

5 Oct 2026 · 44m · 17 chapters

Who “owns” AI discovery in enterprise search. The episode argues that GEO/AEO (and AI-driven search) require decentralized, cross-functional responsibility rather than a single SEO team owning content, schema, reputation, and off-site signals.
Siri Lee, Senior Director, Global Direct Consumer at Manscaped. She leads global e-commerce strategy and digital customer experience; Manscaped moved from inventing “below-the-waist men’s grooming” to broader “man carrier everywhere/head-to-toe” grooming.
No one person owns AEO/GEO; there must be a central “linchpin” orchestrator plus distributed ownership. Success depends on continuous feedback loops, leadership alignment, and treating agencies as extensions of the in-house team (not parallel silos).
PR/reputation and customer service shaping public narrative; engineering’s “black-and-white” language as a common barrier; off-site corroboration around backlinks (fresh third-party content) and the need for first-person/review/opinion signals to avoid homogeneous AI-generated content.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes.
Discussion on the expanding role of SEO teams and collaboration.
“My name is Tyson and joining me today is Siri Lee, Senior Director, Global Direct Consumer at Manscaped, where she leads the brand's global e-commerce strategy and digital customer experience.”
Exploration of how different teams contribute to SEO success.
“You know, it's table stakes to just know what a website needs to do to perform better.”
Shifting from direct control to indirect influence in SEO.
“So significantly more of the organization is shaping AEO and GEO than I think most of us currently realize.”
Tips on fostering teamwork and communication across teams.
“So from my perspective, it's a mental, it's a mindset shift to kind of not think about your own lane, but think about it as decentralized ownership.”
The importance of treating agencies as part of the internal team.
“but it's not like a direct control aspect.”
Strategies for building personal connections in a remote environment.
“Like, how do you feel like the in-house versus third party kind of like partner?”
Learn strategies to enhance collaboration between in-house teams and agencies.
“when you're in the same space of it, whether you're getting coffee or, Hey, we just finished up, let's go, you know, grab dinner or a drink across the street.”
Explore how to make informed decisions in a fast-evolving SEO landscape.
“At this stage, things are evolving much faster that I think any one of us is comfortable or our organizational processes are frankly built to handle.”
Explore the difficulties SEOs face when working with engineering teams due to communication gaps and differing perspectives.
“Possibly unpopular opinion, but I do think it's typically the engineering team because the language they speak is so different.”
Learn how the significance of backlinks has shifted towards broader content context and its implications for SEO strategies.
Understand the rising role of reputation and customer feedback in shaping brand visibility in search results.
“So the reputation piece, the opinion piece has been something much discussed in that space.”
Discover the challenges and strategies of transitioning from a niche market to a broader market in the grooming industry.
“You know, your Reddit, your reviews, all of those different things that we quite frankly don't always have control over directly now matter even more.”
Explore the need for cross-departmental collaboration to effectively tackle AI-driven search challenges.
“We have now gone into a world where, you know, we call it man carrier everywhere and it is truly head to toe men's grooming.”
Learn about the dynamics of on-site and off-site SEO activities and the need for a cohesive strategy.
“And, you know, we are probably experiencing the biggest disruption in the space in since its advent, really.”
Discuss the evolving landscape of SEO and the necessity for companies to adapt to changing dynamics.
“to make sure that we work from the same foundation and toward the same objective in both spaces.”
Explore the evolving structure of SEO teams and their roles within organizations.
“And I do agree, like similar to how you express that SEO as a discipline within the organization is becoming more diverse.”
Discussion on the ongoing relevance of SEO in the age of AI and generative content.
“So I don't believe that the industry as such is going to go away.”

Get the gist, explore an idea or ask about something said.
On Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast, what are the key points of this episode?
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.
0:00The Voices of Search podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything podcast network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit IHearEverything.com. Welcome to the Voices of Search podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything podcast network. Ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts? Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search podcast, Jordan Cooney.
