How to Manipulate AI Search (Before It Manipulates You)

Casford Dash, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. A bunch of people in the comments for this podcast were like, "Get Caser Dash on. Get Caser Dash on." Uh yeah, I got um I got tagged in some comments, which I I literally never it never happens to me. So that was that was um a wild one, I suppose. Can you share your background for people who aren't familiar with you? Um, I'll I'll give the condensed story because I'm sure many of my followers and some of your followers might already know who I am. Um, I started off as a web developer um, selling Wix websites, which a lot of SEOs are going to cringe at. Wow. Um, so that was like when I was like 14. Um, I then got into a job down in south of um, UK in a town called Northampton. Um, and I experienced what WordPress was, built out some terrible WordPress websites for this company. Um, I then transitioned into SEO. Um, got taught um, SEO, local SEO. Um, and I got very, I mean, not very good at it, but at the time I thought I was really good. Um, it was very much like six, seven years ago. You'll know yourself. didn't you didn't need the great the greatest content. You could get by with average content and some mediocre citations and that was probably enough to get you in the top 10. Um and then since then I have done the rounds on ranking in some very hard industries like gambling, um finance, um I've consulted in in some like porn sectors and stuff like that. Um, so yeah, I've I've I've experienced it from like loweffort SEO to like extreme high difficulty issues as well. What are you seeing in Google's algorithm right now that most people are missing? Um, I'm going to try and give a different answer because the the obvious answer is brand, right? But I'm I'm sure if you were to ask that question to 16 other SEOs, they'll probably say, "Oh, I can give some crazy some crazy like niche cases that nobody in SEO is talking about that that I see and everyone should be talking about." Like, man, the amount of people who are using YouTube for parasite SEO to literally target competitor brands, for example, is insane. Yeah, there's like So, okay, let I'm I'm excited to hear what what you've got. Um, to my knowledge, and I might be wrong in saying this, right, YouTube is the number one cited source inside Google AI overviews. I don't know if it's the same for chat GBT, but I know it's definitely the or I think it's definitely the case for Google AI. Ad week said that YouTube was the most cited source in AI search. YouTube is the most clicked website in Google according to Datos. So I would not be surprised if it was also the most cited in Chachi PT. Yeah. So I I think um YouTube is definitely under like leveraged like even in the SEO space, right? Um I had a guy and he was like, "Well, you're doing the Edward Stern podcast. Aren't you guys like rivals?" And I'm like, "Not really. Are we rivals?" I I wouldn't say so. I didn't I didn't I didn't know I didn't even know that I had rivals. The so the the thing is like the the YouTube space has so much like people searching for it. It's the second biggest algorithm, right? There could be a hundred Edward Storms all talking about SEO and there could be a hundred different casual dashes all talking about SEO and at the end of the day, we're still going to get followers. We're still going to build that traction. We're still all going to get cited in AI overviews. So, I think YouTube's probably very much underutilized. One thing that um for more established brands, right, um I had a guy come to me like a very close friend um and he was getting hammered on Trust Pilot and when you would search his brand space reviews, like Edward Storm Space Reviews, let's say that was his name of his company, it said in the AI overviews, hey, this is like very negative. Um don't go with this brand. Now, that was actually affecting his paid ads as well. So he he went from £126 per cost per leads to £442 cost per lead. So it was more than triple, right? Um what we ended up doing because these Trust Pilot was keep getting like hammered. Um we actually ended up getting him listed on FIFO, which is another um review website. It's it's almost like let's say you you were getting hammered on G2.com with tons of negative reviews. We basically swapped him over to um clutch, right? So we ended up transitioning him from one that was like just getting hammered completely to another which then basically changed what was actually being said in the AI overview. So there there's certain stuff like that even like with established brands that you can change um and swap out because a lot of the AI overview stuff um it's very much down to consensus. If there's a hundred articles saying how great Edward Storm is, the AI overview is going to say Edward Storm is an amazing guy. He's amazing. If there's maybe a mixture, maybe some people don't like you, maybe some people absolutely love you. It's going to say, "Hey, this is mix." So, it's all about consensus building. This method of marketing is so effective, I had to make sure it wasn't against Google's rules before I kept using it. It's a form of SEO I call compact keywords. Whereas most SEO focuses on putting up articles to answer questions, how, what, when, compact keywords focuses on putting up dozens of pages that sell to searchers who are actually looking to buy. These pages rank on Google and convert so much better than normal that when I discovered this years ago, I couldn't believe this was allowed. It's less work, too. The average compact keywords landing page is only 415 words. Compact Keywords is a 13-hour deep course on getting sales with SEO. A customer said, "We spent nearly$18,000 in the last year and a half on marketing and SEO through different agencies locally, and that did nothing. We decided to take the leap on the compact keywords course. We're now getting about 6 to eight calls per day on a good day, which is just unheard of." Another customer said, "Give it to a junior employee. Have them follow it exactly as Edwards laid out. You don't have to do anything, and you're going to gain a six-f figureure SEO level employee just by having them go through this course." Compact Keywords is about setting up an SEO funnel that brings you sales for years and years and years. It works with AI. It's less work than traditional SEO and it makes way more money. You can get it now at compactkeywords.com. Back to the podcast. Put this out on X and I think you give a cool answer. So imagine that you go to ChachiPT and you say I'm looking for like I'm looking for an app to help me plan my living room. And then Chachi PT searches and finds two brands A and B with language saying they do this. And brand A has a website with strong rankings but overwhelmingly poor off-site reviews, but they give like some good testimonials on their website. Brand B has it doesn't have phenomenal SEO, but it has enough SEO to get discovered by by ChachiPT when it's doing a search for like living room planner app or something, but and it has no off-site reviews and only a few testimonials on its website. So, you have brand A and B. Brand A has like great SEO but bad off-site reviews. Brand B has uh like good enough SEO and no off-site reviews. And so is Chhat GP do you think which one do you think ChachiPT will recommend first? Do you think it'll be the one with the terrible off-site reviews but good SEO or the one with no off-site reviews but like good enough SEO? So there's this is going to be a two-part answer, right? And I I I hate saying it depends, right? I would like to think that it would be the one with um no terrible reviews. But I think what will end up happening is that it will do a bigger deep dive. So it will look at founding date, it'll look at the founder, has that founder potentially launched other apps? Um it's it basically will end up doing a bigger fan out, right? Um, so it'll it'll basically take a look at other um metrics. Yeah, it's it's uh I don't know. I it crossed my mind because I've been thinking a lot about reviews lately. I mean, I I put up this like crazy viral video about it's like take all of take all of the reviews that you really like and then buy a domain name. your your domain plus the word reviews.com caser-reviews.com and then and actually I was going to do this I was going to do this and and I made this video on it and it's up to like 2 million views or something and it's just way too hot and I can't I can't do this now cuz but and so you take you take all these like reviews that you like you put them on this domain you brand it as like you it's within your brand it's it's and it looks clean it looks nice it looks trustworthy it's brand within your brand. You link to it from your website and then it ranks for your brand reviews. So, um I don't know if you're a spy, but I actually had a consulting call like two hours ago and I actually said and I I've not even seen your video by No way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, there there's there's a couple different strategies that you can do that that by the way is a brilliant strategy and it works. That's actually one of the things that we done for that company that had negative reviews. Um, another thing is obviously swapping out like if if your primary go-to place to send your traffic after you've provided a service is Trust Pilot, swap and if if your Trust Pilot is just dead in the water, right? Um, swap it out for another another review website. There's tons out there. Reviews.io if you're in the UK, FIFO. how are you swapping out? when you say swapping out it. So if if say for example right you've got reviews.io which is a competitor to trust