#356: How to Think About AEO with Brett Domeny (Director of Product Management at Webflow)

#356 | Dave sits down with Brett Domeny, product lead at Webflow focused on AEO, to talk about what it actually takes to show up in AI search. Brett breaks down Webflow's AEO maturity model — four core areas that actually matter: content, technical structure, authority, and measurement — and why most of AEO is just good SEO done right. They get into how LLM crawlers work and what your site needs to do to be discoverable, why Reddit and community platforms have outsized influence on AI citations, and how to measure whether any of it is working.

Check out Webflow's free AEO assessment here.

Timestamps

• (00:00 ) - - Intro and Brett's background
  
• (02:00 ) - - The state of search and why CMOs are worried
  
• (04:00 ) - - Webflow's AEO maturity model
  
• (05:30 ) - - Why AEO is an evolution of SEO, not a replacement
  
• (06:30 ) - - Technical: how LLM crawlers work
  
• (16:00 ) - - Content: optimize for questions, not keywords
  
• (19:00 ) - - Does authentic content still win in an AI world?
  
• (26:00 ) - - Measurement: the three-bucket framework
  
• (30:00 ) - - How accurate are the prompt visibility tools?
  
• (37:00 ) - - How to show your boss AEO is working
  
• (40:00 ) - - Authority: why Reddit has outsized influence on AI citations
  
• (43:00 ) - - Why Brett has stayed at Webflow for six years

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Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to the Dave Gerhardt Show.

Dave [0:00:02]: Hey.

Dave [0:00:17]: It's me, Dave.

Dave [0:00:18]: That's me.

Dave [0:00:18]: Dave.

Dave [0:00:19]: Before we get into today's episode, I wanna give a quick shout out to our friends at web flow, who are sponsoring this episode web flow is the agent web marketing platform for high performing brands, Their platform lets you build fully custom websites that rank an Ai search and make your website your biggest growth engine without being dependent on a developer.

Dave [0:00:38]: I know that because we use web flow and Exit Five, No developers here.

Dave [0:00:42]: This episode is part of a three part Ae o series that we're doing with web flow over the next few weeks.

Dave [0:00:48]: I've been having a bunch of conversations with practitioners who are deep in the weeds on Ai SEO and web optimization.

Dave [0:00:55]: We talk about what's working, what's changing With real examples you can go and apply to your job right now.

Dave [0:01:00]: In marketing, web flow also put together this free Ae assessment, you can check it out after this episode will link to it in the notes here.

Dave [0:01:07]: Ai is changing how buyers discover and evaluate your brand in this resource will tell you exactly where you stand.

Dave [0:01:13]: You'll get a personalized score showing how your site performs in Ai search today, visibility into how likely your brand is to be cited by answer engines, and a breakdown across your content, technical foundations authority, and how to measure where you show up, so you know where to focus.

Dave [0:01:28]: We'll put the link in the notes here.

Dave [0:01:29]: Thanks again for web flow to create this series with us all about Ae, one of the hottest topics we've had in marketing, a big appetite for it, and I know this is gonna be a great interview.

Dave [0:01:38]: So let's get into this episode.

Dave [0:01:40]: Alright.

Dave [0:01:41]: So Brett tell me about...

Dave [0:01:43]: So you're on the you're on the product side at at web flow working on Ae.

Dave [0:01:47]: What what does that mean?

Dave [0:01:49]: How would you how would you explain that to a just a rate...

Dave [0:01:51]: A marketing guy like, myself?

Brett [0:01:54]: Sure.

Brett [0:01:54]: Sure.

Brett [0:01:54]: So I will say my background came out of marketing, so I went my undergrad was in marketing.

Brett [0:01:58]: My Mba nba was in marketing.

Brett [0:01:59]: Okay.

Brett [0:01:59]: I started in marketing as to date myself, I took a class in in, college called e marketing.

Brett [0:02:05]: Love that.

Brett [0:02:06]: And absolutely.

Brett [0:02:07]: So as I as I came out of, at a school, it was right when companies were, like, to market online me to build products online.

Brett [0:02:14]: So I say all that to say my, like, my approach, my mentality as we're building.

Brett [0:02:18]: Obviously, we build tools for for marketing teams for development teams, but they're, like, what do marketers need, is near and dear to my heart.

Brett [0:02:27]: And so, you know, when I talked...

Brett [0:02:29]: When I get to talk to marketing teams that that we talked to.

Brett [0:02:32]: At the end of the day, my job in working on building out product is making sure that the product capabilities at web flow are the the tool shed that they need to get their job done.

Brett [0:02:41]: And so obviously, as the world is continuing to flip on its head, a big part of that is making sure that we don't lose and I don't lose that pulse of what's actually happening what are the real problems that marketers are facing.

Brett [0:02:54]: And so ultimately, that's that's often, you know, how I would describe it on a day to day basis and product is, like, my job is to make sure I'm making your job easier.

Brett [0:03:03]: That's it that's in a nutshell, Dave.

Dave [0:03:05]: Okay.

Dave [0:03:05]: Alright.

Dave [0:03:05]: So I got you.

Dave [0:03:06]: So we are really close to the the flame on what's happening given that flow is, you know, a website company search happens by, you know, searching for something in the that there's a connection doing search and website.

Dave [0:03:20]: So how would you explain the state of search right now.

Dave [0:03:25]: And so I'm I'm coming at this from, like, I run a community of marketing professionals, especially among our CMOs, most of them are all asking, like, What are you what are you doing right now?

Dave [0:03:34]: Like, we're we're losing search, but we're not...

Dave [0:03:37]: It's not as easy as like, add a page

Brett [0:03:39]: to your website and show up

Dave [0:03:40]: in a clogged search result because people don't use the, you know, the way an Ll works, and the search query is totally different.

Dave [0:03:47]: And so I I kinda wanna use this use this use your background in in Ae and on the product side of web flow to give marketers, like, first principles to think about.

Brett [0:03:59]: Yeah.

Brett [0:03:59]: Absolutely.

Brett [0:03:59]: And this is right at the of what we have been working on what we've seen on on those front lines over the last year.

Brett [0:04:05]: And, you know, so, you know, let's say, a year ish ago as we started seeing the acceleration of not only the the data, but even us those are con as consumers.

Brett [0:04:13]: When we started saying, you know what, actually, like, it's easier for me or more effective to go answer this question or ask this question in one of these Elements m's Oh, wow.

Brett [0:04:21]: That was effective.

Brett [0:04:22]: Like, you start to have a new behavior evolve.

Dave [0:04:25]: Even, like...

Dave [0:04:25]: So I'm I'm in a heavy user of, you know.

Dave [0:04:27]: Everything since this came out.

Dave [0:04:29]: Chad, then it was claude then per complexity then Gemini, and I've almost found myself now, I just use a Google Chrome browser and you know, like, if you search for something it shows up in the ai.

Dave [0:04:42]: But if you have another question, you click into that and the chat experiences like that, and it's, like, completely change how I search for things now.

Brett [0:04:49]: Totally.

Brett [0:04:49]: And so, you know, so back to your point of, like, what are the first principles and, like, you know, how do we approach this?

Brett [0:04:54]: That is the question that, you know, we, obviously, because because while I build products and get to work with teams to build products at web flow, we also have a marketing team that has to market web flow.

Brett [0:05:03]: And so we're working right in line with them.

Brett [0:05:05]: And and we started spending a lot of time as a company trying to break down those first principles of what we were discovering what we were studying, what we were seeing to your point, we are at kind of the the tip, the tip of spheres so to speak because we are making sure that we are enabling customers to build discover sites.

