Is AI Killing SEO Leads? Here's How to Keep up...

Spoiler alert — SEO isn't dead, but lazy content is. With AI search like ChatGPT & Google's AI Mode reshaping how motivated sellers get connected to buyers, basic content and keyword stuffing just won’t cut it. Mallory, Customer Education Manager for Carrot.com is here to answer all your questions about what you should be posting, how your content needs to evolve, and most importantly, how to build a killer brand that generates high-quality, inbound leads. Listen in!

Mentioned in this episode:

Carrot's updated AI rewrite tool: https://carrot.com/features/ai-rewrite-tool/

Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist: https://www.amazon.com/Fascinate-Revised-Updated-Impossible-Resist/dp/0062206486

Key Quotes:

“People are tired of AI slop … it raises the bar for trust. You need real stories and video.”

“You don’t need model‑specific hacks—these principles serve Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and beyond.”

“Define your anti‑customer. Make it obvious who you’re not for so the right people gravitate to you.”

“AI overviews and search tools are parsing brand mentions, backlink context, and your reputation—not just keywords.”

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Chapters:

1:38 Easy ChatGPT tip

2:34 SEO for motivated seller leads

4:10 Stop optimizing for "search"

10:00 Beating AI Slop

16:53 Brand wins in SEO

19:28 On-Page - Formatting for AI

23:41 Are blogs worth it?

27:22 The Secret Sauce

32:45 Backlinks in 2025

37:10 Site Crawlability

40:16 ChatGPT vs Google

45:25 Why Brand is King

***Join us live, Thursdays at 11 AM Pacific for the Evergreen Marketing Live Q&A: https://www.facebook.com/groups/officialcarrotcommunity/

***Need to grow as a leader? Check out Trevor’s podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/EFF

***Learn more at Carrot.com/shows - Carrot, a 5x Inc 5000 company, with millions of motivated leads generated over 10+ years.