Meredith's Husband: 0:24

Let's talk about some things that you want to avoid in 2026.

Meredith: 0:28

Oh. Specifically news and social media?

Meredith's Husband: 0:31

Well, yeah, but like I mean like things for your business. Okay, okay. Some I would call them shortcuts and behaviors that appear like they would be promising and productive, but would hurt your long-term visibility in terms of search. Oh, yeah. Basically, if something seems too good to be true, kind of that's that's what we're talking about. That's what I'm talking about. And that sort of thing is more common in business, and at least in my world and marketing, uh, when there is a big change. So AI has brought this out a lot.

Meredith: 1:06

Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 1:06

Okay. So I'm going to go over five things that if you can avoid, I think you're going to be it's actually going to give you an advantage.

Meredith: 1:13

Great.

Meredith's Husband: 1:14

Okay. So number one, the do-it-for-me approach. Okay. Relying on AI to do things for you.

Meredith: 1:22

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband: 1:22

And this could be like writing a blog for you. I've talked about many times. This could be like, I assume for photography, there's lots of AI filters. Yes. Okay. If you are, if you are relying on AI to do your work for you, so writing a blog for you, or you know, taking a, I'm going to say, like uh an average image and relying on AI filters to make it special, that sort of thing, if you're doing that, you are adding no value.

Meredith: 1:51

Correct.

Meredith's Husband: 1:51

And if you are adding no value, you are replaceable.

Meredith: 1:54

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband: 1:55

Okay. So the do it for the do it for me approach, I would say the rule of thumb here, if you're creating something and that something lacks lived experience.

Meredith: 2:46

Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 2:47

Then I would say that's something you you want to question whether or not you should be doing. Okay. You want to add some sort of lived experience to whatever you are creating. That's number one.

Meredith: 2:55

Is is and by lived experience, do you mean humanity?

Meredith's Husband: 2:59

Do you mean Yeah, something that, you know, it does it bring some sort of experience that you get by from your life? So AI can't replace that.

Meredith: 3:08

Right. Okay.

Meredith's Husband: 3:08

AI can do a lot of stuff, but it can't resonate with what it's like to live through something or to add the human element.

Meredith: 3:16

Right.

Meredith's Husband: 3:17

Okay. That's number one. Number two, volume. We've talked about this before, blogging for the sake of blogging. Create, you know, I've heard the argument many times. Uh I start with a new client. And this has happens with big clients, like big marketing firms. And they we point out that, hey, their blog or whatever content they're creating isn't really very valuable. It's not very good. And the response often comes back, but we do it every week. We create a lot of it. That's why I that's why I say a lot of garbage is still garbage. Right.

Meredith: 3:46

It's not quality over quantity.

Meredith's Husband: 3:48

If you're creating something that is useless, it doesn't matter if you're doing a lot of it. In fact, it's probably it's it is worse.

Meredith: 3:54

Right.

Meredith's Husband: 3:54

So why is this more of an issue now? Because there's so much more generic content. Yeah. There's an explosion of content. It's all generic. Do not add to the pile. If you add to the pile, you're really just digging yourself a hole and jumping in. And you're gonna have to get out later. And that's gonna be difficult.

Meredith: 4:10

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband: 4:11

So the rule of thumb here?

Meredith: 4:13

Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 4:13

Don't blog to blog.

Meredith: 4:15

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband: 4:15

Don't blog because it's good for SEO or it's good for whatever. Blog because you are answering a question for someone.

Meredith: 4:22

Right.

Meredith's Husband: 4:22

Okay.

Meredith: 4:23

Be a resource.

Meredith's Husband: 4:25

Yes. That's number two. Number three, things to avoid in 2026. Don't treat AI optimization and SEO separately. Yes. They are the same thing. The same rules, the same foundation applies. Think of AI as like a layer on top of SEO. The things you would do for AI to help you appear in AI searches, fundamentally the same as SEO, but there's a little bit of an added layer on top of those things. Right. If you want to learn more about this, I have an AI plus SEO crash course, which you can check out on meredish husband.com.

