In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson tackles listener questions in the "Ask Us Anything" segment. He dives into strategies for optimizing content for AI-driven search results and shares fun insights into some quirky personal habits.

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Best Moments:

(01:42) Addressing the impact of AI on search results

(03:46) Discussion on ChatGPT's growing influence in search

(04:54) Tips for optimizing content for AI-driven search results

(07:42) Sponsor message for Marigold, an email and loyalty marketing platform

(08:30) Answering quirky personal habit questions from a listener

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MASSIVE thank you to our Sponsor, Marigold!!

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Foreign.

Welcome to do this not that, the podcast for marketers.

You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid.

We'll also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday.

I'm Jay Schwedelson.

Let's do this, not that.

We are back for Ask Us Anything from the do this not that podcast presented by Marigold.

This is our short episode where all week long we get in work questions and we get in totally ridiculous questions.

We try to tackle one of each and we love getting questions.

If you want to submit one, just go to jschwettleson.com there's a button that says podcast and another button that says Ask us anything.

Please submit whatever you got.

Let's get into it.

We got a question.

Let's do the work one.

First, we got a question from Rachel from Middleton, Wisconsin.

I know a little bit about Wisconsin because my brother lives in Wisconsin.

Very cold, by the way.

You know, it's in Middleton, Wisconsin.

I bet you didn't know this.

It is the National Mustard Museum.

Come on.

Have you ever been there?

No.

Why would you be there?

That's weird.

Why does this exist?

There were 6,000 mustard jars there you could check out.

Could you imagine if you were, like, in charge of marketing for them?

Like, you're out at dinner, like, hey, what do you do?

Oh, I handled the marketing for the National Mustard Museum.

You're like, what?

Is that for real?

Anyway, sorry, Rachel, what goes on?

What is your question?

Jay, with the rise of AI in search results, should we be doing anything to make sure our site and info shows up on Google or ChatGPT or wherever?

This is a fantastic question because, yes, there are some massive changes of how Google is showing search results and also massive changes in where we're all going to get answers to our search questions.

And there are some very, very simple little things that you can do that we should all be doing on our websites and in all of our content.

Whether you're a business marketer or or a consumer brand that you should be doing to make sure that you're now showing up on the search results at the very top.

So now when you go to Google right now, okay, and you ask Google any question you search for anything, what do you see?

I'll tell you what you see, you are seeing at the very top AI overviews.

That is what Google is now showing you a lot of the time.

As a matter of fact, according to Search Engine Journal, Google AI Overviews, when you go to the regular Google search engine, when you type in anything, Google AI overviews are showing at the very top of over 47% of all searches as of right now, when you ask Google anything, not when you go to some other special area of Google.

Right now.

Here's the wild part.

More than 75% of websites that appear in those AI overviews results on Google also show up in the top 12 organic search results.

What does that mean?

That means when you're going to Google and you're asking a question, anything, okay?

And it's now giving you an answer at the top, they're showing those AI overviews.

If your brand, if your company, if your content is part of that answer, that AI overview, it's also leading you to be one of the top organic results.

Now maybe you've shifted.

Maybe instead of Google, you go to things like ChatGPT or other AI tools to ask your search questions.

And you're not alone.

Now, more important than that, let's talk about search specifically.

According to similar web, ChatGPT now has over 4.33% of the search market.

That may not sound like a lot, but that's massive growth in a market that hasn't seen a new player in a long time.

And, and Semrush has added this crazy Data element that ChatGPT is growing by 13% month over month for search queries.

That is bonkers.

So what does this all mean?

What do you need to be doing right now to make sure that your content, that your offers, that your information are showing up in these overviews are showing at the top of Google are showing up when you search on something in chatgpt that your stuff is showing up?

Well, it's the exact same opposite of what we've been told to do on our websites and in all of our content for many, many years, which is now on your websites.

Now in all of your content.

Doesn't matter if you're a consumer or you're a business marketer.

We need our content to be written in natural language, in conversational language.

Because this type of conversational natural language, I'm going to give you five examples right now of what I mean is what ChatGPT and anthropic and all the different platforms and Google is looking for to fuel those AI overviews that are now powering all of their search results.

So what do you want to have on your website?

The best things that you could do, number one, is do FAQs and Q& A formats.

It used to be that putting FAQs frequently asked questions on your site sometimes could even hurt your search performance.

But not anymore.

Having FAQs and Q& A format content on your sites is the number one driver of having you show up in those AI overviews on Google and on all the different ChatGPT and perplexity and all the different tools, right?

So literally just having your FAQ written, you ask it a question, right?

You ask it a question and then you give it the answer in one to two sentences.

