0:05
And we’re back for the third time, Sour and Sass. And I have the pleasure of
0:10
having a good friend of mine on, Ben Glass Slooh.
0:13
Yes, sir. Tell the people what’s your what’s your
0:15
official title? What do you do? What What is your knowhow?
0:18
Um, I am a senior account strategist at Directive. Uh, I work on SEO and content
0:25
clients. And thank you very much for having me.
0:27
Of course, bro. So, we’re talking about everything SEO, AEO, GEO, all these
0:32
threeletter like engine optimization things. So, this is
0:35
stressing a lot of marketers out actually uh with AI. So, could you walk
0:39
me through why you think most B2B companies uh are optimizing for the
0:43
wrong search engine in 2025? I think actually um
0:49
even with all the different letter acronyms, I think the biggest thing is
0:53
optimizing for wherever people are searching. So even if we’ve got 30
0:57
different AI platforms, we want to make sure that we’re maximizing where we’re
1:01
appearing on there. Um, so I think it’s not necessarily one search engine over
1:05
the other. I do think there’s been a lot of buzz about AI, about chatbt, whatever
1:09
it may be. And people forget sometimes that Google, Bing, all of those search
1:15
engines, they’re still very valuable platforms for us to be on. Um, so I do
1:19
still think that traditional search is also very important. Uh, but LLMs as
1:25
they’re growing, that’s definitely a place that a lot of B2B organizations
1:29
want to be visible on. They just don’t necessarily know how to do it. Um, so I
1:34
do think that that’s important, learning how to appear on those different
1:37
platforms. Uh, but you know, all of these different
1:40
platforms, they all have benefit for us to appear on.
1:43
Let’s go. Yeah. Well, we don’t call it sour and sass for
1:45
no reason. So, we’re going to go ahead and get you get you going. I’m going to
1:48
mess this bag up. There we go. There we go. All right, you
1:53
get the pick of the litter. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a sour
1:56
Skittle. They hurt in my life. They hurt. I will
1:58
tell you that much. And I’m going It’s going to bring me great joy to see the
2:01
pain on your face. Uh here’s the question. The first question for your
2:04
You can’t do one. You got to do a Yeah. Oh, I got to do a little hand.
2:07
Get three. Get three. So, what’s the biggest mistake you see
2:10
companies making when they try to optimize for AI engines?
2:14
And I have to take this before I answer. Oh, yes, sir.
2:16
Okay. Sponsored by Skittles.
2:20
It’s not Okay. So, say that one more time for me.
2:24
Yeah. So, what’s the biggest mistake you see companies making when they try to
2:28
optimize for AI engines? Okay. I was just thinking I’m chewing
2:32
right into the mic. This is about to be a ASMR B2B podcast. Um, biggest mistake
2:38
that I see is uh honestly nowadays there’s so much
2:43
stuff that’s floating around LinkedIn. Goodness. um all these different ways
2:49
that you can optimize for LLMs and a lot of it is just fluff where somebody’s
2:53
trying to get attention on their LinkedIn posts and they do that by
2:56
getting a reaction out of people making them think that they’re doing something
2:59
wrong. Yeah.
3:00
Uh I think the biggest mistake really is that people forget about SEO
3:04
fundamentals just in general. Mh. And now that we are roughly two or
3:09
so years, a little bit more almost three years since ChatGPT launched, you know,
3:14
we’re starting to see more data come out about what the actual change is and how
3:20
people are searching, how this changes our role as SEOs, what is actually
3:24
having an impact and what’s not. Um, and we’re seeing just in general, of course,
3:28
there are nuances between all the different platforms, but SEO
3:32
fundamentals is still very, very important. And doing a lot of the same
3:36
SEO fundamentals that we would have recommended 5 years ago, is still going
3:40
to have an impact today, even with, you know, 30 different AI platforms and new
3:45
search engines and all of that. Um, all of that is still very important. So, not
3:50
forgetting that even with all the flashy new things that come out. Um, and
3:56
secondly, I would also say just testing in general and forgetting about the
4:01
value of testing. If you are going to try out one of those things that
4:06
LinkedIn is, you know, pushing something that you see that’s really popping off,
4:10
uh, make sure to test it and see if it actually does have merit. Uh, especially
4:14
on the organic side, there’s not a lot of downside for testing something new.
4:18
if it’s putting out a new piece of content, uh, that’s not necessarily
4:22
going to be that much resource-wise. So, uh, just continuing to test. I think
4:27
that’s something that’s forgotten. I’ll give you one more big question and
4:30
then, uh, we going to go lightning around. That sound good to you?