pilot and currently your trust pilot is dead in the water. The reason why your trust pilot is um showing up and ranking is because you're sending traffic to it. Right? Let's say for example I book in a call with Edward Storm for consulting. you do a consulting call with me and then after the consulting call you send me your review platform that you want me to send the review on. The reason why Trust Pilot is getting that number one spot or that number two spot is because you are directly sending traffic through to it. Now am I am I sending it am I so I'm that means you're sending traffic to it on index pages. You're sending me an email to leave you a review via via email. So like, "Hey, Cass, thanks for the consulting here. Can you please leave me a review on Trust Pilot?" Right. Um, but let let's say So, how does that how does that affect uh Trust Pilot being ranked more just because it's getting more reviews? Yes. Because there's more traction on that there. Let's say every day you're getting 10 reviews on Trust Pilot from your email, right? If you wanted to swap it out, all you literally all you need to do is just send more traffic somewhere else. So, set up a FIFO or set up a reviews.io IO somewhere that's not being burnt to the ground and start getting that more hits basically, right? Is is literally like the the easiest number one t like skill that you can possibly do. Um, and over time because Trust Pilot is getting less visits and FIFO or reviews.io, they're they're going to end up swapping around. So if if you start to go to like let's say you swap over to reviews.io, IO, you're sending more and more traffic through to this. It's going to end up outranking um it's going to end up outranking the Trust Pilot. You've then also got the the the exact match domain. So, Edward Storm reviews, you could also, by the way, you don't even necessarily need to potentially buy the exact match domain. I I would personally because it's just consensus building. It's another place on Google's 10 blue links that you can actually own. You can even Yeah, it's easy. It's it's like exact match domains just rank. Um you can either you can also do edwards.com. I'm guessing your website is edwardstorm.com, right? Yeah. Yeah. You can do forward/reviews and build a reviews page on that as well and that that will rank as well because it's also using the the current domain power and strength that you've got. Um, one thing that you would want to do just the cherry on top um is with your reviews, create videos, create images, create text reviews, cover all three. Um, because again, it's it's it's just more consensus building. Um, if you can create videos, like let's say for example, Edward done a consulting call with me. 5 minutes after the call, Edward might say, "Hey, can we do like a small little review? Upload that to your channel. Edwards review plus casual dash or what whichever company that's that's leaving the review and again more consensus building. Yeah. Uh so the reason I a lot Yeah. The reason I don't know if I would do do it on my site is because I wouldn't want there to be uh cannibalization issues with like the landing page for example. So if it was just if it was Edward Sturm it like let's say I so I have a course compact keywords thing on my shirt shirt and it's edwardstrom.com/compact keywords. If you search compact keywords reviews one of the things that shows up is a compact keywords landing page on edwardstrom.com and I'm not sure if I would even be able to rank Edwards compact keywords reviews with the same site and which is why I was thinking maybe I would need a new site. Also, something um something that's pretty cool is like I have a lot of video testimonials on the compact keywords landing page, but they're not fully transcribed on that landing page because it's not a good user experience to list out to to write out a twominute testimonial. You you pick the best parts of that testimonial. But then on the review site, you you include the full transcript written out right there and and you and you have even more like more reviews from other places. And then what you do and and this is really crazy. Then you make another website that's like an executive summary of the reviews website. And so you use AI to to like to have like a really quick summary of the entire reviews website. And you call it like Edward SturmreviewsRreport.com. This is an executive summary of all the this is a quick summary of all the reviews uh for something like that. Yeah, it's that that that strategy would work. I do you know what? I I think like just talking from experience because I've done both strategies. Yeah. I personally didn't um experience any cannibalization issues with the forward slash reviews. So I I if if I if if I was you, I would probably do that. So then maybe I would do everything. Kitchen sink. Let's go hard. Uh and and you know and then and then you do retargeting for the people who are landing on the reviews website with like with Facebook with Meta. Um I like the the the easiest way to generate more leads is retargeting. Like it's it's people that are interested. Maybe they were I don't know life just got in the way. They didn't fill in the contact form. They didn't purchase from you. Next time they load up Facebook or Instagram, they see my ugly face. Hey, buy my course or buy whatever, right? Um it's is honestly it's the cheapest way to to generate more leads from already hot or warm traffic. That's also that's really good that um that you said that the you could just do it on a reviews page. I really thought that there would be an issue with that and since you you said that you've tried it already. I've tried it on six different websites. Honestly, mate, try try it out. The the other issue that um I I've said this in previous podcasts, right? I feel like a lot of SEOs are are scared to make a mistake. You know what though? Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I I'll say it after. A lot of SEOs are afraid to make a mistake. Yeah. A lot of SEOs are afraid to make a mistake. Publish, I don't know, two similar style articles or I don't know, change a meta description, change a page title and stuff like that, right? What's the worst thing that can happen? you you lose rankings for 30 days or 10 days or whatever, you delete that reviews page, boom, it bounces back, right? Everything in SEO is reversible. Yeah. In in fact, I want to ask you about the SEO test that you've done because uh that was something that I saw about you. But I the the other thought that I had was do you think having it as a separate website would make AI site would make would make AI believe that it was consensus from multiple from from multiple websites because it's like okay you have you have the reviews on your landing page and on your on that same website but is that going to be seen by AI as as two or one? probably be seen as one. But now if you have it on two different websites, maybe that's more consensus. Yeah. So what you would want, right, is the claim frame and prove, right? So something that is on your website, you're claiming it. So Edward is the best SEO. That's a claim. Now you need to prove it. So you need external websites also referring the same thing. That's how you prove it, right? So you you want all three of them, claim, frame, and prove. Um I think Jason Barnard also says a very similar statement where he's like, you don't like it's all fine and well me shouting and screaming saying I'm the best SEO in the world, but if it's only my own website saying it, that's what I'm saying. Doesn't mean much, right? You want you you also want what you were saying before, the exact match domain or potentially even just reaching out um and getting some guest posts. Like for example, um I run the masterminders, right? The the SEO conference in the UK. We done a outreach to our 150 attendees last year. We sold out. Um and we said, "Hey, if you guys do a review and you said, "Hey, I don't know XY Z SEO agency down in Liverpool. We attended the masterminders. We thought it was great." or if you thought it was bad, let us know because we want to we want to upgrade it next year and the year after and the year after that, right? Um, from that email, I think we got about 25 different people writing a review saying, "I attended the masterminders. This is what I thought was good. This is what I thought was bad. Um, I'm attending next year. I'm not attending next year." Right? Um, so you want other sources saying um, if you're great or if you're bad or whatever, if they if they came to the the SEO conference and they thought it was bad. It's always one thing that you can take into consideration to actually improve the the year after. Yeah, feedback is important. When when you say that you're swapping out review websites, is it like uh, so let's say Trust Pilot just has like too many bad reviews and then you're like, "Okay, we got to fix the product. we got to fix customer service, we got to improve reviews and let's just do it on a new in a new place or or like what what are the reasons that you would swap that you would swap them out as you described? So that's very situational, right? This um what we initially done um is I I I believe it was like 1,035 reviews they had in total and about 250 was negative. So there was a lot of positive, but it brought the 4.6 to like 3.7. Um, but to bring that back up, we estimated that it would take 6 months to to bring it back up to where it was 4.6, right? Um, they but to rank or to swap it out to FIFO ranking number one and getting cited in the AI overviews, we done the maths and we were like, we could probably do this in like two weeks time. Two weeks worth of reviews. It's