Latest / Content, Briefly / Flying Cat: Maeva Cifuentes on Localization and GEO

Transcript

Flying Cat: Maeva Cifuentes on Localization and GEO · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
  [ on-hold music] Hey, everybody, and thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly. Today I've got Maeva Cifuentes on.
• 0:08
  She's the founder and CEO of an agency called Flying Cat Marketing based in Barcelona, about twenty-five people. They do a full suite of SEO services, but they also offer an internationalization and localization service.
• 0:20
  We talked a lot about that.
• 0:21
  It's something I, I really don't know much about, and we talked about some best practices, uh, what type of companies it makes sense for, uh, kind of a whole world of things I really didn't know anything about and super interesting.
• 0:31
  We also talked about GEO, which is kind of a cousin to SEO. Stands for Generative Engine Optimization. Maybe you're already in the loop about this. I was not.
• 0:39
  So basically, this means how you optimize content for natural language processing, meaning how do you get it into ChatGPT and, and AI overviews and Google and things like that.
• 0:48
  Really cool actually, and it's not so different from SEO, and as she described in her kind of surround sound SEO framework which we talk about, like, many of the things that you would do to optimize content for SEO are the same types of things you would do to optimize for generative AI.
• 1:02
  Anyways, we get into all that. Super interesting. Really appreciate Maeva coming on and talking about all this stuff. A couple quick things about community stuff happening.
• 1:10
  We've got our weekly co-working sessions up and running. These have been awesome. Basically come, we spend five minutes talking about what we're gonna accomplish.
• 1:16
  We suggest that you pick something tough that you've been avoiding and really make time for it. We work for about fifty minutes, and then the last five minutes we come back together and talk about how it went.
• 1:24
  If you've used Flow Club, same idea. We've got our monthly one-on-ones, we have our monthly Superpath socials, which are group calls with breakout sessions. We've got the app loaded up with courses.
• 1:35
  We've got some perks coming. So we're putting together a library of perks for various software companies, which we're gonna make available to everyone soon, and we now have a free trial.
• 1:44
  So if you're not a member yet and you wanna give it a go for a month, head to superpath.co and sign up for a free trial. You can see what it's like, do it for a month, and decide if it's for you.
• 1:54
  Okay, I will get out of the way now. Thanks so much for tuning in again. Really enjoyed this conversation with Maeva Cifuentes, and I hope you do too. Take care.
• 2:00
  This episode is brought to you by our friends at Shuffle, the all-in-one video editing and production tool.
• 2:05
  Instead of bouncing between multiple tools to draft ideas, record, edit, and add post-production elements, Shuffle brings everything into one platform.
• 2:13
  From ideation to final production, you simply log in with your company email and Shuffle pulls in your branding, logo, colors, and more directly from your website so you're up and running quickly.
• 2:22
  Here's how Shuffle works. Just type in a prompt like, "A marketing video on why community is the new way to do sales in twenty twenty-four," and then Shuffle generates everything for you.
• 2:31
  A shot list, a sensible script, branded motion art, and even provides an online recording studio with a teleprompter. No need to shuffle between apps. Everything stays on one platform.
• 2:41
  With Shuffle, you not only save time in production, but also in ideation. The platform tailors the shot list based on the concept you input, giving you endless video possibilities.
• 2:50
  It's the perfect way to consistently create thought leadership videos without the hassle. Check the link in the show notes to start your free trial. Hey, everybody. Jimmy from Superpath.
• 2:59
  Very happy to be here today with Maeva Cifuentes, founder of Flying Cat Marketing. We have a lot to discuss, and we'll get into that in a second.
• 3:05
  But Maeva, first, would you mind introducing yourself for folks who don't already know you and haven't already interacted with you in Superpath? We just did an AMA a week or so ago. Thanks, Jimmy.
• 3:14
  Really excited to be on the podcast. I actually love Superpath so much. It is my favorite community for content marketers. Very well-ran, so I'm very happy to be here. So my name is Maeva, as you said.
• 3:26
  I am the CEO and founder of Flying Cat. Flying Cat is a boutique SEO and content agency. We serve mid-market B2B SaaS companies. We've had clients like ActiveCampaign, Hotjar, Mixmax, Leapsome. We are fully remote.
