#132 One-Page Websites, AI Search Updates & Agentic SEO

Jonny Ross

-: 00:28

Hello, we are live. Perhaps you are with us right now on Instagram. Perhaps you're on YouTube or on LinkedIn. Brilliant.

Jonny Ross

-: 00:45

Thanks for being here. Or maybe you are in on a podcast listening to us right now on a podcast on the replay. Thank you for being here. This is the 90 Day Website Mastery podcast, the perfect companion to our 90 Day Website Mastery program and our recently published web Proud book.

Jonny Ross

-: 00:50

Uh, it's our 51st episode and I'm here with my cohost, Pascal. Welcome Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:05

Thank you very much, yeah, lovely introduction. Perfect companion, I mean, I would say it's an ideal companion. It's a lovely companion, but perfection, we shall leave it to our audience to decide as we go through our segment. And it's always a pleasure to do the research.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 01:15

It's always a pleasure to surprise each other with our discoveries and findings from the interweb, looking at ways for you, as you heard a moment ago from Johnny, to feel proud of your website again.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:28

Yeah, for sure. We've got four segments, as always. We've got the You Ask, We Answer, where Pascal has found something that we're going to discuss that has been asked in his community. We've got website stories.

Jonny Ross

-: 01:50

We always have the tools that we're going to share as well, which comes into our A third section, which is the website engine room where we've got an app or a piece of tech or kit that we're gonna share that gonna help you as a website manager, feel proud of your website and deliver more conversion. And of course, we always finish with the website call to action. How can a piece of content not have a call to action?

Jonny Ross

-: 01:58

Do we say that enough, Pascal? I don't think we do, because people don't do enough. You're right. You're absolutely right.

Jonny Ross

-: 02:04

Let's dive in to our first segment, the you ask, we answer.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:31

Now, I must say, this is a great question that I just typed in the show notes for you, Johnny. So this happened during a one-to-one mentoring session. I was doing an online session with a start-up business, and we were looking at their future online presence. And they'd been looking wrongly at the competition, and therefore were feeling Do you know that feeling that people get when they look at the competition?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 02:53

And my advice was, no, don't look at the competition. Look at, actually, oddly, your own clients' websites, if you want to take a hint in terms of what they favor, or those who complement your practices because you want inspiration. You don't want to feel, you know, that you're inadequate and so on. But anyway, In their kind of quest for information, they came across one-page websites.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 03:14

Literally, you know, the one where you just scroll up and down to seek out, you know, to reach information. So the question which I've kind of paraphrased is, you know, I'm seeing more and more examples of one-page websites. In other words, visitors just scroll up and down to access information. I much prefer the traditional multi-pages website, but am I missing out on a clever tactic?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 03:16

What say you, Johnny Ross?

Jonny Ross

-: 03:36

Yeah, they became quite popular one-page websites, and I think they absolutely have their place. I think that's the point, though. It's about deciding what the pros and cons are so that they can be a lot faster because they don't tend to have as much in there. There's less functionality.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:10

They can be very focused for very specific offers or very specific value propositions and the typically cheaper to build and quicker to build. But then on the flip side, they don't have the trust, they don't have the search engine optimization, they don't have the depth of content. So, for example, one of the use cases we would use one in is for a specific landing page for a pay-per-click campaign. So we know exactly the intent of the user.

Jonny Ross

-: 04:43

We know exactly what they've searched, and we're paying for that click. And we get them over to our website, and we see that as sort of what we would call a traditional squeeze page, where we take them on a journey of knowing what they've searched in Google, landing them there, and then using that one page to convert that person into whatever it is we're wanting to do. But organically, if someone was landing on a website, we'd want them to have that space to breathe, have that space to explore, have that space to build trust and to build awareness and to sort of get more of the brand story.

