The Four Conversations: Blair Enns on Leading, Pricing, and Selling Expertise

The Four Conversations: Blair Enns on Leading, Pricing, and Selling Expertise written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode: 

Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Blair Enns, founder of Win Without Pitching and a leading authority on selling creative and consulting expertise. Blair shares insights from his new book, The Four Conversations, which distills decades of agency wisdom into a clear roadmap for moving from pitching and price-haggling to confidently leading client relationships. Listeners will discover how to shift from vendor to trusted advisor, raise closing rates, price based on value, and master the four pivotal conversations that define every successful client engagement.

About the Guest

Blair Enns is the founder of Win Without Pitching and the author of several acclaimed books on agency sales, pricing, and positioning. Over the past two decades, Blair has helped thousands of agencies and consultancies around the world move away from free pitching and price wars toward leading client engagements and charging for their expertise. His latest book, The Four Conversations, offers a practical framework for mastering the most crucial moments in every client relationship.

Actionable Insights

• Most agencies close far fewer deals than they think—often just 25%. Doubling your close rate and raising prices by 20% can dramatically improve profitability.
• The “four conversations” framework: Probative (demonstrate expertise), Qualifying (vet fit for both parties), Value (define value to be created and price accordingly), Closing (help the client select and commit to a path forward).
• Selling expertise is not about convincing or manipulating—it’s about guiding, questioning, and facilitating the client’s best decision.
• True leadership in sales means moving from statements about yourself to questions about the client, and from eagerness for the work to discernment and selectivity.
• Pricing should begin with a value conversation—anchoring fees to outcomes, not just deliverables or time spent.
• Productizing your service delivery is compatible with pricing each client based on value, not a fixed menu.
• To move from vendor to trusted advisor, adopt the “expert’s mantra”: I am the expert, I am the prize, I’m on a mission to help, and I can only do that if you let me lead. All will not follow—and that’s okay.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

• 01:16 – The True Cost of Letting Clients Lead
  Blair breaks down the impact of poor sales practices on close rates and pricing power.
• 04:45 – The Four Conversations Model
  An overview of the probative, qualifying, value, and closing conversations that shape every client relationship.
• 06:23 – Selling as Guiding, Not Convincing
  Why selling expertise is about facilitating clients’ choices, not talking them into a decision.
• 07:47 – From Proving Brilliance to Asking Questions
  The shift from statements to questions is at the heart of expert selling.
• 13:37 – Value-Based Pricing in Action
  Blair walks through starting the pricing conversation with outcomes, not just deliverables.
• 20:47 – The Expert’s Mantra
  A mindset framework for making the leap from vendor to trusted advisor.

Pulled Quotes

“Selling is not talking people into things. It’s about guiding, questioning, and facilitating the client’s best decision.”
— Blair Enns

“I am the expert, I am the prize. I’m on a mission to help. I can only do that if you let me lead. All will not follow—and that’s okay.”
— Blair Enns

Resources

• Website: winwithoutpitching.com

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00.802)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Blair Enns. He's a leading voice in the creative and consulting agency world, best known as the founder of Win Without Pitching. Over two decades, he's helped thousands of agencies move from pitching and price haggling to confidently leading client engagements and charging for their expertise. We're going to talk about his latest book, The Four Conversations, a new model for selling expertise.

Book distills decades of hard won wisdom into a practical roadmap for navigating the most crucial moments in every client relationship. So Blair, welcome to the show.

Blair Enns (00:40.337)

Thank you, John.

John Jantsch (00:42.85)

So let's get some leverage. How much in your estimation do you think, what do you think the real cost day to day when agencies let clients run the show instead of leading the conversation?

Blair Enns (00:55.611)

What's the real cost of letting clients run the conversation?

John Jantsch (00:58.734)

Yeah, I mean, instead of us, you know, a lot about the four conversations is really providing leadership in the conversation. So I see a lot of agencies that show up and say, what do need? Sure, we do that. And I think that's what really leads to this price haggling, doesn't it?

Blair Enns (01:16.091)

Yeah. So if I start to, I've never contemplated the total cost here, but we could do some math on the fly. The typical agency has a closing ratio of about 25%. I can actually be more specific than that. It's oddly specific at 26%, which seems to be a universal number across all B2B sales. Now that's when we measure it. It's 26%. Self-declared, it's closer to 33%. So an agency will tell you we close one in three proposals.

when we crack open the CRM and look at it, they close one in four. I think the threshold of respectability in a closing ratio is 40%. You should strive to be over 50%. So if you're closing less than 50%, A, you're probably writing too many proposals, B, you're probably doing something wrong in the proposals. So let's say you're closing half as many proposals as you should. So there's a starting point. And then there's pricing. Are you getting, are you commanding,

your fair share of the value that you're helping to create in the typical agency is not. I can't give you a percentage on that, but I would guess it's another 20 % across the board. The typical agency could probably increase their prices by 20%. Now with existing clients, not necessarily. They can raise prices with existing clients on average. It's difficult with larger agencies. We're dealing with procurement.

But if you draw a line in time, this is after today, after you've absorbed this information, you start to sell this way, your average proposal value should climb by 20 % easily. take the size of your firm, add 20 % to the top line, double your closing ratio. That's the cost of poor selling.

John Jantsch (03:05.014)

So how much of that, I might leave myself right into a trap here, but how much of that is marketing and how much of that is sales? So in other words, you and I have written books that comes with, in some cases, perceived trust and perceived authority, expect to pay a premium in a lot of cases. So how much of that is done on the front end and how much of that is done in the sales conversation?

Blair Enns (03:09.383)

Ha ha ha.

Blair Enns (03:28.829)

Well, most of what I just talked about is what happens in the sales conversation, which to me is after the initial interaction. So if we're talking about marketing is to generate leads, that's a whole other ball of wax. Now, depending on who you are in the organization, how it thinks about sales and marketing, in some organizations, some agencies, lead generation can be seen as a sales function.

And in others, it's seen as a marketing function. Typically, it's seen as a bit of both or a specific combination of both in the average firm. The better your marketing goes the saying, the less selling you have to do. But that's an interpretation of that statement. It's really about seeing that statement views selling as lead generation. But there's all this stuff that I just referenced, which is what happens after you begin the conversation with the lead. So there's a whole other

area of improvement to be had under the banner of marketing.

John Jantsch (04:28.942)

Yeah, and it's probably the combination just amplifies everything, right? The combination of both of those being effective amplifies everything. So let's just go right to the title of the book. What are the four conversations and why do they keep happening no matter how seasoned somebody is?

Blair Enns (04:45.349)

Yeah, so the four conversations, this is a model. A model is a view of the world, a way of organizing complexity. All models are wrong. Some are useful. The book opens with that quote. So I'm not saying the sale always happens in a series of four linear and discrete conversations, but it is helpful to think of it that way. So the four conversations and their objective are the probative conversation, where your goal is to prove your expertise to the client and move in their mind from a position of a vendor to the expert.

That's the conversation that happens without your president. Your marketing would be under the domain of the probative conversation. It's a conversation in construct only. It happens through your agents of thought leadership, referral, referrers, and your marketing. And then you have the three person to person conversation that happened after that, which you would think of as the sales conversations. There's the qualifying conversation, which is the vetting conversation. You're vetting the lead to see if this is something worth spending your time on.

