Jonny Ross Fractional CMO

In episode 62 of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni look at why getting found online is now only half the job.

AI tools are shortlisting businesses before buyers ever reach a website, and audiences increasingly doubt whether anything they see online is real. So your website now has to earn belief as well as visibility.

The episode opens with a question many business owners face after years with the same site: has the way you write a website specification changed in the AI era, and what should the brief include?

Jonny shares six essentials every website brief needs. Pascal explains why hiring a web agency should be the start of a long-term relationship rather than a one-off transaction.

Jonny and Pascal then react to Maria Greaves’ article for The Drum, “The ‘Renaissance of Real’: the new rules of marketing in the AI era”. They discuss how to keep your website authentic when the internet is flooded with AI-generated content.

They also share two time-saving tools, Ideogram and Gemini Scheduled Actions, and two website changes you can make today: a Key Takeaways box, and a return to the original spirit of blogging.

If you look after your organisation’s website, content or digital marketing, this episode will help you build trust with human visitors and with the AI systems that now decide who gets recommended.

This question came from one of Pascal’s mentoring clients, who is redesigning their website with an agency after many years.

• The fundamentals haven’t changed, but most website briefs are poor and leave plenty of room for things to go wrong.
• Don’t start with colours, fonts and what you dislike about the current site. Start with context: why you need a new website, what it must achieve, who you serve and what part it plays in the customer journey.
• Many visitors now arrive only after AI has shortlisted you. They land later in the buying journey and need to be convinced quickly.
• Build E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) into the brief: a detailed About section, FAQs, real proof and a blog that supports your credibility.
• Create your content plan before the design, so content shapes the layout instead of being squeezed in afterwards.
• Plan for two audiences. Human visitors need clear answers. AI bots need clearly labelled content, structured data and schema markup.
• Expect more from your agency: a simpler content management system, SEO and content strategy alongside the design, a clear project plan with checkpoints, and proper measurement from launch.
• Write a first draft of the specification yourself, without AI at this stage. Then ask the agency to point out the gaps. How they respond shows you how they work and what their culture is like.
• Treat the agency as a partner for the years ahead, so your website keeps pace with your market and your team.

Jonny’s six essentials for a website brief:

1. Purpose: business goals, KPIs and budget.
2. Evidence: analytics, Google Search Console and auditing.
3. Foundation: usability, accessibility, security and the CMS.
4. People: your customers, their needs and their journeys.
5. Content: pages, answers, proof and calls to action.
6. Delivery: scope, roles, migration from the old site and tracking.

Jonny and Pascal review The Drum’s recap of the Memories of Truth event. Its central message is that the battle for attention is over and the battle for belief has begun.

Pascal links it to feedback from his recent talk at an FSB conference in Newcastle upon Tyne, where delegates said they were tired of AI-made menus, flyers and social posts.

• Nearly 85% of people now question whether online content is real, yet AI plays a growing part in how they research purchases.
• Time pressure tempts businesses to rely on AI, which can quietly wear away the sense of “real” on a website.
• Trust has to be experienced. Mix written content with audio, video and imagery to create an experience on your website.
• Use real people, real stories and real numbers, including your founder’s “why” story and case studies that show results.
• Be ready to back up every figure. AI tools are now telling users to check whether the numbers a business quotes are true.
• Gen Z tends to assume content is AI-generated until proven otherwise, and ranks social media and forums among the least trusted channels.
• Embrace “perfect imperfections”. A phone snapshot in your About page or founder story builds more trust than a polished AI image, and AI imagery risks becoming the new stock photography.
• Using AI to edit a real photo is fine, for example to remove distracting signage. The rule is to always start with real content.
• Platforms are struggling too. LinkedIn now lets members flag posts they believe are AI-generated.

Ideogram (Jonny’s pick): https://ideogram.ai

• An AI image generator that renders text inside images cleanly.
• It enhances your prompt by working out what you are really asking for.
• Ideal for blog headers, social graphics and banners, and a good companion to Canva.
• Best used alongside real content, not instead of it.

Gemini Scheduled Actions (Pascal’s pick): https://gemini.google.com/scheduled

• Schedule a weekly news round-up from your shortlist of industry and customer news sources.
• Available in free and paid versions of Gemini, with similar features in other large language models.
• Name the themes you care about so you only receive relevant news, delivered when you want it (Pascal’s arrives every Friday afternoon).
• AI does the first round of research, and you stay editor-in-chief of your news curation content.

Jonny’s Call to Action:

• Add a Key Takeaways box to the top of your three to five most important or popular articles.
• It helps busy readers scan the page and gives AI search a clean passage to understand and quote. AI tends to skim, often reading just the beginning and end of a page.
• It’s a modern take on the classic public speaking advice: tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

Pascal’s Call to Action:

• Reclaim the original spirit of blogging. “Blog” comes from “web log”, meaning a journal.
• Once a month, write up your notes, observations, reflections and customer interactions in a relaxed, free-form style that captures your own voice.
• Use it alongside your planned content, not instead of it.
• First-hand insight like this is hard to copy, and it may well be what AI overviews choose to cite.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• The ‘Renaissance of Real’: the new rules of marketing in the AI era (The Drum): https://www.thedrum.com/news/the-renaissance-of-real-the-new-rules-of-marketing-in-the-ai-era
• Ideogram: https://ideogram.ai
• Gemini Scheduled Actions: https://gemini.google.com/scheduled
• WebProud: The 5-Step Roadmap to Feeling Proud of Your Website Again! (available on Amazon)
• Book a discovery call with Jonny or Pascal: https://webproudmovement.com/

00:19 – Welcome to episode 62: being found is not enough any more

01:12 – You Ask, We Answer: has writing a website specification changed in the AI era?

04:10 – Building E-E-A-T and trust into your website specification

08:41 – Draft it yourself, then ask the agency to find the gaps

09:31 – Jonny’s six essentials for a website brief

10:51 – Website Stories: The Drum’s ‘Renaissance of Real’ and growing AI fatigue

14:22 – Trust has to be experienced: real people, real stories, real numbers

18:14 – Is AI content the new stock photography? The case for perfect imperfections

21:46 – Website Engine Room: Ideogram for AI images with clean text

23:16 – Website Engine Room: Gemini Scheduled Actions for weekly news curation

26:06 – Website Call To Action: add a Key Takeaways box

28:05 – Website Call To Action: Reclaiming the original spirit of blogging

30:28 – Final reflections: authenticity, experience and the WebProud movement

🔎 Primary Keywords:

how to write a website brief, website specification document, website redesign with an agency, building trust on your website, E-E-A-T website content, AI search visibility, authentic content marketing, AI-generated content and trust

🔎 Secondary Keywords & Tags:

choosing a web design agency, website brief in the AI era, website credibility signals, Ideogram AI image generator, Gemini Scheduled Actions, AI news curation, key takeaways box SEO, AI overviews citations, original spirit of blogging, business blogging for SMEs

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👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: https://webproudmovement.com/

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

This is the 61st episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, and Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni answer a critical question facing business owners and marketing leaders: Why is AI making product and service page updates so overwhelming, and why is your best copy actually sitting in your inbox?

The discussion breaks down how to use AI as a thinking partner without sacrificing brand trust, why volume and speed must never replace quality, and how real customer conversations hold the key to high-converting landing pages.

The episode also looks back at the major announcements from Google I/O 2026, revealing how AI Search Agents, YouTube discovery, and Google Maps are fundamentally reshaping modern Search Engine Optimisation.

Jonny and Pascal explain why detailed long-form content matters more than ever, how AI summaries pull raw material from your site, and why online reputation management is now a company-wide responsibility.

Finally, they shares two powerful web management tools and two immediate, high-impact website calls to action.

If you want to make your website work harder, protect your online authority, and feel proud of your online presence, listen or read on:

EXTRA: check out the new website: https://webproudmovement.com/ the future digital home for all things WebProud!

Stop confusing speed and volume with content quality; avoid attempting to rewrite dozens of pages at once.