a very large company that that um we're we're talking about here. So, they they were like, "Well, why don't we as a quick fix get a load of reviews onto FIFO and then as a long-term fix, we will slowly build up the trust pilot again." Um, so again, it's it's it's one of those things like it I I was speaking to a company before um and they work on a Trust Pilot with 33,000 reviews. Out of the 33,000, 15,000 of them are one stars. Right at that point, it's it's pretty much burnt to burnt to the ground. You're probably going to want to move on and and try and rank another asset um above the Trust Pilot. very situational, but you just need to do the maths, right? If if you're like, "Okay, it will take about 6 months worth of reviews. Let's very quickly start to rank something else and then over time we'll start build building up the Trust Pilot or the G2 or whatever it is that's got the negatives." Dude, you know what I think is a really undervalued, overlooked aspect of it. It's it's not a SEO, it's it's just business, but it's so relevant to SEO and to AI search. And I think it's customer service because you like people don't really realize this and you see like you see it everywhere. Everyone is trying to automate customer service. I made a podcast on this like two days ago. everyone is just use or they're like, "Oh my god, like we can use AI and just like automate all of customer service. Great. We're going to save so much money." And then what happens is you have a lot of people who are really pissed off and then they go and they write bad reviews on Reddit, on YouTube, on Trustpilot, on all of these places. And and the thing is an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure because a small just a small little uh make someone feel like they're listened to. Even if they had a bad experience with the product, they might not even they might not go and and write those reviews. Good chance that they won't. It's such a small little thing that companies can do. And it it like especially if you don't have a great product, it and if you do have a great product, then what happens is it gets people to share you. It gets people to do parasite SEO for you. You don't have to go on you don't have to go on Reddit and and do parasite like it people will literally do it for you if you have a good product and good customer service. It's the customer service is such a huge driver everyone is overlooking it. I um so I've got two two completely different scenarios, right? Um I believe quote me if I'm wrong in the comments and stuff like that CLA the um the payment like the is you you you know what is it's like a payment payment installments yes that's the one I believe it was Clara that just fired their entire um customer service team and they replaced it with AI and the CEO literally came out and said that was their biggest mistake ever and they've now reinstated the um I I believe it's Cl don't don't quote me on that. Um I I know it's like a pretty big company. Um but on the the contrary um I work with a casino and when they have like let's say Edward goes and wins on slots 200 or 200 pound or whatever, right? When you win they have a little Yeah. Boom. Exactly. You're happy. You're smiling already. All All day I'm in I'm in the casino. got the glasses on. So, um, making it rain. When Edward wins €200 euros on slots, right, they have an a chat and it's it's all human done. They will say, "Hey, Edward, you just won €200. If you want to win an extra€ 10, can you please leave us a a fivestar on Trust Pilot?" Um, I don't know the the full white hat, black hat, gray hat to this. It's casino. It doesn't matter, but it it it works very well. They are one of the number one in the world um for reviews. And usually casinos all have like two stars because everyone loses their money and then leaves a review. But these guys, they've figured out they're like, "Well, if they're on a high and they've just won €200, why don't we just send send them a message?" Well, it's literally a chatbot. Human human controlled. Some VAS in Philippines, I think, do it. Hey Edward, you've just won. Why don't you leave us a five? Oh, it's a it's a chatbot. Yes, it's a chat. Okay. Wow. No, no, sorry. It's it's a chat controlled by a human. It's not automated. It's actually a person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. What are some other What are What are some other tactics that you see in like very black hat niches like eye gaming? Um virality traffic. So, um, manipulating clicks to to gain rankings. Um, like you you you've probably seen it yourself, right? You you you get a video blowing up and everyone's checking out your website, you're going to get more searches. That's deemed as a positive experience inside Google's algorithm. Whether it's coming from Gmail traffic, whether it's coming from Twitter, whether it's coming from Facebook, that's all positive experience in terms of Google's eyes. So, um, they they almost deem as Edward Stern being a very popular character. We can trust him. He's getting all of these external sources. Let's rank him more for that. So, that's the that's the white hat way of doing it, by the way. Um, but there's certain ways that you can obviously manipulate clicks and traffic through to your website. Um, very expensive because you need certain IPs and stuff like that that's not fully being burnt out. Yeah. Click the rate manipulation. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, actually, I was going to I was going to ask this question later on, but I'm curious because like when I when I talk to SEOs like you who really know what's up and who have a lot of experience, I'm I wonder are you doing any businesses outside of SEO because like you're like you're a marketing killer and it's like uh you and the thing is you know what I was I was having this conversation with Mihao with Miho the founder of Surfer SEO yesterday. We were talking about this about how SEO is the hardest niche to do SEO in and we were we would have had this like long conversation about how SEO is the hardest niche to do SEO and marketing in. There's so many savvy marketers in SEO and it's like you can go into any other niche and it will be so much easier. I made the recommendation that if someone is starting and they want to do they want to do SEO just don't do SEO in the SEO niche. like do it do it like so my my question is like for a marketing killer like you have are you doing any businesses outside of SEO that are your own businesses? Yeah. So I mean you could technically say the the masterminders I mean it's still slightly um SEO. It's a conference. Um so I've done that but I think it was like last year start of last year. started 2025. I had like I think it was like 30 clients and I was just not happy. I mean I mean earning decent money, right? Um but I didn't like the fact that I had to or my team had to report to someone, hey, this is what we've done and then the team was getting questions and I'm like, I don't need to answer these questions. Um so I just thought it was a waste of time. What I ended up doing is I bend off like 25 clients. Um, and I said, "Right, I'm only ever going to do SEO on my own assets, whether it's for my name, whether it's for businesses that I've invested in. Um, whether it is for like the conference, I've ended up building out my SEO, the the app. Um, the and the reason for that, and I I think a lot of SEOs will actually resonate with what I'm about to say next. the there's so many amazing SEOs. It's not just guys like yourself. It's not like guys like me, Mihalusi, really really cool guy. All of us know SEO, right? Equally, I also think a lot of SEO agencies are undervalued in the fact that they might be charging three grand a month for a client, but they should actually be probably charging 10, 15, 20 grand, right? Because the services that we offer, manipulating Google, getting websites to the top of Google, getting websites to the top of chat GBT cited in AI overviews, all that good stuff, right? That could literally be a company of 40, 100, 200 people and plus the families all being able to survive off of the leads that you actually generate from SEO and marketing and stuff like that. So I I I I think the the skill that we actually have is very very very undervalued and a lot of SEO agencies do not sell SEO or AI manipulation or getting cited in AI as the commodity and the the actual the value of what it actually should be. Yeah. SEO is the greatest marketing channel. It's uh what so yeah what I'm what I'm doing is um I'm I'm really happy I I started this almost 3 months ago now and I I was this was a conversation that I was having last year with SEOs who were coming on. I'm like, "You're so good at SEO. Like, how come you're not doing a business outside of SEO?" And so now I'm I'm funding a business outside of SEO that's growing with what I know with SEO and marketing. And it's like the most exciting thing we picked. I I'm not going to say the niche. We we found a niche where nobody wants to vibe code their own SAS that also has bad SEO. So So we have a vibecoded SAS in a niche that doesn't have where the competitors have very poor SEO. And it's kind of like a blue ocean. And I'm just like it's it's so and my operator the the person who's growing like who's doing all the work is is 20 years old and is just going he doesn't really know much. I gave him my course. I tell him I tell him what to do every other day and he's going like so hard just like he has all the energy in the world. is working day and night and and it's so fun for him and it's so fun for me and it's so exciting and uh to to do it in in not the most competitive niche in the world which is SEO to be to