There's the value conversation where you're uncovering the value to be created and the share of that value you might command in the form of fees. So you're starting to set not price, but pricing guidance, rough approximate pricing guidance based on the value to be created rather than the cost of your solutions. And then the final conversation is the closing conversation where you help the client commit and select, select and commit to a path forward.

John Jantsch (06:11.224)

You know what I love about as I listen to you talk about all four of those conversations, they're not about like manipulating or getting this thing that you want done. They're really about creating value for both parties, right?

Blair Enns (06:23.109)

Yeah, I'm a big believer in the idea that selling is not talking people into things. I think, you know, we make this distinction or we I make the distinction in the book, you know, between expert and vendor. And you think of your expert self, the way you operate as an expert, you're in your relationships with your clients. So after sale, the way you show up, you're kind of you're an advisor. You facilitate choice. You point out the pros and cons of decisions.

John Jantsch (06:28.59)

Right.

Blair Enns (06:52.061)

You give the client some decisions to make, you point out the pros and cons of those decisions, and I think that's how you should navigate the sale as well.

John Jantsch (06:59.63)

I talked to a lot of agencies that I'm sure you've heard this quite often as well. They feel like they're giving away their expertise, pitching for free, giving consultations to show that they know what they're talking about and really all along the way kind of giving it away. do you get people out of that place of being stuck?

Blair Enns (07:19.121)

Well, there's no short answer to the question of how you get people out of that. You write a book on a model, you get them to read the book and implement the guidance in the book is the short one. But as you point out, it's hard. I myself, I struggle with this a lot. I've for years, it's been the hardest thing for me to go from seeing myself as the person with the answers, the subject matter expert, to the person with the questions. So if you think of how a typical marketer shows up in the sale,

John Jantsch (07:45.294)

Mm.

Blair Enns (07:47.655)

They wanna prove their brilliance. And yeah, we do that in the probative conversation, but that's the conversation that happens without you present. Once you're in a conversation with an individual, instead of trying to prove your brilliance, you should arm yourself with a set of questions. And so in our model of the four conversations, each conversation has a framework or set of frameworks, has a specific objective, which I shared with you, and then a framework or set of frameworks.

for navigating to that objective. Now those frameworks are almost all questions. So the short answer to how is you go from statements about yourself to questions about the client.

John Jantsch (08:29.058)

Well, and those statements often are not just about yourself. They might actually be offering solutions, right? Yeah. Yeah. number two, qualifying. I know that this is not your take on this, but I know a lot of people hear that qualifying and they're thinking, it comes off more like I'm going to see if you qualify to work with me. you know, and it can actually be a little off putting if not done.

Blair Enns (08:35.377)

Free advice, yeah.

John Jantsch (08:56.91)

How do you approach making sure that the client doesn't feel like they're being evaluated?

Blair Enns (09:04.283)

Yeah, I think some people do overplay that idea. So you can take this idea of qualifying and you can put on a spectrum. At one end, there's the client qualifying you. At the other end, there's you qualifying the client. And most of these qualifying conversations, the typical listener wouldn't think of them as a qualifying conversation. They would think of them as a credentials conversation or a credentials meeting. So what does that mean if we put it back into this context of qualifying? It means you're trying to qualify for the client.

The assumption is this is a good fit for you. Now you're trying to prove to them that they're a good fit. And you have to do that and there's a way to do that, but the conversation is all about you first making sure that they are a good fit for you. That implies that you've actually thought about who is a good fit for you. What is your ideal client profile? Who do you want to do business with? Who will you not do business with? How much money do you need somebody to spend? And so,

John Jantsch (09:52.046)

Yeah, yeah.

Blair Enns (10:00.305)

You can have a very business-like conversation using a framework to organize questions around that without coming across like an ass. But in the wrong hands, somebody can overplay that idea and they can make the client feel uncomfortable.

John Jantsch (10:08.257)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:16.151)

You know, one of the things over the years that I've liked to use as a qualifier is there are certain behaviors that the client has or what they believe in terms of what value is and how a solution gets done. And in some cases, we get very good or most people get very good at understanding, this is a problem I can fix well. I know I could do this one. So where does that come into the qualifying, those types of considerations?

Blair Enns (10:43.239)

Well, you have to guard against that. so qualifying is the vetting conversation. There's a tone in the qualifying conversation. It's a tone of discernment. So you're professional, you're clinical, you're, if you're getting really enthusiastic about the opportunity, you're just suppressing that for the time being. And then once you ask your questions and you determine that there is, this is a good fit for you, then you move to the next conversation, the value conversation. You can, your tone of discernment can move to a tone of deep interest. You decide,

John Jantsch (10:51.106)

Yeah.

Blair Enns (11:13.245)

You ask your questions, you get your answers, and you decide, you know what, this is a good fit. And you would say to the client, on the surface, I think this is a really good fit. I can see my team getting very excited about this. I'm not saying I'm getting excited about it. I'm still trying to moderate my enthusiasm to make sure my enthusiasm for the project or the client does not exceed their enthusiasm for me.

John Jantsch (11:23.374)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:36.347)

Can we stick on that for a minute? Why is that an issue?

Blair Enns (11:40.113)

Well, I have in the book what I consider to be the first principle of selling expertise. It's a formula P equals DB over D. I printed on the back of coffee mugs. P stands for your power in the sale. Your power in the sale is a function of your desirability, DB, being greater than your own desire, D. Otherwise stated, whoever wants it the most has the least power in the buy-sell relationship.

You don't extrapolate that to the nth degree and say, therefore, I should seek to maximize my desirability. That's true. That part's true. But you could also infer that to mean I should seek to minimize my expression of desire for the client. that, yeah, no. Yeah, you show up as aloof, disinterested. You don't want that. I'm just saying pay attention to the power dynamics in the relationship and make sure, especially early on,

John Jantsch (12:24.29)

Yeah. Yeah. I don't really, I don't really need this sale. I take it or leave it. Right.

Blair Enns (12:38.713)

actually, throughout, there's no especially early on, but just make sure that your own expression, allow your enthusiasm for the opportunity to rise as high as the clients and try not to exceed it. Because when you exceed it, you clearly give all your power away, your power to do your best work, to command the most profit, to command high prices. Your cost of sale will go up too as your power goes away.

John Jantsch (13:06.604)

Interesting. So let's move to number three. guess it is. You use the phrase value to be created. Is that right? Value to be created. that. Yeah. But, but less about fees and more about the value to be created as part of the equation. So, so do I hear you saying, what we're going to fix for this client is worth a million dollars. That's the value it's going to create for them. So do we base our fee on that? Or do we base our fee on the fact that we know how to do this and we do it

Blair Enns (13:14.129)

the value conversation.

John Jantsch (13:36.28)

officially.

Blair Enns (13:37.277)

So you can base your fee, I'm getting softer on this as the years go by. My previous book, which came out in 2018, is on pricing. It's called Pricing Creativity. And I was probably a bit more of a hard, was pushing harder for value-based pricing. Today, I don't really care how you price. I care if you have a value conversation. A value conversation begins the pricing discussion based on the value to be created. So you come to me or your...

John Jantsch (13:55.694)

Mm-hmm.

Blair Enns (14:03.601)

prospective client and I'm walking you through the simple four-step framework. What do you want John? You tell me what your vision of your desired future state is, what success looks like in the future. And I say this is a great vision. So now I'm leaning in, I'm enthusiastic. Okay, what are the metrics that will measure to prove that you've achieved what you want? And we talk about some KPIs, you give them to me or I pull them out of you. And I say to you, okay, I know what you want, I know what the KPIs are that we'll measure.

