Garrett Sussman: Inside SEO Week – you want the behind the scenes, you want to know who’s speaking well guess what guess what guess what Amanda Milligan, the founder – she’s the founder of the Brand Authority Club. I can’t hype her up enough. She’s an old alum at iPullRank. We worked together and I’m so lucky we’re actually probably going to meet in person for the first time in SEO Week in New York at the end of April. It’s crazy. She’s awesome. She has written for TechCrunch, Moz, Entrepreneur, like you name it, she’s written on it. She’s also presented at Brighton SEO, MozCon, PubCon, SMX. And I kind of feel bad because like lots of great conferences, but nothing like SEO Week. Thanks for joining me, Amanda. What’s going on? 

Amanda Milligan: I am so excited. A, to talk to you. B, to be going to this conference. C, to be seeing all kinds of people in the industry and hearing everything they have to say. I’m just, I’m very pumped.

Garrett: This is different. You are like in the weeds of content, of brand, of the direction that everything’s going. I know you’ve been thinking about it a lot. So like, let’s start off right about AI search because you can’t help but not talk about it in our industry. What’s top of mind for you in AI search right now? 

Amanda: Well, two different directions. The first direction is, you know, for any client or person or whatever, if AI matters to them, right? If they want, if their customers and their audience are using AI, and they want to make sure they’re controlling the narrative, content plays a major role in that. So making sure that, you know, a lot of the conversations I’ve been having around brand messaging, like we’re not even talking about the technical stuff yet. It’s like, if you’re going to invest all this time and energy into, you know, showing up in LLMs, make sure you’re like sending the right message. And that is what you want everybody to associate with. So a lot of it’s kind of going back to the drawing board of like, is your site, which is your first line of defense of your reputation, where you want it to be. And then we start working on those third party signals, you know, the content that we think is going to reinforce those messages. So there’s that side of things. 

The other side is just the opportunities that I think this shift has opened up for all kinds of marketers. The silos that we need to start breaking down within marketing departments between SEOs, PR folks, social media, starting to think more holistically around visibility and how SEO plays a major role in that, or, you know, GEO, ASEO, whatever acronym of choice. But really just you’re trying to appear in the right conversations, right? You’re trying to show up in these answers, but that is so scattered now. It’s not just Google. It’s, you know, your LLM of choice. It’s YouTube, it’s Reddit, it’s social channels. TikTok, whatever. 

So taking this as an opportunity, though, to think a little differently and to, you know, expand the scale of what we’re working on, which I think is really exciting. And, you know, like I’m obsessed with brands and I’m like, that’s what, that’s what I want to do. I want to talk about like, how do we disseminate these brand messages everywhere?  

Garrett: I love the way that you kind of frame that because it’s so accurate in the sense of like, there’s so many shoulds, like all this stuff you’ll hear people say, we should have been doing this from day one, but AI search really feels like it’s bringing it all to the forefront, especially when it comes to brand, connecting everything. 

So how do you think this impacts SEO? What do you think SEO is going to look like heading forward this year? 

Amanda: Yeah, it’s a great question, right? I mean, I think it really is like it’s an expansion, if anything. The fundamentals are all still happening. They all still need to happen. But whether it’s watching Mike King’s presentation, the one he just did with Rand, right, where he gets in the nitty gritty of how you can optimize for specific LLMs and how there’s nuance there compared to normal search. There’s that angle of it. 

But there’s also just like I said, the expansion of thinking about it, not just in the one Google results page of it all. So how are you optimizing across platforms? And what does that content need to look like? And what partnerships do you need to make? Tapping your brand and marketing departments to be like, who’s authority do we need to leverage or who’s buy-in do we need as a brand to get that traction in these different places? 

So I think the summary is an expansion. I think SEO is just going to encompass so much more than it ever has, which is a great thing, and work with these other teams and just become so much bigger than the, I hate saying this, the 10 blue links that it used to be. Because it hasn’t been 10 blue links in ages, but we still don’t know. We don’t have a good word to summarize what it even is like, you know, six months ago. 

