SEO... But Stolen From Social

[00:00:02] Intro & Outro: It's time for the SEO show, where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now, here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

[00:00:23] Michael: Hello and welcome to the SEO Show. Thank you for February 2026. Some date. I don't know when this is coming out, but we'll probably be in February, hopefully soon. How you going, Arthur?

[00:00:33] Arthur: Good. We're making the people wait.

[00:00:35] Michael: What do you mean?

[00:00:36] Arthur: Well, it's already February. Almost or mid February.

[00:00:39] Michael: Yeah. The last episode we did was a bit of a joke episode, wasn't it?

[00:00:43] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:00:43] Michael: No real content.

[00:00:44] Arthur: Yeah. So we need to release something soon.

[00:00:46] Michael: So we've got something. We've got a fan favorite today. We have got another episode of Stolen.

[00:00:53] Arthur: Stolen.

[00:00:54] Michael: Stolen from Social.

[00:00:56] Arthur: Wow, it's been a while.

[00:00:57] Michael: It has been.

[00:00:58] Arthur: And I've heard that awful, awful entry music.

[00:01:01] Michael: Beautiful. Listen, I didn't even use auto tune in my singing then. It was all natural. But we are going to take the lazy person's route to producing a podcast.

[00:01:12] Arthur: He's into it.

[00:01:13] Michael: He's back into it.

[00:01:14] Arthur: Like stepping into a hot bath. Yeah. Can't just dive in.

[00:01:17] Michael: That's right. You need to acclimatize.

[00:01:19] Arthur: Acclimatize. This is our way of acclimatizing.

[00:01:22] Michael: We're just going to steal other people's questions and apply what we think to the answer, as we always do on Stolen from Social.

[00:01:32] Arthur: Sounds like a good idea.

[00:01:33] Michael: I tell you what, though. I went on X before trying to find interesting SEO questions and stuff, and it's just a barren wasteland of people talking about AI and how claudebot is replacing entire teams of people. Apparently. I haven't actually seen that happen, but that's what they're all talking about.

[00:01:50] Arthur: Is that where you got on your ex, on your Twitter? Yeah, mine's all Epstein files, mate.

[00:01:55] Michael: I guess I'm just more of an SEO nerd at heart. Maybe. No, I was actively looking for SEO stuff. But anyway, so we've got on Reddit largely today to thieve our content. We've got. What have we got? Five. Five questions here. So let's just jump in without further ado. We should jump in, shouldn't we?

[00:02:15] Arthur: Ease in.

[00:02:15] Michael: Ease in. So Xdepico says, what is the most important thing in building authority of your site? Is it all about collecting backlinks or is there something else? I mean, as a completely new business, I don't see any way how to just randomly text those webs asking them for collab Blog post with being Successful, Yes. You're talking about link building there, which is a painful process. But the general topic, what is the most important thing in building authority? What would you say? Bang.

[00:02:44] Arthur: Link building.

[00:02:45] Michael: Yes.

[00:02:45] Arthur: Yeah, yeah, link building for sure.

[00:02:50] Michael: And really he's talking there about I don't see any way how to randomly text those webs, asking them for collab. Yes, It's a painful, tedious process, reaching out to websites and trying to get links. That's why most people just pay for links.

[00:03:04] Arthur: So the shotgun approach, right? Yeah. You'll hit up 100 people, 10 people reply, 2 people will want to collab.

[00:03:10] Michael: That's a fantastic response rate.

[00:03:12] Arthur: And if they however, they'll probably want some sort of form of payment.

[00:03:16] Michael: Always, always, always. But if you have a brand new site and you want to rank in Google and you want to be found in AI, you need links from other websites or you need at least branded mentions referring to your business by brand. If we're talking AI, that is the single most important thing you can do to build an authority or the authority of your site. There's nothing else really you can do?

[00:03:38] Speaker D: No.

[00:03:39] Arthur: Well, content. You said the site needs a lot of content. But I mean from the link building perspective and pure authority. Link building.

[00:03:45] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I guess, yeah. And then when you have that authority, you need at least a baseline of content that makes it clear that you are the number one seam seam repair business in Illinois. I don't know. Christ. If you've got enough content about repairing seams, different types of stitching, where does.

[00:04:03] Arthur: Your mind go, man? Seam repair? I don't know.

[00:04:07] Michael: You know what I.

[00:04:07] Arthur: Did you split your pants or something?

