How Publishers Can Survive (and Thrive) in the Age of AI Search | Lily Ray
Welcome back to The Search Session. I’m your host, Gianluca Fiorelli, and today I’m joined by Lily Ray, Vice President, SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive.
We’ll talk about how publishers can adapt as AI Overviews, AI Mode, and LLMs reshape search behavior—and why the future of SEO is brand-first, not website-first.
Lily explains why organic visibility must now stretch across platforms, how to build lasting brand loyalty in an AI-first world, and why collaboration across all marketing channels is now essential. She offers us one crucial piece of advice: educate your stakeholders early—because traffic alone won’t define success anymore.
Grab your headphones, and let’s get into it.
Video Chapters
Transcript
Gianluca Fiorelli: Hi, and welcome to The Search Session. Today we have a really special guest—someone I was truly looking forward to having on the show.
Meet Our Guest: Lily Ray
Gianluca Fiorelli: She's the Vice President of SEO Strategy and Research at Amsive. But maybe you'll recognize her more easily with this one word: E-E-A-T.
In fact, if I had to give her a definition, I’d say she’s the controller of quality in the SERPs—especially now, as we’ve moved from pre-AI Overviews into the world of AI Overviews and AI-generated answers.
She’s a fantastic person, travels a lot, always full of ideas, and… she’s here with us today!
Hi, Lily, how are you doing?
Lily Ray: Hey! Good, thank you. Thanks for the kind introduction.
Gianluca Fiorelli: So, how are all these AI overlords treating you these days?
Lily Ray: Well, it depends on the context. I actually enjoy using a lot of different AI tools in my day-to-day life—and in my personal life, too. But when it comes to SEO and the clients I work with, let’s just say there are definitely some big, new challenges.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, yes—these are definitely big challenges, especially for publishers. Although it’s not just publishing that’s being affected by how Google is pushing AI Overviews, and now in the U.S., AI Mode—is reshaping everything.
For instance, I think about niches like B2B or travel. Just today, I started noticing it here in Italy with one of my travel clients—we’re starting to see an explosion of AI Overviews, even for travel queries. And not only for informational queries, but also for navigational ones.
Surviving Google’s AI Overviews & AI Mode: Strategies for Independent Publishers
Gianluca Fiorelli: So let’s talk about the publishing world—something you know very well. Unfortunately, it seems that for many reasons, some of which go far beyond SEO itself, Google is fully committed to pushing AI into search.
What do you think publishers can do—especially smaller, independent publishers—to survive in this new reality, where traffic is sinking, impressions are up, but the business model they’ve relied on no longer seems to work?
Lily Ray: Yeah, I think that’s the big question—it’s the number one thing publishers ask me all the time. I’ve spoken at a few recent events where most of the audience worked in publishing, and everyone there had the same concern.
As it stands, I don’t think there’s a clear answer for how to keep driving the same amount of organic traffic that you’ve always relied on—especially from Google and other search engines. I’m not sure that’s the future we’re heading toward.
But I do think there are a lot of creative ways to continue building organic visibility—both within Google and across other platforms. One thing that’s actually pretty exciting about this moment is that, yes, Google is launching all these new AI products, and yes, people are increasingly starting their searches on tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other large language models—but they’re also just using the internet in very different ways.
They’re getting their information from a much broader set of platforms.
So, for publishers, I think it’s crucial to think of organic visibility as a cross-platform, multimodal approach. What are you doing to show up when people are looking for specific images? How are you echoing your message across podcasts, videos, interviews, or conference presentations?
Because the reality is, these tools can digest information from so many different types of content that I think multimodal and cross-platform content creation is essential. And just making sure that you’re taking whatever great piece of content you’ve created and making sure that it’s visible for TikTok users and YouTube users and Reddit users, and across all the different platforms—I think that’s going to be really key.
And Google Discover also continues to be a great traffic source for publishers. So my team and I are very focused on Discover, and we’re very excited that Google Discover will be on desktop now, rolling out in different countries—which will hopefully help drive even more traffic.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, totally. I agree with you. This multichannel—or omnichannel, which is a word that’s become fashionable again—is probably the only strategy that publishers must adopt.
