If you’re worried about how “search” is going to be impacted by AI…then you’ve clearly been paying attention! But beyond all the hype, what are the most likely outcomes in the next year or so. Should your SEO strategy be changing? Should your marketing investment be going in different places?
Greg Brooks and his team at SearchTides spend their time thinking through these exact issues – based on data and their own experience. And on The Marketing Mix, Greg shares some of his thoughts on the changes that are already happening. And how marketers and business owners should be adapt.
We start off by talking about foundational elements of SEO; consider the long term value of content marketing as a search strategy; and think through the overall marketing approach as search becomes smarter.
Will the "Human Element" be the thing that makes the difference, and keeps you ahead of the game?
Key Takeaways:
Find Out More:
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn
Read more about SearchTides, and dig into their research
Timestamps:
05:20 The Role of SEO in Business Growth
08:40 Impact of AI on Content Marketing
14:15 Google wants to be Helpful
26:15 The Human Era of SEO:
36:00 A Drink at The Search Bar
If you’re worried about how “search” is going to be impacted by AI…then you’ve clearly been paying attention! But beyond all the hype, what are the most likely outcomes in the next year or so. Should your SEO strategy be changing? Should your marketing investment be going in different places?
Greg Brooks and his team at SearchTides spend their time thinking through these exact issues – based on data and their own experience. And on The Marketing Mix, Greg shares some of his thoughts on the changes that are already happening. And how marketers and business owners should be adapt.
We start off by talking about foundational elements of SEO; consider the long term value of content marketing as a search strategy; and think through the overall marketing approach as search becomes smarter.
Will the "Human Element" be the thing that makes the difference, and keeps you ahead of the game?
Key Takeaways:
Find Out More:
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn
Read more about SearchTides, and dig into their research
Timestamps:
05:20 The Role of SEO in Business Growth
08:40 Impact of AI on Content Marketing
14:15 Google wants to be Helpful
26:15 The Human Era of SEO:
36:00 A Drink at The Search Bar
When we talk about AI, much of the conversation today is how to work directly within ChatGPT and Large Language Models. But how is Generative AI going to impact one of the most fundamental parts of the current internet usage. Search.
On today’s episode, Greg Brooks talks about the foundations of search – things like authority, relevance and technical setup - and how that might change as AI takes over how people search. Hint – he thinks they’ll be as relevant as ever, and he tells us why
Plus - If AI is driving the cost of creating content to zero, what does that mean for Content Marketing in terms of search?
We talk about the importance of “Experience and Expertise” in your strategy - and how that may have a larger impact on algorithm behavior. And we look ahead to what might be next
We’re still in the early stages of Generative AI, and its influence on search, - and we have a long way to go -and I hope this conversation gives you some signposts along the way.
[Intro Music]
Steve:
Today I’m talking with Greg Brooks who is a partner and CMO of SearchTides and they help SMBs and Fortune 500 companies with their SEO and multi -channel marketing initiatives and Greg and his team also do a lot of thinking around the future of search. So today we'll not only be talking about how SEO works today. But also how things will change as AI becomes a larger part of the equation. So Greg, thanks for joining me on The Marketing Mix.
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, Steve, thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. I thought your intro was great. Essentially, we do a lot of stuff with search and with SEO specifically and the way that things are trending towards. I think that it'll be a fun conversation to get into the holistic view, which we really believe is going to help carry businesses forward.
Steve:
And I think that is what's so interesting at this point, right? There was something new every day. There's a lot of opinions out there. And then there are some people who are actually doing the work and I put you in that category. So that's why I was excited to have you on the podcast and talk through this. So on that subject, so I know you have been talking a lot recently, particularly on socials about impact of new tools.
Things like ChatGPT, AI in general, how they're changing search. So I definitely want to get into that. But before we do, let's just set a baseline here. When you're talking to a CEO or a founder of a small mid -sized business, they probably have a limited marketing budget. How do you explain to them the value of SEO and why they should invest in it?
