Content That Wins: Smarter Strategy in the AI Era | Shelley Walsh
Welcome back to The Search Session podcast! I’m Gianluca Fiorelli, and in this new episode, I’m excited to chat with Shelley Walsh, SEO Content Strategist, creative thinker, and long-time industry voice with deep roots in publishing and strategy.
Shelley and I dive into some of the most interesting shifts happening in online content today.
Here’s what we cover:
From spam to AI: Shelley breaks down the shift from spammy SERPs to AI-driven results—and why direct audience relationships matter more than ever.
The power of diverse backgrounds: SEOs with non-traditional paths bring more creativity, strategy, and adaptability to the table.
Top-of-funnel fatigue: With informational content losing value, success depends on knowing your audience and crafting strategic, creative content.
Writing for SEO or LLMs? Purpose still matters: Great content needs clarity, structure, and intent—not just clever wording or AI-friendly formatting.
SEJ’s evolution under Shelley’s leadership: From generic listicles to expert-led, evidence-based journalism that can’t be replicated by LLMs.
The constant in SEO: No matter how the landscape evolves, the goal remains the same—connecting quality content with real people.
These insights—and more—make this a must-listen for every content writer and strategist out there. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!
Video Chapters
Transcript
Gianluca Fiorelli: Hi, and welcome back to The Search Session! I'm Gianluca Fiorelli, and today we have another wonderful guest joining us.
She’s known for three things in particular. You might recognize her because, quite recently, she became the Managing Editor at Search Engine Journal. That means all the great content you see published there goes through her eyes, her head, and her hands.
But that's not all. She's also known for her own video series, IMHO and the Pioneers Show. And on top of that, she’s an SEO consultant, running her own company, ShellShock Ltd.
She's been working in the industry for many, many years, and—if I’m not mistaken—she comes from a background in the creative and graphic design niche and area. And like many of us who’ve been in this field for years, she eventually evolved into SEO.
So, if you haven’t guessed it yet, today’s guest is Shelley Walsh! Hi, Shelley—how are you doing?
Shelley Walsh: It’s really nice to be here—thank you for inviting me!
Gianluca Fiorelli: Oh, the pleasure is all mine. I’m really happy to have you here. I’ve known you for quite a few years now—mostly virtually—but this year, actually, I can't quite remember if it was earlier this year or during one of the last BrightonSEO events. I think we finally had the chance to spend some real time together over a lovely dinner. (And thank you, Barry, for that wonderful dinner!)
How’s SEO treating you?
Gianluca Fiorelli: So, Shelley—to break the ice, I like to start with a question I ask all my guests: How’s SEO treating you lately?
Shelley Walsh: Okay… well, before I burst out laughing at that question, I’ll just say—it’s quite interesting being on the other side of this conversation! As you know, Gianluca, I’m usually the one in your chair, doing the interviewing. So it’s very interesting to be on this side for once.
How’s SEO treating me? Well, I think like most people in the industry, the last two years—especially since ChatGPT launched in November 2023—have been... quite a ride. It’s definitely been interesting.
I’m not going to deny it: it’s been really hard. Some of my clients have been absolutely pounded. I have one that’s doing quite well, which is great—but I also have two others that are really challenging, for completely different reasons.
The bigger picture, though, is that we’ve all lost a lot of traffic. The whole game is changing—completely. So yes, SEO has been very difficult. It’s exhausting. I feel like I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep all year, and I’m probably working harder now than I’ve ever worked before.
But I actually do think, out of all this—I know it’s really challenging times right now, and, you know, we’re all probably dying for the massive surge we saw during the pandemic, when we all rose in a riding tide. It was fantastic. It was an easy time.
But I think, out of these challenging times, some really interesting things are going to come. And although it’s a steep learning curve right now—and as I say, it’s exhausting—I think it’s teaching us something.
What I think will come out of this whole situation, where we are right now—and what I think will be really great—is that SEOs are going to have to get very creative. They’re going to have to get back to their marketing roots, and they’re going to have to shift their mindsets to approach SEO through fundamental marketing principles, with creativity.
They’re going to have to create, you know, creative campaigns—but also look at things tied to real business outcomes. And I think the industry could actually be better for it in the end.
You know, we’ve been through so many phases—we had the whole spam phase, when SEO was just… well, actually, even just 18 months ago, the SERPs were completely overrun with spam results. The whole situation was getting very, very dire for users.
And now it’s kind of flipped completely. We’ve gone from spam overload to this panic around SERPs being overrun by LLMs, AIO, and AI Mode. For me, the way to overcome this is going to be all about building direct relationships. We’re going to have to shift completely—and remove our reliance on Google.
That’s definitely something I’m looking at right now: how to move away from this dependence on what I like to call “the Google drug,” which we’ve all been addicted to for so long.
So yes, SEO is very challenging right now. But it’s also very interesting. And honestly, I think this massive shakeup has been a long time coming. I think it’s basically evolving. It’s almost like—if this were a computer video game—we’d be jumping up to the next level right now. And that’s kind of how it feels. We are moving up a level, and once we get there, I think it’s going to be better for all of us.
