Search, AI & UGC: Navigating the Future of Google & Reddit’s Influence Featuring Ross Simmonds

Garrett: All right, welcome back to The Next Chapter in Search produced by SEO Week and iPullRank. If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, it’s coming up April 28th to May 1st, New York City. We are being joined by 36 of the most amazing speakers across obviously SEO, content strategy, AI, data, you name it. And today I’m joined by Mr. Everywhere, Distribute All the Things. He’s even got a book out if you haven’t gotten it – Create Once, Distribute Forever. Ross Simmonds, the founder and CEO at Foundation. How you doing, man?

Ross: I’m doing well, Garrett. Super excited for SEO Week. If folks are listening to this, they better get their tickets. I’m pumped. Our conversation there is going to be fun and I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Garrett: Yeah, thanks. I’m so excited just to, like every time we chat, it’s so much fun because not only do we have a lot in common between the Eagles and young daughters and all that, but like, SEO is wild right now. The last 12 to 24 months. So I want to dive in, like,  brain dump. What is the state of search from your perspective?

Ross: To me, the state of search is a little chaotic, but beautiful at the same time. And I think folks are really feeling the pressure because the shifts in my opinion are great for the industry. The shifts are, there’s some shifts that have not served smaller businesses well. I will acknowledge that. But at a high level, at a high level, I think it is moving marketers in the right direction because as SEOs, we have over, in my opinion, oriented towards things that don’t really matter too much in the wonderful world of capitalism and business. And we have forgotten about the fundamentals of marketing and now we are forced to recognize that yes, links matter, all of these things matter, but as the AI starts to take shape, you have to start putting yourself in the shoes of your customers more.

You have to think more intentionally around search intent, but not just search intent, but like finally…remember for the last like 10 years, everybody talked about voice search is going to change the world and then Siri sucked and nobody like got the results they wanted. So many people are using voice. Oh, you hear that?

Garrett: There you go.

Ross: You hear that? Siri’s mad at me now, but it’s like, now people can grab ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and have a conversation. And the conversation is scattered. They’re going in and they’re having these dialogues. And that is a discovery experience. And to me, I think search with the sole focus on Google, Google, Google is now shifting in a great way because now the search is happening on Reddit. The search is happening on TikTok. The search is happening on YouTube, through Claude, Perplexity, ChatGPT, all of these different things. “Ah, I’m overwhelmed,” screams a lot of the folks who have traditionally exclusively thought about search in the lens of Google. But in reality, now we have to think like marketers. Now we have to think about not just ranking for a certain keyword and then stuffing it and all that stuff and maybe building a few links.

We now have to think about, “how can we create a piece of content that’s worth reading? How can I create that at scale so I can ensure that I’m optimizing for all of the different areas? How can I create a system where I’m producing videos about this content because it now needs to show up in YouTube and YouTube’s also showing up in the SERP. So maybe I should be creating a YouTube video at scale for all of these pieces. So I’m targeting the keyword twice, all of these things.”

Plus, don’t forget, Reddit is now showing up. So how do I start to infiltrate and communicate on Reddit? To me, it’s chaotic but beautiful. And brands are easily overwhelmed by it. But if you can take a step back and go back to first principles and think about high quality content, understand your audience, understand intent and develop stories and create stories that are optimized in the ways that of course are aligned with double ease and all those things, then you can win. And I think that’s a beautiful situation for all of us.

Garrett: So, so well said and you’re right, it is chaotic. We were like kind of threading this needle right now of like needing to plan but needing to be off the cuff and authentic. Needing to be organized but needing to address all the things, which it also leads…I mean, your bread and butter has been Reddit. It leads right into your presentation. Can you give us a preview about AI and UGC and what you’re going to be delivering at SEO Week?

Ross: So excited for this talk. I’ve never given it before. I wrote a book on Reddit marketing in like 2018 or something like that. So like, I’ve been in the trenches with Reddit for quite some time. And we’re doing research right now where we’re scraping and analyzing tons of subreddits. We’re gathering that new data. We’re cross-referencing that against keywords. We’re also cross-referencing that against like some of the queries and responses within ChatGPT and Claude and how they’re using Reddit to influence their responses. We all know that Reddit has amazing licensing deals with Google, as well as with OpenAI.

