AI SEO Is Taking Over: But Should It? 😳

We have the SEO legend himself, Kasra Dash here. Welcome, Kasra. Thanks for having me. Good to be on.

Anyone who's not quite familiar with you, how would you describe yourself, apart from SEO legend? Do you know what, I wouldn't even say SEO legend. I would say that I am addicted to SEO. And I think a lot of my gray hairs is caused by you, because we obviously started doing daily SEO, or at the time, we were both doing daily SEO videos, maybe about 18 months ago.

And I just loved your graft. So I was like, do you know what, I want in on this. So I went from uploading maybe one video every two weeks to doing daily videos. And obviously, I've done that for maybe the best part of 14, 15 months.

Then I had a little bit of a six-month hiatus. And now I'm back doing daily videos again. Nice, man. Is it good to be back on YouTube?

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is like YouTube SEO, like YouTube SEO content, it's very, it goes up and it comes back down. So as long as you can man up and go through the lulls, like the videos are getting like a couple hundred views, you're ultimately going to get a lot of views. You're going to get a lot of customers, people that want consultation, build up your mailing list. So yeah, I enjoy it.

It's just sometimes it's a big ego kick when you work so hard doing like a video and it's like 150 views or 200 views. But then on the flip side, when everybody is interested in SEO, you're getting like 3, 4, 5, 10,000 views, which is good. Yeah, I think that's common. Like every content creator I know, even like my personal assistant, she was saying this morning, like we're not getting as many views on TikTok and she was a bit down about it.

It's like every content creator I know, it's just like up and down and up and down. And you just kind of got to weather the storm, man. Yeah, definitely. I've actually started looking at the past 48 hour views, because even if you had like a really good video, like three days ago and it's still getting you views, but then you might have had like two days or a day that's like maybe been like a pretty bad video and then the day after it's been like an average video, you're still gonna be getting around 2,000 eyeballs on you.

Bearing in mind, like a lot of people would pay like, what, I don't know, $400 or something for Facebook to get similar types of engaged actual impressions. So I still think it's like the number one traffic source, I would say. Yeah, it's average. For example, I think on Facebook, like we ran a Facebook ad for the AR proper board recently.

It's like for 36 clicks, about $250, something like that. And it's like, it can just be so expensive. Whereas like you upload a video to YouTube, maybe it gets like 500 views, but if 50 people click on it, it's 100% worth it, right? Well, one thing that I would also say as well is because I'm sure you've had it where like brands approach you and they're like, oh, you're only getting X amount so we can only pay you X.

But then what they don't realize is like, let's say you've done a video and it got 150 views in the SEO space, right? That's still 150 really engaged people that also trust you. And maybe out of the 150 people, it might be like 40 or 50% that have watched your videos six or seven times. Like a lot of brands need to also understand that, I feel.

Where it's like, it's not just 150 views on Facebook where people might not have heard you, they've never seen your content before, they don't trust you that much. With YouTube, like you go into your dashboard and you're like, all right, brilliant. Like my existing viewers, I think it's called, or like returning viewers, I think it's called. I think it's that, that's like 40 or 30%.

So if I get 1,000 views, you can guarantee that 300 people have watched at least three other videos as well. So yeah. That's a warm audience, definitely. What about AI avatar videos?

I know you tried it. Yeah. So I think what you do when you're scaling out, how many videos are you uploading now? We were previously doing.

Yeah, about three or four a day, across all our channels now. So I think that what you're doing and your approach is slightly different to mine because like you're now talking more about AI in the sense that like, oh, ChatGBT 5.1 has been released. I'm gonna do a video on that. Or DeepSeek's released a new version, right?

You're just doing like news related articles where it's, or news related videos where you're talking about like maybe six prompts you're testing out on every single new tool that's getting released. So it's like a rinse and repeat task. Even myself, I wouldn't want to do the same six prompts or the same like similar style of videos. Like ChatGBT 5.1, DeepSeek, et cetera, et cetera, right?