I mean, what do you think, Gianluca? How’s it treating you right now?
Gianluca Fiorelli: An interviewer asking me? Yeah… well, I usually say that this is clearly a crisis. But I use the word crisis in its more etymological sense—from the Greek, meaning “passage.” So we are, metaphorically, in the middle of a red sea—like Moses—trying to see if the sea is going to drown us… or if we’ll be able to reach the other side of the coastline.
So yes—exactly. We’re right in the middle of that passage. We know where we were, but we can no longer clearly see the starting point—and we still don’t quite know where we’re heading.
That’s what’s causing this uncertainty. But at the same time, as you mentioned, there’s also this surge of creativity—from some of the best minds in our industry. After that first moment of shock, we’re now seeing brilliant people stepping up, trying to decode the system. They’re analyzing these models—decoding not only Gemini, AI Mode, and AI Overviews, but everything around them.
I myself am conducting studies on Web Guide. Let’s see what happens—whether it’s something Google will eventually push out of Search Labs and roll into the live search environment.
But we know it. For example, Duane Forrester was so quiet for many, many years… and now, all of a sudden, he’s almost spamming a new, super interesting article almost every two days.
And then there’s Mike King and the iPullRank team, Dan Petrovic, Aleyda Solís, and Lily Ray—even if she’s approaching it from a more general perspective, she’s also playing a role in helping us interpret what we’re seeing in the SERPs, as well as on LLMs.
So all these brilliant minds are putting their heads into this. But obviously, we’re dealing with such a rapidly changing world that—even as we start to understand certain things—there’s always something new pushing the ball further down the field. That’s the situation we’re in.
Bringing Offline Skills to SEO
Gianluca Fiorelli: And I come back again to the word creativity, which brings me back to your past—because we actually have something in common. You worked in print and offline marketing, and I spent many years working in television.
Shelley Walsh: Oh!
Gianluca Fiorelli: It’s a different kind of communication, right? A different kind of content and marketing, fundamentally.
So, couldn’t this “return to basics” you were talking about—this return to the core of what marketing really is—be something we can actually recover from our past experiences? Like you, coming from the print and offline marketing world, and I, coming from television.
And the people who have the hardest time right now are the native SEOs. The ones who started out doing just SEO, and have only ever done SEO. Because now, the role of SEO has changed so much. What do you think?
Shelley Walsh: Yeah, I think that’s a really, really interesting point, Gianluca. I was actually at the last BrightonSEO here in the UK—not the US version—and, you know, I was sitting in the hallway during one of the breakout sessions, just looking around, and it was one of the busiest Brightons. I’ve been going to BrightonSEO for, I think, maybe 14 years now, and it was probably the busiest that I’ve seen yet.
But as I looked around, I noticed something else: there were a lot of very young people. And I thought, “Do you know what? In 12, maybe 18 months, a lot of these people perhaps won’t even be here.”
I think we’re about to go through a huge transition. And unless you’ve got the right skill set—and the right mindset—you probably won’t be able to continue on that journey. You simply won’t have what’s needed to keep up.
It’s a bit like AI, for example. I think the people who are really going to excel in the AI-driven world are those who already have strong skills—and who can use AI to enhance and augment those skills.
Take experienced coders, for instance. They’ll just become more efficient, more productive, and faster at solving problems with AI—because they know how to get the best out of the tools and the machine. But if someone comes into AI without that experience, without that foundational skill set and knowledge, they end up relying too much on the tool. And in that case, the tool ends up controlling them—which is exactly the wrong way around. So I think those people are going to struggle.
And it’s the same with SEO. When SEO first began—25 or 30 years ago—most people who came into the field had a previous career. And that’s what made the industry so interesting. People came into SEO from all sorts of other areas, and they brought those skill sets with them. The ones who survived—and the ones who really succeeded—were those with strong creative thinking. They could think outside the box, they were great problem-solvers, and they weren’t afraid to experiment. They were tenacious. They didn’t give up. They had to teach themselves, to figure things out on their own—and I think that kind of self-learning runs parallel with where we are right now in the industry.
For me, as you mentioned earlier, I came from a marketing background. But even before that, I went to art school—so I had that foundation in real creative skills. Then I moved into marketing and magazine publishing. And I’ve always been deeply passionate about the publishing industry. I loved magazines passionately.
I’ve always loved print—the written word, reading, all of it. But magazines… magazines were just this amazing collection of disparate information, all brought together in one handy, niche publication. They were always so specific to a vertical, and I just thought they were wonderful.
I absolutely loved them.
So when I first started getting into the web, I saw this clear potential for translation. I was almost desperate to bring that magazine experience online. But I think, at the time, it was just too soon. The web wasn’t quite ready for it yet.
Now, though—where we are today, where things have evolved—I can really see how those offline skills are helping me. I’m amazed at just how much that background has benefited me. Especially in my current managing role—it’s a very, very complex position. But I think it suits my skill set, precisely because I have that offline and publishing experience to draw from.