Greg Brooks:
That's a great question. And so I think the most honest thing to do when you're assessing search as a marketing channel is understanding how solution-aware your customer is. So a good example is if you invented this new thing that no one knows existed until you tell them about it, then it's actually not a great area for you to go heavy into organic search. You should be more focused in things like paid advertising. On the flip side, the more problem aware someone is, I need insurance, I now need to figure out what kind of insurance I need to get. I know I want this service, who is the best service provider that I should engage for this? The more valuable a channel like Search is gonna be for you.
Steve:
So it sounds as though you're saying a large part of what you look here is sort of where the company is on the growth curve or maybe how well established and how, how well established their marketing program is. Is that one of the first things you take a look at?
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, and I also think it's really about, it's about how much does someone know that they have a problem? And do they know that the type of solution that exists for you is aware? So if you were going to go with something very basic and local, my air conditioner broke, I need someone who's good at repairing air conditioners to fix that. I know I need that. I need to go find out who the right person is for me. I am moving to a different state.
I'm getting different type of insurance policies. I need to figure out which insurance provider is going to be right for me. Those types of industries where you know what your problem is and you're actively looking to generate the solution for it are bread and butter for SEO. The more esoteric you go, hey, here's a new invention that doesn't exist on the market and it solves a problem that you didn't even realize you had. The less natural it's gonna be a fit because how could I search for something on the internet if I have no idea that I even have that problem?
Steve:
Right. That makes sense. So that's when you bring in some of the other marketing tools. And I know your agency does work on other parts of it today. We're focusing on SEO, but you know, I know you get involved in, in the whole, the whole breadth of it. So, okay. So let's say we've convinced the CEO, this business owner, that SEO is important.
What are some of the metrics that you dig into to, first of all, get that baseline for somebody, but then also to show or to make sure that you're doing the right things to move them in the positive direction?
Yeah, good question. So there's really a couple of different things. Number one is the authority or the trustworthiness of your website, which on the internet is denoted in terms of how many third party endorsements you have or how many high quality links are pointing back to your website, how powerful your website is. In the industry, there's metrics that we use such as domain authority or domain rating that are zero to 100 scales, that are third party tools that kind of grade how powerful your website is. So the rule of thumb is if everybody else has a deeply different and more powerful website and platform than you do, you sort of need to catch up in that area to be competitive with them. Similarly, they're going to be able to generate traffic from a wider range of topics for more keywords than what you can do because... apples to apples, they'll have an advantage.
So one big thing that we focus on a lot is on link building and on increasing the power and authority of a website because that's commonly overlooked. The second thing is kind of the subsets of topics that are being addressed on your website. And that's kind of like, are you talking about the right things? Do you know your customer or your client? Do you know what their customer journey looks like? Do you know what their needs are at different stages in that funnel? And are you meeting those needs with content?
That's kind of the second component that we can be looking at. And then the third component is gonna be a little bit more technical in nature. It's, does your website take a long time to load? Are you constantly using these keywords on a page? Are you never using them and everything in between? How much text are you writing? And so on and so forth.
All right, so we've got number one is backlinks, number two is content marketing, and number third is the tech stuff. I find that in itself interesting because I think...
a lot of SEO folks you'll talk to, technical stuff is the first thing they look at, right? So I find it interesting you've put it in that order. But you've raised two more things in my mind, which is why I love having these conversations, because now my brain is going, all right, which direction do we go down here? So how about we start with content marketing, right?
I do think from folks that I talk to, particularly if they're founders that aren't particularly, they don't have a marketing background. Content marketing is one of the first things that they get into. Um, and actually I was at an investor's event last night. And one of the founders up there said, you know, we, it took us a while to hire the right marketing people because, you know, they were telling us to invest in PPC ads and social media and our target customers are CIOs of site for cybersecurity. And for them, it's all about credibility. So we needed to build a content marketing program. So having said that content marketing, big part of most people's marketing program.
