Why AI Content All Sounds the Same (And How to Stand Out With Smarter SEO)

[00:00:00] Brooke: I think that it is a real flex right now to say, created with a human. Or co-created with a human. You're seeing a lot of creative developers and producers really going above and beyond to show that it was.

Made by a real person. I think that now the pendulum has swung, where at first people didn't really care, but now because it's so prevalent. And everybody is getting on board. And there's more content and things trying to grab our attention more than ever. What's really gonna stick out, whether that's you directly or indirectly saying this was created with a human on the team. Or oversight.

Whatever way you can show that either directly or indirectly, I think really will set you apart in the future.

[00:00:50] Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO Show

[00:00:50] Crystal: Welcome to the simple and smart SEO show podcast!

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success. By bringing you insights, [00:01:00] stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond.

Grab a coffee. Or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business.

[00:01:08] Welcome and Guest Intro

[00:01:08] Crystal: Welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO Show podcast.

So happy that you're here with me. And of course we are talking about AI. And I have a wonderful guest that I met at. The recent Pod Fest conference down in Orlando.

I'm here with Brooke Gramer, who is the host of the How I AI podcast.

Brooke, welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show. I'm so glad that you're here today.

[00:01:33] Brooke: Thank you Crystal for having me. I'm so excited. You're my very first like pod collaboration swap. I'm so excited to be on your show. I've actually never been on a podcast myself. So you're my first.

[00:01:48] Crystal: Podcast guest first timer. I love it. So I hope you have fun today. We've talked a little bit, pre-show and I'm pretty laid back and I just. Wanna pick your brain about all your genius. 

[00:01:58] Why Brooke Started Podcasting

[00:01:58] Crystal: But you said that you've been [00:02:00] podcasting for about a year.

So I was just curious: like what made you start how I AI podcast.

Like what was the motivation behind your beginning?

[00:02:09] Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a marketing background. And I find guiding, leading and facilitating conversations to be just a natural born skill of mine.

So podcasting was the next best step for me to just really lean into this amazing platform and you know, networking. It really is. Such a great tool for any business owner.

And when I thought really deeply about what I wanted my podcast to be, it really was the conversations that I was having over dinner consistently in my peer group. 

[00:02:49] AI Learning Urgency

[00:02:49] Brooke: I've been quite involved in self-learning AI for the past couple years. I really delved head deep into it after [00:03:00] attending a local mastermind here in Miami and around the same time Mindvalley was doing one of their free AI seminars virtually.

And I really grasped the sheer urgency of I need to start to learn this now and what better way than to tap into industry experts weekly?

[00:03:21] Podcasting as Networking

[00:03:21] Crystal: Oh my gosh, you're so right. Like I have found this to be the best networking tool of all time.

[00:03:28] Brooke: Yes.

[00:03:29] Crystal: I think it helps too to come from a genuine place. There's some smart ways to do this as well to grow your business.

Like interviewing people you wanna work with, and all that type of stuff. But I'm a lot like you, like I just felt like the conversations that I was having with people deserve to have more of an audience. Just so people, number one, wouldn't feel alone in their, quest to learn AI and this, 

[00:03:51] Brooke: yes.

[00:03:51] Crystal: all of this digital revolution that's happening all around us.

It's okay let's plug into conversations with each other. And bounce ideas off. It would just be terrible for the ideas to be stuck [00:04:00] in this room, 

[00:04:00] Brooke: mm-hmm.

[00:04:01] Crystal SEO Origin Story

[00:04:01] Crystal: partner and I, when we started the podcast a few years ago.

We said we want people to be able to be a fly on the wall. And then I just fell in love with SEO and search engine optimization and everything website building.

And this was my career after teaching. I started out an SEO because I had an Etsy shop. Etsy was recommending my competitors, and I realized it was time to have my own website. And so I, fumbled my way

[00:04:24] Brooke: oh.

[00:04:24] Crystal: that. And now I show Etsy sellers how to do the same thing, but. SEO came into the mix in 2020. And after that I was like, oh, this is the bridge that I've been missing.

And I've been looking for so long. And of course, like you said, there's no better way to learn it than to go talk to the people who are the best known SEOs in the world.

So yeah.

[00:04:47] Brooke: Yes.

[00:04:48] Crystal: you're among great company. 

[00:04:49] AI Content Sameness Problem

[00:04:49] Crystal: I guess I said all that to say you have some amazing company on this podcast.

But one of the things that I loved about your perspective on AI is just the danger [00:05:00] of, depending on ai,

[00:05:03] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:04] Crystal: too much for content creation. And the internet sounding the same.

And so that

[00:05:09] Brooke: Yes.