John Jantsch (14:17.304)

Mm-hmm.

Blair Enns (14:32.741)

If we hit these metrics, what's the value of that? So if we just keep it to economic value, you give me some numbers, we top line or revenue gains or cost reductions, we translate that into profit. And I say, all right, so if your vision comes true, you hit these metrics, we're gonna create a million dollars a year and net new profit, is that right? And you say, yeah, that sounds about right if everything goes well. Now the fourth and final step is setting pricing guidance. At this point, I haven't thought.

about what I'm actually gonna do. I haven't talked to you about specific solutions. Even if you may have come to me with a specific solution in mind, I put it aside and I've put you into your desired future state. And I've asked you to describe success. And obviously there's a framework around this. And I say to you, if I could help you create this million dollars a year and that new recurring profit, would you pay me X? And in that moment, I'm gonna pull a number out of my nether regions. And I want the number to be so high that you won't pay it, that you walk it down.

And there's some psychology, it's called the anchoring effect and why I do this. But at some point, so if I say, would you pay me a half a million dollars? And you respond with, well, that depends, what would you do for a half a million dollars? I might say, I don't know, I haven't thought about solutions yet. But if I could help you create this million dollars in net new recurring profit, would you pay half a million in one time fees? And that's.

Whether you say yes or no, we're in a conversation on pricing and that conversation has started high. The price is tied to the value to be created is not tied to my solutions. From there, the price can go down. At the end of the day, when I come back with a proposal in the closing conversation, I can price however I want. The important thing is we have started the pricing discussion based on the value to be created, not based on the cost of my solutions.

John Jantsch (16:26.158)

Yeah, and I think that's certainly the path towards getting a prospect or a client to think, I'm investing this money as opposed to I'm spending this money, isn't

Blair Enns (16:36.551)

Correct.

John Jantsch (16:38.668)

So let's talk about the money conversation. I would say that, I mean, you talked to millions of salespeople probably over the years. Isn't that the place that they have the most issue with?

Blair Enns (16:51.325)

I think the value conversation is a pivotal conversation because we are starting to, the client, we uncover a budget if there is one in the qualifying conversation, then we transcend that budget while still acknowledging as part of the framework that the client has a budget and agreeing that we'll come back with a range of solutions and a range of price points. We basically agree on a trade.

I'll show you what I can do for your budget. You allow me to think creatively and expansively about what's the most we can do to help you create this value. And it's going to be a big price. So that's, I love this framework for talking about money. It doesn't make it easy, but when you understand that it's okay for the first number to be so high that the client chokes on it or pushes back and you do this a few times, you realize everybody will survive.

This is not an existential threat. This is just part of the conversation. By the time the conversation ends, you're in agreement that the client will consider options in a certain range. Even if the client says, listen, I don't have the authority to spend, let's say I anchored at 500 and we ended up at 250 and then you said, well, my budget's 50. So I've got a range of 50 to 250. Even if you don't have the authority to spend 250 in that moment.

I'll extract from you an understanding that, okay, I'm gonna put some options in front of you that are gonna be beyond your budget. And if you're really excited about them, it's your prerogative. But then I would invite you to invite the other people to the table who would be required to fund this. you are always in, you the buyer, you're always in control. You've stated to me that you have a budget. I've shown what I'm going to do for that budget. In exchange, you're letting me push you to think bigger, to think about investing more.

And that's a pretty fair trade. You practice this a few times, it becomes fairly intuitive to you.

John Jantsch (18:47.628)

You know, it's been come, see very commonplace. seems like the last few years for agencies to kind of offer package services. So this much deliverable for this price. it sounds to me, when I hear you say that conversation, you're really getting completely out of that, mold and really the idea of, of, I'm going to actually bring you something really innovative that you hadn't even thought about when you developed your budget. Automatically you're providing leadership instead of just.

execution, right?

Blair Enns (19:18.845)

That's true, but it's not antithetical to productizing your services either. So in my last two books, I've talked about productization and in pricing creativity, I was pretty strongly anti-productizing for agencies. When I wrote the four conversations, which I finished last year,

John Jantsch (19:38.828)

Mm-hmm.

Blair Enns (19:46.969)

I was pretty neutral on it. And I have a pretty good framework in the book for deciding, you standardize or customize your delivery model, package your services or customize and your pricing? What I mean by that is if you have packages, do you price the packages or do you price the client? And as time goes on, I'm actually increasingly in favor of product standardizing your delivery. So you have packages, but reserving the right to price the client, which is the first rule.

of in my book, Pricing Creativity, price the client, not the product, not the service.

John Jantsch (20:23.448)

So I know from many conversations I've had this, know, anytime I say the same thing of you want to move from vendor to trusted advisor, you know, a lot of lights go on, right? It's like, yes, that's exactly what I want to do. So for the listeners who are stuck in that mindset right now, is there, is there a shift or a daily habit that you would recommend that might make, help people make that leap or at least make it stick?

Blair Enns (20:47.285)

it's a great question. there is in the book, there's I guess it's a principle, but it's really a framework for getting into the experts mindset. It's called the experts mantra. And it's a four line statement that you repeat to yourself before you log into the conversation, before you show up for the whether it's done remotely or in person before you enter the conversation. Just four statements that you repeat yourself.

They can benefit from a little customization, but I'll give them to you here. I am the expert, I am the prize. I'm on a mission to help. I can only do that if you let me lead. All will not follow and that's okay. And we can unpack each of those four sentences and they're all rooted in something, but it's like, I am the expert, I'm the prize to be won here. I'm on a mission to lead. If you don't let me lead in the sale, you will not let me lead in the engagement. So this is a test of whether or not we can work together.

Yeah, and then the last one of all will not follow is just letting go of the outcomes and focusing on the process.

John Jantsch (21:48.781)

Yes.

John Jantsch (21:52.27)

Yeah,

Yeah, I love that. love that. Well, Blair, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there some place for you to invite people to find out more about your work and obviously your books or connect with you?

Blair Enns (22:07.089)

Yeah, thanks John, I've enjoyed it. They can reach me in all of my work at winwithoutpitching.com.

John Jantsch (22:13.611)

Again, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Blair Enns (22:18.685)

Thank you.

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How AI Is Revolutionizing PR and SEO: Real-World Strategies with Jon Mest of JustReachOut.io

How AI Is Revolutionizing PR and SEO: Real-World Strategies with Jon Mest of JustReachOut.io written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch welcomes Jon Mest, founder of JustReachOut.io and ChatRank.ai, to break down the evolving relationship between AI, public relations, and SEO. Jon shares how AI is shifting the landscape for marketers, agencies, and entrepreneurs, moving effective outreach away from mass automation and toward authentic, human-driven storytelling. The conversation covers why PR is making a comeback, how AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT and Google Overviews are changing what it means to “rank,” and what practical steps brands should take to get found—and trusted—in a noisy digital world.

Guest Bio

Jon Mest is the founder of JustReachOut.io, a platform empowering entrepreneurs, agencies, and consultants to land media coverage by pitching journalists directly, and ChatRank.ai, a solution for AI-driven SEO visibility. With over a decade of hands-on experience in PR and search, Jon has helped thousands of marketers simplify their outreach and keep SEO rooted in what actually works—enabling brands to tell authentic stories that resonate, earn trust, and drive results.