So I get it for your approach, but for my approach, and I've thought about this lots and lots of times. And you might, I'd love for you to just be like, nah, you definitely can do this. But let's say I'm doing a video on something really technical, like how to fix the internal linking on a website. And usually like what I do in my videos is I'll pull up a website and it's like on page number four or five of Google.

And I'm like, right, this is the 10 issues that this website has. For me to train a VA to write the script, to then record the video, to then upload the video, it would have just took a way shorter time for me to just record the video. That's how I see it. I would love for you to be like, actually there is a way.

I'm hoping you say that there is a way of doing that, but I don't think there is just yet. Yeah, the way that I would do it, cause we were publishing like one SEO avatar video a day. And what we do is like not go as technical as that, but just give people the what, not the how. So for example, it'd be like how I ranked number one in 24 hours with Claude.

And they would just be like a very general overview of like how to do SEO. And you can just, you just literally, all you do is you change Claude to chat GPT 5.1 or Claude to perplexity or whatever, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a lot more scalable, definitely. But like the stuff that I'm doing, like I done a video yesterday or the day before, and it was to do with how to automate your technical SEO and it was going into like Screaming Frog, exporting it, then uploading it to Claude.

Maybe it could have actually been done now that I'm thinking about it. But for me to explain that to like a video editor and then for them to go and get the clips, I'm like, yeah, I may as well just record, push record, record for 15, 20 minutes and then I'm done. Yeah, that's it, that's it. I mean, the only way you can get around that is like really you have a specialist SEO content writer and they're really good at creating scripts because they understand SEO.

And then you can, you know, you basically want like somebody who's been an account manager and SEO agency. Well, one thing that I would say though, this is for sure a reason why you should use AI. And I use this myself is script writing. So like you can, like one of the biggest ranking factors for YouTube, if anybody that wants to get into YouTube, you want to be taking a look at retention rates of your videos.

So there's certain words that turn people off that you shouldn't use within like the first two or three minutes. So if say, for example, you are a SEO consultant, you don't want to say in like the first like 90 seconds probably buy or book me out for consultation because a lot of people associate that with like, almost like a TV ad and they're like, ah, I don't want to watch this. He's just going to sell me for the next seven minutes of this video and they'll switch off. Whereas if you have your CTA at the end, I prefer having my CTA, like I'll have maybe like a very short CTA that's completely free, right at the start.

It might be like a Google sheet or it might be downloading my app, for example, completely free, right? And at the end, I'll have the call to action, like book me out for consultation or do this, do that. That way they've got, they've landed on your video for whatever it is, DeepSeek news, ChatGBT news, SEO, how to fix tech internal links. They've got what they want.

They've watched your video. And then they're like, do you know what? I actually trust Julian Goldie. I'm going to book him out for a consultation for the AI boardroom or whatever.

That's how I have it in my head. I'd like to know what your thoughts are. Yeah, I think the trust thing is massive. This is the other thing with human, like I'm actually testing this at the minute, which is like, I'm just going to create human content on the main channel and then the other channels I'll create AI content.

And I want to see if that drives more sales and if people trust me more. And also if the volume of hate just goes down like 10%. Yeah, that's one thing that I notice on your videos. Cause like, I'll occasionally watch a video and it'll be like, it'll literally be the thumbnail.

I'm like, oh, this is going to be a really good video. And no disrespect to you, by the way, but then I'm like, oh, it's AI Julian. I wanted real Julian. Where's real Julian?

So- I want to see Julian sweat. Like I want to feel that energy. Yeah, I don't know if that's just me though. Cause like there are people that do prefer the AI stuff.

Like for example, I'll tell you one thing for, and I think you would agree with me, AI Julian probably never calls in sick. He has got a really good script. He doesn't need to re-record certain parts. He doesn't say, he doesn't buffer.

So I could understand why some people would prefer AI Julian. It's just not for me. I've never been able to do a podcast with AI Julian yet. Not yet.