And I also think there’s a lot that can be done beyond all the rented channels, like the ones you mentioned: social media, a podcast series, a YouTube channel, or things like that. But I believe it's just as important—maybe even more so—to work on the site itself, to make readers become loyal readers. Readers who come back to you because you’ve demonstrated that you are the go-to source—for instance, when it comes to travel, or health, or any niche topic.
Obviously, this is something that the big news sites have already been doing, especially because of subscriptions. They had to improve the number of subscribers to survive in the face of a declining print press.
How Publishers Can Leverage Google’s Move Toward Hyper-Personalisation
Gianluca Fiorelli: And one thing I’ve been thinking about—and I’d love your opinion on this—is that we know Google will probably start pushing the personalization of the SERPs into a hyper-personalization. And I can’t help but draw a link between that and another space where hyper-personalization is already very important: Google Discover.
So maybe the strategy now should be to win the attention of a potential reader. To make them engage with your site enough that you become part of their browsing history—so that Google starts pushing your content more, precisely because of that engagement.
Lily Ray: That's a great point. I think one thing to consider—and this is a really nice tie-in to how Google Discover has worked over the past couple of years—is the importance of pushing users to actually follow certain brands, people, or topics they care about.
And there’s the Follow feature in Google Discover so you can actively opt into feeds of content from different publishers you follow, and then Google is more likely to show you content from those publishers.
And I think you're absolutely right—that’s the direction things are heading. When Google has more signals that you really like a certain brand or publisher, or that you're interested in specific topics, it becomes more likely that Google will surface content from those sources.
So I actually think that’s a really great opportunity—especially for brands that can capture people’s attention with genuinely engaging content. Because once they do, Google’s more likely to continue surfacing future content from that publication or from its authors.
SERPs as Billboards and Zero-Click Marketing
Gianluca Fiorelli: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yes. And I’ve been thinking about another metaphor that’s becoming quite common these days—that SERPs are becoming the new billboards. It’s a place where you’re visible, and again, to use another metaphor, it’s like you’re driving down the highway, and there are all these billboards on both sides. But only one—or maybe just a few—really catch your attention.
In one of the past episodes, I chatted with Amanda Natividad, and we talked about the concept of zero-click marketing practice. Do you think that this kind of principle—being able to show up and be visible, even if it doesn’t result in an immediate click—especially in the context of SERP features, which are still very present and could eventually be embedded into AI Overviews or AI Mode, is something that SEOs and websites should be actively working on? Creating a compelling, visual presence directly in the SERP—does that feel like a valid path forward?
Lily Ray: I think that’s kind of a different version of what SEOs have been doing this whole time, right? What we’ve always wanted is—when search engines show our products, services, content, or website—we want to make it as appealing as possible. Increase click-through rates as much as possible, or at the very least, enhance the perception of those products and services.
So, you know, we’re entering a world now where we might not see the same volume of clicks we did before. I’ve been testing AI Mode pretty extensively—both in beta and now the live version. And one big thing I’ve noticed is that AI Mode seems to be designed to keep people inside AI Mode. For example, if you ask about the best things to do in New York, it might list a bunch of recommendations without any links at all. Or, it might link to Google Maps—which literally is embedded within AI Mode. So it’s like a pop-up window that doesn’t even take you to the business’s website. Yes, technically you can click through, but most users probably won’t—they’ll just stay within the Google ecosystem.
So what you really want to do now is find ways to be presented in the best possible light. In that example, obviously, you want your Google Business Profile to be fully optimized—with engaging imagery, good reviews, and all the elements that help people feel confident about your business.
And yeah, we’re going to be exploring like within AI Overviews. There are still so many companies—sometimes even Google itself—that haven’t optimized their favicons. You’ll see that little generic globe icon next to their name. So it’s the same thing we’ve always done in SEO: for every instance where your brand is mentioned online, make sure it delivers the best possible user experience. And now, more than ever, that means really optimizing how your brand, products, and services are perceived across the whole internet.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes. I call it the economy of attention and memorability. I’m not even sure if “memorability” is a proper word in English—but what I mean is the importance of being memorable to your audience. So maybe the user isn’t continuing the conversation with AI by explicitly asking about your brand—but your brand sticks in their mind. And that’s where the opportunity lies.
Maybe the new gold standard, especially for SEO, is doing branded queries. To make your brand so recognizable in relation to the topics, services, or products you offer that users begin to search with your brand attached to their query.
The Challenge of Reporting AI Search Success
Gianluca Fiorelli: The problem, though—and we both know this—is how do we measure it?
