The Baer Facts Issue 65: Your website is less important than ever

🖥️  Your Website is Less Important Than Ever

I was around when Yahoo! was invented. And Ask Jeeves. And Alta Vista. And Google. 

All have the same value proposition: ask a question and they retrieve a set of web pages that purport to answer your query.

But validating whether or not the recommended pages actually DO provide a satisfactory answer has always been your job. And mine. WE had to click, get disappointed, click the back button, try again, and on and on. 

Who among us hasn't spent far too much time spelunking through Google's island of misfit URLs?

The good news = those days are ending. 

The bad news = your own web site's importance is collapsing. 

By the end of the year, many/most of us will have gravitated toward using tools like Perplexity.AI to answer our many questions du jour.

Using AI, this type of resource ANSWERS the actual question, instead of serving up websites that purport to do the answering. Which, of course, saves a LOT of time. 

See Perplexity's answer to "Who are the top keynote speakers about business growth and customer experience?" Nice to see me on that list. 

To conjure that list took three seconds. Doing it the old way, clicking all over the place and cobbling together my own list would take hours.

With Perplexity I have to visit ZERO websites to get what I need. 

See the problem? 

Sure, I'll still get people to my website when they type "Jay Baer" into Google. Or even "Jay Baer keynote speaker". 

But increasingly, meeting planners won't type "best customer experience keynote speakers" into Google. They'll use something like Perplexity instead, because the distance between query and answer is much shorter.

This means that the number of "unbranded searches" (when someone types a question into Google that doesn't include your business name) will go down. And down. And down.  

For me. And for you.

If you rely significantly on unbranded searches to fill the top of your customer acquisition funnel, this should scare the bejeesus out of you. 

Because to show up in AI's comprehensive, tied-up-in-a-neat-little-bow answer requires you to Atomize Your Awareness.

You need to be in more places online.

You need to be talked about in more places. 

You need to stop focusing on your website as the stalk of your dandelion, and focus more on the seeds, spreading your reputation as far as the winds can carry you. 

Your website will still have a role, but it will be as a confirmation engine, not the awareness engine. 

The people who come to your website will largely already know you, or at least know OF you. 

Once AI tells them about you/your business, they will go to your website to learn more, and to validate AI's opinion of you and your wares. 

This changes the entire thesis of a website for many companies, from a door opener, to a deal closer.

People think the big thing about AI is that it allows you to create more content with less effort. 

It's not.

The big thing about AI is that it fundamentally changes how we get questions answered. Google handles 8.5 BILLION queries per day. If a third of those get shifted to an AI tool....

I am fundamentally re-thinking my entire approach to digital marketing as a result of this coming change in behavior.

Would you like me to write or speak more about this?

I'd love your thoughts. And I do have a new presentation about this. Reach out to my agent, Michelle Joyce if you'd like to learn more.

📗 The Books Report

Corey Perlman has a special skill. 

He can demystify the crazy world of social media, and teach you to dramatically improve your success, regardless of your starting point. 

His brand new book Authentically Social focuses on a simple truth: YOU are more interesting than your job, so why not share more of that in social media?

It's a terrific combination of 23 specific how-tos and meaningful examples that you'll learn from. Recommended!  

✅ Jay's Faves

My favorite new podcast is What It's Like to Be....

Hosted by marketing and behavioralist author and professor Dan Heath, each 30-minute episode interviews a professional in an interesting career.

TV weather person? Piano teacher? Stadium beer vendor? 

Fascinating insights, and great fun! 

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