Not yet. It will come one day. I think the way that I see it, yeah. I do feel like it may be it's, if you want to max out the amount of trust that you have, which is only going to lead to more sales, then you would do more human content and then just give people the option.

It's like, if you want the AI version of me, he's on another channel, he'll never quit. And that guy will pronounce every word perfectly. There's an interesting one. And I think I actually sent you this.

So there's like, again, the nerdy side of me coming out. I am like really into wrestling right now. And I kind of have been. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like John Cena is doing his retirement tour. It's kind of like a childhood moment right now. But I have been watching this specific YouTube channel for like, not like consistently, but like on and off for like maybe four years now. And I only just recently found out that it's an AI avatar.

So one thing that I will say is it's not an actual person. They're like chopping up clips and news from what's happened on like WWE the night before or the week before. And they're giving you like the synopsis of what basically happened. Really good voice, but stuff like that, like I actually prefer like the AI version of that.

Because I'm like, right, I've got eight minutes now. I've not got anything to do. I'll quickly watch this video. So I think that there is a definite angle for certain stuff like that.

And I think where you've kind of honed in on is like the AI news, like chat GPT's latest update, deep seek, et cetera. I think there is definitely a place for it. But if you're doing like a really technical video, I think you're gonna struggle. There's one that does really well.

I've seen a few channels pop up like this where it's like, love stories in Thailand, right? So it's like, you know, a foreigner meets a Thai girl, blah, blah, blah. And it'll be like a full story, like 30 minute story about all this crazy stuff that happened. But there's no face on it.

And there's no like definition of who these people are. It must be made up. Yeah, is that what you secretly watch? I knew that question was coming.

What else are you gonna do on the weekend, Smith? Yeah, that's true. No, so there is like, I think a lot of people are scared to use AI because obviously, I think it was like a year ago, YouTube came out and said like, look, any faceless or it was like any AI videos, we're gonna demonetize. But I'm telling you now that those channels, like that love story, one that you've mentioned, like that wrestling one that I've mentioned, they are crushing it with ad revenue.

Because it's like a 14 minute video. And it's like quick, quick, quick, like you're getting what you want. And it's like perfect script right in. There's no lag.

And you don't get like switched off at any point. Like literally, it's like one after another. So if you are looking to earn money using AI, there's definitely a thing for it. I would probably say that the scripting is probably one of the most important parts and probably the thumbnails.

Yeah, I think it takes a lot of skill to create those. It's not like you can just slap it into Hey Jen and then boom, shakalaka, you have a avatar video. It's like so much work because it's all the psychology behind it, right? It's like, let's say it's a hook, and then the script writing and then the thumbnail and then the idea in the first place.

Basically like a Mr. Beast, but all you're doing is automating the voice, that's it. Yeah, definitely. One thing that I've recently done is I've created a custom GPT where I've exported like the past, maybe like 600 SEO related videos that are like all really good.

Like they've performed really good. They're not just like mine, like some are yours, some are Matt Diggity's. There's a few other people on there. And basically now I can just go in and be like, right, give me like a title and it'll go through everything.

Like I'll obviously say like, I'm talking about X, Y, and Z and then it will give me a title because a lot of the times, if you're just using your own head, you're kind of stuck in your own ways. So like I'm like kind of like an advanced SEO, but if I'm doing like an advanced SEO title, it doesn't actually reflect everyone. So like if I'm talking about like advanced schema tips, nobody cares about schema, but if you read structuring, you see like this is the number one ranking factor in 2026 to rank higher in SEO. Everyone's like, I need to watch this.

What is this? So there is also ways that you can structure your titles with AI obviously that can help. One of the things as well that I think is like kind of, you got to, with marketing, you always got to reinvent something. It's like, whatever that trick was that was working, will stop working.