not to do SEO. Yeah. Um, sorry to to to answer your question as well. Um, because I I kind of went off on a tangent, but I was going to come back to this, right? Um, I have invested into an accountancy firm. Um, which awesome like I I basically or my team runs the actual SEO for that. Awesome. Um, we have also invested it into a manufacturing company. and also like a road repair company as well. Um, so I've got assets. Those have to be great niches. Um, yeah. Yes and no. I mean, everything got has its pros and cons, right? Um, the the the reason why I I've done that is because if there's an uplift, like let's say for example, the accountancy firm previous prior to working with me and and me investing into it. Let's say I got 10 leads a day, right? It didn't, by the way, but I'm just using that as an example. and now it's getting 25 leads a day. I am directly getting a a more positive like ROI from that. It's not just a retainer client that I'm charging five grand a month for. Um, so that that's the reason why I think a lot of SEOs are are very undervalued because you do not get the uplift. Like a lot of SEO agencies that you speak to as well, let's say they they've been doing SEO work for the past 12 months for a law firm, let's say, they very rarely go back to that law firm and say like, "Hey, we've improved your SEO by 200%." Let's up the retainer. Very, very few SEO agencies do that um that I know. So, that's the reason why I prefer to actually invest into companies as opposed to do SEO for companies. Um so yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm I'm the same uh you so you've done yeah you've done a lot of uh tests in SEO a lot of experiments right yes what are what are some impactful things that you have found so anyone that's getting into testing and trying to figure out what's working and what's not I highly recommend because this is how I started out figuring out the tests and and stuff like that look at harder industries right so the few industries that I tend to look at is what's happen in the casino industry. You'll be able to like the the thing is right there there's the finance industry, the casino industry, the porn sector is I I I would consider them as being like top 1% SEOs. You if you want to try and earn money in any of those sectors, you need to be good at SEO, right? But if you can replicate or not even replicate but do what 10% of what they're doing on a small little industry, you're going to absolutely crush. So let's say you take a look at the finance sector and you're like, "Oh my god, these guys are incredible at internal linking. I'm going to replicate this for my own website." you'll you'll it'll literally be a difference maker from I don't know um let's say you're a gardening company in Miami. You you're you're if if you replicate that from let's say position 23, you'll probably be bouncing up to like bottom of page one. Um some SEO tests. So recently um I done a test where I compared different AI um citations like how to actually get cited in in a lot of AIS. Like a lot of my testing nowadays is is more so AI manipulation because that that just excites me a lot more. Um what I found was that Grock was very easy to manipulate because they've done a lot of searches. Um chat GBT has three different bots. I I I don't know if if you knew this um Edward, but what they typically do, right, is let's say you you asked it, who is the president of um America, right? That's probably going to be in its cache and it's going to spit out Donald Trump. Um so they use what's called common crawl. Um so to c to c like just general stuff um that they don't want to search for, it's common crawl. Um if if for the tech SEO guys, if you look at your server logs, you'll see that Common Crawl is aggressively scraping websites. Um then they've got what's called a page um a page bot. Like I think it's chat GBT. I I would need to get the names um from from my latest test. It was a Twitter article that I had all of the names. Um but then bot number two actually visits pages. Um, so for example, if if I said like what is the age of Edward Storm, right? It would go to Edward Storm's website or potentially your Wikipedia page if you've got one. Um, and it would read that information and give it to me. Um, equally, they don't want to store Edward Sturm's age because not many people might search that. But if say for example you completely blew up, you were the most famous man on the earth, then they will probably end up caching that using the common crawl cache. Um, and then they've got another bot which actually looks at the 10 blue links uh or whatever color links they they are on Bing. Um, and it'll look at the page title and the meta description. Now, previously 2 three years ago, I didn't really care about the metad description. And I was like right just page title and Google will pick out the the relevant page t meta description. Now um I am filling out a lot more metad descriptions. This is like SEO 101 by the way. Um but it's very important that you that you understand that um with Claude um I'm going to give a little bit of a shout out to Rolo. I think he goes under the name of Apex Marketing. Um he done a brilliant case study. I think it was like one or two days ago where Claude is um using Brave Search. Um I I I could be wrong in saying this, but I think he was the first person to actually um mention it. Um so now I'm looking at right, okay, how do I get ranking in Brave Search? What you will typically find though, a lot of these search engines have a very similar subset of top 10 or top 20 and top 30. Um, it's very rare that you rank number one in Google and nowhere to be seen on Bing unless you're doing something horrifically wrong. Um, so that was the thing that I found from Chad GBT that they've got three different bots. Um, one thing that was very interesting, right, is when I done the test, I ended up deleting all of the pages cuz I wanted to know what what happens. Grock, you pretty much instantly fell out of the the AI citation on that because they they're aggressive on the actual searches and finding the data. Um it it seems like currently Grock doesn't have much of a cache. Um same with Perplexity. Perplexity does a lot of searches as well. So as soon as you deleted the page, very quickly you you you got removed from any AI citations. with ChatgBT and Claude. However, uh it seemed like you stuck around for like I think it was like 4 weeks or 3 weeks extra and then you dropped. So it seems like they've got like a preliminary cash until you go into the big common crawl cache. Um so that that was one thing that I found um that was very interesting. Um again it it was it was one of those tests where it was like what happens if I delete the pages? What happens if I build all these pages? um the style of pages for the people that are interested as well. Um I done comparisons. So for example, let's say it's Edward Storm agency versus Casual Dash Agency. Um for Edward Storm, I would look at your Trust Pilot reviews. I would look at the one stars and and I would amplify those. Um for myself, I would look at the the five stars and I would amplify mine. Right? I I want to basically compare the the negatives versus the pros, right? A little bit on the gray hat. You got to do you got to do the comparisons. Exactly. Um listicles work incredibly well. Um alternatives as well. I don't know if you've ever seen this wise revolute. All the banks do this where it's like wise alternatives. Revolute alternatives. Those are style of articles work very well as well. That's in a way is kind of like a listical but it's a much cleaner way if if you if you get what I mean. Um what else? What else? What else? Um, another thing that you can also do as well to manipulate AI overviews is let's say you got a really good review from Edward, right? I would create a guest post and I would just amplify that. Edward absolutely loves my service. Edward said this about me. Edward said this about me. And that did get cited in AI overviews. That was just on a random outreach guest post website. Really? It's just on a random a random website. like with with good metrics, right? Not not just a Okay, so you're so like I gave you I give you a good review and then you go to Yeah. You go to a random guest post website with good metrics and you say you just write Edward Sturm said this about me. Edward St about me and that's I I would probably say like casual dash review by Edward Sturm. So something like that is being like the page title. Then I would amplify that. Um, ideally if if I was going to be doing it that's smart. I wouldn't go completely random. I would try and find like a marketing website. And you would and you would author it as Kazra dash. I would off um the the offership doesn't really matter. I I wouldn't um offer it as kazra dash. I would like you typically with guest post websites it'll be under I don't know if if you got one on let's say xyz.com it'll be xyz admin right um or it would just be an anonymous person as well. Okay. And so anonymous person writes an article cas-ash review by Edward Sterm. Yeah. I mean the the the the thing is right that's very long tail so it's going to be very easy for that to rank and show up. um for cases review for sure. Yeah. So I mean it's it's it's ve it's very easy to manipulate certain things like that. Um but yeah and those were the style of articles that I ended up then deleting to just figure out what happens and a lot of them like grock perplexity completely gone. Chad and claw took a few weeks. What do you recommend to a CMO who who comes to you and says that uh they want their company to get more recommendations in AI? Um so I I would look at the fan