• 3:44
  I'm from California originally, but I'm based in Barcelona at the moment, and we have people all over the place. But a lot of us are here in Barcelona, and we're a small hybrid team of about twenty-five people. Nice.
• 3:57
  Okay. That's awesome. I will also say Flying Cat has been sponsoring Superpath for a while, which I'm extremely grateful for. You've been a great partner to us. This isn't a paid appearance.
• 4:05
  It's just like we've gotten to know each other a bit over the last few months, and there's so much to unpack about your story, Flying Cat's origin story, and then some of the things you're working on for clients.
• 4:16
  As I mentioned, we did an AMA in the Slack group a few weeks ago, which folks can go back and read. There's a ton of stuff there, and there was a couple things I wanted to pull out of that.
• 4:24
  But maybe first, before we get into, like, the really nitty-gritty specific, like, give us the overview of Flying Cat. How did you start it? What's the origin story of the business?
• 4:31
  And then what are your areas of specialization now? Yeah. So the origin story, I started Flying Cat five years ago. Actually, next week, February fifth, is the five-year anniversary. Cool. Oh, congrats. Yeah. Thank you.
• 4:44
  It coincides with my boyfriend's birthday, so that's- Nice... we'll have to choose which one to celebrate. [both laughing] We started five years ago. Before I started Flying Cat, I was a freelancer.
• 4:56
  So I originally began freelancing actually as a translator. When was that? Two thousand nine [chuckles] I think. A long time ago.
• 5:06
  And so I was doing translation from French and Spanish into English, following in my parents' footsteps. They're both translators. And that eventually turned into content.
• 5:17
  I did translating for, like, only for, like, a good seven years, and then I started doing content and copywriting, and then that turned into long-form content.
• 5:26
  Turned out to be my favorite, and I started writing a lot of long-form content for companies. And at one point I was like, "How do people see this content? Is this-- [chuckles] Is anybody reading?
• 5:34
  Or like, what are you guys doing with this?"
• 5:36
  So I started learning SEO and applying that, and I did hit a point in my career where I realized I preferred actually doing business, the business side, than doing all of the SEO and writing work.
• 5:49
  Actually, the thing I wanted to get off my plate the fastest was writing for clients. Oh, that's so interesting. I'm just...
• 5:55
  I-- That strikes me a bit because, you know, you hear freelancers talk every now and then about how do they scale themselves and, you know, usually it's like you have an oversupply of demand, and so you bring on other writers, but most of them love the writing part.
• 6:07
  That's the part they wanna keep.I have coached some small agency owners, and she was like, "Yeah, but I- I'm gonna keep writing 'cause I love writing." I was like, "Oh, that's definitely not what I wanna be."
• 6:17
  [chuckles] I love writing, but I don't love writing for clients. Yeah. Uh, there, there's a difference for sure, yeah. So yeah, it's a different approach for each agency owner.
• 6:25
  I love building a business, and I know that some agency owners are like, "I just want more good writing work to choose from, and so I can scale that way." But that is not the case for me.
• 6:37
  So yeah, I started by just getting some freelance writers to help me and, and then I learned that I also don't like project management [chuckles] because the freelance writers started saying, "When is the first draft due?"
• 6:50
  And I was like, "Ah, I d- I don't know, like, some time before..." Then I said, "Okay, I need to get somebody to help me with the project management."
• 6:57
  So I had a friend who recently left her job, and she was looking for some kinda side thing, and I was like, "You can help me a couple hours a week." She's still with the company now. Later, yeah, full-time now.
• 7:08
  And so she started helping me with project management, and then we started building SOPs 'cause we were like, "We're gonna need another project manager, and they're gonna need to know what you're doing."
• 7:15
  And then suddenly it became a company, and I had to learn about things like business finance [chuckles] and operations and all that kinda stuff, which was... It has been a very interesting journey, and yeah.
• 7:28
  So at first it kinda just naturally became an agency, and then I said, "Okay, this is gonna be a thing now." That's awesome. That's so interesting. Where is your energy today? Is it ops? Is it business development?
• 7:37
  Is it finance? Is it people management? Or all of those things?
• 7:40
  Majority of my focus is on sales and marketing, but I still run the client fulfillment team, so I'm still overseeing the day-to-day of a lot of stuff, and I actually still have one client that I do the SEO for. Nice.
