#119 Can AI Content Harm Your Google Rankings? Essential 2025 Content Strategies & SEO Insights

Jonny Ross

-: 00:32

Hello and welcome. We are live. We're live on LinkedIn, we're live on Instagram and we're live on YouTube. Although you may be listening to the replay as the podcast and however you're here, whether you're watching, whether you're listening, welcome.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:00

This is the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast. It's episode 39 of the Website Mastery Podcast, the perfect companion to our 90-Day Website Mastery Program and our recently published book, Web Proud. In this 39th episode, we're excited to bring you even more valuable insights and practical advice to help you enhance your website's performance. Join us as we explore strategies to make your website work harder for you, reigniting your pride in your online presence.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:05

It's great that you're here. Thanks for joining us. My co-host is here, Pascal Fintoni. How are you, Pascal?

Jonny Ross

-: 01:06

I'm

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:18

very well. I'm delighted to be able to bring a bit of sunshine and brighten someone's day because this is a tough time of the year. And I'm glad we've done the research. We've got the fourth segment ready to go.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:27

And lots of practical advice, again, lots of ways to really integrate AI in a way that is going to be meaningful and create the right impact for you and your audience.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:28

Absolutely.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:28

The

Jonny Ross

-: 01:53

title of this podcast is Can AI content create harm to your website's Google rankings? We're going to be exploring that amongst many other things in our four segments as always. And don't forget the last segment is that call to action segment. It's the one where we give you one thing that you could be doing right now, the website call to action, one thing that you could be doing right now to your website to start you feeling web proud.

Jonny Ross

-: 02:06

And that is what we always end on. So let's start, though, with our first segment, which we are going to talk about something that Pascal, I think, has found this week. And it's the You Ask, We Answer.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:42

Yes, so in the You Ask, We Answer segment, if we look at a question that maybe you and I have heard during a training session, maybe a speaking gig, perhaps we saw it online and so on. And this one actually was from a workshop I ran for Candy Durham last week, and people were looking at AI apps to help them craft the content. But actually, more or less the group in tandem kind of said to me, well, I've heard that you can get penalized by Google if you use AI to create that content for my website. Is it true?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:49

And if so, what could I do to avoid any penalties and drop in traffic? What say you, Johnny Ross?

Jonny Ross

-: 03:14

Very good question. I think it's fair to say that fundamentally Google is not penalising AI content. The fundamental thing is that it's not penalising content just because it's AI. What it is penalising or where you may affect your ranks is if it's low quality or perhaps if it's spammy or just sort of repeated content.

Jonny Ross

-: 03:53

So I think, you know, I mean we've said this many, many times, AI is a digital assistant. It's there to help, it's there to brainstorm, it's there to structure, it's there to come up with ideas, it's there to get rid of writer's block, it's there to get you started. It's how you use it though, and it's how you humanize the content, how you edit the content, how you focus on adding value to the content, avoiding the fluff and making sure that you edit the content properly. I guess the key thing that I would suggest if people are concerned, and this is ultimately how to rank high in Google anyway, is to concentrate on EEAT.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:26

Google talk about it a lot, EEAT. Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. And if you can concentrate your content on those four things, and make sure that you're bringing experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness by the type of content that you're bringing, whether that be the questions that you're introducing into it, the added value that you're introducing, the way that you're making sure that you're talking to the reader and adding value the entire time, then your content is not going to get penalized.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:28

That is what I think, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 05:04

Yeah, and listen, I've got some sympathy with the thought because historically, and I reviewed it actually about a year ago, Google did make a statement that they would essentially, not so much penalise, but not only rank as successfully AI produced content, and then they changed their mind because this world actually, let's clarify this, what we mean is content that is unhelpful and irrelevant as a result of using AI. So I think, historically, there was some confusion there. But if we go back to the reason why you might see a drop in traffic or the reason why there'd be penalties.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 05:42

So the twofold, in terms of the website construct and the engine behind the scenes, perhaps a bit old, a bit dated, perhaps just some dirty code, as my developer friends like to call it. So it's getting in the way of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and the others scanning your content. But obviously, the audience could be the one to be analyzing the infamous bounce rate. So someone goes into your website, perhaps intrigued by a social media post or a reference that you made during a networking event, and then literally within milliseconds, because that's a skill we've all been able to develop over the years, they kind of go, nah, that's not for me,

