SEO On-Air

Local SEO Strategy: How To Rank When AI Owns The Map Pack

Is the local map pack being replaced by AI answers, or just sharing space with them for now?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Natalie Hoben of Forthea in Houston, where she runs local SEO campaigns in one of the most competitive markets in the country.

The conversation examines what changed in the last year. Natalie says local looked resistant to AI until roughly twelve months ago, when AI Overviews started synthesizing two results instead of showing the three pack at all. Her prediction is blunt: the local three pack may not exist by the end of the year. Her worked example is a Houston repiping company where a hyper local FAQ strategy with structured schema drove over a 75 percent increase in conversions within a month, even as organic traffic slipped. 
 
They also get into the AI slop arriving from other agencies with fabricated facts on service area pages, why Google can quietly lower your ranking for hours you are closed, the review updates Google shipped this year, where AI content drifted badly enough that her team pulled back, and the one question a client should ask any agency.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why AI Overviews are starting to replace the local three pack

- The FAQ strategy that lifted conversions 75 percent in a month

- Why being closed can lower your local ranking

- What the recent Google review updates actually changed

- Why review velocity now matters as much as review count

- Where AI content drifts and why copy 25 falls apart

- What to track now beyond rankings and organic traffic

- Why brand sentiment belongs in your reporting

- Why local market knowledge cannot be replaced by a prompt

- The one question that filters checklist agencies

Whether you run a local business, work agency side, own multi location marketing, or are watching your map pack visibility slide, this episode gives you a practitioner's view of what still works when the three pack disappears.

🎧 Tune in to hear why one agency's traffic went down, conversions went up, and that was the win.

SEO In The AI Era: Why Your Website Still Decides Everything

Is your website still the thing that decides whether AI recommends you, or has brand moved beyond it?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Mark Michael, founder and CEO of DevHub, the CMS platform behind multi location brands in franchise, retail, and home services.

The conversation examines a blunt position. Mark's line is that if it is not on your website, it does not exist, because an LLM that cannot crawl an answer to the customer's question simply skips you. He walks through it with a clogged toilet before a two year old's birthday party, where the real query carries service specificity, price, and same day availability, and a page saying we service all of Texas answers none of it. Koa pushes back that brand has outgrown the website, which sends the conversation into where off site trust actually comes from. 
 
They also get into the three SEO packages Mark cannot stand, why LLMs surface Yelp and forgotten directories, the CRM data brands have never put on their site, why domain architecture should be all subdirectory, why WordPress is excellent and why that is the problem, and the one question that filters agencies selling packages from agencies selling results.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why an LLM skips you if the answer is not on your site

- The three SEO packages worth walking away from

- Why selling SEO strategy is harder than selling output

- What a real customer query looks like versus a service page

- Why LLMs surface Yelp and long forgotten directories

- Where off site trust actually comes from now

- The CRM data brands have never put on their website

- Why domain architecture should be all subdirectory

- Why WordPress is great and why that is the problem

- The case study question that filters the pretenders

Whether you run a multi location brand, work agency side, own a franchise marketing budget, or are deciding what your website actually needs to do now, this episode gives you an infrastructure view of a problem most people treat as a content problem.

🎧 Tune in to hear the one question a client can ask that separates agencies selling packages from agencies selling results.

Top Of Funnel Content: Is It Dead In The AI Era?

Is top of funnel content dead now that AI answers the question first, or was it always the wrong starting point?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Macy Myhill, Associate Director of SEO at Directive Consulting, who runs search for B2B technology and SaaS companies where the job is pipeline rather than rankings.

The conversation examines an answer with a twist in it. Macy says AI Overviews are eating top of funnel queries in SaaS, with people getting their answer and stopping. But the sharper point is that those searches were never reaching a mature buyer anyway, since nobody evaluating email marketing software is searching what is email marketing. Her fix is to start further down the funnel with comparisons and buyer's guides, which is also the content LLMs reward.