• 7:56
  That's cool. And that, I assume, is that, like, a long-standing partnership, or is that, like, your way of y- you know, staying sharp by- So yeah, it was multi-beneficial. We've been with them for three years.
• 8:06
  Then they specifically requested that I go on the account, and I was like, "Okay, well, actually, it's probably useful that I'm still doing SEO so that I can test the things that I'm talking about." Sure.
• 8:16
  Yeah, so I've been having fun on that account, and we've been doing a lot of good things. And I don't think I'll take on another account myself, but it's good to have one that I keep...
• 8:25
  And it's quite a big one as well, so I have a lot of things that I can experiment with. Yeah, yeah. No, that's cool. You know, it's interesting. I find I'm, uh, like, I'm a very rusty content marketer.
• 8:35
  Like, when I talk to other content marketers, I'm like, "Uh, you tell me. I don't know." Like, [chuckles] "I haven't done this in a while." Not on a team anyways, you know? It's very different.
• 8:43
  What type of services are you offering clients? How specialized is it, you know? Yeah.
• 8:47
  I, their part-- Localization is, I think, a, an important part of it, but how much do you kinda focus on that versus the rest of your services?
• 8:55
  The biggest primary service is SEO full service, so that includes, for one language, actually, that's the main service, in English.
• 9:05
  So that's gonna be, you get a full strategy, technical SEO, link building, content creation, reporting, revising the strategy, like a full stack SEO team at your disposal.
• 9:16
  Then we also offer those broken down individually, so for example, strategy and briefs only if you have a content team already, content only if you have an SEO agency already, and link building alone, which some clients need.
• 9:32
  And then international SEO. This actually also came from my background in localization, 'cause I had a small family translation agency for a few years, which was me and my parents.
• 9:45
  And so I started building that database of freelancers. I started building out these external projects.
• 9:50
  And so I realized also that there's quite a big gap in the SEO industry for this because this is what people are telling me.
• 9:56
  I'm talking to a lot of people who are doing international SEO right now, and the issue is that they're working with translation and localization agencies that don't actually know anything about SEO.
• 10:06
  So they're looking for SEO agencies first that also can provide these international SEO services, but they're more focused on the SEO part, but then they can also create the content and the strategies.
• 10:16
  So that's-- we support a couple clients on that, and I'm trying to grow that more 'cause I think it's really valuable. I think slowly organizations are starting to realize that this is a huge opportunity.
• 10:28
  Most of those markets are untapped. Nobody's doing real SEO in them. They're all just translating stuff, so there's zero competition.
• 10:36
  It's very rare that your competition is actually doing proper SEO in other languages, so it's just really still untapped way to grow in SEO. Yeah.
• 10:45
  Which much of it is saturated already, so I think they're starting to do it more this year. Can I ask you a question about localization? You know, I don't know much about this.
• 10:55
  A few years ago, eight years ago, something like that, I explored translating a blog that I was running into other languages, and it...
• 11:02
  Like, the options were, like, a WordPress plugin, you know, that would sort of, like, send your stuff off to a translator, and then you get it back. Word for word translation. It's not really localized. It's translated.
• 11:13
  A year or two after that, I was at QuickBooks for a brief stint, and we had teams in the different regions. So there's two...
• 11:22
  Not two, but there's mult- in each region, there's a totally separate content program happening, and we had the opposite problem of, like, how do we work together a little bit more? What's the middle ground?
• 11:31
  Y- you know, how... I assume that there is a way to do it without building teams in every region and a much better way than using a WordPress plugin to do it really quick.
• 11:41
  I don't even know if I need to comment on the WordPress plugin. Yeah, yeah. [chuckles] I think that we all know what good that's gonna do you.
• 11:48
  But the separate teams is actually a big problem for a lot of companies 'cause th- well, the main reason is that there's-- Well, already, one, their strategy's not aligned- Right... like you said.
• 11:59
  But second, they're spending so much money, so much more money than they don't even... Like, there's no economies of scale.
• 12:06
  I just spoke to a prospect the other day who was like, "We have 11 different locations, and each location has their own agency."
• 12:13
  [chuckles] Whoa.Imagine the cost of that already for one, and the fact that your everything is being reported differently, all the workflows are different. You're not gaining any advantage by... from the other locations.