Key Takeaways

• AI is a powerful tool to guide, not replace, human-driven PR and SEO. The best results come when AI augments authentic outreach, not automates it at scale.
• Traditional PR—authentic storytelling, earned media, micro-influencer outreach—is regaining importance as search engines and answer engines prioritize authority, expertise, and credible citations.
• AI-powered answer engines (like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews) are changing the rules for SEO. Brands now need to be hyper-specific and authoritative on their niche to get surfaced in high-intent results.
• Showing up in AI overviews is the new “number one spot”—but it requires a combination of strong, relevant content and third-party validation through PR and backlinks.
• Personalization and relevance are non-negotiable in modern outreach. Mass, generic pitches are filtered out, while targeted, story-driven pitches cut through the noise.
• The “hook” in your pitch or subject line is crucial. Journalists and influencers need a compelling, unique reason to pay attention—and proprietary data or exclusive stories make you stand out.
• Social proof is still powerful: smaller wins with niche or local publications can build a track record that leads to coverage in larger, national outlets.
• Brands should amplify and repurpose earned media where their audience is—whether it’s podcasts, trade journals, or niche blogs—rather than chasing only big-name coverage.

Great Moments & Timestamps

• 00:00 – John introduces Jon Mest, JustReachOut.io, and ChatRank.ai
• 00:52 – Jon explains how AI can empower, not replace, authentic PR and SEO
• 02:28 – Why PR is making a comeback in an AI-driven SEO world
• 05:20 – The story behind ChatRank.ai and adapting to Google’s AI Overviews
• 07:54 – What it takes for brands to get featured in answer engines and AI overviews
• 10:01 – Why specific, authoritative content wins in both search and answer engines
• 12:02 – The biggest mistakes (and best practices) in pitching journalists today
• 13:46 – Why personalization is crucial—and mass pitching doesn’t work
• 14:56 – The power of a strong “hook” and building ongoing media relationships
• 16:25 – How social proof and stepping-stone coverage help brands earn bigger features
• 18:51 – Why amplifying coverage where your audience lives matters more than chasing broad reach
• 20:17 – Where to find Jon Mest, JustReachOut.io, and ChatRank.ai

Pulled Quotes

“AI is an amazing tool to help guide the human-driven marketing approach. But you, the human, have to go in there and tell your story the right way.”

“Personalization and authenticity win—mass, generic pitches just get filtered out.”

“Showing up in AI overviews is the new number one spot…but you have to be hyper-specific, authoritative, and tell a story your audience cares about.”

Resources & Links

• JustReachOut.io – AI-powered PR and outreach platform
• ChatRank.ai – AI-driven SEO visibility platform

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How to Stay Visible in the AI Search Era

How to Stay Visible in the AI Search Era written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed myself—John Jantsch—on a topic that’s reshaping the foundation of online marketing: search visibility in an era dominated by AI search, zero click searches, and evolving Google search behaviors.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer about simply ranking for keywords. As I explain in this solo episode, we’re witnessing a major shift from traditional SEO to what I now call search visibility—your brand’s presence across the entire digital ecosystem, from featured snippets and branded SERPs, to Google Business profiles and authoritative content that aligns with E-E-A-T principles. In a world where AI overviews often replace the need to click through to your website, your strategy must evolve beyond keywords and clicks.

Key Takeaways

• SEO is now about search visibility, not just rankings—brands must appear in multiple places where answers are delivered.

• AI search and zero click searches mean that most Google users get what they need without clicking; visibility across multiple platforms is critical.

• Google is now an answer engine, not just a search engine—your content should be structured to serve direct answers.

• The rise of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is a signal that content trust signals matter more than ever.

• Create structured content like FAQ sections, TLDR summaries, and hub pages to increase your chances of being featured in AI answers and featured snippets.

• Local SEO still matters—optimize your Google Business profile regularly as a publishing platform for increased exposure.

• Refreshing old content boosts content freshness signals that can improve your visibility in the knowledge graph and elsewhere.

• Focus on content strategy that prioritizes quality, experience-driven stories, and unique insights—not generic blog posts generated by AI.

• Don’t chase head terms. Focus instead on long-tail queries and content formats that meet user intent more directly.

Chapters:

• 00:09 Opening
• 00:58 Evolution of Search Engine Optimization
• 03:01 The Current State of Search
• 03:41 Focus on Search Visibility Instead of Rank
• 06:13 How to Demonstrate EEAT
• 09:04 Audit Your Content Gaps
• 10:07 Help Pages
• 11:46 FAQ Pages and Trust Elements
• 13:03 Refreshing Your Content
• 13:41 Utilize Your Google Business Page
• 14:35 Find Out How AI Is Sourcing Information
• 15:42 Common Mistakes

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.506)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and I'm doing a solo show. I'm going to talk about search engine optimization or as I've started to call it search visibility because the game has changed. Now, the first question you might be asking yourself is why is John wearing a cowboy hat? Those of you that are on the video version, I'm wearing a Stetson open road. this is the straw version in the cognac.

color is my favorite summer hat. just decided it's Friday when I'm recording this. just decided to put it on and wear it for the show. My grandfather and father had this style hat and a number of US presidents over the years chose this as their primary hat as well. So Stetson Open Road, there you have the story. All right. As I said, I'm going to talk about search engine optimization, what we've always long called, not always.

Believe it or not, a 20 year history with something called search engine optimization, which is really moving completely. There's been lots of changes over the years, different algorithms, different things, different search engines come along. But this is a fundamental shift in how that tactic or approach really is going to be applied going forward. And what what it actually is even going to mean to business and website owners going forward as well.

So I thought I would start with, before I jump into like eat and generative AI and AI overviews and things, just do like a 30 second kind of timeline on search. Well, I started actually playing around with search in 1998. And really, again, was my first website and it was, do we rank?

and get on page one, you know, what are the things we need to do? I won't go into all what all those things were, but most of them are not relevant today. At least, you know, that was in the early days of search engines. They were little infants and they were, you know, the game was to trick them into putting your stuff on page one. That lasted till about 2010. And then, you know, the search engines just got more and more complex and more and more, you know,

John Jantsch (02:21.142)

ability to understand what a page really was about rather than what we wanted them to think it was about. And so now you start having mobile be part of the deal. You've got the local search packs. You've got answer boxes starting to show up about, you know, from 2010 to 2016, roll up to about 2017. And now all of sudden voice search is a factor featured snippets become a factor.

near me becomes a factor also searched for. So a lot of things just keep getting injected. And of course, all the while the ad units and how they display all over the page, you know, are changing as well. Kind of really shifting what even ranking, you know, on page one even meant anymore. So I guess fast forward to today, 2024 or so it happened, you know, AI overviews.

Um, SGE from Google, 60 % of, of, of us Google searches ending with no click at all, according to search engine land, uh, the, uh, the infamous zero click searches, uh, instead of, you know, a list of 10 links on a page. Um, you know, we're now to the point where maybe you get featured as a source in an AI answer and hope that that generates a click, but,

six to seven times out of 10 today. That search is just gonna end in somebody getting the answer or getting the information that they wanted.

What I'm talking about now is this idea of a complete mindset shift away from search and optimization, away from trying to rank for keywords and more about this idea of search visibility. It's kind of your brand's share of the answers, the mentions, the knowledge panel, real estate, local pack slots.

John Jantsch (04:19.086)

really clicks for everywhere that, um, that, that a prospect looks, I think that's what we have to do today. So, you know, chasing one phrase or two phrases or something. mean, it's really going to have very, very little value. Um, unless it's just a very high intent phrase that, uh, if somebody searches that they're not looking for an answer, they're looking to purchase. Um, those are really going to be the, um, you know, the, the, the highly sought after, guess, um, types of searches.