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:04

and they're out of that page as fast as you can say it. So there are real penalties which are more to do with the behavior of your site technically and the behavior of your audience. Now in terms of how you could avoid simply that happening, you're absolutely right. I would certainly go back to some of the advice we gave in previous episodes of Use AI for the outline.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:30

Use AI for the research of what's relevant. Use AI in what people are looking for across the customer journey. So all this idea of having to be a better informed content creator, it gets to the point where then you can get into the creation. I would certainly go as far as say, well, if you're going to use AI, because actually time is against you, make sure that then you train AI to understand your tone of voice and your style.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:42

And it's getting easier by the passing week. I mean, you and I keep track the best we can with the evolution of AI. And it's getting a lot better at that bit. What is the source of information?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:56

Not just the entire web, but maybe the last 10 articles written by Johnny. And that becomes really what you work on. So I would agree with you. It's not that, oh my goodness, I dared use chat GP to a Gemini and Google will know and therefore will be penalized.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 07:01

It's more that your audience is going to disconnect and that behavior is where the penalty is going to come from.

Jonny Ross

-: 07:20

Yeah, and just one of the points you were mentioning there about training AI and how you use it. I mean, you know, yeah, that's the secret to this. It's about giving it feedback. It's about creating your own GPT or your own conversation in Gemini.

Jonny Ross

-: 07:53

and making sure that you're following what you believe is the correct structure. So making sure that you're humanizing it in every which way possible and adding that value. But yeah, training it in terms of how you think to ensure that it's adding your knowledge into the equation. So yeah, I guess you've not had to play with deep-seek yet, the new China AI bot that sort of hit the US overnight and taken billions of pounds off the stock market.

Jonny Ross

-: 07:55

I take it you've not had a play yet.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:15

No, I mean, my playlist is as long as my Netflix watch list. I need to literally clone myself, but now it's on the to-do list. So I do my R&D when it comes to AI on a Friday. I've tried to be a bit more disciplined because I was doing it every day, every evening, watching videos in bed, which is very, very naughty.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:21

So I'm trying to slow down a bit. And so Friday will be my play with DeepSeek.

Jonny Ross

-: 08:56

What I'm fascinated with is how the talk is that it's being trained by using the likes of Gemini and using the likes of Chappie T. And actually, that just reiterates what we've said, which is about giving feedback. It's about using the AIs together to come up with the best thing possible. And seeing it as a person, seeing it as an assistant, just as an employee, as an expert, challenging it, asking it, informing it.

Jonny Ross

-: 09:16

But yeah, don't be afraid. I think the key thing here is, can AI content creation harm your website's Google ranking? Well, I think it can if you simply copy and paste, and you don't put any input in, any proper input in. But if used well, and edited, and thought through, It has no effect whatsoever.

Jonny Ross

-: 09:19

In fact, I think a positive effect.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:52

I would say so, because you're going to end up with better ideas within the time budget that you have, which is a term that I use a lot in my workshop. And please don't do the thing that I know is short on reels, and also which is get some AI-produced content, then get on this other platform that's going to humanize it. So you essentially keep using AI platforms to try and avoid the penalties. But the penalties, I can guarantee you, will come from your audience who can tell it's not from you, and it's not from your conviction about how you want to be helpful to your community.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:54

Yeah, for sure.

Jonny Ross

-: 09:59

Let's move on to our next segment, which is website stories.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:39

And the segment of the show, Joni and I choose an article, a podcast, a video, an infographic, a content piece that can help reflect what it means to be a manager in today's economy. And we've gone for a video. Now, this time of year, to cheer me up, I usually have two kind of rituals. One is to attend the On 24 a webinar and masterclass about the best way to be online and get an audience on 24 the great platform out there and the second which is equal in terms of looking forward to it is every January and my kind of business

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:18

friend Philip Van Dusen publishes a video that is really helpful in terms of the mindset and strategies deployed that year. And only two weeks ago at the time of recording this, we were live, Philip Van Dusen published the best content marketing strategy for 2025 and is recommending eight different mindsets and tactics that can really help. But actually, if you bear in mind the conversation we had a moment ago on the session, you know, you ask, we answer. This is really a video that Jonny and I would like you to go and watch more than once, start to take note and start to even put together a bit of a strategy and content list.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:31

So my job today really is to promote the video and say a big, big thank you to Philippe Van Dusen. But this idea of content marketing has changed over the years. You've all noticed that. And what used to work doesn't work so well or doesn't work at all.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:05

