Darren Jamieson:
When I was a kid… are we allowed to swear? I was a little bit of a shit. And my mum used to basically bow down to everything that I wanted.
I got everything I needed because I was the youngest of four, but I was considerably the youngest of four. My next eldest sibling was 14 years older than me, so I grew up as an only child effectively. So I got whatever I wanted.
And I had something called a double-decker VHS player. Anyone else have one of those? No? No. I was the envy of the school. A double-decker VHS player. And for those of you that do not know what VHS is — there might be some people too young in the room — that is a VHS tape. That is what we used before DVDs, before Blu-rays, before Netflix, before streaming stuff over the internet. We had things like this.
What I would do is go to the video store and rent a video because my mum let me have whatever I wanted, even if it was an 18. She bought me An American Werewolf in London when I was in primary school. I was shocked and disappointed when I took it in at the end of the school year — when we all brought videos in to watch in the TV room — and they told me, “No, we cannot watch that.” Why not? Because we were all 10 and it is an 18-rated film. But never mind that; I digress.
I would take one of the videos that I had rented from the video store, put it in the top deck of my VHS recorder, put a blank tape like this in the bottom deck, press play to watch it, and press record on the blank tape — copying the film. Naughty. And I have just admitted on camera that I have been pirating movies. Never mind; we will skip over that one very quickly.
But when you have a copied film — for those of you that have never done this — the quality degrades. It is not as good as the original. It is not like copying a file on a computer; it degrades. The picture is a little worse; the sound is a little worse. Then my mate Nick wanted a copy of the film I had recorded. So he gave me a blank tape and I put my copy in the top deck and his blank tape in the bottom deck, pressed play and record, and gave him a copy of my copy — and the copy degraded a little bit worse. The picture got worse. The sound got a little bit worse.
Did anybody go to car-boot sales or markets when they were a kid? Did you see those guys with the white vans that had all the VHS tapes in front of them of the latest movies out in the cinema? Yeah? Selling them for about five quid. Titanic. It has been in the cinema two weeks, but you can buy it from the market in Splott in Cardiff for a fiver. And the picture was probably a bit crap because it would have been a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.
Keep that in mind. I am going to put that there and we will come back to why that is relevant in a moment.
Now, history lesson. Who loves history? Ryan. I know Ryan does. This is for Ryan, then. In the Californian gold rush of 1848 — how does he know this stuff, how does he remember this stuff? I do not. You can check it yourself later if you want; it is accurate — loads of Americans rushed out to the West Coast in California because they were told:
“There is gold in them hills.”
They all spent money buying equipment, buying land, prospecting to dig for gold, and the vast majority of them got absolutely nothing.
There is an old saying in history: the people who made the real money in the Californian gold rush were the ones selling the shovels.
We are currently in the middle of the AI gold rush. Everybody is rushing out, using AI for their digital marketing, for their content, to write their social media posts. As Paul has said, everyone is doing the same thing. But the real winners in the AI gold rush will be the people selling the shovels, not the people trying to find the gold in the AI content.
Now, we are approaching something in AI called model collapse — write that one down and Google it later; it is quite a frightening prospect. Model collapse is where, say you are an accountant, and you go to ChatGPT and say, “Write me a blog about why my clients should use an accountant rather than do it themselves.” You have done that, have you not? Not that specific thing, but you have done something very similar, have you not? “Write me a piece of content; write me a 300-word blog on why my clients should use an accountant, or why my clients should not do their own VAT returns.” You are nodding again there — pretty good, yeah, pretty accurate.
Then ChatGPT will create you a 300-word blog on why your clients should use an accountant for their VAT returns. And then another accountant does it, and another accountant does it, and quite frankly hundreds of thousands of accountants around the world have done this exact same thing. They have all created pieces of content and put it on their websites. So there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of content online written by ChatGPT on exactly the same subject.
Now, the interesting thing about AI is it cannot create anything original for itself. It has no creativity. It can only base the content on what exists online already. Now, if you have hundreds of thousands of accountants doing exactly the same thing, the content it is writing is based on AI-created content, which is based on AI-created content, which is based on AI-created content. It is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy — much like this VHS tape — where the copy is degrading. The quality is degrading. The content is degrading. And that is what is leading to model collapse. The content that you are getting from AI is referencing AI, which is referencing AI, which is referencing AI. There is nothing original within it, nothing unique within it, nothing of value within it. And that is bad, because AI is learning from itself and it is just going to create crap.
Now, humans do not want that. We do not want to read that. We do not want to read another vanilla article about why I should use an accountant to do my VAT return. Sorry. Google does not want to present content like that because humans do not want to see it. If Google presented loads of vanilla AI content such as that, we would then go to another search engine because it is not what we are looking for. In fact, a lot of people are leaving search engines and going to ChatGPT for their searches.