They also get into how to tell genuinely useful AI content from slop, the ethics of making numbers look good for a board, why keyword volume so often misleads in B2B, how her team tracks LLM traffic when the data is a black hole, why persona data belongs inside prompt tracking, what to check first when a content program declines, and why a keyword with 50 searches a month can be worth a million a year.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Whether top of funnel content is dead or simply misdirected

- Why AI Overviews are eating top of funnel queries in SaaS

- Why LLM traffic converts around four times better

- Why to start at the middle of the funnel with mature buyers

- How to tell genuinely useful AI content from slop

- Why high volume keywords rarely match buyer intent

- How to track LLM traffic when the data is a black hole

- Why persona data belongs inside your prompt tracking

- What to check first when a content program declines

- Why a 50 volume keyword can be worth a million a year

Whether you run SEO for a SaaS company, own content strategy, work agency side, or are watching a content program lose ground, this episode gives you a clear read on which funnel stage actually deserves your budget now.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the keyword with almost no search volume may be the most valuable one you own.

Authentic Marketing: The One Practice Every Agency Needs

Is authentic marketing a real practice agencies can adopt, or just another buzzword next to holistic?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Aaron Rachlow (Bear Fox Marketing), Jonathan Saeidian (Brenton Way), and Barbara Cavness (Uncommon Logic) to define what authenticity actually looks like when AI makes fast content effortless.

The conversation examines where AI helps and where it hides a lack of substance. Jonathan calls AI a force multiplier, useful for turning a four hour weekly report into minutes but nowhere near able to build, run, and rethink a creative strategy on its own. Aaron adds that the five prompts that replace your agency fail because they skip the thinking at the start, and that AI now exposes weaker team members faster than ever. Barbara argues smaller agencies hold the edge, since they are not bogged down by process and can adapt each best practice to the client in front of them.

They also get into why clients bouncing between three agencies may be the problem themselves, why transparency about missed goals is the real test of an agency, the client Jonathan refunded after he yelled at his team, the brand Aaron turned away because SEO was the wrong channel, and the one practice each of them says every agency needs next.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why AI works as a force multiplier, not a replacement

- Why the five prompts that replace your agency keep failing

- How AI exposes weaker team members faster than before

- Why smaller agencies can be more authentic than large ones

- Why closed platforms slow big agencies down on AI

- Why clients should know their own data before hiring

- Why admitting missed goals builds more trust than hiding them

- When to fire a client to protect your team

- Why telling a client SEO is wrong for them pays off later

- The one authentic practice every agency should adopt

Whether you run an agency, lead a team, buy marketing services, or are deciding how far to lean on AI, this episode gives you three agency leaders explaining what authenticity looks like in practice rather than in a tagline.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the most authentic moment in this episode happened before anyone pressed record.

SEO vs Content Marketing: What's The Real Difference?

Is SEO the same thing as content marketing, or a tactic that sits inside it?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Ahava Leibtag, CEO of Aha Media Group, who has spent twenty years in healthcare content and has strong views on how the industry uses both terms.

The conversation examines a distinction she refuses to let slide. Ahava argues SEO and content marketing should never be used interchangeably, because SEO is a tactic within content marketing rather than a synonym for it. A content marketing agency, in her framing, builds the strategy that answers five questions about who you are talking to and what you are saying, while SEO is the research telling you which words people actually use. Her sharper line: SEO should never have been a siloed department at all, because nobody has a VP of phone.

They also get into the most common mistakes healthcare websites make, the test for whether your content could sit unchanged on a competitor's site, her CRISP framework for getting content ready for agentic AI, why her agency refuses to do paid ads, and how a hub and spoke model turns knee pain into an entire content structure.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why SEO is a tactic within content marketing, not a synonym

- The five questions a real content strategy answers first

- Why SEO should never have been a siloed department

- The CRISP framework for getting content ready for AI

- The test for whether your content could sit on a competitor's site

- How to differentiate when the treatment is identical everywhere

- Why your sales team and your audience use different words

- Why marketers now have to make friends with IT

- Why one agency deliberately refuses to do paid ads

- How hub and spoke turns one topic into a content model

Whether you run an agency, lead content or SEO in-house, market in a regulated industry, or are trying to explain to a stakeholder what you actually do, this episode gives you a clean definition and the reasoning behind it.

🎧 Tune in to hear why an agency that has done this for twenty years says nobody ever comes to them asking for SEO.

