SEO Uh-Oh

In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched Google Search.? Larry and Sergey were PhD students at Stanford working on a dissertation theme.? Their supervisor encouraged Larry Page to dive into the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web and their link structures. Larry focused on finding which web pages link to any page – and considered backlinks a way to identify the value of a page.? All of this was to be published in an academic publication.? While working on Stanford’s Digital Library Project, they developed the PageRank algorithm.? Some other stuff happened, too, but you get the idea.? They invented Google.?

1999, I was in high school, and Kevin Bailey came to my house to show me his Dodge Viper website.? I may be overstating this, but Kevin was making about $2K a month running advertisements on his website because it was on Google’s 1st page. ??As far as I was concerned, he made a million dollars a month.? I vaguely remember him saying, It’s easy. I use backlinks on other sites, and it ranks my website higher. ?At the time, the idea of learning stuff wasn’t really for me, and so that was that.? 5-6 years later, Kevin started an SEO agency with his buddies, leveraging backlinks to help companies improve their SEO.? They grow super-fast – and it was impressive.

In 2025, SEO is spoken about often.? SEO means Search Engine Optimization.? The mortgage industry is enamored with SEO, but very few understand what it takes to rank.? Google considers over 200 variables when ranking a website.? Back in the day, Backlinks were heavily weighted. In August 2022, Google changed its algorithm to focus on content quality, keywords, website speed, and engagement.? If you were an SEO company built on backlink farms, you likely saw a drop in business or went out of business.

Google updates its algorithm every quarter.? It hasn’t been challenging to track, but then along came AI.? Google is working hard to stake its claim in GEN-AI Search.? In my opinion, their infrastructure makes it challenging.? As I mentioned, their current algorithm considers 200 variables.? How does AI fit into that equation?? Without a doubt, Google will be making significant changes in the future to compete with AI models that have taken the world by storm.?

If you didn’t prioritize SEO for web search, you will begin to understand the importance of why you should have.? GEN-AI SEO strategies will be needed to compete in the future.? For the first time, ChatGPT has taken market share away from Google. ??Mortgage Advisor Tools is sourced 20-40% of the time when mortgage technology inquiries are made using AI search engines. ?While using AI to write content is fine, please understand that the day is coming when AI-only content will not provide much SEO value.

In the same way that middle schools can scan essays for plagiarism, Google will scan websites for content written with AI.? Technical SEO (site speed, mapping, URL structure) will continue to be critical. Still, when it comes to content, there are only a few things marketers should prioritize when developing their strategy. ?Of course, keywords such as long and short tail should be utilized. Most importantly, you should make the content uniquely relevant.? The job of any search engine is to return a current, relevant, and reliable source to answer the inquiry.? One hyper-relevant article will outperform a thousand AI-generated articles most of the time.

All in all, SEO is a long game.? It is a practice.? It takes time.? There was a time when retail stores generated 90% of their business with their sign.? Without a sign, no one knew that business existed.? Without an SEO strategy, many companies may also become unfindable.? At a minimum, they will be out of touch.