYAN
Like, just see what other places are doing. Everything is marketing, right? So just see what they’re doing, see how they’re handling it, and see if you can position that for your own brand or get inspired for your own brand in your own marketing efforts. So now outside of the WNBA draft, there is a lot of other stuff happening.
00;05;28;06 – 00;05;50;26
RYAN
One of those that is rising to the top in my head is tariffs. We’re calling this tariff talk.
JEN
Or trigger Jen whichever. Whichever one. So yeah I have I have thoughts on what’s happening out there in our economy. And I am I am still hopeful that some adults will be in the room and pull back on this.
00;05;50;26 – 00;06;12;05
JEN
But the the wild swings in uncertainty are really rattling more than just the market, because, you know, the market is not the economy, and the economy is not the market as they say. But, it is definitely rattling businesses. And I mean, we are feeling it here in Iowa. And as an agricultural based state, we stand to lose a lot.
00;06;12;06 – 00;06;35;20
JEN
I think every state has its sectors that stand to lose a lot with this. But I am hopeful that that there will be some adult in the room at some point in time that that can, walk back some of this before the damage becomes permanent. So I think part of that uncertainty is that the walk back and then levying tariffs.
00;06;35;20 – 00;07;00;25
Unknown
So like there is literally a game every day, I think of like our smartphones going to be tariff like are if they are what’s a new iPhone going to cost. Oh gosh. And yeah. And so it’s interesting because they took that they took that tariff off. Right. On devices and electronics. And then they said they’re going to levy the chip on or the, the tariff on chips and semiconductors and everything.
00;07;00;25 – 00;07;27;05
JEN
So, it’s really just hard to tell what’s going to happen right now, but like, talk about like, if you’re going to piss off the cult of iOS, like, peace be with you, you know?
RYAN
Yes. Do not make any of the of the iOS team angry. I did see a report in I don’t know if it was the New York Times or where Washington Post maybe, but they said that the, the iPhone, if made 100% in the United States, would cost roughly $30,000.
00;07;27;07 – 00;07;54;12
ALLY
You know, just like a car, just an easy 30,000. Yeah.
JEN
Are you sure about that?
RYAN
We will pop that in the show notes, because yet yes, I was I was shocked and it just shows that we are a global economy, a truly global economy at this point.
ANNIE
Oh hey,. It’s me, Annie., Quick producers now, despite the confidence with which Ryan said that number, the accurate number is more like 3500.
00;07;54;15 – 00;08;17;03
ANNIE
Okay, back to the show.
JEN
So this morning, my husband and I read the newspaper from different rooms, and we’re typically on our computers early in the morning reading the news, checking stuff, email. And Doug says, well, I looked at our investment portfolio this morning and I’m like, what are you doing.
RYAN
Ally and I are both feverishly shaking our heads like, nope, don’t.
00;08;17;05 – 00;08;35;13
JEN
So I literally said, just don’t tell me. Just don’t tell me right now. And I don’t think that that’s really the right thing is to just not look at all. But, we do we do have to let this play out a little bit while like I said, hopefully some adults will be in the room who can who can dial some of this back, but I think there are a lot of people freaking out.
00;08;35;13 – 00;08;56;28
JEN
And, whether it’s their investment portfolio or whether it’s their company or whether they are just trying to figure out how are they going to price things based on, you know, what they might be facing. So I, you know, it’s this balance of stay that course, but also take action where you can. So we will we will see.
00;08;56;28 – 00;09;21;21
JEN
So this is April’s podcast. Let’s see where we are in May.
RYAN
Like right. Right now. Who knows. Who knows okay. Tariff talk. We’re considering that done. But tariffs aren’t on the tariff. We’ll see.
ALLY
Speaking of things that are changing all the time.
RYAN
There you go. There you go. Perfect Ali speaking of things that are changing, let’s move into our actual topic today.
00;09;21;21 – 00;09;55;11
RYAN
Why that? Why the folks are here. We’re talking about SEO. And I do want to to start things off with, a general question. What is SEO Ally?
ALLY
Well, that is the question, right? That’s the million dollar question. Search engine optimization is the official SEO. It’s a mix of different tactics and strategies that optimize websites to ensure that they are able to show up in search results, and that they’re showing up for the correct searches or search intents.
00;09;55;14 – 00;10;19;01
ALLY
There are three main components of SEO. Those are technical on page and off page. So your technical SEO is your base. It is the tactics that they do when they’re building your site. It’s done by web developers to ensure that your site can be found by search engines, and that it provides a good user experience. That’s where search, site speed comes in.