4:32
Yep. Bashing away these Skittles.
4:34
Let’s Let’s talk an expensive lesson for you.
4:36
Okay. Uh, what’s the biggest mistake you made
4:40
while figuring this out? Either a strategy flopped, a budget you wasted,
4:43
or a belief that you had to completely unlearn about AEO, GE, SEO.
4:49
Oh man. Um, just talking with my mouth full bad
4:55
manners. I I I wouldn’t necessar necessarily say
5:01
this is an expensive mistake, but just to the answer that I had last
5:05
question too. I think for me too with all of the stuff that was changing, you
5:10
know, especially when AI overviews came out, that was the talk of the town.
5:15
everybody had some concern about how that was going to impact them.
5:19
And then on my side, even when I’m working with clients and I have to have
5:23
an answer for a lot of the things that I may still be uncertain about,
5:27
um, my biggest mistake, I guess, would just be thinking that SEO was going to
5:34
just blow up. You know, not necessarily, that wasn’t a firm belief that I had,
5:39
but as so much stuff is changing, it’s easy for that to pop into your head and
5:43
get a little bit nervous. But the reality is for the last 10 years and
5:47
even beyond that, there’s always been some new thing that came onto the scene
5:52
that everybody thought SEO was going to die after, uh, featured snippets or, you
5:56
know, whatever it may be. There’s always some new new little
6:00
Google Dad that people think will destroy SEO. But, uh, you know, we’re
6:04
still here and our clients are still making a lot of money from organic as a
6:09
platform or as a a channel. So, uh, I think even with so much changing
6:14
changing in the future, I still think, you know, a lot of those SEO
6:18
fundamentals stay the same. Yeah. Sounding like a broken record, but
6:21
very important. Yeah.
6:23
So, we going to give you lightning around. So, yeah.
6:25
I hope you’re not eating nothing good for dinner. No, you take these. This is
6:28
yours now. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say,
6:29
yeah, this is yours now. Uh, 30 seconds per question and then we going to wrap
6:33
this up. You ready? Uh, best tool in your stack right now for tracking AI
6:37
search performance. Okay. A directive we use currently as of
6:42
the time of this recording we use a tool called scrunch which is really cool. Uh
6:46
if you’ve heard of profound it’s very similar to that. What it does is it
6:50
tracks all of these different prompts that you input into there and it shows
6:54
where you rank for a bunch of different prompts. All of the prompts that you’re
6:57
tracking. It also kind of groups them by different topics. So say you’re a um
7:05
say you’re a HR software or something like that and you’re trying to see how
7:09
you rank for applicant tracking system as a topic. You can see over time how
7:14
that’s changed where there may be specific gaps or what kind of topics
7:17
people are uh you know if they’re searching for that that you’re not
7:21
necessarily showing up for so you can identify where there are gaps and then
7:25
create content around that. So really cool tool for performance tracking and
7:28
then also identifying some gaps that you may have. Let’s go. Let’s get some more.
7:32
Here we go. Uh, second one. One SEO metric you’d
7:36
kill if you could. What’s overrated and needs to die?
7:38
Oh, man. It’s not even the sourness. It’s just
7:42
the volume. The volume. It’s burning your tongue.
7:46
Yeah, I know. Um, the metric I think uh I wouldn’t
7:52
necessarily get rid of any metrics. I like data. I like having more data than
7:55
not, but I think nowadays traffic is getting to a point where it’s almost a
8:01
vanity metric. Uh, you know, when AI overviews launched, so much changed and
8:05
a lot of people saw traffic decreases. But it turns out that a lot of that was
8:09
just kind of garbage traffic where it wasn’t actually impacting their pipeline
8:13
that much. Um, and for a lot of clients, even though they’ve seen overall
8:17
decreases in traffic over the last few years, their pipeline is still growing.
8:21
So, I I wouldn’t necessarily say I would throw that away, but it’s definitely
8:26
less important than it used to be. Let’s go. Uh, I’m gonna give you a break
8:29
and I’m gonna clip one of the questions just for your sake. Uh, let’s go. The
8:33
fourth question beforeh one before the last. Hottest take you have about the
8:36
future of search that would get you roasted on LinkedIn.
8:42
I think so many Skittles, man.