0:48As search is expanding beyond one experience, it's also expanding the number of teams responsible for driving real business success. We've always had to work across multiple teams, but the bar has been raised even further. My name is Tyson and joining me today is Siri Lee, Senior Director, Global Direct Consumer at Manscaped, where she leads the brand's global e-commerce strategy and digital customer experience. Today we're going to be talking about who owns AI Discovery, why GEO and AEO are forcing SEO teams to work across traditional organization barriers, and what it takes to move fast when search is changing faster than most organizations can adapt.
1:28Siri, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. You know, it's table stakes to just know what a website needs to do to perform better. But it's a whole nother game and a whole nother like strategy of how do you mobilize within, especially in the enterprise organization to be effective. And so maybe to start off with the listeners, how do you see the function of search evolving? And how is that either increasing or decreasing in the other players that are needed to be involved? It's a very interesting question. And to many of us, it hasn't always felt that way. but SEO mostly lives in a world we can very much control.
2:17And often it's controlled within a single team, at least, you know, that's how we typically organizationally structure ourselves. You have the keywords, the content, the structured data. You have collaborators and stakeholders like your engineering team, of course. But there is a centralized ownership around SEO typically. With GEO and AEO coming in, things are moving very fast into a direction where reputation, PR, tech, marketing, legal are not just stakeholders. They are becoming equal collaborators and partners. So significantly more of the organization is shaping AEO and GEO than I think most of us currently realize.
3:07And I've always felt like, you know, we've had this dependency in SEO on other teams where, you know, you have some larger teams that have their own content. So it's in that same department or function. But then a lot of times, especially like smaller brands, you're having to work across those other teams. but I do feel like you've kind of hit on is with the new world that we're in, it feels like it is even more diverse of the number of stakeholders that you're having to indirectly work with and manage. It's like, do you see SEO teams kind of expanding the functions more within or do you see it more being kind of like a piece of all these other roles as well and just further kind of spreading in the organization?
3:58The latter. I do think we all need to get comfortable with the idea that no single person or entity owns AEO outright. It's becoming a much more broad responsibility across many teams. And frankly, teams that very often have different priorities, different objectives, and more than likely don't sit on the same work chart than you. but still have kind of equal stake rather than one centralized team kind of directing what is the content, what is the schema. So from my perspective, it's a mental, it's a mindset shift to kind of not think about your own lane, but think about it as decentralized ownership.
4:51And it's kind of a, almost like a unique skill set that indirect management, where I feel like direct management, you have that control, you have that authority, it's a little more linear. But with the indirect management or influence, it's becomes almost more of a nuanced soft skill, which, you know, cannot always be like as clearly defined. Like, do you have any like tips or recommendations for people that maybe are still starting to hone that craft of how do I have an influence outside of my, you know, direct reporting lines? We as an organization are certainly not there yet. The crux of it to me is it cannot be kind of this one-time handover.
5:44It has to be a constant feedback loop and collaborative effort. I don't think it's a matter when I say decentralizing, I don't think it is a matter of kind of not having an owner at all. It is certainly still required for us to have kind of this linchpin, this central person that helps orchestrate everything. Right. If you think about the data, you still have to have someone to kind of hold those keys because everyone needs to rally around that data. So it is certainly not a matter of of decentralizing to the point where there is no owner. It is more about distributed responsibility among different departments, but not to be confused with it being unowned.
6:40And in some ways, I feel like it reminds me of like the difference between like leadership or management, where it's like you're really trying to lead the organization and like appeal to like all these other different teams kind of like functions and interest. but it's not like a direct control aspect. And it feels like similar to that transition that someone makes, like going from being maybe like a team lead to a director or like VP. It's like now you're starting to play like a whole new game or it's like the next chapter, so to speak, of like influence within an organization that you can have.
7:19Yeah, you become more of a center of gravity that pulls everything together rather than to your point of management manager or orchestrator and that that piece that you just hit on like being a gravity for it I feel like that is such a good comparison in this because ideally yeah if you're doing this right you're not like having you're not necessarily chasing down all these teams and you know the time that that would take but making and also like the interest of people coming to that centralized piece like any any tips that you'd have of like how do you create that like inbound kind of movement in the organization rather than just chasing as the first step making sure everybody recognizes the importance and really rallying the organization around a central goal.