Your best service or copy page copy lives in your inbox. All you have to do is extract actual client emails, face-to-face conversations, objections, and FAQs.

• Focus on core marketing fundamentals first: Who is it for? What problem does it solve? Why should they trust you?
• Show the clear before-and-after journey to demonstrate real business transformation and value.
• Use AI to challenge and improve your thinking, not as a replacement for fundamental marketing strategy.
• Work in small batches (e.g., 5 pages at a time) and feed AI structured briefs, frameworks, and specific bullet points.

Based on the Google I/O 2026 keynotes, Jonny and Pascal break down 8 critical search shifts:

https://www.youtube.com/live/wYSncx9zLIU?si=5P0Szi6tYOz5ARdf

• Three Core Entry Points: Recognise that Google Search, YouTube, and Google Maps are now the primary AI-powered discovery channels.
• AI Agents in Action: Prepare for AI Search Agents, AI Shopping Agents, and AI News Agents handling user queries directly within Google.
• Rise of AI Summaries & Citations: Understand that your website content serves as the essential raw material for AI-generated answers.
• End of "Short is Always Better": Prioritise explicit, detailed, long-form content over brevity so AI systems have actual facts to cite.
• Company-Wide Content Responsibility: Involve Sales, Customer Service, and HR to capture specialist knowledge across all business touchpoints.
• E-Commerce Structured Data: Implement rich markup and API connections so AI shopping bots can interface directly with your catalog and checkout.
• Google Maps as a Search Engine: Optimise your local profiles as AI overviews become integrated directly into Maps browsing.
• Control Your Brand Narrative: Publish thorough, accurate information so AI engines summarise your true brand story rather than making assumptions.

Gamma (Jonny’s pick): https://gamma.app

AI-driven platform for generating presentations, microsites, lead magnets, and visually engaging documents directly from prompts.

Integrates brand guidelines easily to produce clean, professional visuals without needing a full-time designer.

Ideal for embedding visual slide decks into service or FAQ pages to increase dwell time and engagement.

Google AI Studio for Workspace (Pascal’s pick): https://studio.workspace.google.com/

Safe testing playground within the Gemini environment to build custom automated content workflows.

Allows you to analyze customer email exchanges to uncover key questions and objection-handling copy.

Excellent for curating industry newsletters into internal briefings or public news roundup blog articles.

Jonny’s Call to Action:

• Connect and validate your official social media profiles in Google Search Console.

Provides Google with categorical proof of profile ownership, linking your cross-platform content to build entity authority and power search recommendations.

Pascal’s Call to Action:

• Conduct a comprehensive audit of your industry news sources every six months.

Review and diversify your content inputs across podcasts, white papers, and video feeds to power an authoritative news roundup workflow.

REMINDER: check out the new website: https://webproudmovement.com/ the future digital home for all things WebProud!

00:19 – Welcome to Episode 61: Your best services page copy is sitting in your inbox

02:09 – You Ask, We Answer: Why updating product and service pages with AI causes overwhelm

04:39 – Essential marketing basics to define before using AI prompts

06:05 – Extracting authentic messaging from real customer conversations and emails

07:38 – Managing AI workflows: Why you should work in small batches

09:55 – Website Stories: Key takeaways for website owners from Google I/O 2026

11:43 – The three main AI discovery channels: Google Search, YouTube, and Google Maps

13:15 – AI summaries and citations: Why explicit long-form content matters

15:35 – E-commerce preparation: Integrating structured data for AI shopping bots

20:32 – Website Engine Room: Visual content creation using Gamma

23:18 – Website Engine Room: Automated news curation in Google AI Studio for Workspace

25:11 – Website Call To Action: Linking social media profiles in Google Search Console

27:55 – Website Call To Action: Auditing and diversifying your industry news sources

29:46 – Episode 61 recap and final reflections

Onsite Page & Copywriting Optimisation: services page conversion copywriting, product page content optimisation, inbox customer message mining, addressing buyer objections onsite, BCD AI prompting framework, high-converting landing page structure, before-and-after customer journey copy, small-batch AI content editing, trust building on product pages, E-E-A-T landing page signals.

AI Search & Organic Visibility (Google I/O 2026 Focus): Google I/O 2026 search updates, AI Search Agents optimisation, AI Overview source citations, detailed long-form content strategy, YouTube search discovery, Google Maps AI overviews, e-commerce structured data for AI shopping bots, company-wide content management, brand narrative control.

Onsite Tools, Technical SEO & Authority Building: Google Search Console social media profile linking, platform properties verification, Gamma presentation embeds for dwell time, Google AI Studio workspace content workflows, industry news curation strategy, authority building news roundup blog, website user engagement metrics.

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👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: 90daymarketingmastery.com

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

In this milestone 60th episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni tackle a question that stops many marketers from repurposing their best content: if you bring your social media posts onto your website, are you creating duplicate content that search engines will penalise?

Prompted by a listener question, Jonny and Pascal dismantle this common myth, explain what "repurposing" really means, and reveal why the real risk isn't duplication at all. It's invisibility.

The episode also explores why Instagram continues to outpace Facebook across the EU, and what that shift means for the visual content on your own website. Pascal shares a practical three-part framework for evidence, explanation and atmosphere visuals that any business can use to build a more human, more trustworthy site.

Plus, Jonny and Pascal share the tools they are using to track AI visibility and simplify website data, along with two quick, practical actions you can take on your website this week.

If you are responsible for growing your website's visibility, authority and connection with your audience, you will find lots of practical advice and insights in this episode.

EXTRA: check out the new website: https://webproudmovement.com/ the future digital home for all things WebProud!

A listener wrote in to ask whether repurposing social media posts into website content creates duplicate content that search engines frown upon.

The answer lies in the word "repurpose": this is not about copying and pasting.

• Take what performs well on social media, a post, a stat, a short video, and expand it into something deeper: more detail, more context, real examples from your clients, an FAQ section.

What repurposing actually looks like:

• Use social media as a test bed first. Likes, comments and shares are free market research: if a post lands well, that's your signal to develop it further.
• Turn a "3 top tips" post into a "7 or 8 ways to..." article on your website, backed with real examples, evidence and background from your own client work.
• Change the format, not just the length. A video shared on social can become a written article with more copy. A short written post can become an infographic or a podcast segment instead, what Pascal calls "editing up" in his workshops.
• Turn a reaction to a news story into a deep-dive article: summarise the news item, add your own comment and analysis, then close with practical advice or actions readers can take.
• Add value the original post never had, such as an FAQ section addressing the questions people actually ask.
• You don't need to abandon the original post either. Embed it within the new article, or simply link out to it.

Duplicate content across platforms is largely a myth. If it were a real problem, news websites couldn't all report the same story. Search engines can handle the same idea appearing in more than one place; they simply decide which version to surface.

• Search engines have been designed to scan structured, in-depth content, headers, subheaders and paragraphs, since the mid-1990s, not brief, author-less social posts.
• For most small and medium-sized businesses, the bigger risk isn't duplication. It's a website that hasn't kept pace with what you're already saying on social media, leaving AI tools and search engines with outdated or thin evidence about your business.
• Try it yourself: Google your business and your products. Social posts are rarely cited by Google, ChatGPT or Google AI Mode, largely because they lack a clear author and enough depth to satisfy what these systems are looking for.

Reacting to an article by Andrew Hutchinson on Social Media Today, Jonny and Pascal unpack why Instagram reached 297 million active users in the EU in H1 2026, ahead of Facebook's 264 million, and what website owners can learn from it.

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/instagram-growth-continues-to-outpace-facebook-in-eu/829134/

• The shift is being driven by platform fatigue with Facebook's ads and feed clutter, plus Meta's deprioritisation of news links, which has reduced organic reach for pages.
• The lesson for website owners: visual, authentic content builds trust in the same way it drives engagement on Instagram.

