SEO Tactics That Actually Work in 2025

0:08Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantz and my guest today is Prasanna Dungle. He has nearly two decades of experience building businesses in marketing, tech, healthcare, and SaaS. He's a managing partner at Grow By Data. He holds a bachelor's degree with honors from Cornell, a master's in engineering from Princeton, and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. It means he paid a lot to get educated. He was born and raised in Kathmandu, probably the first Kathmanduin on the show today. But he now resides in Boston. So welcome to the show, Prasanna.

0:46Thank you so much, John, for the nice introduction and for the conversation. Yes, yes. So we're going to talk basically about SEO today. And I know that's a lot of the work that you do at GrowByData. A lot of change, you know, AI, other things going on. A lot of, I mean, you even see people on LinkedIn saying SEO is dead. So how are you telling people they need to prepare today for changes in traditional search results? Yeah, that's a very hot, popular topic for folks in search, growth marketing, marketing altogether. You're right. I mean, I don't think SEO is dead. I think it has evolved. In fact, it's the era of Google AI and just chats and all of these, in fact, has provided further impetus in my mind to search.

1:42Because the way I like to think about search is, you know, you're asking a question and Google is answering today, but then new sources are answering. And you're trying to understand how the answers are being presented, right? Whether it be visually, like in retail, for example, you know, we like to say that the search result page is increasingly becoming like the Amazon results page with a lot of product pictures being visible, Reddit being visible, many times like, you know, over the last year or so, videos and so on. So I think search has evolved. You have to look at page search and traditional SEO in a new lens.

2:21And in fact, it's created, I mean, there's just a lot of interest to capture that. And I think the ones that are really going to win are going to be ahead versus be stuck in his or her old ways. But, you know, I think it's, I mean, there's a huge opportunity ahead. Well, the one thing that I think is leading a lot of people to saying, I mean, people are seeing their organic traffic dropping. I mean, I think that's reality. But then they also go to the Google homepage or search page and they see the AI results or AI overview that comes there. And, you know, there are many people that they get their answer and off they go.

2:57Right. So the so-called zero click era, I think, has really got a lot of people worried that all the effort they spent on producing content over the years is now going to go away. That's a fair concern. And the concern is Google is answering the question right on the sort page versus now letting us click and go into the page. So that remains. the way that and we will have to see how that evolves you know the next few months or the next year some are in fact saying it's because of that that folks like us are moving to newer channels to discover right but that said folks are also using it as an opportunity for brand building which is when you get picked up by these zero click results you are in fact reminded like you're seeing a TV ad almost, and you're remembering a brand, and then ultimately you remember that to make a purchase.

4:00So that's one way that I know brands are thinking about it. But that said, I think just relying on, you know, that is challenging, you know, perhaps top of, you know, like awareness days, keywords have had fewer clicks, or if any, you know, and then increasingly, I know source marketers are focusing on other types of content which require someone to click and go in. But the other way I like to actually show the positive is if you are visible on Google zero source clicks, it could also indicate that you could be more friendlier to LLMs. And so you could get picked up by some of the chat engines.

4:44And so if you're not getting picked up at all, I think that's a problem. You want to get picked up. Obviously, you can't rely on it alone. You have to use other sources, but you had to get picked up so that you also get picked up in the other sources, which in fact are almost like zero click searches, even on the chat. That's how I think about it. So people are, I mean, content is, you mentioned content and I want to go to to, you know, types of content. One of the bits of advice I'm hearing from a lot of folks is this idea of, you know, a lot of information content, you know, the how-to type of stuff is really what Google is kind of consuming in the AI overviews.

5:25But if somebody is actually searching to solve something or searching for a specific type of company, you know, those high intent searches are still there and happening. Would that suggest that we should be moving our content very much to much more intent-driven content as opposed to kind of that top of the funnel, you know, show up in search content? So I think it depends, right? You know, if you believe that the top of the funnel content serves what we are trying to find very well, right? Then, you know, it may not be worth being the ninth or the 10th brand out there to capture that. there's diminishing return, right?

6:08However, if you feel like, you know, your point of view is very strong, then why not create the brand in the first place? It's about brand touch point. And then, but assuming that's not the case, you are right. I do think then, you know, trying to go in and capture demand, you know, in the middle of the funnel or lower funnel, you know, and then really trying to draw someone searching from those is also a wise strategy that I know many have followed. Like we were talking to a large financial services client recently. And what they were telling me is, hey, you know, we've, we, I mean, we don't see the ROI of really investing in top of the funnel content anymore.