Garrett: I love your perspective because you, you’ve worked with all different-sized clients. You’ve worked with like big enterprises. You’ve worked with like single, like solo-preneurs, like mom and pops – for you, what are some of like the problems or questions that you’re like most focused on in your work? 

Amanda: Well, honestly, some, some companies, especially the smaller ones are having like an existential crisis about if what they’re offering is still going to be the same value anymore. Right. And like, do they have to pivot their business model? But after that stage, it does come down to like, what are we trying to say? And what is the true value we’re bringing to the market? How is AI impacting that? 

And once we’ve gotten there, it’s, it all comes back to audience research. Everything comes back to audience research, because whether you’re focusing on Google, whatever, where is your audience searching for these things? And because it’s such a scattered process, like discovering anything online, taking the beat to do that kind of that level of understanding of like, no, we know that our, our audience is still using Google, you know, 90% of the time, so we really need to invest in that. Or if it’s, you know, you have a really tech savvy audience, and like, 20% of them are on ChatGPT or if maybe you’re a company, like I said, we’re just small companies that rely on email, you know, and it doesn’t even matter to them. But understanding just like where people are at, and that helps decide the level of investment into AI. But even if you don’t invest specifically in AI as a channel, a lot of these things have dual purposes, you know, like getting brand mentions has multiple advantages, not just appearing in LLMs, right? So it’s sort of like what’s on my mind is like everybody wants to do it and it’s important. And by it, I mean optimizing LLMs. But how depends on your resources, your budget, and your priorities as a marketing department. And I think that’s where a lot of people are kind of sitting like, what do I do now? 

Garrett: No, I love that. There is so much confusion. And there is so much fracture and there is like kind of this, like, where do I start? Can you speak, I guess, to your, like, what’s your core wheelhouse? And I know, but I’d love to hear you expand on, you know, your perspectives on content and brand and how it ultimately like shows up in your thinking to address these issues. 

Amanda: So, yeah, even before AI really shook everything up. So my consultancy is called Brand Authority Club because I’m obsessed with brand authority. This is what Garrett knows. Because even back in the day when I was doing these talks about link building or content, what it always came back to was you’re trying to build your reputation. Period. It’s LLMs are now a part of this greater conversation. It’s another mechanism. It is trying to assess your reputation by using all these various sources. So now that’s the exciting part, because now that this is a big factor in marketing, people are like, oh, they’re seeing they’re seeing their reputation, like looking in a mirror, staring back at them. 

Garrett: Not always pretty. Not always pretty what they see. 

Amanda: No. And so, you know, what I like to think of it as, especially, you know, this is a whole other conversation, but like the trust factor of a lot of these different channels has waned over time. People’s trust in the media is lower than it ever has been, I think, in American history. People’s, you know, with the whole affiliate thing, people were skeptical of Google’s results and what they were ranking. People don’t understand, you know, the everyday person doesn’t fully, some of them are totally online with AI, some of them are totally not. So to be present as a brand, creating things that build trust as quickly as possible is extremely important because it’s a significant competitive advantage, but also because they might only see you for half a second in an LLM answer or on a TikTok, and they might not even see your site anymore in these initial discovery searches. 

So to me, these authority signals have always been so critical to any marketing program. And so I’ve had a lot of fun just trying to piece everything together and be like, okay, like if you’re from an SEO perspective, here’s what you need to be thinking about. And if you’re in a PR perspective, here’s what you need to be thinking about. And how do we combine all of this into one just great brand story that’s going to get out to the right people? 

Garrett: And it’s so tricky too, your point about reputation and authenticity, because it’s like there are and a lot of hard conversations about what you can control in your brand narrative and what you can’t control in your brand narrative so, I, I imagine like how you address that from from brand building or brand authority is there’s probably a lot of hard conversations that you’ve been having. 