We’re using all of this to create an insight and confirm some of the hypotheses that we’ve already validated with clients. So right now, we’re producing content for clients that is intentionally built for Reddit. We’re currently working with clients to understand how to show up in Reddit in a way that doesn’t get you banned. We’re helping our clients understand how to add value to Reddit and how to stop viewing things like karma as just, like, a qualitative metric that doesn’t matter when in reality, and our data is showing that it does matter.

So we’re doing a lot of research around Reddit as a platform. We’re combining that with our experience around search. We’re taking insights and data from all of the other great marketers out there. We have a bunch of tools that we’re using to gather this insight. And the goal for my presentation is twofold: one: To say like, folks, it is now time to wake up to Reddit. It’s not going anywhere. There’s a reason why they have a multi-million, maybe billion-dollar contract with Google. There’s a reason why they’ve IPO’d and have had a successful business. It’s not going anywhere. So let me give you the playbook that we’ve used for years with clients, but also…let me give you some data that you can take back to your team to showcase why Reddit matters and what it’s going to look like in the future.

And that’s the goal. The goal is to share as much as I can. You know me, I go in with the strategy, but I’m also going to get tactical with folks and give it all there. So I’m pumped for it. It’s going to be very transparent, give away all the secrets, and folks should be able to leave there fired up and ready to go.

Garrett: Dude, I’m so psyched. I mean, because it’s like, for a lot of brands, Reddit is really scary, and it doesn’t have to be. I think the way that you think about it makes a ton of sense. And there’s so much value there. Like it’s still early in a weird way.

Ross: So early. And I think that’s one of the other key takeaways. It’s like, you’re still early because most brands are still afraid. And because most brands are still afraid, you probably have like a year to figure this stuff out. Like we have time on our side because when Reddit shows up, it doesn’t get approved right away. Why? Because everybody has these preconceived contexts of what they believe Reddit is and it doesn’t get the traction. That’s okay. Because if you’re early, then you can capitalize now because in the future, guess what? A lot of those threads that are ranking in the SERP are going to get archived. That’s what the algorithm does.

So, if you can get in there before it’s archived with high value content, and you can ensure that that content is at the top because it’s valuable, you’re going to get referral traffic from Reddit in a way that you haven’t before. Most brands are probably averaging like 1% or 2% of all referral traffic coming from Reddit. That’s horrific, right? It’s literally one of the top three websites in the world. You should be able to move the needle and start to see that trajectory happening with your content.

So, the goal here is to help folks see how to make that change, how to see that move. And with the state of search, diversifying your ability to generate traffic through organic and visibility and share a voice through Reddit is a no brainer in my opinion. So that’s all what we’re going to be diving into. And it’s exciting. It’s going to be fun. I’m going to have a blast up there. And I’m sure some people will leave there feeling a little bit more nervous than excited, but hey, that’s a part of the game.

Garrett: Dude, in a weird way, Reddit is real. What is, okay, give us a taste. Give us a taste. What’s like one tactic that you keep close to your chest that someone could do right now when it comes to Reddit?

Ross: The easiest thing would be to stop being afraid to have your own subreddit. Like, so many brands are afraid to have their own subreddit. You need to take, even if you’re not trying to be active today, create your own subreddit before someone creates one for you, and then it is filled with NSFW content.

Go and create and own your own subreddit. That’s free advice. And you don’t need to like brand it or anything. You’re doing this for safety. You need to control your brand story. So number one, right now, if you are listening to this, if you’re a CMO, if you’re a leader, if you’re a marketer, if you’re an SEO, send a note to your team, send this conversation with me and Garrett and say, “listen at this point in the podcast where he’s talking about Reddit, we need to do this.” And then you might be disappointed because somebody might’ve already done it for you. And if that has happened, reach out to the mod and say, hey, can we have a conversation? And try to get it because you really want to have your own subreddit. Super low-hanging fruit, seems basic. It’s like saying you should have a Facebook account, you should have a Google places, you should have a location on Google maps. It’s that basic folks. You should own your subreddit and your brand.