And so you need to come up with something new, which requires like almost breaking all the beliefs and all the typical patterns that you fall into. And so like AI can be really good for that, for inspiration, especially if you like mix that with like one of 10, you know, if you're finding those one of 10 outlier videos, and then also looking at your competitors, then you can kind of look at everything and go, right, okay, how do I stop doing what I've been doing before, but still create a banger? And that's challenging. Yeah, that's probably the hardest thing for YouTube, I would say.

Like going out there, because it's not always like thinking about new ideas. Like I bet if we were to like load up both of our channels, the last 50 videos, it's probably maybe like 10 different topics set in a different way. That's what they say, isn't it? Yeah.

You don't make a thousand videos, you make one video a thousand times. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. Awesome.

And are you launching any like AI tools? Have you built any AI tools? How's that working? So, the only AI tool that I've recently built is the tier list that we've done on my podcast.

Ah, nice. Apart from that, like I am, so here's a funny story. And it probably sounds like I'm anti AI, which I'm definitely not, by the way. I think AI has its use cases.

I also think humans have their use cases. And the best outcome is when a human starts using AI to supercharge them, especially if you've got like tons of staff as well. But probably about a year, yeah, I think it was about a year ago now, I decided I'm gonna launch an app. And I was like, right, everyone's talking about vibe coding, AI Julian's talking about what's the vibe coding tool that everyone uses now?

Bolt or AI Studio? Yeah, I think it might have been Bolt. So I watched a Bolt AI Julian Goldie video and I'm like, I can do this. So I downloaded Bolt and I was like, right, create me an SEO app for iOS.

And it was like, right, it's gonna take me like a few minutes. So I'm like, right, I'm gonna go make a tea. And then I'm downstairs getting excited. I come back upstairs and it's like, built me like a keyword.

I think it was like a keyword tracking tool that didn't even work. And I'm like, oh, this is a bit pants. So after that, I decided to go and hire a team of developers. Like I've got like four full-time developers now that built me up my app.

So that's my two cents into AI and coding. I do think that like, there is definitely a space for it, but like the issues you've got with going, like launching like an app, for example, with AI is that there's so many like privacy concerns. Like, I don't know if you saw that app where it was like the reverse Tinder, I think. But I think it may have been you that told me about this actually.

There was like a guy that like coded an app and it was, I don't remember specifically what it was called. So if like a girl went on a date with Julian, for example, and Julian like didn't pay for the bill or he'd done some shady stuff, they would basically like upload that, like a review of Julian Goldie to the app. But then it ended up getting hacked because there was just like no DevOps team to like take a look and see, like, is there any security? So like all of the girls, I think it was like five or six girls that downloaded this app, all of their data got leaked the next day.

So yeah, like, I mean, there is definitely like a use case. Like I would 100% use AI internally to help me build an internal linking tool, for example, or to do a keyword clustering tool. But if I'm like going out to all of my subscribers, going out to all my emailing lists, and I'm saying like, hey, I've got my SEO team, I've got my SEO team, and I'm saying like, hey, I've got my SEO.app as an SEO app community, you can do live streams, et cetera. The last thing I want, because it would be a PR nightmare, is that app getting hacked.

So that's my concerns about using AI when it comes to code. And there is definitely a use case, but there's also you need to be careful. Like there's companies like there's memes and stuff where people are like, oh yeah, I don't know the answer to this, so I'm gonna upload 10 gigabytes of company information to ChatGVT to get the answer. So like if ChatGVT got hacked, like a lot of businesses' private information would be like, yeah.

That would be crazy. That would be crazy, man, for sure. Awesome. Well, it's been great having you here, Kasra.

That is, we've covered the WWE, Thailand Love Story, your reviews on a dating app. Yeah. I don't have any reviews, or I don't think I do. I might do, who knows?

Awesome. So what's the best way for people to get in touch with you? Casual Dash, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, or on my app as well, myseo.app, that's completely free to use. Congrats, man.

Congrats on launching the app and cheers for being on. Perfect. Thanks, man.