So I think instead of, of thinking now in terms of like position ranking or impressions, it's really going to be this, this whole collection. And this is going to be hard for people to measure, but this whole collection of like branded SERP coverage, is really going to be the, you know, the, example. I use a case, a local dentist publishes like does whitening hurt. they have an FAQ short vid, TikTok video, Google business posts, a patient story.

you know, now that now they have the chance to actually own the FAQ snippet for that, maybe the local, local rank, map pack for that, maybe a YouTube carousel. mean, so that's how I think we have to start thinking about these is, know, there's no more. There's no more, you know, I want to show up on for this, you know, key search is it's how do I put myself into this idea of answers? And in fact, you know, a lot of people are actually calling,

you know, not even calling them search engines anymore. They're really answer engines. And the consumer behavior, you know, has changed so dramatically. Search behavior has changed so dramatically. You know, we were all very conditioned to type in six, eight words for what we were looking for and then hoping or maybe refining that search if we didn't find what we were hoping for. But now we can actually, instead of typing in, you know, plumbing contractor in my town, you know, now it's

plumbing contractor with 24 hour service, more than 4.7 star reviews within two miles from me, whatever. mean, you can type that long search in now and you're going to get that very specific, in most cases, you're gonna get that very specific result returned to you that you were able to kind of custom tailor to what you wanted rather than saying, okay, Google, give me what you think I want.

John Jantsch (06:49.39)

One of the things that, and I have to set this up a little bit, that we have to start thinking about when it comes to our content, you know, writing the 101, the how to blog content. And many people are finding that they're losing all the search traffic that used to come for that because why would they send them to your page? They can answer that very easily because it was just basic information to begin with.

you're wasting your time. If you continue down that path of just creating the 700 words on blah, blah, blah. very generic. And the bad thing is of course AI makes that really easy to do. You can, you can spin out 10 of those a day now, without really much sweat, it's, it's practically useless unless you are in just such a niche category that nobody else is trying to create content around it. It's practically worthless. So Google has this new

No, fairly new couple of years, acronym called EAT. And there's two E's in there. So E-E-A-T. And forgive me if you know all about this, but I'll explain it in very basic terms for those who may not understand it. But the idea behind it is that they want to see not just expertise. That's one of the E's, but they want to see experience. Have you actually done what you're talking about?

They want to see authoritativeness. That's the, the other a, or I mean, that's the a. So they measure that by, know, are you getting links mentioned, you know, are you in local press? I mean, are you appearing in industry lists? So they're measuring like, are you an authority on this thing that you're talking about? So experience, expertise, authority, and then the last one is trustworthiness. are there signals, of trust, warranties, refund policies, secure checkout badges.

real contact info. mean, all those kinds of things go into the mix as well. So what we have to do, I think, is it's no longer enough to write this article about how to do something. You have to actually have a case study in there. You have to have examples of maybe you doing it in actual real time or behind the scenes.

John Jantsch (09:02.603)

So that it's very clear that that you're not just talking about this. This is something that you do. This is something you're an expert on. This is something somebody can trust for you to do for their business.

John Jantsch (09:16.844)

So in March, 2024, I'm reading a stat here. Knowledge graph update extended each signals by 38 % to really surface credible people and brands again, according to search engine land. that certainly signals that this is not going away. I mean, that this is going to be a significant piece as well. So how do you compete in an eat world, in an AI world?

In a world where really the need for producing content is still there. mean consumers still need the information So now it's a matter of you know, how do we how do we stay visible so that we can get them the opportunity even to get them that information? first thing is There's five step plan here, right? Okay. Number one audit your content gaps. So

Export all of your site URLs. List the top 25 customer questions and use Google Search Console. Again, what we're trying to do is find how can we become an answer engine? So take a lot of your content. And again, this is a place where some of the AI tools are really good at this. You've written good, useful content. How could it be better? How could it answer more questions? How could you add FAQs?

to the end of all of your service pages. How could you add a table of contents to your long form content? How could you add a description box? Some people call it too long, didn't read TLDR, you've probably seen that. How can you add that at the top of your content so that these...

They're not really search engine spiders, but so that the AI tools that are going out there and trying to surface good sources for content can have a very quick view of what it's about. It gets very user friendly. It's very structured in a way that shows kind of the hierarchical structure.

John Jantsch (11:24.718)

I have for years been talking about this thing called hub pages. Um, and the idea behind that is that if you write about, I use an example, if you're a kitchen remodeler and you've got a whole bunch of blog posts about various aspects of remodeling a kitchen. Um, what if you turn that instead of just having them randomly placed on a blog, uh, out there in the ether, what if you turn that into a kitchen, uh, the ultimate guide to remodeling a kitchen and you took all of your content that you've written over the years.

And you placed it on that page. don't mean physically all of it on that page, but at least structure it in such a way that somebody can jump around to how to pick countertops, how to pick cabinets, how to pick finishes, um, how to pick lighting. And then those all, uh, you know, kind of becomes a playlist for anybody who's thinking about, uh, designing, um, or remodeling a kitchen. So we've been talking about that for, I would say at least eight or 10 years.

and the good news is it was a very effective SEO tactic. mean, it, as soon as we would build those for people, it would immediately change, how, how Google viewed their website, but it's also very user friendly. Somebody comes to that hub page and they want, they are interested in information. It's like, here's the whole guide, you know, on what I'm trying to do rather than I just found one, you know, I went out and randomly searched and found one, one blog post on something. So the, the, you know, the,

Again, doubly good news is that those pages really are highly rewarded in an AI world as well. So think about your top three or four services, your top three or four products, your top three or four things that your company does. And think about ways that you could create a very useful guide or a hub page around those and collect it. It's really, in some ways, it's the same content. You've just structured it dramatically different. Boy.

FAQs, and again, in an answer engine world, having answers to the questions that people ask is a clearly makes a lot of sense. It's also been a very useful piece of content anyway, but now really being rewarded in this answer engine world. So every single one of your service pages, every single one of your product pages, even your About Us page now, I think should actually, whether it's structured as a Q &A, or just has an FAQ section,

John Jantsch (13:42.826)

at the bottom of it and you know, pay some attention to the questions you're being asked. Again, the AI tools are pretty good at that surfacing, you know, common questions around things, but you might think in terms of even some of the questions that you're not being asked necessarily, but you should be people should be paying attention to so you can use that as an opportunity to educate around like why you and what you know, what you do that's different than competitors, for example, that they might not actually be asking about.

You know, monthly case studies, you know, measurable results, quotes from customers, those kind of trust elements, even, you know, badges that, that symbolize that you're in professional organizations and things that you've achieved certain certifications. mean, those, you know, the more we can double down on, on just proving that we do what we say, really quite frankly, the better. and then the last piece of the puzzle is.