Right now, it’s not easy. Unlike Bing, which actually shows us when someone visits our site from Copilot, Google gives us nothing. There’s no data in Search Console for AI Overviews, and we already know there won’t be separate reporting for AI Mode either. It won’t separate the AI Mode traffic, impressions, and visibility in Search Console.
That’s going to be a real challenge. Especially when we need to demonstrate the impact of our work—whether it’s to clients or, if we’re in-house, to our bosses. So, how are you approaching this issue? How are you thinking about reporting the success of a strategy in this new landscape?
Lily Ray: Yes, we can only work within the constraints of what Google is giving us—or not giving us. The fact that Google isn’t providing specific reporting for AI Overviews, and now it sounds like we won’t get any breakout reporting for AI Mode either… It’s not surprising. That’s been the trend since they launched these AI products.
And it’s not because people haven’t asked for it. I’ve probably heard 20 different examples of people directly asking Google—literally in person—for any kind of reporting related to AI Overviews and now AI Mode. And the answer is always the same: “It’s not on our roadmap,” or “We don’t understand why you’d need that.”
So it doesn’t sound very promising that they’ll ever give us proper tracking.
At this point, we can only work with what’s available. The good news is, it sounds like AI Overview and AI Mode traffic—clicks and impressions—will at least be grouped into Search Console in some way. So that’s something.
And it also seems like the lack of AI Mode referrer data in Google Analytics was, quote-unquote, a bug. That’s what they’re saying now. So it’s encouraging that they’ve acknowledged it—and hopefully, we’ll eventually be able to see AI Mode traffic there. I’m not sure what that’s going to look like in GA, but we’re waiting to find out.
So, you know, when it comes to reporting from Google, at least everyone is in the same position—we’re all working with the same limitations around what we can and can’t report on. But we can still track and report on organic traffic, click-throughs, and impression trends overall, even if those numbers now include traffic from all these different AI features.
Beyond that, we also have a growing set of tools—not just from the SEO industry but also newer AI-driven tools—that help reverse-engineer visibility across various platforms. For example, our team is now partnering with Profound, so we’re able to report back to our clients not only on visibility in Google products, but also in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and we’re now exploring tools like ZipTie as well.
We actually look at AI Overview data every day—especially for important prompts our clients care about—and track how often they’re being cited in those responses. Now, of course, this isn’t a perfect or complete reflection of how real users are searching. These tools are highly personalized, and people ask questions in unique ways. But when you analyze lots of prompts at scale—ones that reflect common user intent—and you consistently see your client’s brand, product, or service being cited in a positive light, that’s a strong signal you’re heading in the right direction.
At the same time, there are real technical SEO issues that can prevent visibility in these tools. For instance, if a site is overly reliant on JavaScript and the content can’t be crawled or rendered properly, then ChatGPT won’t be able to surface it. That’s a real SEO problem.
So now part of our job is to just understand what it takes to be visible on the different platforms and help our clients with tactics to appear there. We're adjusting our reporting approaches so that we can kind of give them that data as part of our SEO reporting.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, and just a quick note—I also noticed that our host, Advanced Web Ranking, recently added to its reporting features the ability to track and assess the level of visibility for the topics you're targeting. So, yes, this is definitely a common trend across all SEO tools as they evolve to better track and analyze the SERPs.
Impact of LLMs in the Publishing Niche
Gianluca Fiorelli: Now, shifting focus a bit, I’m curious—because I don’t have direct access to this kind of data myself—but maybe you can share something, of course, without mentioning any specific client names or confidential details. What kind of impact are you seeing in the publishing space, specifically, from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and the broader LLM ecosystem? What’s actually happening there?
Lily Ray: It's definitely cutting into traffic. I don't think that's too surprising. There are lots of companies coming out and saying they're seeing declines in organic traffic because people are getting more of their questions answered directly by large language models or by Google's own products.
So yeah, I think that’s not too surprising. But there are still a lot of examples—especially depending on the specific large language model—where some tools cite publishers more than others. I just gave a talk at an affiliate conference last week and had some data shared with me by Profound. It showed that, particularly in the product review and affiliate space, there are certain publishers that models like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot tend to cite really frequently. Perplexity as well.
