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Search Hustle Digital Marketing Podcast

Search Hustle Digital Marketing Podcast

By: Search Hustle
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Digital Marketing training for business owners, fresh marketing grads, and trained marketers. Our team at Search Hustle has put together our very best material on digital marketing to help you gain a solid foundation for your marketing strategy. These pages will walk you through the process of laying the groundwork for a solid digital marketing approach, that will work for any industry. If you’re ready to take your knowledge further, check out our complete, in-depth course at searchhustle.com.Copyright 2018 All rights reserved. Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • Google Doesn't Read Pages Anymore. It Reads Relationships.

    Google Doesn't Read Pages Anymore. It Reads Relationships.
    Jun 29 2026

    If you're still optimizing for keywords, you're already behind.

    In this episode of the Search Hustle Podcast, host William Nozak breaks down one of the biggest shifts happening in digital marketing right now: the move from keyword-based SEO to semantic, entity-first search. And if you run a small business, an emerging brand, or a multi-unit franchise, this one's worth a full listen.

    William has spent years in the trenches working with SMEs, franchises, e-commerce brands, and startups. He's not here to give you a theory lecture. He's sharing what's actually working right now, straight from client work he's doing every single week.

    What we get into:

    • Nearly 60% of searches now end without a click. Here's what that actually means for your business
    • How AI overviews are sizing up your brand's credibility before a customer ever lands on your site
    • The difference between ranking for a keyword vs. becoming the recognized entity in your market
    • How to build topical clusters that make you the go-to expert in your space
    • Why every franchise location needs its own digital footprint and how to set up local business schema the right way
    • How solid semantic SEO actually moves the needle on your valuation multipliers when it's time to scale or sell
    • What metrics to watch in a zero-click world, including how to use Ahrefs, Google Search Console, and Google Tag Manager to track brand authority and indirect conversions

    The internet has basically become an answer engine at this point. The brands that win won't just rank. They'll be the answer.

    This episode gives you the blueprint.

    Good listen if you're a: small business owner, franchise operator, marketing manager, agency owner, or anyone trying to build real organic growth in 2026.

    Podcast Sponsor: Handyman Services Tulsa
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    5 mins
  • Google vs AI: Who Wins the Search War?

    Google vs AI: Who Wins the Search War?
    May 22 2025

    So, Are We Still Googling Stuff, or Has AI Already Taken Over?

    If you're like us on the Search Hustle Podcast, you’ve probably asked yourself recently: “Am I the only one still typing ‘best pizza near me’ into Google like it's 2012?” Meanwhile, your 14-year-old niece is having a full-blown conversation with ChatGPT about where to eat and what to wear.

    This episode was one for the books — we sat down to hash out what search looks like now, how it's changing, and whether Google's days as the king of queries are numbered. Spoiler alert: AI came ready to throw hands.

    Short Queries vs. Full Conversations: How We Search Now

    There was a time when we all treated Google like a magic 8-ball with amnesia. You’d type:

    • “Best Thai Tulsa”

    • “Pizza open late”

    • “Car won’t start clicking sound”

    Minimal context. No punctuation. Just desperate vibes and hope.

    But now, enter AI — the friend that actually wants to hear your life story. You ask:

    • “What’s the best Thai place in Tulsa if I’m allergic to peanuts and trying to avoid MSG but also don’t want to spend more than $15?”

    • And AI says, “Gotcha, here are three options, here’s a map, and also, here's a breakdown of their Yelp reviews like I’m your mom making sure you don’t get poisoned.”

    We talked about how Google searches are short, usually 3 to 5 words. Meanwhile, AI queries are full-blown essays, because the interface makes you feel like you’re texting a human who might actually care.

    The SEO Shift: What Does AI Mean for Google Rankings?

    Let’s be real: if AI becomes the go-to place for search, then suddenly, the traditional SEO game changes. Keywords still matter, but now it’s about context, conversation, and intent.

    We joked that ranking on Google used to feel like trying to win a spelling bee while someone moves the letters around. Now, with AI, it’s like sitting down for a job interview and hoping your website sounds smart enough to get hired.

    Some big takeaways:

    • AI prioritizes well-structured, helpful content over keyword stuffing.

    • Brands need to be ready for users to ask weirdly specific, long questions.

    • Google is catching on, with AI-generated results showing up as “overviews” or “snippets” — but it still feels clunky compared to real-time AI responses.

    Not everyone is ready to ditch Google. One of the podcast hosts pointed out that most people — especially older generations — are creatures of habit.

    You can upgrade their phone, buy them an Alexa, and show them ChatGPT… and they’ll still open Chrome, type “weather,” and click the first link.

    So, yeah, Google isn’t dead. Yet. But it’s definitely feeling the heat.

    Search Engines, AI, and the Death of the Homepage

    One interesting rabbit hole we ran down was how AI could kill the traditional “homepage” as we know it. If people get their answers straight from AI summaries or snippets — guess what?