But now we're starting to get into this world of AI and content is going to be a lot easier. It already is a lot easier. You see a lot more content coming out there. So how does that content change as AI tools become more prevalent?
It's such an interesting dynamic and age that we're about to move into and that we really are moving into. At SearchTides, we like to say the cost of creating good content is going to zero. And then some people go, yeah, that's cool. And then some people go, no wait a second, how is that possible? And then to those people, I say, think about what chat GPT 10 .0 is gonna look like. And that doesn't mean that all good content is gonna cost zero dollars or all good content is going to be made by AI. It just means that we're getting closer and closer to being able to push a button and then actually generate good content. And this is really where the principles that will serve you well in SEO will also just really serve you well in business in general. So how do I create a good piece of content in an era where lots of things are going to be AI enabled or even written by AI eventually?
And the answer is kind of what we were talking about before, knowing your customer. And knowing what their needs are and knowing where they are in the customer journey and being able to meet them there with information that's helpful for them, which in the example that you just that you just named, see it is basically that's credibility. That's like, hey, we're saying things that resonate with you. So that means that we know you and we understand some of the problems that you feel you have and we can maybe offer some solutions for you. So. Conceptually, that's how you do it.
In terms of tactically how you actually do it. Well, what is AI content and what is AI and what's an LLM and all those things. They're fantastic aggregators of information, which means that if you're going to write something that's going to come across as a Wikipedia or an educational piece, that's just information, information, information. That's not really going to get you a good result now and especially into the future. What you need to do is turn inwardly to the human component that you have. We're actually calling the next era of SEO the human layer, the human era of SEO, which is ironic because it's going to have the most AI content in the history of the internet. But it's the human era because that's what's going to resonate with people. It's written from the heart, written from my own personal experience, written from my own expertise. And I'll give you Steve:an example of both of those. If I go into the pharmacy, and I get a prescription and I go to the pharmacist, I asked to fill it, the pharmacist could say to me, I can fill this to you, but there's actually a generic version available and it's 10 % of the cost. Just get that. That's the pharmacist using their expertise to point me in the right direction. I can go back in there and I can say, hey, I need this. I have this prescription. Can you fill it please? And they say, yes, I totally can fill it for you. But every single time somebody asks me to fill that, it doesn't work. They come back. I give them this other thing. It totally works for them. Just use that.
That's the pharmacist using their experience to dictate. And both of those are inherently human and they go outside of an information aggregator. So how do you create content that number one, meets your customer where they are in their customer journey so that it's empathetic and it's making sense to them and it's building that credibility. And number two, how do you actually structure that article in a way that layers in or that video, whatever it is, that layers in your expertise and your experience as someone who has an understanding of this industry.
And then door number three with that is you can get a little bit more dialed in and say, how do you create an efficient yet comprehensive piece of content? So how do you answer all of the unasked questions that you know somebody needs the answer to because you're an expert and you know what their customer journey looks like?
And how do you do that without writing fluff? How do you trim down your article or your videos to be more efficient or to be shorter so that you can generate an answer in a shorter period of time? So that's kind of like conceptually how to look at it and then tactically how to actually create a piece. And those would be the guidestones of what will be successful. Yes, from Google's perspective, but also just in terms of the internet world of tomorrow.
Steve:
Well, first off, thanks for giving everybody some hope. Oftentimes you have these conversations and it's like, yeah, give up. AI is going to eat the world, right? Just like software ate the world.
So I like this idea of, you know, experience and expertise. You know, I think that that obviously appeals to people that truly enjoy marketing and enjoy writing. So the good writers and the good people with a viewpoint are still going to have something to say.
I'm curious from what you've seen of how AI is working in the background with search though. So it's great if you were able to write something based off of your expertise and your experience, but can we be sure that's still going to rise to the top versus, you know, in your example, one of the big pharmaceutical companies just blasting the internet with a whole bunch of AI generated content that blanks out, you know, this very insightful article that you may have published.
Greg Brooks:
Oh wow, now we're getting there. Now we're getting into the weeds, the good stuff.