When they’re putting together product reviews, roundups of what people have said about different products, they tend to cite a lot of authoritative publishers and the work they’ve done. And the reality is, these types of pages—especially affiliate content and product reviews—are becoming even more valuable. Because these large language models are relying on those pages to surface content.
So, for example, if you're an affiliate site that publishes product reviews and you're mentioning something like "the best moisturizers for women in their forties"—and you're one of the companies that wants to be featured on those types of lists—it’s going to become even more important to be included. These are the pages LLMs are pulling from when they generate their responses, so the value of that content is only going up.
So I actually think there's a pretty big digital PR component to this whole conversation as well. I heard Carrie Rose speak recently at SEO Week in New York, and she mentioned something really interesting: sending products to the publications behind those key review pages. So, if it’s Good Housekeeping or The New York Times Wirecutter, and they’re reviewing products in your category, you want to make sure your brand is part of that review process.
Yes, it’s true that we might see lower traffic numbers than before, especially now that Google isn't showcasing those sites as prominently as it once did. But the nature of that review content is just as important as ever.
And I believe publishers will have more bargaining power when it comes to their relationship with platforms like ChatGPT and other large language models. There are a lot of questions right now—like: “Should AI crawlers be able to access my content for free?” or “Do I want to create a partnership where they can use my content, but only if they pay for it?”
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, I totally agree. And there’s even an added benefit—you’re not stressing over trying to get a link anymore. Because now, the real value is in being mentioned in the right context, in the right place, surrounded by relevant, authoritative content. It’s also, in a way, a semantic game—one that really matters for NLP models.
And honestly, it reminds me a lot of what’s been happening for years now in the creator economy. I think many of the strategies we could apply to websites today aren’t necessarily brand new—they’re often adaptations or evolutions of what creators have already been doing on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and others.
It’s about consistently creating content that connects with the real needs of people, and at the same time, building a community around that content. That, to me, is something we really need to highlight more.
Adapting E-E-A-T Concepts and Framework to AI Search
Gianluca Fiorelli: And of course, this brings to mind one of your key topics, especially in recent years: E-E-A-T. Because at the end of the day, we know E-E-A-T isn’t just a set of ranking factors—despite all the people say—it’s a system of signals and indicators that search engines, and increasingly even LLMs, are paying attention to.
So in that sense, E-E-A-T really becomes a representation of what your broader content and brand strategy should be. Would you agree with that?
Lily Ray: I used to talk a lot more about E-E-A-T. I think that part’s kind of clear. A lot of us did, because Google really seemed to be pushing it a lot more a few years ago, especially in response to things like fake news, misinformation, and questionable websites showing up in the search results.
They really cracked down on that with E-E-A-T, and over time, it kind of became synonymous with good, trustworthy, authoritative content, right? So it's still just as important as ever.
But I do think that a lot of other changes have happened at Google in the meantime. For example, they’re showcasing platforms like Reddit and Quora much more prominently—and that kind of calls into question, well, is this really E-E-A-T? I mean, if any random person on Reddit can show up in the number one spot on Google talking about their medical condition, where does E-E-A-T fit into that?
So, I think there are different forces at play within Google—different priorities for different reasons, depending on the context. But for me, the idea behind E-E-A-T hasn’t changed over the years. I still see it as the way that search engines—and now large language models too—can differentiate: Who is actually the most authoritative? What signals can we use to demonstrate that a person, a brand, or an individual at a brand is truly trustworthy?
I think a lot of the power comes from being a recognized entity in Google's Knowledge Graph. Once you're established as an entity there, it really seems like you get even more visibility—not just on Google, but across different platforms. Your content tends to show up really quickly because it feels like they’re leaning into individual expertise in a big way.
So, for example, if an expert publishes a lot of content on YouTube, or even posts something on LinkedIn or X, I’m finding that it becomes really easy to influence what appears in large language models with that content. Because you’re a recognized entity and you’re active across different platforms and forums, it seems like the LLMs are picking up on that very quickly and surfacing it as expert insight.
That’s why I think the whole idea of showcasing individual experts who work at your company—or represent your brand—is so important. And if we’re talking about a local business, maybe there’s a plumber at the company who has a lot to say. Maybe he wants to get on video and talk about what he’s learned on the job. That kind of content is getting rewarded in a really big way, both in SEO and in AI.