Jonny Ross

-: 05:07

So Yeah, I think there's another use case that's just come into my mind, which is perhaps you're trying to test something, or perhaps you've literally just launched. So brilliant use case for, as a startup, trying to get some presence and trying to have something on the internet, but then the longer term, having that deeper, deeper website.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 05:33

What's your view, Pascal? Well, it's interesting because we used to call them micro sites to remember in the 2000, 2010s. And I love the fact you've mentioned that the intent, I think they work very, very well. When somebody has buying intent, and actually you created clarity created almost like focus and calm and saying, if you want this particular service and product, here it is, and express interest in different ways.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:04

I suppose in a mentoring context, my worry is that people use a one-page website as a kind of get-out-of-jail-car by saying, well, I've done my bit, Pascal, I've done the website, and I'm not touching it for another six months. And well, you know me, I'm from the world of reputation management and content marketing, and storytelling. I think the one-page website will have limitations if you want to express yourself fully. Bear in mind that we are operating in the age of AI summaries, where being explicit is really on the cards.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:28

I think the one-page website will struggle with that. I've seen examples very clever examples where maybe an individual as opposed to a business is multifaceted. It's got different occupation, different skillset, perhaps already on a few boards and so on. So it's almost like the extended version of a business account or personal brand website where it's you.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 06:55

These are the different things that you do, different companies you support maybe or different offering. And as a result of which you've created, again, a calm, structured environment to then signpost people to different things. So I like that example in particular, or you do a campaign, you know, maybe you have a pledge or manifesto and so on. But apart from that, I would agree with you, you know, for longevity, that wouldn't work.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 07:13

And therefore, my preference would be keep working on the, forgive me, normal website, because the one-page website could be a red herring, where the feeling is you've done it, and then you don't go back to it for several months and that not gonna help build your business, whether you're a startup or established.

Jonny Ross

-: 07:14

Yeah, yeah.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 07:21

You've absolutely hit the nail on the head there in terms of believing that that's enough.

Jonny Ross

-: 07:56

It's a very good starting point, but then to believe it's enough is not the right thing. And just to sort of layer on in terms of how we'd use them as landing pages, we've seen return on investment and conversion rates increased literally like tenfold by being able to spin up a one page landing page that's specific for a particular campaign. So there's, I mean, we're highlighting two very different use cases. But that is an example of what the point being is that they have a place.

Jonny Ross

-: 08:09

but they are not what you would expect most businesses to have as their key ingredients of what a website should be.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:17

And if you think about the trust elements, as we call them in the book, there just wouldn't be enough space to create, you know, build that trust and credibility.

Jonny Ross

-: 08:29

Yeah. Not with all the storytelling we suggest, Pascal. No chance. In fact, talking of storytelling, let's go to our next segment, website stories.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 08:56

Now in this part of the show, we choose a content piece from the internet. It could be an article, it could be a podcast. And on this occasion, we've gone for a video. And I'm pleased to let you know, viewers and listeners, that this is a return of the Search Console News hosted by John Muller.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:10

So they've gone quarterly. For a while, we were teased because it was monthly, and we used to get excited. to get the news directly from Google's head office. Am I right in remembering that you met John Muller at a conference?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:18

I did, Brighton SEO, yeah. And I was...

Jonny Ross

-: 09:31

testing him on what he thought of AI at that conference. And it was sort of early days, and he was trying to protect the Google Search 10 links. But we can all see that that's changed.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 09:44

Oh my goodness, yes, yes. If I'm not mistaken, you did share a photo of you and John together. And I will confess, live on the show, there was a pang of jealousy on my part. I apologize, my dear friend.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:05

I was like, oh! Because I think when Matt Cutts left, That was a massive miss to the SEO community and website management community. I played one of his videos at a course recently and I could feel myself getting all, oh, mad. But listen, so this video, listen, the reason why I chose it as well is that it's a wonderful format.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:25

In six minutes, John Miller packs in so much. I mean, actually, you and I think that we're doing well in half an hour. In six minutes, he packs in so much in terms of updates, shout out to the community and calls to action and so on. And if you don't subscribe yet, the Search Console channel is exceptional and works well.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:42

