4 minutes; linked podcast 15 minutes.
This Advanced SEO Principles and Tactics podcast apprises marketing managers of 2022+ transformations in SEO strategy, and it reminds top SEO pros of how this transformation operates. (May require several seconds to load.)
That 15-minute podcast is a conversation between two AI personalities generated by DISC’s curated NoteBook LM in response to this prompt:
Help SEO pros grasp the confluence of Google MUM, Entities, and LLM tech in SEO. Focus through (1) the PDF “Overview of SAW (SEO Architecture & Writing)” and DISC’s blog “Now Core SEO Can Long Endure.” Core thesis: Entity and Transformer tech culminate decades of effort to rank sites by what matters to aggregate minds in a given information market. Even the likes of staff conference attendance and customers’ offline interactions influence rank. The “DISC” firm is pronounced “disk.”
[My theories why it failed to pronounce “DISC” are intriguing but not important enough for this post.]
I uploaded to Google’s Notebook LM (NBLM) over 30 top articles on the topic. It summarizes well.
NBLM’s main value is in creating a curated topic library one can query for summaries, nuanced insights, and specific needles in the haystack. Its “Audio Overview” feature generated the podcast conversation using a careful 500-character prompt and a custom conversational style, which proved much better than default settings.
In theory NBLM uses Google’s Gemini LLM tech only on the documents uploaded, but I’ve seen strong evidence that some of Gemini’s pretrained database leaks in. This happened in the above-linked podcast and, more strikingly, in a non-public summary of a court case wherein NBLM mentioned a pattern in the judge’s sentencing that was definitely not indicated in any uploaded documents (it helped resolve the case favorably). I imagine that such “leakage” emerges because NBLM must use Gemini’s codebase to produce comprehensive synthesis. In most cases such use is beneficial, but as always human pros need to vet LLM output. While LLMs can’t reason well yet, their averaging of relevant web-wide content plus curated content, together with well-structured prompts and custom instructions, helps to advance professional understanding.
I wrote this post, and no part was written by an LLM.
2/7/29 – The LLM-generated podcast on Advanced SEO was featured in the prestigious and wonderful Love & Work newsletter by Mitch Anthony. A decades seasoned marketing pro for brands big and small, and the guy who taught me more about marketing than most of my college and ad agency years combined, Mitch is the “M/Ad Man” I recommend for realizing your brand’s potential. His weekly newsletter delivers a highly illuminating and entertaining hybrid of, well, Love and Work, and it’s one of the few I never miss. It’s motivating values transcend its rare descent into mere politics, just as great artist transcends the singular human through which inspiration flows.
| “It’s as if a top-tier ad maker from the 1960s could do SEO today.” |
| Rob Laporte once told me he needed to dedicate at least one day a week just to keep up with the changes that affect the art and practice of Search Engine Optimization. |
Rob Laporte is the SEO expert’s SEO expert. We’ve had the opportunity to collaborate several times, and he understands that my Clarity Brand Design process is rooted in a deep understanding of the audience—their interests, needs, and desires. He also knows my commitment to using these insights to develop high-quality creative that genuinely engages people. Last week, he sent me an email saying: “Using Google’s amazing NotebookLM, I produced a 15-minute audio summary explaining how search marketing works today and why traditional marketers and designers now add even more value.” Rob has been using the metaphor that a good 1960s “mad man” would now be adept at SEO. That’s because, in 2025 advanced SEO principles are shifting away from keyword-based strategies toward a more holistic approach centered on deep psychographic insights into people and their true interests. The importance of backlinks is fading, while offline activities like attending conferences are becoming more influential. This audio clip is worth listening to for two reasons. First, the AI-generated podcast itself is remarkable. Rob admitted, “I was rather humbled by how it exceeded my ability to make very complicated material accessible. Most of the 30+ articles I uploaded are heavy sledding, even for dedicated SEO pros.” Second, it provides an engaging overview of how Google’s latest algorithms—like MUM and LLMs—are transforming SEO by enhancing contextual understanding and user intent analysis. AI-generated podcast: Advanced SEO Principles and Tactics Rob’s website: DISC |
