SEO and SEM in the Age of AI: Adapting to Change Revenue Rehab

This week our host Brandi Starr is joined by Max Gomez, Chief Marketing Officer at Next Net Media.
Max Gomez Montejo is the influential Chief Marketing Officer at Next Net Media, a company at the cutting edge of data-driven marketing solutions. His visionary leadership extends to various brands, most notably the HOTH, a renowned search engine marketing firm that empowers businesses to amplify their online visibility. The HOTH offers a comprehensive range of services, including managed SEO, PPC, blog content creation, and link building, making it a one-stop destination for enhancing search engine traffic. Moreover, the HOTH provides a reseller SEO program tailored for agencies, affiliates, and consultants, expanding its impact within the digital marketing landscape.
Max's professional journey boasts a rich variety of experience in e-commerce, travel, telecommunications, and B2B sectors. At Next Net Media, his strategic acumen and digital marketing expertise have propelled the company to the forefront of the industry. Through Max's guidance, Next Net Media consistently delivers remarkable returns on investment, solidifying its reputation as an industry leader.
Going beyond his corporate accomplishments, Max shares his knowledge and wisdom as a guest professor at multiple universities. His dedication to shaping the marketing leaders of tomorrow underscores his commitment to the industry's future and continuous innovation. 
In this episode of Revenue Rehab, on the couch Brandi and Max will tackle demystifying how AI is reshaping search strategies and what marketers must do to stay ahead in the ever-evolving SEO and SEM landscape.
Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers: Topic #1 Organic Panic? [06:24] “We're seeing an evolution of organic channel,” Max says, “what would happen if you…couldn’t spend money on paid ads, and if you couldn’t get any jobs done on social media; the most important channel is going to remain your organic effort.”  He continues, “in a nutshell, organic efforts right now are still the number one source of traffic, the number one source of conversions from a website; if your website doesn't have 50 or 60% of traffic from organic sources, you need to be worried. But at the same time, you need to find a new story to be discovered and to understand the search and the user’s intent.”
Topic #2 Google Algorithm [17:07] “I will give you three things you need to ask yourself before panicking or not. The first one, Google is penalizing those who have been repurposing domains” says Max.  “The second one is abuse of AI, meaning that you just create content without any context…And the third one is kind of a messy one, if you were bragging on social media or on different websites that Google didn't pay attention when [you were] abusing of AI or something like that, you're going to get penalized.”
Topic #3 Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One (AI) Basket [25:44] “Up to a certain point, you can rely on AI to analyze your data to analyze what's happening in the Search Console, to give you different indexing, maybe help from a developer development perspective,” Max advises, “but if you if you want to trust AI to create 100% of your content, that's going to be a big no-no. Because, again, AI could know tons of things about the world, but the only one who knows about your business is the business owner, the brand, the team, the company. So don't forget your expertise and your experience on each subject.”
So, What's the One Thing You Can Do Today? Max’s ‘One Thing’ is 3 steps: “First, go to Search Console, and analyze what's happening with your metrics there, especially in a couple of metrics…Second, check out the CPR, because maybe you have a low CPR, you can do some things to get more traffic, more clicks…And then third, check the keywords that users have been using to find you, once you have those keywords, think if you're creating content for tho