• 12:26
  Like, could you be localizing? Could you be seeing what's working there and trying to apply it here? It's all super separate.
• 12:32
  So wh- I think it's better to centralize it and have one global strategy, at least in terms of we need to build these content buckets.
• 12:40
  And together with the global strategy, you can say, "Okay, this region actually might have different problems," or, "This region has a different level of awareness about their problem than this region does."
• 12:52
  I'm sure that Italy is gonna have a much different level of awareness than the US about, I don't know, certain marketing topics. So you're gonna need to build that out a little bit more.
• 13:04
  But then you can kinda see what are the main things that we wanna talk about, and most importantly is also identify what content already exists in English and can be translated or can be localized.
• 13:16
  Because sometimes you might have content that exists in English and it's performing really well, but it doesn't work when it's localized, and that's because, well, first of all, the keywords haven't been researched again.
• 13:27
  The search intent might be different, and this is a big problem that happens is you actually look up the search intent for the keyword you were gonna localize it in, and it's either a different format or it includes a bunch of different stuff that you should include in that language, and you should be covering different things, but all they do is translate what was in English, so it doesn't actually match what the other searchers were looking for.
• 13:47
  So you have to do that analysis. But there often is a lot of stuff that can be localized.
• 13:53
  So it does help you a lot with economies of scale, 'cause it's a lot cheaper to translate than to write content from scratch, so you can just see what can be localized.
• 14:02
  And another thing that people forget is keeping up and, like, maintaining and updating that content, just like you would have to do [chuckles] for any other con- You localized it, so it's good to go, but no, you have to keep updating it, so that needs to be a part of it.
• 14:14
  But ideally, you have, like, one lead, I guess you could call them global SEO manager or lead or whatever, that is getting reports from all of these, aligning everybody on the strategy, and making sure that we're getting economies of scale.
• 14:30
  Right. Are...
• 14:31
  Should all companies be localizing, or is it that certain services and products make sense for it, and then maybe some companies, like at a certain scale, like you're now a global business, therefore you should do this?
• 14:43
  Not all companies are gonna have product market fit. Like, product market fit is by market. That's interesting. Yeah. So you have to figure that out first.
• 14:52
  So when you say, like, all of them should be localizing, maybe not. You know, there's different...
• 14:57
  Like a lot of C mega brands that sell napkins or something, they're gonna localize even all the English ones, so they're gonna have to Australia, to UK, to New Zealand, and, like, different versions of that website.
• 15:09
  A lot of SaaS companies aren't gonna need that level of localization. That's way too much of an excess. And then you just figure out which markets you need it in. But also, are you able to support those markets?
• 15:21
  If it's sales led, do you have salespeople that can talk? Like, if you have content in those languages, but then they get on a sales call and they can't talk to anybody, what was the point? Right. That's so interesting.
• 15:31
  Do your customers find you? Like, do they recognize that they have this problem and go looking for it, or are you actively trying to identify?
• 15:38
  It's quite complicated because right now the thought is still very much we just need to translate our content, and that's what they're coming to me for. We need to trans...
• 15:49
  build content, but the SEO-- but the translation agency doesn't know SEO. And then I tell them, "You guys probably need an SEO strate- like the strategy part."
• 15:56
  And they're like, "Well, we'll just translate content for now and see."
• 15:59
  There are a couple that are coming and saying, "We need to have localized audits and see what the opportunities are per language," but that's still kinda rare.
• 16:08
  Most of them are just like, "Let's localize what we have in English." And they wanna try first before doing more. What are you hearing from customers about SEO in general? Like how...
• 16:20
  I'm assuming the conversation around SEO has changed. But like, what does that conversation sound like now versus a year or two ago? It's pretty mixed.
• 16:29
  Like lately, I'm speaking to a lot of early stage companies that are like, "We're gonna start SEO from scratch right now. Yes." And I'm like, "Okay. [chuckles] It's a good, good time to get started from scratch."
• 16:40
  No, but there's a lot of those that are very optimistic about it, or I would say bullish. Bullish is positive, right? Or b- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I always mix those up. So they're very bullish about SEO.
• 16:53
  They think it's necessary, and sometimes it's a good opportunity. I'd say the other ones are so intense now about what are we gonna do exactly.
• 17:03
  I need to know exactly what we're going to do and exactly why, which is fair, and we should have been doing this the whole time.