So very, very quickly, I'm going to give you the updates. So with Search Console updates, there was Google Search and AI changes. There was some security and a bit of a catch-all, and then you have the link if you want in the show notes, so you can access as well the other stuff. So Search Console, which is now my go-to.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 10:57

I recommend my clients start with Search Console, and you can then kind of migrate towards Google. And it takes later. So Search Console, I think we're going to see more investment next year because they've got a new logo for the Search Console. I will say Google is not so good at logo design.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:22

I need to subcontract somebody else. But anyway, what they have done, though, is two things in addition to giving you little badges as your site does better. To make it easier for you to make good decisions about content creation for the future, they've now grouped queries. So they do clusters of keywords, one keyword at a time, because sometimes one at a time doesn't actually tell you enough of a story.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 11:42

So very, very clearly, they've clustered into themes and central topics. And can you imagine what you could do, Johnny, with that with AI and kind of come up with ideas? And the other thing that they've done, which I think is very, very clever, is let's say, for argument's sake, you've done a particular push. It could be actually networking, speaking at an event, or it could be, of course, Google AdWords and more.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:01

You can then annotate your performance report saying, ah, well, there's a spike because Johnny was at the conference, or there's a spike because Pascal was delivering a workshop. So annotating your performance report is great. Search Console, Julian and I love it. We're going to see more investments, so just do, you know, what you have.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:13

Now, Google Search changes in the eye. That's very interesting. So, they did, rather late, you know, say yes, there was a spam update in August. That is to say, you know, fighting against spam.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 12:40

We knew because actually people wrote about it under the video, but it was nice to hear the intent behind it, which is essentially to limit poor quality coming from things. But the AI mode expansion, interestingly, I played with that. So what was going to happen very, very soon, people will be able to do a query against your business. and they'll be given the AI summary, but straight away, there'll be then a box to interact with that AI summary and ask more of your business.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:14

So everyone, you know, we've been telling you for a while now, be explicit, create more information, more content, and allow people to literally ask questions about your business without visiting your website. I know it's weird, but this is a time we're living in. But AI mode expansion, I played with it, and it's quite something to have the dashboard that essentially is a merger of Gemini and Google search. The one thing they're going to do as well is for some site that would allow it within the chat to be able to take action, such as downloading a PDF from the website, such as booking, such as filling an inquiry form.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:30

It's going to be very, very strange because there'll be no indication on your site it has happened, but it is happening all the same. And finally, Not there yet. It's in beta test. But you know how currently you have AI summaries that give you a long list of results that you have to go through.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 13:55

Little by little, what they're going to create is what they call an AI web guide, which would be essentially more like a lifestyle magazine, which we knew about it because it was mentioned during the conference in May. But literally, headers, subheaders, videos, and so on are organized almost like a web page. Again, it's all down to the information on your website. Very, very quickly, next year, HTTPS is the default.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:24

If you don't have HTTPS on your site, you will no longer be permitted to rank, let alone be visited. And there's been some interesting comments about the LLM text file, which is required for the other AI search functions, but Google can do without. but it's not a call for you to dismiss the advice given to you by Johnny when we do this special GEO comment. And finally, Sidekit, which I completely forgot about, is to be given a bit of a new list of lives.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 14:35

So for all of you using WordPress, do some recce on Sidekit. That's it. That's the main, main update. Anyone that jumped at you that you're particularly excited about?

Jonny Ross

-: 15:05

Well, I happened to have a quick sneak peek at the show notes just before we went live and watched John's video really quickly. It was only like a six minute video. And I love how fast he talks as well, but that's another story. So the thing that jumped out at me was agentic AI, and you just mentioned it there, the whole idea of being able to go deeper in AI mode.