Pascal introduces a three-part visual content framework for websites:

• Evidence visuals – real photography and video of your team, clients and work in action.
• Explanation visuals – diagrams, process steps and how-it-works content that removes uncertainty.
• Atmosphere visuals – mood and lifestyle imagery that brings your brand's world to life.

Jonny and Pascal agree: real, behind-the-scenes imagery consistently beats over-polished, AI-generated visuals.

Pascal's tip: start "scrapbooking", collecting visuals you admire, digitally or otherwise, as ongoing inspiration for your own website content.

• Jonny Ross's pick: Otterly.ai – tracks how your brand appears and is cited across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and other AI platforms over time. https://otterly.ai

• Pascal Fintoni's pick: Google Site Kit – the free official WordPress plugin that brings Search Console and Google Analytics 4 data directly into your WordPress dashboard. https://sitekit.withgoogle.com/

Both tools are designed to help you cut through the overwhelm of tracking performance across an ever-growing number of platforms and data sources.

Jonny's Call to Action: Run the AI Visibility Test. Ask ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity: "What does [your business] do and who is it for?" If the answer is wrong or thin, your website isn't giving AI enough to work with, so fix the gaps.

Pascal's Call to Action: Refresh your blog. Using Hostinger's collection of 55 blog examples across different sectors as inspiration, treat your blog like a shop window and give it a proper reset and refresh. https://www.hostinger.com/uk/tutorials/blog-examples/

REMINDER: we've been working on this new website: https://webproudmovement.com/ the future digital home for all things WebProud!

00:20 – Welcome to episode 60: today's topic

00:35 – Celebrating the milestone and a sneak peek at the new website

02:18 – The listener's question: is repurposing social content duplicate content?

03:19 – Repurposing vs. copying and pasting

04:48 – Why duplicate content is mostly a myth

07:45 – Using social media as a test bed for deeper content

09:33 – Website Stories: Instagram overtakes Facebook in the EU

11:51 – A three-part framework for evidence, explanation and atmosphere visuals

15:42 – The three-tier pyramid of visual content, from professional to candid

18:04 – Website Engine Room #1: tracking AI visibility with Otterly.ai

20:46 – Website Engine Room #2: simplifying website data with Google SiteKit

23:21 – Website Call To Action #1: running the AI visibility test

25:01 – Website Call To Action #2: giving your blog a seasonal refresh

27:33 – Final reflections and key takeaways

Primary Keywords:

duplicate content myth, content repurposing strategy, social media to website content strategy, website visual content framework, AI visibility tracking tools, website content strategy for small businesses

Secondary Keywords:

is repurposing social media content duplicate content, how to repurpose social posts for website, Otterly.ai AI search tracking, Google Site Kit WordPress plugin, Instagram vs Facebook growth EU, authentic visual content over AI imagery, blog refresh ideas, AI visibility test for websites, website authorship and trust signals

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👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: 90daymarketingmastery.com

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

In this instalment of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni close out their four-part E-E-A-T mini-series by tackling the final and most decisive letter: T for Trustworthiness.

Drawing on Ahrefs' guide to E-E-A-T by Mateusz Makosiewicz and Joshua Hardwick, Jonny and Pascal unpack why trust is the pillar Google and AI engines weight most heavily, even though it is the least glamorous to build, and share the practical checklist every website owner needs to work through: security, transparency, accuracy and honesty.

The episode opens with a listener question from the Digital Knowledge Exchange conference in Leeds on how to find the motivation to create long-form content, and what long-form actually looks like in practice.

Jonny and Pascal then move into the Website Engine Room with two tools worth exploring, Google Business Profile and Tavus.io, before wrapping up with two simple, high-impact call to actions you can implement on your website this week.

If you are responsible for growing organic visibility, AI citations, or on-site conversion, this episode gives you the trust checklist Google is actually grading you against.

• There's no fixed word count for long-form: it can be 800 words or, in Pascal's own test, 12,000 words across several platforms.
• If writing a full piece in one sitting feels daunting, publish it in instalments, part one this week, part two next, building toward a 2,000-3,000 word piece over a month.
• Long-form isn't limited to blog posts: it can be a guide, case study, e-book, podcast episode or video.
• Two reliable sources of inspiration: a monthly news roundup reacting to the past month's important developments, and a deep-dive expansion of a top-level answer you gave a client in a recent meeting.
• Annual reports, industry reports and sector data are also strong long-form territory.

The real distinction: short-form leaves the reader thinking "interesting, but I need to think this through"; long-form answers the "so what, now what" and tells them exactly what to do next.

Trust is the final letter in Google's E-E-A-T framework: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

Ahrefs' guide labels Trustworthiness "the foundational pillar" and, in Google's own guidelines, it is the most heavily weighted of the four.

Ironically, it is the least interesting to build: there is far less storytelling and content opportunity in trust than in experience, expertise or authority.

Google defines Trustworthiness around the accuracy, honesty, safety and reliability of a website and its content.

Pascal raises a challenge to Google's own framing, suggesting trust may really be a byproduct of experience, expertise, authority and honesty combined, rather than a separate category on its own.

Trust is baked into human decision-making long before someone reads your content: price, quality and "can this actually do what it says" all sit downstream of whether the buyer trusts the source.

❓ What Quick Wins Build Website Trust Right Now?

Website security

• Run the whole site on HTTPS, keep GDPR and privacy policies current, and make checkout and payment pages visibly secure.

Transparency

• Publish a genuine About Us page, clear contact details, and state plainly when a page was last updated.

Accuracy

• Back up any claim you make with evidence. Don't oversell products or services beyond what you can substantiate.

Honesty

• Only display badges, accreditations or awards you have genuinely earned, don't collect them for decoration.
• Use progress bars on longer forms so people know what to expect before they commit to filling them in.
• Google explicitly warns against content built primarily to attract search traffic, mass automated content across unrelated topics, content that merely summarises other sources, and artificially refreshed publish dates.

Catch up on the full E-E-A-T mini-series across all four episodes for the complete picture on building visibility, authority and trust with Google and AI engines:

Experience: https://podcast.jonnyross.com/episode/136-your-2026-google-cv-how-to-boost-your-online-reputation-eeat-visibility

Expertise: https://podcast.jonnyross.com/episode/137-repurposing-interviews-expertise-in-e-e-a-t-optimising-about-us-and-landing-page

Authority: https://podcast.jonnyross.com/episode/138-optimising-images-authority-in-e-e-a-t-ai-audio-transcription-and-homepages

Google Business Profile (Pascal's pick)

• Not a new tool, but Google is investing heavily in positioning Google Maps as the next internet browser, with AI mode built in.
• Be inventive with your listing rather than limited by the standard fields: add regular short-form updates and keep building genuine reviews.

Tavus.io (Jonny's pick)

• Human-like AI that can see, hear and respond to emotion in real time, ideal for pre-sales conversations and qualifying inbound leads.
• Free to try: ask it what you're wearing to see how it reads visual and emotional cues.

Jonny's call to action

• Add an "Ask AI about [Brand]" line to the footer of your website with icons linking to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, each pre-loaded with a specific prompt about your product or service.

Pascal's call to action

• Map out every place praise and testimonials currently land, email, LinkedIn, Facebook, face to face, and build a simple system to gather and publish them regularly.
• Stop relying on a single "What Our Clients Say" page. Pepper genuine testimonials and reviews throughout the site instead.

Catch up on the full E-E-A-T mini-series across all four episodes for the complete picture on building visibility, authority and trust with Google and AI engines.