8:21What I find in my day-to-day is that there's still a lot of, or a lack of understanding, a lack of kind of, you know, and fairly things move very fast in that space. So communicating, making sure that, you know, the organization as a whole is on board with what is happening what is the data where do we as a brand stand when you look at you know all of these new ways of measure measurement citation share whatever it may be and ensuring that we all align on that and then ingrain it into our respective workflows and making every every part of the organization part of the greater good and whether you do that through a set of shared goals or objectives or you know company-wide objectives and goals that is where in my opinion kind of the magic happens and it's like there still is in a lot of ways with that like that top top leadership alignment of the organization and in in some ways too it feels like the in-house seo teams or roles it's almost like in a team like an agency within the organization because it's like you're having to treat each of those parties whether it's you know pr and content marketing or analytics development it's like each one is almost like a a client that you are serving not necessarily being like oh you have to listen to me because it's like you want to be as valuable as possible to them so then you know you're continuing to just build upon that trust absolutely yes very well said well another aspect too i feel like the compositions of like and I've heard you know various companies calling it different things some people it's still under SEO some people it has a new name but it's like let's just call it like search as a whole to me the composition of those teams are they're changing in complexity of like who else is involved but then you also have like agencies and outside parties and you know for us it's like we we do a lot of engagements where we're working as a part of this team.
10:56Like, how do you feel like the in-house versus third party kind of like partner? How do those elements play together in managing the function within a enterprise? You absolutely have to treat your agency as an extension of your team. If they just run a parallel path to what an in-house team is doing, you are continuing to create the silos that we cannot afford in this space. So making sure that you bring the agency along in terms of understanding your business in the very same way you do. Assumption is often where partnerships and decentralized models quietly go to die. So making sure that, you know, your agency partners are just as valuable a team member as the in-house team is to me the crux of it.
11:59A hundred percent. And it's, it's not just like operating in the same systems, whether it's Slack teams, like whatever data access, but it's a, I mean, I've even joined like team building events and like gone with clients as off sites. And it's like, I think there's like a personal element of it too, which then creates like it to happen more naturally. So it's like, I think oftentimes people think like, oh yeah, okay, that means we're in the same like Slack account. But to me, it can go a lot farther of like how you're actually building relationships with those team members. Agree 100 % Slack access, Teams access, Asana access, whatever your tools of choice is foundational and an absolute minimum requirement.
12:53Getting to know these team members face-to-face ideally. We are remote companies so that's a little bit more difficult to achieve but we have similarly made sure that you know we get together and we meet our extended team members as often as we can but even just you know at the beginning of a meeting having personal exchanges making sure you know we know who each other are where each other are you know what part of the world are you dialing in from what are your hobby is, hey, what does your dog look like? You know, silly things like that. I really do think help form a relationship. As a remote company, we're much more used to making sure that connective tissue is there anyway, but extending that to partners and agencies is absolutely critical.
13:53Yeah, I love that you hit on that piece, especially with the remote work, Because I think like, that's like, like some of those conversations are what you get naturally when you're in the same space of it, whether you're getting coffee or, Hey, we just finished up, let's go, you know, grab dinner or a drink across the street. And it's like, you get that inherently, I think when you're in person. And I've found like the more successful like companies or teams that are making that extra a little bit of effort of like staying on a call for another five, 10 minutes or like starting off the conversation, like you said, to actually get to know them.
14:32It's like, that seems to be almost like the grease that keeps the wheel going smoothly. And it's like, yeah, you can't point to one like, oh, we did that. And then we saw this change of improvement. It's just like, it's just kind of something that just makes everything a little bit smoother and easier and more yeah lack of a better way to say it human it's a mind it's a mindset first and foremost absolutely and any any other tips that you'd have of like how can you how if someone else is being like listening and they're on the in-house side as well and they're like yeah like I don't you know I only talk to my agency that I work with like once a month or like we're not doing this like any additional tips that you'd give of like hey just start doing these three simple things tomorrow to build a better working relationship make it a habit of within reason sharing the same information that you share with your in-house team with them right and it can be little things about the company it doesn't have to always be the numbers the details the most sensitive information, of course, but would you share with your team you're out of office or do you run them through your objectives at the beginning of the year?