8:49
I think on LinkedIn, what would get me roasted is saying that 90% of LinkedIn
8:55
content is really just nonsense. As in, not all LinkedIn content, but
9:02
specifically around SEO nowadays and AI optimization. People throw out, you
9:07
know, very early preliminary data and then one month later we get conflicting
9:11
data that totally contradicts it. So, I think it’s very important even if
9:16
there’s a new technique or new tactic that we test everything, make sure that
9:20
there’s actual significant data behind it before really pushing it as something
9:24
that’s actually going to move the needle. And then especially advertising,
9:29
you know, agencies that are advertising specifically that they have the hack,
9:33
they have the cure when a lot of this is testing, a lot of it is generating uh
9:38
gathering data, which is an advantage of having an agency where you gather so
9:42
much data across clients um and you can base your recommendations off that.
9:46
Yeah, I’m waiting for the Twitter warriors to come after you when this
9:49
video launches. The LinkedIn warrior.
9:51
I’ll be here to defend you, bro. Don’t worry.
9:52
Thank you. Uh last question for the people. If a
9:54
CMO asks you, should I still invest in traditional SEO in 2025? What’s your
9:59
answer and why? All right, I got to swallow these and
10:02
then I got I’m going to answer this. I’ll eat these after my answer. Um,
10:07
I would absolutely say it is still very valuable to uh invest
10:13
in organic as a platform. You think about it as something that has very
10:18
little customer acquisition cost, especially once you get to a great place
10:22
SEO wise and LLM wise, your customer acquisition cost goes way down. So,
10:27
especially for larger organizations that have a really high lifetime value of
10:31
their customer. If you’re able to get in a really good place uh organically and
10:36
on AI platforms, this is essentially recurring revenue that comes in for a
10:40
very low customer acquisition cost. Of course, there’s a lot of stuff that goes
10:44
into that. Uh having a great agency is one of them.
10:46
Let’s go. Like who? Uh like us.
10:48
Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Shameless plug.
10:51
Yep. Shameless plug. Um but yeah, I think there’s still a lot
10:55
of uh you know, a lot of our clients can attest to the value of organic as a
10:59
platform. So, um I think there’s still very clear data that shows that organic
11:05
is a great channel. So, let’s go. Well, appreciate you for being
11:08
on the podcast, bro. Of course. Yeah. Thank you for having
11:10
me. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we just had
11:12
Ben Glass. He still ate the last one. You’re a trooper, bro. You’re a man of
11:15
his work. I love it. All right. Well, we’re going to get Ben
11:18
some water and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Sour and Sass. Sounds
11:22
good.
View Transcript
0:05
And we’re back for the third time, Sour and Sass. And I have the pleasure of
0:10
having a good friend of mine on, Ben Glass Slooh.
0:13
Yes, sir. Tell the people what’s your what’s your
0:15
official title? What do you do? What What is your knowhow?
0:18
Um, I am a senior account strategist at Directive. Uh, I work on SEO and content
0:25
clients. And thank you very much for having me.
0:27
Of course, bro. So, we’re talking about everything SEO, AEO, GEO, all these
0:32
threeletter like engine optimization things. So, this is
0:35
stressing a lot of marketers out actually uh with AI. So, could you walk
0:39
me through why you think most B2B companies uh are optimizing for the
0:43
wrong search engine in 2025? I think actually um
0:49
even with all the different letter acronyms, I think the biggest thing is
0:53
optimizing for wherever people are searching. So even if we’ve got 30
0:57
different AI platforms, we want to make sure that we’re maximizing where we’re
1:01
appearing on there. Um, so I think it’s not necessarily one search engine over
1:05
the other. I do think there’s been a lot of buzz about AI, about chatbt, whatever
1:09
it may be. And people forget sometimes that Google, Bing, all of those search
1:15
engines, they’re still very valuable platforms for us to be on. Um, so I do
1:19
still think that traditional search is also very important. Uh, but LLMs as
1:25
they’re growing, that’s definitely a place that a lot of B2B organizations
1:29
want to be visible on. They just don’t necessarily know how to do it. Um, so I
1:34
do think that that’s important, learning how to appear on those different
1:37
platforms. Uh, but you know, all of these different
1:40
platforms, they all have benefit for us to appear on.
1:43
Let’s go. Yeah. Well, we don’t call it sour and sass for
1:45
no reason. So, we’re going to go ahead and get you get you going. I’m going to
1:48
mess this bag up. There we go. There we go. All right, you
1:53
get the pick of the litter. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a sour
1:56
Skittle. They hurt in my life. They hurt. I will
1:58
tell you that much. And I’m going It’s going to bring me great joy to see the
2:01
pain on your face. Uh here’s the question. The first question for your
2:04
You can’t do one. You got to do a Yeah. Oh, I got to do a little hand.
2:07
Get three. Get three. So, what’s the biggest mistake you see
2:10
companies making when they try to optimize for AI engines?