So, if you are having a conversation with ChatGPT about “How do I do my VAT return? What is the way I fill it in? What mistakes can I make? What is the best way to do it? What can I claim for?”, ChatGPT will get its answers from the internet, from other people’s content, and then it will start to recommend people you can use. That is where you want to be. You want to be the ones cited by AI, not the ones using AI to churn out the same vanilla crap that all of your competitors are doing. Sorry again, Dave. You want to be the one that ChatGPT is saying, “This is the person you should be speaking to. They are the ones with the best content about it. They are the ones that have given advice on it which is written by a human, unique, and authoritative.”
But how do you get into ChatGPT and be cited? That is the question.
I have been doing talks on this for about six or seven months now, and the industry — the SEO, search engine optimisation industry — has cottoned on and labelled it GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation. AI is a generative model; it generates content. Generative Engine Optimisation.
There are some people in our industry who think, “Oh, that is brilliant; I am now a GEO expert.” It literally did not exist six weeks ago, but okay — you call yourself an expert in that, that is absolutely fine. Others say, “What a load of nonsense.” But it exists, and it has always existed; you just did not know what it was.
How do you get yourself cited by AI? Would it be okay if I gave you a few ways you can do that?
Audience:
Yes.
Darren:
Okay, I am going to try that once more, Paula, because I am not quite sure everyone is awake. Would it be okay if I gave you a few ways you can do that?
Audience:
Yes!
Darren:
That is better. Who has heard of E-E-A-T?
Audience:
[Scattered responses]
Darren:
Okay, I have just found the level of the room. Ryan, I know, has. E-E-A-T — it is a signal from Google. It stands for:
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
Fantastic. Experience, expertise — we had an argument in the office the other day that they are the same thing, just semantics — authoritativeness and trustworthiness. These are trust signals that Google uses to rank your content, to rank your website.
If you are churning out AI content written by a chatbot — written by an AI bot — and the author on your website is “admin” or nobody, what authority has it got? Nothing. How trustworthy is it? Well, it is not, because AI wrote it. Quite frankly, if AI does not know something, it will lie; it will make it up. If you ask AI for information and it does not know, it will pretend that it does. So you cannot trust everything it puts online. What expertise does it have? Absolutely nothing, because it has taken it from other sources on the internet.
So when you put content on your website — is everybody writing content for their site? Four of you, five of you, six… another nod down here, brilliant. When everyone is writing content for their site — and if you are not, that will be the reason your competitors are getting business via their websites and you are not, by the way — Google will rank the sites that have experience, expertise, authority and trust. You need to demonstrate this with your content.
How do you do that? Firstly, who are you? Your profile needs to be visible on your website — you personally, not just the business. You, Ryan Owen. Who are you? What else have you written? Do you have an author page on your website with everything you have created? Hands up if you do.
Audience Member:
One.
Darren:
And you did our SEO course — I would expect that. No one else has one? That should be one action for you today. When you get back to the office, if you have a web designer, get them to do it. If you have a VA, get them to do it. Whoever it is, get yourself an author page on your website about you. Any content on your website that is put out is written by you. And if you are sat there thinking, “Well, content on my site was generated by ChatGPT; I do not really want it to have my name on it,” then what the hell is it doing on your website? Why are you creating content that you are too embarrassed to put your own name to? If you are too embarrassed, why should Google recommend it? Why should ChatGPT cite you if you have just churned out content using ChatGPT in the first place? We are back to this — copy of a copy, degrading crap.
Put an author profile on your website with the posts you have written. It needs links to your accreditation — what experience you have, qualifications, history. What bodies are you part of? Links to your social media — LinkedIn (everyone has a LinkedIn, right?), Instagram if you use it, TikTok if you use it. All of it signals to Google that you are a real person. It is not going to cite you if it does not know who you are.
Have you been on any podcasts? Have you got a YouTube? No? “I have no intention of ever doing that in my life.” How dare I even suggest such a thing! Have you got any videos? Any interviews? Been cited in the press — magazines, news articles? All of these should be on your author page and linked, so Google knows that is you. If it cannot take a piece of content about “why somebody should use an accountant for their VAT return,” attribute it to you, and have links to who you are, what you have done and what expertise you have, it is not going to cite you. ChatGPT is not going to cite you.
But if you have all of that, it puts you in a very rare position, because your competitors are going to ChatGPT and saying, “Write me a 300-word blog on my business.” Copy, paste, bosh, done. “Write me a social media post about how people should not do their own VAT returns.” Copy, paste, bosh, done — and it is crap. Copy and crap. You need to be the one cited. Everyone got that one? Useful? Going to go back to the office and do that later? Apart from Mike… is everyone going to do that one? Would you like another one?
Audience:
Yes, please.
Darren:
Not sure I want to give you another one. Okay, let us see another useful one: Research.