00;10;19;03 – 00;10;44;17
ALLY
Allowing crawlers, things like that. So that is the base. If you don’t have that, you can’t have any other type of SEO. You will not show up in any results. No one will be able to find you. On page SEO refers to the actual content on the site. So this is strategies employed to optimize for specific keywords or intentions, all on site.
00;10;44;17 – 00;11;03;06
ALLY
And then thirdly, off page. So off page SEO is any tactic that occurs off the site. This includes link building, business listings, social media, etc..
RYAN
So you you were saying it’s kind of the base. The technical SEO is the base. Does it really work like a pyramid, like your technical SEO. And then it kind of works its way up to the tip?
00;11;03;06 – 00;11;25;24
ALLY
Yes, very much so. In order of importance, if you want to think of it in that way, your technical has to be there. If you don’t have that base, you don’t have anything. Your on page SEO is kind of that middle, that meat. And then the off page SEO is everything that you can do on top of that to get the name out or get your website out in front of the public.
00;11;25;27 – 00;11;48;22
RYAN
So, Ally, do you have to do anything different for the different search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo?
ALLY
Not really. This would happen at the technical level. You just need to ensure that your site is set up to allow crawlers aka the technology that these, search engines use to read your site, that they are set up to be able to access, the pages on your site.
00;11;48;22 – 00;12;08;27
ALLY
This is again, this is a part of technical SEO. So this is done by the web developer. But when it comes to content, strategy remains the same.
RYAN
We have had sites that we’ve looked at, when a client either comes to de novo or we start working with them on digital, where the site is still blocked by crawlers.
00;12;09;00 – 00;12;23;25
JEN
That’s it’s not indexed. Yeah, it’s not being indexed by Google.
RYAN
So no matter what you can do, there’s like a switch or there’s a little line of code in there that says crawlers do not look at this website.
ALLY
Yeah.
RYAN
So you can have the best on page off page SEO. But the crawlers are basically told to ignore it.
00;12;23;25 – 00;12;47;16
JEN
Yeah. This is the second time I’ve been triggered in this podcast today. So like, nothing ticks me off more than amateur web development.
RYAN
Yes. Oh gosh.
ALLY
And there are different ways that you can do this. You can go in. And so this is getting in the weeds a little bit. But it’s called Robux robots.txt. And you can either allow all or you can go through and actually allow specific crawlers.
00;12;47;19 – 00;13;11;07
ALLY
But that would block new technology as it comes. So we generally do allow all, which would mean going forward, any of the new AI platforms are already able to crawl our sites.
JEN
Well, now that we’ve covered the technical side of that and we have explained it for Christine Ryan’s mom, now I’m going to ask you a complicating question how is AI changing SEO?
00;13;11;09 – 00;13;40;05
ALLY
That is a complicated question. It’s ever evolving. So right now we have seen some disruptions from AI and SEO, mostly with things like the AI overview in Google or people turning to generative AI platforms as alternative to search engines. However, at this point that is fairly minimal, to be honest. Google still has 83.5% of all searches being done through Google.
00;13;40;08 – 00;14;14;20
ALLY
ChatGPT does have 4.3%. So it is it is growing. But honestly, the biggest disruptions we’ve seen in the last year have actually come from Google’s own core algorithm updates. And then also a big shift in Google prioritizing for content from sites like Reddit and Quora over actual site results.
RYAN
And that was something we, we brought up, I think maybe last year when we had Ali and Julien on the podcast talking about digital, just adding Reddit to the end of your Google search, right.
00;14;14;20 – 00;14;35;22
RYAN
Just popping that in there. Then you get unfiltered commentary questions, things like that that take you right to read it. And you can sometimes get your answer even better.
JEN
Right? But is I also training on Reddit? I think I read that somewhere too, right? Yes. So that’s also interesting. And when you think about where you want to get your information from, do you want that all to come from?
00;14;35;25 – 00;14;58;06
ALLY
Right, exactly. And that is really where a big shift is coming from.
RYAN
So Ally, you mentioned using Google searches or Bing searches, but then you also said the other alternative is using generative AI platforms as a search engine. Can you explain that a little bit more?
ALLY
Of course. Yeah. I mean you can ask a questions, right? The same as a search engine and it will provide results in a different way.
00;14;58;09 – 00;15;20;21
ALLY
Generally it’s not. A list of results is going to give you a comprehensive answer, but you can use it in the same way.
RYAN
So using ChatGPT Gemini.
ALLY
Correct.
JEN
Okay. Okay. So a couple things come to mind. I mean first of all, like my my daughter who’s 21, uses ChatGPT now as her main search engine. And I keep saying you need to fact check that you need to fact check that you’re a journalism major.
