Jay Schwedelson: We are back for What's Up This Week from the Do This, Not That podcast, and there is so much going on. So let's jump right into it. So there's all this talk and has been all this talk about, "Oh, how do I get myself to show up in the AI overviews on Google and all the different things?" Well, this is some wild data that came out from, uh, Ahrefs, which says that only 38% of pages cited in AI overviews...

Jay Schwedelson: You know, you go to Google, you ask it something, and it, it tells you some companies or whatever to check out in their overviews. So only 38% of pages that are cited in those overviews actually rank in Google's top 10 search results. To give you an idea of how wild that is, a year ago, literally a year ago, that number was 76%, and now it's 38%, meaning, meaning that if you ask Google for something and it gives you an answer in the AI overviews and it says, "This company," blah, blah, blah, that company is not one of the companies that shows up in the top 10 search results on your regular search, if you look on regular Google search.

Jay Schwedelson: That's a drop from 76 down to 38%. Now, what are we gonna do about that? How do you show up? So here's the thing that we don't realize. There's so many simple things that you can do. Uh, the first thing you wanna do is make sure everything, all of your content, all of your offers have a date. Doesn't even matter exactly where, but everything has a date, meaning if you have a piece of evergreen content, you add in brackets to the end of the title of that or in the lead headline, uh, "Updated June 2026," okay?

Jay Schwedelson: And everything, your webinars have to have dates. Your consumer offers need to have dates. Everything needs to have a date 'cause the AI tools and the Google overviews especially are looking for that recency signal and a very recent recency signal. Everything you got should have a date. Now, the other thing that you wanna be doing is turn everything into a question.

Jay Schwedelson: That is the other thing that all the AI LLMs are looking for. They are looking for questions when they're pulling in their data. So instead of your, uh, page on your site being something like, "Our approach to email deliverability," no. It has to now be turned into a question as the headline. "What causes emails to go to spam?"

Jay Schwedelson: Because that is the nature of kind of the, the question-answer of all the different AI tools. So you should have no regular just statements. Everything should be written, all your headlines, your blog titles, all that stuff should be written in a, in a question format, and then it gets in and get picked up by the AI platforms exponentially, uh, more.

Jay Schwedelson: But the last thing you wanna think about in terms of, of showing up in the AI overviews is make sure you don't have anything that's negative. If you have anything on your site anywhere that's saying something like, you know, twenty twenty-two or twenty twenty-four or even twenty twenty-five, that is a negative signal to the different LLMs.

Jay Schwedelson: You gotta get off those old dates. You gotta stick in new dates. All right. Let's talk a little bit about LinkedIn and what's going on with AI and LinkedIn. So what's amazing is, uh, LinkedIn has become a w- top three source for what the LLMs, the different AI platforms are looking to pull from in terms of how they're, uh, answering questions and queries and all that stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: But Meltwater came out with a study which was really wild, okay? That 75 of LinkedIn citations, when LinkedIn information gets sucked into the LLMs as an answer, 75 of the citations appearing in the results for-- on AI tools are coming from individual profiles and not company pages.

Jay Schwedelson: That is wild. And over 90 of the most cited LinkedIn articles are using bullet points, okay? And over 85 are using clear section headings in these posts. So what does that mean? Yeah, your company pages should be putting out all this stuff, but you need leadership, uh, that have decent LinkedIn followings being a-- putting out that same information as posts on LinkedIn, okay?

Jay Schwedelson: In these list formats, in these bold, in these bolded sections, because the AI tools are actually pulling more from individual pages than they are from company pages, which is pretty wild All right, so let's talk about email stuff. So email stuff is having a big, big, big shift. So we all starting to see more and more of this talk about AI summaries in email, right?

Jay Schwedelson: That, you know, Gmail has their aim, AI summaries, that Apple Intelligence has their AI summaries, that Outlook with their Copilot has their AI summaries. And you know, a lot of people will be like, "Well, I don't see it when I go to my email," but it is coming. For some of us, we already are seeing it, okay?

Jay Schwedelson: But it's coming fast and furious because Apple, with their new, uh, updated Apple intelligence, is gonna be turning it on for everybody. Gmail right now, for a lot of their AI inbox, is only for their power users and their paid users, but it's coming to everybody, and same thing with Outlook and Copilot. Now, the thing that all of the platforms are doing the same right now, they're all doing one thing the same, which is that they're looking for, uh, what's called live text in the first 150 to 200 characters of the email.