6:46Because, you know, we're not getting folks to come to our site. And many times I talk about the brand being mentioned on top of the funnel, but sometimes the brand isn't even mentioned. And so it even defeats the purpose of presenting your brand in front of someone. And so these guys were, in fact, creating newer types of content like quizzes or infographics or more deeper content that needs the user to interact to get the answer. And that's where they were gravitating towards. And I'm actually seeing more and more brands do that. Well, are there metrics, new metrics, different metrics that we should be tracking today to really understand how all of this AIO is kind of affecting our search?

7:27We like to use share of voice as a metric to really track a brand's visibility on Google, on Google AIO, on paid source, what have you. And then we like to dissect it by different lines of business, by different intent, by different geographies, by different languages. So that's the 50 ,000 foot metric that we use. But that said, I do agree with you. I think A question that you want to begin to answer is, okay, if AI results are a proxy to brand visibility, then how much brand searches are you getting? And is that rising midterm is a metric I think you should be tracking. If you're doing the right things, even if you're not getting the click, are people remembering your brand?

8:23Right, right. and not just the brand term, but brand plus. And then there may be a time lag. For example, when I purchase something, it might be a few weeks out, it might be a few months out, but am I seeing the, you know, so one way to do this would be, am I visible in these results, zero click results? And is that rising? And then after a few weeks out or so, is the amount of brand searches rising? And is that compounding? I mean, I think that's one way I've known that brands are tracking that. So break down share of voice, just that I'm sure that every client's different, but essentially how do you start measuring share of voice?

9:04Sure. So I like to give the example of running shoes, right? So imagine I am searching for running shoes, running shoes, men's, women's, and so on. So when you search for that keyword or a group of keywords, you want to be searching not just once but over time across different geographies across different devices after across different times of the day so you have enough sample and what you have to do is how often is your brand mentioned on the search page right so like for example on shopping ads how often is nike visible right versus adidas or polka you know on your classic blue links how often is Nike visible on merchant listings, which is a free product listings from Google?

9:54How often is it? So if you imagine like real estate on the page and there's a thousand spots in there, right? And the spots are consumed by videos, shopping, paid text and organic and even Reddit and so on. How often is Nike's domain visible or Nike mentioned? You just kind of say it's visible maybe 300 times over your sample size, then we like to say you have a 30 % share of voice. And you might care to understand how that varies by Spanish versus English, New York versus Toronto, and so on. So you slice it, but at the highest level, it's how often are you visible in that reals. So in this AI overview world, the zero-click world, are there things that you are helping brands try to understand?

10:44Like, obviously, we want to show up there, but is there an intentional approach or are there best practices to make sure that your brand is showing up there? Or is it simply a matter of if you're showing up high in search anyway for some of those terms, you're probably going to show up in the results? Or is there a way to get your content intentionally to show up in the AI overview? Sure. So what we do is we dissect what are the SORB elements visible within AIO, right? So you have, like in retail, you have maps sometimes show up on the AIO results. Sometimes you have a description. Sometimes you have the product that shows up, you know, like you're trying to discover products.

11:27So the first thing to do is really try to understand, deconstruct AIO, what exactly is visible by different types of source terms. You know, so sometimes if you are trying to, if you source for a bottom of the funnel type of a question, if AIO does show up, it's a different mix. Boris is on the top, right? So that's one. The second is we look at is your, whose brand is being mentioned, you know, by on each of these survey elements, like for example, who is getting the free listings on running shoes? Which brand is it? And then we try to deconstruct, okay, you know, like the why. And what we've seen is there's a few elements to getting picked up on AIO.

12:10Sometimes the way the content is written, you know, in bullet forms versus reflow text, we've seen that that gets picked up. Many times for retail, we've seen that inclusion of attributes like GTIN, you know, and rich product attributes on the PTP page also helps you get picked up. Sometimes other attributes like reviews and ratings and pricing, these other product dimensions, you know, if it's rich, then it gets picked up. So at a high level, I think for your traditional text, having bullet forms and making it easier, understandable, having questions in there, not long content, that has gotten picked up, number one.

12:54For retail, it's really rich product attributes on the PTP page. And making sure that if you're not getting rejected by Google Merchant Center or if you're not getting flagged by Google Merchant Center, then it's likely to get linked. And then the classic techniques of being cited by credible sources. Those are other signals we've seen. So we've been talking a lot about the AI overviews, but if you scroll down pretty much any search these days, scroll down a little bit. Some of the top organic results are being delivered from Reddit. And so, you know, I know a lot of people are starting to pay attention to that and go, well, how do I get my stuff to rank on Reddit?