Brett [0:05:21]: And and we started developing up something that that we call this Ae maturity model.

Brett [0:05:25]: And, basically, the idea was what really matters?

Brett [0:05:28]: What even is Ae e, What even is, you know, other, you know, the Geo, I had one customer.

Brett [0:05:34]: I remember is said, I don't I don't know what I need to do.

Brett [0:05:36]: I just wanna do all the eos.

Dave [0:05:37]: My joke is e I e I o.

Dave [0:05:39]: Yeah.

Brett [0:05:40]: That's right.

Brett [0:05:40]: That's right.

Brett [0:05:40]: And so so we started breaking it down really into four groups of things that really matter when you think about first principles.

Brett [0:05:46]: And those were constant...

Brett [0:05:48]: So the content that you're building on your site, technical.

Brett [0:05:51]: How do you technically structure your site so that it's discover.

Brett [0:05:54]: Authority, and that's really a a lot more about what happens off the side, which is obviously a very traditional SEO concept and measurement.

Brett [0:06:02]: Are you actually seeing and discovering what's happening.

Brett [0:06:05]: And we started to break down as we looked at sites that we're doing better site that weren't doing as well doing our own experiments, talking with customers, starting to unpack.

Brett [0:06:13]: What are the things that we start to see spike because early conversation as you would you well know is like, it was this like, oh, SEO is dead and it's Ae.

Brett [0:06:20]: And it's like, what's actually this like, blended evolution of these things.

Brett [0:06:24]: Some things matter more than ever.

Brett [0:06:25]: Some there's like new disciplines.

Brett [0:06:26]: And so what we started to break down was, like, one, just a clear way to think about it.

Brett [0:06:31]: Because so many marketers that we talk with, and some still today are, like, I have so much going on, just how do I even think about this?

Brett [0:06:38]: What are the things that really matter and that are important.

Brett [0:06:40]: Starting to break it down there And within each area, there's more pieces that that you can really start to hone in on?

Dave [0:06:45]: I saw this, I'm trying to look at it real quick.

Dave [0:06:48]: I saw this report last week from a SEO company, Ai citation ranking factors.

Dave [0:06:55]: And, basically, the summary, what was interesting was, it said, while the evidence...

Dave [0:06:59]: While the evidence suggests that specific practices can boost Ai citations, most of the critical critical factors align with traditional SEO practices.

Dave [0:07:06]: This is important because there's much debate in the Ai SEO world about whether optimizing for Ai visibility requires a different tool set.

Dave [0:07:14]: Has that been your experience?

Dave [0:07:16]: Yeah.

Brett [0:07:16]: Yeah.

Brett [0:07:16]: Absolutely.

Dave [0:07:17]: We actually go to each I I think you have thoughts on each one of do.

Dave [0:07:20]: So these are great.

Dave [0:07:21]: So content technical measurement...

Dave [0:07:23]: Content technical authority and measurement.

Dave [0:07:25]: If we could just kinda, like, crack into each one.

Dave [0:07:27]: I think that'd be awesome.

Brett [0:07:29]: Yeah.

Brett [0:07:29]: That sounds good...

Brett [0:07:29]: Let's start with technical because I think, technical is where...

Brett [0:07:33]: You know, so so, you know, like I mentioned coming from...

Brett [0:07:36]: This is one I...

Dave [0:07:37]: This is the area also that I know.

Dave [0:07:38]: Like, the other stuff, I think people intuitively, like, good content that makes sense.

Dave [0:07:41]: But this is, I think something that there's a lot of misunderstanding about.

Brett [0:07:45]: Yeah.

Brett [0:07:45]: Yeah.

Brett [0:07:46]: Absolutely.

Brett [0:07:46]: And what I I'd say is, like, there's a lot of misunderstanding that's not too dissimilar from the last twenty, twenty five years of misunderstanding technical SEO when it's, like, what actually matters.

Brett [0:07:57]: What are the things that I need to do.

Brett [0:07:59]: And so from a technical standpoint, much like you mentioned much of what goes into being a discover or answer engine ready site is a lot of traditional SEO because when you when you break it down what's happening in the Ad front.

Brett [0:08:12]: At the end of the day, there are crawl that these L m's are deploying, whether they are their own crawl or whether they are relying on existing search crawl, and they are going in and accessing pages and bots and agents are basically trying to read in surface pages.

Brett [0:08:28]: And so the traditional SEO world was basically create a guide and create a method so that a bought or an agent can find you and understand what you're writing.

Brett [0:08:37]: In the most performant and efficient way possible, which isn't always go look at all the content.

Brett [0:08:42]: So a lot of this, if you think about it, like, there's two big buckets here the batter here, which is the site, which is the overall how the site is structured, and then the individual pages.

Brett [0:08:51]: And so much of when we look at the authority model is really like...

Brett [0:08:55]: Meat and potatoes kind of kind of pieces?

Brett [0:08:57]: Like, are you structuring your site map in a really perform way?

Brett [0:09:01]: Or if you're a localized sight, are you handling all of your, you know, Hr wings?

Brett [0:09:05]: And do you have canonical that are set up appropriately and And how are you modifying your Urls And how are your Url structured kind of broader site level pieces.

Brett [0:09:14]: Do you have good...

Brett [0:09:15]: You know, do you have non optimized things in your robots dot text file.

Brett [0:09:18]: Obviously, this is where as you kinda go up the maturity any model?

Brett [0:09:21]: There's things that we know work And I think one of the things that, like, has always been true with SEO.

Brett [0:09:26]: And for for folks that now, they've not really, you know, especially at different parts of the org that they've not been involved with SEO or maybe kind of been like, well, the SEO team handles that.

Brett [0:09:35]: And now all of a sudden, they're, like, living up close and personal with it.

Brett [0:09:38]: SEO has often been a lot of...

Brett [0:09:40]: There are things we know and there's things we experiment and we see what works.

Brett [0:09:44]: Where you say, Tried this and let's see if this impacts.

Brett [0:09:46]: That's not everything, but there's a lot of foundational pieces.

Brett [0:09:49]: So a good example is like, l o m dot text, which is a new interface method in addition to robots dot Cx t.

Brett [0:09:55]: And there's, like, mixed data on, like, how much L m's are using it, how much you should do it.

Brett [0:10:00]: But there's things when it's, like, should we go ahead and try it and see if that helps us.

Brett [0:10:04]: Absolutely.

Brett [0:10:04]: There there's something like, we have a great partnership with cloudflare to handle you know, all of our hosting for for for published sites, and we just ship something recently where it's markdown for agents.

Brett [0:10:14]: And the idea of basically, like, in addition to a semantic represented an Html page, what about we can deliver markdown versions of the page along with it because we see early evidence, that some agents are wanting to do that.

Brett [0:10:26]: So there's, like, this evolving set of pieces, but a lot of it honestly, like, goes down to start with the basics.

Brett [0:10:32]: As as as another data point I'll give you dave, like, as we started working on this, we we recognize this this this challenge to a flow, And so we started shipping some basic tools even last year where things like sc markup.

Brett [0:10:44]: You know, if you think about the sc dot org kind of core implication of how to semantic represent the page, that is not necessarily something net new.

Brett [0:10:53]: But, like, what we saw was early evidence that L m's were prioritizing or reading Sc more effectively.

Brett [0:11:00]: But the average marketer was going, I need to write Sc dot org markup, which is a Json L structure.

Brett [0:11:06]: I need to go figure out how to do that, how to inject that in code in the page.