• 17:10
  But like at the sales stage, even for mid-market companies, I'm having C-levels coming on and being like, "Explain to me exactly the plan step by step."
• 17:18
  So I'm having to create like full on strategies at the sales stage, which normally I have them pay for in onboarding, so we can do research. But now it's at the sales stage, like they...
• 17:28
  nobody's signing unless I have like a fully planned out plan, because they're very apprehensive. And so they say like, "Show me that this is gonna work." D- have you seen the HubSpot graph? I wrote about it today.
• 17:41
  I wrote an newsletter about it. You did? Okay, I was gonna say, like this is like my entire LinkedIn is the HubSpot graph. Like, is that [chuckles] is this good or bad?
• 17:48
  Like, when I saw that, I was like, maybe this is a good thing. Like, how many like junk keywords were they ranking for that like even if they're not ranking for, it's not gonna affect their business at all. No, yeah.
• 17:56
  My opinion, I was like, I don't think HubSpot... I mean, other than the SEO who is now like reporting on traffic, and they're like, "Oh, God." [laughs] She's probably having a panic attack right now.
• 18:07
  But I don't think it affected their business at all. Like, I would love to see a report that says they got deals from shrug emoji.
• 18:15
  I don't think they got any, which is the kind- RightI think it's just, like I think the, a lot of those big, huge corporate blogs, HubSpot was probably the biggest, but in B2B, but I think a lot of those are gonna start seeing the same thing.
• 18:29
  And, you know, everybody's saying like, "We're losing... Google traffic is declining."
• 18:34
  But I don't think that that's exactly the case, because I think it's more that they're just getting rid of stuff that's not relevant to the website. Yeah.
• 18:42
  So if you've been publishing a lot of that, it suddenly looks like your traffic is gonna be plummeting.
• 18:48
  But for the websites that have been-- continues to be super relevant, I still see a lot of websites that are growing.
• 18:53
  So the Google traffic isn't necessarily declining, it's just you, you're now facing the consequences of maybe not a targeted strategy before. Right.
• 19:03
  Does it set you up for a healthier conversation with a prospect about SEO? You know, like not... The HubSpot is like such a- Yeah...
• 19:10
  extreme outlier in so many ways, but like I just-- I do have the sense of like, SEO's changing, maybe that's a good thing.
• 19:16
  Like maybe we can all just like talk about this in a way that's like so much more down to earth than it used to be, you know? I think it's a good thing.
• 19:24
  I think there's still a lot of education to be made, but honestly, it's forced us, like what we've been changing lately is getting way more specific on goal and explaining how every single action is tied to that goal.
• 19:38
  So if we're creating top of the-- like we'll still create top of the funnel content. This lesson for me wasn't don't create top of the funnel content, but I have to demonstrate how that is directly going to aid my goal.
• 19:52
  So if I have a page that's top content marketing communities, and I want to rank number one for that, then I can create some other top funnel things, but all of them have to be somehow supporting that one page.
• 20:05
  So I can't just say, "Oh, it's gonna give us traffic," or, "Oh, somehow it's relevant."
• 20:09
  I know there's a lot of excuses out there about top funnel content, like you need to have your glossaries and this and that, uh, for authority.
• 20:17
  I don't think just wide range topical authority enough is gonna cut it as an argument, but it needs to tie directly to authority over the page that is achieving your goals.
• 20:28
  [chuckles] And so we've gotten super hyper-focused on this, and just that's been a really good exercise.
• 20:34
  And so it, it even allows me, like if we do pick a, a top funnel piece, it allows me to be like, "Okay, yeah, actually this is a good decision," because I am seeing data that's gonna tell me that this is supporting what has historically driven the most leads that, for this company.
• 20:52
  But I think it's just gonna have to shift how people look at that. Got it. That makes sense. In the AMA, you mentioned a term which was new to me, which was GEO, generative engine optimization.
• 21:02
  I had not heard that before.
• 21:04
  And then like two days later, actually, I got on a sales call for a Superpath marketplace prospect, and I asked where they found us, and the person said, "I went on ChatGPT and asked where to find freelance writers, and Superpath came up."
• 21:16
  And I was like, "Whoa". Yeah. I- that's cra- that's such a behavioral shift in the way that people go look for information. So is this something that you like, I assume customers are now curious about this.