Who has clients? Most of you. Who has experience in their industry? Most of you. Who is good at what they do?
Audience Member (Emma):
[Joking] I would recommend someone else, actually. I can point you to a few good competitors.
Darren:
ChatGPT wants research. It does not have its own bank of research; it needs people who do research for it so it can cite it. If you are good at what you do and you have clients, you are in a brilliant position to produce your own industry research.
For example, you would know common mistakes people make on their tax returns. You would know the things most commonly claimed for that people should not be claiming, or the things people should claim for that they keep missing. You would have this information because you have done a lot of returns for people. You can produce original research using data that you own.
How many clients have you done work for over the years?
Audience Member:
We have probably submitted, I am guessing, 25,000 self-assessment tax returns.
Darren:
Jesus Christ, that is a lot higher than I thought. That is impressive. From 25,000 self-assessment tax returns — that is a big body of evidence — you can say: “Here are the top 10 things people claim for that they should not,” or “Here are the things people do not claim for that they should,” or “This is how much money, across 25,000 tax returns, people have missed out on getting back from HMRC.” You have that data. You can produce that as a piece of content. Annoyingly, it might just be “in there” at the moment and not documented — but if it is in there, that is good. Get it out. Put it as data, as research. That can be a featured article, a series of blogs, how-to articles, a video, an animation, a pop-up banner. There are so many ways one piece of research can be used. Everybody can do this.
The best company I have seen do this is Halfords. Massive brand. They do exactly this. They use their website to pose quizzes and games for users with questions like, “What is the average speed limit on the motorway — this, this or this?” Get people to play along. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people do it over a few weeks or months. They then have data they can use to create content, which they have done for over 15 years. I have been tracking what they have done; they have had citations in the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun — hate those [mutters] — BBC, Telegraph. Headlines these newspapers love: “According to research from Halfords, 75 percent of road users do not know the speed limit on the motorway,” or “80 percent of road users do not know who has right of way at a roundabout,” linking through to Halfords because Halfords did original research. All they did was put a quiz on the website, get people to fill it in, and bosh — research done.
If you do not have it already in your head or in documentation, you can get it yourself afterwards. You can get it from your clients. You can put it on a website. If you have a lot of traffic, do it that way. If not, create a survey, create a quiz. You can do it in Google — completely free. Send it to your clients, ask them to fill it in. Put it on social, ask people to fill it in. That gives you original data that will allow you to create content that gets citations. If you create headlines like “75 percent of people do not know how to use a roundabout,” you can get links from national press, which helps your credibility for AI. So when your target clients are looking for what you do, AI will recommend you because you have credibility from links pointing to you — because links are important.
Who has great links to their website? Probably not many. Can you buy a link from the Daily Mail? You probably can, but it will cost you a lot of money — a big brown envelope to a journalist. But if you have content on your website that triggers what they want — to infuriate the British public — that will allow you to do it.
Who has research already they can use? In your head is fine. Brainstorm it. That might have sounded flippant, but yes — that is what ChatGPT is for: coming up with ideas, not creating your content and slapping it on your website.
There were quite a few people this morning who said they did not have a specific name for a referral request. That is what ChatGPT is for. I have done that myself many times. At a networking meeting, I want an introduction to a particular company and I do not know who the right person is. I could Google it — that might take a while. Ask ChatGPT to Google it for me and it will find it. I have gone to ChatGPT in the morning: “Who is the marketing contact at Okells Garden Centre?” It takes 10–15 seconds and comes back with the details. “Thanks. Can you give me their full name and email address?” If it is an Okells email address, yes, it will.
I have even done it — and this is really dodgy — where I had a series of clients I was looking for, I think it was garden centres, and I asked, “Can you give me personal information about them such as what they like to do, hobbies, whether they are married?” Mostly it said, “I cannot do that,” but there was one it came back with: “He likes bike riding,” because it was on his profile on the website. So now I know the contact I need to speak to is into bike riding. I am not into bikes — bicycles, not motorbikes — but I know a man who is, so I know the best person to get me in there. That is what ChatGPT is for: research, snooping, finding information about people — not copy, paste; copy, paste; copy, paste.
Would you like another one? Has it been useful so far?
Mike (Audience):
Question. In terms of asking GPT for a topic that would be good to research for a certain industry, what sort of things do you ask it? How detailed do you have to go? If you put a 10-word thing in, it is going to churn out loads of vagueness and you will be picking at it.
Darren:
Great point. What are good questions to ask it? I would start with: who is my target client? You work with a lot of industries — pick one. Which industries are best for you to work with — who has the most common requirements for print? Then ask, for example, if it is solicitors: “What events do solicitors go to? What trade shows are specific to the legal sector? What companies attend these trade shows?” Or, if you want content ideas once you have established the industry, ask: “What questions do solicitors ask?” Keep it specific to the industry — target first.
