Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite—the leading SEO growth agency—and my go-to expert on SEO. After 18 years of mastering traditional SEO, Ethan has been at the forefront of what is called AEO: answer engine optimization, or, more simply, getting your product to show up in ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini/Perplexity answers. He’s discovered that ChatGPT traffic converts six times better than Google search—and most companies are completely missing this opportunity. *In our conversation, we discuss:* 1. His 7-step playbook to rank #1 in ChatGPT 2. Why ChatGPT traffic converts 6x better than Google 3. How early-stage startups can win at AEO immediately (unlike with SEO, which takes years) 4. The three tactics that actually work: landing pages, YouTube videos, and Reddit comments 5. Why help-center content can suddenly be your highest-ROI investment 6. The specific Reddit strategy that works (spoiler: be authentic) 7. Why AI-generated content doesn’t work *Brought to you by:* Orkes—The enterprise platform for reliable applications and agentic workflows: https://www.orkes.io/ Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny Great Question—Empower everyone to run great research: https://www.greatquestion.com/lenny *Transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-aeo-ethan-smith *My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers):* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/172703231/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation *Where to find Ethan Smith:* • Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethan_l_s • LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ethans-linkedin • Graphite: https://graphite.io/ • Graphite Research Papers: https://bit.ly/graphite-five-percent *Where to find Lenny:* • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Welcome back, Ethan (04:34) The changing landscape of SEO (06:19) AEO (answer engine optimization) vs. GEO (generative engine optimization) (08:13) The impact of AEO (11:51) How early-stage startups can win at AEO (14:34) The quality of AEO leads (15:35) On-site vs. off-site traffic (16:32) Reddit’s role in AEO and avoiding spam (20:11) How AI models use citations (RAG) (21:41) Key principles for winning at AEO (25:00) Avoiding hyper-SEOed content, and the importance of originality (28:55) Actionable AEO playbook: steps and experiments (33:35) Tracking, measuring, and share of voice (38:34) Adapting AEO for B2B, commerce, and early-stage companies (41:11) Is letting AI index your content good? (43:06) Experimentation, control groups, and measuring results (46:15) The future of AEO, SEO, and search channels (51:35) AI-generated content: what works and what doesn’t (55:25) The dangers of infinite AI derivatives (58:44) The future: convergence of LLMs and search (01:00:40) Help-center optimization and the long tail (01:03:18) Lightning round and final thoughts *Referenced:* • AEO Tools: https://bit.ly/graphite-aeo-tool • The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-ethan-smith • Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley • Webflow: https://webflow.com/ • YouTube: https://youtube.com/ • Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/ • Quora: https://www.quora.com/ • An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/an-inside-look-at-deels-unprecedented • Dotdash Meredith: https://www.people.inc/ • Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/ • Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ • Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/ • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • TechRadar: https://www.techradar.com/ • Yelp: https://www.yelp.com • Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/ • Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour (Reforge): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-chatgpt-will-be-the-next-big-growth-channel-brian-balfour • AI SEO: Latest Market Intelligence & Landscape Analysis—Summer Sessions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm589PmhIOY • AI Content Study: https://bit.ly/ai-content-white-paper • Free AI detector: https://surferseo.com/ai-content-detector/ • Common Crawl: https://commoncrawl.org/ • AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y • Looker: https://cloud.google.com/looker/ ...References continued at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-aeo-ethan-smith _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com._ Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite, a boutique growth agency that’s helped companies like MasterClass, Thumbtack, Robinhood, Medium, and Honey develop and execute their SEO strategies. SEO is one of the least-understood levers for growth, while also one with the biggest payoff. This episode is a true master class on all things SEO. Ethan shares a wealth of information, including when you should begin investing in SEO, how to build an SEO team, and the three main buckets of SEO. He explains the difference between topics and keywords, gives the exact heuristics and tools to help you be successful in developing and implementing your own SEO strategy, and also goes deep on how to deal with roadblocks and advocate for resources. — Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-ethan-smith — Where to find Ethan Smith: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethan_l_s • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanls/ • Graphite: https://www.graphitehq.com/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Coda: https://coda.io/lenny • Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups • Lemon.io: https://lemon.io/lenny — Referenced: • Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy https://a.co/d/2wkN4dx • Topical Authority Analysis: https://bit.ly/topical-authority-tool • SEO Link Analysis: https://bit.ly/diagnostic-internal-links • SEO Links API: https://bit.ly/graphite-internal-links-api • Screaming Frog: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ • Brandon Lee of Power: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonhli • Similarweb traffic analysis: https://www.similarweb.com/ • MasterClass: https://www.masterclass.com/ • BetterUp: https://www.betterup.com/ • NerdWallet: https://www.nerdwallet.com/ • HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/ • Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/ • Semrush: https://www.semrush.com/ • Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console/about • Clearscope: https://www.clearscope.io/ • Yuriy Timen on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-grow-a-subscription-business-yuriy-timen-grammarly-canva-airtable/ • Gokul Rajaram on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product-development-process-when-and-how-to-hire-your-first-pm-a-playbook-for-hiring-leaders-getting-ahead-in-you-career-how-to-get-started-angel-investing-more/ • Luc Levesque on Twitter: https://twitter.com/luclevesque • Search Off the Record: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/search-off-the-record/id1512522198 • GPT-3: https://gpt3demo.com/apps/openai-gpt-3-playground — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Ethan’s background (07:53) Why technical audits are the biggest myth in SEO (10:05) When to invest in SEO (16:09) Heuristics to determine if SEO is worth it (18:36) The three buckets of SEO: programmatic, editorial, and technical (23:30) The process for creating an SEO strategy (27:00) Why you shouldn’t be too formulaic (28:33) What is site engagement? (29:31) Which pages need to be indexed (31:49) Topics vs. keywords (36:33) How to mine competitors’ sites for information (37:41) Useful tools for developing your SEO strategy (40:14) How long will it take to see results? (45:16) Factors to consider when looking to hire an SEO person (47:33) The functions of a programmatic SEO person (49:19) How to do testing (54:06) Editorial SEO strategy (57:14) How to scale based on the size of the site (59:51) Page types (1:01:53) How to win in a topic category (1:03:12) How to build solid hypotheses and test them (1:06:13) How to deal with roadblocks and advocate for resources (1:08:54) How topical and domain authority are determined (1:16:43) The power of internal links (1:24:32) Why AI is not usually useful for content creation (1:28:31) Final tips for getting started with SEO — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.