[00:04:10] Michael: Well, I have. I have fallen off the wagon with diet and exercise, so perhaps. Anyway, let's move on the next one. I like this one. Hottier4161 asks, do your Google Maps rankings change throughout the day? Quick question for people managing local SEO. If you check the local pack ranking at 9am versus 3pm versus 8pm, do you see it move, for example, number one in the morning, number four in the afternoon back to number two at night? Or is it generally stable when nothing major changes? Most tools only check rankings once per day, so I'm trying to understand.

[00:04:46] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:04:46] Michael: Are shifts common?

[00:04:47] Arthur: Yes.

[00:04:49] Michael: Well, yeah, for sure.

[00:04:50] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:04:50] Michael: I think his whole mindset is about local maps is totally wrong.

[00:04:54] Arthur: Yeah, me too.

[00:04:55] Michael: It's so hyper, bespoke and targeted with your proximity, your personalization, your history of searches, whether Google thinks you're actively in the market for stuff. There's all sorts of Stuff that factor into it. So there's no such thing as a static ranking in Google Maps.

[00:05:12] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:05:13] Michael: You'll find typically if you search seam repair, Illinois, the top three people that show in this, you know, the snack pack. So the snack pack is the local pack. The local pack not going into Maps. But what shows in the search results. The top three bounce around.

[00:05:31] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:05:31] Michael: From search to search. You could search right now and see one site first. Yes. Then go into incognito, search again and they're down in third.

[00:05:38] Arthur: Yeah. So but it would be those main kind of four or five sites that would like fluctuate and bounce around.

[00:05:45] Michael: You tend to bounce around. Yeah. So rank tracking tools are great for a little temperature check, barometer. Yeah. But yeah, it's the nature of it.

[00:05:55] Arthur: That's it.

[00:05:57] Michael: The fact that someone is near a business and searches means that they will see different results than if they were at home, 20 minute drive away and searched. Of course. Yeah. So, you know, that's it. That is it.

[00:06:10] Arthur: That's literally it.

[00:06:11] Michael: All right, let's move on. You'll like this one. Can't even say this name. So it's a long.

[00:06:18] Arthur: Like these Reddit names are ridiculous.

[00:06:21] Michael: Yeah.

[00:06:22] Arthur: I know that Reddit gives you like a weird cheesecake lover 43 or something when you sign up.

[00:06:26] Michael: Yeah.

[00:06:27] Arthur: But like, some of these names are just weird.

[00:06:29] Michael: Anyway, tell you what, I am a cheesecake lover, but I'm not 43. Yeah. Okay. So all my boss wants is to rank our website on AI. I've been working in SEO for some time, but recently I've noticed a shift in how people discover brands instead of searching on only on Google. Many new users are now asking AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, questions such as best service provider near me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My boss wants to rank on them all. Yeah. So what do you think about this one?

[00:07:02] Arthur: Well, I think you need to rank organically to be able to rank in any sort of LLM. So you have to have all your SEO foundations on point. And it's funny because this is something that comes up, you know, multiple times a week with clients. They just, they're obsessed with AI. They want to show up in ChatGPT. We had one literally had a client reach out to us yesterday. They don't do SEO. They're a good client. They don't do SEO with us. But they were querying why didn't they show up in ChatGPT. And I think the first thing is just like, well, why do you want to show up in ChatGPT, like what you do is like you're a service based business that most people aren't going to be, you know, inquiring to you from ChatGPT. Like you should be ranking organically.

[00:07:43] Michael: Yeah.

[00:07:46] Arthur: So yeah, basically getting all your SEO foundations. Right. And then you know, all the stuff we've talked about, we will talk about in the future like listicles, appearing brand mentions, so making sure that you appear on like Reddit Quora. Yeah, everywhere.

[00:08:02] Michael: And most of the time AI searches itself. Yes. So we're going to do a whole episode on this. But what we've seen working to rank a local service business, so stay tuned for that one. But it searches itself and you need to have content on your site around the suburbs and stuff you put on there about your history or results it will read and regurgitate in its own results. So yeah, it's having that good SEO baseline so that when the AI tools are searching themselves, they're finding your business in multiple locations. So content on your site but also third party sites like the Reddit's and Quoras of the world.

[00:08:35] Arthur: Yeah. And I think as well like most of these queries are going to be top of funnel. So for context, like say if you install lawns, people will be searching like turf location or type of turf location. That's going to be what's going to be generating leads and revenue for you. But people will be searching what's the best type of turf for shady conditions or whatever. And that's where your opportunity is with AI. But a lot of people aren't ready to convert at that stage.

