Podcasts are an excellent way of diving deep into topics and uncovering information and answers to questions on things you’ve always wondered about but never had anyone to ask. The magic of interview format podcasts is how the host asks the guest questions by digging into the specifics they know will help their listeners. 

Given that I don’t have a podcast (and have no immediate plans of starting one), I thought I’d try and apply that format to this post instead of my usual article. 

Standing in the shoes of a small or medium business owner, I tried to think about some marketing questions they might have that can be answered in a paragraph or two that would deliver some value. So, here goes (and if you think of any future rapid fire questions for future posts, drop me a line here)…

1. Can you suggest a way I can drive more traffic to my website?

There are so many ways you can do this from reaching out to other aligned businesses to establish reciprocal links to each other’s websites to paid advertising, however as a rapid fire answer, I’ll focus on an overlooked one... 

Dig out the top keyphrases (Google Search Console) by volume of traffic to your site and use that as a foundation from which to develop content such as articles, videos, and guides. 

It can be a bit ‘chicken & egg’, however the behaviour from visitors currently happening on your site underlines where their biggest interests are. I see this all the time on client websites where their blogs cover a wide range of topics and often it is a very niche area of their business that their customers and prospective customers are clearly missing the most information. If you lean into the interests site visitors are already exhibiting, you’ll naturally get higher volume traffic. 

2. What’s the point of having FAQs on my website?

Frequently asked questions (FAQs), particularly where FAQ schema* is used, has always been helpful from an SEO (search engine optimisation) perspective, however now that we live in a world of AI overviews and want to optimise for AI search, the same rules apply. 

You can have entire pages dedicated to answering FAQs that relate to your products or services or you can incorporate FAQ sections as a part of relevant pages, often as a block at the bottom of the page. 

Or, you could include them like I have done here…part of an article even if FAQ schema isn’t used in the page code. This is because AI is intelligent enough to understand from headings and page organisation, the authority of the site and page content, that the article contains useful answers to credible audience questions. 

So the bottom line is; you can be more relaxed about where you include FAQs and how they appear – the content matters more than the format, but just make sure you keep using them if you want to be cited by AI.

*FAQ schema is a way of tagging FAQ content so search engines can clearly identify the questions and answers on a page

3. If you had to give one piece of advice to a service provider about getting found online, what would it be?

Think about search intention first and the rest will follow. 

If you are trying to drive people to get in touch who are ready to buy now as opposed to ‘one day’, think about what types of terms they may put into their regular or AI search tools. Those terms are often very different to people just researching a topic for general information. 

Often someone further down the funnel uses search terms that are a combination of occupation and location. For example “marketing consultant NZ” or “copywriter Auckland”. 

Even in this day and age where people work remotely, there can be a preference to work with someone local, so location still matters. Sometimes that preference is more about support of other businesses in their local area. For example West Auckland has a strong business community, so it wouldn’t be unheard of for a business out west to search “marketing freelancer West Auckland.” What does this mean in the context of your business and your local community? Use a keyphrase planner to discover the most common job titles people are searching on in relation to your service – the results might surprise you.

4. How can I leverage AI tools for better efficiency in my business?

Just about every marketing tool now has an aspect of AI built into it, although sometimes you have to pay extra for deeper benefits. Start with the basics by making the most of the AI that is already built into the tools for free before you start paying for extras. Ensure you or people who do your marketing are trained up in how to train the tools to produce the best results. Time invested up front will reduce frustration with suboptimal outputs. 

Another place to start is considering the most common tasks and how AI could not only make things quicker, but more effective. The question should be how can we do things better and if speed is part of the equation, that is a bonus. At the end of the day, AI needs to add value to your business not detract from it. For example, producing AI slop will ultimately harm your brand over time as people disengage from your content. “Adding value” keeps you focused on what your audience wants or needs and ensures you don’t compromise on quality.

5. What is one marketing trend you are keen to watch?

I attended an AI webinar recently where the host talked about using Claude Artifacts to develop games, quizzes, calculators and other apps that could be embedded on web pages and he commented that in future more marketers are going to need to understand HTML and coding in general. 

I’m on the fence about that one…I think with the help of AI, the need for in-depth technical knowledge such as coding is reduced because you can have a conversation with AI to resolve coding if it’s not working as you intended rather than having to spot where it went wrong. So, unless I’m overlooking anything, I think the door has been well and truly opened for people without much tech knowledge to build their own websites and apps and what’s possible is going to continue to blow us away as AI evolves.  

About Andie Johnson

Andie is the owner of Flex Marketing. Flex Marketing helps businesses grow by allowing them to have the help of senior marketing resource without needing to employ a full time marketing manager. How flexible! We call this outsourced marketing services, however, some refer to it as ‘fractional resourcing’. We help multiple businesses at the same time who can’t yet justify having a permanent senior marketing person, so we become their ‘fractional CMO or senior marketing manager’ for an agreed number of hours per month. Often we drive a particular project or help with a specific business need that may be temporary. Flex Marketing has been helping businesses in this way to grow their businesses since 2011 and is based in Auckland, New Zealand