00;15;20;21 – 00;16;00;16
JEN
You need to fact check that, but that’s becoming way more common. And also, I think ChatGPT is the, the engine that that, took Google below 90%, of that, of that search traffic, which is really interesting. But it leaves me wondering now, whether Gemini results are feeding back into Google search. So, which is also really interesting because my mother in law, who I can guarantee does not read or listen to this podcast, told me that she gave me some answer from the internet and I said, is that from AI?
00;16;00;16 – 00;16;25;26
JEN
And she said, no. And they said, show me your phone. And they said, this little purple star up here, that means it’s generated by AI. And I thought she was can throw her phone across it. So, but you know, whether people are taking that as fact, or not. But I think the really interesting thing is, is how is Gemini impacting Google search and keeping them as at the top of the heap, right.
00;16;25;26 – 00;16;53;01
ALLY
Yeah. And Gemini is interesting because of the way it actually pulls data. So ChatGPT pulls from a set of predefined data. So it already has that information essentially uploaded into its database. Whereas Gemini is actually searching real time results. So Gemini is using Google’s results and Google is probably using Gemini at the same time. And they’re building on each other.
00;16;53;03 – 00;17;20;21
RYAN
So ChatGPT kind of a set database, whereas Gemini Google AI overview that’s pulling it live. That now back to the WNBA. So for all of you last year, we all know that Kate Martin from Iowa was drafted out of the stands. She was not officially invited to the WNBA. That was in 2024. Right. There was another person who was, drafted off of UConn.
00;17;20;23 – 00;17;51;21
RYAN
I think her name was Caitlin Chen. I’m going to say Caitlin Chen. Same way she was drafted out of the stands, came with Paige. She was drafted out of the stands. I was googling was Caitlin Chen drafted out of the stands? And the Google AI overview said that that was one of the shocking moments of 2025 and the other shocking moment of 2025 was Kate Martin being drafted out of the stands as well, because people in their in their articles, they were saying, this is just like Kate Martin.
00;17;51;21 – 00;18;11;19
RYAN
So then I think me trying to think like I Google was like, oh, these are the same thing. This happened in the same year. So that I overview not necessarily correct. And that was just last night.
ALLY
Correct. So yeah that is the danger of just relying on AI. Right. It is only as good as the humans that it’s pulling information from.
00;18;11;19 – 00;18;39;11
ALLY
And sometimes it just interprets that incorrectly and is wrong.
JEN
Well, I want to go back to thinking about SEO professionals or people who have to at least be thinking about that and might be considering, you know, how this impacts them. How is a AI affecting SEO for websites right now?
ALLY
I think AI is making the most impact on the kind of content that people need to be creating, right?
00;18;39;13 – 00;19;17;28
ALLY
So I has made it so a simple question can be answered without anyone leaving Google or no extra information needed from ChatGPT. So what SEOs need to be doing is is really leaning into Google’s quality assessment framework. So that is EEAT right? Which stands for experience, expertise, authoritative ness and trustworthiness.
JEN
You said that with such authoritativeness.
ALLY
And so this is where people can really pull from their own firsthand experience and their expertise.
00;19;17;28 – 00;19;39;14
ALLY
They are the experts. They have the information. They’re not just one of a million voices being compiled. Right. And then really build that trust based on all of those things, to create content that goes beyond what the AI can provide for you.
JEN
Do you have do you have an example of what that might look like?
ALLY
I think this podcast is a great example.
00;19;39;16 – 00;20;04;14
ALLY
We have this podcast, and then we also generally write a blog that goes along with it. Right? So we have multimedia opportunities for people to ingest this information. And I think it also comes back to looking at quality over quantity. A big part of the disruption that we’ve been seeing is actually a decrease in traffic from organic sources.
00;20;04;16 – 00;20;27;13
ALLY
And then just in general rankings being harder to get. And so you’re having to focus more on getting that high quality content and driving people to your site who are actually going to further your business goals rather than just trying to increase organic traffic.
JEN
Right. So in a way, it gives you the potential to have better, more qualified traffic per site.
00;20;27;15 – 00;20;50;05
ALLY
Yeah.
JEN
Got it.
RYAN
So Ally, we talked a little bit about how how things have changed, but also how they’ve stayed the same. We had a very similar conversation five years ago with Siri and Alexa. Right. Like just answering your questions. Everyone was so terrified that your website wasn’t going to be relevant anymore because Google or Alexa was just going to answer your question, is this similar?
00;20;50;07 – 00;21;11;16
ALLY
It’s 100% similar. There’s a question that’s going around is SEO dead? And the answer is as dead as it has been any other time. It’s died over the past 20 years, which is multiple times. Every time it dies, it comes back, fitting for this to be around Easter. You can cut that if it’s inappropriate.