00:19 – Welcome to episode 58 and catching up after conference season

02:36 – You Ask We Answer: what really counts as long-form content

04:19 – Finding the motivation and inspiration to write long-form content

09:53 – Short-form vs long-form and how to repurpose between the two

11:00 – Where to find long-form inspiration: news roundups and client deep-dives

13:49 – Website Stories: revisiting the Ahrefs E-E-A-T guide

15:02 – Why Trustworthiness is the most important yet least glamorous E-E-A-T pillar

17:35 – The trust checklist: website security, transparency, accuracy and honesty

23:50 – Website Engine Room: Tavus.io's human-like AI

26:39 – Website Engine Room: why Google Business Profile deserves another look

29:40 – Website Call To Action: adding an "Ask AI about us" prompt

32:01 – Website Call To Action: building a system to capture and publish testimonials

34:19 – Wrapping up the Trust mini-series and final thoughts

Primary keywords:

E-E-A-T trustworthiness, Google trust signals, website trust checklist, website security HTTPS, long-form content strategy, Google Business Profile optimisation, AI visibility optimisation, customer testimonials strategy

Secondary keywords:

GDPR privacy policy compliance, honest content claims, AI overviews citations, content repurposing short to long form, news roundup content ideas, deep-dive blog content, Google Maps AI mode, human-like AI sales tool, pre-sales AI automation, online reviews and reputation, ask AI about my brand, AI search engine prompts, website authority building, digital trust signals, EEAT mini-series

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👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: 90daymarketingmastery.com

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

AI has made brand matter more, not less. When a machine is choosing who to recommend, brand is what gets you picked.

Jonny Ross talks to brand and customer strategist Sandra Phillipson, founder of Crozest after a 25-year career in brand and customer strategy, most of it inside one of the UK's biggest banks. From the Madonna pen to Airbnb, the Evri rebrand to this week's Halifax news, this is a practical case for treating brand as a commercial lever, not a logo.

Score your own brand and AI visibility in a couple of minutes, free, no sell: https://jonnyross.com/magic-multiplier

Three things you will take away:

• Why brand is the biggest commercial lever in your marketing, and how clear positioning lets you charge more
• Sandra's working numbers on the new buyer journey: around 70 per cent of it now happens before anyone reaches your website, and a buyer arriving from an AI recommendation converts around three times higher
• Brand warms up the buyers, performance converts them. Why the two teams drift apart, and what joint accountability looks like

Jump in:

(02:04) What big brands understand about brand ROI that smaller businesses miss (11:29) Sandra's insider take on the Halifax and Lloyds brand news (15:47) Why you should not let AI build your brand, and where it genuinely helps (21:18) How AI has changed the buyer journey: 2.6 seconds and 24 touchpoints (31:51) Brand versus performance: why they drift apart and how to fix it (39:01) Where SEO, AEO and GEO meet the brand work (42:47) The one thing Sandra would do this month

Mentioned in this episode:

• Rory Sutherland on behavioural science, Daniel Priestley's 7-11-4 rule, and Mark Ritson on brand warming buyers up and performance converting them
• Brand monitoring tools Sandra rates: https://www.brandwatch.com and https://brand24.com, plus asking ChatGPT to show its sources
• Full Circle, the Yorkshire brand reinventing how we talk about funerals: https://fullcirclefunerals.co.uk

Sandra Phillipson is the founder of Crozest, a brand and customer strategy consultancy. Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-phillipson-12318712/ or at https://crozest.co.uk

Jonny Ross is a fractional CMO working with founders, CEOs and MDs of scaling businesses: https://jonnyross.com

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In this practical and insightful episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni tackle the third pillar of Google's E-E-A-T framework, Authority, exploring what it really means, why it differs from Expertise and Experience, and the specific steps you can take right now to demonstrate it online.

The discussion also unpacks a deceptively simple but high-impact website question: when you upload an image to WordPress, what are all those fields actually for and are you using them to their full SEO and accessibility potential?

Jonny and Pascal share their favourite AI-powered audio and transcription tools, and deliver two immediately actionable website calls to action that could transform how your homepage performs and how your best content ranks.

If you are responsible for driving visibility, credibility, and growth for your brand online, this episode is essential listening.

This question came directly from a live in-person masterclass, where a delegate admitted they were inconsistent, sometimes completing the fields, sometimes skipping them altogether. Sound familiar?

Jonny and Pascal break down every field you'll find when uploading an image to WordPress, and explain exactly why each one matters for SEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), and Accessibility:

• File Name: Before you even upload, rename your image file using descriptive words. Don't call it IMG_1234.jpg. A clear, keyword-relevant filename (without stuffing) helps both search engines and AI systems understand what the image depicts.
• Alt Text: The most critical field for accessibility. This is the text displayed if the image cannot load, and what screen readers announce to visually impaired users. It also carries high SEO and GEO value, giving search engines and AI clear context about your image content.
• Title: Acts as an internal reference for your media library. Lower SEO value, but hugely useful for finding the right image later when your library grows.
• Caption: The visible text displayed beneath the image on the page. Medium-to-high SEO value and high GEO value, as it gives AI systems explicit context that connects your image to the surrounding content.
• Description: A longer explanation of the image. Adds keyword-rich semantic context and is particularly valuable for AI discovery and summarisation.

Jonny's SEO priority order: File name → Alt Text → Caption → Description → Title.

Pascal's discipline tips:

1. Treat the website itself as where the real work happens, not the Word document. Think of your content ingredients (words, images, files) as preparation, and the CMS as the moment everything comes alive.
2. Start with your image, not your text. Approach it like a film poster: the image should sell the article before a single word is read.

Key takeaway: If there's a field to fill in, fill it in. This principle applies everywhere — WordPress, LinkedIn profiles, Google Business listings — and it is more important than ever in an era of AI search and GEO.

This episode continues Jonny and Pascal's deep-dive series into Google's E-E-A-T guidelines. Having covered Experience and Expertise in previous episodes, the focus here is on the third letter: A for Authority.

The definition, drawn from the Ahrefs guide by Mateusz Makosiewicz and Joshua Hardwick, is clear:

The crucial word is others. Unlike Experience and Expertise — which you can demonstrate by publishing great content yourself — Authority requires external validation. It has to be built off your own website. You cannot claim it; others must confer it.

• Pursue features in gift guides and curated roundups
• Build third-party reviews
• Seek press coverage
• Partner with complementary brands

• Speak at events AND document it digitally
• Be a regular columnist or podcast guest
• Apply for awards and accreditations
• Encourage clients to speak publicly on your behalf
• Embrace local and regional press

Ring-fence your website with external validation

Pascal's memorable summary of the E-E-A-T journey so far:

• Experience → "Have you done this before? I don't want to be a guinea pig."
• Expertise → "How deeply knowledgeable are you, really?"
• Authority → "Do others recognise that your claims are valid and credible?"

In this week's tool segment, both Jonny and Pascal independently arrived at the same theme — the power of voice and AI transcription for content creation.

Jonny's Pick: Granola AI (granola.ai) An AI-powered meeting notetaker that listens to your meetings and automatically formats the transcript into structured, readable notes.

Pascal's Pick: Your Native Mobile Phone Audio Recorder Before downloading a new app, check what you already have. All modern smartphones now include a native audio recorder with a built-in AI transcription and summarisation feature, free of charge and requiring no third-party app.

Use case ideas:

• Capture a client conversation and turn it into an anonymised case study or discussion article.
• Record a series of event takeaways across the year and compile them into a rich annual roundup with links to the authorities referenced.
• Voice note article and social media ideas on the go, then transcribe and expand with AI assistance.

You have three to five seconds to communicate your value to a new visitor. Your homepage headline must answer three questions instantly:

1. What do you do?
2. Who do you help?
3. Why should they choose you?

The foundation of a great headline is a clear value statement — a concise, brand-appropriate expression of the transformation or outcome you deliver, written in your customer's language. Jonny has been helping delegates develop these through his Sell Without Being Salesy workshops in Yorkshire, and the results are transformative. Review yours today. Get real human feedback on it — not just AI, which may simply agree you've done a good job.

Open your website traffic reports and identify your top-performing blog posts and long-form resources. Then, with the help of a good AI search engine, enrich each one by:

• Adding current statistics and recent data to support your key points.
• Linking out to authoritative external sources — reports, books, academic papers, reputable publications. (Outbound links to credible sources are a positive E-E-A-T signal.)
• Adding an "Updated [Month Year]" callout box to show the content is current and your thinking has evolved.
• Using this as a reason to reshare the content across your channels.