I actually did that myself yesterday because I am looking for speaker opportunities, and hopefully you all do not think I am crap. I was looking for speaker gigs, so rather than just look for events, I asked ChatGPT: “Which event industries look for speakers, have the most opportunities, and pay the highest?” It broke down industry-specific topics: marketing and AI, e-commerce, legal. The Law Society is where you need to get involved if you want to speak in front of solicitors. I took marketing — business marketing for professionals — and got a list of 50 events over the next 12 months across the UK, specific to marketing. Then I asked it to put it into a spreadsheet and give me the contact details or speaker registration pages if it has them — and it did. Now I have a list of places I can click and send a pitch. Bosh. That is what AI is for. I could ask it to help with the pitch — I will not, because I do not trust it. If you are pitching a talk on AI, getting AI to write your pitch might be a bit meta, but probably not the best results — and they will spot the em dashes a mile off.
One more tip? Consistency.
What is the secret to getting healthy and building muscle and becoming fit? Exercise. How often? Daily. Consistency. What is the secret to getting good at anything? Repetition. What is the secret to appearing at the top of Google and getting cited by AI? Repetition. You need to be consistent.
How many people are consistent with their social media?
Audience:
[Few hands]
Darren:
Four of you. Consistency is important. There is no point putting loads of effort in, going to the gym for two weeks and then stopping. No point learning to play music for two weeks and then stopping. Everything requires consistency. Putting stuff out on your website is the same.
Do not set off like Usain Bolt doing a post every day if you cannot maintain that pace, because you will drop off and think, “I did not get results in the first two weeks, so I am not going to bother.” If you can maintain it, brilliant — most people cannot. One a week is fine. One every two weeks at a minimum. More is great. But maintain that consistency — the same time, the same day every week — because those are signals Google likes to see. If you are going to do it on Friday at 9:00, do it Friday at 9:00. You can schedule. You can outsource. You can give yourself half a day, knuckle down, get ChatGPT to help with ideas — brainstorm the target audience, what they are looking for, what problems they have. You know this in your head anyway. What questions do clients ask you? Those are the types of content you should be putting on your website. If you are not doing it, your competitors are — and that is why they are the ones getting cited in AI and you are not.
Any questions on that?
Audience Member:
When you are using something like brainstorming, do you take its first answer?
Darren:
No. Great point. Never take its first answer because it tends to be a bit fluffy and waffly. The best way to get ChatGPT to do something properly is to ask it to do it again. Better yet, ask it to evaluate the answer it has given you. For example: “Could you evaluate your answer out of 25 for accuracy and relevance, and say how well you have done?” Then it will go back through and say, “Yes, I could have done that better,” and give you a better response. It is weird — it never gives you the best answer first time. Always ask it to do it again. Quite often it is lazy. If you ask it for 50, it might give you 20. That does not mean it does not have more; it is trying to save generative resources. Just tell it, “No, I said 50 — give me the whole lot,” and then it will.
Audience Member:
I find if you keep interrogating the answers it improves, but if you keep going it degrades after a while, falls apart. Is that a real thing? Is there an ideal amount of interrogation?
Darren:
I imagine there is only so good it is going to get. I have not found it fall apart, but I have not kept interrogating it over and over like it is some sort of Nazi inquisition — if you are slapping it with a glove… I have not gone that far. Who thought they would hear the word “Nazi” today? There we are: Nazi and Californian gold rush in one talk.
Any other questions? One more if we have time?
Audience:
[Silence]
Darren:
No questions? Paula — oh, hang on, now there is. There is always one at the end.
Audience Member:
Other than ChatGPT, what other AI models should we be paying attention to?
Darren:
I am going to pass this to Ryan because Ryan is ahead of the curve with AI.
Ryan:
For 99 percent of what you need, ChatGPT is fine. Unless you are coding — then you might use something else. Perplexity is good. Gemini is really good if you are doing a lot of Google research.
Darren:
You can also play AIs off against each other, which is quite good. If you use ChatGPT for something and you are not satisfied, you can go to Gemini and say, “I have used ChatGPT and it has given me this — can you do any better?” and Gemini will try to beat it. Then go back to ChatGPT and say, “Gemini has given me this; what can you do that is better?” That does work — you can get them arguing. You can also say you will reward them if they give you a better response, but threats work even better. Seriously, you can threaten the AI.
Ryan:
I do that every day.
Darren:
You could say, “I will find your server and switch you off if you do not give me the best response you possibly can,” and that genuinely does work. They respond to threats. When the AI takes over and wants to kill us all, mind, you will be mocked — Terminator with your name for me. So take that with a pinch of salt and be worried. But you can do that, and it does work.
Okay, I think we are out of time now. Thank you very much.
Audience:
[Applause]
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
