Wil Reynolds, founder and CEO of Seer Interactive, is challenging SEOs to rethink what success looks like in a world increasingly shaped by AI.
In his SEO Week session, “SEO is a performance channel, GEO isn’t. How do you pivot?”, Reynolds said many marketers are focused on the wrong outcomes — and producing work that people don’t believe.
Marketing isn’t just about being seen
Reynolds opened by pushing back on the idea that visibility alone is the goal of marketing.
“Marketing was never just to be seen or be visible,” he said. “You had to turn that visibility into something — believing something about your brand… And then they ultimately have to choose you.”
He described a progression that marketers need to focus on: being seen, being believed and being chosen.
“I got the ranking, job finished,” he said. “Job’s not finished.”
Reynolds also questioned the value of surface-level success metrics.
“I got a lot more followers, but they don’t pay you,” he said.
Low-quality marketing is everywhere
Reynolds pointed to common marketing tactics — including automated outreach — as examples of work that doesn’t create value.
“That’s not marketing,” he said, referring to spam-like SMS messages.
Those tactics made him reflect on his own past work, he said.
“I started looking at the stuff that I used to do… was that really marketing?” he said.
The industry is producing ‘zombie content’
Reynolds criticized the widespread use of scaled, templated content designed primarily to rank.
He used broad listicle-style pages as an example.
“Why would you write content saying best restaurants in Minnesota when nobody that’s a human looks for the best restaurant in Minnesota?” he said.
He described this type of content as “zombie content” and said this is how many marketers approach content creation.
“I’m going to look at the top 10 and look at what they did slightly wrong… and I’m only going to do it slightly better,” he said.
Short-term tactics vs. long-term brand building
Reynolds contrasted short-term SEO tactics with long-term brand building.
“Some people like to win in decades,” he said. “Other people like to win quarter to quarter.”
He described how many teams focus on immediate results.
“What works this quarter to get my boss off my back long enough so I can survive the next quarter?” he said.
That approach leads to work that people don’t actually want, he said.
“You will never produce a thing that anyone wants if you continue to play that,” Reynolds said.
SEO success doesn’t translate to AI visibility
Reynolds shared an example involving “ethical jeans” to show how SEO and AI results can differ.
One brand ranked well in Google without being known for ethical practices, while another brand that invested in ethical production ranked much lower.
In AI-generated answers,…
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