So the answer is yes, we can be certain that that is what will happen. The reason why we can be certain about it is because Google and other search engines literally lay out their thesis and what they want. And there's this thing called helpfulness, which the last three major algorithm updates have been about helpfulness. And it's just like very similar to what we've been talking about in terms of using expertise and experience.
So that's the goal for both the search engine and an LLM. It's to actually provide value and get you the answer to your question or your query and get you on your way. What we can't be certain about is, will that be immediately perfect? Will that be a perfect reward system immediately?
If we look back at history, probably not, but a lot of times in business and in life, it's just about doing the things that you know are the right things to do and doing them over and over again until everybody else catches up to that. And that's kind of my advice for people where it's like, if you know that you are taking the right actions and you have, and you get that understanding from having a really strong thesis.
of how everything works, which is why when we have conversations about stuff, Steve, it's always, well, let's start at the conceptual level. Now let's think about things strategically. Now let's think about things tactically because we're anchoring to that. Well, this is how we really, on a fundamental level, think about this. And then this is simply how we express it. But patience is a virtue that is important to have in this game because...
What you do today may not perfectly be recognized and given credit for tomorrow, but in our experience, it will eventually be the case for you.
Steve:
Yeah. And it reminds me of a, uh, a conversation I had probably 15 years ago now, but it has stuck with me when, you know, Google was really first starting to become so central to everything we were doing as marketers. And I was talking to a, to a very smart guy called Mike Moran. Um, and. You know, I am somewhat, so what do we do, Mike? And he said, you need to hire a journalist. He said, first of all, journalists are looking for jobs because unfortunately they were getting laid off. He said, but you need somebody who can write very well and who can write in a way that people want to read. And the point being at the time, which I think has aged pretty well, is don't worry about putting stuff out there that is optimized for the search engines, put stuff out there that people want to read, and the search engines will become, and this was his point at the time, will become smart enough to preferentially boost the stuff that is informative.
Something else you said there, and there is a danger here. I'm going to get dragged too far down the rabbit hole, but I'm going to go for it anyway. Um, so when I talk to people in general about AI, yeah, I feel like they, they sort of fit into three camps. There's the people that are ignoring it or not paying attention. There's the people that are playing around with it a little bit.
trying out some of the tools. And then there's people that are really trying to embed it into their daily work routines, right? And that third category is still relatively small. But you said something really interesting in there, which I don't think many people are aware of. When you give a prompt to ChatGPT, there's already a bunch of other prompts almost hidden in there, right? And there was actually, I think, Anthropic published with Claude what their initial internal prompt is. So there's this hidden prompt. So...
We think, you know, we're writing a simple question in there, but then chat GPT or whatever is, is overlaying a whole bunch of sub prompts to help tune it. Um, so I guess where this leads me to is for most of us that are playing around with chat GPT using a couple of tools, what is there behind the scenes or what is, what are some of the deeper stuff that you're seeing as you're digging in and truly trying to understand it, that you think, you know, people should be more aware of. What is there behind the curtain that we're not seeing?
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, good questions. I think that there's a couple things. The first is that this is still an algorithm, the same way that Google's an algorithm, the same way that search engines are an algorithm, the same way that Kayak giving me my flights when I ask for it is an algorithm, the same way that advertising choice is an algorithm. This is just another version of that. And similarly, it's still just people programming a computer, hoping for an outcome and saying, oh, this isn't it. Let me try something else. Oh, this isn't it. Let me try something else.
That same thing happened with Google. There is there's effectively a pre prompt on every single Google search and it's Google's algorithm that overlays what you see and what you don't see. We're just more aware of it now with LLMs because it's kind of new and it's sexy and it's different and it's and it's, you know, invigorating. So.