And I think the same applies to SEOs. The best SEOs are the ones who can approach things with interesting, diverse mindsets. You know, I’ve spoken to—and interviewed—some of the best minds in SEO over the last four years. And the one thing I’ve consistently taken away is that every one of them has a different approach. They all have different mindsets. They’re similar in some ways, but also completely different in others. And it’s those differences in how they approach SEO that make it such an amazing craft.
I mean, like we were just saying—we’re going through really challenging, difficult times right now. But what makes SEO so interesting is exactly that: the constant challenge. This is why we love being SEOs. It’s what we’re all addicted to. We love the challenge. We love the constant learning. We thrive on the adrenaline, the stress, the experimentation. We love that it never stands still. It’s exhausting—but it’s exciting. And that’s what keeps us going.
You know, I often liken SEO to medicine. I honestly can’t think of any other industry—apart from medicine—that changes as constantly as SEO. We are constantly learning to keep at the cutting edge.
And I know for one thing—at Search Engine Journal over the past two years, we haven’t been able to get content through our editorial cycle fast enough to get it published before it goes out of date. It’s insane right now where an article comes in, and it’s barely live on the site before it’s already going out of date.
But coming back to skill sets and mindsets—it’s really interesting, Gianluca, because you come from a TV background. And I know other SEOs who also have that kind of experience. And honestly, I think it naturally feeds into SEO. It translates really well if you look at how marketing has developed over the years.
Originally, marketing started out with—what was it—print, right? Sorry, there was radio that came along. Then TV—that was a huge revelation. When we moved from radio to television. Before that, marketing was things like direct mail—snail mail, sent through the post. And then the internet arrived.
Online was such a massive disruptor when it first came along. A lot of people watching this today might not remember that, but I was at university at the time—and it was actually called New Media. It was dramatic. A huge shift. Before that, if you wanted to find information, you were flipping through telephone directories or going to the library. And then suddenly—you had everything at your fingertips.
Gianluca Fiorelli: And I remember that very short period we had—because the internet wasn’t so common yet, and it was slow—where there was this whole CD-ROM industry with multimedia content.
I remember the era of Encarta, for example. Before we had Wikipedia, there was Microsoft Encarta. And before that, of course, there were the classic encyclopedias on paper.
Yes, I really remember that period. In fact, when I was still a student back in the day, I did one of those classic master’s programs—and one of them was actually a master’s in multimedia content. It was basically about how to create a CD-ROM with text, video, and interactive features—which, if you think about it, was essentially like creating a website inside a CD-ROM.
I think that’s really interesting. And in fact, personally, I think many of us with more experience are actually feeling younger again. I remember not so long ago, Duane Forrester shared something on LinkedIn that really made me laugh. He was commenting about himself, saying he felt like a “Generation Lead Marketer,” rambling about everything all at once. It was very funny to read—and I think it captured exactly the sensation many of us are having.
Even though we’ve enjoyed success in recent years—especially as you mentioned, during COVID. Of course, COVID was a horrible situation for humankind. But for SEO and search, the COVID-19 pandemic was actually a wonderful moment. Nobody could really move—at best, people were limited to one square kilometer around their house—everything in e-commerce was booming, etc. Well, it wasn’t so great for travel websites, and I had quite a few clients in that field. But overall, we were enjoying the success.
Still, let’s be honest—it was becoming a bit boring as work. I mean, it felt predictable: you start with this, you follow with that, which was quite sad. Nothing big was really happening. Yes, the zero-click SERP phenomenon was constantly increasing, but search volumes were still growing—and traffic was still growing. And then—AI came along. And that’s been the real disruption. For us, it is a difficult time—but at the same time, it’s an exciting time. Because, as you said, it means we have to learn again.
That’s why I feel a little younger right now—because it reminds me of myself back in 2004. At that time, I had to switch to SEO for personal reasons. It meant leaving Italy, leaving the television work I was doing, and reinventing myself professionally.
So I went from simply curating the website content for the TV channel—something I was already involved in—to actually becoming an SEO. And back then, I had to learn everything from scratch: what an H1 is, what a title tag is, how to improve the quality of a page, and how to do link building. And now, I have to do all these kinds of things for everything—AI search, and so on.
But at least for me—and I don’t know if this is the same for you—in my personal case, I feel like I’ve never been more prepared to do this job. Because all the things I learned about SEO back then are still fundamentally important, even in this new world of AI search.
But secondly, it’s also because now everything is about linguistics, semantics, and semiotics—and that’s what I studied. In my early days of SEO, I wasn’t even able to use that knowledge because it just wasn’t relevant at the time.
And my work in television was all about buying TV rights and creating the programming for movie channels, series channels, and thematic channels. So everything I did was connected to taxonomy, ontology, and building an architecture. Something that I always did. Now, suddenly, so much of SEO relates directly to that background.
I’ve always been a “builder.” In fact, I actually offered link building as a consulting service many years ago—but I had to stop, because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I didn’t have the patience to stick with it, and honestly, I felt guilty stalking journalists. It just wasn’t for me.
But now, with brand mentions, it feels different. It’s less pressure. I know how to promote something, so it’s easier for me to design a strategy and then have specialists execute it.