It’s really easy to imagine someone asking, “Who’s the best plumber in New York?” and getting a response like, “Well, it’s that guy who posts all those helpful plumbing videos,” because he has such a strong digital footprint. So, there’s a lot of opportunity in thinking about how to showcase real people at your company—and making sure their presence online is consistent and trustworthy across different platforms.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, exactly. Even if that plumber isn’t actually the best plumber in New York, he’s the most visible because of what he’s doing. And that’s how human psychology works. It might seem incredibly obvious, but if you’re not showing what you’re capable of—if you’re not putting it out there in any way possible—then no one will ever know that you’re the best at what you do.
And then comes the social proof. If you're praised because you're visible—if you’ve built an engaged community that follows you, interacts with you, and talks about you—then people naturally assume, “Well, you must be good.” That’s classic human psychology. We all respond to it—me, you, everyone listening right now.
Fighting Spam and the Ethics of SEO
Gianluca Fiorelli: Putting aside psychology and referring to you as a normal person, like me, like everyone listening right now. Sometimes, as SEOs and digital marketers, we live in this kind of bipolar state. On the one hand, we clearly see what Google is doing—when it’s wrong, when it’s broken, when it's a lot of BS. And on the other hand, we know that as marketers, we still have to deal with it. So, what can we do with all these things?
I remember your wonderful talk at BrightonSEO, where you told the story of search and openly shared how we’ve all pushed the machine to its limits. So, I’m curious—what is the internal dialogue between your two selves? The Lily who’s just a regular user and person, and the Lily who’s a marketer. How do those two Lilys talk to each other when you're seeing all the flaws and limitations in things like AI Overviews, AI Mode, and everything else that’s happening in search?
Lily Ray: Well, I like to think, and I’m really trying to be honest with this statement, that the two sides of me—the user and the SEO—are actually the same person.
For example, I don’t want to do any SEO work for my clients that results in the kind of content or online experience I wouldn’t want to encounter as a user. There are a lot of people in the SEO space who are comfortable—maybe too comfortable—doing what is essentially spam. Google considers it spam. Users consider it spam. And even if it gets some short-term wins, those approaches usually only work for two or three months. It’s still spam.
That’s just not what I want to do with my clients. First, because I don’t think it’s a sustainable or successful long-term strategy. It often backfires and ends up wasting time.
But I also don't wanna create that type of experience on the internet. I do care about that a lot. It's always been kind of a hard line for me throughout my SEO career because I love using the internet. I've loved using the internet since I was 8 years old. I don't like spam, and I don't like to see it in the search results.
So something that really bothers me, and that's one of the reasons why I share about it so much, is because I think Google in particular has a really big responsibility to combat spam, and that's something that they care a lot about and they have cared a lot about for years.
When I see spam showing up prominently in AI-generated answers, it really bothers me. I understand these products are still being refined, and I get that there’s a learning curve. But AI Overviews have now been around for two years—one of those in beta. At this point, in my opinion, a company like Google should be getting it more right than not.
Like way more right than not. And I know, they’re getting better. But it’s still way too easy to get these tools to show bad or inaccurate information. And to me, that’s inexcusable.
For example, right now you can ask AI Overviews a question about a local business, and it might return an answer that directly contradicts the information already listed in Google Maps—information that the business owner themselves has entered. If that happens, that’s a Google problem. That’s something they need to fix immediately.
I talk about this a lot, and I put a lot of pressure on Google because I believe users deserve better. Publishers deserve better. They’ve done the hard work to put accurate, useful information out there. So if Google is going to pull that information and showcase it so prominently in the SERPs—especially when it’s cutting into organic traffic to those sites—then it needs to be accurate.
And something we’re seeing in the SEO and spam space is—unsurprisingly—a lot of spammers are quickly figuring out how to get visibility in large language models. They’re using what I would consider very spammy techniques. I’ve posted about this a lot. One example: creating hundreds of AI-generated articles that say you’re the best in your field, publishing them across different sites—even when no users or external reviews have actually said that about you. But the LLMs are just counting how often something is said, and then surfacing that person or brand as number one.
That absolutely shouldn’t work as well as it does. And sure, it might work in the short term, but I genuinely believe it’s inevitable that these companies are gonna have to introduce changes where those types of tactics don't work anymore, and then you've just wasted a lot of time.