Brett [0:11:09]: And so what we built was just like some Ai tools to scan the content of the page suggested in.

Brett [0:11:14]: And one of the things that we saw which was which was great, but not necessarily surprising was the early adopters we actually published a blog not too long ago on this.

Brett [0:11:22]: Early adopters of those tools saw seventy five percent more or seventy five percent more organic traffic growth in that time period as compared to those that didn't, which is great, but not surprising.

Brett [0:11:32]: Because it's, like, if you semantic structure your site in the page so that the bots actually know how to read it, know how to access it, that's the first part of the battle.

Brett [0:11:41]: And that's where a lot of teams wanna go to content, which is great.

Brett [0:11:44]: But if the...

Brett [0:11:45]: If the site can't actually be accessed in a way or the pages can't be accessed in such a way, that's a big losing part of the battle or big part part of battle word's law.

Dave [0:11:53]: And I'm not a technical website guy, but the...

Dave [0:11:57]: That's different than, like, the l dot text file and the robots.

Dave [0:12:03]: Like, those are all...

Dave [0:12:04]: Those are three different things.

Brett [0:12:06]: Yeah.

Brett [0:12:06]: Yeah.

Brett [0:12:06]: Those are all different things, and there's there's...

Dave [0:12:08]: I look...

Dave [0:12:08]: Just a good example of just, like, how many layers there are behind the scenes of, like...

Dave [0:12:13]: Totally.

Dave [0:12:14]: We wrote this great article we did all this research.

Dave [0:12:17]: Why are we not ranking for any of this stuff.

Dave [0:12:19]: Even if it was, like ten x content and it's like damn.

Dave [0:12:22]: There's so many things behind the scenes like, I'm sitting in my kitchen right now.

Dave [0:12:25]: It's, like, yeah, it's a pretty looking kitchen, but you have to have the right foundation.

Dave [0:12:29]: You know, you have to have the right...

Dave [0:12:30]: You know?

Brett [0:12:31]: That's right.

Dave [0:12:32]: But is the is the thought that, like, if you're using a website hosting, like, whether you're using web flow or you're using Hubspot or you're using wordpress or whatever you're doing?

Dave [0:12:43]: Like, those vendors are all now shifting to, like, do it for me in there.

Dave [0:12:49]: Don't don't make me think about this?

Dave [0:12:50]: Or is there still...

Dave [0:12:52]: Is there still some, like, level of technical?

Dave [0:12:53]: Like, I can't just...

Dave [0:12:54]: If I'm gonna home grow my website?

Dave [0:12:56]: I need to know all these.

Dave [0:12:58]: Like, why do I need my thing is like, why do I need to know all these things when I just use web flow and, like, that would solve the problem.

Dave [0:13:04]: Like, how much time should the marketers that listen to this, be spending, like, thinking about all these things first, can you solve it with with say, like, using using the a product?

Brett [0:13:14]: Yeah.

Brett [0:13:14]: It's a great question.

Brett [0:13:15]: I would say, like, the ideal here, especially, you know, if I were to go back and put my marketing hat on.

Brett [0:13:20]: I would absolutely be in that camp, which just to say, I need to, like, to use your kitchen example, like, you wanna be able to come in and just cook and not be worried about, like, are the, like, the foundations is the electricity wired up the right way You're like, I just wanna know that works, And I wanna know, I did the right thing.

Brett [0:13:35]: And traditionally, that's where marketers hire agencies to to to do all that.

Brett [0:13:39]: But we also know one that that can still be a good solve the the other challenge that we see though is there's this compression on do more with less.

Brett [0:13:46]: And how do we get more bang for a buck and all of that?

Brett [0:13:48]: And so what I would say is like, I think that's the ideal When...

Brett [0:13:51]: You know, so for the marketer listening here, it's, like no the details that matter and familiarize yourself with what needs to happen, but that's not the same thing as now have to go home grow it and do it yourself.

Brett [0:14:01]: Like, that's our approach at web flow.

Brett [0:14:03]: Like, we we just announced a product that we're shipping, which is more of a holistic Au suite, and a big part of it is agent recommendations.

Brett [0:14:10]: So that we are, you know, a big part of the Eight maturity model, which you can still use today.

Brett [0:14:15]: So if you're not a flow customer, go put in your Url, to that...

Brett [0:14:18]: Flow Ae maturity model and we'll go do an actual evaluation of the site and tell you all the areas across this maturity model where you could start to lean in.

Brett [0:14:26]: Well, the reality is, like, that's how marketers really want to work on a day to day basis is, like, hey, just tell me the things that need my attention.

Brett [0:14:33]: I still want to, you know, for many of them.

Brett [0:14:35]: I wanna still have a view into what's happening.

Brett [0:14:37]: So I can improve, make sure it's on brand, make I'm comfortable with, you know, kind of the implication.

Brett [0:14:42]: But I don't wanna have to be constantly maintenance A good example of of this.

Brett [0:14:46]: I remember a conversation with a with a, a large marketing team and one of our, one of our, customers, and something like broken leak maintenance, which is, like, really matters in technical SEO and really matters now in technical.

Brett [0:14:58]: And the idea of, like, oh, a concept marketer unpublished these five pages, and we had no idea all of the ripple effects of where it was linked up.

Brett [0:15:07]: And now I gotta go work through the tedious process.

Brett [0:15:09]: It's like that is where we want to, you know, our our our team often, you know, talks about, like, we wanna fight the the impacts of Ai with Ai.

Brett [0:15:18]: And so it's like, this is where, yeah, Ai driven tools can also be your friend.

Brett [0:15:21]: And so The technical part is like such a foundational element that it's not always the most exciting area that's not always the most innovative area, but a lot of the foundations of where you can get a lot more performance that you can control.

Brett [0:15:34]: And I think that's an important part of it.

Brett [0:15:35]: Because, like, content, you don't know what's gonna resonate.

Brett [0:15:37]: You kinda kinda try and and you do all your research authority.

Brett [0:15:40]: It's like there's a lot of external factors.

Brett [0:15:42]: But, like, technical, you can control.

Brett [0:15:44]: You can make sure that the site and the page that I built.

Dave [0:15:47]: That's like the one that you can have almost like checklist of things to go and do.

Dave [0:15:51]: Right?

Brett [0:15:52]: Yeah.

Brett [0:15:52]: Absolutely.

Dave [0:15:53]: Okay.

Dave [0:15:53]: And I think the takeaway from this is, like, don't...

Dave [0:15:56]: It's not, like, listen to this in your car and then, like, immediately, you got it...

Dave [0:16:01]: It's just, like, here...

Dave [0:16:02]: Here's a, like...

Dave [0:16:03]: Okay.

Dave [0:16:03]: Might...

Dave [0:16:05]: Have I thought about the technical side of this and what's the checklist in there.

Dave [0:16:08]: And then, also, we'll we'll link to this But I'll just...

Dave [0:16:10]: If you go...

Dave [0:16:11]: If you go to web flow dot com slash solution slash a.

Dave [0:16:14]: You can see this assessment thing, but we'll we'll link to it.

Dave [0:16:18]: So, okay.

Dave [0:16:18]: That that kinda scratches the on the technical part.

Dave [0:16:21]: I I understand in that.

Dave [0:16:22]: Where do you wanna go next content, measurement or something.

Brett [0:16:25]: Yeah.

Brett [0:16:25]: Let's go to Techno or content.

Brett [0:16:26]: Content.

Brett [0:16:27]: I made up a new one Dave, the fifth one somehow content.