So yes, I do feel younger. This is a difficult moment, but if we tackle it the right way, it can also be—well, I don’t know if I agree 100% with this definition from Mike King—but perhaps a renaissance for SEO. Once this passage becomes clearer, we get closer to the other side.
Creativity & Design Thinking in SEO
Gianluca Fiorelli: But enough about me—I think I’ve talked too much! You’ve described yourself as really creative, coming from an art background. So let me ask you: how much do you think creativity and design thinking should become part of the toolset for SEO professionals?
Shelley Walsh: Well, when I first got into SEO—about 15 years ago—I came into it because I had some dropship stores. I could see that the future of all business was going to be on the web, and I really wanted to develop brands and businesses. And I just got hooked.
It’s interesting, because at that time I saw SEO as purely technical—all this technical stuff I knew nothing about. I felt like such a novice, a complete impostor. Honestly, I’ve felt like that for the past 14 years. A complete imposter. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn’t know. And I kept thinking, “Oh my God, I’m never going to get to a place where I feel like a confident SEO,” because I was so focused on the technical side. But even back then—14 years ago—I could already see this gap for cross-section, an intersection for really good quality content, presented really well.
So that combination of creative visuals with really good content—together with technical SEO—I could see that gap even back then. But I feel like it’s taken me 15 years to really bring it to fruition. Now, at this point, I can finally say, “Yes, this is where it all comes together.” And moving forward, I think the key is quality journalism. Because at the end of the day, we are all publishers online. Anyone working in SEO is, in effect, a publisher.
Just last week, I was speaking to Barry Adams and John Shehata about news SEO. And as I said to them, while news SEO may seem like a niche vertical, in reality, it’s relevant to everyone. Because we’re all publishing content, publishing is my passion, and where I see things heading is toward really good quality journalism.
Where does creativity come into this? I think SEO is going to shift significantly. Technical will always matter—to a point—but it’s strategy, and specifically creative strategy, that’s going to carry us forward. That’s really, really important, now that search is fragmented across channels. TikTok, for instance, is hugely influential. And then there are LLMs, although how much real value and traffic LLMs can actually bring us is yet to be seen.
As I mentioned earlier, my focus is on building direct relationships. As a publisher, that means building a relationship with your audience and providing them with the highest-quality publishing and journalism you can. And in a way, this takes me right back to 25 years ago when I was producing magazines. It’s the exact same concept, the same skill set—delivering truly good content.
Where creativity comes into this is, first, you have to know where your audience is and how to find them. That’s classic marketing, and that underlines SEO. At the end of the day, the job of SEO is to help people be found online—and that still remains true. We’re still going to be helping people be found online—but the real question is where they are. That’s what’s shifting.
And the creativity will come into the strategy and the quality of the content we produce. Because I think informational content alone isn’t going to cut it anymore. LLMs have that covered. AI Overviews have that absolutely covered.
That kind of top-of-the-funnel content is, in many ways, out the door. Yes, we can still produce it for brand awareness and exposure—but how much value will it actually bring us? We don’t really know yet.
Where I think SEOs are going to excel—or at least, where they should be moving towards—is creating something truly valuable. I know we keep using “valuable to the user”, but what does it actually mean? Valuable is something that is of interest enough to the user that they will connect with you, they will read you, they will actively seek you out, they will return to you, or they will choose you.
So, you know, SEO has always been in two parts. A lot of people have just focused on the first part: getting people, getting the traffic to the page. And a lot of SEOs felt like that was where their role ended.
But actually, I feel like that’s where it actively begins. What happens when people get on the page? Then you have to provide a good enough experience.
Ammon Johns called this web promotion, and I think really that’s something important. He was calling this 25 years ago—web promotion—and he already had the mindset of thinking about the experience when people arrive.
And this was 25 years ago, when people were just spamming left, right, and center. But it’s about actively thinking about that experience, and it’s about engaging with your audience so that you are really solving their problems.
That’s obviously one of the best ways to connect with anybody. If you can solve somebody’s problems—the things that keep them awake at 3:00 AM—then you’ve got a friend for life. Or, if you can provide them with an entertaining experience. Those are the things that are valued. And this is where I feel the creativity is going to come into it.
Historically, over 14 or 15 years of working in SEO, I almost kept my creativity hidden to a degree, because I felt like it should all be more technical. But interestingly, now I think my creativity is excelling—and it’s helping me more than anything else.
Because I can look holistically at strategy and pull on a lot of experience, from a lot of paths, to think: what is the best content experience we can craft here that will truly connect with people? How are we going to create different types of content across different channels? How are we going to repurpose? How are we going to connect?
But more importantly—what’s the kind of content where the real opportunity lies? The kind of content that will bring people in, move them to conversion, and deliver a real business outcome. Anybody can produce “what is” articles. And we were doing a lot of that for quite a while, just to get the heavy traffic.
But really—what value is there in ranking for “what is SEO”? The true value is in bringing somebody in who’s actually going to connect with the end business outcome. I look at this holistically. That’s the huge challenge. It’s not just, “I want to rank for a keyword”, “I want to rank number one for apples or oranges.” It’s about really thinking and finding somebody who’s at the right point in their journey, or trying to bring someone into that journey?