[00:05:10] Crystal: What was the moment that you realized, oh, no. The internet is starting to sound the exact same.

[00:05:20] Brooke: It definitely was when the M dash came along. And everybody started noticing that LLMs were favoring M dashes. Some more than others noticed it.

And eventually it became a full-blown cultural topic and conversation on how, oh, we can tell you're writing about ai. Fast forward to where we are now.

It's very prevalent and top of mind: am I reading something that was just AI generated? 

[00:05:53] Training AI Brand Voice

[00:05:59] Brooke: And I think there's two sides of the coin to that. I think that we cannot discredit someone that puts [00:06:00] a lot of thought and intention behind. The input and the prompt that they put into AI before receiving copy back.

And not just completely discredit what they used AI to co-create.

And then there's the other side where people are just you know, really quickly not putting thoughts behind it. You can tell it all starts to sound the same when you haven't trained your ais in your own unique brand and personality. You know, people want to feel like they're, they're connecting to you.

So it's really critical right now to be training your models and your data with your unique brand voice.

[00:06:44] Proving Human Made Content

[00:06:44] Crystal: Yeah, and I was so torn for a while that I was like, even on my LinkedIn posts, you can go back about a year. And you can see that I put something like co-created with Chat GPT.

And then I saw somebody say, people don't care, like where it came for. From, they just want it done. [00:07:00] And so I went back and forth with that.

It's like, how much do you share with

[00:07:04] Brooke: Hmm.

[00:07:05] Crystal: especially people that you're working with, or if you're making a post or whatever, do you think it's important to say, this is how I generated this? Or is it just that were a part of generating it so therefore you can, take full credit for it?

[00:07:21] Brooke: I wanted to coin the phrase, not a bot. And just kind of be putting that like in my profile. And because things are changing so quickly. With AI generated models, AI generated. Influencers.

I think that it is a real flex right now to say, created with a human. Or co-created with a human. You're seeing a lot of creative developers and producers really going above and beyond to show that it was.

Made by a real person. I think that now the pendulum has swung, where at first people didn't really care, but now [00:08:00] because it's so prevalent. And everybody is getting on board. And there's more content and things trying to grab our attention more than ever. What's really gonna stick out, whether that's you directly or indirectly saying this was created with a human on the team. Or oversight.

Whatever way you can show that either directly or indirectly, I think really will set you apart in the future.

[00:08:27] Crystal: You've. Of talked about like this hive mind.

[00:08:29] Brooke: Yes, yes.

[00:08:30] Crystal: People use it without anchoring it in real customer language. Which is another thing I love because you can create custom GPTs and gems and different things to sound like you. 

[00:08:40] Polished but Forgettable Sites

[00:08:40] Crystal: why do you think so many websites end up sounding so polished and wonderful, but yet they're so forgettable.

[00:08:47] Brooke: Great question. I think that. Now we're at the point where being polished and presentable is the bare minimum. It's no longer hard. [00:09:00] Or inconsistent. Or rare.

And so what's the next step to stand out in that type of crowd? You kind of see this with Gen Z coming in. And them being the anti millennial.

Where we came in with our perfectly curated grids. And everything was minimalist with

beige and neutrals. And now Gen Z's like, you know, really coming on and they wanna make it seem like you're just jumping into their life and it's not polished. So there's always gonna be a reaction to what seems to be consistent. And what everybody else is doing. Because you wanna be memorable. You want to stand out.

So it's really, of course, aligning with your values and your brand and your goals and thinking of how can I really be distinctive. When everybody else can just very quickly vibe code and create a [00:10:00] website in just a minute.

[00:10:01] Crystal: A couple things crossed my mind there, because you talked about, everybody's meeting a new standard now,

[00:10:06] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:07] Crystal: And in SEO there's the clickbait title of like SEO is dead. And it's no, actually basic sEO is like table stakes. It's just understood that there's certain things that you are gonna do just to stay competitive.

[00:10:19] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:20] Crystal: so I think that kind of reinforces what you just said. And then I think about my son who's Gen alpha.

[00:10:26] Brooke: Yes.

[00:10:27] Crystal: colorful. Like he loves colorful shoes. He doesn't need to match.

It drives my husband insane. But he is so colorful and he's I want color everywhere, but I'm a xal.

I'm right between Gen X and millennials.

[00:10:41] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:42] Crystal: I tend to trend towards the muted colors and I love greige. My whole house is greige.

[00:10:48] Brooke: Yes.

[00:10:49] Crystal: Brands are maybe not realizing that it's not just about losing rankings with SEO.

[00:10:55] Brooke: Hmm.

[00:10:56] Crystal: but it's also like losing recognition. Not [00:11:00] having any sort of, what's that word in marketing? Where you have that thing that's different from other brands that makes you distinguishable?