Jay Schwedelson: What is live text? So for so long we've been told, "Make emails look pretty. Have these big hero images. Have this, that, or whatever." But no, the problem now is it's not about the prettiest email, because what live text is is actual text that's showing up in your email, that you can see in your emails, okay?

Jay Schwedelson: That's in the HTML code. It is the actual words, written words. It's not text that's inside of an image. It's not even alt text. There's been a lot of testing around alt text so like, you know, if an image doesn't display and that you have that alt text there, is that live text? And the testing is showing that that is not live text.

Jay Schwedelson: So your emails, starting now, we have to start testing with this. Yes, you can have your pretty images, but you need to have live text in there, actual written words. And yes, your links, your hyperlinked links actually count as live text, but you need to make sure that your live text, the critical words, the hero stats or call to action or whatever you're saying, has to show up in that first 150 to 200 characters, 'cause that is what all the different AI summaries are looking for.

Jay Schwedelson: So as we fast-forward, okay, into the next year or two Uh, what's gonna happen is it's not gonna be about the prettiest email. It's gonna be about the emails that understand what the different AI tools within our email platforms are looking for. So live text has become the North Star, which we should be testing right now.

Jay Schwedelson: Um, and before we get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast, speaking, and this was not supposed to be a commercial like this, but speaking about an organization, this is sponsored, this episode is sponsored by Knak, K-N-A-K.com. So I use Knak for all the email design work that we do for all of our clients, all the different things.

Jay Schwedelson: It's incredible. And the reason I say I didn't m- mean to make this a commercial, but the reality of it is, um, you really need to be using a best-in-class tool to help design your emails and your landing pages and all those things, and that's what Knak does. And the reason it's so important is you need a tool that's staying up to date with the latest AI summaries, all the different stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: If you're not aware of Knak, you should go to K-N-A-K.com/demo. They are the leading tool for email design, landing page design, and now SMS as well. So check out Knak at Knak.com/demo. They are incredible. All right, let's get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast. So Um, I guess culturally, the big thing going on is the FIFA World Cup, and it is a big deal.

Jay Schwedelson: I'm not gonna lie here. I was very into the Knicks series. That was awesome, whatever. I'm very pro. I want the USA to do great in FIFA. I don't know anything about soccer, like a zero burger. I know about-- a decent amount about other sports, but nothing. Okay, I know we beat Paraguay. I know we're playing again this week, and I think the numbers are a little misleading.

Jay Schwedelson: I saw they came out, and they said, "This was the most watched soccer thing in, in US FIFA history," or something like that. But when I looked at the numbers, it was like the fract- it was a fraction of what a normal NFL game gets in terms of viewership. So I want them to win. I want it to be great. Everybody should go out there and say fútbol instead of soccer, but I don't know.

Jay Schwedelson: Am I wrong? Should I be catching the fever? Um, I don't know. But the problem is, because of the soccer stuff, a lot of the platforms are not putting out great new shows. So what's coming out this week? So one of the big new shows coming out this week is the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Season 3: American Sweethearts on Netflix.

Jay Schwedelson: I watched season one and two. It was good. I won't be watching season three. I, I just don't care anymore. The other big thing coming out, uh, this weekend is House of Dragon Season 3. Now, here's the problem. That's on HBO or whatever. I never saw Game of Thrones. I know I'm gonna get hate for that. I never saw Game of Thrones, not one episode, so I certainly never saw House of Dragon.

Jay Schwedelson: So I know people are hyped about this, but I don't know. I don't... I, I don't know. Should I be watching this? I, I don't know. What am I talking about? Again, I don't know. Listen, I appreciate it. The last thing is my book came out. My ridiculous book came out. Stupider People, uh, Have Done It, and believe it or not, thanks to everybody here, all the net proceeds are going to the V Foundation for Cancer Research, and the book went to number one new release on Amazon in the marketing category.

Jay Schwedelson: We've held that for over a week, which is pretty wild. Please go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Books A Million or your local bookstore and get Stupider People Have Done It. I worked hard on it, but who cares about that? All the proceeds are going to the V Foundation for Cancer Research. I appreciate you, and if you like the book, leave it a review on whatever platform you use because it really does help to circulate it, and, uh, I'll check you next week later.