As Cindy Krum said, it’s about optimizing for journeys. Your content has to address the full journey, not just one piece in isolation. So for me, content strategy is the critical part. We are publishers. We have to have that publishing mindset. And in my experience, there are very few people who can actually do that well.
Gianluca Fiorelli: I agree with you. I remember Cindy Krum talking about journeys—because just a few weeks before her talk at SEO Week in New York, she was actually my guest here on The Search Session.
And we were discussing the very same idea: following the micro-moments, following the journey of your audience—whether that’s a website owner, a business audience—not just thinking in terms of “the customer.”
Gianluca Fiorelli: So yes, I totally agree with this. But I also think that, somehow, the same community needs to look at its own guilt—at what it hasn’t done so well. Because, if you agree, it has always been a classic trend in our industry to lean toward the “super-actionable tips and tricks” type of content.
Also, within the industry, the SEO community has always leaned toward the classic type of content—the kind you find in publications, on personal blogs, and at conferences.
But on the other hand, the more strategic thinking—the conversations about how SEO fits within the broader scope of online marketing and even offline marketing—has always been considered boring, not interesting, not giving immediate results, and so on. And I think this is something the SEO industry should admit to itself: we did it wrong in the past. Because now we have so many practitioners who think only in terms of checklists, and nothing more.
SEJ’s Content Evolution
Gianluca Fiorelli: So I have a question for you. In your role as Managing Editor—and before that, as SEO Content Strategist & Contributor Programmer at Search Engine Journal, which you’ve been doing for what, four or five years now—what kind of evolution have you seen in the content published on Search Engine Journal?
Because I think Search Engine Journal, just like your competitor Search Engine Land, is a good mirror of our industry—showing how it evolves.
How did you see this evolution of the industry? Now it seems that everything is AI—but probably it’s not. So what kind of relationship do you have with authors when they present you with content? And what kind of content used to be fashionable but isn’t sufficient anymore?
Shelley Walsh: Oh gosh—yes, it’s changed a lot. It’s changed a lot in five years. I joined SEJ five years ago, and at that time, a lot of the content we published was listicles. The content was more—what’s the word?—generalized. And there was a lot more beginner-level, how-to type of content. That lasted for a couple of years, I would say probably about three years ago.
We went through a lot of changes at SEJ, and three years ago, I noticed the level of content wasn’t particularly where I thought it should be. Honestly, I didn’t feel it was in a great place. I’ll be really honest about that. There were a lot of contributors coming in, but I didn’t really feel like there was a cohesive content strategy at that point. A lot of lower-level content was being produced on the site, and I could see a decline happening. I didn’t like that, and I thought, “This is not a good situation.”
So I stepped in and started to take over the content strategy. At that point, I began managing the contributors. And one of the biggest changes I made—it was like turning around a very large ship, and it’s taken three years of really hard work—was clearing out and removing many of the contributors we had at that time.
I turned it into an invite-only process, where I was actively sourcing and inviting talent to write for the site. I had a vision in mind of where I wanted to take it, and it’s taken me three years to bring that vision to fruition. My approach was simple: I wanted to raise the level of content and make it more synonymous with quality journalism, moving it away from where it had been.
So the first change was no more listicles. The second was to have contributors write within their own verticals—areas that best demonstrated their expertise. Previously, we had a lot of contributors writing on very generalized subjects. I wanted the people who came in to reflect their expertise in what they were writing, and to move more toward thought-leadership style content.
At the same time, I really wanted to increase the overall quality, so that everything we publish is evidence-based and closer to the level of journalism. I spend a lot of time fact-checking, carefully reviewing sources and citations throughout the content. That’s now a really big part of our editing process.
At the moment, we have a higher-level strategy. We are now targeting marketing decision makers, and much of our content is now aimed at that level. We have very little—if any—beginner-level content anymore. I don’t actively look for “how-to” content. Five years ago, that’s what we were publishing constantly: how to do a title tag, how to write a meta description, and so on.
Now the articles we put out are opinion pieces on where AI search is today and where it might be heading in the next six months, or guidance on what a CMO needs to focus on in the next six months to pivot their team and survive this period of uncertainty.
We’re publishing enterprise-level content, content specifically for agency owners, and more. And I also resurrected the columns we used to have—“Ask an SEO”—where people submit specific questions to be answered. This is probably the only kind of almost beginner-level content we still have. But again, even with that, it’s about bringing in a level of expert opinion.
Five years ago, content was very prescriptive—and I’m sure you’ll agree with this, Gianluca. It was formulaic: all “how to.” You could almost write an article by numbers. Content across the web, especially in the SEO space, was all structured the same way.
Now, I’m trying to bring in a really good range of authors and contributors who have fresh perspectives—people who can each add something unique. The goal is to produce the kind of content that an LLM simply cannot replicate. That has very much been my focus. And let me tell you—it’s been a much harder task than you might imagine, managing 60 or 70 contributors and moving the publication from where it was to where it is now. It’s been very, very challenging.
