Garrett Sussman: SEO Week. Inside SEO Week. Here we are podcastland. I am super excited. It’s speaker time and we got Ray Martinez in the house. Ray is the VP of SEO and Archer Education. He leads a team of analysts, specialists and project managers to deliver SEO and AI visibility strategies for top higher education institutions. You may know him from a range of high volatility LinkedIn posts, but he is the dude that experimented and kind of proved that LLMS.txt is a thing. Like, you might laugh at it, but he’s got the proof. He did the experiments, and that’s what we’re all about at SEO Week. I’m excited to dive in with you today. Ray, what is up, man? 

Ray Martinez: Nothing much, thank you for the really cool intro, by the way. I think, you know, everything under the sun is up. Like we’re doing some really cool stuff. We’re seeing large changes in SEO on the higher ed side. And, you know, I’m feeling really great. I’m excited. You know, my announcement went live today. So we’re ready.

Garrett Sussman: Okay. Well, so speaking of that, the last few years have been so much noise when it comes to SEO and the world of AI search. Everyone you talk to is like, this is different. What’s going on in our industry is different. For you, what’s top of mind in AI search right now?

Ray Martinez: Right now, for me, it’s how are my prospective students evaluating my university partners programs, right? And I think about this day and night. So for us, like in higher ed SEO, what we’re really focused on is, you know, not really traffic-oriented. We’re focused on the conversion aspect of it. We’re focused on, are we driving the right sort of qualified prospective student that’s going to go from lead to application to enrollment? And how are we doing that? And how are we supporting that organic journey along the way to provide these prospective students with enough information to fill their conversational path, qualify them, and then get them to convert and become a student?

Garrett Sussman: I love it. You’re locked in on that because I feel like in our industry, there has been so much focus on traffic for so long and you really have this audience specific approach and you’re living it. You’re not just like talking the talk, you’re baking it into everything. What is your perspective on the direction that you’d say SEO is heading like this year?

Ray Martinez: Yeah, I think, you know, we’re moving more and more into that zero-click search world. We’re seeing it. We’re seeing, you know, less traffic at top of funnel. But what we are seeing and, you know, what’s interesting for me, like when I look at my partners right now is I’m seeing a rebound year over year in terms of qualified traffic, right? And I’m seeing the folks that do click through, they are really committed to actually working with your brand and working with, you know, working with your product or even like enrolling, subscribing, whatever, whatever the conversion is that you’re measuring to. Right. 

Think about the journey. So somebody landing on your site, that’s like precious lifeblood. So for me, you know, when I’ve looked at this approach, it’s, you know, it’s, yeah, I know I have really great experience on my website, but I need to focus on all these other areas outside of that so that I can drive them there and provide them. So, you know, the name of the game really is like, are we having those conversations where our, you know, for in my case, my prospective students are or where our users are.

Garrett Sussman: Well, you’re an experimenter and you look at the data and let the data tell the narrative. We see right now there’s a lot of different experiments and reports coming out that tell different narratives. And so it sounds like you kind of ascribe to the idea that people who get to your site via an AI search journey have a higher intent, are more likely to convert. Is that kind of where your head’s at or you still want to do more experiments on your end?

Ray Martinez: You know, I think I’m leaning there, but I want to do more experiments. But what I what I do see is, I see a much more condensed funnel. Right. And what I mean is like. The days of top of funnel are gone, because when you think about like the way a prospective student searches, for example, back in the day, be like, hey, what’s the best online MBA program? And you get, you know, you get your 10 blue links and they go in and, oh, I know this brand. And they click and, you know, well, that’s gone. Now it’s, you know, somebody going to ChatGPT and they’re like, hey, I work full time. I don’t have time to go to a full time program. I need an online program that’s right for me. Also can get me in the career path that I want to go to. So, like, could you give me a list of programs? Right. And that to me speaks of a larger knowledge graph issue. Right. Like, how are we building a robust knowledge graph that actively allows us to be, you know, be in those conversations with those prospective students and showcase our brand.