Brett [0:16:29]: Let's go to content.

Brett [0:16:30]: So I I think the...

Brett [0:16:31]: You know, the content side, as, you know, as we think about how to evolve from just solving for traditional SEO to Ae, a big part of the emphasis is, like, even starting at a first principle standpoint of, like, what are you doing that's changed?

Brett [0:16:44]: And I think you gave a great example as you were talking through, how you use...

Brett [0:16:49]: I think you were mentioning Jim and I search or Google search with, like, Ai mode just gets you in a different different mindset.

Brett [0:16:54]: You know, two years ago, if if my family was going on a on a trip, I would start with a very open ended, like, keyword stuff searched, get to a page, you know, go try to, then get to a specific page and find my answer on the page.

Brett [0:17:09]: And so the idea was, like, in traditional search, the idea or or, you know, former, you know, kind of the the the old world, was as a brand, you wanted to get found so you could deliver the answer on your site.

Brett [0:17:20]: Now when we think about how we as consumers interact with Ai search as a brand, you wanna be included in the answer, which is happening away from your brand, So that then when a customer is even more engaged.

Brett [0:17:32]: Hopefully, they actually make it to your site.

Brett [0:17:34]: And so the big change is, like, I'm doing all of this, you know, again, very traditional pop funnel, kind of, you know, if you think in the in the traditional search world, like, long tail keywords almost and many of the questions that are being asked in L are probably net new questions that may have never been asked before because you're not just saying, you know, like, you know, we we were just talking Dave about about Golf.

Brett [0:17:56]: I'm not just looking at, like, best golf clubs.

Brett [0:17:58]: I'm looking for, like, best golf clubs for this specific use case and the way that I'm doing here, what should I be considering?

Brett [0:18:04]: And that is a very different content strategy?

Dave [0:18:08]: It's almost like the a the Ai search, like everyone and it's always been, like, you know, long tail keywords, you know, bottom of the funnel content.

Dave [0:18:16]: That stuff is the highest converting.

Dave [0:18:18]: But what that meant in the past was like, your search query into Google is you know, has more target...

Dave [0:18:27]: It it's it's it's deeper than just like...

Dave [0:18:29]: Yeah.

Dave [0:18:30]: Best golf clubs.

Dave [0:18:31]: It's like, you know, you'd have to search, you know, best golf clubs for, you know, a six handicap that wants to improve and, you know whatever.

Brett [0:18:40]: Yeah.

Brett [0:18:40]: Oh, I also think if if you're a golfer for, Dave, Dave is just subtly dropping his handicap here on on that.

Dave [0:18:46]: Oh, I'm not a.

Dave [0:18:46]: I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm a I'm a zero, but that's a.

Brett [0:18:50]: Wow.

Brett [0:18:50]: Even sick Wow.

Brett [0:18:51]: That's a separate topic.

Dave [0:18:53]: There's a conversation for

Brett [0:18:54]: another Absolutely.

Dave [0:18:55]: Well we'll have to see else come...

Dave [0:18:56]: We'll see if the handicap travels.

Dave [0:18:57]: But...

Brett [0:18:58]: Okay.

Brett [0:18:58]: Okay.

Dave [0:18:59]: Now though it's, like, the long tail bottom of the funnel becomes a conversation, and so, like, you're you're at all all of search is now much more conversational.

Dave [0:19:08]: And so it's, like, even if I search stuff after I go to the gym sometimes all the time I'm like, what's the best way to target, you know, this this do this exercise better and it's...

Dave [0:19:16]: In the future would be, like, serving up the product recommendation there, which might actually come after I've traded, you know, five or six messages.

Dave [0:19:24]: Yeah.

Brett [0:19:25]: Totally.

Brett [0:19:25]: And and I and I think, like, when when you when you think through, like, okay, How do I as a brand as a marketer show up in that world, what's actually happening behind the scenes and starting there.

Brett [0:19:34]: So the idea is, like, if I wanna search a very specific for a very specific question, The reality is is that these L are really powerful.

Brett [0:19:43]: They're really amazing, but they're doing basically relationship matching.

Brett [0:19:46]: And they're looking for for this, how do I...

Brett [0:19:49]: What can I reference that answers this?

Brett [0:19:51]: And how do I best puts together an answer based on this.

Brett [0:19:53]: And it's it's going and looking at source material on this.

Brett [0:19:56]: And so the idea if as we keep having these newer and newer questions and more and more specific questions.

Brett [0:20:02]: Because I think that's really the the the implication of these, like, long tail pieces, it's very specific questions, a good starting spot for brands is to really hone in on, am I answering the questions that one matter to me, two that my customers actually care about and three that I actually care to to be an answer for.

Brett [0:20:22]: Because if if we think back to the goal on the concept side is no longer just make sure that someone get to your...

Brett [0:20:28]: Can get to your site, then you can give them the answer on your site.

Brett [0:20:31]: But it's now the answer is happening away from your site.

Brett [0:20:33]: So you wanna make sure that you can control and and influence that narrative, of what the answer actually is.

Brett [0:20:39]: So one of the things we've seen as you move up that maturity model is a big part of it is, like, are you answering moving from just optimizing for keywords but for answering for questions, or, optimizing for questions.

Brett [0:20:49]: And so One of the things we've seen work really well with a number of our customers with our own internal team, is, like, start at the at the ground source.

Brett [0:20:57]: What are your customers already asking you, go audit your site for are you answering that?

Brett [0:21:03]: So a really good way is, like, if you're using, like, a a customer service call transcript platform.

Brett [0:21:08]: Go access that, look at all of the top questions that people are asking when they reach out to your customer support team and determine, am I answering those on my site?

Brett [0:21:17]: Because if not, there's a great opportunity to start.

Brett [0:21:20]: Go look at your social platforms.

Brett [0:21:21]: What are the top things that people are asking about your brand, not necessarily just on your brand pages or in the forums, you know, that you're controlling, but across the web.

Brett [0:21:30]: What are they asking and then they'll audit that against what...

Brett [0:21:32]: What is your site?

Brett [0:21:33]: And oftentimes it's a really great starting spot of going wow.

Brett [0:21:36]: We want to say this.

Brett [0:21:38]: Yeah.

Brett [0:21:38]: Our customers are asking us about this.

Brett [0:21:40]: So to answer it, they're relying on someone else to answer it rather than us being able to actually contribute to that conversation.

Dave [0:21:48]: Do you think it's all just gonna be, like...

Dave [0:21:50]: Because I'm thinking about, like, the very...

Dave [0:21:52]: You would need so many variations of all those searches, like, up all those things and, like, a human couldn't possibly come up with those.

Dave [0:22:00]: Okay.

Dave [0:22:00]: So my brain goes like, okay.

Dave [0:22:02]: I get what he's saying, Mh.

Dave [0:22:04]: Let's come up with a thousand different variations of content and then naturally, you're gonna use Ai t.

Dave [0:22:10]: I'm gonna use, you know, cloud code, and I'm gonna generate a thousand pages that rank for that.

Dave [0:22:14]: Is that where this is going?

Dave [0:22:16]: We're, like, we're just making Ai content to show up an Ai search, and my Ai agent is talking to the Ai agent of the company that I'm trying to buy?

Dave [0:22:24]: Like, is that is that where this is going or is there any any role for humans and creativity?

Dave [0:22:31]: Because my brain goes to, like, I wanna write the, like, killer.

Dave [0:22:34]: There's so much Ai s.

Dave [0:22:36]: I would rather write one article and make it awesome and make it the thing that everyone shares and everyone talks about versus just, like, auto generate a few thousand versions of a landing page, but, like, who who's right?