And the landscape has shifted. And for me, the audience has shifted as well in terms of what they want. Now, a few years ago, John and I will remember that the advice we gave maybe 10 years ago was, You know, try and really showcase your expertise and your availability and your values by creating, you know, a series of content that will help you establish your digital footprint. But number one of the eight mindset shifts that Philippe Van Dusen would like us to deploy is the idea of shifting from volume to value.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:32

and that the audience now is looking for depth, they're looking for meaningful advice, and they're looking for actually longer form and well-researched form of content. So the number one is thinking of a move towards quality, not quantity. Now, people are going to say, well, how do we then make sure that we have a digital footprint? So one of the advice that is given is then this idea of micro-content.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:03

So because you've gone for the longer form, better researched, and using AI for sure, then you're in a position to repurpose this into highlights. And 30% of this lovely image, or think of your long-form content, as something that has many Lego pieces, but each piece can work independently. So having a multi-channel strategy and using micro content is one of the advice. And really what I want to make people understand is that it takes that moment of stop for a moment, you know, watch the videos and go through the mindset.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:31

So I'm going to go through all the other six points that Philippa has made, and then ask for your reaction journey in terms of, is it one that connected? Number one, we're going to shift from volume to value. Number two, we're going to use the tools of the time to create a sense of connection. We're thinking live Q&A sessions like today, responding to all comment, organizing service, asking people what they're challenging, but also creating a sense of exclusivity with private groups, which is, I think, very interesting.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:52

LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Discord is becoming more of a favor. Number three, a reminder that the content is all about the customer journey, not the bit you want to sell. And Philip does a very good job to remind us about the awareness, consideration and decision stages and the kind of content we work well there. Number four, we're talking about the micro content.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:26

Number five, storytelling with a purpose. So essentially the idea being the corporate video or the corporate white paper or the corporate annual report is now dead and gone. and what you want to be doing is sharing real stories with a purpose of reflecting really generally who you are, reflecting who you help and how you help them. And that storytelling with purpose I think is one that people are still wrestling with because you know they want to be able to just sell something but you've got to understand that things are moved on Number six, using actually data and AI for hyper-personalization.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:55

And it gives a very good example how you can have some data for one source, could be MailChimp or HubSpot, and you can ask AI, well, what else can I do with this kind of data to create personalization? Give me some ideas. And that's really, really quite good. Number seven, building trust through individual voices, something you and I recommend very actively as part of the program, but can you use real people to showcase the brand as opposed to the logos and that kind of faceless type of activities?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 15:16

And then number eight, don't hesitate to experiment with interactive and experiential content. So we're talking about, again, quizzes, live streaming with a real Q&A. AR, VR, QR code, but can you get your audience to be participants in this content experience as opposed to passive consumers? So I've gone through those eight points there very quickly.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 15:43

I'm not doing justice to the video, but also the construct of the video. I think people will learn a lot about how you can plainly, calmly, and with great charm, share the advice. You're going to see the segment, which are in preparation for the micro-contents that you've spoken about. But for me, it was just this idea of, you know, it's always very helpful at this time of year to stop for a moment, catch, you know, those strategies and mindsets and tactics, and start to deploy them in the business.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 15:48

So I've given you the eight there very, very quickly. There may be a couple that are connected with you, Johnny.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:14

Well, I think overall it's a great reminder. I mean, you know, we can get stuck in this content strategy and get lost and sort of we're constantly thinking, you know, what's the new thing that we should be talking about or what content should we be putting out there? How can we be continually putting content out there? But what a great reminder as the first one, which is about it's about the quality and not the quantity.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:31

And I've well, that's something that we've both said for many, many years. It's all, you know, quality absolutely beats the quantity. Sometimes it's about consistency. Sometimes it's about, you know, thinking about the expectations that your audience may have.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:53

And if they, you know, I don't think anyone's quite sat there waiting for your piece of content to be published. I don't think, you know, people stop their day waiting for, you know, 7 p.m. on or whatever. However, if you've got a really engaged audience, then consistency is key.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:22

So I think that one for me, just the number one is the big thing. Number four, the multi-channel strategy using micro-content. Well, repurposing content I think is brilliant because it's about having that sort of in-depth content which people do want, where you've got the detail, you've got the answers, you've got the pain points, you've got the solutions, but you've then got that sort of micro-content to bite-size the whole thing down and to make it very accessible on the different platforms that your users are using at that time.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:54