So I think a lot of these opportunities work for a short amount of time, but you better believe that Google and Open AI and everybody are gonna have to introduce countermeasures so that they're looking at better ways of showcasing who's actually the best in a given category.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, yes, exactly. Things like prompt injection, for instance, are really dangerous tactics. And I completely agree with you. I mean, all those old “growth hacking” tactics were essentially doing the same thing: exploiting system behaviors to inject yourself into the top of search results and gain visibility.
Obviously, that’s not something we should be doing. It’s fine to test and experiment—to understand how things work, to recognize these patterns, and to know how to avoid them. But certainly not with clients.
Lilly's Encouragement for SEOs Facing Burnout and Declining Traffic
Gianluca Fiorelli: That said, here’s something I’ve been thinking about: what would you say to all our peers in the industry who are on the verge of a nervous breakdown right now because of AI Overviews, the drop in traffic, all of it? Because I get it—it’s tough. I’m right there too, yelling at Google, “You’re taking my traffic!”
But at the same time, we can’t just stay stuck in this cycle of lamenting lost traffic forever. So, what would you say to SEOs who need to take a breath, regroup, and figure out how to respond and move forward in this new landscape?
Lily Ray: Yeah. I think the most important thing right now is education. The more you can get ahead of the conversation—especially with your bosses, the CEO, the CMO, or your clients—the better positioned you’ll be when these changes inevitably start to impact your performance.
Because honestly, I think very few websites or companies will be completely unaffected by this. I used to say it would mostly impact informational content, but I don’t believe that anymore. Even just looking at AI Mode, it's clear that so many different business categories are going to feel the effects.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean your revenue will drop. In fact, in some cases, you might actually see an increase. Maybe more people are using Google every day. Maybe Google really will get better at connecting users with the products, services, and brands they're looking for thanks to these changes.
So it's not always the case that your revenue's going to drop. But it's really important to get ahead of these conversations as far as traffic and clicks are concerned, because that's going to change, like across the board. That's going to change. It's going to change because of AI Overviews, and it's most likely going to change with AI Mode.
Right now, it’s a little bit unclear to what extent Google’s going to really, truly roll out AI Mode for the general public across the world. But even if, let’s say, 10% or 20% of searchers in the U.S.—who now have the AI Mode button in their search results—are going there and finding it to be a better experience, that’s going to cause potential traffic declines and impression declines.
One reassuring thing is that, at least for now, Search Console will still show us impressions. So when you’re talking to stakeholders, you can say: “Look, our impression count might be unchanged—or even increase—because our content is still being surfaced in many different ways.” But at the same time, we should expect to see clicks dropping off and click-through rates declining. And that’s already happening across many companies.
Plenty of people have shared screenshots showing what their 2025 traffic looks like in Search Console: impressions might be flat or rising, but clicks are falling—because users are getting their answers directly from Google.
That’s why it’s so important to start having these conversations with stakeholders as early as possible. Help them understand what’s changing. But also remind them: this doesn’t automatically mean our bottom line will suffer. In fact, these changes might help connect users more directly with our core products and services.
Think about it—if someone spends 20 minutes in AI Mode researching the best B2B software and ends up being recommended your product, then lands on your homepage or a high-converting page, that’s incredibly high-quality traffic. It’s far more valuable than sending a thousand people to an upper-funnel blog that you might have written 10 years ago.
So, traffic volume alone shouldn’t be our primary KPI anymore—especially for many types of sites. We need to shift our focus toward the quality and intent behind the traffic we’re receiving from these evolving platforms. And that mindset shift starts with early, proactive conversations.
The Cross-Channel Future of SEO
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, it's interesting what you just said—for instance, about someone searching for your brand because of a positive mention related to something they were originally looking for, and then ending up on your homepage.
I remember reading a recent study by Ross Hudgens, where clicks are going down, but traffic to the homepage was actually increasing by around 10% across a pool of 50 clients. It’s a small sample, but still a pretty significant insight.
So, there seems to be a visible correlation between positive visibility and direct traffic. And even in my own smaller cases, I’ve seen something similar. Not from AI Overviews, but from ChatGPT.
I have a client in the digital asset management field, and Chat GPT, for some reason, loves their product. When you ask for a list of tools in that category, it does the usual roundup—but then adds a highlighted note at the end saying something like, 'But if you really need to choose one, this is the software you should use.' And happily, it's my client’s software.