00;21;11;18 – 00;21;44;02
ALLY
But don’t cut it, because every time it comes back, this is really just a shift. Every time people think SEO is dead, it really is just a change in how we either think of SEO or how we need to approach it. And every shift sense. The inception of SEO has gotten us to the point where we are.
JEN
So SEO professionals or marketing professionals need to be tracking conversions from AI as well, right?
00;21;44;02 – 00;22;08;02
JEN
Like what does that look like for them?
ALLY
Definitely. And right now that is kind of still up in the air. We’re not seeing a ton of traffic coming from these AI platforms at this point. There’s usually 1 or 2. We’ve seen some sessions from ChatGPT on some of our websites, but it’s not huge. And so that is something that is constantly changing.
00;22;08;02 – 00;22;37;04
ALLY
That could by the time this comes out that could be different, where everything has spiked. And so it really is still it comes back to just providing providing that quality content so that you’re getting in front of people when they are searching for that specific issue or need that information and building that trust and authority and then having it come back and turn into those conversions.
00;22;37;10 – 00;23;07;25
JEN
So a AI is really just adding a layer to the funnel, right?
ALLY
Pretty much. Yeah.
RYAN
I do have a prediction with with that official prediction. I think that the same way that they added in social traffic, like when you’re looking at the traffic of your website, you have direct referral, social paid, etc. I think that in the coming year or so, they’re going to actually have AI, and that is going to say this was either somebody click to source in ChatGPT, which took you to the Geneva website.
00;23;07;25 – 00;23;31;02
RYAN
So that would be like just your standard referral. But I bet they’re going to start tracking how often your information is used in those automated zero search, or those automated AI responses, because Google wants to keep getting credit, right, and they’re going to figure out a way to give themselves credit and to provide a little bit more insight to to people checking those analytics.
00;23;31;04 – 00;23;53;13
JEN
I have an official prediction to that. And I’m looking at our producers right now. We need a sting specifically for the words official prediction. So I’m predicting by May we’ll have one.
RYAN
Ooh, I like that. I like that.
RYAN
So so we talked about things that that were different or things that have changed over the years with, with the death of SEO over and over again.
00;23;53;15 – 00;24;19;03
RYAN
What what remains the same?
ALLY
Really at the heart of it, what remains the same is your a need to understand your audience. Right at the beginning it was knowing what exact search words they were using to find sites like you, your services, your business, whatever that might be. It was very strict, right? You wanted to do those exact specific keywords.
00;24;19;10 – 00;24;47;24
ALLY
No deviation. As technology evolved that got easier and it shifted more to understanding search intent more than search keywords. And even now it has evolved into understanding and even antis, updating your audience’s needs and pain points, and creating content that addresses or even solves those.
RYAN
So just keep adding going the step further and going the step further for for our audience and and for search engines.
00;24;47;24 – 00;25;03;29
RYAN
I love that because it used to be, oh, you have all these keywords on your website, the exact words people are searching like you were saying. You would just add those in the bottom of your website in white and just like cram it on your website, that doesn’t help anyone that isn’t helping.
JEN
And it’s shady.
ALLY
Yeah, it’s shady.
00;25;03;29 – 00;25;33;03
ALLY
It’s definitely shady. And thankfully Google has having you know, being the largest search engine has evolved with these changes as well. So if you’re doing any of those types of things, you’ll actually be priority sized. They, they know what you’re doing and they don’t like it. Google, as much as the user experience on Google has actually decreased, they’re still looking to present information that has really high user experience.
00;25;33;05 – 00;26;02;23
ALLY
A big shift that we’ve seen. And the reason why a lot of people are moving from Google to like ChatGPT is because there’s so much noise on Google Now. There’s so much extra in those search results. You have the AI overview, which used to be the the snip, the featured snippet. They Google wants you to stay on their platform, but it just it builds so much noise.
00;26;02;23 – 00;26;26;25
ALLY
There’s all of the business listings, there’s the map, there’s everything that they think is relevant when you’re just looking for an answer. And so that is a reason why a lot of people are switching. But yet Google’s also still focused on elevating content that is high quality. And so it’s kind of, an interesting dichotomy in that way.
00;26;26;27 – 00;26;49;23
RYAN
Yeah. Seeing how the different divisions of Google are working, like you’ve got Google search and you’ve got Google ads, and then you’ve got Google AI and Gemini, they all are showing up on that search engine ranking page, right?
ALLY
They’re trying to jam everything in there.
RYAN
Yeah. And they’re trying they’re fighting for territory. I think that that there’s going to be some shifts.