So whether they're sort of out and about, whether they're on a desktop, on a mobile, the different time of day, what platform they're on, that micro-content gives them that door in and gives them that bite-sized content. So those are the two things that jump out at me. It's about really focus on the quality and not the quantity, and then focus on repurposing all of that amazing content into micro-content, bite-sizing the whole thing down, and bringing people on the journey of understanding, of being able to, you know, absorb all of that great content that you're producing.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:57

Great video, Pascal, and I think it's a great reminder, as I said.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:11

Yeah, thank you very much. So everyone, do watch the video. You're going to learn a lot about how to construct a video such as this one. You'll see the segment, you'll see the order, you'll see the intro, the outro, a lot of learning in there, but that's very much Phil Van Dusen's style.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:34

I love that the language is used as well. I've not heard, I've heard the tactic mentioned, but not in that way before, and not in that language. And the one that really, the two that I kind of went, yeah, you know what, this idea of creating a sense of community, but make it a bit more exclusive with private groups, and moving away from making a public group because it's a bit of a marketing kind of device.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:58

And this idea of using data first, then AI to personalize. And I think people jump straight into the AI bit and give me some of the ideas as opposed to, well, here's the data source or it's the kind of behavior that I'm getting from HubSpot or MailChimp or another. Let's have a conversation between me and you, AI, the expert assistant. I thought that was a lovely, lovely touch.

Jonny Ross

-: 19:05

Agreed. Great website story. Thank you, Pascal. Let's move to the website engine room.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 19:22

I never sure would like to recommend two apps or even a piece of kit that can make life easier as a website content creator. What is your selection for the website engine room, Johnny?

Jonny Ross

-: 19:39

So there's loads of design and image apps out there. But it's about finding the right one for you. And depending on what it is you're trying to do, there might be an app that actually just makes it a lot easier and a lot quicker. This one is one by jasper.ai.

Jonny Ross

-: 19:56

So the content tool jasper.ai have released clickdrop.co. Clickdrop.co, it's a tool for capturing, editing, and enhancing images. It allows you to effortlessly Oh my god, I can't say the word. Create professional looking graphics for your website.

Jonny Ross

-: 20:16

And having a play, you know, within seconds, you can do some really clever stuff. And as I said, there's lots out there, but it's worth having a play just to see if it's an app that just makes editing those images just a lot quicker and easier. So for me this week, it is clipdrop.co.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:34

I wish you'd told me about this last week. I had something with images that gave me a bit of a headache. Now, again, we've done it because we don't, I mean, we speak regularly, but when it comes to compiling the show notes, we work separately. And I've gone again for an image-based solution.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:00

So this one came about when a client wanted to promote some products. But they felt that their own photography, but also the style, just wasn't engaging enough, or wasn't helping with that dwell time, or people stopping the scroll on social media. And between research, and I suppose, you know, the algorithm doing its bit, I was recommended an app called Flair AI. Flair, which is F-L-A-I-R, a bit like the French term.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:31

And the side of being that you've got some professional studio environment type photography, where you can position your products within that environment that has been created. So literally, you go through a section of a template, and you'll see there's different lighting system, there's different colors, there's smoke effects, there's all sorts of things that goes on, as you would imagine an advertising studio. You upload your product image, and then AI takes over to position the products within that environment. Now, people will say, well, I don't sell products.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:44

I'm a service-based business and B2B and so on. But think a bit more about content promotion. Maybe you could create a 3D rendition of an e-book to symbolize your content. You could talk about an event coming soon.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:07

So I think for me, it's back to imagination, which is a very, very important talent that we have to nurture when we use AI. So for me, Flare AI, this idea of making someone stop for a moment because the quality but also the style of the photography is so studio-like that I've not seen this before, both for products and I think for services, is definitely worth your while at Flare.ai.

Jonny Ross

-: 22:18

Brilliant. Well, there we go. Two image apps for you to have a play with and compare and why not have a play and let us know, give us some feedback. What do you think of these apps?

Jonny Ross

-: 22:35

We love finding new apps all the time and exploring and playing. We do some of that sort of hard work of trying them for you, but it would be great to hear what you think of some of these. So yes, that was the website engine room. Let's move on to the website call to action.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:49

Now, this is about the one change to one adjustment that you should be making right now for your website. And Johnny, what is your recommendation?