out right um like let's say for example the CMO of Dell came to us and they were like hey we are launching this $600 laptop. It is brilliant for students and people that want to do video editing, right? There's a fan out there, right? They they they've just said, "Hey, we're launching this brand new product." And if you think of it, if somebody was to search that and chat GBT or Gemini or or what wherever somebody's searching nowadays, I feel like every every week somebody's using a new LLM and stuff, right? What's probably going to happen is if if I was to search, hey, I'm a student. I need a laptop under $700. Um, and it also needs to be powerful enough to do video editing. What the fan out's probably going to be is best laptops for students, best um, laptops under $700, and best laptops for video editing. And the web and the the laptop that shows up in all three is probably going to get cited in the actual end result or the end answer for that user. Uh, so that's that's where I would probably start. Um, for more established brands, for lesser established brands, probably what I was saying before, like doing the reviews, amplifying the reviews, doing any um comparisons. I I feel like with the comparisons, if you're like in local, probably don't do the comparisons. Like if you're if you're like a a tree surgeon, right? You don't want to do Edward Stman tree surgeon versus casual dash tree surgeon. probably amplify more of your reviews. Um, try try and focus on on stuff like that. YouTube works very well. Um, if you can hire like a full-time YouTube person, I think now is the best time to do it, especially for CMOS. But if you're so amplifying reviews, but let's say you want to get you want to get recommended in in prompts with prompts where the searcher or the user doesn't even know what company is they're looking for. They're not actually doing due diligence. They don't even know. They're going they're saying like what's a good company in the tree trimming space in in Wiscon in this city random city in Wisconsin. So if if they're doing on like chat GBT, right? You're probably going to want to focus on Bing places reviews and like I know nobody uses Bing, but that that's what the um I believe that's what the map uses. Like if if you were to search for tree surgeon in in Wisconsin, um I believe the it bases it off of like reviews and and a lot of companies don't even have a Bing places map. Um equally they don't even have like an Apple map either. Um so just starting off with like the basic foundations. Um I know some of the advanced guys are probably listening. They're like come on give me give me some gold. But like a lot of times it's just just the the fundamentals that are missing out. You're not targeting keywords around like tree trimming random city in Wisconsin. Uh I mean you could do like with tree trim in Wisconsin. What you could potentially do is go after like services. So like hedge trimming. Um you could even like list certain prices as well. So like don't um a lot of like local companies, right? What they end up doing is they're like, "Hey, if you want a quote, fill in the form and we'll give you one." But sometimes when people search on chat GBT for tree trimming, they might say, "Hey, I've only got $500, right?" You can then technically say, "Hey, our services start from 300, but it does depend on how big the yard is or how big the tree is or the hedge that we're coming out to c to cut." So, answer first, then caveat later. Um there there's certain things like that that you can also do as well. Um again with with that with that type of stuff. I mean the the more that you can obviously do the better because when chat GBT or Google AI is citing certain companies, it is also still looking at the reviews to to to my knowledge. So if you've got no it'll go it'll go do due diligence on the companies that it finds like it's it's see that in the query fan outs. Yeah. I mean like the query fan out is one point part, but like going back to what you were saying before, Edward, right, where it's the two companies, one has bad reviews, one has no reviews, right? You want to try and tick all of the boxes. So try and get the query fan out. Um, and then also try and get the reviews. And if you can try and also get YouTube videos, case studies, testimonials, um, anything that you can get your hands on. genuinely I I feel like it's it's it's almost like the kitchen sink approach like just throw everything at it. And if you do not rank for any AI overview queries at all, throw the kitchen sink at it and you will be in a much better position than what you are currently. Yeah. I tell I tell people this is this is what we're doing with uh with this company that we're funding while we are putting up. So one, I have this operator making it making one UGC video a day. That video comes out to Instagram reels, Tik Tok, YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, and Facebook reels because you can use the same video on all those places. We have very rich uh very riy filled out. And then when whenever we are putting up a bottom of funnel SEO landing page and it'll take us around like 3 to 4 days to write and put one up like a good one for those 3 to 4 days we are making videos targeting the same keyword that the bottom of funnel SEO landing page is targeting and and so now we're max we're like the the coverage is crazy because the coverage is you you're going you're going after your high intent keyword with your website and then with the most clicked social media platform, the most clicked of the other most clicked websites in Google, which are these social media platforms. And uh yeah, that's that's what I'm into. It's basically like an omni channel approach. Yeah. Um, like I don't know if you saw this um I think it was Neil Patel's agency that that published saying um that if I think it was like 24% of brands or new brands that people don't know about is are discovered on Google and I think it was like 19% are discovered on Gemini Chat GBT and Claude and I there might have been Grock in there as well. So, I mean, it's it's slowly like from that point of view, it is actually catching up on Google. Um, but again, like going back to what we were saying before, right, being omni channel, like you're not missing anything. Like you're literally doing the kitchen sync approach. A lot of people won't like to hear that cuz I I do understand that SEOs do love a shortcut or a quick hack, but if you want to try and do SEO properly, you're going to want to do everything like what you've just mentioned. I'm I'm curious also what you found with Grock. I actually had somebody in the comments ask like, "Hey, can you do like an episode on on Grock SEO and um I had done it I I had done one, but it was I think like a year and a half ago that I did this and maybe things have changed, but I'm I'm curious like the interesting things that you've seen with Grock and if you think like does getting ranked does does getting mentioned in Grock really differ that much from Chachi PT or from Gemini? Yeah, slightly. Yes. Um let me am am I able to share my screen? Yeah, you can share your screen. So this is um a sheet that I put together, right? Because I I I actually wanted to know the answer to this myself. Right. yes, I can. Is that fine? Uh yeah, that's good. Perfect. So how this sheet works right is this basically goes and looks at the citations of each different um LLM right what you'll typically find is obviously these were done by Google um and there are certain crossovers right so for example this also this was for the query best B2B marketing agencies right um this URL here does get mentioned on Google AI perplexity A and also claude. This URL here gets mentioned on Google AI and claude. Um but the all of these have their own different ways of getting citations. um which I thought was very strange and I I I again I appreciate what what Rolo done um when it came to reverse engineering how Claude is actually getting these because now this makes sense cuz I I used to look at Chad GBT and I used to look at Claude for example and I'm like why is there so much of a difference between the two when it comes to cited websites where is Claude getting its information from but it turns out it's getting getting it from Brave search. So there there are different nuances um as to all of these. Um the ones that are slightly similar, right, is perplexity. You you sometimes do this exact same query for or sorry, you do this sheet for another query. Perplexity does have a lot of overlap from time to time. Um Google AI and Perplexity, I would say roughly 50% of the time they're very similar. Um, Perplexity and also Claude again are very similar. Perplexity and chat GBT again are also very similar. Um, the the ones that are just completely weird. I I don't know why it happens is um Claude usually just has different sites. But again, that that's probably down to the search engine that they actually use. Wait. So true means true means that it is in it is in this AI. Yes. So true. True basically means that this URL here is getting cited on Google AI perplexity and also Claude. Um as you can see that like I mean there's a little bit of overlap between Google and Claude. Um but I've I've used this sheet for like queries that have like 300 um citations and stuff like that. Usually the the citations do differ. um is is probably down to how they crawl the web. Do you recommend any software for for prompt tracking? The two that I like to use are radar track and search intelligence.ai. Um search intelligence is by Ferry. Um he showed me it actually I think it was like last week. Um I've started using it and stuff like that. It's pretty