13:35What are you telling clients, you know, about their participation in Reddit? But it is much different than, say, Facebook and LinkedIn in terms of the ecosystem there and the culture there. So how are you advising folks to hopefully get some of their content or their answers, whatever it might be, to show in Reddit? Sure. So I'll give you a live example. We were working with a large shoe company. And the first question they were asking us is, is Reddit visible on the sort? for the questions that I, for the queries that I care to. And so we helped them understand how, what questions Reddit was visible on.

14:17And number two, we went into Reddit and then what we helped them understand is how they are portrayed, you know, to folks like us. Like, you know, if you're trying to source for running shoes, who is very active, like who is active on Reddit? Is it Nike? Is it, you know, Hawkeye? Is it Adidas? and then how large of a community that a Reddit thread has or say Nike running shoes or Nike running shoes. And so what we tell clients is first of all, try to understand where Reddit is visible. Number two, really try to understand your Reddit thread versus your competitor's Reddit thread. And is it one that you have a community manager running or is it just organic?

15:03And then the other thing we do is we've actually helped clients answer a bunch of questions on Reddit. One is we find that a lot of people are talking about pricing on Reddit. What does that sentiment look like? What does product quality look like? And then how people are saying good or bad things about it. And so by giving that visibility, what we recommended to this client is, I mean, they didn't have a community manager. And we said, you know, it's an increasing channel. You know, you get a lot of visibility. People are going there to understand what they like about your product. They're giving ideas.

15:42And so we were recommending that they have a community matcher who constantly analyzes and stays on top of it and then curates the experience. So you cannot just say whatever. But that said, remaining passive is also a not good idea. You know, you want to have a point of view. And sometimes there might be an opportunity to run an ad. You know, when someone has a concern about the brand, then advertisement is a source of being on top of those that are looking at your brand. So you also have a strong point. So these are some of the techniques that we have been telling clients. So what kind of pushback are you getting on?

16:21And this is always the case, but, you know, we went through a period there where everybody was leaning on attribution. Like, if you can't prove that this got me a customer, then I don't want to pay for it. And now, you know, we're telling people you've got to be here and here and here. And some of these places, you know, a community manager, for example, is not a salesperson, right? They're not going to create conversions. So how are you helping people kind of work through that ROI conversation when in some ways we're talking about participating and engaging in ways that you can't measure? Right.

16:57So your question is, how are we helping clients think through the question of, you know, if I put a dollar, you know, and the returns aren't obvious, like a community manager, how should they think about it? Right. Yeah. And so the way we like to describe this is if you use search as a proxy, okay, you know, then there is a certain amount of, you know, the search volume is a proxy on demand for your service or product. And so, you know, if what you're being exposed to is a lot of Reddit in there, right? And then a certain percentage of them clicks through, you know, your classic CTR model there.

17:38And they go in and it's a highly uncurated or experience, then you're losing, right? So it sometimes is defense and sometimes it's offense. So offense could be, you know, you put in a dollar and you get$3 back, okay? But then defense is if you don't have someone in there, it's almost like insurance, right? If you don't have a community manager, then your brand perception could be tarnished. And if you're Rolex, as an example, and someone thrashes your brand, and next year you want to raise prices, people are not going to pay$10 ,000. They actually already have an impression that Rolex is probably not$10 ,000 and you might want to get$1 ,000.

18:24And the other part, in my mind, John, is think about the generation that is getting into Reddit. Some of the brands we work with, they have a slightly more older demographic and they're trying to recruit younger demographics to, in fact, purchase from them. And the younger demographic are going into these communities and the forced impression they have, if there is no impression or if the impression is bad, then you're not going to get them on board. So I like to even say that brands have begun to think of this investment almost as defensive. It's like a leaky funnel, right? If you don't yet go to Home Depot and buy something to fix your faucet, then you'll just keep leaky.

19:15That's also a way that brands have, in fact, approached that question. Awesome. Awesome. Well, lots of changes, lots going on. I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere you'd invite people to connect with you and learn more about the work that you're doing there? Yeah, absolutely. So you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Prasanna D 'Avila, or you can go to our website, growbydata.com, and you'll find me on the executive team. You can find me on LinkedIn, on Twitter, PD277. Happy to be helpful. And this is a fast changing work area and would love to be helpful and supported.

19:52Again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road. Absolutely. Thank you so much, John.