Gianluca Fiorelli: I’m totally sure of this. And I think it highlights how hard the management work really is.
Creativity as the Future of Publishing
Gianluca Fiorelli: But one thing you said resonates with me—something that’s common to so many websites. And I don’t mean just publisher websites, but also the classic sites that have an informational section—whether you call it a magazine, or a blog.
As I mentioned before, I’ve worked a lot with travel websites and travel companies over the past 20 years. And the classic example there is the travel guide or the blog. What you said reminded me that, at a certain point, it felt like there was a timestamp on all that content. Articles, regardless of the website, were all basically the same.
In fact, I still use a very simple way to make this clear to my clients. I take a screenshot of their articles in Safari’s “reader mode”—so with no design template, just the text—and I send it to them. I’ll ask my clients: “Have you read this blog post?” They usually say no. So I ask again: “So you don’t know who published it?” Again, the answer is no. Then I go with the third question: “Who do you think published it?” And they’ll usually mention a name. And that’s when I say: “No, it was published on your own website.”
Then I’ll put together a simple comparison: I take a screenshot of their article, one from a competitor on the same topic, and another from yet another competitor’s website. And it’s impossible to tell the difference between them.
This brings me back to what you said at the beginning of our conversation: creativity can save us. Creativity—tied to being relevant for our audience—is how we stand out. Because the question is: how can we talk about something that hundreds of other companies are also talking about, but in our own unique voice? That may be the only way for a publisher, or any website with a strong publishing side, to survive and thrive.
Yes, maybe you’re still writing about “the best things to do in Iceland.” But you’re doing it with your own voice, with your own expertise—because you’ve made the effort to ask local people, to gather information and so on.
Shelley Walsh: Firsthand experience.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yeah. And you know, I feel a bit like The Mandalorian—“This is the way.” Maybe this is the way to do things and to be remembered. Because yes, all this content probably isn’t going to give us the same traffic as before—it’s being eaten up as food for AI Overviews and LLMs. But maybe this kind of visibility will stick in the long run.
And not just for search or AI search. This kind of content is also the easiest to repurpose—whether it’s for TikTok videos, Instagram reels, YouTube Shorts, and so on. I think that’s probably the only way to get through this passage.
Chunking & Writing for LLMs
Gianluca Fiorelli: And I have another question, related to your past in the print industry—in magazines. How much do you feel horrified by words like “chunking” and “chunk optimization”?
Because for me, it feels like going back to when we used to talk about “SEO copywriting.” This idea of breaking content into chunks or optimizing for LLMs—it reminds me of that. I know LLMs work in a certain way, so we need to be especially clear, not using strange rhetorical or overly floral language that could confuse them.
But talking about chunking—it feels like I have this content, and I’m like a butcher, having to cut it into pieces. How do you feel about this kind of new AI search copywriting?
Shelley Walsh: I just feel like we’re having the same conversations we were having 20 years ago—or 15, 10, even 5 years ago. Look back for me, AI content or article spinning—is there really a difference? It feels like 2007 all over again. And one thing I don’t think people fully realize—or maybe they do, I don’t know—is that LLM content isn’t really AI. It’s not true AI. It’s a machine. At the end of the day, they’re just token-based prediction machines. And so, they’re hashing together a pattern match of tokens. I don’t believe they’re ever going to be sentient.
That’s a bit of an aside—but interestingly, this morning I was editing an article by Duane Forrester. He’d just written about semantic density and semantic overlap. And basically, the difference between writing for machines and writing for humans is this: semantic density is what we perceive as the elegant quality of written prose, whereas machines favor alignment with semantic overlap.
In his article, Duane talks about finding the balance between the two—and it’s exactly the same as writing for optimization as we’ve been doing for the past 25 years. You have an article, you identify your keywords, you keyword-stuff the article, and then you try to wrap some prose and narrative around it to make it presentable. That’s always been done with varying levels of elegance and quality. Writing for the online has always been about that balance: writing for search engines and writing for people.
And when you talk about chunking and optimization—as much as I love creative, high-quality writing and journalism—I think a lot of creative writing can end up being ego massage. For writing to be really good, it has to serve a purpose. Even if it’s a book, even if it’s purely creative writing, it still has to appeal to somebody. There has to be a reason and an end goal for it.
And it’s exactly the same with writing online. There has to be a reason and a purpose. You can’t just write anything randomly that you feel like. Historically, the way to succeed online was to have that framework of finding the keywords you want to connect with your audience, optimizing for those, and then wrapping your content around them.
Now, we’re translating that to LLMs. It’s essentially the same situation. There’s already a prescription coming out now of writing chunks. You write in certain ways to appeal to LLMs. It’s exactly the same situation: search engine or LLM.
To be very good at what you do is about finding the balance. Historically, I’ve had great success writing high-quality articles that also rank well. With clients, too, I’ve seen strong results from producing content that not only stands out from competitors but also performs in search.