JEN
Well, there’s going to be shifts because Google can’t undercut their advertising business at the end of the day.
00;26;49;23 – 00;27;12;10
JEN
Right. So but it is interesting. I mean, when I, I remember searching for a way to turn off the, the Google AI overview, and of course you, you cannot but I still want to use Google and then I got used to it. But what I do appreciate is the source links that come with it. Yes. So how does that impact SEO?
00;27;12;10 – 00;27;46;17
JEN
Like the source links, you know, is that are those links optimized any differently, would you say,
RYAN
Or does it count as a backlink?
ALLY
I would say it’s not a backlink, okay. It would still be a an organic traffic source. And really the recommendations for getting being featured in that AI are the same as they were when they started doing those featured snippets or rich text results is a following.
00;27;46;17 – 00;28;12;25
ALLY
All of Google’s SEO standards and again, providing very clear, concise responses to these potential questions.
RYAN
So it seems like things are remaining the same in that sense. Do SEO to be helpful. Don’t act don’t do SEO to to do to do SEO.
ALLY
Exactly. It’s the same as can’t, right? Like don’t write content to write content. That is in the end going to be a waste of time.
00;28;12;25 – 00;28;46;02
ALLY
You should be creating content that is helpful in some way.
JEN
Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, Gemini is really a play to keep Google at the top of the search engine, right? And I just fact checked myself, it’s fallen below 90% for the first time since 2015. Which is interesting, but since Gemini is getting more sophisticated and it provides those source links, I wonder if that’s really that’s that’s truly the play to stay on top of the heap.
00;28;46;05 – 00;29;14;19
ALLY
Most definitely. And Gemini and Google in general have been playing catch up in a way after ChatGPT came on the scene. I mean, even looking at, you know, ChatGPT having 4.3% of all searches over the last year, that’s huge. That’s more than Bing. That’s more than any other platform except for Google and then YouTube.
JEN
Wow. So I have to ask your favorite AI platform, Ally?
ALLY
I am a traditionalist.
00;29;14;19 – 00;29;44;11
ALLY
I’m going to say, and ChatGPT is still the one that I will go to. But I definitely want to spend more time in Gemini, especially as it is still evolving. And I mean, Google is trying to make it as sophisticated as possible, as fast as possible.
JEN
And as easy as possible. I mean, if you’re using Google Workspace for your apps, it’s built in now to that apps and it’s like I would give it a C-minus right now for its functionality within the apps.
00;29;44;13 – 00;30;00;12
JEN
I was trying to use it to analyze some data in sheets. This morning, and it kept telling me it couldn’t. I’m like, it’s your freaking product, didn’t you can’t?
ALLY
I did the same thing with an email where it said, do you want to polish this? And I said, yes. And I was like, I can’t do that. So I just assumed it was as polished as it could be.
00;30;00;14 – 00;30;20;14
RYAN
You. You’re perfect.
JEN
Exactly A-plus on your email writing. But it is really interesting. And I’m getting used to Gemini. I was I was definitely team ChatGPT for a while. Gemini is definitely getting easier and I appreciate that. It appears to use more real time data. Or I could be telling myself it’s using more real time.
00;30;20;15 – 00;30;51;06
ALLY
No, you are correct.
JEN
Yeah, but I actually think ChatGPT does a better job kicking out that shitty first draft for me. Then Gemini does like Gemini is can’t seem to grasp my tone, which is always sassy.
ALLY
Yes, and you are 100% your feelings
JEN
About the sassy?
RYAN
Yeah, also true about that. Also true.
ALLY
But that is in general what other people are seeing is ChatGPT is a lot more sophisticated when it comes to matching voice and being conversational.
00;30;51;08 – 00;31;23;18
ALLY
Gemini has been found to be a lot better for academic research and providing like bibliographies and things like that, but ChatGPT is still for creating content, working through ideas like that. Superior.
JEN
These platforms are eating up the smaller ones so quickly too. So we had a a brief, run with a product called Waldo FYI, which now basically Gemini can do that with all the, links that it provides and the geography that it provides.
00;31;23;20 – 00;31;44;11
JEN
You can also really kind of dictate how you, what you’re trying to develop from there. So it’s just I feel bad for these companies that are trying so hard. Right?
RYAN
They become basically, the product development of these larger companies like, oh, you have a cool idea. Great. We’re going to make that a feature of our larger platform in our next iteration.
00;31;44;17 – 00;32;10;16
JEN
So being a Google Workspace company, having Gemini not only just transcribe, record and transcribe like a meeting, it also does a really pretty good job with, with the notes. And the summary except it cannot spell de novo. Right.