This approach breathes new life into existing content, signals freshness to Google, improves your E-E-A-T signals, and gives your audience genuinely more valuable resources — all without creating anything from scratch.

00:19 – Welcome and episode introduction

01:55 – You Ask, We Answer: WordPress image fields — what are they and why do they matter?

03:20 – Why good image SEO is more important than ever in the age of AI visibility

05:42 – Pascal's mindset shift: the CMS is where the real work happens

09:08 – Jonny's SEO priority order: alt text, caption, description, and title

09:53 – Website Stories: introducing A for Authority in Google's E-E-A-T framework

11:39 – Authority through PR, press coverage, reviews, and brand collaborations

14:51 – Pascal's ring-fence model: surrounding your website with external validation

16:53 – Badges, battle scars, and membership organisations as authority signals

18:39 – Website Engine Room: Granola AI and your mobile phone's native transcription tool

22:38 – Website Call to Action: sharpen your homepage headline and enrich your best articles

26:19 – Final reflections and episode wrap-up

Primary Keywords: E-E-A-T authority SEO, Google authority signals, building website authority, WordPress image SEO, alt text best practices, image file naming SEO, E-E-A-T framework explained, AI visibility optimisation, homepage headline optimisation, external citations for SEO

Secondary Keywords: GEO generative engine optimisation, WordPress media library fields, image caption SEO value, AI meeting transcription tools, Granola AI notetaker, native mobile audio recorder, outbound links authority signals, local press SEO co-citation, brand collaborations for authority, long-form content citations

--

👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: 90daymarketingmastery.com

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

In this episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni explore one of the most underused growth tactics in digital marketing today: repurposing podcast interviews into long-lasting website content.

If you've ever been a guest on a podcast and let that hard-earned conversation disappear into the archives, this episode will completely change how you approach your content strategy.

The episode also continues the four-part mini-series unpacking Google's E-E-A-T framework — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — with a deep dive into Expertise, inspired by an excellent article from Mateusz Makosiewicz and Joshua Hardwick at Ahrefs.

Jonny and Pascal break down the crucial difference between experience and expertise, and explain how to demonstrate both on your website to win trust with visitors and visibility in AI-powered search results.

Plus, the duo shares two powerful new content creation tool discoveries, and rounds off the episode with two actionable website calls to action you can implement straight away.

Jonny and Pascal share a complete workflow for transforming one 45-minute podcast interview into months of valuable content:

• Request the transcript from the podcast host so you have a full reference document, plus access to audio and video clips.
• Embed the audio and video directly onto your website to demonstrate thought leadership and credibility.
• Create a dedicated "As Featured In" or "Appeared On" section showcasing podcasts, PR mentions, and speaking engagements.
• Write a companion blog post that tells the story of being invited and highlights the key takeaways.
• Use the "edit down" approach to create short extracts — clips for LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and Facebook posts.
• Use the "edit up" approach to expand on points you didn't have time to cover fully — write a deeper article, add steps, build a checklist, design an infographic.
• Pull out memorable quotes to create LinkedIn carousels and graphic posts.
• Pace yourself — set weekly repurposing goals rather than trying to do it all in one go.
• One 45-minute interview can comfortably deliver 90 days (or more) of high-value content.

As part of the EEAT mini-series, Pascal explains the distinction with a brilliant analogy:

• Experience = "I've been driving a car for 30 years" (longevity).
• Expertise = "I'm a trained F1 driver who has won five championships" (credentials, depth, proven results).
• Visitors silently ask: Does this person have the skills, knowledge, and credentials — or have they just been doing it a while?
• Expertise is demonstrated through credentials, formal education, and a proven track record.

Jonny and Pascal share practical, explicit steps you can take today:

• Expand your About Us biographies far beyond a couple of lines.
• Make qualifications, certifications, and trade body memberships visible, and don't let modesty hide them.
• Link out to authoritative sources, original research, and the membership pages of organisations you belong to (citations matter for SEO and GEO).
• Build genuine, deep FAQ pages and not superficial ones.
• Document and republish your speaking engagements and public appearances.
• On product and service pages, be explicit about testing, regulations passed, founder involvement, and real customer scenarios.
• Write expert buying guides that show genuine depth of knowledge.
• Cite experts and methodologies you respect within your articles.
• Organise your content into topical clusters to signal authority around specific subjects (for AI visibility).

Remember: your ordinary is someone else's extraordinary. Don't let modesty get in the way of explicit, helpful communication.

Etsy Canva Templates (Jonny's pick):

Browse Etsy for affordable, downloadable Canva template packs.

• Search "social media templates" or industry-specific options.
• Templates come in cohesive families/packs which is perfect for brand consistency.
• Costs only a few pounds or dollars, and uploads directly into Canva.
• Solves the overwhelm of Canva's vast template library by giving you a curated set.

ClipChamp by Microsoft (Pascal's pick):

Microsoft's recently re-launched video editing software.

• Designed for simplicity, so perfect for quick repurposing without bells and whistles.
• Ideal if you're already in the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Strong contender for businesses needing to add more video content to their site without becoming a full production studio.

Jonny's Call to Action — Optimise a Key Landing Page:

• Pick one high-traffic landing page (especially one tied to ad spend or email campaigns).
• Step back and assess: Is the messaging clear? Does it look great on mobile?
• Review headlines, layout, calls to action, and the offer itself.
• Speak in your audience's language — align with your ICP and personas.
• Small tweaks can dramatically increase conversion rates, phone calls, and form fills.

Pascal's Call to Action — Embrace Long-Form Storytelling:

• Revisit your About Us page and biographies and go deep with long-form content.
• Use an AI assistant to interview you about your professional journey across multiple sessions.
• Create both a "TL;DR" short-form intro and a full long-form story.
• Add photos, videos, and supporting media to bring it to life.
• Long-form content gives AI overviews more snippets to surface you in the best possible light — a critical move for AI visibility in 2026.

00:19 – Welcome to Episode 56 with Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni

01:31 – You Ask, We Answer: How do I repurpose a podcast guest appearance?

02:13 – Jonny's repurposing workflow: transcripts, embeds and "As Featured In" sections

03:58 – Pascal explains the "edit down" vs "edit up" content techniques 0

06:48 – Website Stories: Part 2 of the EEAT mini-series — Expertise

08:30 – The F1 driver analogy: experience vs expertise explained

10:57 – Being explicit, not implicit, on your service and product pages

14:46 – Citations, authoritative sources and topical clusters for AI visibility

16:27 – Website Engine Room: Etsy Canva templates and ClipChamp by Microsoft

20:47 – Jonny's Call to Action: optimise a high-traffic landing page

23:53 – Pascal's Call to Action: long-form storytelling for your About Us page

repurposing podcast content, EEAT framework, Google expertise signals, About Us page optimisation, AI visibility, ClipChamp video editing, Canva templates Etsy, landing page optimisation, long-form storytelling, AI overviews SEO

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👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: 90daymarketingmastery.com

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

In this SEO and AI Overviews focused episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni pick up where they left off in Episode 54: answering a practical question about your 2026 Google CV.

And they walk through the first letter of Google's E-E-A-T framework: Experience, using the brilliant Ahrefs guide by Mateusz Makosiewicz and Joshua Hardwick as the foundation.

Two practical website tools are shared: one for cleaning up images with AI, the other for auditing your backlink profile, alongside two powerful calls to action around accessibility and responsible AI. If you are serious about building a website that works harder for you in the age of AI search, this episode delivers the blueprint.