Jonny Ross

-: 23:28

So yeah, as you've said, Pascal, this is one simple change that you could be making right now to enhance the usability of your website, to get people more engaged, to increase the dwell time, and to ultimately answer people's questions, give them the solutions, give them the help they're looking for, whatever that might be. So really simple, it's been around for a long time, anchor links. This is a bit of HTML code that allows you to drop either buttons or text-based links onto the page, typically a long page, that give you the ability to drag the user down the page.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:00

So highlighting something in a button or a text link that then takes them lower down the page. So perhaps you've got different sections on the page, perhaps you've got different bite size points that you're trying to make or perhaps you've got frequently asked questions all the way through the page and you can turn some of these into anchor links so that the user can literally just press a button and they go straight deep into the content that they are looking for. and it reduces that bounce rate, it increases the time spent because they find what they want and they start reading.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:09

So I think they're often underutilized anchor links for long pages. That would be my website call to action for this episode. What's yours, Pascal?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:43

So for me, it's actually informed by work I'm doing currently for a client where they are about to launch a very content-rich portal full of information to help startups launch their new venture. And actually, it's an echo of the review of Van Dusen's video about this idea of bringing the voices of individuals, or allow people to review and identify their best performing articles. And you'll get that from the stats. and more, and literally go back and add an author's information box.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 25:10

And what I mean by that, and not just what you see normally, which is the name, I want you to actually put a bit more thought about it. So a thumbnail image would be helpful. I would like to have literally a short biography, maybe a sentence or two that tells a bit more about the individuals. link to other articles, and literally that would be a information box that would preface the article because it's becoming so important now, particularly when there is the malpractice out there with AI.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 25:31

I mean, there was malpractice with content way before AI, of course. And this idea of making sure that people get a sense that a real person was behind, you know, this article is becoming very, very important. But back to your point, it acts as, you know, a stop for a moment, I've taken on board that this was from Johnny. I understand a bit more about Johnny.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 25:48

I can actually click and access more information created by Johnny. But this idea of there's a bit of interaction. There's definitely an element of bringing individual voices. And since they are performing well already, get even more value from those articles with that author's information box.

Jonny Ross

-: 26:30

Yeah, it's a great way to bring more credibility, create trust, get someone to engage with you. And interestingly, I don't know if the media, you know, the newspapers are a sector to follow or not, because, you know, you could argue that, you know, newspapers are dead and everything else. But the only point I'm trying to make here is one thing I've noticed over the last probably six months is how a lot of the media are moving back to showing authors and highlighting authors and really making, if you have a look at some of the newspaper apps, they're giving a lot more screen space to the author name and to that author bio.

Jonny Ross

-: 26:51

So I think whether there's something to learn from them or whether they've learned from us, who knows? But I think it's clear to say that what Pascal's suggesting there is a great little one adjustment that you could make to start people engaging and you to feel proud of your website. Another great episode. It was episode 39 of the 90 Day Website Mastery podcast.

Jonny Ross

-: 27:00

Lots of AI, Pascal. I mean, you know, we can't ignore it. It's there. Be at your peril if you ignore, is that fair?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:26

It's fair, but also people asking questions, people want to use it well, they want to understand, you know, some of the pitfalls. And I think for me, one of the pitfalls could be actually that as a result of using AI, you misunderstand that it knows better than you, it knows more than you. And I think your point about using as an assistant that actually will never know as much as you by the business, the audience. what should they care about you and that kind of thing.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:34

So for me, of course AI is going to be a running thread over all the conversations, but it's about how do we as skilled operators get value from it.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:19

And the key message is embrace, but go for quality over quantity and make sure you edit, make sure you use it as an assistant, use it to brainstorm, feed it information, teach it and help it understand what you're thinking. Some great apps that we've looked at on how to edit images, we've talked about content strategy and it's all about quantity, quality over quantity, and thinking of that micro content, that bite-sized content, how you can use that across all the different platforms that you are on. And the website call to actions, start introducing anchor links to your long pages and review and identify your best performing articles and add some author information to increase that trust and click-through. Thank you so much for joining us.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:46

That was episode 39 of the 90 Day Website Mastery Podcast, your audio companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery Program. For more information, visit 90daymarketingmastery.com, where you can book a discovery call with either myself or Pascal. It's goodbye for now. We'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage to enjoy whilst you review your notes and action steps, or perhaps head over to Amazon and search Web Proud, a book that we launched only a couple of months ago with lots and lots of information in there to

Jonny Ross

-: 28:50

help you feel proud. proud of your website again. Look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks, Pascal.

Jonny Ross

-: 28:52

See you all soon. Take care.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 28:54

Bye everyone. Bye.