Brett [0:22:47]: Yeah.

Brett [0:22:47]: Yeah.

Brett [0:22:47]: It it's a it's a great question, And I think, like, somebody we work with Often at Web flow, Ethan Smith over a graphite.

Brett [0:22:54]: He's been a a a big voice in in Ae.

Brett [0:22:56]: He he and his team actually did a, a breakdown on this.

Brett [0:23:00]: Where they were looking at...

Brett [0:23:02]: Basically, what is the success rate if you will.

Brett [0:23:05]: What's the visibility success of content that's that actually passes the Ai sniff test, if you will.

Brett [0:23:11]: And, his, basically, overall summary was no.

Brett [0:23:15]: This isn't where we are all going to to your to your question, Dave, because both sides of the both sides of the equation are actually incentivized to work through it.

Brett [0:23:24]: And so he compared it back to, like, when some of the early SEO kinda strategies evolved when it was like, oh, I just go keyword stuff and, like, you know, like, if you...

Brett [0:23:33]: If you can think back to the old days of, like, if I have a white footer at the bottom of my site and I keyword stuff in white text and put all these links, I'm gonna hack around it.

Brett [0:23:41]: And then, like, you know, companies evolve models to make sure that it was actually rewarding via right answers.

Brett [0:23:46]: So I do think there's enough...

Brett [0:23:48]: There's enough incentive to, like, make sure that the products are actually delivering the right answers.

Brett [0:23:53]: I think we're gonna see blip and ebb and flows as new models change how they're doing something, people and tools find spots to exploit in that, and there's some self corrected in.

Brett [0:24:04]: So I would say has a brand, I wouldn't go to that extreme and say, well, what's every variation Let's go auto generated it and sit back.

Brett [0:24:11]: Because I do think we can see there still is a place.

Brett [0:24:15]: There still is a, a rewarding if you will, for actually creating authentic content for actually answering core questions.

Brett [0:24:21]: The other thing you were mentioning is, like, Wow this can really get into, I've got all of this overhead of, like, what are the thousand perm mutations of this.

Brett [0:24:29]: And that's often where of two, It's important to kinda connect into how these elements are handling things, which is, like, again, they're continuing to move the target of how they build So this isn't, like, a declarative.

Brett [0:24:39]: We know it's always this way.

Brett [0:24:40]: But as a general standpoint.

Brett [0:24:42]: What they're trying to do is they're taking these long tail questions and d decompose them into smaller keyword search style breakdowns.

Brett [0:24:49]: And so there is, this is often where it's talked about of, like, query fan out or, like, prompt fan out.

Brett [0:24:55]: So, like, if if you think about, like, the heart of the question.

Brett [0:24:58]: There's probably fifty different ways that you could subtly re reward a question.

Brett [0:25:02]: From what we've seen in our experience is, it's less important to, like, build answers to every fifty perm automations of that thing.

Brett [0:25:09]: But, like, have a, you know, basically answer the question and there's, you know, like, L will generally do a good enough job working against those perm mutations.

Brett [0:25:17]: But the big gap really is honestly a lot more foundational than at the very edge, which is, like, there's often a core set of questions to act your customers really care about that are really being answered and relied on being answered by someone else because you're just focused on...

Brett [0:25:33]: These are our brand keywords and your customers are like, that's cool, But I have all of these detailed questions.

Brett [0:25:37]: I remember we're were working with a with with a with a company, and they had a whole, you know, constant strategy really around when we wanna, like, basically accent these brand campaigns with every time.

Brett [0:25:49]: We have a brand campaign that pops up.

Brett [0:25:51]: Let's go actually evaluate what are the things.

Brett [0:25:54]: What are the secondary types of searches back against our generic profile that you would actually want.

Brett [0:25:59]: Then let's go focus on the highest priority ones, build a few versus, like, let's just go start at scale, build a few.

Brett [0:26:06]: Let's start to see what works what doesn't work.

Brett [0:26:08]: So then you're not just like, well, I've made so much in innovation that I don't really know what's happening, and now I've got all of this and you're moving so many variables at the same time can become difficult because then you've all of these metrics of going.

Brett [0:26:20]: Well, I don't really know if it did the right thing.

Brett [0:26:21]: So I guess I should continue.

Brett [0:26:22]: Versus, like, being able to focus on, you know, again, kind of some core things and and evolve from there.

Dave [0:26:29]: Is this the right point to transition into measurement because...

Brett [0:26:32]: Yes.

Brett [0:26:32]: Yeah.

Dave [0:26:33]: And and does it make sense to talk about is okay to talk about authority last Yeah.

Brett [0:26:37]: Absolutely.

Brett [0:26:37]: That makes sense.

Brett [0:26:38]: Yeah.

Dave [0:26:38]: Yeah.

Dave [0:26:38]: As brain goes to, like, now we've, like, we've done all the technical stuff.

Dave [0:26:44]: Right.

Dave [0:26:44]: We have all this content.

Dave [0:26:46]: But still, I'm Dave, Dave the consumer.

Dave [0:26:51]: I'm gonna buy perfect example right now, we're like, we're moving banks for my my company.

Dave [0:26:56]: I'm doing ninety nine percent of the research about the bank without ever actually hitting the bank's website.

Dave [0:27:04]: You bet how do they know?

Dave [0:27:07]: And then the marketing question there is, like, and the people who listen in my podcast is marketing people, marketing teams is like,

Brett [0:27:12]: you bet?

Brett [0:27:13]: You bet?

Brett [0:27:13]: I want credit for that.

Brett [0:27:14]: Like.

Brett [0:27:14]: Where's my attribution?

Brett [0:27:16]: How does all that work?

Brett [0:27:17]: Like, how do I know?

Brett [0:27:18]: In the past

Dave [0:27:19]: to be, like, well, we create great content we start to see organic and direct and brand, you know, that...

Dave [0:27:24]: Those those things start to move the needle.

Dave [0:27:25]: So what what matters in this world.

Brett [0:27:28]: Yeah.

Brett [0:27:28]: Yeah.

Brett [0:27:28]: It's a great question.

Brett [0:27:29]: You know, I'm a big, like, bucket thinker, like, think of the the the buckets.

Brett [0:27:33]: So, like, the the three buckets that I think, and you can again, really picture them as a funnel when you think about measurement, it's starting all the way at the top, which is really the agent discovery.

Brett [0:27:42]: So if we think about how this is evolving is if now if you wanna be represented in an answer by an L, you have to actually be crawled.

Brett [0:27:52]: You have to be surfaced.

Brett [0:27:53]: They have to actually discover that.

Brett [0:27:54]: This is where, you know, agent traffic, bot analytics, like, you know, there's a number of names on that.

Brett [0:28:00]: That's the first part.

Brett [0:28:01]: And what's really interesting here.

Brett [0:28:03]: I guess, kind of funny interesting is, you know, over the last few years.

Brett [0:28:07]: I I remember Web flow, you know, we we worked on a, visitor analytics product, which you'll get to visitor analytics in the funnel in a moment.

Brett [0:28:13]: We worked on that a few years ago, and we were first building it, you know, I I spent a lot of time and again, even from a background standpoint, talking with marketers and and the idea of, like, I don't wanna be looking at bots, like, make sure that, like, I wanna focus on the real visitors.

Brett [0:28:25]: And now we're flip to a world where we're, like, I need to know what bots are hitting my site and which types of bots and like, there's now because of this change.