They actually saw an increase in direct traffic to the website. And because I track traffic by connecting GA4 with the CRM, they were able to confirm that this direct traffic—coming from ChatGPT—was the reason for the increase in leads they were receiving.
So this brings me to another area, another question, or rather, a discussion we can have. In the past, SEOs often worked in silos, kind of in their own bubble. But now it’s clear—as we also said earlier in this conversation—that’s no longer viable.
We must be doing video marketing. We must increase and improve our presence on social media to drive brand awareness and traffic. We should also be thinking about nurturing users once they land on our website, with things like a stronger newsletter strategy, and so on.
All the different channels that used to operate independently now need to work together. So, what is the role of SEO in supporting these other channels—and just as importantly, how can these channels support SEO?
Lily Ray: Yeah, I think these other channels are now being showcased much more prominently in organic search overall. It’s only really been in the last year or two that paying attention to platforms like Reddit and Quora—and the conversations happening there—has actually become part of an SEO strategy. There are even companies now dedicating most of their marketing efforts to Reddit, because the reality is that Google surfaces Reddit content very prominently. And on top of that, people intentionally navigate to Reddit for answers, and large language models also elevate content from Reddit discussions.
So what used to fall more under social media is now a blend of social, PR, and SEO. And to your point, we all need to be talking to each other. There are conversations the SEO team should be having with everyone—from paid search, where we’ve always been able to pull some of our most valuable keywords and search queries that are converting the best, and how that factors into our SEO approach. When it comes to email, publishers are increasingly focused on growing subscriptions and keeping people within their own ecosystem by encouraging them to subscribe to their content.
I think that's an SEO play as well—in the sense that we need to think about what content is accessible to search engines and large language models, and how we can turn visitors consuming that content into subscribers. It’s very much a cross-channel conversation now, more than ever before.
Even when it comes to video content, it’s been really cool and interesting to see how much of the conversation happening on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels is showing up in search results. Whatever we’re talking about today—whether it’s in a podcast, a YouTube video, or a short-form video—search engines are picking it up and using it to answer questions.
I’ve even seen my own Instagram content appear in large language model responses. So this is clearly a cross-platform environment now, and honestly, that’s kind of exciting. At Amsive, for example, we have a paid search team, a social media team, and others all doing different things—but the more we can integrate holistically and make sure everyone understands what’s happening in the SEO space, the better.
It’s about making sure teams understand how important their content is—not just for their own channels, but for visibility across SEO and AI platforms. It’s no longer just website-first; it’s brand-first, and entity-first.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Totally agree—and part of me is actually happy, because as an SEO who didn’t come from a technical background, I had to learn all the technical SEO stuff along the way. But really, I come from content, communication, branding—and from language, because of my studies. So in a way, I’m very excited about where things are going.
Of course, I also recognize the challenges ahead. And I completely agree with what you said earlier: it's a lot about education. The problem is, sometimes we have a communication issue ourselves. We rely too much on jargon. We need to get better at explaining things simply—like, we need someone who’s the David Attenborough of SEO, right? Someone with that ability to explain complex topics clearly to everyday people.
Quick-Fire Personal Questions
Gianluca Fiorelli: Okay, let’s stop here with the serious stuff—but before I let you go, I want to ask you a few quick questions about you—so people can get to know Lily Ray the person a bit better. We already know you're an SEO by day and a DJ by night thanks to your love for electronic music, but let’s dig in a little more. Quick-fire questions, quick answers—are you in?
Lily Ray: Sounds good.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Okay, let’s talk about music. Let’s imagine you’re invited to play at a massive electronic festival—and you’re paired with a huge superstar DJ. Who would be your dream collaborator in the DJ sphere?
Lily Ray: Hmm, there are so many ways to answer that. My favorite DJ of all time is Michael Mayer from Germany. And actually, we did play together once, which was the best day ever—I had so much fun. That was back in 2019, and I’ve loved his music and performances forever, so probably him.
But I like a lot of different genres and DJs, so it depends. Another one would be Nicole Moudaber—I’ve been obsessed with her for 13 or 14 years. She throws really fun parties, and I think it would be amazing to play with her as well.
Gianluca Fiorelli: You also travel a lot. What’s one place you’ve always wanted to visit but haven’t yet?
Lily Ray: The top place on my list for a long time has been Japan—and I’m really excited because I’ll finally be going there in October! There’s an SEO platform called DemandSphere, and I’ll be speaking at their first-ever Tokyo conference, so I’m super excited about that.