ALLY
Of course it can.
JEN
Of course it, it or it just won’t write like it’s just a contrarian.
00;32;10;18 – 00;32;24;18
RYAN
So we talked a little bit at the beginning about the differences in search engines. Google Bing, Yahoo. And it was pretty similar. We just covered how like different AI platforms are better for different things. But when you’re optimizing your site thinking I do, you need to be concerned about which AI platform you’re going for. Like, are there differences in how ChatGPT or Gemini are pulling or like producing those results.
ALLY
At this point? Not really. I mean, as long as you are allowing those crawlers from the different platforms to access your site, they’re essentially looking for the same thing, which is high quality content that either meets a need or answers a question for your audience. And I know I’ve been saying high quality a lot, and it’s really hard to put an actual definition on that, but I really like the definition that Shelly Walsh gives.
ALLY
She is, content, SEO content executive editor at Search Engine Land. She’s been doing SEO since the 90s, and she’s a really smart woman. She says quality is content that cannot be replicated by AI. Quality is a strategy that cannot be easily replicated by your competitor. Quality is about creative thinking and effort. And so it comes back to again, what can you do beyond what I can do using your own insights, your own expertise, using your ability to be creative to create this content?
ALLY
However, there are differences in the way that these AI platforms are actually producing the results. So again, as I mentioned, ChatGPT is using a predefined data. It actually last I had checked is data from before October 2023. So it might not even be up to date at this point. I know they are working though on creating.
JEN
So, don’t ask it about last night’s draft.
ALLY
Don’t ask it about the draft. It will not know. It doesn’t even know about Caitlin Clark. You guys.
RYAN
Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. So something to keep in mind. Like where is this getting its data and. Its period. Yeah.
ALLYWhereas as we mentioned, Gemini is actually pulling real time. And I’m sure this is something ChatGPT is working on at this very moment to try to compete with that, because, I mean, over the last year and a half, how much has happened?
JEN
Just a few things, little things, just just a just a small amount. So ChatGPT really can’t answer my questions about tariffs.
ALLY
I don’t think so, unless it’s historical information and seems
JEN
Like the one thing that pushed our country into the Great Depression?
ALLY
it would know about those. I think everybody knows about those, don’t they Jen?
JEN
Maybe not.
Sorry. So let’s let’s take it back because to one of the things I’m really curious about is, you know, how does using AI generated content as the primary source of your online writing? How will that impact SEO?
ALLY
It will impact it, and not necessarily in a good way. So a lot of people are wondering, can we just use AI to create content like, that’s easy, it’s fast, let’s do it.
And the fact is that Google knows when you’re doing that and they actually don’t like it. So research has shown that Google will index sites that they can tell are using large amounts of AI generated content
JEN
And AI generated content can be writing, but it can also be imagery, and it can also be code. Right? Correct.
ALLY
Yes. And I don’t know how Google does it in the black box.
It’s in the black box, along with, exactly how they get their AI overviews. But they do know.
RYAN
Like that was kind of one of the things that the a when they had their big like AI World Conference, all the major places were saying they were going to add in little tiny watermarks to AI audio, AI, video, AI graphics in order to make sure we can determine when things are AI.
So they add these little tiny watermarks. We’re used to seeing them on websites like Shutterstock, right? It’s a big watermark that says this is a stock image. You have to buy it in order to remove it. AI companies are adding little tiny watermarks into these graphics, into these videos, ones that we as humans can’t see so that we can’t go in and remove them.
RYAN
So they’re adding it to AI audio, video and graphics so that you can scan it and determine if it’s AI. It’s genius. So that we can then determine. But it also just means that Google and the search engines, they know when you’re using AI, even if you’re trying to be tricky.
ALLY
Exactly. They know. And that is again, bringing back that need for authority and and trustworthiness.
The EEAT, if you like to sound it out like I do, that comes from real content generated by real people. Keep creating high quality content, stay up to date with these changes so that if there does come a point where you need to be doing something special to be showing up in these results, that you are aware of it and continue, I mean, continue to follow all the best practices, but still just focus on your audience and what they are looking for in an answer and how you can do that in a way that is unique and in a way that goes beyond what AI can provide for them.
JEN
Right. And I think that as marketers, I mean, there’s this push to create content just like constant content. And I think as marketers, we see this as a way to feed that need to some extent. But I think we also just have to be aware that there can be consequences for using it in an inauthentic way.
JEN
Yes. Or just cranking out nothing but I. Right. Yeah. So we don’t know how it gets proven, but we know Google doesn’t like it.
ALLY
Right. So yes. All right.