Brett [0:28:33]: And so that's really that first part, which is understanding, are you actually getting access crawled and discovered by these L, by search engines by crawl in the first place?

Brett [0:28:43]: Because if if so much to your point, like, using the bank example, so much of the real of the experience, and so much of the the representation of the brand is happening on another platform, making sure that they are at actually accessing the pages as frequently or the right pages so they can be even included is a first important part.

Brett [0:29:02]: We can dig it in the second.

Brett [0:29:04]: I'll finish the funnel first.

Brett [0:29:05]: The second one is really this this fast emerging area over the last year and a half of prompt analytics or Ai answer insights or Ll o m visibility.

Brett [0:29:15]: But basically, the idea of, hey four questions that are happening.

Brett [0:29:19]: Am I showing up, because that is this new domain in search.

Brett [0:29:23]: You could traditionally go tap into these search engine, you know, Apis and search volume and understand like, hey.

Brett [0:29:29]: When people are looking for best bank?

Brett [0:29:31]: Am I showing up who's showing up, how many people are searching for it on a monthly basis.

Brett [0:29:36]: And now when there is this new L spot where I basically say, what are people searching for?

Brett [0:29:42]: Am I showing up, It's a black box.

Brett [0:29:43]: And so there's a lot of companies basically trying to crack open that black box to basically say solve for when people search, are you showing up?

Brett [0:29:51]: So there's a number of tools that are emerging in that space, which is, like, the the prompt visibility.

Dave [0:29:57]: Are way accurate.

Dave [0:29:58]: Are they good, like, how how representative of, again, the there's the...

Dave [0:30:03]: Some guy left me a rating one review on my podcast.

Brett [0:30:06]: Like, how was this guy CMO?

Brett [0:30:07]: Doesn't know anything,

Dave [0:30:09]: and I'm like, I don't.

Dave [0:30:09]: I really don't know that much.

Dave [0:30:11]: But I...

Dave [0:30:13]: My limited experience with, like, search console.

Dave [0:30:16]: When Google was always like, okay.

Dave [0:30:18]: This is awesome, but so many of the kit so much of the keyword data, like, never actually got passed through to Hubspot, which is our marketing automation system, so I actually have no idea.

Brett [0:30:27]: Yeah.

Dave [0:30:27]: So I just go in Incognito mode, and I just Google it myself and I...

Dave [0:30:30]: Like, oh, yeah.

Dave [0:30:31]: We're in the third ranking here.

Dave [0:30:32]: Any reaction to, like, how accurate some of these tools are?

Brett [0:30:36]: Yeah.

Brett [0:30:36]: Yeah.

Brett [0:30:37]: So what I would say is all all of the tools left included.

Brett [0:30:40]: We're building tools to help you in the prompt visibility space are are doing their best doing our best to give you directional insight into what's happening.

Brett [0:30:48]: Because the the fundamental challenge is what is the truth set?

Brett [0:30:52]: So if you think about two different dimensions.

Brett [0:30:54]: What are people searching for and how often and am I showing up?

Brett [0:30:57]: Those are the two big answers that you want us...

Brett [0:30:59]: You wanna understand?

Brett [0:31:00]: What are people searching for and how often are they searching for it, this is where in the traditional search landscape, Google is obviously build a marketplace around this.

Brett [0:31:09]: Because, if if the keyword matters to you, you wanna know are enough people looking for it that I should actually go pay to run ads there.

Brett [0:31:17]: You know I know there's more nuance to it but in a nutshell, it's that.

Brett [0:31:21]: And so they've built a business model around it around giving you visibility into a lot of people search for this, you need to be in this conversation.

Brett [0:31:29]: The challenge in the Ai space is right now, that is still a black box.

Brett [0:31:33]: So these L tools are not delivering official Ll prompt volume Apis if you will to say, oh, how many times a month is somebody looking for what's the best podcast for CMOs.

Dave [0:31:45]: Yeah.

Brett [0:31:46]: And then all of these L saying, well, here's how often that search should you go look for that.

Brett [0:31:50]: So the first part is all of these tools are basically needing to try to create some sem of is this something you should look for, which is basically they're trying to build their own dataset so you can have directional insight.

Brett [0:32:02]: And the second is, am I showing up.

Brett [0:32:03]: And this is the tricky part because, you know, from a, you know, as as, you know, as we've spent time with Ll platforms and partners too.

Brett [0:32:10]: It's like, non deter or like, the very very nature of an Ll, is a feature, not a bug.

Brett [0:32:17]: So, like, their goal is to make sure that they can give you a unique response for the unique detail they're giving versus being able to create this, like, strong deter.

Brett [0:32:27]: That's why an agent's involved.

Brett [0:32:28]: Oh, bidding on that.

Brett [0:32:29]: Let me go do this instead of us.

Brett [0:32:31]: And so the idea of am I showing up, a number of variables actually matter?

Brett [0:32:35]: Who are you?

Brett [0:32:36]: Which which client are you using?

Brett [0:32:37]: What what history do you have, what skills do you have, what context do you have...

Brett [0:32:41]: So the idea that you can just generically hit an L or Ask an L?

Brett [0:32:45]: Do I show up?

Brett [0:32:46]: It is challenging.

Brett [0:32:48]: So what I would say

Dave [0:32:49]: is like it's impossible to rep replicate.

Dave [0:32:50]: It's like, making image with, like, nano banana, and I'm like, go back and edit just change that to black and it creates an entirely new image.

Dave [0:32:57]: It just doesn't work that way.

Brett [0:32:59]: You know like, oh, and no I lost the the upper half of the end.

Dave [0:33:02]: Okay.

Dave [0:33:02]: So so so give me, like, give...

Dave [0:33:05]: Not like a one liner, but like, a a how would you be the therapist to us marketers?

Dave [0:33:11]: You sure corporate marketer.

Dave [0:33:12]: Listening to this?

Dave [0:33:14]: Like, given all of that, how would you talk about measurement with content?

Dave [0:33:21]: Yeah.

Dave [0:33:22]: Because of all this?

Dave [0:33:23]: How how would you how would you think about it?

Dave [0:33:25]: How would you present it to your boss?

Dave [0:33:26]: How would you frame it inside of the company?

Brett [0:33:28]: Yeah.

Brett [0:33:28]: Absolutely.

Brett [0:33:29]: Well, thanks for coming to the, dave.

Brett [0:33:31]: You.

Brett [0:33:34]: So what I would say is, having visibility matters.

Brett [0:33:38]: So first off.

Brett [0:33:39]: So the idea that's it's not perfect should not be the blocker from using it as an input.

Brett [0:33:44]: But it doesn't necessarily mean that it is perfect.

Brett [0:33:47]: So take it for directional insight.

Brett [0:33:49]: What it does help you give visibility to and that you should use it for, is there are going back to the content strategy.

Brett [0:33:55]: There are a number of questions that you wanna show up for.

Brett [0:33:58]: Knowing whether you show up or not, even if it's directional is a really good place to start and knowing if your competitors are showing up as compared to you is also another good insight.

Brett [0:34:10]: Because as you're investing in technical strategies and content strategies, what you can look for is am I directional moving in the right point.

Brett [0:34:18]: So it's it's kind of like Csa sat or n ps every day that Mps dips two points.

Brett [0:34:23]: You don't necessarily call a five alarm fire and go what happened You're, like, oh, okay.

Brett [0:34:28]: There's some natural movement that happens there, but, like, are we generally heading in the right direction with Mps and Csa sat.

Brett [0:34:33]: I've invested in these guests certain, you know, experience programs and we've improved over the last quarter.