Garrett Sussman: So are you, do you feel like you’re seeing, like, search behavior slowly changing or do you think it’s happening really quick? How, how fast do you think people are kind of changing the way that they’re searching for higher ed?

Ray Martinez: I think it’s happened pretty fast. You know, I, I think it was up to CMMs, which is a conference, a higher ed conference, right? They, they, they put out a report showing that like a good chunk of prospective students are actually, you know, using ChatGPT. And I just think, I think of it as, you know, when we look at prospective students, whether it’s the adult learner or the, you know, traditional learner, they’re all using different tools. 

Like, you know, younger students are using things like TikTok. They’re having conversations external from Google search, but then they’re coming back to Google search and using that to sort of reinforce what they learned on these outside channels. So we’ve already kind of seen that shift. And I think it’s just, you know, it’s a continuing pattern from the 2024, 2025 days where more and more conversations are starting outside of Google. People come back via Google to kind of qualify themselves a little bit more and find the right sort of property. But I think a lot of the evaluation process is happening outside of that funnel.

Garrett Sussman: I love it because it’s true. There’s so much fracturing of different search channels, and yet we do hear that it keeps coming back to Google. And a lot of people have different opinions of whether that’s going to continue to be the case or if it’s ultimately going to go in a different direction.

So tell me a little bit about you, Ray, like your core wheelhouse, your background in SEO, what you’ve been doing with AI, how do you think it really shows up in your thinking?

Ray Martinez: Yeah, I think, you know, for me, you know, when I started SEO, I started on the small business end, like, you know, agency side, probably now it’s over a decade ago, it was my first agency experience. Before that, I was working at like a small club in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. That was like 16 years ago, working on really small sites doing, you know, really spammy things. And so when I started on the agency side, I had a couple of, a group of SEOs that were really good at technical SEO, and they set me up with a solid foundation. And I took that approach and moved into higher ed. And for me, right, like my bread and butter has always been focusing on, hey, where are areas that Google can’t crawl, render, or even possibly index, right? And I’ve always thought about that technical foundation as, you know, that’s the foundation level of the pyramid. That’s the base of the pyramid that we’re going to build on when we think about content strategy and we think about building with authority for, you know, external sort of earned media and citation building. Right. That’s all layered on top of this steady foundation. 

So I’ve been looking at ways that, you know, we can build internal tools for our teams so that they can actually, you know, find some of these pitfalls and help us and our university partners really identify these weaknesses now from a different perspective rather than a traditional SEO perspective from an AI perspective, right? Like, are we offering AI the best structure? Is our tech stack actually living up to what is needed in this changing marketplace? And so for me, like, yo, that kind of, you know, shows up in my thinking in the way that we experiment and some of the different deliverables that we’re trying to create for our partners, because we’re trying to future-proof them, right? And I want to revisit, I’ve actually spent a lot of time revisiting, you know, rest in peace, Bill Slawski, a lot of his blogs, because I think there were so many patents and so many different pieces of technology that Google are just starting to implement and use in everyday search. And so if we can go back to those foundations and look at those through fresh eyes, you know, we can safely build tools that we know are going to sustain itself in such a changing sort of landscape.

Garrett Sussman: I love that. And that’s like the experimentation, the understanding of the patents. Like that’s why you are speaking to the science on day one at SEO week. So give us a little taste, man. Give us a teaser on what attendees might hear more from you and your talk at SEO Week.