• Start with a sense check: does what you see feel right? Is there anything missing, outdated, or that simply should not be there?
• Look beyond your website and identify how many different sources mention your name or business. Having 10+ varied sources is far more powerful than just your website and LinkedIn profile.
• Switch to Google's AI Mode on a laptop or desktop and pay close attention to the right-hand panel as it shows you exactly which sources are being used to describe you to potential clients.
• Score your Google CV against three scenarios: OK (information about you, from you only), Good (lots of information from you), or Excellent (information about you from you AND from others).
• The 'from others' category is critical. Remember: reviews, recommendations, case studies, press mentions, third-party features, and backlinks all contribute to a richer, more trusted online presence.
• Treat this as your baseline and revisit and repeat every three to four months to track your progress. Use a tool like NotebookLM to help you analyse and compare results over time.
• This exercise is not just about search rankings, it is about understanding what a decision-maker sees when they are deciding whether to trust you with their business.

Based on the Ahrefs guide by Mateusz Makosiewicz and Joshua Hardwick, Jonny and Pascal break down Google's E-E-A-T framework:

https://ahrefs.com/blog/eeat-seo/

• E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — it comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines, a handbook used by human reviewers to evaluate search result quality.
• It is not a direct ranking score or a penalty system, it is a trust architecture that helps Google understand which content and creators genuinely deserve to be surfaced.
• The doctor analogy sums it up: you want someone who has lived through a health concern (Experience), has medical training (Expertise), is recognised by other doctors (Authoritativeness), and runs a legitimate practice (Trustworthiness).
• AI Overviews and AI Mode are increasingly pulling from off-site authority signals — branded web mentions, backlinks, and branded search volume. Well-known and trusted brands are more likely to appear in AI-driven results.
• This episode focuses on the first E: Experience. Expertise, Authority, and Trust will be explored in future episodes.

Experience comes down to one core question: has this person actually done the thing they are writing about? Here is how to make it visible:

• Use your own photography and video, even imperfect, behind-the-scenes content proves you are genuinely doing the work, not just describing it.
• Write behind-the-scenes content that shows the process, not just the polished end result. Share the difficulties and the lessons learned.
• Feature genuine customer reviews, testimonials, and detailed case studies with real, measurable outcomes throughout your website, and not just on a single testimonials page.
• Use first-person language deliberately in your content. Stop hiding behind the royal 'we' as people trust individuals.
• Make your experience explicit and avoid under-communication. If you have 40 years of experience, say so clearly in the content and do not assume people will find it in your footer or About page.
• Add author information boxes to articles and blog posts so readers and Google can clearly attribute content to a real, credible individual.
• Reference industry speaking engagements, certifications, awards, and professional development.

For B2C Independent Retailers (Jonny's perspective):

• Show the product journey, not just the product . For example explain your testing, selection process, and what you rejected and why.
• Write product descriptions in the first person to communicate genuine, hands-on knowledge.
• Turn customer reviews into content and create a 'Real Customers, Real Stories' section and feature before-and-after photos customers send in.
• Create a 'How We Choose What We Stock' page. This signals to Google and to buyers that a real, knowledgeable human is behind every product listed.

For B2B Professional Services (Pascal's perspective):

• Publish real case studies with real numbers and not vague testimonials, but actual outcomes and data.
• Write content that references the messy middle, as we say, in other words the real client problems, unexpected challenges, and lessons learned along the way.
• Feature the people doing the work, not just the brand, Google and clients are trusting individuals, not logos.
• Document client work in progress with permission including video walkthroughs and process explainers create undeniable proof of hands-on involvement.

Cleanup.Pictures (Jonny's pick): https://cleanup.pictures

• A fast, AI-powered tool that lets you upload an image, mouse over any object, person, or defect you want removed, and reconstruct it cleanly in a single click.
• Ideal for website managers and content creators who need quick image fixes without switching to complex editing software.
• Perfect for product photography, event images, and any visual content where distractions or imperfections need removing.
• Visit: https://cleanup.pictures

Ahrefs Backlink Checker (Pascal's pick): https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker

• Use this free tool to run a baseline audit of who is currently supporting your search ranking and brand mentions through backlinks.
• Discover which websites feature you, identify broken or outdated links, and spot opportunities to build new linking relationships.
• Analyse competitor backlink profiles to uncover potential new linking partners and publication opportunities.
• Remember: you do not ask for a link, instead you present an offer of your time and content so that you earn a feature within that platform.
• With AI Overviews changing the traffic landscape, backlink quality is becoming more important than ever for establishing off-site authority signals.
• Visit: https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker

Jonny's Call to Action — Add an Accessibility Toolbar:

• An inaccessible website means you are actively excluding a significant proportion of potential customers and sending negative signals to Google at the same time.
• Most CMS platforms including WordPress, Squarespace, and Shopify offer plugins or add-ons that can dramatically improve your accessibility score with a single installation.
• Adding an accessibility toolbar with features like font resizing and contrast toggles is one of the fastest, highest-impact improvements you can make right now.

Pascal's Call to Action — Add an AI Ethics Article and an AI Pledge to Your Website:

• A significant AI backlash is building so do not wait for the media to define your relationship with AI. Take the initiative and show your hand first.
• Write an article in your own words explaining your responsible and ethical approach to using AI in your business (this also directly supports your E-E-A-T Experience signals).
• Add a dedicated AI Pledge to your website footer, alongside your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions — treat it as a fundamental part of your brand's trust architecture.
• If you need a starting point, explore the Human-First Responsible AI Pledge framework: https://humanfirstresponsibleaipledge.org/

01:33 – Introducing the 2026 Google CV: the concept explained

03:09 – Listener question: "I've Googled myself,what do I do now?"

05:33 – The three Google CV scenarios: OK, Good, and Excellent

07:41 – How to use Google AI Mode to audit your online reputation

09:38 – Website Stories: introducing the Ahrefs E-E-A-T guide

12:28 – Deep dive: focusing on the first E: Experience

15:48 – Practical ways to demonstrate Experience on your website

19:34 – Website Engine Room - Jonny's pick: Cleanup.Pictures - AI-powered image editing

20:43 – Pascal's pick: Ahrefs Backlink Checker - know who's mentioning you

23:20 – Website Call to Action: Jonny recommends adding an accessibility toolbar

25:03 – Pascal's call to action: responsible and ethical AI use on your website

27:11 – Closing reflections and a preview of the E-E-A-T mini-series

Google CV audit, E-E-A-T experience signals, Google AI overview visibility, off-site authority signals, backlink audit small business, Ahrefs backlink checker, website accessibility toolbar, responsible AI use website, AI ethics pledge, Human-First Responsible AI Pledge, image cleanup AI tool, Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines

--

👉 Subscribe to the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast for more expert insights on SEO, content marketing, and website growth.

👉 Leave us a review — your feedback helps others discover the show!

👉 Book a discovery call: 90daymarketingmastery.com

👉 check our book "WebProud" on Amazon for more website mastery strategies

👉 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

In this episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni tackle two of the most talked-about topics coming out of their recent Web Proud in-person masterclass in Leeds:

> Should you be worried about sharing your website tactics with AI tools?

> And how has Google's AI Mode permanently changed the rules of SEO?

Drawing directly on Neil Patel's data-driven YouTube breakdown of five new SEO rules, Jonny and Pascal layer on their own decade of experience to bring you sharp, practical guidance.

The episode also introduces a tool for Shopify and subscription businesses, and brings back a powerful (and often forgotten) SEO benchmarking tool. And closes with two immediately actionable calls to action: one for your email deliverability, and one for understanding your search presence right now.

This question was raised multiple times at Jonny and Pascal's Notebook LM for Website Masterclass in Leeds, and here's what they had to say:

• The instinct to protect everything is understandable, but the default level of concern is often set too high.
• Ask yourself honestly: what is the realistic likelihood of a competitor actively searching an LLM for your specific tactics?
• The real risk is not exposure, it's hesitation over action. Over-worry leads to under-using tools that could genuinely improve your website.
• Practical steps to protect yourself where it matters:Review your privacy settings on every AI platform you use.
• If you're on a free plan, be aware that your data may be used for training — consider upgrading to a paid plan to reduce that risk.
• For sensitive or tactical work, use private cloud environments such as Microsoft 365 Copilot or Notebook LM, which offer more ring-fenced data environments.
• Never share client data, financial data, or genuinely confidential intellectual property.
• The biggest real risk, according to Pascal: using AI without a well-crafted briefing, leading to superficial, generic recommendations rather than truly useful insights.