[00:11:08] Brooke: Yeah, I like to say your unique intrinsic value. Brand distinguishers.

[00:11:13] Crystal: Exactly. Okay. 

[00:11:15] SEO Shift to Clear Answers

[00:11:15] Crystal: You've said the SEO is shifting from keyword tricks to be the best answer in the clearest language. 

[00:11:22] Brooke: Yes.

[00:11:23] Crystal: What changed to make that true now?

[00:11:25] Brooke: I think, to your point of SEO, and how people are showing up differently online. And being distinctive. You know, When you think about that hive mind... and it's so funny 'cause that TV show Pluribus is really popular right now. It's on either Apple tv like we're all pulling from the same main brain brain, right?

And so we're all gonna get the same keywords and generated answers. But it's really tapping into your audience and thinking about what are the key words that they're using when they're speaking to their friends? Or., When they're searching [00:12:00] for something online. You want to really speak about, speak in the terms that your customer speaks in.

For instance, I was working with a recent client dental office here in South Florida, and their goal was of course to be, you know, the number one result on chat GPT. And we went through their website and we went through. They don't necessarily have an FAQ section yet. But they have a lot of places where they're answering questions, but in a very polished, dental forward way.

And I don't know about you, but when I have something going on in my mouth and I'm looking it up, I'm not using dental terms. I'm very run of the mill with the language and terminology that I use.

And so when I talk about changing from keywords to what people are actually saying, thinking about the full on.

key phrases and questions that they would ask as if they were sitting and speaking to their friend. Very [00:13:00] candidly.

And that's the type of language that you want to use. Really getting into how people are speaking day to day. I always say keep it at a sixth grade, eighth grade reading level. Be very specific and, and human.

In how you use your copy. And how you want to be coming up in a, for instance, LLM search result. 

[00:13:24] Crystal: I think about a time where I was doing a page for a chiropractor,

[00:13:29] Brooke: Yes.

[00:13:30] Crystal: and I, again, GPTs. I've created this semantic analyzer that I love. And it's very blunt. Like it's not, oh, care about your feelings.

And I forgot to tell him before I sent it that it was very blunt.

I thought we'd had that conversation. Unfortunately, I didn't.

And it hurt his feelings a little bit because on his homepage he was talking about the jargon of chiropractic care.

[00:13:54] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:55] Crystal: And then also the fact that he is a functional medicine doctor.

[00:13:59] Brooke: [00:14:00] Hmm.

[00:14:00] Crystal: so the message got a little convoluted. Because like you said, when people think chiropractor, they think: I need to get out of pain.

[00:14:09] Brooke: Yes.

[00:14:10] Crystal: you get me out of this debilitating pain that I'm in? 

[00:14:13] Brooke: Yes.

[00:14:14] Crystal: so that semantic alignment was just whacked out. Because when people are searching to get out of pain, they're not interested in that deeper dive of functional medicine. I.

[00:14:24] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:24] Crystal: It was really funny because he loved the feedback. At least in terms of okay, I can see how that is.

But he was like, dang, that was harsh. And I've said, oh, I'm so sorry. I forgot to tell you I have an analyzer, a tool, A GPT that I use that gave us that feedback. And it's very straightforward. 

[00:14:41] Brooke: Yes.

[00:14:42] Crystal: think so many times, like when we're in our business, we know all of the professional reasons

[00:14:47] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:48] Crystal: great. it's connecting, like you said, to that customer language. That's so important because 

[00:14:54] Brooke: mm-hmm.

[00:14:55] Crystal: What are they actually trying to solve for?

[00:14:58] Brooke: Yes.

[00:14:59] Crystal: And how can [00:15:00] we provide meaning back to them?

[00:15:01] Brooke: Yes, exactly. 

[00:15:03] Crystal: When we 

about

[00:15:03] Voice of Customer Data Sources

[00:15:03] Crystal: using AI to extract customer language. Not just replacing our voice. Where do you think that we could be pulling that customer language from? 

[00:15:14] Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. Great question. So you can pull language, if you have any group or community board. Say you have a Facebook group. Or a Reddit group. Or you know, people that are consistently commenting on your social media.

Really getting that language and terminology. Even maybe transcribing calls and discovery calls when clients call you.

And any type forms or data surveys that you use.

To get information on what people are seeking.

Really like paying attention to the languaging that they use. And you can gather all this data and really upload it to AI. And then kind of have it read it [00:16:00] back to you.

And say, you know, what are the maybe repeated phrases or problem statements that my clients are using?

And this is gonna help you get more clear on those, more relatable, quote unquote, keywords to be using. 