Brett [0:34:38]: That's the same way I would use prompt measurement.

Brett [0:34:40]: Start with the questions that you wanna care go and care about.

Brett [0:34:43]: Because bad data in is bad data out.

Brett [0:34:45]: That's that's still true, which is if you're trying to show up for all of the wrong questions or you're, like, these are all aspirational, and they're not actually grounded to things you're doing.

Brett [0:34:53]: That's not gonna be good data.

Brett [0:34:55]: So start with the questions that you care about that you wanna show up that you you feel matter for your business.

Dave [0:35:00]: Would you literally, like, have have a list and it and true and and it shouldn't be infinite.

Dave [0:35:04]: Like, there are maybe I don't know if it's ten or a hundred or a thousand, but like, you're trying to, like, here are the things that we care about?

Dave [0:35:11]: Or am I complicated?

Dave [0:35:12]: Like, if your web flow, is there a handful of things that you care about?

Dave [0:35:16]: Or is it, like, actually no Are aren't there, like, endless infinite variations of what someone would be carrying about?

Brett [0:35:22]: Yeah.

Brett [0:35:22]: I mean, the...

Brett [0:35:23]: It it doesn't necessarily have to be a super short list, but I do think you could compartment utilize the list.

Brett [0:35:27]: Because even if you say, like, things that I should do really well in, my core brand.

Brett [0:35:31]: Am I showing up well for my core brand, and then maybe a whole other category of, like, experimental new types of things.

Brett [0:35:37]: If you don't sub divide those well enough, like, it it can get noisy.

Brett [0:35:40]: So there there could be a really long list, but I do think compartment analyzing is an important part of that so that you actually know am I moving...

Brett [0:35:47]: Are the things that matter most the right way?

Brett [0:35:49]: Because if you're you're showing up in twenty percent of searches for things that are more experimental, but you're showing but but you can't really tell if that twenty percent is for your core brand or experimental, that's a problem.

Brett [0:35:59]: So what I would say then is, like, use a measurement tool because having visibility is important, but know that it is going to be to your point, it is trying to rep recreate and represent for your user.

Brett [0:36:09]: So understanding the directional inputs on it, and use it for that.

Brett [0:36:13]: Don't be watching it every single day to say, oh, why did this drop two points yesterday, but it went up one point today?

Brett [0:36:18]: Use it really as trend information.

Brett [0:36:20]: Are we moving in the right direction over the last month?

Brett [0:36:24]: We started tracking these new prompts.

Brett [0:36:26]: Aren't we actually improving as we are investing in these pieces.

Brett [0:36:29]: So I would say it matters.

Brett [0:36:31]: It's important to...

Brett [0:36:32]: It's important to track because it actually does give you insight to that black box, but be mindful of what it is and what it isn't because it is an evolving discipline and it's not perfect.

Dave [0:36:43]: How do I say it to my boss?

Dave [0:36:44]: How do I say it to my CMO?

Brett [0:36:47]: Yeah.

Brett [0:36:47]: So so which part of do you think is more important Day, like, the the, like, why should we go invest in it or more of the, like why should, how do I know that I'm doing a good job, you know, really at at that ladder?

Dave [0:36:59]: It's it's kind of both.

Dave [0:37:00]: I think the question that most people are asked...

Dave [0:37:02]: I I think the question most people most commonly ask is like, how do I show my work is working?

Brett [0:37:10]: Yeah.

Brett [0:37:10]: You

Dave [0:37:11]: what I mean?

Dave [0:37:11]: Like, fact that we have a blog or the fact that we have a podcast or the fact that we're so much of marketing now is creating content because it's twenty twenty six and, like, Yeah.

Dave [0:37:20]: Everyone's podcasting making videos, Youtube, social media, all those things I would bucket is content.

Dave [0:37:25]: You bet.

Dave [0:37:26]: And in the past, it would be, like, alright.

Dave [0:37:28]: Well, if you do more of that stuff, I would bet that our you know, direct search is gonna go up.

Dave [0:37:34]: More people are gonna hear about Exit Five because we're doing more stuff, and that's how I've always kinda correlated, like, Linkedin and social media and podcast with that.

Dave [0:37:42]: Does that logic still apply in in this world?

Brett [0:37:46]: Yeah.

Brett [0:37:46]: Yeah.

Brett [0:37:47]: It it generally does...

Brett [0:37:48]: And I think that's why having measurement here matters.

Brett [0:37:50]: So to go back to, like, what I tell my boss on why do I invest is, like, if we aren't tracking it, it's a it's a black box and we have no idea if we're showing up if we're not showing up if our competitors are showing up So that is the, like, the p zero or the the the the, like, the must do.

Brett [0:38:04]: And how do I show that I'm I'm still doing a good job?

Brett [0:38:06]: I actually think if marketing teams don't have a way to represent this.

Brett [0:38:10]: It does feel, again, I keep using blind spot.

Brett [0:38:12]: It feels like a blind spot or an area where you can't actually show the the the byproduct of your work, I I think back to, like, going back to the technical element.

Brett [0:38:20]: A big part, honestly, even if you don't go change a single thing on your on your content strategy, Like, there's probably for most teams, a lot of core technical foundations that you can improve.

Brett [0:38:31]: When you do those, you should generally be showing up more.

Brett [0:38:34]: But rather than saying, well, I sure hope that did the right thing.

Brett [0:38:37]: You can actually start to see that and you can represent that.

Brett [0:38:40]: Obviously, we as...

Brett [0:38:41]: We...

Brett [0:38:41]: Almost bucket myself again.

Brett [0:38:43]: I'll I'll bucket myself as a marketer again, but like, as marketers, obviously, have to take discretion of how do we represent that?

Brett [0:38:49]: Because it's like, what's the story we wanna tell.

Brett [0:38:51]: And so as you're investing, like, it may be the top level visibility.

Brett [0:38:54]: So cross all the questions.

Brett [0:38:56]: We've seen a big uptick.

Brett [0:38:57]: Well I think of a customer we worked with that did a, like, completely rep platform their site rebuilt all their pages, just really prioritized sc, structured data, and they saw a significant up tick in their visibility and specifically what they were looking at.

Brett [0:39:11]: It's like, they could go point to.

Brett [0:39:13]: We've made all these technical investments and look at our visibility at the beginning of the quarter and look at our visibility at the end of the quarter.

Brett [0:39:19]: I forget the numbers to, like fifty six percent.

Brett [0:39:22]: We were on average showing up for a little more than half of the questions that we wanna...

Brett [0:39:25]: We wanna track.

Brett [0:39:25]: And now we're showing up for, like, seventy two percent.

Brett [0:39:28]: Again, I...

Brett [0:39:29]: But You do one.

Brett [0:39:30]: And for

Dave [0:39:30]: that, you would need a...

Dave [0:39:31]: You just need to use a Ai you'd like...

Brett [0:39:33]: You.

Brett [0:39:33]: You need to use something, So you...

Brett [0:39:35]: And again, it's not perfect.

Brett [0:39:36]: But the data is directional.

Brett [0:39:38]: It tells you that something is changing.

Brett [0:39:39]: Yeah.

Brett [0:39:40]: And, generally, it should obviously be changing positively as you're making these investments.

Brett [0:39:44]: But you can actually go show that off.

Brett [0:39:45]: And we I mean, we do that at flow and how we're talking about our efforts working.

Brett [0:39:49]: Well, what's happening in prompt that we're we're

Dave [0:39:51]: gonna...