Garrett: That’s exactly what I was saying. Like domains, variations of domains, social media handles, this and the other thing. Reddit subreddit, get it.

Ross: Get it, get it, 100%, it’s so key.

Garrett: Dude, what’s next? I mean, you’re kind of touching on it, but what is next in the world of search? What do you think’s coming down the pipeline over the next few years?

Ross: So, I think there’s a lot of cool conversations happening about it right now around like whether or not and how an increase in brand mentions is going to influence your visibility in the SERP. All of those things I believe are real. I think it’s going to be more of a brand game more and more for businesses, which is cool because it means brands need to, again, just like start thinking like marketers a little bit more and thinking about how they can create valuable stories that are going to give them brand credibility.

One of the other things that I think is coming down the pipe that is far, but I believe coming, is very much a more immersive search experience with the devices that we have. Like, I do believe that voice is finally getting into its moment, which not everyone has realized. And again, this is my very far take. Like, no one listen to this and be like, “Ross just said that Google is dead and everything is changing and everybody’s on open AI and all this stuff.” No, no, no, no, no. I’m a huge believer that the death of Google is way overestimated. I think that the demise of Google is way overestimated and everybody who says the search is dead is absolutely just saying it because it gets clicks on LinkedIn and shares on X.

But in reality, if you look at the data, the vast majority of the search queries are still happening on Google. And the vast majority of people who are going to discover something go to Google. I still believe that that is going to be the case for probably the next like 10 years. Why? Because there’s a whole demographic that I see all the time on the weekends when I go and see my mom, who is not touching ChatGPT, who is not touching Perplexity or Claude or any of those things. They will never touch them, but they also, that demographic carries the purse. Like if folks think about financial like stuff, like these folks have still the vast majority of the wealth in North America. Like it’s not changing.

So long rant for a simple question, but essentially my belief is in the next 15 to 20, we’re going to live in a world where search is so immersed within us. It might be on a device like glasses or something. It could be today our computers, like the short term will be our laptops. You press a button and you can have a conversation with your computer and it’s going to do the research for you and it’s going to click things for you. All of those things is going to happen for you on your devices. That could, for the geeks, myself included, this is like two years, maybe three, maybe one, right? Like it’s going to be quick, but for the masses, it’s not going to roll out on that level. I don’t think for quite some time.

All that said, I know there’s a lot of people who are going to be at SEO Week talking about this, talking about the innovation, talking about the future of search. I can’t wait to break bread with them and to hear the conversations and hear what other people are doing. That’s why I’m so excited about the event. So again, you mentioned it earlier, but folks, if you haven’t gotten your tickets, this is the place to go. It’s going to be probably, in my opinion, one of the best SEO events in the last decade. I can’t wait for it. It’s going to be a blast.

Garrett: Dude, thank you so much. This is so cool. And I can’t wait to talk to you. I can’t wait to find myself in a conversation like with you and Mike King and Aleyda Solis and all these great people, just breaking down, having conversations and just waxing philosophical because there’s so many minds that we’re all obsessed with this stuff.

Ross: Yeah, yeah. The lineup is gold. The lineup is absolutely gold. I think it’s going to be jam-packed, moment after moment, just hard-hitting conversations from the science to the psychology to the future of it, the ecosystem. It’s going to be an amazing, amazing event. I’m looking forward to it.

Garrett: Well, there you go. I’m going to get off it here. I’m going to go make an SEO week subreddit. I can’t believe I haven’t already.

Ross: Let’s do it.

Garrett: Thank you so much for joining me, Ross. This has been awesome.

Ross: Thanks for having me on. Good to see you.

Garrett: Good to see you. This is Garrett Sussman, iPullRank, and check us out. SEO Week, get your tickets now, seoweek.org. See you in April.