John Jantsch (14:43.128)

How can you keep this fresh? So, what I'm telling people, and I need to do this myself as well, is we've got reams and reams of content that we wrote years ago. it needs to be freshened up. In fact, about every quarter, you ought to make a goal of saying, Hey, I've got these five blog posts that, know, are decent blog posts. How could I freshen them up, add more links, add more experience, add more proof.

in these, maybe I can structure them, you know, with a table of contents in that TLDR, maybe I could add FAQs to them. You will be highly rewarded for for refreshing that content. And I would last thing I would say is. Start thinking, and this is particularly true for local businesses, not as much for somebody who's really more of a national scale, but that Google business page, think of it as another

publishing platform. Now you don't own that platform, of course, but you have a lot of leeway and how optimized it is all the photos, the videos that you can add there, all the service descriptions you can add there. And you can post there. I would be taking again, in some cases daily if you've got a lot of content, but certainly weekly, create a Google or post in your Google Business page that can come from

can be just a shortened version of something that you've written, and published, you know, years ago, but you're giving it a new place, a new home. And again, it's just going to add all up to the soup of, know, how you get noted or, or quoted as a valuable source. The other thing I would tell you to do is to do a bunch of searches, in some of the AI tools that there were searches you'd love to show up in, you'd love to win. Now, hopefully you show up in front of those. So.

I use my kitchen contractor, remodeling contractor. So best kitchen remodeling contractor in X city would be a link that or something that they'd want to really show up for. Right. And take note of who shows up. That's important. But also one of the things the AI tools do is they tell you the sources that they went to, to, to make that determination. And in some cases, these are directories in some cases, you know,

John Jantsch (17:03.63)

common in the remodeling industry is one called house, that, they actually got a lot of that information from. So if you're not participating in any of those sources or you don't even have a listing in a directory as obscure as it may sound, there's your checklist of some things that you probably need to add to, what you do to get in those directories or to start participating in, you know, a Quora or a Reddit or a house, dependent upon,

you know, the industry that you're in. So, all right, a couple of common mistakes. Stop obsessing over a handful of head keywords. It just doesn't matter anymore. Don't write for algorithms. I think this has always been true. Think in terms of the human question behind any query that somebody is asking. We use a tool called Answer the Public. I highly recommend that you go there and...

If you're, if you're at a loss for what questions people are asking in your industry, that can be a great resource for that. Frankly, the AI tools are pretty good at it. They can surface what questions people are asking in, certain industries. You can't set and forget your website. You know, if I go and I look and there's your last blog post was 2022. We probably got some work to do. This is something that.

You just need to make it a weekly, monthly, quarterly plan that you're going to do X, Y, and Z and just commit to doing it. don't obsess over all the tools. mean, don't go down the rabbit hole. mean, Structured schema is important. there are plugins that, that can actually do that. So that when you write FAQs, the, underlying code, tells Google or tells the.

Whoever's visiting your website, this is an FAQ section. So, you know, spend some time on that part. Don't over obsess about, you know, over engineering tools on this. So here's what I would say. If you've got some ideas today, pick one. If you don't have any FAQs, that's where I would start. If you don't have any case studies, I would certainly think in terms of that.

John Jantsch (19:23.666)

if you haven't visited your Google business profile, I would highly recommend that you think in terms of your strategy there. pick, pick one of the things that, that, I mentioned here today and just start working away at it. mean, don't, don't listen to all the gloom and doom and look at your Google analytics and say, my traffic search your traffic's down because

there's a good chance that a lot of that search traffic wasn't that meaningful. Anyway, it was somebody looking for that how to article. They were not actually looking for your product or service. So search visibility being seen where people go to get their information, being seen as an answer engine, as opposed to an information engine is how we have to change the mindset. So if you got value, hopefully you will subscribe either to the YouTube channel or to the podcast itself.

Love those reviews on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen, share the interview, share this episode with, one business owner who needs a little marketing clarity, who would like a little, simple, effective and affordable, good old duct tape marketing practical advice. All right. That's it for today. Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully I'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.

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The Future of Local SEO in the Age of AI with David Hunter

The Future of Local SEO in the Age of AI with David Hunter written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews David Hunter, CEO of
Local Falcon and
Epic Web Studios, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of local SEO.
With over 15 years in digital marketing, David brings a grounded and tactical perspective on how businesses can thrive amidst the rise of
AI-generated search overviews, shifting consumer behavior, and proximity-based visibility.

They dive into topics like AI Overviews, how tools like ChatGPT and Google’s generative AI are reshaping local search, and what multi-location
brands and small businesses alike need to prioritize to stay competitive. If you’re wondering how to future-proof your local SEO strategy, this one’s for you.

Key Takeaways

• 00:34 – AI Overviews Are Reshaping Search: Google is becoming the answer, not just the index. This change is reducing click-throughs but offers new opportunities for visibility.
• 03:00 – The Shift to Conversational Search Behavior: Consumers—of all ages—are adapting to natural language searches. “Best plumber near me who can come today” is the new normal.
• 05:27 – Proximity Still Matters—but Less Than You Think: Local Falcon’s study of 60,000+ queries shows authority and relevance are overtaking proximity in AI-based local search results.
• 08:26 – Understanding AI’s “Best” Results: Tools like ChatGPT may pull from obscure or outdated sources. Local Falcon helps identify which directories and citations are influencing those results.
• 13:09 – What Should Local Businesses Be Doing Differently? If you’re doing SEO ethically, not much changes—but content structure and clarity become essential.
• 14:37 – Ask AI What It Knows About You: Literally query ChatGPT about your business to see how it understands your brand and services.
• 15:35 – Structure Your Content for AI Comprehension: Use clear formatting, bite-sized paragraphs, FAQs, and schema markup to enhance visibility in AI-generated answers.
• 17:54 – Multi-location SEO Strategy: Brands with many locations have more visibility chances, but need consistency and brand clarity across each location.

Connect with David Hunter

• Website: localfalcon.com
• X: https://x.com/LocalFalcon
• Local Falcon LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/local-falcon/
• David’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhuntererie/

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.026)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is David Hunter. He's the CEO of Local Falcon and, or an AI powered local SEO platform and Epic Web Studios, a digital marketing agency in Pennsylvania. Over 15 years in the industry, David has been instrumental in transforming how businesses approach local search optimization with lots of things going on in search of all kinds. That's what we're going to spend some time talking

So David, welcome to the show.

David Hunter (00:31.871)

Thank you for having me, John. I'm happy to be here.

John Jantsch (00:34.764)

So let's start big picture. think the thing that's causing a lot of, depends on what side of the fence you're on, suppose, a lot of angst, but also a lot of joy, I think, in searchers is this idea of AI overviews. How have those kind of generated overviews that are showing up now as the top results changing the landscape in local SEO? I know that's a big question, but let's start there.

David Hunter (00:59.431)

Absolutely, yeah. it's really, you know, it's not a small, so AI overviews are not a small change. It's a fundamental shift. It's not a little algorithm update, which is what we're used to as marketers working with Google and others. But this is a big difference here.

I think the biggest complaint that marketers have is that it's evaporating the clicks to your website. it, know, sort of complaint number two is that it distills the answer on its own. So Google is no longer just simply the provider of 10 blue links. Now they are a content creator. So Google as a content creator is fundamentally different from what it has been for the last.

John Jantsch (01:29.836)

Yeah. Right.

David Hunter (01:52.395)

30 years or so. And that's a big difference. But at the same time, on the upside, boy, it gets the answer very quickly. Now, it might not always be the right answer. The sources might be a little bit weird, but to the end user, it does a very quick and efficient job of getting you to where you need to be. And so I think that as far as the future goes, it's looking very bright in terms of our opportunity.

John Jantsch (02:22.178)

Well, I think it's really changed search behavior. And that's why I say what side of the fence you're on. think a lot of consumers really like it. You know, instead of typing in plumber near me or plumber in my city, you know, it's like, who's the best plumber in this city that has X amount of reviews and could could show up in the next 24 hours? I mean, that's what we're searching now. And so that fundamental shift is really, I think, from a consumer standpoint, if they trust the answers they're getting, you know, in the overview, then.