The first thing is this is still just people typing, try to behave like X, Y, Z into a computer. It's just a computer that has a vast library and a fantastic ability to interact with that library. So that's kind of like the next level shift. The second thing behind the scenes that I'm seeing is because of that, trying to get...
a chat GPT or an AI model to build the thing that you wanted, I think is the is not the way to look at it. The way to look at it is kind of like, you know, you're a slingshot, you have a slingshot and you want to fire a slingshot off in one direction. Chat GPT, LLMs, ML models, those are not the slingshot. That's actually the little stone in the slingshot. And it's your job to point that in the right direction.
So, you know, but you have this awesome stone once you get to do that. So I think the big takeaway there is you as an individual are empowered by this stuff because it's still relying on you. You're still in the driver's seat and it's going to be that way until we have AGI. And I, Steve, will not make any predictions for what happens if and when we reach that point. But up until that point, this is no different
than you researching information on the internet, except it's just coming back to you in more of a productized version where it's kind of done more steps of the work. So it's the next iteration from that perspective.
Steve:
Yeah, I love that metaphor. That paints a picture very nicely. And I think we do forget that although chat GPT is the main thing that people think of when they think about AI, AI actually has been behind the scenes of these things for a number of years, right? There's definitely been a step change in the last 12 months, but it's not as though there was no AI behind the scenes prior to this.
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, exactly. There was Google's number three key component and its ranking factors was an AI model, essentially. Before ChatGPT, everyone was using DaVinci 3 .0. That's what we were using to train our models. The hype cycle, which is basically what happens when a new piece of technology comes out. And then there's this thing called the innovation trigger, which is ChatGPT in this instance, that became real for people. And they said, wow. Society just changed when in reality nothing actually changed from day to day. You just became aware of something that was already there.
Steve:
Yeah, I think that's a good point. Yeah, the hype cycle, the trough of disillusionment is real for sure. All right, so let me try and dig my way back out of this rabbit hole. So another thing that you mentioned, which actually surprised me a little bit, was the backlinks was something you pay a lot of attention to. I'll be honest, I thought that was sort of an old concept.
So having said that, do you think that is still going to be important? I'll take your word for it that it's important as things are today. Is it still going to be important? I'm sure you got all the data. So yeah, let's assume that yes, backlinks are important now. Are they still going to be important as AI changes the landscape of SEO?
Greg
Good question. So the reason why backlinks are important now is because Google needs, and every single LLM in the world needs a way to determine where you sit in the pecking order without interacting with your website. So Google, famously when you get onto page one, you start to see click -through rates mattering more. If someone clicks on your listing more often, you're more likely to take a higher spot and vice versa is the case. If somebody's on your website a while after they come from the search results page, then that's going to be good. And again, vice versa. Those are not relevant when you're not receiving traffic from a search result. And the majority of websites on the internet for a given search term, 99 .9999 % of all the websites on the internet aren't receving traffic for a certain search team, so how do you create an environment where you can grade and evaluate that. And the way that Google has done that and the way that the internet has done that is through links. So that's it. That's the number one differentiator between certain websites. And the reason why a lot of people focus on the technical stuff, Steve, is number one, that's what they know more. And number two, if they're on an enterprise level website, they probably already have a lot of links. They have powerful web pages. They have high domain authority or domain rating.
So it's easier for them to just, they don't need to focus on that. But for everybody else, that's the case. So what does this look like in the future? Well, look at Google as this basically spinning three -sided triangle or any LLM between links, between content and between technicals. So if content is going to be easier for someone to create better content than it used to be, that means that there's going to be a higher bar on content that's going to be more widely accessible for more people than it is today. More people will be able to create more good content in the future than today. Well, that means links need to be weighted more heavily because that will become the more difficult thing to do. If it was really easy to get links and for whatever reason it was like impossible to create content, then creating good content would be weighted more heavily.
Greg Brooks:
If no one could figure out how to make the webpage load on mobile and you did, that's a huge advantage for you. So it's all about the zero sum nature of SEO and of search. And when content goes up across the board, that means that the other factors become more important across the board.