AI Recommendations: How To Get Your Business Recommended

Can a business genuinely earn an AI recommendation, or is it the same trust signals under a new name?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Victoria Larson (Nebo Agency) and Tanner Jones (Consult Webs) to work out what it actually takes to get named when someone asks an assistant who to hire.

The conversation examines the shift from referral to recommendation. Tanner calls the LLM the new word of mouth, describing a talk he gave titled the end of law firm referrals as we know them, since the investigative stage that used to happen over a DM or a pew on Sunday now happens in a prompt. Victoria pushes on where that leaves trust, noting that for sensitive decisions like assisted living the AI gets someone aware of a brand but rarely closes the loop, so the work becomes knowing exactly when a human has to step in.

They also get into why AI referred leads arrive with more questions rather than fewer, the EEAT signals models are actually reading on your site, why qualified directories outweigh open listings, why your about page suddenly matters, how cookie permissions broke organic tracking, the dashboard Consult Webs built to replace vanity metrics with leads and cases, what happened when featured snippets turned into AI citations, and how to decide between brand and bottom of funnel on a limited budget.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why the LLM has become the new word of mouth

- Why AI referred leads arrive with more questions, not fewer

- How to work out where to focus before spending anything

- The EEAT signals AI is actually reading on your site

- Why qualified directories carry more weight than open listings

- Why your about page matters more than it used to

- Where AI assistants help and where they cost you the sale

- Why cookie permissions broke organic traffic tracking

- Why leads and cases beat every vanity metric

- When to fund brand and when to stay bottom of funnel

Whether you own a business, run an agency, market a practice, or are trying to work out why competitors keep getting named and you do not, this episode gives you two practitioners mapping the signals that actually decide it.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the page you never bothered to update may be the one deciding how AI describes you.

Reddit SEO: Why AI Keeps Citing Reddit Threads

Why does AI keep citing Reddit threads, and can a brand get into them without getting banned?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Itay Malinski (Aloha Digital) and Yaron Avisar (Aloha Digital) to unpack why Reddit has become one of the most cited sources in AI answers, and what a brand can actually do about it.

The conversation examines both the pull and the trap. Itay explains that Reddit threads carry real users describing real pains and alternatives, which is what a model reaches for when it wants community consensus rather than marketing copy. Then comes the warning: vendors selling a hundred brand comments a month watch ninety nine get deleted inside two hours, and the one that survives starts a thread about your spam.

They also get into their opposite approach, scoring each thread for relevance and ban risk, reading subreddit rules to decide when not to mention the brand at all, why the username carries the brand rather than the comment, and why they only target threads where a competitor already appears.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why AI keeps pulling answers from Reddit threads

- Why buying Reddit comments gets you deleted and banned

- How to score a thread before you post in it

- When the analysis says do not mention the brand at all

- Why your Reddit username matters more than your comment

- Why to only target threads where a competitor already appears

- How to run a citation gap analysis across LLM sources

- Why technical SEO is becoming a commodity

- Why editors survived the shift to AI content

- Why the five prompts replacing your agency never crawl your site

Whether you run an agency, own brand visibility, are weighing a Reddit strategy, or want to know how an AI native agency actually operates, this episode gives you a working system rather than a theory.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the safest Reddit comment you can post is the one that never mentions your brand.

How Search Results Real Estate Has Changed

Is the search results page genuinely being redrawn by AI, or has it just picked up more features?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Bruce Rowe (Sebo Marketing) and Adrian J. Reynolds (Peak Activity) to work out how much of the search landscape has actually shifted and how much is noise.

The conversation examines what the numbers say rather than the headlines. Bruce points out that Google still processes roughly 15 billion queries a day and its valuation has tripled in four years, so the claim that nobody uses Google is misinformed. Zero click results are rising into the 60 to 70 percent range, but that still leaves around 6 billion clicks daily. Adrian adds the data from his own client base, where not one account draws more than about two and a half percent of organic traffic from LLMs, and for many that number has plateaued.