15:55Do you talk to them about an interesting podcast? You've heard changes in the market that are being discussed at the executive level, you know, any kind of market studies, things like that. I find that often the agencies are hungry for that information. They want that information. They want to be involved. So think of them as kind of just another part of your team as you're sharing that information. That would be number one. Number two would be don't talk to your agency just once a month. Don't do that. Make sure that, you know, there are regular connection points at every level. It, you know, it doesn't help if we have a once a month leadership connect, but the rest of the team only talks to each other on a monthly cadence.
16:56set yourself up in a way that it is more of a hey this person is an expert in in x why don't you talk to them you know on a quick coffee chat whatever that may be um those i think from my perspective would be the most helpful helpful tips i would give someone and it's perfect i mean really it's like you're you're highlighting areas too that it's like it's how you would manage an employee and you're creating that similar experience from it where you're not going to have just a monthly one-on-one with your employee and only talk to the employee once a month. So why would you do that also with the agency?
17:40And I think especially for like the people on the agency side that are listening too, it's like, these are, these are things that are going to also allow you to deliver more effective work because one of the one of the most classic challenges between like in-house and agency is sometimes the agency not having that context so then maybe the deliverable is three degrees off where it was it was good work it was just slightly off the mark and i've always like you know told team members and things like that it's like yeah you want to be discussing this in your regular, whether it's weekly or biweekly calls.
18:18But also it's like, from the agency side, you should also put yourself in as if you're the employee on the company side. And it's, you know, if it's a large enterprise that has earning calls, listen to the earnings calls, or at least I get the transcript and throw it into an LLM for a summary of it. Because then you know, like, hey, from top down, these are the goals and the direction of the business. that's only going to allow you to ensure that your work is going to be as valuable as the time and effort you put into it. So I think there's like, it can happen on both sides too, where you need the agencies to embrace that type of relationship as much as the employer or the in-house.
19:02Absolutely. And you make a very critical point here, vice versa. and why ultimately we decided to go with an agency model. The AEO and GEO space is evolving so incredibly quickly. What we talked about on a call last week may no longer be true or relevant. And we internally as a brand with a very small team around us cannot possibly keep up with the evolution, the learnings, you know, all of these different pieces that are just coming to light. It is truly a brand new space for us. And we have, you know, so many other things that we are taking care of in our day to day. So having an agency that thinks of us in that very same way and says, hey, you know, there's this piece of information out there.
19:57This is what it means in the context of your brand and just proactively reaching out with that information and bringing us along on the journey and not assuming that we know or that we have seen Google's latest announcement, that is also incredibly helpful. 100%. Now, as we're kind of like maturing more and more into like AI search, and I think, you know, hopefully the listeners have gotten the point that it's like spreading farther across the organization with that you have additional challenges of alignment and the more hands that you have involved you know the more you have those you know additional efforts that need to be made with how fast the industry is moving there's also this challenge of speed within the organization like with our discipline becoming more encompassing of the organization, like how do we also keep up with the pace and the speed as we're having to also deal with the broader breadth of our activities?
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22:38That's a great question. At this stage, things are evolving much faster that I think any one of us is comfortable or our organizational processes are frankly built to handle. What that means, I think, in many of our day-to-days is that we're faced making decisions that don't have perfect certainty around them. The skill here I'm finding is that you know when to move and when to weight right when do you chase that latest headline when when is it something that you really want to get in on on the ground floor or when is it just a hype and you're better off sitting back as much as you have the data and as much as you have that solid foundation built that will help solidify and connect you to what's actually going on within your brand and how that information relates to the brand.