[00:09:04] Michael: But then also the AI will just amalgamate all the information it knows about that and tell them.

[00:09:08] Arthur: Yes.

[00:09:09] Michael: And then they know that stuff. They don't ever make their way to your site from that.

[00:09:12] Arthur: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:09:13] Michael: So do you care about that? It depends what the outcomes you're looking for. But what we see still with most service businesses now like E Comm, like if you're a brand, not just E Comm selling other people's products, but an actual brand, D2C brand or something and you're wanting to be found via AI, that's a different story. But service businesses, 90, 95% more of the traffic and leads and actual customers, closed customers in their CRM come from Google search, meta ads, Google Ads and local SEO. Yeah.

[00:09:50] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:09:50] Michael: And then there's like a tiny fraction of random leads that come in via ChatGPT here.

[00:09:55] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:09:55] Michael: And you're always like, oh, when that happens, like ooh little bit. But everyone's hyper obsessed with that still.

[00:10:00] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:10:01] Michael: And I get it, because it's headed that way.

[00:10:03] Arthur: Yes.

[00:10:04] Michael: But focus on getting your Google ducks in a row because that's where the traffic still lives today in 2026. And then that will help your AI rankings. So.

[00:10:15] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:10:17] Michael: And I think like the thing it's like we just spoke about with local SEO, there's so much personalization and stuff going on with the AI search results.

[00:10:26] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:10:26] Michael: Like the AI knows the full context of your chat history with it and things you'd looked for six months ago. So it changes. Yeah. So when you go and type stuff in, what I see is going to be totally different to what you.

[00:10:37] Arthur: And we did it. We did it on a client call a few weeks ago because they wanted to show up for a specific query. We were. Well, the client was showing up for us, but when they searched it, it wasn't showing up for them. So it just shows the exact same query but different results.

[00:10:51] Michael: Yeah.

[00:10:51] Arthur: Based on location, search history. Sorry, like. Yeah, whatever it's called. Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:56] Michael: So it's memory, basically.

[00:10:58] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:11:00] Michael: So, yeah, just do good SEO. There's no such thing as AEO or geo. It's SEO for everything. Right, Moving on, moving on. Moving on to the next one here. Oh, I like this one from Snow Giraffe 3.

[00:11:16] Arthur: Again, another weird name, but what's a Snow Giraffe exactly?

[00:11:20] Michael: It would die a brutal, horrible death somehow transported from Africa to Siberia.

[00:11:26] Arthur: Anyway, and why is. Why is it the third one? Is there a Snow Giraffe one and two?

[00:11:30] Michael: I know. Signing up. Damn. I couldn't get Snow Giraffe. Or wanted to anyway. So our startup has a very limited marketing budget and I'm torn between investing in SEO, paid ads or content marketing. Which approach tends to give the best ROI early on? Well, first, I would say that's a very vague question because we don't know what your startup is, what you're marketing. Like, are you a niche B2B research tool or are you a DTC Ecom brand? That would dictate first and foremost, what are you selling? But anyway, I'm gonna say here, we're on the SEO show, but SEO should be bottom of that list. Paid ads is where you always want to start. If you have a very limited marketing budget, crank some Google Ads or some meta ads to a high converting landing page and you'll get immediate leads or sales or at least feedback on whether the market even wants what you're promoting. Go doing SEO. No, with a limited but and so many people do.

[00:12:29] Arthur: Yeah, I know, yeah.

[00:12:31] Michael: They all sign up to SEO, they'll be spending a couple of grand a month and 60 days in. They're flipping out like, where's all my customers?

[00:12:39] Arthur: Exactly, yeah. Six 12 months at least. At least before you see any sort of return.

[00:12:45] Michael: SEO is a part of a marketing mix for a business that can invest in things for the long term and not live and die by what they're doing right now. More established, more serious. Not like a sort of one man band operation type thing or a new startup generally, unless you're very well funded. But they just said they have a very limited budget. Put it where the outcomes are most likely to come from, which is paid 100%.

[00:13:11] Arthur: Agree.

[00:13:12] Michael: All right, look at. Oh, you'll like this person's name. What's. Let me have a look here.

[00:13:17] Arthur: SERP Architect.

[00:13:20] Michael: Is this you? SERP Architect now, What did you. What you said my name was? Mickey Serps.