Steve:
I find it interesting. So if I'm understanding you correctly, the thought is that the basics, the basic factors, the basic levers, if you like, are going to stay the same. What AI is doing is probably going to change the interface, the way it is served up to us, the way we interact with the front end. But a lot of the backend levers are going to stay the same. Is that what I'm hearing?
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, I think the best way to look at SEO is a triangle with three different layers. And the first layer at the bottom is the foundational layer. And that is all of the fundamental things that you know about SEO, link building, having good content in general, having good keywords in your page, having good technicals. That is like critical and you can't build a pyramid without the foundational layer.
The level above is what we call the influence era. That's kind of where we're at right now. And that's a little bit more content oriented in terms of what's the level of quality, helpfulness. We were talking about content helpfulness earlier. What's the level of value that the content is providing? How efficient is the piece of that? That is additive. You can have the best content in the world, but if your website isn't strong enough, nobody's going to see it or ever hear about it. So that influence layer goes on the second.
And then at the top, that's the future era that we talked about, the human era. And that is, well, how do we write from a place of expertise and from a place of experience? And what is our footprint look like on the internet as authors, as individuals, as opposed to just as a website and all of those things stack on top of each other. And really the way that you could look at it as a bar rising across the board as more and more time goes on.
with the question of like, will the exact same stuff still be effective yesterday as it was today? Yeah, you still need to do all that stuff, but it's no longer the only things that you need to do. You'll consistently need to do more and more.
Steve:
So as with anything else, you got to get the basics right first. And once you have those in place, anything else that comes along, any of these changes, as long as you've got the original foundations, you can keep building up towards it.
So I think you've already sort of started to paint the picture of the future. And I understand you don't want to predict what happens once these things become sentient. But there is a space in there, hopefully.
Just some thoughts on what else you think might happen, let's say, in the next 12 to 18 months.
Greg Brooks:
I think that what we're gonna see in terms of how people seek knowledge online, which if you break off the concept behind a search engine, what is it? It's quite literally a human being trying to seek out knowledge. The most basic level, that's what it is. And up until a couple years ago, that basically happened through one route. Which was through this thing called google .com. And then we started seeing basically early stage fragmentation take place. Yelp. Then we started seeing Google Maps. Then we started seeing Google My Business. I understand those are still Google properties, but it's basically like different ways that you can find that information. And then LLM started coming out and people are saying, oh, I can actually generate information without going to the same single source that I used to go to for information.
So the first piece with that is we're at like so early on the adoption curve for technology. We're quite literally the first 1%. Our jobs, Steve, are to go out and to find this stuff and look at it as far out into the future as possible and bring it into the present tense. So to us, we're like, oh yeah, this is all changed. The amount of people who will still use Google a decade from now to a decade from now, like there's, there's, there is no way for anyone to comprehend how high that number is going to be, but it's going to be much higher than anyone would ever believe. My mom still uses map quest to print out her directions from place to place. That's just, that's not stuff like that's just not going to change for a lot of people. For those who would does change, what's going to, what I perceive and what we predict is a fragmentation of where people search for information.
So I don't just generate knowledge from Google. I might use ChatGPT for some stuff. I might use Google for some stuff. I might use this new LLM that came out that helps me with travel. I might use this new AI that helps me with this other thing. So the way to optimize and to win in that world is going to be to perform well in these AI models, in these LLMs, even if you've never seen them and you never will see them.
Because the same way that creating content will be the click of a button, eventually creating a model will be the click of a button. And then you optimizing within that model will occur without you even knowing that it exists. And so what does that look like? Again, it looks like links because the model is gonna be scanning the internet or scanning search engines. And it looks like syndications. So the more mentions that there are of you online, the more times that's gonna be picked up. And it looks like expertise, and authoritativeness and experience in your written content because that's going to be synthesized. And it looks like a legitimate footprint of you as an individual, as an author on the internet. I, I'm a doctor on this website. Is that the only thing I talk about on the internet? Or am I over here also talking about like my favorite ice skating rinks? Well, if I'm just talking about ENT stuff all on the internet, that's going to hold more weight.