23:47Data will help you make you much more comfortable to make that judgment call. But I'm also very aware of that in this space, particularly with how quickly things are moving um the data is not always available and we don't always have perfect certainty before we're required to make a decision i i love the point too that you made in there of like having the patience and it's like in in some ways it was making me like picture like a someone that's new at surfing and you see them like trying to catch a wave and they'll paddle paddle paddle lapel and put out all this effort and the wave still passes them by and then you see like the old veteran that waits is a little more patient times it right maybe has three strokes next thing you know they're you know up and riding away and sometimes yeah it's not necessarily like the effort that you're making for it but like when and how you are making that effort that can really be the difference of being more effective.
24:54And as we're having to do that with more and more teams, it's like, you got to be a bit more selective of how efficient you are also, you know, being effective in these ways. Because especially in a large organizations, like, that's, that could be a huge portion of the job, just having these cross-functional, like, meetings and alignment and connections. Right, and everyone interprets the information out there slightly different, right? What our technology team hears from Shopify on what's relevant in this space is very different from the conversation I have with Christina, our head of communications and PR.
25:37And everyone is trying to ingest what is out there and make it relevant for themselves. So we are all facing these uncertain decisions of what to pick up right away and what to maybe let go by if we're thinking about the analogy of your your your wave and your surfer and it's it's a good call out too because you do have to speak different languages in some ways where it's like how you know how you're going to communicate and speak to someone that's in pr is going to probably be very different in nature than how you're going to talk to a head of engineering or someone on that side. And also keeping in mind that sometimes these teams will have fundamental different primary KPIs they're going after.
26:31And a classic one could be an engineering team that has a KPI around conversion rate, where from the SEO or the marketing side, It's more of like, well, also how many people are we getting there? And if you're not aware of those kind of nuances and maybe even attribution, then it's hard to also speak to like, what is interesting to them and what are they going to want to also hear to make their life easier in addition to whatever you're trying to push and navigate. Absolutely. And it goes back to the conversation we had in the beginning around a decentralized model, right? And in a way, we've always had that.
27:16The stake that, you know, engineering had an SEO was always different from the content team. Now the ownership is much more critical because in no small part, because it is still so new and things are changing so quickly. So one person can't possibly keep up and just delegate. It needs that buy-in. It needs that understanding of what is my KPI in this bigger piece, in this bigger puzzle or bigger kind of effort. What functions in the organization do you think SEOs typically struggle the most to connect with? Like, do you think there's like a stereotypical group within the org that like SEOs have always had a little bit of a harder time?
28:15Possibly unpopular opinion, but I do think it's typically the engineering team because the language they speak is so different. And they look at things from such a black and white perspective. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. it is simply that you know it is rare that a search lead or an seo is really really good at the technical side of it and then also really really good at the content and the on-site elements of it so having someone to connect that and again i go back to that is where an agency model is incredibly helpful because they typically have experts in both areas and they are used to doing this on a much grander scale.
29:07And then it becomes a matter of connecting the agency outputs back to those different teams and stakeholders. 100%. And that's, I mean, that's a big component too, with like, none of our engagements do we have like a one-to-one mapping of just like one individual working with the client because it's the reality of when you're delivering work is you're not just being giving it to one person or that it's like you're needing to join in you need someone that can speak to the engineers and try to avoid saying things like it depends to them when you have someone that's on maybe like the branding or content marketing side where hey it's a little bit easier to slip in and it depends or a nuanced situational thing given that audience um but it is like a great call out i feel like some people would want to call out like content in the sense of like there has sometimes been that historical clash of like the content purists that don't want to be writing for an algorithm or a bot and to me like that's actually been one of the easier teams and groups to align with because it's like you know you're helping them get more eyes on their work and indoor efforts in whatever form you know that may be but i do agree the like sometimes the nuance that exists within search can be sometimes harder for the engineering folks to stomach, even if we do have such an inherent reliance and involvement with that group in particular.