• 21:28
  Is, is that a service that you're actually offering? Yeah. So we are offering it. We're still-- But it's not a separate service. It's we're implement-- integrating it into our SEO service.
• 21:40
  So I don't think you should have separate strategies for GEO and SEO. They're gonna be one and... So we're implementing it into our existing service.
• 21:48
  It's still super experimental, but we have been able to increase a lot of referral traffic from ChatGPT, from Perplexity for our clients.
• 21:55
  We've been able to increase appearances in AI overviews, and so this is a mix of a few different things, is one is learning how to write for NLP, and for natural language processing, and that's a big part of GEO because you need to be able to write in a way that the AI can cut up information.
• 22:14
  So if you type something into ChatGPT or into Google, like if a regular Google search with the 10 blue links, which is not really the SERP anymore, but let's just say theoretically, that's gonna be looking for things that match your keyword.
• 22:28
  But in AI, it has a lot more context to try to understand, so it's gonna pull things from a bunch of different SERPs, a bunch of different types of pages.
• 22:36
  But it needs to be able to break down your content into super clear, this equals that, just clear and contextual information.
• 22:45
  So there's a lot of ways to write for natural language processing so that they can have that clarity and break it down and ideally have you appear. So we've been starting to implement that in our writing anyway.
• 22:56
  And then- Super interesting. Yeah. I r- there's actually so little information about it. We're about to start a blog series about it, because if you look up
• 23:04
  most information for NLP is written for engineers and machine learning specialists. Like, I even found a course like writing for NLP, basic requirements, no Python. I was like, "Uh-oh. [chuckles] Okay.
• 23:16
  So I won't do this." So yeah. Oh, I'm excited to start providing more information about this and just having some more case studies and tests to, to play with. And then there's also surround sound SEO.
• 23:29
  Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you about that also. Which is basically...
• 23:32
  So in a lot of the ways you're gonna show up in ChatGPT is, or the pe- the ways people want to show up in it is you ask a question about a type of tool or category, and your name shows up on the list.
• 23:43
  Like, that's the most important thing. Right. So what you need for that is a lot of brand awareness, a lot of brand mentions across the web.
• 23:51
  Basically, that your name is super associated with the category, and that it's showed up enough times when it does a search that it's like, "Oh, Superpath showed up 20 times when asked about this category, like in a bunch of different ways, so Superpath must be one of the things on the list."
• 24:08
  So surround sound SEO is trying to seek...
• 24:10
  So instead of only creating a top 10 listicle for yourself, as in the top 10 best marketing communities, you also try to get listed on-All of the other pages that rank for that keyword. Right.
• 24:23
  Try to get your name on the top 10. And honestly, the link is good, but it doesn't even matter if you're linked. It's the brand-- the unlinked brand mention also helps for this. So it's a form- Oh, that's interesting.
• 24:34
  It doesn't necessarily need to be linked. Your name just needs to be associated with it. That's great, actually. Well, it's, it's... I actually wanted to ask you about links anyways.
• 24:43
  One of the-- like if you look at the twenty-three thousand or so people who have joined Superpath over the last five years, I bet almost half of them, maybe a third, I, I don't know, I have the data, I haven't analyzed it, but have come from listicles of the best marketing communities.
• 24:59
  That's where people come from, you know. Like, we don't have a listicle about that. I wonder maybe that's how, you know, the mentions in those listicles end up in the NLP, which helps it. But it-- I've never really...
• 25:12
  That's not a deliberate strategy. You have a strong brand, and that's what makes- Yeah. That's fascinating. So we're a li- like, are customers asking you for links, and then are you still finding that they're...
• 25:21
  I mean, I guess based on what you just described, they are definitely useful, although maybe there's still this like secondary benefit of like the mention is still helpful, even if it's not linked.
• 25:28
  The mention is still helpful, but links are still making a difference. We- Yeah... only recently have truly built out an in-house link building offer.
• 25:37
  We finally got a link building expert on our team, which I'm super excited about. And since we started running this, like, a lot harder, way faster results for the clients. Like, it really helps improve rankings. Yeah.
• 25:50
  So interesting. Yeah. Okay, cool. I might have some follow-up questions for you on this.
• 25:54
  I've been thinking a lot about Help a Baby Be a Writer, which is a site that Superpath runs, and trying to figure out, like, how do we message the value of the service as SEO is changing.