Dave [0:39:51]: Or, like, a lot of people that listen to this stuff because of the nature of being in B2B, have a sales motion, and so it could also be, like, you know, on the sales calls that how did you hear about us is gonna show more, like, yeah, I was doing a bunch of research with, you know, Claude or whatever.

Brett [0:40:05]: Yeah.

Brett [0:40:05]: Yeah.

Brett [0:40:06]: You bet.

Brett [0:40:06]: You bet.

Brett [0:40:06]: Okay.

Dave [0:40:07]: I I wanna I wanna wrap in a minute, but we didn't hit on...

Dave [0:40:09]: Give me, like, the elevator pitch on authority what matters.

Brett [0:40:16]: Yeah.

Brett [0:40:16]: So so what we...

Brett [0:40:17]: What we're seeing is the authority piece of what matters is honestly so much of what.

Brett [0:40:20]: Google and other search and engines really initially set out to be, which is are other people talking about you positively?

Brett [0:40:27]: Or how are other platforms talking about you?

Brett [0:40:30]: And so one, that's still the general principle.

Brett [0:40:32]: Are you being talked about positively.

Brett [0:40:34]: Are you being...

Brett [0:40:35]: Are the questions that you actually wanna have answered.

Brett [0:40:38]: So a couple of the biggest feeder of Ll responses or tools like Reddit?

Brett [0:40:43]: Because it's authentic community interactions.

Brett [0:40:46]: So to your point on the content like, how do you negate just, like, Ai from telling Ai, what to think about Ai is, like, community and people talking about things.

Brett [0:40:55]: Are you showing up there?

Brett [0:40:56]: So like, again, I I referenced Ethan earlier, he he talked about work that he's done with customers we're one of the biggest things when you say, like, how do I focus is, like, go do the basics on technical.

Brett [0:41:04]: Make sure you're measuring, go find the the conversations that are happening in Reddit and actually contribute to them.

Brett [0:41:10]: And so, that's kinda of the elevator pitch is, like, how people are talking about you externally from the platform.

Brett [0:41:16]: There's a handful of of places that have a little bit more outs sized impact if you're gonna focus your resources, which tend to be social platforms because L m's are saying that must be a good source for what people think because that's where people are.

Brett [0:41:28]: And so that's why, you know, to a to a marketer listening and you're like, oh, so it's, like, our community strategy.

Brett [0:41:34]: It's our social strategy and, like, a lot of it's like, yeah, Just make sure it's connected back to the other things versus, like, a completely piece.

Dave [0:41:43]: I think you should come working in marketing.

Dave [0:41:44]: I think you're great gates spokesperson spokesperson.

Dave [0:41:48]: You've been at web flow for, like, almost six years?

Dave [0:41:52]: Yeah.

Dave [0:41:53]: What keeps you there?

Brett [0:41:55]: Yeah.

Brett [0:41:55]: It's it's a great question.

Brett [0:41:56]: So what's fun is as a marketer, you know, I was working in marketing, and I started working on product by by nature because we were like, hey, if we wanna market all our brands, we have to build web platforms and we need to build, you know, commerce applications.

Brett [0:42:10]: And I actually found web flow and, like, its first year and a half as a user and found it as they, like, wow.

Brett [0:42:16]: We we...

Brett [0:42:16]: This...

Brett [0:42:16]: You know, we're able to move faster as a marketer know, I did some classes, again, to date myself.

Brett [0:42:21]: I took dream lever classes in in in college, But it was just like, I'm I'm not very good at that.

Brett [0:42:26]: So the idea of I I had vision of what I wanted to do as a marketer, but I couldn't execute it.

Brett [0:42:30]: And I found the Web foot could actually help me with that.

Brett [0:42:32]: And, became really passionate love the product.

Brett [0:42:34]: And so working here today still today is, like, that still is deeply connected to me is, like, I love what we get to do in that, our goal, and and what we're...

Brett [0:42:45]: We we we talk about it in a way of saying giving development superpower to everyone.

Brett [0:42:49]: Is we wanna, you know, make sure that, you know, the the original vision of the company was the the world runs on the web, but less than two percent of the world knows how to build for the web.

Brett [0:42:58]: And obviously, the how and everything's changed big time to, like, one big part of that Dave is, like, I love the platform and I love to get to help, you know, marketers like myself and teams like myself in in the past, like, realize their visions and build enterprise great applications.

Brett [0:43:12]: The second is as much as you can love a a vision, like, showing up and working with with great people and enjoying who you work with and and having a good time.

Brett [0:43:21]: While you do it is important, at the end of the day, it's it's jobs that we all do.

Brett [0:43:25]: And so, hopefully, have a good time doing it, and that's another piece.

Brett [0:43:28]: And so those two things have have definitely kept me.

Brett [0:43:31]: It's been it's been a fun adventure.

Brett [0:43:33]: Of I've got to work on a number of things over my time and obviously, right now is as as the whole, how we build for the web and how we work on the web is being flipped on its head.

Dave [0:43:44]: Yeah.

Dave [0:43:44]: It's a...

Dave [0:43:44]: It's a interesting space to be in for for sure, like...

Dave [0:43:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:43:49]: The website in content space.

Dave [0:43:50]: Anyway, Brett.

Dave [0:43:51]: Awesome.

Dave [0:43:51]: I'll I'll come to where are you at?

Dave [0:43:54]: Missouri?

Brett [0:43:55]: Yeah.

Brett [0:43:55]: Hope yeah.

Brett [0:43:56]: It's a it's a beautiful place to to Golf dave.

Brett [0:43:59]: Okay?

Dave [0:44:00]: I know.

Dave [0:44:00]: I I believe it.

Dave [0:44:01]: I believe it.

Dave [0:44:02]: It's it's May twelfth here in Vermont, and it's like forty degrees out today.

Dave [0:44:07]: The ball going the ball goes nowhere.

Dave [0:44:09]: I'm not golfing today.

Dave [0:44:10]: Unfortunately.

Dave [0:44:11]: And no.

Dave [0:44:11]: I'm not unfortunately.

Dave [0:44:12]: I think great come station with you, Brett.

Brett [0:44:15]: Let's be honest.

Brett [0:44:15]: Okay.

Brett [0:44:16]: Let's Who's that?

Dave [0:44:18]: Anyone who says they would rather be working than not working is a lot is is lying and golf is very fun.

Dave [0:44:25]: And it's beautiful.

Dave [0:44:25]: Spend four or five hours outdoors.

Dave [0:44:28]: I...

Dave [0:44:28]: There's nothing like it.

Brett [0:44:29]: So You bet.

Brett [0:44:30]: You bet.

Dave [0:44:31]: Alright, man.

Dave [0:44:31]: Good great job.

Dave [0:44:32]: Appreciate it.

Dave [0:44:32]: Thanks for coming on the paul.

Dave [0:44:33]: Thank you for having me.

Dave [0:44:34]: We'll we'll link to all this stuff and, you know, reach out to me.

Dave [0:44:38]: Reach out to Brett.

Dave [0:44:39]: Send us an email reply to my newsletter when we have this in there.

Dave [0:44:42]: Useful framework for thinking about Ae, this Ae maturity model, the four areas we covered were content technical measurement authority.

Dave [0:44:50]: Right.

Dave [0:44:51]: Did a great job I'll see you soon.

Brett [0:44:53]: Okay.

Brett [0:44:53]: Thanks.

Dave [0:44:58]: Hey.

Dave [0:44:58]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Dave [0:44:59]: If you like this episode.

Dave [0:45:01]: You know what?

Dave [0:45:01]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.

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