30:53Yeah, absolutely. That content piece is interesting because if we go back to the point that a lot of what AEO is, happens, or what they look at is they, as if they are an entity is off-site you also now go from this idea of the backlink is what matters to what is around that backlink is actually what matters because we have to pay a lot more attention to what that third-party content says about our brand our product not that we haven't before but the guiding north star was to get that backlink now it is what is the crawler picking up from the content that encompasses that backlink and how does it represent us as a brand yeah it's like the even though there's still inherent value in it it's more of like the the nuance and like those other components are the real north star of it not necessarily the anecdotal kind of yeah quantity of links right and and what the crawlers are looking for now is you know freshness of the content they don't want the same information about the product that is on your own blog or on your own product page repeated somewhere in third party they are looking to corroborate what validate and get new information that they can then piece together so um that is another element that again i don't know that we have fully cracked that yet but that we're certainly very mindful of 100 and it's it it does kind of to me it makes a lot of sense too and it's like we've been having these conversations as far as AI content is increasing more and more and more.
32:58And if you, you know, just as a thought experiment, assume that everyone's using these similar type tools that are trained in the similar data sets, like the risk of homogenous content becomes quite great and a search engine or an LMS like not necessarily going to want to just have all the same. So it would make complete sense of why, you know, first person information, like, opinions, like things that are more individual driven, that's like adding something to the knowledge graph rather than this like, table stakes regurgitation of existing information. Yes, absolutely. And we have seen that, right?
33:41So the reputation piece, the opinion piece has been something much discussed in that space. You know, your Reddit, your reviews, all of those different things that we quite frankly don't always have control over directly now matter even more. And that's where I'll bring us back around to the idea that it is a true full organizational effort, right? because now your customer service team has a seat at the table, your product development team has a seat at the table because we need to make sure from the get-go that there is a clear understanding of what the product is and does and how we bring it to market, where in a classical traditional SEO world, yes, there was some connection there, And, you know, maybe we needed that keyword research early on and we needed to kind of have an understanding about the product.
34:45But now everyone has a responsibility to shape that public narrative around your brand and your product. Absolutely. Now, I feel like your role in with Manscaped, it's in a little bit of a kind of a unique scenario where in a lot of ways, you've come out of like creating or defining a segment in the industry. And now as the brand's growing, you're kind of entering into a larger category or like a broader category. How has like that shift from like creating a category to then growing into a larger category? Like how is that playing into the tactics and the strategies that you're using? on yes that is a great point for a very long time manscaped has the very distinct advantage of basically inventing below the waist men's grooming um there was little we could do wrong because we owned the space we invented the space and it was a um you know a white space that we found and I say that as if I was instrumental in this, but that our founders, you know, occupied and we were able to kind of claim that.
36:08We have now gone into a world where, you know, we call it man carrier everywhere and it is truly head to toe men's grooming. and that does change things because we are forced to look outward much more often. Brands tend to know best. However, if you are breaking into a crowded space, a crowded category, a category that already exists within that kind of men's grooming world in particular, It is critical to look at outside data, outside expertise that may challenge our internal assumptions to make sure that we find our rightful seat at those tables. yeah it's an it's an interesting shift where you know i think how how the approach i mean you have elements that are going to be consistent but i think like it does feel almost like maybe like you've changed leagues that you're like playing and where it's like you're still playing the same sport but it's like it's a different different level of competition slightly different strategy that you're going to use in there.
37:29But it's an interesting dynamic of just like business progression that I think, you know, not everyone has worked in like that, that kind of faster, that area. Now, I want to be mindful of time. And I would like to kind of throw a series of shorter form kind of lightning round questions your way. So the first one I'd love to ask is, What's the biggest organizational barrier preventing brands from succeeding in AI search today? Thinking in silos and specifically thinking of AI driven search as a problem of a single department rather than a holistic organizational effort. A hundred percent. And I think we've hit on it throughout kind of the conversation, but it is a team sport where you are having to work across multiple different functions and that the new era and chapter that we're in is just further increasing kind of the bar and the requirements for that skill set.
38:37Absolutely. Next one I have for you is which team outside of SEO needs to be more involved in GEO and AEO today than maybe they used to in traditional search? The entire organization is the short answer. The long answer is, you know, you have PR, reputation, customer service, engineering, product development, marketing, legal. And then last but not least, of course, you know, if leadership and the executive team is also needs to be bought in. Absolutely. And to me, like that complexity and nuance of how you work across all these different teams, like that's part of the draw and that's part of the interest of SEO or search is like, if we wanted a stagnant, you know, non-dynamic kind of faceted industry, like we probably none of us would have fallen into search.