• 26:03
  You know, like it's a lot of digital PR folks on the sourcer expert side, and I feel like we need to do a little bit of education on, like, what are we trying to accomplish here, you know? Yes.
• 26:12
  For- What you just des- Which side? Both sides. Well, like for, for both sides. Like on the writer side, it's like get subject matter expertise for the content you're writing.
• 26:21
  And then on the source side, I think that has become... AI has just thrown such a wrench in the whole thing. Oof. I can only imagine how much you have to go [laughs] filter. It drives me insane.
• 26:31
  Well, you know, folks come on, and they'll-- like, they'll get the requests each day, and then they go into ChatGPT, and then they send out a hundred responses, you know. And it's like, why are we doing this?
• 26:39
  Y- like this is not helping. You know what I mean? There's probably some ways you could use AI to make your... You know, gain some efficiency here.
• 26:44
  But like, I think we need to do a little bit of education on, like, what is the value of sending a good response, what you might get out of it if you are actually mentioned or linked, that type of thing.
• 26:54
  It's slowed down a little bit. Like the initial wave of, "ChatGPT makes it so easy," you know, that created like an insane amount of spam, and then it's died off a little bit.
• 27:03
  I wonder if any of those spam responses were ever used. I can't imagine they were. We've also started blacklisting offenders- Okay...
• 27:10
  which helps, you know, 'cause like we have a way for folks to report, and then we block them. So anyway, sorry. That's like g- going down like a whole rabbit hole. That's okay. I'm reporting it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:19
  [laughs] Exactly. Okay, one last thing I wanted to ask you about. On your website there, it's like if someone goes to book a call with you, you ask them to watch a YouTube video- Yes...
• 27:30
  on preparing for the discovery call, which I love because it puts it back on them. Like, what do you want? Like, come to this call prepared to talk about what you actually want.
• 27:39
  'Cause like they may be thinking, "Oh, I want traffic. I want- Mm-hmm... rankings." And like that's-- I'm guessing that's like not... It's like a step removed from what you want to provide them. Yeah.
• 27:50
  So one of the main reasons I created this video was because I wanna spend the entire first call doing discovery, and they wanna spend the call figuring out how we work, w- who's our writer, who's on our writing team, how do we do research, how do we do strategy, et cetera, et cetera.
• 28:09
  So I send the video because I'm like, "I'm gonna answer all the questions you're gonna ask me already now in this video, and then here's also what I need."
• 28:18
  Because sometimes I also get on the call, and I'm like, "What's your current monthly organic traffic?" And they're like, "Oh, I don't know. Hold on. Let me try to open Google Analytics. Oh, it's not working."
• 28:26
  And then we lose five minutes. Yeah. So it's just to be able to have a super effective and efficient discovery call. 'Cause I know, and I've been on discovery calls, and I know I as the customer am trying to discover.
• 28:38
  I'm just trying to do like a quick, "Is this for me?" But then they could get that from the video, and then... I mean, it's never happened to me where they watched the video and said, "Oh, this is not what I want.
• 28:47
  Let's not have the call." But it's always been really helpful 'cause they come onto the call and they're like, "Okay, so I already understand you guys do this and that, really cool," and then I can get my discovery.
• 28:55
  Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks. That's awesome. I'm gonna do that for Superpath 'cause, y- you know, ac- I remember in my agency sales days,
• 29:03
  animals, you get in a lot of calls, and it becomes like a content marketing therapy session. It's like [laughs] you're trying to figure out like what's really wrong. [laughs] Why, why are you here, you know?
• 29:13
  And it's like sometimes you would get into it, and it'd be like, "My boss said we need more traffic," or like, [laughs] you know, "I'm concerned that our competitors are doing this."
• 29:20
  And it's like, okay, but that's tangential. You know what I mean? Like, anyway, so I love that idea. Awesome. Maeve, thank you so much for making time. It's great to chat.
• 29:26
  It's been amazing to get to know you over the past couple months. I would encourage folks, go check out Flying Cat. Like, we'll link to it in the show notes obviously. And for Pro members, go check out the AMA.
• 29:35
  There's a lot more detail, and you provided some really thoughtful answers to everybody's questions, so we appreciate that. And, yeah, thank you again for making time. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. [outro music]