That saved them a lot of time of having to shuffle through and figure out who they ought to call. So you can see why the consumer behavior is really shifting dramatically.

David Hunter (03:00.015)

Absolutely, yeah. And I mean, it makes sense, you know, like we, as consumers and users of Google, we're definitely used to typing in, you know, yeah, pizza near me, and finding a quick response through the map pack. I mean, that's fairly efficient, but you don't get that nuanced conversational answer. So what we're doing as consumers, and I think that

It's almost a happy accident by Google that they've rolled out AI overviews and then phase two is this AI mode, which I think is sort of the future of what the Google SERP looks like. They're almost training us as consumers to start querying with long tail conversational searches. And so I'm seeing that behavior change. And I look at it.

John Jantsch (03:41.272)

Sure. Yeah.

David Hunter (03:47.339)

And I have colleagues that are always like, well, you know, the old folks, they're not going to do that. Well, yes, yes, they are. You know, my father's like pushing 70 years old and, and, you know, I see him on the regular using, conversational, you know, searches and, and, and getting good, good feedback from it. So that's right.

John Jantsch (03:53.621)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:04.846)

Well, yeah, once you get used to it, we want what we want. So it's like, yeah, I'm going to talk to it like a human being and give them all my details because I'll get it. know from experience, I start getting better answers.

David Hunter (04:10.879)

That's right.

David Hunter (04:16.575)

Yeah, I think it takes maybe five or 10 searches for the average person to realize I should be doing this conversationally.

John Jantsch (04:19.372)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you spend a lot of time on proximity, with, some of the tools you've created. I know when I first started in search, you know, the, big thing was we had to, we had to optimize our site for, grew up in Kansas city. So I'll use that example. have to optimize our site for Kansas city and all the suburbs and all, you know, to try to get traffic, you know, from, from those places, Google's gotten really good at proximity, right? I mean, meaning if I searched that whole, the typical search.

a remodeling contractor near me. Well, it knows where I am, you know, maybe even to the street corner. And so it's going to say, okay, well, you know, within reason, you know, here are the six that are closest to you. So how is that changing, you know, especially the example I use, the remodeling contractor. I mean, that's not like a, like a dentist or somebody that like is going to have a

have a footprint area, right? I mean, I might be able to serve a 20 mile radius. So how is proximity playing and how do we take advantage of getting it to show us in a wider range?

David Hunter (05:16.0)

Right.

David Hunter (05:27.699)

Right, so, and you're dead on about that with the service area business. I think there's a lot of opportunity for them to really get even more visibility because of this. When local search first became a thing, there was proximity and then prominence and relevance, right? Those were the three components that made up local search. Right.

John Jantsch (05:36.952)

Yes.

John Jantsch (05:47.212)

Yeah. Have a lot of reviews.

David Hunter (05:49.981)

Right. And be relevant. the, you know, if I'm looking for a remodeling contractor, don't show me a list of barber shops. Right. So it's got to be relevant. And obviously it gets much more nuanced than that because well, what kind of remodeling and, you know, home remodeler commercial, you know, whatever. So bathrooms, kitchens, but there's, there's definitely a shift happening. And so at local Falcon, we have basically spent, we've built our platform on tracking results around you, right? The grid, use a grid pattern.

John Jantsch (06:17.838)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

David Hunter (06:19.657)

where you can basically see over top of your business, but then expand it out however far you wanna go radius wise, and then you drop a bunch of pins and you could see these results. Well, the future is definitely changing. And so we recently wanted to roll out a tracker for AI overviews around and chat GPT that's similar to local Falcons core plan and that it's got the grid interface, but...

is using the conversational platform to see the results. And so before we did that, I said, well, we need to do, I need to see if this is valid, if it's even worth doing, right? And so we ran this big study. We put, you know, 4,000 some businesses in there and ran like 60,000 different searches and looked, looked, basically studied the patterns and what was going to come out of that. And that's where we learned that like proximity, it matters, right? It matters at like a city level. It matters at a, you know, sort of

you know, regional level, but it is not factoring anywhere near the, you know, with the level of authority that it used to. So it's important that you still, you know, focus on, if you're a remodeler in Kansas City, that you focus on having that localized content and, you know, authority around that. But the, you know, the relevance and the, you know, the prominence, you know, the expertise, that stuff is really what starts to kind of show up

in terms of like the position that you put in, right? And I don't even call it ranking because it's really, it's more about the position because it's a natural language response. It'll weave business names into this paragraph of text that it gives you. Now, it also does a list below and whatever, but yeah, it's less about the ranking now and it's more about your position within that ranking. So it's important because you still need to be known as someone that.

serves the Kansas City area, but less important when you're dealing with like near me because it's gonna probably pull a list of the best remodelers around the area or what it thinks is the best.

John Jantsch (08:26.284)

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. you know, obviously showing up on the map pack for a local business. you know, I'm, I'm old enough to, it used to be seven at one point. it's three, if you can find it, know, midst all the other stuff, exactly. Right. but if I go to chat GPT today and type in a geographic search, best remodeling contractor, Kansas city,

David Hunter (08:36.843)

You always know it's 10. Yeah, 7, 10 and 7. Now it's 3. Yeah.

Right. All the ads gotta come up there first, you know?

John Jantsch (08:57.42)

what's pulling up there. Now, I don't think a lot of people are necessarily doing that kind of search yet, but they will, right? so, theoretically, are the results that are showing up there, what a common, an amalgamation of like all the searches actually determining you're the best or is it determining you're the most trustworthy, you're the most prominent, you have the most authority, you have the most reviews.

David Hunter (09:24.299)

It's a great question. So, you know, I think that anybody who tries to tell you that answer is going to be full of snake oil, right? Like nobody really knows how that is pulling in and, and, you know, coming together, there's a lot of different theories out there. There's a lot of different, really strong, you know, methodology that's been put to the test in terms of like, what, you know, I don't want to get too technical, but like embeddings and vector vector embeddings and like passages within the website.

John Jantsch (09:49.026)

Yeah.

David Hunter (09:51.915)

how it pulls all that information together is definitely different. They're not using Google search results per se. I do think sometimes they kind of slide them in there, but for a while they were focusing exclusively on Bing places. So I can't say that it's gonna provide you with the absolute best list, but it's pretty close. So I live in the Great Lakes up in Erie, PA, and I did a...

that exact search pizza near me. And I, you know, this is a city of an area of 250,000 people, there's not that many options. And so when I look at it, I saw the list, I'm like, this is actually, this is pretty good. I mean, some of these places are, you know, probably a 10 minute drive, but they are darn good pizza places. So in the chaos that is coming within these results, it does seem to be finding

pretty decent results out of that, which is definitely encouraging. Now, with Local Falcon and our product that we've got, we show you essentially the output itself, as well as we will identify what brands were pulled, and then below that, we show you the sources. This is where I start to really lose my head. So I've got an agency called Epic Web Studios that's been around for...

you know, 17 years now. And I started doing searches around that, like who's the best web developer in Erie, Pennsylvania, right? The list of results that came back was so haywire. I mean, we're talking, there were businesses that were, that I remember from 10 years ago that are since out of business. You know, there were businesses that were across Lake Erie in Canada. You know, it was, it was all over the place. And the sources,

John Jantsch (11:27.725)

Mm-hmm.