[00:13:24] Arthur: Mickey Serps.

[00:13:26] Michael: That's a more like. Yeah, that's just more like a street gangster type SEO name.

[00:13:30] Arthur: Gangsters are stretch. Mickey Serps.

[00:13:33] Michael: Yeah, Mickey Serps. Mickey Serps. Anyway, SERP Architect. That's very, very. Almost arrogant in a way, aren't they? They're just architecting the SERPs anyway, whatever. They are asking this question. So I don't know how much of a SERP architect they are because they ask, can I. Can a one year old site realistically beat a four year old competitor in SEO and what actually helps close the gap fastest? So just because someone's been around longer doesn't mean they're always going to win. Like there are inherent benefits of being around longer.

[00:14:08] Arthur: Yes.

[00:14:09] Michael: Google has a sandbox for new sites. You got to take time to get out of that and actually be rewarded with rankings, but that's not years. So a one year old site would be out of that. If they've been working on SEO for four years, then that's a jump that they've got a gap that needs to be closed. But just because someone's been around for four years doesn't mean they've been working on SEO for that long.

[00:14:32] Arthur: Yeah, that's right.

[00:14:33] Michael: So what's their link authority? Like profile Velocity. You like Velocity?

[00:14:41] Arthur: I do.

[00:14:41] Michael: How many links have they been building? How far behind are you? What's their content like? Yes, a one year old site can beat 20 year old sites. Really?

[00:14:49] Arthur: Yeah. Depends on the niche, depends on the location. So many different variables. But short answer for sure. Yeah, like we've done it.

[00:14:57] Michael: Absolutely.

[00:14:58] Arthur: We do it all the time.

[00:14:59] Michael: Like a big thing. Like are we talking a one year old exact match domain that just comes along and kills it?

[00:15:05] Arthur: Yeah, Sometimes they don't even do SEO.

[00:15:07] Michael: Yeah.

[00:15:08] Arthur: Outrank.

[00:15:10] Michael: Well, it's like the case study I've done on my Instagram of the stonemason. He's called Gold Coast Mason Masonry. Gold Coast Masonry. Forgot his name for a second there. Goldcoastmasonry.com. that's a pretty much exact match domain name.

[00:15:25] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:15:26] Michael: Or very close. Very thematically relevant for masonry and the gold Caves. And we just did some directory links. That's it. He ranks all over for all the suburb pages that were built just because of his domain name. And I registered that to create the site. Then there's other stonemason sites that have been around for a decade that he's getting preferential, better rankings in just because the site had better SEO foundations and content, internal linking and then some directory links, but an exact match domain. So that site's doing it. So yes, absolutely. It can. What actually helps close that gap fastest? Well, yes, links. Everyone's favorite SEO topic and just doing good SEO basics, ticking all the boxes. So good structure. H1 tags, metadata, keywords being used in the copy, internal linking between pages, pages for the suburbs that you target, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anything else or have I covered it.

[00:16:27] Arthur: All in that you've covered it all.

[00:16:30] Michael: That's about all we could steal for today. We don't want to go too hard, do we? Like we're in this bath. We've dipped our toes. It's a bit hot.

[00:16:37] Arthur: Yeah, no, it's good.

[00:16:38] Michael: I'm a bit concerned we're in a bath together.

[00:16:40] Arthur: I'm acclimatized, I think.

[00:16:41] Michael: Yeah.

[00:16:42] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:16:42] Michael: You ready for the next episode?

[00:16:44] Arthur: Almost. Are you acclimatized?

[00:16:45] Michael: I'm acclimatized, yeah.

[00:16:47] Arthur: You sound it. You really do. Like, you're.

[00:16:49] Michael: Feels like riding a bike. Really?

[00:16:50] Arthur: Yeah. No, it does. Yep. Just need that one episode to kind of dust off the cobwebs. And we're back.

[00:16:58] Michael: We're back, baby. So we're back. Until next time, Happy SEOing and AI ING and all the rest of it. We're going to be back with more AI chat because everyone seems to be into that. So we'll see you in the next episode.

[00:17:13] Speaker D: Hooroo.

[00:17:14] Arthur: Bye. Bye.

[00:17:15] Michael: Hey, I got to say, that outro by me was garbage. I'll do better next time.

[00:17:18] Arthur: Bye.

[00:17:20] Intro & Outro: Thanks for listening to the SEO show. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review, like, wherever you get your podcasts, it will really help the show. We'll see you in the next episode.

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