Search engine marketing

And this is web visits by channel.

And then we're looking at SEO, SEM, display, and then generative AI.

I was surprised by some of the trends on this chart.

But I guess let's start with my first question here.

So SEO is on the decline, while SEM and display seem to be rising right now.

Is this a trend you continue, you think is gonna continue, or I guess what do you make of that?

Yeah.

And either they switch gears or they get acquired or join another team.

Yeah, that's a great question.

You know, really the impacts, I will say that everybody is feeling with the changes with SEM and SEO is a huge impact right now.

As we're thinking about the impact of LLM search, I've been seeing a lot of studies and data that there's actually an outsized impact in B2B research, even more so than B2C from an LLM perspective and the impact that that's bringing.

So, you know, the tactics that used to work really well to drive leads, they're not working in the same way that they used to.

why were the SEO people

upset about this? I mean, SEM, SEO, the people who are really into like that kind of, you know, performance marketing.

I didn't mean SEM.

I meant

SEM.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

And with a lot of dealers...

I think Google still gets a good amount of the budget in terms of SEM, pay-per-click, a lot of these other areas, SEO.

And then you think about meta as well.

There's a lot of stores that are spending heavily on social media.

Like I said, I include ORM, I include YouTube, and I include press releases, and I include anywhere my brand is cited.

Um, and I know that because I also do paid search, right? So to me, paid search and SEO fall under, um, SEM, search engine marketing.

And I have clients that we have used GT to influence their recommendation in Copilot, and then we've used Bing Ads on Microsoft Bing search to capture branded search that came from that.

And we can test because we know exactly who those clients are, and we know that we're not a good fit because unfortunately GT recommended us in the wrong business category as a replacement for a SaaS fintech product.

How people are searching today is gonna keep changing as more and more candidates enter that AI-led search and discovery.

And the keyword-based piece of it from kind of still current, right? So there's still people are still using it that way, but I would say even maybe some of the past, you could find that information out if you're looking for SEM and SEO type of keyword type-

Absolutely

... of information, right? And, and how much you're willing to bid to kind of show up in various pages for some sponsored ads.

So going back to the employer side and, and really staying there, what do they need to do differently to make it easier for them to, to find those jobs? What do I need to do if I'm an employer to say, "Okay, I've optimized my jobs.

We've already done the SEO piece.

Maybe we've done some SEM.

I've got a great career site.

It's an ideal way to build an audience online and start pulling in some money well before you're at the level where you can comfortably absorb the risk of running a paid ad campaign.

And learning SEO also, it means that when you are ready to pay for ads, when you are ready to pay on YouTube ads or Google SEM, which is Search Engine Marketing, S-E-M, then you already know the keywords to use.

It's the natural graduation from organic to paid.

And it's not paying Mark Zuckerberg either.

Back in the day, we'd say you have to be found in a search, right? So you go to Google, you search for something, you read something, you do it, you leave.

It was SEM, it was SEO.

So Let's talk about how AI fits into that consumer journey.

So is this an awareness thing? Is this a research thing? How do you see how it fits into their marketing?

If you are building a brand new website and you're starting from scratch, then yes, you should consider some traditional SEO tactics, but you really should be optimizing for AEO and GEO.

And we'll talk a little bit more about what AI actually needs, but specifically with the AI overviews, let's talk about paid search, right? Because AEO, answer engine optimization, specifically with the AI overviews, works really well with the paid search.

Paid SEM is still the fastest way to show up on Google.

We see it with our clients.

So they don't just have a website.

They don't just have SEO, SEM.

They don't just have AI.

They don't just have social media.

The cost of having a shop, of owning a shop, of starting a shop has gone up.

And marketing, I think, is one of those things that maybe 15 years ago, we didn't do much of it, but today I need to be doing it pretty consistently.

And marketing can be hiring a company, make sure I have a website, SEO, SEM.

Certainly to me and social media and AI, that's like basic