And moving forward, I still believe the focus has to be on the end game: why are you producing this content? It must appeal to user intent. There’s got to be intent behind it. It has to appeal to an end goal. There has to be a reason and an outcome.
And I think writing within strict parameters actually makes you far more creative. It makes you a better writer, and you can produce better content. Personally, I like the challenge of writing and creating within a structure. I find it easier to build a strategy when there are parameters.
It’s interesting—about 10 years ago, I wrote a book on what creativity is. I did a lot of research into how people defined creativity, and one quote stuck with me. It was from Jack White of The White Stripes. He talked about how, when he reached a certain level of success, he found it almost impossible to write more music—because he could do anything he wanted. He found it mentally very difficult to deal with, and he just couldn’t write. But when he started to set himself a very structured framework, he was able to get back to writing—and it worked for him.
I think the problem with creativity is that there’s almost like an unlimited process, or unlimited things you could do. Whereas when you’re working within that structure, it actually makes you more creative.
That’s what excites me about SEO more than anything else. As a creative, I also have a very geeky, technical, nerdy side. And being able to combine the two—for me—is just like this amazing sweet spot of heaven: being able to create within structure.
So, coming back to your question about writing for chunking and so on—I think it’s just an evolution of what we’ve always done in the SEO industry. But as always, there are going to be varying degrees of ability. Some people will do it better than others.
And, you know, SEOs—well, not all SEOs, but bad SEOs or spammers—have filled the web with really poor-quality content that we’re now having to clean up.
But SEOs have also provided so much value. In fact, this was a conversation I had with Dawn Anderson: SEOs are essential because they help content be found. They help content to be connected with users. SEOs are the go-between—between the user and the content—making sure it can actually be found. So really good SEO is about somebody who can work within the technical frameworks we have, while still producing an outstanding user experience. And if you just swap “search engine” for “LLM,” it’s the same process.
I’m still skeptical about actively writing for LLMs. For brand awareness, yes—it’s going to be important to be mentioned. It comes back to classic marketing of how many touches does a customer need before they recall or recognize a brand? That’s now just being translated onto LLMs. Now that we’ve removed the direct click, I believe it’s going to go back to measuring brand touches across LLMs.
But again, I keep coming back to this: I think the real value moving forward is in building direct relationships and producing outstanding quality. You can use the LLM for your end, use the search engines for your end to bring the audience to you—but then it’s about developing that relationship, the ongoing relationship. Because that’s where your best content lives, and that’s something no search engine or LLM can ever take away. That’s the ideal position to be in.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yes, I think visibility is what helps you be discovered. But creativity and quality are what make you remembered, and what bring people back to you without them even needing to search.
Shelley Walsh: Yeah.
Gianluca Fiorelli: They’ll come back directly, or because they’ve subscribed to your email newsletter, or because they’ve started following you on YouTube or social media.
But I have to tell you one thing. And I think you’ve noticed this as well when checking how content—recommended to clients, or published on Search Engine Journal—appears in AI Overviews.
I’ve discovered something. First, the content that seems to have the strongest impact in terms of visibility in AI Overviews and LLMs—at least in my experience, and in the case of my clients—is almost always the content written by someone who really knew what they were talking and writing about.
And secondly—this also comes from the fact that I teach in a master’s program for copywriters in Italy. I always cover SEO, all the classic things, and now also LLMs. But I always tell these copywriters: you have to learn these things and then forget them. Because otherwise, you’ll end up just “writing for the formula,” instead of really writing.
One of the things I always tell them is: First, be as creative as you want—but you must know what you’re writing about. Don’t just recollect information. Second, be clear. If you read a phrase you’ve written and you can’t clearly understand it, then redo it. Clarity comes first. And third, apply the classic concept of the inverted pyramid.
I think what many people still don’t understand about chunking is that, when we talk about it, we’re really saying that every piece of content should be self-contained and conclusive—able to stand on its own as a “chunk.” In essence, it’s about applying the inverted pyramid approach not just to the overall content, but also at the section level.
This approach works especially well for the web. It’s probably not the best way to write something like a book—personally, I prefer other styles. If I were writing a book, I wouldn’t use the inverted pyramid; it would be boring. You’d read the first chapter and feel like there’s no reason to keep going.
But online? It works. And when I saw this combination—knowing the topic well, writing with clarity, and using the inverted pyramid structure even at the section level—I realized: this is what makes content perform well not just for classic search engines, but also for AI search. And that’s something I started noticing even before ChatGPT came out. From the very beginning, I saw content written this way showing up prominently on tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others.
The Fireside Questionnaire
Gianluca Fiorelli: Well, oh—one hour in! Let’s stop talking about SEO. Let’s talk about the future... and the past. Let’s talk about you. You’ve made me curious—you studied art. What led you to that?
Shelley Walsh: What, why did I want to do that?
Gianluca Fiorelli: Yeah.
Shelley Walsh: Well, honestly, Gianluca, I never wanted to be anything else. Since I was about four or five years old, I was absolutely fixated on being an artist. I didn’t want to do anything else. Much to the disappointment of my family, though—they pushed me really hard in another direction. They wanted me to consider something like medicine, something more academic. I did well in school and went to a very academic school, and everyone was saying, “No, no, just do your exams, pursue, and then you can do your art later, if you still want to.”