The golden rule: Be cautious about the things that genuinely need caution and stop worrying about the things that don't.

Jonny and Pascal review and reflect on Neil Patel's landmark nine-minute YouTube video: Google's AI Mode Changed SEO Forever. Here Are the 5 New Rules. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q3WBkSoANA

1. From the Traffic Economy to the Citation Economy

• The central shift: stop measuring success purely in traffic, and start building for citations.
• As AI Overviews become the norm, the key question is: Are you credible and trustworthy enough for the AI to select you over your competitor?
• What are you doing, this week, this month, this year, to build your authority through citations and guest contributions on other platforms?

2. The Complexity Moat

• Data shows that short search queries trigger AI Overviews with sources only around 23% of the time.
• Queries of six or more words trigger source citations 77% of the time.
• The opportunity: build a strategic "moat" or defence by creating content that answers specific, nuanced, complex questions, not just chasing short keywords.
• Jonny's take: think in keyword clusters. Become the genuine expert in a topic by going deep, not just broad.

3. The Zero-Click Reality

• Clicks and traffic figures are no longer sufficient measures of SEO success.
• Google is evolving into the answer destination, users may get what they need without ever visiting your site.
• The shift in mindset: from chasing clicks to building trust, citations, and brand presence within AI-generated answers.

4. The Authority Tax

• Traditional SEO is now the baseline, it's the price of entry, not a competitive advantage.
• If you've been consistently building authority for the past 3, 5, or 10 years, you are already ahead.
• Neil Patel's four actions to build authority now, endorsed by Jonny and Pascal:

1. Post on the platforms where your audience actually lives, not just your website.
2. Get mentioned in publications that AI systems already trust and cite.
3. Build and implement Schema Markup so AI can properly scrape and understand your content.
4. Create content that demonstrates depth, not just coverage of a topic.

5. The Search Everywhere Shift

• Search is no longer just Google, it spans social networks, forums, app stores, Spotify, Claude, eBay, Vinted, and beyond.
• The new mindset: it's not about "Googling", it's about searching, and understanding every place your customers might look.
• Ask yourself: do you truly know where your audience searches for answers?

As Jonny and Pascal have been saying for years: it all comes back to E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Tip: paste your own content into your favourite AI tool and ask it to evaluate and improve your E-E-A-T (you'll understand the concept immediately).

Jonny's Pick: Loopwork 🔗 https://www.loopwork.co/

• A powerful Shopify add-on for businesses with subscription-based products.
• Creates unique, intelligent subscriber journeys designed to keep customers engaged.
• Particularly clever at retention: when a subscriber tries to cancel, Loopwork steps in with smart prompts, offers, and alternatives — dramatically reducing churn.
• Whether you already have subscriptions running or want to turn existing products into recurring revenue, Loopwork is worth exploring.

Pascal's Pick: MOZ Domain Authority Checker 🔗 https://moz.com/domain-analysis

• A free, trusted SEO benchmarking tool that gives your website a domain authority score out of 100.
• Use it to understand your current search authority, your top-performing pages and keywords, and how you compare to competitors.
• Context: the average website typically scores around 20–25 out of 100. The BBC scores around 95. Don't be disheartened by a low score — it's easier to climb from 10 to 20 than from 30 to 40.
• Pascal's recommendation: check your score today, get on with the work, then revisit in three months to track your progress — especially as click and traffic data becomes harder to rely on.

Jonny's Call to Action: Boost Your Email Deliverability

With inboxes flooded and spam filters increasingly aggressive, getting your newsletter into the primary inbox is harder than ever. Here's a simple but powerful fix: ask your subscribers to reply to your email.

A reply sends a strong signal to email providers that your audience is genuinely engaged and this directly improves your deliverability, open rates, and click-throughs.

Try this exact message in your next newsletter:

"To make sure our newsletters reach you without any issues, reply 'AI' to this email so we know you're human 🦾, and be sure to move this email to your Primary inbox."

Think about what quirky, on-brand reply prompt would resonate with your audience — and make it work for you.

Pascal's Call to Action: Build Your Search CV

Google yourself, right now, and search in three ways:

1. Your name as an individual
2. Your name plus your job title or occupation
3. Your business name

On each results page, save the full page as a PDF (click the three dots, top right in Google Chrome). Do this across All results, Images, News, and any other relevant tabs.

Then study what has been selected by Google, and ask yourself why each result is showing up.

• You don't need to be an SEO expert to draw conclusions. Logic will guide you.
• Understanding your current search presence is the foundation for everything else.
• Repeat this exercise every quarter and track the evolution of your visibility over time.
• For a deeper view, also try this in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to see how AI platforms represent you.

Here are the selected timestamps, drawn directly from the transcript and written in UK English:

00:54 – How the Leeds Web Proud masterclass inspired this episode

03:14 – You Ask, We Answer: Should I worry about sharing my website tactics with AI?

07:12 – Three practical rules for sharing safely with AI tools

08:54 – Website Stories: Neil Patel's five new rules of SEO in the age of AI

11:08 – Rule 1: Moving from the traffic economy to the citation economy

12:18 – Rule 2: Building a complexity moat with long-form, nuanced content

13:27 – Rule 3: The zero-click reality and why traffic figures no longer tell the full story

13:46 – Rule 4: The authority tax , why traditional SEO is now just the baseline

14:34 – Rule 5: The search everywhere shift, it's not just Google anymore

18:43 – Website Engine Room - Jonny's pick is Loopwork: subscriber journeys optimiser for Shopify businesses

20:34 – Pascal's pick: dusting off the MOZ Domain Authority Checker to better plan your new SEO tactics

22:08 – How to read your domain authority score and what it means for your website

24:22 – Jonny's Call to Action: improving email deliverability with a human reply prompt

26:47 – Pascal's Call to Action: building your Search CV across Google and AI platforms

29:30 – Final reflections and episode roundup

Primary Keywords: AI SEO 2026, Google AI Mode SEO, citation economy, E-E-A-T guidelines, zero click search reality, domain authority checker, schema markup SEO, search everywhere strategy, Shopify subscription management, email deliverability tips

Secondary Keywords: complexity moat content strategy, Loopwork Shopify app, MOZ domain authority score, Neil Patel SEO rules, Notebook LM website review, subscriber journey optimisation, Search CV strategy, long-form content SEO, AI overviews citations

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• Jonny Ross
• Pascal Fintoni

Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.

Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.

In this episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni tackle a challenge facing many marketing professionals: How do you create compelling case studies when you can't use client photos, logos, or even company names?

The discussion reveals creative solutions for visual storytelling, introduces the concept of "case stories," and shares innovative approaches to building credibility without traditional brand assets.

The episode also explores how to integrate AI tools into your marketing workflow, why long-form content still matters in the age of AI overviews, and practical strategies for growing your email list. Jonny and Pascal share actionable tips on using data visualisation, illustrative imagery, and process-driven narratives to create case studies that build trust and demonstrate expertise.

If you're responsible for content marketing, lead generation, or building credibility for your brand online , this episode delivers immediately actionable insights.