    They never click through. They never see your beautifully designed page. They never admire that new font you spent four hours choosing.

    It’s not just about being on the internet anymore — it’s about being interpretable by AI.

    The Hustle Continues

    At the end of the day, we’re still hustling. Whether it’s Google, ChatGPT, Bing, or something that hasn’t even been invented yet — the rules will keep changing.

    That’s why we do this podcast. So you don’t have to read 500 blog posts or decipher Google's latest animal-named update. You just listen, laugh, and learn.

    Catch more episodes of the Search Hustle Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And hey — try typing that into AI and see what it says.

    Podcast Sponsor : Lawn Care in Tulsa - Boomin' Greens Lawn Care
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    18 mins
  • I Took a Marketing Class—Now I Know Everything

    I Took a Marketing Class—Now I Know Everything
    May 20 2025
    Welcome to the "Did You Try Geofencing?" Era In the world of digital marketing, there’s a sacred moment that happens in every agency office. It starts when a business owner calls and says the words: “So I just got back from this conference…” That sentence is the marketing equivalent of someone watching one YouTube video about open-heart surgery and then walking into the ER with a scalpel like, “I got this.” And look—good on them. Learning is great. Self-education is noble. But taking a four-hour workshop on "How to Use Instagram Reels to Dominate the Market" doesn’t make you Gary Vee. It just makes you someone who now thinks “meta descriptions” go on images. Which… they don’t. Please don’t do that. In this episode of the Search Hustle Podcast, we tackle one of the most common (and accidentally hilarious) marketing problems agencies face: business owners who want to be involved in marketing—but don’t really know what that means. “What’s Our Strategy on... Meta Descriptions for JPGs?” There’s a real conversation that happened where a business owner asked us: “Have you ever done a meta tag in a meta description on an image?” That sentence is like asking a chef if they’ve ever cooked a microwave. It’s just... not how any of this works. Meta descriptions describe pages—not images. But to the freshly-minted Marketing Class Alumni, it all sounds the same. And we get it. You heard some buzzwords. You got excited. You came back from the seminar with a hotel pen, a three-ring binder, and a burning desire to say, “Are we using geofencing?” at least twice a day. But here’s the thing: digital marketing is not a set of magic words you say to make money. It's not Beetlejuice. It’s a craft. It’s layered. It’s slow sometimes. It’s not one thing—it’s a system of many things, each one dependent on others being set up correctly. You can’t start with the cherry on top and then ask where the cake is. SEO Isn’t a Checkbox—It’s a Strategy Let’s talk about SEO for a second. A lot of these conversations start like: “Are we doing SEO?” That’s like asking your contractor, “Are we using nails?” Like, yes. Yes, we are. We’ve been doing that since Day One. But SEO isn’t a single button we press. It’s technical, local, content-driven, link-building—all of it. But what most business owners really mean is: “I heard a new word. Are we doing that word?” And listen, if we had a dollar for every time we’ve heard “schema,” “geofencing,” “Core Web Vitals,” or “EAT,” we’d be out here geofencing a yacht. The Post-Conference Glow-Up There’s something about conferences that fills people with a temporary glow of confidence and a small packet of absolute chaos. The owner comes back from a hotel ballroom in Des Moines with 50 pages of notes and a dream. They burst into the office like: “Have we ever done content repurposing for maximum funnel conversion via omnichannel AI automation?” No. Because that’s not a real sentence. That’s a podcast Mad Lib. But we’ll still answer kindly, professionally, and only scream internally. Let’s Be Clear: We LOVE That You Care All jokes aside, let’s clear something up. We love that business owners want to be involved. We love that they’re learning. We love that they want to know what we’re doing with their budget. That’s fantastic. But there’s a line between asking good questions and accidentally becoming the guy at the BBQ who argues with a doctor about how “WebMD said it could be gout.” When a business owner learns one term—like “geofencing”—and suddenly wants it all over their Google Ads account without providing an ad budget, it makes things… interesting. When You Know Just Enough to Be Dangerous A big theme of this episode was what happens when clients come in with just enough marketing knowledge to feel confident—but not enough to know when they're off base. Think of it like trying to land a plane because you watched Top Gun twice. You understand the vibe—but you’re about to crash that SEO into the ocean. Common Off-Base Requests We Hear Here are a few favorites from the podcast team: “Can we SEO the PDF?” “Can you make our Facebook post go viral?” “Are you targeting keywords in the header of our YouTube thumbnail?” “What’s our funnel doing on TikTok?” Each of these questions reveals good intentions but shaky understanding. And that’s okay! But it means the marketing team has to spend time explaining instead of executing. That costs momentum. That costs efficiency. That can slow down results. Trusting the Process (Even When It’s Boring) Marketing isn't always sexy. Sometimes it's doing the same thing 40 times—like creating title tags, resizing images, rewriting meta data—because that's what gets results. Imagine going to a personal trainer and saying: “Why aren’t we doing backflips yet? I saw it on TikTok.” ...
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    29 mins
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