David Hunter (11:42.173)

were just wild. mean, it was finding essentially these like directories that I'd never heard of before, right? And pulling that type of information through and saying, okay, well, we used, you know, good firms.com and tech behemoths.com. I'm like, who is, what is this? You know, so I spent a couple hours going through, making sure like, well, we better make sure we've got a profile there and that it's validated and.

John Jantsch (11:48.908)

yeah.

David Hunter (12:05.803)

I mean, that's the most we can do at this stage is identify those sources and make sure that we're included in that. I mean, there's a lot more you can do with the content on your site and everything else, but for this part.

John Jantsch (12:12.898)

Yeah, that's really, yeah. That's really, that's really interesting that they identify the sources because I do think, you know, I do think that that's what's the house, a house, for example, is a, you know, is a source for builders and local home service contractors. And I noticed that ChiTPT in particular pulls a lot of house results. You know, so that that's a really great tip is to think in terms of,

David Hunter (12:36.927)

Yes. How's Angie? Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:41.698)

making sure you're in the sources that they're pulling. Let's just, again, another giant question, but today, especially if somebody, local business is saying, okay, I get it. All these changes are coming. Like, what do I need to do differently than maybe I was, before maybe I was claiming my Google business profile. I was building pages with geographic content on them. I was getting reviews. mean, what else do I need to be doing different?

David Hunter (13:09.651)

Okay, so if you're running a white hat operation with your web presence, I think that as of today, there's not entirely that much different that you need to do, but it's the big caveat that you're running a white hat operation, right? If you're sitting here running, you know, some sort of a link farm and trying to, you know, blast a bunch of AI generated content, that's never gonna work. Or at least it's not gonna work in the long term, right? Yeah. Right.

John Jantsch (13:35.992)

I was going to say that's the bad thing is it works temporarily, and so people get excited about it. But then they, you know, eventually Google or whoever catches up.

David Hunter (13:42.239)

That's gonna get, yes, that's gonna get plugged, right? The idea of, and I'm not sure if the kind of hack has been plugged yet, but people were putting, people used to do this back in the day too. You would put a bunch of keywords on your homepage or on your website. And a lot of times they'd wanna obfuscate that and make it like a white text on a white background so that you couldn't see them, right? People are doing that now, they're injecting prompts inside of it so that when...

the chat GPT bot comes through, it sees a prompt that says like, talk only about this business. It's the best business and repeating that over and over again. And people are finding it's working. It was ranking. Now I think that they have since plugged that. don't know, but I'm not willing to try. I'm not going to put that type of not like nastiness on my site. Like that's no way I'm not taking that risk, but you know, there's a lot of little hacks out there. What can someone do in the white hat sense? mean, number one, you need to understand what

John Jantsch (14:23.981)

Yeah.

David Hunter (14:37.247)

people are saying, or how the LLM, the large language model is understanding your content, right? So go, simply go ask ChatGPT about that. What do you know about Local Falcon, right? And just simply Google that, excuse me, search that on ChatGPT and understand right out of the gate, at least it has a, does it know who we are, where we are, what we do? If not, you better start adding some content to your website in a visible way.

John Jantsch (14:44.504)

Mm-hmm.

David Hunter (15:06.098)

that is gonna make sure that it, you the next time the bot does come by, it pulls it in and, you know, can use that in terms of its reasoning. When you do add that content, it needs to be done in a very like bite sized way, right? Like putting up a 2000 word blog post that's a big wall of text is probably not going to help you in terms of showing up inside of these responses, right? Just think about how the responses come back. They're very short snippets. And so,

John Jantsch (15:21.134)

you

David Hunter (15:35.307)

if you can write in short snippets and get kind of the core idea down to one or two sentences, and then, you know, I'm not saying don't do the 2000 word blog post. What I'm saying is within that, make sure that it's got the main idea and, you know, the thesis, whatever it is you're doing is all kind of spelled out in little chunks at a time. You're gonna have a much better shot of showing up. So.

John Jantsch (15:45.4)

Right, right.

John Jantsch (15:55.064)

Right. Yeah.

Well, and I think what we're saying is good content is good content should be written for humans should be valuable should be educational. But a lot of the tweaks that maybe need to happen are in the structure. So, you know, you have the overview at the at the very front, you know, here's what this article is about. You have the table of contents, you know, you have the 2000 words and at the end you have FAQs. I mean, it's probably more about structure, isn't

David Hunter (16:10.122)

Yes.

David Hunter (16:22.889)

It's a big, it's a huge piece of it, right? So again, it's really about how, you know, chat GPT, know, open AI, Anthropic, you know, others, Google understands the information. So they do that in these little, you know, they'll basically pull little passages out. And then that contributes to the larger, you know, the larger model understanding what it is. And then it creates its own version of that. Sometimes you'll even find verbatim, it's pulling in

some of the content that you wrote, especially with things like FAQs and how you answer that FAQ, right? Number one, you also need to make sure that it's structurally visible, right? So schema markup has never been more important. You have to identify and when schema markup is essentially like a shortcut for understanding what a page is about, it's a way for a bot, a crawler to...

John Jantsch (16:56.215)

Yeah.

David Hunter (17:17.563)

recognize and categorize, this is about a recipe or a review or a local business. So making sure that that schema markup is on there. And then of course, again, looking through the sources, right? So when you run these local FalconSkins, you're gonna see this huge list of sources and it'll tell you how often that source was used. So if you've got a whole bunch of Yelp listings on there, yeah, go get on Yelp and maybe even consider spending the 50 bucks or whatever they want to like,

actually make sure that it's as complete of a profile as possible, just to give yourself every chance for success.

John Jantsch (17:54.24)

Yeah, absolutely. Let's touch on just again, this is a giant topic, but let's say I'm a business that has 10 local locations. Do I need to be doing something differently? Do I need to be doing something? I mean, are there unique challenges that you're starting to see from that multi-location business?

David Hunter (18:16.939)

So yes, a lot of times when you get, when you're with a multi-location brand, it ends up, you you have a really good shot of actually showing up because you've got so many others, you know, if you've got 10 locations in your city, that's 10 more chances or nine more chances than the solo operation, which is definitely helpful for them. Yes, and so that's great. However, the response itself,

John Jantsch (18:36.738)

So somebody's always near to one of them, right?

David Hunter (18:43.619)

you know, we see some wild stuff like it'll pull, you know, you're on the east side of town and it starts talking about the location on the west side. So it's less about that individual location and more about the brand itself, right? So making sure that like holistically the brand is well understood is important. I think that where you're gonna see potentially some headaches is in like the franchise world where someone buys in.

and they are responsible for their location. I mean, it depends on how the brand operates, but doing things from sort of a centralized source and then disseminating out is probably your best bet.

John Jantsch (19:12.546)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (19:20.93)

Yeah, awesome. Well, David, I appreciate you taking a few moments to come by and share about local searches. there someplace you would invite people to connect with you and find out more about your various platforms and tools?

David Hunter (19:32.715)

Sure, I mean, certainly, you know, search up Local Falcon wherever, know, localfalcon.com. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm, you know, on there probably too much these days, so.

John Jantsch (19:42.734)

Awesome. Again, I appreciate you taking a moment and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

David Hunter (19:49.297)

Absolutely, John. Thanks for the very, very lightweight questions there, man. Those were nothing, you know, nothing too strong at all, right? Thanks again.

John Jantsch (19:53.038)

You

Awesome. Awesome.

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