This is what these tools are looking for.

The other idea is to make sure that the headings that you're using on any of your content are basically written in common question format.

So you might have a thing that says what are the best email marketing tools?

And then you would list out below and you, if you were selling an email marketing tool, your tool be among those and you list out a sentence or two as to why.

Because when we go to search Google or ChatGPT, that is how we're asking questions.

Now we've changed the way we're using these tools.

So we'll go to ChatGPT and we'll say what are the best email marketing tools?

And because on your website you're selling one of these tools, but you've asked that question and now you're supplying the answers, okay?

It's getting picked up by all of these tools.

You literally can have a section on your site that says people also ask as an area on your site.

And this is where if you are a direct to consumer product, you can list out all the most common questions that people ask about your product, or not just your product, but the sector you're in, right?

Maybe it's a health product, maybe it's some sort of pajamas.

Whatever it is, you're doing the most common questions and you're writing out the questions and then you're giving the most common answers.

This is what's working right now.

This is what's going to be working.

You want to take all of the information on your site, write it in a natural language question, natural language answer.

You want to have that in any other type of content you're putting out there, not just on your website.

It could be downloadable tip sheets, it could be anything.

But you want to reconfigure your brain and your content to be natural language because that's what these tools are searching for, and that's how we're asking the questions and that's what's showing up.

So it's a total rethink.

All right, before we get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast, I want to let you know that this podcast is presented by Marigold.

You're like, what's a Marigold?

Listen.

Sail Through Campaign monitor, Chia Digital Live Clicker, My Emma.

All of these roll up into Marigold.

And it is an email sending platform.

It is a loyalty marketing platform.

It is amazing.

I have been using this for years.

I send out billions of emails.

And if you're a small marketer, a medium sized marketer, a giant marketer, business consumer, if you haven't explored Marigold and you think that your platform kind of stinks, you got to check them out.

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you can get all the information there.

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If you're even remotely dissatisfied with your platform, I am telling you, I endorse them fully.

Meet marigold.com incredible, incredible tool for your email sending, loyalty, marketing, all of it.

All right, let's get into the ridiculous question.

We got a question from Christina from Duluth, Minnesota.

Man, it has got to be so cold there.

Oh, well, what's your question?

Sorry about that, Jay.

My family makes fun of me over random stuff that I do, and I want to know if you think it's weird or.

Okay.

And I'm going to give you a few.

Okay.

I have not seen these yet.

So here we go.

The first one from Christina is eating pizza crust first.

Is that weird?

Totally weird.

I don't even understand.

That's not even, like, easy to do because then you're eating, like, the widest part first.

So, yes, I would, I would classify that as weird.

I would not do that.

Totally unacceptable.

Don't do it.

Next.

Wearing socks to bed.

Oh, I wear socks to bed all day long.

100%.

I don't think that's weird.

I would, I would bet you.

I don't know how many people, but I'm going to go with over 50% of people wear socks to bed.

Is that not true?

I have no idea.

All right, next one.

Eating cereal with water instead of milk.

But that's disgusting.

Do people do that?

I mean, with water.

That sounds disgusting.

Now eating cereal with neither milk nor water.

Great.

All day long I could sit on my couch and, like a total donkey, sit there and eat cereal with nothing.

Great.

But with water, that sounds gross.

So no.

And Then the last one is not opening mail for weeks that you get in your house mail.

I do the exact same thing.

It is horrible.

I need to fix this.

I'm in charge of going through our mail, doing all that paperwork stuff in my home, and it is so bad.

So like once a month I take all the mail and then I bring it to my office and I go through it, whatever.

But the worst part is like, you know, there'll be invitations in there.

I don't know.

Anybody still sends out paper invitations.

Like, let's stop that.

Enough with this.

Right?

But there'll be invitations in there, other things that are very timely or thank you notes from people or who knows what.

And because it's like my job and I don't get to it, I am like a.

Everyone's very annoyed me.

I come home once a month.

I'm like, by the way, we got this letter four weeks ago.

Sorry.

Anyway, so it's not weird that you don't open your mail, but it is bad.

And I'm going to work on it too.

Everybody needs to work on that.

And stop eating pizza like a strange human.

Listen, thanks for being here, everybody.

You got to check out certifiedguru.com we're opening the wait list on January 28th.

It only opens for a few days.

This is our free, amazing email certification program.

You want to become a certified guru in email marketing?

Go to certifiedguru.com 100% for free.

But it's only open for a few days.

And hey, leave this review.

It helps circulate this thing.

I appreciate you.

You are awesome.

Come on, hook me up.

All right, later.

You did it.

You made it to the end.

Nice.

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