Meredith: 5:01

Thank you.

Meredith's Husband: 5:01

But the rule of thumb here is if somebody suggests if if there's a vendor out there and they suggest to you, we do AI search. SEO is dead or whatever, you know, we do AI at the ex instead of SEO, be very wary of that. Okay. People can people can say, yes, we do AI search. And there are some things, like I said, that you will do on top of SEO, but you're not doing them instead of SEO. Remember that.

Meredith: 5:27

Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 5:28

Okay. Number five, don't use tools just because they say they have AI. Okay. If a tool says, oh, we're great because we if if a if a vendor relies heavily in their marketing on the fact that they that they use AI in their tool, whatever that tool is, well, welcome to the club. Everybody uses AI. It's Do people say that? They have, yes. There's all sorts of marketing tools that say that. And I think a lot of us are to the point already where we're like, yeah, it's expected that you use AI in your product. So but if you if you see marketing messages and somebody says, yeah, our solution is great because we use AI, that's not important. Okay. Everybody is using AI. What is important is exactly what are they doing with their AI. Yeah. What are the details? So the rule of thumb, if you see a promise like that, dig down into the details, looks very specifically. First, be wary of, like I said, be wary of somebody who makes that sort of broad promise that like we're awesome because we use AI. Everybody does. Just read the details. Because like I said, there are when changes like this come out, when AI, when there's big shifts, there's more people promising these things. More immediately. So they are prolific, especially in times like now.

Meredith: 6:47

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband: 6:48

So be careful. And I'm going to give you one bonus.

Meredith: 6:51

Ooh.

Meredith's Husband: 6:52

I have six actually. Okay. Five has a nice had a nice ring to it.

Meredith: 6:56

It does.

Meredith's Husband: 6:56

But this is a bonus.

Meredith: 6:58

A bonus?

Meredith's Husband: 6:59

Do not chase tactics. Does that make sense?

Meredith: 7:02

No.

Meredith's Husband: 7:03

So whenever there is a big shift like this, new uh people are also going to practice that, like they say they use AI. They're also going to say, oh, here's this new trick that works. Here's this new thing that works everywhere, right?

Meredith: 7:16

Everywhere.

Meredith's Husband: 7:17

So when shifts like this happen, and I've seen shifts like this happen many times in my industry, probably never to the extent that we're seeing it now. Like this is a major, major shift. But whenever this happens, the people promise new tactics. There are it's going to end up being good for some people, and it's going to end up being bad for some people. And it almost always, in fact, I would say always, is not is going to work out bad for the people who try to jump on those new tactics.

Meredith: 7:47

Right. Anybody who says, oh, what you've been missing is just this one thing that's going to get you to the top.

Meredith's Husband: 7:54

Yeah. There have been, I mean, you can imagine in SEO over the last decades, somebody is always promising a new tactic, oh, a new trick that like nobody else has thought of.

Meredith: 8:05

Yeah. And that's right under your fingers.

Meredith's Husband: 8:07

That is inevitably going to put you in a really bad situation. The people who follow those always end up. Oh, it's not good. Just trust me on that one. All right. So if you can avoid those five six things, six. You're, you're going to be, it's going to be an advantage. You're going to be ahead of a lot of people because a lot of people are going to fall for the marketing hype and the new promises, the new tactics. Yeah. Is that helpful? Do you think that people are getting a lot of messages like that? And are are they susceptible to that? Because as time goes on, I think people are, like I am, growing wary of seeing that message over and over. AI is great and we have AC, we have the solution because of AI. Do you think people are still falling for that?

Meredith: 8:49

Of course. Because we always fall for that. That's why it works.

Meredith's Husband: 8:53

Yeah. Just remember your job is to provide value. Yes. If you're not providing value, you're not you're going to be replaced.

Meredith: 9:00

Yes.

Meredith's Husband: 9:01

That's my advice.

Meredith: 9:02

Yeah.