Amanda: There are, I mean, that’s what I mean going back to the brand message and positioning is the first step and it’s surprising how much of the time we do need to do work there. And that is hard, it’s it’s – the like the existential business questions of like why are we doing this are you genuinely, you know, asking the question, are we genuinely better than our competition, and like if we are how are we are we really doing a good job of convincing people of that, you know, or are we just relying too much on you know the easy authority signals of like a testimonial here and there with no pictures or you know half a name on it. Like, you know, like that’s not going to be, you know, how do we really demonstrate it? 

Garrett: So, I guess ultimately to tie it all together, there’s a lot of these elements that you are going to dabble on and into for your SEO Week presentation. Can you give a teaser of what attendees might hear more about at your presentation?

Amanda: Yes. So if you’re, if you’re like me and your curiosity is around what should you be creating right now that’s actually going to have an impact, I think the simplest way to frame whatever direction I end up finalizing for this presentation is how are you creating something that has an impact and specifically for you and your business, like how can we devise the frameworks that are really going to help you in your situation? Because a lot of the times we can say these like big lofty things and yet it’s really hard to be like, okay, but what about me and my, you know, pet insurance company that has this many people in my marketing department, right? So trying to take these kind of like big lofty things and build a framework for this is the kind of content you need to be creating in order to build this visibility and reputation for your brand. 

Garrett: I love that. It’s so relevant, I feel like, to right now because, and one of the reasons I’m super excited for your talk is because there is – historically we want these like best practices of what you can do across any industry, any business, for SEO, for content and that’s just not how it ever is. You need something bespoke, you need to use your brain and figure out who you are and what you do and, and it really sounds like you’ve got a framework, a few different like methodologies, that you’re working through to to ultimately point people in that right direction. I can’t wait – can you tell me why – are you excited about SEO Week? Like, what are you excited about for the event? 

Amanda: You know, because I’ve been working for myself for over a year now. And so I have the conversations with my clients, but a lot of the times I’m reading things on LinkedIn, I’m reading things in Community Notes, you know, in Slack communities. It’s different to be in person and having these conversations live and hearing these presentations and, and the aftermath of those, like, you know, you can watch a webinar and that’s great, but you’re not having the, you know, after talk of like, let’s get into it. Like, what, what did you think of that? And how, how have you and your business seen this or not seen this? You know? So I think that the energy of SEO Week and being in person and getting into it, I’m really excited because there’s so many, there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot going on in the industry. And I want to hear from everybody about, you know, what’s working, not working for them and, and, you know, where they’re at. 

Garrett: I love it. There’s so many opinions. And like, if anything, I hope we’re able to, and I know we’ll be able to, recreate the vibe from last year. Cause that’s what it was is like, everybody you’re talking to just, it was like a, a good feeling, like a feel good of the industry of like, oh, these, these are my people that I can have those conversations and feel like energized coming out of like, every time you and I talk, it’s like, when we talk, I come out and I’m like, I’m inspired. I want to do stuff. 

Amanda: I have like 15 notes written down from chatting earlier. I’m like, okay. Yeah. 

Garrett: But that’s who comes. That’s who comes. So, okay. So finally, let me kind of tie it all together. If someone wants to like talk brand authority, talk content with you before SEO Week, where do they find you online? 

Amanda: Well, chronically on LinkedIn, unfortunately. So you can add me on LinkedIn for better or worse and I’ll answer your message or brandauthority.club. I haven’t done this yet, but we’re going to start having monthly meetups, virtually, where we get into like – with a max of 20 people, because I want to have a virtual experience, you know, capturing a little bit of this energy that, like I said, it’s unparalleled to in person, but it’s like, I want it. I want it more. 

Garrett: You’re doing great. That last one you did, I remember listening to like Lidia Infante’s presentation. You got all these great people together. Yeah, keep your eyes peeled for whatever Amanda puts out there. 

And if you haven’t already, get your ticket for SEO Week, end of April, the 27th to the 30th in New York City. It’s going to be bigger, better. It’s going to be big. See Amanda come on Day Two, talking Psychology. I’m like, that’s your day. It has to be your day. So we’ll see you there. Thanks again for joining me, Amanda. This was awesome. 

Amanda: Yeah, I’m so pumped. We’ll see you guys there. 

Garrett: Peace.