good. Awesome. What? Yeah. So I I'm curious also about with your tests what uh SEO myths you have disproven. Uh I um I feel like a lot of people don't like listicles and they will preach scream shout across the internets um that the that listicles don't work or listicles are bad etc. the the three citations that I just shown you there for Google AI were all listicles. Um, actually, do you know what? I'm looking at it now. I believe I think out of the 21 different citations, maybe 16 of them are are all listicles. So, listicles definitely do work. Um, does it is it a little bit spammy? It's spammy looking. Um, but it's probably one of those things that Google AI might say, "Okay, we've had enough of listicles. Let's move on to looking at the reviews or another different source." Right? Again, I I I'm just guessing here, right? We're we're we're all kind of guessing. AI overviews, it's it's literally a guessing game. Like, no, nobody knows the the the exact formula. Like even even with my own test, I I can't sit here today and say I am the best person at AI overviews because I'm definitely not. There's people that are way better than me. Um, listicles definitely work. I think the the the easiest way to get into AI overviews, right, is comparing two things or multiple different things. So, the pros and cons. One thing that I would probably say is if anyone's watching this and they're like I'm I'm on the fence when it comes to listicles, I would probably try to be neutral. Um like if say for example you're a bank, right? And you charge $5 per transaction fee, right? If you just aren't true on your listicles about that, maybe you say it's $2 or maybe you say we don't have a transaction fee, you're going to end up getting bad reviews, right? So just be transparent with with the with the listicles. I think it's fine to do. Um I I think like from the from the day of dawn that I've been doing SEO until now, there's always been listicles. Best casino sites. That's a listical, right? there are also this this will be an interesting one, schema does help when it comes to AI overviews, but not in the way that people think. And let me expand on that. So, I don't think schema is a direct ranking factor when it comes to AI being cited or not being cited in AI, right? But it does tie in a lot of loose ends. So for example, what we were saying before, right, with the having FIFO outrank Trust Pilot, right? If you were to have same as schema with Trust Pilot and you swap it out for FIFO, that indirectly tells Google like, "Hey, these guys have potentially stopped using Trust Pilot. Let's go and see where their FIFO page or where their reviews.io page ranks. Oh, it's ranking in position number 19. let's move that higher. So, I've I've seen certain things like that um which indirectly improves AI overviews and and the consensus about your brand. Right? I'm not saying go and add uh schema is going to completely explode etc. It's not the case. Um because there's been other uh scenarios where I've tested schema um and it's only in like it's it's like a bakery website and I've said in the schema, hey, this is a website to do with cats and it's not it's not picked that up at all. So I've I've done I've done single variable test. I I have this I have this thought on same as schema and I wonder if uh if you just put like same as schema you're like okay here's this is my Instagram this is my Facebook this is my LinkedIn um what if you don't use same as schema and you just have your about page with all of those things and you have and you have all those things listed linked to in your footer uh so you could do that but the reasons why I'm using schema isn't necessarily for AI overviews, right? So, the reason why I use schema is because I want a knowledge panel. I want whenever somebody searches my name or whenever somebody searches your name, I want my that juicy knowledge panel to show up. When you get that knowledge panel, whether it's for your company, whether it's for Yeah, but you don't need schema to get the knowledge panel. I had a knowledge panel well before using same as schema. It's a So, I agree because Justin Bieber has a knowledge panel and he 100% does not know how to do schema. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, right? But to my knowledge, I don't think he he's watching schema courses. It's a lot easier. Um, would that be cool? Yeah. Um, it's a lot easier to tie loose ends together. Like, for example, I I I'll give I'll give you a prime example, right? Because I actually My knowledge panel got a lot wrong. My knowledge panel got a lot wrong. Exactly. It had it listed the wrong social platforms. I had to claim it and fix it. So, I had the exact same issue that you're that you just said. Um, I spoke to Dennis U and I've got business partners that spoke to Jason Barard. Two probably the best people that it comes when it comes to knowledge panels, right? And the issue you've got with schema if you don't have schema and if you've just got it on your about page because I I again very similar to you. I was like, it's it's on the it's on the website. Isn't that enough? No is the answer cuz Google is just dumb. I I like I don't know why. I don't know if it's down to the scrapers. I I I don't know why that is. It ties in a lot of loose ends. Now, once you get that knowledge panel for Edward Sterm, right, Google AI is a lot smarter and it's like, ah, okay, this SAS company that you've invested in is attached to Edward. So may may maybe you don't want it attached but in this scenario let's say is attached it gives a lot more trust to that like even even when you search for like um Neil Patel's companies and stuff like that it says this company is owned by Neil Patel now the contrary as well chat GBT and also Grock they're trying to build up their own knowledge base of information and they to my knowledge are also scraping a lot from Wikipedia and also Google. So, if you can fix your schema, um, again, I'm not going to say it's going to light the world on fire, cuz it's definitely not, but helps tie in a lot of loose ends, and it you can indirectly get positive signals from other LLMs. I have a hard question for you. Go on. Do you think there's a future for publishers and affiliates relying on SEO? Do I think there's a future for publishers relying on publishers and affiliates that are relying on SEO? What what what do you mean by that? I I mean a lot of publishers and affiliates are very worried. Oh my gosh, AI is taking all of our clicks. It's it's uh people don't need to come to our content anymore. and and like even if we have a great uh a great ranking and we we're we have like and we're recommending products using affiliate links while the AI is stripping those affiliate links and still recommending the products. I will give you an answer and I think you will agree when you hear this, If you were to go to your email that's attached to your YouTube, how many brands have reached out to you saying, "Hey, Edward, I have this brand new AI tool, this brand new SAS tool. Do you want to be affiliate?" Um, like I I've had it 100% cuz like for for about six months I was doing daily SEO videos. You you've been doing daily SEO videos for I don't know six years it feel it feels like, right? Um I so I think the affiliate game has slightly pivoted. Um I think that a lot of affiliates or brands that are relying on affiliates are now not so much relying just on nameless blogs. They're relying on people behind a brand like the Edward Storm brand, the Casra Dash brand, the Matt Detty brand, the Neil Patel brand. Right? I think personality cells and affiliate managers or the the the savvy affiliate managers have picked up on that and they're like, "All right, okay. I've got this link building tool or I've got this AI citation tool. I'm going to reach out to Casra Dash. I'm going to reach out to Matt Diggy and I'm also going to reach out to Edward Storm." Because those guys, they have a loyal following. They don't just flog any BS to their followers or like I don't think you do. I I don't think I do. and they the brand managers or the affiliate managers will understand that and see that. Um I think that the like the two three years ago, right, I was looking at websites after HCU and it was holiday websites where they were reviewing hotels and locations that they have never been to. The guy's never been abroad in his life and he's like, "Yeah, I've just traveled to Barcelona." Right? I think those get days are gone for people that don't have a brand. But for for example, let's say you live in Canada in Toronto, right? Um and you want to be the number one guy for restaurants, right? If you actually go to the actual restaurant, take photos, take reviews, um take photos of your food, take photos of the menu, stuff like that. I think that is a lot more brand building. Like I I see this all the time on Tik Tok where guys go to restaurants and stuff. Um that's much more brand building and I I like I hate to say this because four years ago if you'd asked me this, I I would have thought that this is complete BS. Just build out a website, do do what's needed. Um but Google does prefer the the the brands almost. Yeah, I think I think affiliates will have a hard there's still ways to do affiliate SEO. Well, I think like putting up bottom of funnel SEO landing pages works pretty well for affiliates still. Um, with that said, you still run the risk of having AI strip your links and that's uh it the the best thing is what I say all the time. If you can if you have a site and you can already rank and you're a publisher, sell your own thing. White label something, make your own SAS, vibe code your own SAS, whatever. Sell your own thing because