2:14
And I have to take this before I answer. Oh, yes, sir.
2:16
Okay. Sponsored by Skittles.
2:20
It’s not Okay. So, say that one more time for me.
2:24
Yeah. So, what’s the biggest mistake you see companies making when they try to
2:28
optimize for AI engines? Okay. I was just thinking I’m chewing
2:32
right into the mic. This is about to be a ASMR B2B podcast. Um, biggest mistake
2:38
that I see is uh honestly nowadays there’s so much
2:43
stuff that’s floating around LinkedIn. Goodness. um all these different ways
2:49
that you can optimize for LLMs and a lot of it is just fluff where somebody’s
2:53
trying to get attention on their LinkedIn posts and they do that by
2:56
getting a reaction out of people making them think that they’re doing something
2:59
wrong. Yeah.
3:00
Uh I think the biggest mistake really is that people forget about SEO
3:04
fundamentals just in general. Mh. And now that we are roughly two or
3:09
so years, a little bit more almost three years since ChatGPT launched, you know,
3:14
we’re starting to see more data come out about what the actual change is and how
3:20
people are searching, how this changes our role as SEOs, what is actually
3:24
having an impact and what’s not. Um, and we’re seeing just in general, of course,
3:28
there are nuances between all the different platforms, but SEO
3:32
fundamentals is still very, very important. And doing a lot of the same
3:36
SEO fundamentals that we would have recommended 5 years ago, is still going
3:40
to have an impact today, even with, you know, 30 different AI platforms and new
3:45
search engines and all of that. Um, all of that is still very important. So, not
3:50
forgetting that even with all the flashy new things that come out. Um, and
3:56
secondly, I would also say just testing in general and forgetting about the
4:01
value of testing. If you are going to try out one of those things that
4:06
LinkedIn is, you know, pushing something that you see that’s really popping off,
4:10
uh, make sure to test it and see if it actually does have merit. Uh, especially
4:14
on the organic side, there’s not a lot of downside for testing something new.
4:18
if it’s putting out a new piece of content, uh, that’s not necessarily
4:22
going to be that much resource-wise. So, uh, just continuing to test. I think
4:27
that’s something that’s forgotten. I’ll give you one more big question and
4:30
then, uh, we going to go lightning around. That sound good to you?
4:32
Yep. Bashing away these Skittles.
4:34
Let’s Let’s talk an expensive lesson for you.
4:36
Okay. Uh, what’s the biggest mistake you made
4:40
while figuring this out? Either a strategy flopped, a budget you wasted,
4:43
or a belief that you had to completely unlearn about AEO, GE, SEO.
4:49
Oh man. Um, just talking with my mouth full bad
4:55
manners. I I I wouldn’t necessar necessarily say
5:01
this is an expensive mistake, but just to the answer that I had last
5:05
question too. I think for me too with all of the stuff that was changing, you
5:10
know, especially when AI overviews came out, that was the talk of the town.
5:15
everybody had some concern about how that was going to impact them.
5:19
And then on my side, even when I’m working with clients and I have to have
5:23
an answer for a lot of the things that I may still be uncertain about,
5:27
um, my biggest mistake, I guess, would just be thinking that SEO was going to
5:34
just blow up. You know, not necessarily, that wasn’t a firm belief that I had,
5:39
but as so much stuff is changing, it’s easy for that to pop into your head and
5:43
get a little bit nervous. But the reality is for the last 10 years and
5:47
even beyond that, there’s always been some new thing that came onto the scene
5:52
that everybody thought SEO was going to die after, uh, featured snippets or, you
5:56
know, whatever it may be. There’s always some new new little
6:00
Google Dad that people think will destroy SEO. But, uh, you know, we’re
6:04
still here and our clients are still making a lot of money from organic as a
6:09
platform or as a a channel. So, uh, I think even with so much changing
6:14
changing in the future, I still think, you know, a lot of those SEO
6:18
fundamentals stay the same. Yeah. Sounding like a broken record, but
6:21
very important. Yeah.
6:23
So, we going to give you lightning around. So, yeah.