After Japan, the next place on my list is Greece. I haven’t been there yet, and I’d really love to go.
Gianluca Fiorelli: And a more sensorial kind of question—what’s a sound you really love? A noise or type of sound that brings you joy?
Lily Ray: I love a lot of different types of music, mostly electronic. But I actually come from a rock music background. When I was younger, I played drums in bands and was completely obsessed with rock—punk when I was really young, indie rock as a teenager, and then later I got into psychedelic and more experimental rock—shoegaze, new wave, all that kind of stuff.
I really shifted into electronic music when I was about 20. These days, I listen to all sorts of genres. Mostly house and techno, but disco has always been one of my lifelong favorites. I love different variations of house music.
And my boyfriend and I also go see a lot of techno shows—more of the Berlin-style, harder, darker techno. We’re really into that sound as well, depending on the mood.
But I also love jazz, bossa nova, electronica, ambient music… there's just a lot of music I enjoy.
Gianluca Fiorelli: And what about other forms of art? Is there a book you love—one you come back to from time to time, maybe just to reread a passage—that you like having with you?
Lily Ray: That’s a tricky question. In the last couple of years, I’ve mostly consumed books through audio. I listen to a lot of audiobooks—mostly about the digital world, the internet, or self-help. Lately, I’ve also gotten really into topics around nutrition and fitness. So a lot of the books I’ve listened to recently have really helped me, depending on where I’m at in my life.
There’s one that stands out—I think it’s called 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do. I might be getting the number wrong, but that one had a big impact on me.
But honestly, being in the SEO space, and especially speaking at conferences all the time, a lot of my reading and listening time is consumed by keeping up with industry news. As you know, things change every single day, so it’s kind of all-consuming.
As for other art, I love going to museums and checking out visual art—galleries, exhibitions, shows, anything like that. And I’m actually related to Man Ray, so whenever there’s a Man Ray exhibit or gallery opening, I always try to go.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Last question—about something you really love. Every year, you spend part of the winter on the other side of the world, in Argentina, in Buenos Aires. What makes Buenos Aires so special to you that you keep going back?
Lily Ray: Oh my goodness, such a loaded question! I absolutely love Buenos Aires. It's one of my favorite places in the world. I’d say I live between Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, and Berlin—that’s kind of my triangle of favorite cities.
And yeah, like you said, I almost always go around the same time of year. I’ve been to Buenos Aires about five times now, and each stay has been quite long. The first time was when I studied abroad there at age 20. Then, for the last four years in a row, I’ve spent one to two months there every year.
Especially in January and February, when it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere but peak summer down there, the city just comes alive. It’s such a vibrant place—there’s always something happening in the streets. It reminds me a lot of Italy and Spain: people dining outside, staying up late, really enjoying each other’s company. The music scene is incredible too, especially for electronic music, which I love.
I bike everywhere while I’m there. I love the people, the culture, and especially the way people interact with each other. It’s very different from what I’m used to here in New York. People are more family-oriented, more social—they love hanging out at the park, going to shows together. That kind of lifestyle really appeals to me. I’m just always in a better mood when I’m down there for a couple of months.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Thank you, Lily—it was such a wonderful conversation. I really hope to see you soon, maybe at a conference somewhere in the world. Let’s see where we end up next!
Lily Ray: Hope to see you as well! Thanks for having me!
Gianluca Fiorelli: And hopefully in the future, for another episode of The Search Session. Just a quick note to all of you watching or listening: I know I have to say this—don’t forget to hit the bell and subscribe so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes of The Search Session. Thank you, and bye!
Podcast Host
Gianluca Fiorelli
With almost 20 years of experience in web marketing, Gianluca Fiorelli is a Strategic and International SEO Consultant who helps businesses improve their visibility and performance on organic search. Gianluca collaborated with clients from various industries and regions, such as Glassdoor, Idealista, Rastreator.com, Outsystems, Chess.com, SIXT Ride, Vegetables by Bayer, Visit California, Gamepix, James Edition and many others.
A very active member of the SEO community, Gianluca daily shares his insights and best practices on SEO, content, Search marketing strategy and the evolution of Search on social media channels such as X, Bluesky and LinkedIn and through the blog on his website: IloveSEO.net.
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