This week I discuss GEO (generative engine optimization) and the 10 types of content that get indexed in AI tools.
Listen now or read the transcript below.
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Got questions about whether your marketing is aligned? Email me at jennifer@jennifer-roland.com or connect with me on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the credit union social strategy podcast. I’m your host and your credit union copywriter, Jennifer Roland Cadiente.
Today, I want to talk about how to get your blog posts to show up in AI you know, we know that more and more people are using AI tools as their search engine. So we need to make sure that what you’re doing is optimized to show up in those things, so that they find you when they’re looking for help with personal finance or, you know, the products and services that you offer.
So I found this really cool list from AirOps about the 10 content types that get cited in AI search. They’re buying guides, how to guides, comparison pages, listicles, product documentation, product detail pages, research reports, deep dives into trends, case studies and thought leadership.
So I wanted to talk about how you know well each of these types fit into what you’re doing on your credit union website and blog.
So buying guides, that is something where you’re comparing options with, you know, the pros and the cons and the data. And I think that is a good way to structure, say, your lists of checking accounts or savings accounts, or, you know, whatever types of, you know, products you you want to be comparing. A lot of times I see credit unions separate, you know, share Savings Certificates, IRAs, and all of the other types of savings accounts, deposit accounts, that they offer onto separate pages. And for this purpose, I would suggest bringing all deposit accounts onto one page, or savings accounts. I guess you know we’re just talking about that type of account, not checking accounts in this example. And then have you know that you know share savings does this, this and this, your IRA does that that Matt include the numbers, as long as you know you can commit to keeping that page updated. But that can be a really useful page that could get indexed in an AI search engine.
So how to guides that shows people how to do certain things. So that’s a place where a blog post might be really helpful. You know, how to save up for your down payment, how to gather all the documents that you need to buy a house, you know, to get approved for, for your mortgage, things like that, that are the questions that that your members and potential members are going to be asking you. Create these how tos, post them in your blog. Be very clear in the titles, how to do X, so that it will be very easy for a chat GPT or perplexity, or some other tool to find your how to guide.
Comparison pages, as far as credit unions go, I see that a lot, you know, like the like the buying guides. It’s a, you know, a tool where someone can compare their different choices. What you might want to do is use a table layout on your website, if that’s something that works on both mobile and desktop. With your design tools where people can see really quickly. You know, this account gets that rate. It has this fee, it has this requirement, just the really, you know, maybe top five things that someone can compare for your different art, different savings tools to see which is the right one for them.
Listicles, that is, you know, those list articles that we all love to click on. You know the 25 ways to do X 25 things that that show you know why that’s another that’s a great thing for your blog. It can be a fun thing to write and it can be a fun thing for people to read. The one thing that we always want to keep in mind is that while we were optimizing these so that they show up in AI search, we were also still writing everything on our website for humans to read first. First and foremost. So think about, you know, the fun things you know, top 10 ways to get involved in our favorite charitable organizations. Top 10 things you didn’t know you could do here in X city. It doesn’t have to be just about your credit union, but it should somehow tie back to your credit union, like, if it’s you know, your favorite charitable organizations, it can be the ones that you know, that you donate to each year, so that you can also be talking about the ways that you give to those organizations throughout the year. If it is you know, the local, top local things that people don’t know about still tie it back to the credit union and try to do maybe 1/10 of your content like that, so that it can be something fun for members and potential members. But also, we’re keeping the focus on the money and the other ways that you help.
Product documentation probably less useful, and same with product detail pages. You know, those can be something like the buying guides, but those are, you know, typically more for someone who’s selling a physical or digital product. So you might, yeah, you can just ignore those two.
Research reports and all that can be really fun. That’s where you showcase proprietary data insights and your analyses. So you could look at, you know, the overall, you know, trends in your membership. You know, is credit usage going up? Is it going down? And you can look at why it’s doing those things, and then provide you know, the steps that someone can take if they are looking to lower their overall credit card debt. You could look at things that are going on in your community as well, but you know, focusing on the data that you already have about your members completely anonymized and aggregated, of course, so that no one is singled out, and no one feels like you have used their data in a way that is inappropriate for their financial institution, but it can be a really useful way for people to, you know, See how they’re doing financially compared to everyone else, and it’s it’s more useful sometimes than you know, the national reports that we see in the news, because those don’t always take into account what’s happening in the place that you live. You know, maybe there’s something big happening with one of the large employers that’s going to affect people’s money. And that’s not going to be, probably something that a national organization is going to really look at deeply, but you can.
And those trend deep dives, that is another place where you can really, you know, showcase what’s happening. You can talk to some of your business members and see what they’re seeing in, you know, in the local business climate, and you can share that with your general membership. Because what happens in the local businesses definitely trickles down to you know, the average consumer living in your area.
Case studies are, I think, one of the most amazing things a credit union can do. But also sometimes the most challenging a case study is when you take a specific customer, member story and show how working with you has improved something in their you know, in their lives. For us, it would be helping someone’s financial situation. The reason that this can be very challenging is that a lot of times people are coming with really challenging financial situations, and then, you know, you’re working with them to help them, you know, get loans that aren’t at such high interest so they can pay things off, you’re helping them, you know, increase their savings and budget and things like that. But not everyone wants to share their personal financial information. Not everyone wants to talk about their negative stories, no matter how you know how far they grow. So it may be hard to get people to agree to do them, but oh my gosh, when you can they are such amazing tools for getting new members, for helping other members understand the types of work that you can do to help them improve their financial capacity. So some of the ones that I’ve seen are when businesses are getting started. Those are the folks who are usually pretty likely to want to share their stories. You know, my credit union helped me buy a truck that I needed to, you know, increase my business, you know, so I could have a second delivery truck and hire another driver and help me grow things like that. Because there’s also the benefit of, you know, free advertising for that business. But occasionally, you can find someone who, you know, say you helped them save up their down payment for their house and now they live in their dream home or the perfect starter home, whatever they were looking for, if you can share those stories, it just it puts that human touch, and people love to read them, and AI loves to add them to their repertoire of results that They can share.
And so finally, thought leadership. As credit unions, we tend to create a lot of thought leadership materials. We may not always think of them as thought leadership, but it’s the, you know, custom trainings that we do, obviously, ones that are, you know, a curriculum that you’ve purchased and are not able to share publicly. That is something that that you wouldn’t want to share. But you know, when you’ve created specific curriculum for the types of people that that you’re serving yourself, then you can repurpose those webinars into text-based materials that AI can easily index. You don’t have to, you know, give away the entire thing, but you can create summaries. You can pull out excerpts. If you have educational materials in your newsletter, you can reprint those on your blog. I know a lot of you know, credit union newsletters end up being posted as a PDF or something like that, but instead you could, you know, pull up pieces and post them in text form, because a PDF is not always something that an AI tool can index and read, whereas you know the text that’s available openly on your website without any any sign in that it can read.
I hope that this list has given you some food for thought as you’re planning out your content for the year, and hoping to get it optimized for AI. We have a lot of the roof to optimize for these days. We have to optimize for humans so that they will enjoy it. We have to optimize for SEO so that they will find it. We have to make sure that our titles and summaries are so good that someone will click on it instead of just reading the AI overview in their search results. And we have to optimize for AI. So if you need any help doing that, you can reach out to me at jennifer@jennifer-roland.com or find me on LinkedIn, Jennifer Roland Cadiente. I’d love to talk to you.
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