They also get into why LLM monitoring tools charge by the prompt and rarely justify the cost, the sales pitch claiming five prompts will replace your SEO company, the three parts of SEO most people only half do, where backlinks came from and why Adrian says they have never mattered more, the four agencies that lost up to 95 percent of client rankings after one update, and why everyone being listed means nobody gets found.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why nobody uses Google anymore does not survive the numbers

- Why 60 percent zero clicks still leaves billions of clicks daily

- How much organic traffic LLMs actually deliver today

- Why LLM monitoring tools cost more than they return

- The three parts of SEO and why most people only do one

- Where backlinks came from and why they still matter

- How to find which sources an LLM already trusts

- What happened to four agencies that chased shortcuts

- Why everyone being listed means nobody gets found

- Why LLMs favor tables and comparison charts

Whether you run an agency, own a site, buy SEO, or are trying to work out whether AI visibility deserves a budget line, this episode gives you two veterans separating what actually moved from what the headlines claimed.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the answer that sounds boring is usually the one still working five years later.

AI Overviews vs Organic Traffic: Who's Really Getting Hurt?

Are AI Overviews taking your organic traffic, or is it arriving by a route you simply cannot see?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Andy Hendricks (Go Grey Matter), Ben Kalkman (Rocket Media), and Cori Shirk (Seer Interactive) to work out which industries are genuinely losing ground and which ones are fine.

The conversation examines an answer that splits sharply by vertical. Andy reports B2B manufacturing taking the hardest hit, where AI builds a shortlist before anyone books a demo and queries they rank top five for now return almost no clicks. Ben counters from home services, where homeowners still search for AC repair near me and the shift only shows up on high ticket research. Cori adds the part causing the panic, which is that traffic can fall without fewer people searching, and there is no clean way to trace the new paths.

They also get into why first party data is the real blind spot, when a search result becomes the decision rather than a list of options, why hiding your pricing now costs you the recommendation, the signals AI checks before naming anyone, where LLMs actually pull authority from, why links changed jobs rather than stopped mattering, and what agencies are hiring for now that technical execution got faster.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Which industries AI Overviews have actually hurt

- Why ranking top five can still mean almost no clicks

- Why declining traffic does not mean declining searches

- How AI builds a shortlist before a demo is ever booked

- Why home services sees lower volume but higher value

- Why hiding your pricing costs you the recommendation

- The signals AI checks before it recommends anyone

- Where LLMs actually pull authority from

- Why links changed jobs rather than stopped mattering

- What agencies hire for now instead of technical skills

Whether you run an agency, own a B2B or local business, report on organic performance, or are deciding how much to bet on AI visibility, this episode gives you three practitioners comparing notes across very different verticals.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the vertical getting hurt most is the one nobody is posting about.

How Website Accessibility Affects Your SEO

Does website accessibility genuinely affect your SEO, or is it a separate compliance job entirely?

In this episode of SEO On-Air, host Koa Kauwe sits down with Lindsey Flanagan (We Are Genuine) and John Coleman (Dentsu) to work through what your data is actually telling you, and what it quietly leaves out.

The conversation examines accessibility as a visibility problem rather than a checkbox. Lindsey frames a crawler as a user missing a sense, which makes an undescribed infographic or chart invisible to a screen reader and a bot alike. John adds the risk side, noting accessibility went from a box check five years ago to a lawsuit and PR exposure his state sector clients now test continuously. Their shared point is that good accessibility gives crawlers far more to work with.

They also get into why 50 million impressions can be worth nothing, why a local healthcare client should not chase a national brand ranking for unrelated terms, whether the map pack is losing ground to AI overviews, the automated audit whose red flags were all unfixable, the AI built deck that missed a site migration entirely, the real cost of tracking prompts across multiple markets, and the most overrated and underrated metrics in any SEO report.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

- Why a crawler behaves like a user missing a sense

- Why infographics and charts are invisible without text

- Why accessibility is now a lawsuit and PR risk

- Why 50 million impressions can be worth nothing

- Why chasing a national brand on volume wastes budget

- Whether the local map pack is losing ground to AI overviews

- What automated audit red flags actually mean

- The real cost of tracking prompts across markets

- Why total inbound links is the most overrated metric

- Why share of voice beats tracking individual keywords

Whether you run an agency, report to clients, buy SEO services, or own a site with compliance exposure, this episode gives you two analysts explaining which numbers deserve your attention and which ones are quietly costing you.

🎧 Tune in to hear why the metric your agency leads with is often the one that means the least.