The Challenge:

1. Cannot use client photographs or premises
2. Unable to display client logos or branding
3. Restricted from mentioning client names or company details
4. Need to maintain credibility and build trust despite these limitations

The Opportunity:

1. Forces Deeper Storytelling: Without relying on logo recognition, you must work harder to demonstrate real value and impact
2. More Generous Sharing: Removes the crutch of brand names and pushes you to share meaningful details about process, methodology, and results
3. Data-Driven Credibility: Shifts focus to measurable outcomes and demonstrable expertise

Visual Solutions to Replace Traditional Photography:

1. Data Visualisation & Charts

2. Process Illustrations & Roadmaps

3. Professional Photography Alternatives

4. The Case Story Framework

Pascal introduces the concept of "case stories" as a more engaging approach to case studies:

Key Elements:

1. What do you want readers to remember? Focus on the core lesson or takeaway
2. Visual echo of key messages: Images should reinforce your unique process or demonstrated impact
3. Creative formats: Consider blog-style layouts, video overviews, or audio summaries
4. Story types: Either retell recent client success OR showcase hypothetical scenarios for startups/new offerings

The Three-Part Structure:

1. The Problem - What challenge did the client face?
2. The Solution - What was your unique approach, methodology, or thinking?
3. The Impact - Continuously ask "So what?" until you reach quantifiable results

Top Tip When Handling Client Names:

When you cannot use client names:

1. Use descriptive anonymization: "Leading UK Manufacturing Firm," "Award-Winning SaaS Provider"
2. Add specific industry context: "25-year-old family business in automotive sector"
3. Include company size/scope: "International organization with 500+ employees"
4. Reference recognisable attributes without naming: "Provider serving 10,000+ customers across Europe"

The Trust-Building Paradox: Restrictions on using logos and names can actually strengthen trust by:

1. Demonstrating respect for client confidentiality
2. Focusing attention on your expertise rather than borrowed credibility
3. Providing detailed, education-focused content
4. Showing data-led decision making

In the Website Stories segment, Jonny and Pascal reflect on their experience hosting and presenting at the Digital Knowledge Exchange conference in Leeds, focusing on AI integration in digital marketing.

Their reflections reveal valuable insights about where businesses currently stand with AI adoption and what that means for the future of marketing.

The Three Categories of AI Adoption:

Jonny observed that businesses fall into three distinct camps:

1. Pockets of Success - Companies embracing AI to power strategies, brainstorming, structure, and thinking
2. Hesitant Experimenters - Businesses that haven't started or are just playing with AI superficially
3. Active Resistors - Organisations convinced AI is a fad that won't help or take over

Historical Context Matters:

Pascal drew parallels to past technology adoption cycles, reminding attendees that resistance to AI echoes reactions to:

1. Social media (early 2000s)
2. SEO (late 1990s/early 2000s)
3. Websites themselves (mid-1990s)

Key Presentations Delivered:

Pascal's Sessions:

1. "Me, Myself and AI" opening keynote - Validating all perspectives whilst encouraging forward thinking (only three years since ChatGPT launched)
2. "2026 Website Health Check" - Live demonstration using Notebook LM to audit a real Northumberland dressmaker's website, focusing on first impressions, trust elements, and calls to action (borrowed from Web Proud methodology)
3. "Content Marketing in the Age of AI Overviews" - Showcasing workflow strategies using multiple AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Notebook LM) rather than relying on a single platform

Jonny's Workshops:

1. Visibility Strategies - Practical approaches to raise visibility in 90 days through PR, direct marketing, guest marketing, intro requests, and referrals
2. AI in SEO - How to be seen in the new landscape where Google's ten blue links are disappearing; strategies for visibility in Perplexity, Gemini, and ChatGPT

The Web Proud Movement:

This was the first time Jonny and Pascal positioned Web Proud front and centre as a movement during a major presentation. The methodology and principles from their book resonated strongly with attendees who felt their websites "could do a bit better" but didn't know where to start.

Critical Takeaway:

Don't put all your eggs in one AI basket. Build a workflow team approach using multiple AI tools, understanding the strengths and blind spots of each platform.

Thanks & Recognition:

Both hosts expressed gratitude to the Digital Knowledge Exchange team for the behind-the-scenes event management work and to attendees who committed to the full-day programme.

The Notebook LM Advantage: Jonny and Pascal highlight Google's Notebook LM as a top favourite tool, describing it as a "best kept secret" for:

1. Content research and organization
2. Website project planning
3. Marketing strategy development

Note: Jonny and Pascal are hosting a "NotebookLM for Websites" Special Masterclass on March 20th in Leeds: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/notebooklm-for-websites-fix-whats-not-working-and-feel-proud-again-tickets-1980110576036?aff=oddtdtcreator

In the Website Engine Room segment, Jonny and Pascal each recommend one app that makes life easier for website managers and content creators.

What It Is: The largest community-built, open-source library of user interface (UI) elements available to designers, developers, and website managers.

Who Should Use It:

1. Technical Users: Developers looking for ready-made UI components
2. Website Managers: Non-technical managers who need to communicate design preferences clearly
3. Design Teams: Anyone creating or improving digital products

Key Benefits:

For Website Managers:

1. Provides a visual reference library when discussing design with developers
2. Eliminates vague descriptions like "make it look modern"
3. Enables specific conversations: "I want this style of button" or "this type of menu"
4. Helps you understand what's possible in modern web design

For Design Communication:

1. Shows real, working examples rather than abstract concepts
2. Facilitates clearer brief writing
3. Reduces back-and-forth iterations with design teams
4. Creates a shared visual vocabulary between non-technical and technical team members

Practical Applications:

1. Creating better call-to-action buttons
2. Improving user navigation flows
3. Selecting form styles that increase conversions
4. Understanding how to move customers effectively through your website
5. Signposting design preferences to contractors or agencies

Jonny's Key Insight: "There's nothing like having a conversation where there's a discussion based on something you can look at and react to as opposed to a blank screen and waving your hands around."

Access: Visit uiverse.io to explore the library

What It Is: An AI platform designed specifically to be your "ultimate creative partner for long-form content" - particularly valuable in the era of AI Overviews and Generative Engine Optimiaation.

Why Long-Form Content Matters Now:

1. Return of long-form content as a critical SEO/GEO strategy
2. AI Overviews (Google's AI-powered search results) pull from comprehensive, authoritative content
3. Building trust requires showing deep expertise (beyond 250-word bite-sized posts)
4. Demonstrates you truly "know your stuff" in your field

How to Use Claude.ai Effectively:

1. Structure Development

1. Start by asking Claude to help outline your article structure
2. Generate ideas for expanding medium-length drafts into comprehensive pieces
3. Develop frameworks for your long-form content

2. Content Expansion

1. Write a medium-length version yourself
2. Use Claude to suggest ways to expand and deepen the content
3. Add supporting examples, data, and context with AI assistance

3. Voice and Style Training

1. CRITICAL: Educate Claude with examples of your existing work
2. Share samples of your writing style
3. Train the AI to match your tone of voice
4. Provide context about your brand personality

Pascal's Essential Warning:

"There are businesses out there who have not written anything whatsoever themselves. They've used AI all the way. And therefore, they are in no position to educate their assistant by their tone of voice and style."

Access: Visit claude.ai to get started

Related Resource: Download the special webinar on "AI Overviews, GEO, and the Future of SEO" from 90daymarketingmastery.com for comprehensive guidance on long-form content strategy https://90daymarketingmastery.com/ai-geo-generative-engine-optimisation-checklist/

The Notebook LM Bonus: Throughout the episode, Jonny and Pascal also highlight Google's Notebook LM as one of their top favorite tools, describing it as a "best kept secret" for:

1. Content research and organization
2. Website project planning
3. Marketing strategy development

They're hosting a Notebook LM for Website Special Masterclass on March 25th in Leeds - link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/notebooklm-for-websites-fix-whats-not-working-and-feel-proud-again-tickets-1980110576036?aff=oddtdtcreator

Jonny's Call to Action: Create Lead Magnets

The Fundamental Truth:

1. People aren't always ready to buy immediately
2. Email nurturing is essential for converting prospects over time
3. You must capture contact data to stay in the conversation

What Makes an Effective Lead Magnet?

Content Types:

1. In-depth how-to guides
2. Insight reports or research findings
3. Industry benchmarks or data analysis
4. Templates, checklists, or frameworks
5. Educational resources specific to your audience
6. Fun, engaging content (when appropriate for your brand)

Success Criteria:

1. Valuable enough to warrant sharing an email address
2. Relevant to your audience's specific needs and interests
3. Immediately useful - provides quick wins or answers
4. Makes life easier for the recipient

Formats to...