But I was absolutely fixated—nobody could tell me otherwise. So I went to college, then university, did an art degree, and when I graduated, I pursued it as best I could. I set up a studio where we were doing textile design pieces, took part in art shows, craft shows, all of that.
Eventually, though, it reached a point where I was literally the starving artist. I just needed to make some money—so I moved into design.
But yeah, I was totally obsessed with it. And the strangest thing, Gianluca, is that for a long time I kept doing illustration work—even in my early SEO and online projects, I was still illustrating. But then one day, I just woke up and... it was gone. I’d completely lost the passion. I haven’t picked up a pencil in about 10 years now. I don’t even know what happened.
It was like a crisis of faith. I need to get back to the pencil, back to doing some good life drawing. That used to be my passion. I was convinced I was going to be an artist. But somewhere along the way, I started wanting more—more intellectual challenge. And somehow, art just wasn’t enough for me anymore.
Gianluca Fiorelli: I think that passion is still there—maybe hidden deep in your soul—but something will come along and bring it back to life.
Shelley Walsh: Yeah.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Okay, it's a totally different situation, but for example—I don't know if you know this—but I’m really geeky when it comes to miniature painting. I used to paint a lot earlier in my life. But then I stopped for almost 20 years. I didn’t have the time. And with this kind of hobby, you really need time.
Shelley Walsh: Yeah.
Gianluca Fiorelli: Then one day, I used the excuse of taking my sons to a Warhammer store—you know, they have this clever strategy to get you in: a free painting lesson. So, it was that free painting lesson. And my sons never wanted to paint again—but I restarted. And now, five years later, I’m still doing it. I restarted and I don’t care if I only get an hour in—even if it’s midnight and everyone’s asleep—I’m there, painting. It’s my way to relax. So maybe something like that will happen to you, too.
But since we’re talking about art... What artists or movements really captivated you? The kind of work that would make you stop for an hour in front of a piece of art in a museum—or just sit in a classic library, staring at a beautifully printed art book?
Shelley Walsh: Oh, that’s easy. That’s such an easy question. I was absolutely devoted to the Renaissance—but not the painting. It was always the drawing for me. Drawing has always been my passion. I like the graphic. I like the graphical element. I loved photography for the same reason—especially black-and-white photography. But Renaissance drawing? Leonardo, Raphael... oh my God. I could just stand there forever.
Actually, I have a bit of a story. I’ve never told anyone this before. When I was at art college—many years ago now, maybe 32 or 35 years ago—I went to one of the libraries in London, I think it was the British Library. They had a collection of original artworks you could actually request to see. I was doing some research for what might have been my dissertation, and I put in a request to view one of the pieces.
I didn’t realize what that involved at the time—but they came out with a box, handed me a pair of white gloves, and told me to put them on. Then they opened the box… and inside was an original drawing. I think it was by Raphael. An original.
I just couldn’t believe it. I picked it up—held it in my hands—and thought, I’m touching the same piece from the Renaissance era. I was starstruck. So yes, I’m deeply passionate about Renaissance art.
But I also love going to exhibitions and museums. I’ve been to so many over the years. Actually, the best exhibitions that I saw in a very long time was Jean-Michel Basquiat. I saw it at the Barbican—the December before we went into lockdown. It was the last time I went to London before everything shut down. And that exhibition was by far one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
And even though it was nearly 40 years ago—he was working in the late '70s, early 80s—Basquiat’s work still feels incredibly fresh, incredibly unique. There’s never been anything like it. He was just so talented. I absolutely love his work.
I also saw an amazing Picasso and Matisse exhibition. I’ve always loved Picasso, and that particular show was outstanding. But yes—Renaissance drawing is still where my heart is. I’m a huge Leonardo fan... and a huge Basquiat fan too.
Gianluca Fiorelli: You have to go to Milan if you didn’t.
Shelley Walsh: Yes, I do—absolutely.
Gianluca Fiorelli: I went to the Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci to see the Atlantic Codex.
Thank you, Shelley. It was so nice to have you as our guest here.
Shelley Walsh: Yeah, it was a pleasure.
Gianluca Fiorelli: A big goodbye to you, Shelley—and I really hope we’ll see each other again in the future. Hopefully by then, we’ll have moved from this long transitional phase in SEO into a brand new chapter. Thank you again, Shelley.
Shelley Walsh: Thank you so much, Gianluca. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And I hope I’ll see you at Brighton in October. I hope you’ll be there!
Gianluca Fiorelli: Let’s see… I’m not so sure yet, but we’ll see.
And thank you to all of you, dear watchers and listeners! Just a quick reminder—you can watch this episode on the Advanced Web Ranking website, and of course, on YouTube. So don’t forget to ring the bell and subscribe to the channel.
If you prefer just listening, you can also find us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Make sure to subscribe there too—that’s the best way to stay in touch with us and catch all the new episodes we’ll be broadcasting.
Ciao, ciao!
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.
stay in the loop