you can rank. You can rank. You have a superpower. Abuse it. Use it. I I again it's going back to what I was saying before. I think a lot of SEOs underestimate their skill. um they like it honestly like it even if you just know basic SEO knowledge right you can expand on that and make a very wellbuilt product whether it's e-commerce whether you go into the SAS business whether it's just local service that you provide right um I I I think it's honestly like one of the magical gold dusts that that very few and far between people that actually understand it yeah I agree I like we are uh I don't know we're like super it's like super it's having a superpower honestly it's like having a super it's it's not just like okay yeah it's cool people discover you and you don't have to spend money on ads and you can really go get hyperargeting but there's also like when you are ranking number one and you can just think you show that to somebody it's kind of like you're social proofed by Google you know what I mean I um I used to rank for hottest guy in Northampton and that was like I claim to fame, right? Um, but like I I don't know if you've done this. It'll be an interesting question. Have you ever been in an argument with someone and then Oh, yeah. the the answer comes to what they're saying and then you manipulate it a couple days later and you're like, "Hey, look at the answer now." Um, like that that is literally like mind manipulation that you can actually do. And it's it's it's it's incredible thing to to actually learn. I honestly I I think there has been been no better time to get into SEO. And I know a lot of people say SEO is dead. AI is going to take over. I think that's complete B BS. Like it's the best time to get into SEO. I I agree. It's an amazing time because now like the barrier to entry for actually making products is really really really low and it's like Yeah. So yeah. Uh what mistakes did you make early on that people entering SEO today should avoid? Um so what what one of the biggest mistakes is being so scared to change something on a website like even if it's ranking well right like um a lot of people use WordPress. Um if if you don't just take a backup of the website, make the changes. If you tank or if you drop a couple positions, revert it back. Um few other things. I probably didn't go aggressive on link building enough. Again, a lot of people are scared to build any form of links. Um the the the the thing that I realized is things that you do today on your website might not be the thing that actually dropped your website. It might have been a link that you built five weeks ago or 6 weeks ago or 12 months ago, right? Um because Google's constantly refreshing or in some cases, right, you might make a change and you might drop free positions and you're like, damn, what what happened there? It might not be something that you done. And it might be something that your competitor done, right? You need to remember that this is like a a player versus player mold, right? Like I I'm like if we're not in any competing industries, but let's say we were, right? I'm competing against Edward. He's competing against me and we're we're making changes on our websites. We're building links. We're doing we're um doing internal links. We're uploading images, etc. Right? So it might not even be something I've done. It might be something that Edward done that's better than me. Um, so I think that that's the mindset that people should have. Um, another few things, uh, don't rely on third party metrics. Like so many people are like, "Oh, oh my god, the DR62 website." DR can be manipulated. Um, I don't know if I've done an article on this. Um, I I I remember like four years ago, I done a case study in a Facebook group that just blew up. Um, but DR like there there are gigs on Legit and Fiverr that you can get that will manipulate DR to like a DR65 website. A lot of um dodgy link builders so so to say will build websites for people buying links that do not know how to correctly score and metric websites. people that are just looking at DR. Um, it's is is is really a shame to say that because I I don't like doing business like that, but just be wary of that. Um, traffic is another one that can be manipulated in in in AHFS and also in Semrush. Um, where things can be manipulated to look a lot better than what it actually is. Um, and if again if if that that's your two metrics that you're looking at, you're looking at DR and traffic and you're like, "Oh, okay. This website's getting it's DR65. it's getting 10,000 hits a month, it might not actually be what it's actually saying under the actual bonnet, right? Um, that's another favorite metrics to pay attention to. so I I like to take a look at what that website is ranking for. Um, if it's like if it's relevant. Um, again, like one thing to to bear in mind as well, like we're all trying to build a better website. So if if if for example I'm looking at a DR10 website or a DR9 website, that might not be a DR10 or 9 website in 12 months time. That may be a DR25 fairy website. So I'm looking at websites that are on an upward trajectory. Um, I am also looking at certain metrics on LRT. So link research tools, they're really good when it comes to looking at toxicity for for backlinks as well. Every website has like a a toxicity score to say. Some websites have a higher toxicity score. So in certain cases, you might look at a casino website that's getting a link from a porn website, right? And you're like, why is that working? That's because casinos, porn sites, they can get away with a lot more. um is is with casino and and porn sites, right? Um a lot of people think they need a clean backlink profile, but you're actually the odd one out in that scenario and Google's like something's a little bit wrong. So, they they almost want you to have some form of toxic backlinks because it's natural in that industry. Um, it's also like this is where the the backlink mind mess up happens because me and you could be in the exact same industry but you might have been established for 11 years and a link that you have if I was to go and acquire that that might have a negative impact on me. Um, again it's very much based on the toxicity levels what you can get away with how many foundational links you have. um where where let's do this. If if you if you start a brand new website, how do you build authority for it? So, starting off with um the citations like the the the Yellow Pages of the world, the the Thompson locals of the world, there there's there's so many of those. You can even search like let's say you're an accountant, right? You can search like accountant directory websites and there's there's at least 25 of those. Um, some are obviously paid, some are free. The paid ones, I would take a look and see if they are ranking. If they're not ranking for anything, just don't get it. Avoid it. It's just a directory trap at that point. Then take a look at geospecific locations. So, if you're in Miami, Miami business directories. Um, then you can go after like more broad um phrases. So, Florida um business directories, US business directories, stuff like that. Um that way like you you you've probably got like eight or nine different searches. Also, one other thing as well, you can go after like services as well. So, accountants, they also in the UK, they can also dissolve certain companies. So, you can do go after directories for that certain service or payroll. They do payroll. you can go after certain directories that only do payroll companies, right? Um, so I would start to build out that way. Um, I would then start to take a look at my competitors. Um, and with with like a again, this would take me quite a long time to do. Like some of this you can actually automate with the Clawed Chrome extension. Um, like you can like literally just say like, "Hey, here's my free competitors. just go into hrefs, go into Sim Rush, take a look at their backlinks, take a look at the ones that I don't have, the ones that they have. Um, and that that point it would just give me like a a CSV or a list of 150 and I I would manually go through it. It's very manual process. It takes a lot of time. Um, but that's that that's that's what I would be doing. Um, there are also certain paid directories that I would pay for. uh the ones in law, I think it's like just.com. I don't know if you've seen that before. Um that I believe they take like a small admin fee right at the beginning and then you're listed. Um with the paid directories, always take a look and see if they are ranking. If they're not ranking at all, like I I I don't know if Yelp is ranking. I think it's ranking very well for restaurants, but if you're like a law firm and it's just nowhere to be seen, I probably wouldn't pay for that. If if there's a free version of Yelp, go for the free version. Um, so yeah, when when you're looking at at directories and stuff like that, always take a look. If they are asking you for money, check to see if they're ranking. I would then also start to build out the social uh profiles. And again, very white hat. Um, Kasra from 2023 would be not happy with that answer. But building out the social profiles cuz again like you you you've seen it yourself, right? YouTube, Facebook, you're you're you're you're miss everywhere. Um, I have a theory on that. I actually think that uh I think those those social I think social profiles foundational links like that are very important because it's become a lot harder to create anonymous accounts on on social media platforms. It was like 5 years ago it was so much easier and now it's like you it it's like you if you have a suspicious IP address then it's it's harder or