[00:16:15] Crystal: Such great ideas. So how do you tell the difference between voice of customer versus generic AI voice? Because if I'm someone who's listening to this right now

[00:16:28] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:28] Crystal: Take the lazy way out of it. I might give that prompt to an LLM

[00:16:34] Brooke: Mm-hmm. And be like, what

[00:16:35] Crystal: are people saying about this?

What do you think is different from, the genuine customer voice? Versus what AI might give back to you in terms of what they think people are saying?

[00:16:46] Brooke: Yeah. So when you are pulling all this data and you have all this information. That's when it's your time to really train the model. And when you have all these examples, this is the data that feeds the machine, [00:17:00] right? And this is when you can be really clear on your prompts and write maybe voice or terminology rules.

You wanna give it a tonality. You wanna tell it what not to say. If there's any words you want it to avoid; say for like client sensitivity.

You don't ever want to use like, fear words. Maybe for that dentist. I was just thinking about, you know, you don't want to scare them off with any words that make them, you know, it's sensitive going to the dentist.

A lot of people fear it. And being mindful of that. So once you have your core audience defined. And in one sentence. And really what their problem set is from all of this data.

That is when you can use the prompt. And training or models with this information. And that's really gonna set you apart from someone who isn't taking that step to really tone the brand voice of their ai. 

[00:17:56] Crystal: When I did this analysis for the chiropractor, his [00:18:00] differentiator is that he's mobile.

[00:18:02] Brooke: Hmm.

[00:18:03] Crystal: He's mobile and he doesn't take insurance. He just charges a flat fee. Those were two interesting things that he had about his brand.

But in the semantic analysis, there was a suggestion that, hey, instead of explaining why you don't take insurance. Because you sound defensive,

[00:18:23] Brooke: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:24] Crystal: this approach. And it also reminded me of sometimes people are scared to go to chiropractors, 

[00:18:29] Brooke: yes.

[00:18:30] Crystal: can you do to help people feel safe?

And you're not gonna come outta here worse than when you came in.

I don't think that we consider that fully sometimes as business owners. That people need that comfort and reassurance

[00:18:45] Brooke: hmm 

[00:18:45] Crystal: in our copy as much as anything. And I think that client language, it's such a great tip to help people understand that.

[00:18:52] Brooke: definitely.

[00:18:53] Crystal: What about writing for how people actually search?

[00:18:57] Brooke: Mm

[00:18:58] Crystal: I do try to, [00:19:00] sometimes things are above my head. Like even when I think about semantic, SEO and semantic analysis, those are big words.

Those are jargony words that I need sometimes broken down a little bit 

[00:19:11] Brooke: more.

[00:19:12] Crystal: Why do you think it's such a big unlock to bring the language down to a lower level? Say, sixth to eighth grade even, which is probably a little too high for me. 

[00:19:21] Brooke: I think that is the way that people are speaking day to day.

When they're just doing basic research and seeking solutions. You know, it's all about the environment.

Obviously, if you're at a networking space or you're attending a conference. Your vocab is gonna go up just based on your environment.

But when you're one-to-one, having an inner dialogue. And seeking third party resources. You're gonna want things really clear to be able to move forward.

So that's why in marketing we always [00:20:00] talk about sixth grade reading level. And yeah, it's really, you know, how do you find us answers.

And thinking about those exact problem statements that people would use and getting in the head.

And whether that's just doing some focus group study. You know. Old school calling your customer or doing research and getting on the phone and speaking to real people about, Hey, what are your pain points right now?

Podcasting, you know, is really great to have these conversations. Getting behind the scene look of how people are really expressing themselves when it comes to seeking solutions to their problems.

[00:20:44] Crystal: Yeah. And as I think about the professions with websites. The the professional professions, if you will, the doctors, the dentists, the lawyers.

One client comes to mind who was a clinical researcher.

It's okay, these websites [00:21:00] become that much more of an extension of them personally and professionally, but it's not LinkedIn. And so you're not talking to your peers or your colleagues. You're talking to that person you serve.

and How have you that line between someone saying, Hey, this is my professional, outward expression.

And I want to maintain some level of professionalism persona to the

[00:21:24] Brooke: Yes.

[00:21:25] Crystal: attract the people that need my help. Which are not my fellow, they're not my peers.

[00:21:30] Brooke: Yes. I think that in the AI era, a lot of people are coming up against their ego right now. We're all having to relearn. And we're all novices again.

And maybe you've been the top of your industry. But the quicker that you can pivot and translate what has worked in the past, what is working now with without losing your core essence.

Obviously there's ways to really still seem like a thought [00:22:00] leader and a trusted resource. But still be able to meet people where they're at. When they're wanting to work with you and learn more from you.

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