JEN
So just to bring this full circle for our listeners, if you work in SEO or you work in marketing, how do you balance using AI to generate the content that you need without creating something that gets deprioritized or D indexed or gets flagged as AI content, or even worse, turns off your audiences, right?
ALLY
And that I think that’s the question that a lot of people are asking. And AI is great for idea starters. It’s great. I think you mentioned as, you know, a crappy, crappy first draft shitty, first shitty, but I can say that on the shitty first draft. But you need to be putting your own information. You need to be tweaking it, making sure that it really does sound like it’s coming from you and putting in areas of your own expertise.
ALLY
Giving examples can be really powerful, providing evidence that you’ve seen in real life that come back to a more localized experience that’s authentic to your brand.
JEN
And look at that, comes back to brand always, always comes back to brand.
RYAN
Now it’s time for our segment called Create a Brief. This is where we dig into a marketing campaign, company or a recent product acquisition like we’re covering today, and see what insights we can glean from from their marketing moves.
Today, friends, I bring us poppy. I want to start by asking Ali and Jen, have you ever had a prebiotic or probiotic soda?
ALLY
I mean, I’ve tried it.
JEN
Ew, Yeah. I’m not a fan, although I do like kombucha, but I don’t like any of the prebiotics. Oh, does. And I’m with Ally in that I don’t think they’re soda.
ALLY
I will also try. They can try and they can yell soda at us if they want. But it’s it’s not it’s a it’s not a soda in one.
RYAN
I’ll be honest I haven’t had any of these. I also haven’t had kombucha. I haven’t had anything. Vinegar drink. Apple cider vinegar drinks. I haven’t had any of them.
JEN
What rock have you been living under? I just avoid it. I love Diet Pepsi. I like, I like, you know, you’re you’re a Diet Pepsi boy, for sure.
ALLY
I’m a Diet Pepsi girl to see if it is knowing the chemicals digesting.
RYAN
And then I’m fine with it. I’m fine with that. But one could argue that you’re saying this is not prebiotic.
Sodas are not sodas. The other side of that is arguing prebiotic sodas are not prebiotic. And they are just sodas. They are just pops. But I want to go outside of the, is this a prebiotic soda? Is that beneficial?
JEN
We’re not solving that debate here today.
RYAN
Yes. I want to talk about the rebrand of Poppy. Poppy is you guys have seen it.
RYAN
It’s in it’s in 30,000 stores. But Poppy started as a company called mother. This goes back to, the apple cider vinegar side of things. I think that when you are, there’s something which can be,
JEN
Yep. It’s. I mean, the mother, it’s this slimy thing that exists in your kombucha barrel, and it’s, it’s really gross.
And, they call it the mother, and I just looked it up. It’s symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, and it is as disgusting as it sounds in my very, very brief, time trying to make kombucha in my house, which resulted in a fruit fly infestation of which you cannot even imagine. I, I had one of those floating.
RYAN
I hate that it was so gross. I hate that, but that is that is to say, that is that was the name of Poppy before they before they rebranded mother. So that gross floating ball that is in your kombucha or in other things. Yikes.
JEN
But it is interesting to think they went with that, and they were probably going after a particular audience.
Right? They were looking for, you know, the people who are looking for that totally natural, beverage, probably like kombucha and like some of those apple cider vinegar drinks and are really thinking about it from a health perspective. It’s gotta, you know, if you look at the branding, it had a very kind of hippie feel to it.
Definitely not a sophisticated looking brand. And then they made this full shift, like full shift away from that. They are going after a completely different market.
RYAN
Yeah. Now they’re going mass appeal like they I bet when they were initially creating mother, they would have scoffed at being compared to a soda. Right. But now all of a sudden they’re like, we’re a soda.
Like we’re a soda. We’re prebiotic soda. The other piece of this, it all started on Shark Tank, like a lot of like a lot of these startup companies, and that the shark that invested in them had one rule, he said that they needed to rebrand, and they did. And we did just get a producer note. One of the reasons that they had to do this rebrand was because mother can’t be trademarked, so they had to create a brand that truly was a brand versus a word.
RYAN
This was years ago, and over the years they have grown. They have used social media influencers. They’ve looked at their market, they’ve realized that their market size is not just that small demographic of people who are looking for an apple cider vinegar, probiotic or probiotic drink. Their market is now everybody who drinks soda, and this all led to Pepsi purchasing them.
Jen and Ally, do you have any idea how much Pepsi would buy a prebiotic soda company for?
JEN
Ooh, I, I don’t know. Do we have any hints on what their, what their valuation was before that? I, I love this stuff.
RYAN
I will say Pepsi did buy and this is, Pepsi bought a company called Quaker Oats in a little, kind of a little company called Quaker Oats that owned Gatorade, owned all the cereal companies.
