💡

InsightHunt

Hunt the Insights

E

Ethan Smith

Episode #97

CEO

Graphite

📈Growth & Metrics⚡Execution🎯Product Strategy

📝Full Transcript

14,143 words
Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:00): There's this term everyone's hearing about, AEO. Ethan Smith (00:00:02): Answer Engine Optimization is how do I show up in LLMs as an answer? Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:06): It feels like such a big deal to win at AEO. Ethan Smith (00:00:09): In order to win something like what's the best website builder? At Google, they would win if their blue link showed up first. (00:00:15): But that's not the case in the LLM, because the LLM is summarizing many citations, and so you need to get mentioned as many times as possible. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:21): ChatGPT is driving more traffic to my newsletter than Twitter. Ethan Smith (00:00:25): You can get mentioned by a citation tomorrow and start showing up immediately. You can have a Reddit thread, you can have a YouTube video. (00:00:31): You can be mentioned on a blog. So early-stage companies can win, they can win quickly. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:36): Are the leads that these answer engines are driving to companies actually valuable? Ethan Smith (00:00:41): Significantly more valuable. Webflow saw a 6X conversion rate difference between LLM traffic and Google Search traffic. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:48): A lot of people are seeing this as everything is different. Nothing we've done before is going to work. We have to rethink everything. Ethan Smith (00:00:53): There's significant misinformation on AEO. There's news articles about how Google Search is going to die because there's a new thing. (00:01:00): Google's slice of the pie stays the same. The pie gets bigger. Lenny Rachitsky (00:01:05): Today my guest is Ethan Smith. Ethan is the CEO of Graphite and my go-to expert for all things SEO. SEO is going through a major transition right now. Everyone used to go to Google anytime they had a question, or were looking for a product or doing research. These days, a lot of people are moving to ChatGPT and Claude, and Gemini and Perplexity to get answers to their questions, and this will only be a...

💡 Key Takeaways

  • 1AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses on optimizing for LLM summarization rather than blue link clicks; the goal is to be mentioned in the citations used to generate the answer.
  • 2Webflow data shows LLM-driven traffic converts at 6X the rate of traditional Google Search traffic, indicating much higher intent.
  • 3For 'Head' terms (broad queries), you win by volume of citations across trusted sources (Reddit, YouTube, Affiliates). For 'Tail' terms (specific queries), you win by having the only specific answer available.
  • 4Do not use 100% AI-generated content for SEO; empirical studies show it is detectable, correlates with lower rankings, and leads to 'model collapse' when engines ignore derivative content.
  • 5Reddit is a critical 'trust signal' for LLMs. The winning strategy is not spamming, but having employees identify themselves and provide high-utility answers in relevant threads.
  • 6Video platforms (YouTube, Vimeo) are underutilized for boring B2B terms; creating videos for niche technical questions allows you to own that citation source easily.
  • 7Move Help Centers from subdomains to subdirectories to maximize authority and capture the 'long tail' of specific product feature questions.

📚Methodologies (3)

📈 Growth & Metrics

Since LLMs summarize multiple sources (RAG), winning requires appearing in as many high-trust 'citations' as possible rather than just having a strong domain authority on your own site.

Core Principles

  • 1.Head vs. Tail Bifurcation: For broad questions, maximize citation frequency across media types. For specific questions, maximize answer specificity.
  • 2.The Triad of Trust: Actively optimize three specific offsite channels: Video (YouTube/Vimeo), UGC (Reddit/Quora), and Tier 1 Affiliates (e.g., Dotdash sites).
  • 3.Authentic UGC Injection: On Reddit, have team members post as verified employees providing high-utility answers, rather than creating fake bot accounts.
  • +1 more...

"In order to win something like 'what's the best website builder?', at Google, they would win if their blue link showed up first. But that's not the case in the LLM, because the LLM is summarizing many citations, and so you need to get mentioned as many times as possible."

#citation#saturation#growth
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⚡ Execution

A rigorous experimental design to measure 'Share of Voice' in LLM answers, distinguishing between actual algorithmic wins and random variance.

Core Principles

  • 1.Question Transformation: Convert high-value paid search keywords into natural language questions (e.g., 'payroll software' -> 'what is the best payroll software for startups?').
  • 2.Share of Voice Tracking: Use an answer tracking tool to monitor how often your brand appears in answers across different models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) to establish a baseline.
  • 3.Control Group Isolation: Select 200 questions; isolate 100 as a control group (do nothing) and 100 as a test group (apply interventions).
  • +1 more...

"Most best practices, most blog posts are not correct. So how do you set up an experiment? ... Have a test group, have a control group. Intervene on the test group... see if the chart went up."

#split-test#protocol#execution
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The Help Center Pivot

by Ethan Smith

🎯 Product Strategy

Transforming the product help center from a support archive into a primary AEO acquisition channel by restructuring technical content to answer specific 'Can you do X?' questions.

Core Principles

  • 1.Subdirectory Migration: Move the help center from `help.domain.com` to `domain.com/help` to consolidate domain authority.
  • 2.Internal Graphing: Implement aggressive cross-linking between help articles to signal relationship strength to crawlers.
  • 3.Tail Gap Analysis: Mine sales calls and support tickets for specific integration/feature questions (e.g., 'Does X integrate with Looker?') that have zero search volume but high intent.
  • +1 more...

"If you map out all of the questions that people ask... the size of the tail is larger [in chat]... and there's probably questions that have never been asked before and questions that have never been searched before."

#center#pivot#strategy
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