39:39Like it is a changing dynamic, nuanced space. And this further amplification of it, it's, you know, to me, it's like part of what's fun of what we signed up for. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, we are probably experiencing the biggest disruption in the space in since its advent, really. But yes, that's what makes it fun and keeps it interesting. Next one, I want to narrow in maybe on one of the functions that we work with as SEO teams. So what's one thing SEO teams can do to collaborate better specifically with PR? Share the data. Bring them along on the journey. Help them understand what actually shapes the visibility.
40:30I love that. And in a lot of ways, I feel like it reminded me a bit of kind of how you're also describing like working with like third parties and third party vendors or in agencies. It's like you also need to carry them along with you. And PR, it's like there's going to be a different language of that. But like being able to share that data, like you said, that will also enable them to be more effective, I think, is a win win. Absolutely. so next one we got is as ai search evolves will we spend more time on on-site activities or off-site activities that's a great question um i think right now there is some evidence that the off-site may matter more with that said though you absolutely need to have kind of a balance and a holistic narrative right if the on-site story is very very different from the story that is being told off-site it will not work so while i think we have some data in the off-site direction i truly firmly believe that um one the on-site is what's more in our control and two we all need to make sure that we work from the same foundation and toward the same objective in both spaces.
42:03Yeah. And it's the consistency element that you called out, I think is really important too, because yeah, if you are sending mixed signals of like the broader market is saying this about you, but you're saying something completely different, you know, you're always going to be basically swimming upstream in a lot of ways. And I do agree, like similar to how you express that SEO as a discipline within the organization is becoming more diverse. It does feel like I've spent more time now thinking about offsite activities than I have probably in my entire career in search where before it was much more within our four walls.
42:43And so I do think here, you have this kind of like spreading and like kind of broadening of the discipline as a whole. Absolutely. Final question I got for you five years from now, will companies still have dedicated SEO teams or will it be diffused into just elements of different roles and functions? I believe it may be less of a dedicated team and more a dedicated owner of a decentralized operating model. The work itself will be distributed, but we talked about this earlier, you still need that center of gravity to pull it all together. totally totally agree with that like seo's out there don't worry we still have jobs there's still a lot of excitement in the industry um i do see too like with that it's like yeah you're gonna see some roles probably like diffusing more into other areas but at the same time i i see this opportunity and we've saw it when we did our last like seo job study there's more higher level seo roles, even though you're seeing like shifts and decreases in specialty SEO roles.
44:04So it's like, you do have more director and even some cases VP positions within organizations than you did in the past. Sure, some of like those entry level positions might be diffused into those other teams. But you still have career opportunities. It's still a great industry. Oh, absolutely. And it's still very relevant because ultimately the generative and engines and AI engines, they're getting their content still from the search engines, right? So I don't believe that the industry as such is going to go away. It will evolve and it will include a lot more stakeholders. But I absolutely agree with you.
44:51There's still a lot of room for opportunity within SEO as a whole. Absolutely. And again, this is what we signed up for. We signed up for this change. It's part of also what keeps it interesting. but with that that is going to wrap up this episode of the voice of search podcast thanks again to siri lee senior director of global direct to consumer at manscape for joining us if you like to contact siri you can find a link to her linkedin profile in the show notes or you can go on over to her company's website at manscape.com and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO, GEO, EEO, content marketing knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast after YouTube and we'll be in your feed in the following days.
45:40That's all for today. Thanks for stopping by and we will see you in the next episode.
45:58you
AI is changing the way people discover information online—and SEO is no longer the responsibility of just one team. This episode explores the future of search, including AEO and GEO, and how businesses can adapt to AI-driven discovery.
The conversation dives into decentralized SEO ownership, cross-functional collaboration, agency partnerships, and the importance of building strong relationships across marketing, PR, engineering, content, and other teams. Discover practical insights on how organizations can move faster, make smarter decisions, and stay ahead as the search landscape continues to evolve.
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