Ray Martinez: Yeah, I really want to hone in on the culture of building right? Like, I think, you know, and shout out to my team because they are, I am extremely blessed to have them as a team because we have a genuine curiosity around the way things work the ways you know using the tools that we’ve been given now to sort of expand our offering as a team expand our strategy and kind of go deeper and so, so for me, right, like I really want to provide you guys with scripting around like, hey, how are we how are you measuring semantic relevance? Right. Like, how are you tracking your own sort of internal visibility? What are you thinking about from a knowledge graph perspective and how are you connecting entities? Right? Like for me, it always goes back to this, you know, larger sort of picture that we’re painting. Right? Like I keep talking about that conversational pathway. And to me, that’s because it’s the most important thing, right? I think a lot of people were so scared with the advent of like, oh, my God, I can write for you. You can scale content. But content, and real quality content, and unique, sort of data driven content is more in vogue and more in demand than ever. And so I really want to give to the audience and give them a playbook to say, hey, like, no, SEO is not dead. It’s alive and kicking.

Garrett Sussman: I love it. And that’s the big thing is, like, is the empowerment of all that. So, man, you were there last year at the inaugural SEO. That was the first time we actually met in person. I was like, man, and now like you’re going to be on the stage speaking. Tell me why you’re excited about the event. Give me a glimpse of what’s going through your head, both from last year and what you expect coming up.

Ray Martinez: I think last year’s event was eye-opening. I went to those talks and I was like, man, I need to experiment more. I had already started writing scripts and doing little things here and there internally. But I was like, I need to accelerate this. And there were a lot of really actionable talks there. And then, you know, for me, right, like I work in a niche industry and I, you know, I remember Andrew Prince, right? I remember his talk and him talking specifically about this migration. I’m like, wait a minute, that’s what I do for university partners all the time. So like having that sort of camaraderie and also having that guidance, like if you’re a senior SEO and you really want to know if your approach is sound, right? Like SEO Week’s for you because you’re going to get that validation. If you’re a more junior SEO and you’re looking to grow your skill set, I genuinely believe this is the conference for you because you’re going to get actionable items from each individual talk where you’re going to get to hear the methodology of folks like myself now who are going to be able to share our own insights. 

It’s like, cause you know, I’m experimenting every day. You know, the, the funniest thing is like when you build a tool and you’re like, yeah, look at this awesome output. And it’s like 100% hallucinated. And you’re like, Oh no, I got to go. It’s like, it’s hilarious. Like, but like, I think those are the hard lessons you have to learn to really be effective and make sure that you’re providing and adding value, not only to your internal stakeholders, but to your partners if you’re on the agency side, you know, if you’re in-house, you know, if you’re adding, you know, that value for your bosses and you’re kind of trying to show like your CMO or CFO, like, hey, here’s why investing in SEO matters. I think, you know, these talks will help you.

Garrett Sussman: Dude, man, I can’t wait to see your talk and get like a dose of inspiration, a dose of education. I’m going to walk out of there being like, okay, well now I’m going to go build that for my team. 

If someone wants to find you online ahead of there, either like set up a meeting for you, like when you get to, I mean, you’re in New York anyway, but like, connect with you online. Where’s the best way to find Ray?

Ray Martinez: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Ray Martinez SEO, that’ll pull me right up. You can find me on X or Twitter. I will always call it Twitter, I know why I said X, at RayMartinezSEO. Just shoot me a message. And from there, like I have a calendar link. We can grab time. My door is always open. I like, you know, to be a resource to the community and just talk shop. So feel free to reach out, folks. I’m excited to see you there at SEO Week. Excited to see you too, Garrett, because I think it’s going to be really fun. And we’re going to have a great time for sure because I know the speakers are coming with really good topics and we’re all hungry this year.

Garrett Sussman: Oh, man, I can’t wait. So even more incentivization to find Ray on LinkedIn is not only is he speaking, but he dropped a promo where you might find, like, a promo code on his LinkedIn, to get like 5% off your ticket. So if you haven’t already, SEO Week, end of April, the 27th to the 30th, New York City, four days. It’s going to be off the chain. I mean, we haven’t even talked about like the afterhours parties that we’re doing, but come find Ray, come find me, Garrett Sussman. We’ll see you there at the end of April. Sign off. See ya