6:25
I hope you’re not eating nothing good for dinner. No, you take these. This is
6:28
yours now. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say,
6:29
yeah, this is yours now. Uh, 30 seconds per question and then we going to wrap
6:33
this up. You ready? Uh, best tool in your stack right now for tracking AI
6:37
search performance. Okay. A directive we use currently as of
6:42
the time of this recording we use a tool called scrunch which is really cool. Uh
6:46
if you’ve heard of profound it’s very similar to that. What it does is it
6:50
tracks all of these different prompts that you input into there and it shows
6:54
where you rank for a bunch of different prompts. All of the prompts that you’re
6:57
tracking. It also kind of groups them by different topics. So say you’re a um
7:05
say you’re a HR software or something like that and you’re trying to see how
7:09
you rank for applicant tracking system as a topic. You can see over time how
7:14
that’s changed where there may be specific gaps or what kind of topics
7:17
people are uh you know if they’re searching for that that you’re not
7:21
necessarily showing up for so you can identify where there are gaps and then
7:25
create content around that. So really cool tool for performance tracking and
7:28
then also identifying some gaps that you may have. Let’s go. Let’s get some more.
7:32
Here we go. Uh, second one. One SEO metric you’d
7:36
kill if you could. What’s overrated and needs to die?
7:38
Oh, man. It’s not even the sourness. It’s just
7:42
the volume. The volume. It’s burning your tongue.
7:46
Yeah, I know. Um, the metric I think uh I wouldn’t
7:52
necessarily get rid of any metrics. I like data. I like having more data than
7:55
not, but I think nowadays traffic is getting to a point where it’s almost a
8:01
vanity metric. Uh, you know, when AI overviews launched, so much changed and
8:05
a lot of people saw traffic decreases. But it turns out that a lot of that was
8:09
just kind of garbage traffic where it wasn’t actually impacting their pipeline
8:13
that much. Um, and for a lot of clients, even though they’ve seen overall
8:17
decreases in traffic over the last few years, their pipeline is still growing.
8:21
So, I I wouldn’t necessarily say I would throw that away, but it’s definitely
8:26
less important than it used to be. Let’s go. Uh, I’m gonna give you a break
8:29
and I’m gonna clip one of the questions just for your sake. Uh, let’s go. The
8:33
fourth question beforeh one before the last. Hottest take you have about the
8:36
future of search that would get you roasted on LinkedIn.
8:42
I think so many Skittles, man.
8:49
I think on LinkedIn, what would get me roasted is saying that 90% of LinkedIn
8:55
content is really just nonsense. As in, not all LinkedIn content, but
9:02
specifically around SEO nowadays and AI optimization. People throw out, you
9:07
know, very early preliminary data and then one month later we get conflicting
9:11
data that totally contradicts it. So, I think it’s very important even if
9:16
there’s a new technique or new tactic that we test everything, make sure that
9:20
there’s actual significant data behind it before really pushing it as something
9:24
that’s actually going to move the needle. And then especially advertising,
9:29
you know, agencies that are advertising specifically that they have the hack,
9:33
they have the cure when a lot of this is testing, a lot of it is generating uh
9:38
gathering data, which is an advantage of having an agency where you gather so
9:42
much data across clients um and you can base your recommendations off that.
9:46
Yeah, I’m waiting for the Twitter warriors to come after you when this
9:49
video launches. The LinkedIn warrior.
9:51
I’ll be here to defend you, bro. Don’t worry.
9:52
Thank you. Uh last question for the people. If a
9:54
CMO asks you, should I still invest in traditional SEO in 2025? What’s your
9:59
answer and why? All right, I got to swallow these and
10:02
then I got I’m going to answer this. I’ll eat these after my answer. Um,
10:07
I would absolutely say it is still very valuable to uh invest
10:13
in organic as a platform. You think about it as something that has very
10:18
little customer acquisition cost, especially once you get to a great place
10:22
SEO wise and LLM wise, your customer acquisition cost goes way down. So,
10:27
especially for larger organizations that have a really high lifetime value of
10:31
their customer. If you’re able to get in a really good place uh organically and
10:36
on AI platforms, this is essentially recurring revenue that comes in for a
10:40
very low customer acquisition cost. Of course, there’s a lot of stuff that goes
10:44
into that. Uh having a great agency is one of them.
10:46
Let’s go. Like who? Uh like us.
10:48
Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Shameless plug.
10:51
Yep. Shameless plug. Um but yeah, I think there’s still a lot
10:55
of uh you know, a lot of our clients can attest to the value of organic as a
10:59
platform. So, um I think there’s still very clear data that shows that organic
11:05
is a great channel. So, let’s go. Well, appreciate you for being
11:08
on the podcast, bro. Of course. Yeah. Thank you for having
11:10
me. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we just had
11:12
Ben Glass. He still ate the last one. You’re a trooper, bro. You’re a man of
11:15
his work. I love it. All right. Well, we’re going to get Ben
11:18
some water and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Sour and Sass. Sounds
11:22
good.