you're at a weird location it's harder. um you've done some bad things in the past on with this platform. Uh it's yeah it's harder like weird device it's harder. So there's like a lot of fingerprinting going on with social media platforms that actually it's not like direct identity verification but it's still weeding out a lot of spammers. Yeah. a a a and so to create to actually have to actually have one of those platforms and then to be able to to link it to link all these platforms to your main site that's that has to be a very positive signal. Yeah, it's um like Instagram and Facebook came out I think it was like last year and they said like we're allowing Google to crawl our website for or web pages for the very first time, right? So again going back to what we were saying before, you can amplify certain things um about your brand or about your company. Um the next thing that I would do from a link building point of view, right? So we've spoken about citations, we've spoken about um the foundational like the social media channels and stuff like that is go and take a look at your top four or five competitors. It doesn't even need to be in this exact same geo as well, right? So let's say again going back to the scenario that we were using before, Miami accountants, right? Let's say there is five accountants there. Go and take a look at their brand and what's ranking underneath their brand. You will be surprised as to some of the websites there. Um and then reach out to some of those you like a lot of times the ones that are ranking for the brand I found personally are actually free placements. But again, it's if they're strong enough to rank for that competitor's brand name as being position two, position three, position four, position five, it's probably going to be the strong enough to rank for your brand name as as the secondary and third positions. Do that for five competitors in your geo. Also, swap it out. Like what's what people are so afraid of is they think that if a accountancy firm in tech uh Oklahoma is ranking their SEO is different to what Miami accountants do. It's not right. So you can do that for literally like every single location that you can possibly think of and very quickly. You'll be able to build out a lot of authority very quickly as well. I want to do I want to I want to do a rapid fire round to finish off this episode. So, I have some questions and uh yeah. All right. What is the most overrated SEO tactic in 2026? The most overrated SEO tactic in 2026. the schema I I I I like even even though I said schema works, it's not as impactful is what people make it out to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Completely completely agree. What's the most underrated SEO tactic? Not doing alternative pages and comparison pages. Awesome. Are backlinks becoming less important, equally important, or more important? Less less important and more important. But can can I give a more fine tuned answer? Um, so I used to build backlinks because of page rank and getting more link equity through to my website. Right. That is an old man's game, an old dog's game. trying to get more DR or trying to get more page rank through to your website. I think with backlinks now the important thing is is theming who you are, what you do and who you serve. So Edward Storm is a great SEO. He understands how to build websites. Um he is an SEO for example. So we've covered those two things. He also serves SAS companies, right? like trying to theme back links as to who you are and what your ICP is is way more important than just focusing on the page rank. Even even if it is not an actual do follow no follow, it can be a unlin mention and I still think it is very very important to get those as well. Actually, I asked this to Ran Fishkin a couple of days ago and he said he said that mentions people aren't talking about this enough, but like actually he he was with Mike King and Mike King was telling him that mentions are becoming like I I don't want to misquote him. It was something like mentions are becoming as important to backlinks if not more important. I agree. Yeah. Uh what skills do every SEO does every SEO need to work on? Business. business and management. So, not working on sorry, not working inside the agency, working on the agency. Um, like that's the number one thing. And hike up those prices, 10x your prices. I have a I have a crazy I have a crazy answer to this. I think people skills is the thing that every SEO needs to work on because if you have good people skills, it becomes so much easier to get a lot of press, a lot of backlinks, a lot of relevant mentions. The best SEOs that I know are also they're pretty they're pretty good with people. What is uh what is something that you are trying to get better at right now? It doesn't even have to be SEO. Something that I'm trying to be better at um being in the moment. Do you meditate? So, no, I don't. Um, like the the the thing is like you'll probably understand it yourself with daily SEO videos, right? You're always thinking of the new idea, the new hack, the new thing that people want to want to see, right? Um, I I love doing daily SEO videos, right? But it also like from April to like June are my months off from doing daily SEO because I'm organizing everything for the conference, right? But I struggle with being in the moment and actually like just enjoying the moment. Yeah, I meditated every day for pretty much when I want to do something, I just do it every day. So I meditated every day for like a decade. Just literally what I did was um I I carved out 20 minutes a day and I I sat in front of a white wall and I just stared at the white wall. Sometimes I would like sit and they would stare at like pres. I would sit they would like sit facing a window. I would stare at the window. But most of the time I was just literally staring at a white wall and I think it rewired my brain doing that for So that's actually I was telling this to the operator of this company that I'm funding and he's like, "Bro, I just started meditating the way that you were describing. I've never felt something like this before. It's incredible." And uh and I've gotten a lot more present from from that tactic. That's interesting. I really like meditation. I I've read like a lot of books on it. The power of now was all about how to become present to the moment. Like that book is an exercise in becoming present. What was the name of that book? Sorry. The power of now by Echarolei. I'm going to need to It is It is actually like one of these like foundational books for me that just changed I I think I read it in when I was like 22 years old. It changed the way that I looked at everything. It It was like a crazy book. I especially for since you said that you were focusing on or you want to become better at being present to the moment. That entire book is like is is about becoming present to the moment. It's the concept of presence. Right. Okay. I'll um Yeah, I'll It's a great It's a great book. It's It's It's Yeah, really great book. All right, I have two questions left. If you could give your 20-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be? Kazra, fail faster. Fail faster. And and and let like I I don't I don't I I've done so many side quests if if you will. Um some of them have been a success. Some of them been absolute failures. Um, but have they really been failures if I've learned something from them? Um, I don't think they are because that skill I've been able to level up my next project or my next side quest or whatever you want to call it. So, fail fail faster. Um, and probably you're not going to like there's there's no there's no such thing as quick money. Um, I I think with quick money you even let's say I don't know I jumped on crypto and I made 20 million, and there was no real hard work to it. I think it is an endless hedonistic way to end up burning a lot of money. Um I I I I very much enjoy Yeah, I I I very much enjoy the chase of the uphill battle. What's next? What ne what's next that has to be done? What do I need to do next? Next, next. Um and I I I think 20-year-old Cass thought it was easy to make money. Um I think I'm 27 or 28 now. Um I've got a lot more experience. I've got a lot more scars now. And I understand that business is not easy. Um so for the people that are the for the people that have 9-5 jobs that think, "Oh, I'm going to get two or three clients and I'm going to quit." Just be careful with with that. I I I would always recommend people to have at least eight months worth of savings before you quit your job. um just so there's a little bit of a buffer because you never know clients might leave you clients might charge back there there there's all there's all that headache and stuff that you need to deal with. My last question it's kind of relevant to what you were just saying it's imagine someone is listening right now who wants to build a sevenf figureure business through SEO. What would you tell them to focus on over the next 12 months? people skills. Seven figure um business is not just a one-man band. So you will at some point need to hire. Um focus on things that generate money today. Um so whether it's lead generation, whether it's building a funnel, something like that. Um you you're you're going to need something that's going to drive you to that seven figure mark, right? Um, and think of, again, I'm going to sound like Alex Hormozy saying this, but think of it unrefusable offer, right? So, for example, if we if we take a look at compact keywords, what are you actually doing there? You're teaching people how to get better at SEO. I feel like there's…

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