It owned all of those, so Quaker Oats Company had roughly 200 brands inside of it. And Pepsi bought Quaker Oats for $12 billion. So I bought 200 brands for $12 billion. And we did just have another producer note. Thank you so much to our researching producers when they were on Shark Tank as Mother, they had a $4 million valuation, a $4 million valuation.
JEN
Well, I have to just completely admit to cheating. And, Gemini I, oddly enough, is telling me what PepsiCo acquired pop before. So if it was valued at 4 million before they rebranded it, that rebrand worked.
RYAN
That rebrand worked really well. I’ll jump in $2 billion, $2 billion for one brand. Poppy only has prebiotic sodas. They do not have anything else.
There is nothing else in that company. It is purely the prebiotic sodas. They got into this market for $2 billion. So that is crazy. I could have sold that kombucha in my kitchen for $2 billion. And it’s it’s really interesting too, because Pepsi this enters now a larger conversation of the battle between Pepsi and Coke. Right. They want to see who can get into that market first.
And they wanted to be
there before Coke did. So they were probably eyeing, eyeing Poppy, maybe looking at Ali Pop. And they’re like, okay, which one do we want to buy? Because Coke is probably going to buy the other one. And they jumped first. They went for Poppy and they said $2 billion. This now means that Coke OlliePop probably just jumped in price as well, because now they know that their number one competitor just sold for $2 billion.
That then puts a roughly $2 billion price tag on OlliePop for Coke. But Coke kind of pivoted. They decided to make their own, starting the brand from scratch, with their Simply Lemonade brand. So now they have a new company called simply pop.
JEN
Is it just Sour Lemonade?
RYAN
It basically, yes. All the reviews say that it is nowhere as good as Olliepop Poppy or any of those.
But they’re trying. They’re trying to do it themselves versus buy, buy a brand.
JEN
So Olliepop fun fact is still privately held. So if I’m going to drink a disgusting probiotic soda, I think I’m going to go with Ali Pop going, you’re going Ali pop, I’m going Ali pop. Until they get bought.
RYAN
Now, taking this one step further with this brand and kind of doing a test roll out a product or a service, how can other brands help in smaller businesses, even our clients?
How can they do a similar? How can they test run a product or service?
JEN
The Midwest used to be a great place to trial products and see if they could catch on, because we’re just we’re we’re very middle of the road here. And, you know, when you’re doing product research and product testing, that’s one way that you see it done.
But, you know, it’s also doing it in an in a limited way and seeing how it goes. It’s not really that different than AB testing. When we do that from the digital perspective as well. So it’s rolling it out, as a limited edition or, you know, it’s something that you can only get for a while, put a little scarcity behind it, and see if their audience picks it up without too big of a huge investment.
RYAN
I love that.
Yeah, test it as a limited run, a little scarcity. And then see if it’s see if it’s worth it for a larger production.
ALLY
Yeah. You can actually use the keyword research and, and Google search trends to find what people are looking for as well. Are people searching for an alternative to Poppy? Are people searching for prebiotic sodas?
How is that search trend going? Is it growing? Then you can use that data to inform any future rollouts.
RYAN
So at the end of the day, Jen, Ally, was the rebrand from mother to Poppy effective?
JEN
Undoubtably. Considering they started it for million and evaluation and they sold for 2 billion. I mean, I would say the founders definitely think it was a success.
And I do think that one’s leading in the market these days. So, yep, I’m going to I’m going to give that one a thumbs up.
ALLY
And I’ll admit the branding is pretty.
RYAN
Yeah, yeah, I, I will say after this, I’m going to head on out and we’re going to get one, we’re going to get one of these.
We’re all going to try it.
ALLY
I’m not.
RYAN
That just goes to show that you are you are not your target market. We all don’t think that a probiotic soda is is a treat right. We don’t really enjoy that. But that is a $2 billion market from one company. So keep looking outside yourselves, friends.
JEN
That’s a wrap on this podcast.
Ally, thank you for being here.
ALLY
Thank you for having me.
JEN
And when I say here, I just mean upstairs from where you normally sit for four desks away from me. Yes. So thanks.
JEN
Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh.
RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on wherever you listen to your podcast on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info at thinkdenovo.com with the subject line dear de novo so we don’t miss it.
JEN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog, Fresh Thinking at Blog That think de novo.com. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance and be making fun of Ryan in the next episodes to come.
RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring. Bye friends.
JEN
Are we swearing on this or no?
Show Notes:
Tariff Talk:
(Correct) iPhone Cost Reference
Creative Briefs:
Poppi Rebrand