So we're going to see the bar get raised to have a higher degree of what is required to be deemed an expert. And you will also need to have a more public declaration of that compared to what is necessary for the authorship now.
Steve:
Interesting. So it comes back to experience and expertise, right? I mean, that's... Look at that. You're consistent. I'll give you that. So Google must love you for that.
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, I think so. Google is really interesting because they've actually taught SEOs the secret for the future. And the secret is there are no shortcuts. Stop trying to find loopholes. Actually provide value. Do it in a way that respects someone's time and meets them where they want to be met. And just think about how you can be helpful as opposed to how you can turn something into a dollar.
And we predict that that is what the future of commerce is going to look like. It's quite literally going to be, is there, does this company, do I feel like I'm in taking care of when I interact with this company or do I feel like this company is just trying to squeeze me out?
Technology is going to enable the disruption of large numbers of people inside of a company by small numbers of people. And so resourcing and person power is not going to be as relevant as it used to be. That's the whole point of technology. It creates leverage and scalability at an individual level. So that's going to shift along with the fact that content is going to be trivial to make. How do you make the person who you want to interact with feel something? How do you make it so that what you say resonates with them and gets them to say, this person, even if it's a block of text on the internet, even if it's a video, this thing understands me at a human level.
And sure, you're going to rank well in Google or whatever LLMs if you do that, but also that will serve as the cornerstone of what makes a business successful in the future.
Steve:
All right. So that's a nice optimistic note that at the end of the day, humans are still going to win that. That's what I heard anyway.
We're still very early on in this, right. And from what I can see, there is just a flood of new, new information coming out. Where do you go to keep up with all this? Or, you know, are the websites that you follow newsletters, podcasts, you know, just, just some good resources for people that are listening to this and saying, yeah, I've got to, I got to keep up with this.
Greg Brooks:
Yeah, I mean, we create a lot of this ourselves. We're part of groups that have scraped tens of millions of search results pages and we've cataloged Google into, you know, 4 ,900 ranking factors or so. We've done things on ChatGPT that would be deemed impossible. So we're kind of breaking a lot of this stuff ourselves, which means that you can go to searchtides.com and sign up for our newsletter. You can go to searchtides on LinkedIn or searchtides on YouTube.
Or to my own personal LinkedIn, which you can find through search tides. Like our intent, Steve, is that we've held so many of these answers behind closed doors for a long time. And we're just, it's more fun to be public about it and share. And so that's really what we're doing, but we have made it a core principle of our business to be the ones creating the primary information. And now we're just sharing it essentially.
Steve:
Yep. And you do, your team puts out a lot of good information. I'll put links in the show notes to the LinkedIn profiles and your websites. So folks can check that out. Now, the other thing I always think when I'm having a great conversation with somebody like yourself, it's like, man, I wish we were doing this over a drink. You know, nice bar, just having a little chat about marketing. So I always like to ask my guests, if we were lucky enough to be doing this in real life, what would we be drinking?
Greg Brooks:
Wow, if we were talking about kind of like the future of how this all plays out, I envision us at kind of like a dimmed bar where I hear faint piano music playing, but there's like a lot of laughter. And if it was during the 1920s, there definitely would be like a lot of smoke inside and stuff like that. I'd be having a Japanese whiskey with two rocks.
so that I could get a little bit more water down, but it also sounds sophisticated enough, like I know what I'm doing, which is debatable.
Steve:
First off, I love the sound of that bar. When you find it, let me know and I'll be there. And the one thing I know about Japanese whiskey, they tend to like they carve these crazy shaped ice cubes or ice globes. So I think that's a solid pick. I would definitely join you with one of those.
Well, hey, Greg, I really appreciate you sharing your views and your expertise. I have definitely learned a lot in the last half hour or so. So really appreciate it. And I look forward to us drinking a Japanese whiskey in a smoky bar sometimes.
Greg Brooks:
That sounds fun. Steve, thank you so much for having me on and for chatting today.