Jonny Ross

-: 15:41

and be able to ask more about a particular website. And the thing that I think people listening or watching need to sort of get into their minds, I think most SMEs are thinking, you know, AI is all about writing blogs faster or better content or brainstorming or ideation. But actually, where this is, the next big wave, where this is heading is agentic AI, and this is happening right now. And what we need to absolutely embrace, and John sort of couldn't have been clearer about that with just one little comment he made, which was around, I think I'm going to be talking about agentic a lot more.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 15:48

And that, you know, that's a Google leak really. That's like, you know, that, that,

Jonny Ross

-: 16:11

shows and demonstrates that that's the path they're on right now. So this is all about optimizing websites for AI agents. The ability for AI agents to, as Pascal was saying, download something, to fill out a form, to make a booking, to book an event, to make a purchase. So if you've got an e-commerce website, for the AI agent to be making a purchase.

Jonny Ross

-: 16:33

So I think the big thing that jumped out to me is how we need to optimize for agentic AI. And some of that's about some really basic SEO as well. So it's about structured data, it's about clean code. It's about making sure that you're labeling forms correctly and making them easy to understand.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:05

There's a bit of technical things that you need to think about. So for example, having the reCAPTCHA, the spam filter, the Google reCAPTCHA can actually be a bit too harsh for AI and could stop AI. So it's about having something that sort of is soft enough for an AI agent to penetrate in a proper way, so to allow it, but then not to let a spam bot use that form. So there's some different techniques that you'd use there.

Jonny Ross

-: 17:27

And then the bigger thing is around if you've got e-commerce to let the agent be able to make a purchase or at least a draft order. So Shopify, if you've got a Shopify website, you can set up API endpoints where the agent can create a draft order very easily. And it's about having like AI instruction pages.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:07

I think there's a whole other episode. I think actually we need to do something on agentic AI and optimizing for agents because that is like, that's happening, it really is. It's the new internet and in a way the AI that we know today was just a bridge towards the new internet. What I will say is that I think the term agentic is unfortunate and unhelpful but then the whole history of digital is with unfortunate and unhelpful terms so I now use the term in kind of workshop situation, the taking action AI, you know, because I think, I think

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:32

agentic has been invented by some developers somewhere, some stage, and people are such people just follow words, you know, without challenging them, which is, you know, where we are today. But it proves the point that in six minutes, John Muller has been able to share so much that we don't have enough time to talk about and react to it. So really watch the video. internally start setting up meetings, you know, about what we're going to do about it.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:40

But there will be small adjustments. That's really important. They're going to be small adjustments, but you've got to make them. That's really important.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 18:49

And getting ready to an internet where people will be allowed to take action by just literally speaking them or writing them, but they will never visit your website. It's going to get weird.

Jonny Ross

-: 19:31

Yeah yeah and finally just to say Google Search Console totally would be my first point of contact and choice now in terms of tool and what they are also bringing in is AI configuration and all that simply means is it's now easier to look at the data in there because instead of having to set up complicated filters with Redjects and custom queries, you can literally just type into a box and say, tell me what queries related to this particular topic in the last three months, and it will then, using AI, create the query itself. So that's quite exciting as well, to be perfectly honest, the configuration that's coming as well.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 19:49

I can make a small prediction because we can, but at the time of year, I think we're going to see something fascinating happening in terms of the convergence of Search Console, Google Maps, and your website. I think there's going to be something very, very interesting happening there. Well, you can only hope. I mean, there's like

Jonny Ross

-: 20:08

however many hundreds of Google tools that just are so totally in silo and are so difficult to connect that anything that's going to make that better, I'm totally up for. But they've tried and failed many times. But there we go. We better move on to our next segment.

Jonny Ross

-: 20:11

It's the website engine room.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 20:44

So this is where we'd like to present to you one software, one app, something that can make life easier as a website manager and website content creator, one each, so that's two. Interestingly, that means that to date we have shared already 100 solutions, so that's up to, it was at 50, so today another two are gonna be added to that very, very long list. What is your selection, Jonny?

Jonny Ross

-: 20:57

Yeah, I'm going to highlight writesonic.com. As always, all the links will be in the show notes. And this is an AI writing assistant. It's brilliant at doing research.

Jonny Ross

-: 21:15

It's brilliant at coming up with in-depth articles. It can have your tone of voice because you sort of build that in. You can connect it using plugins to some of the most popular content management systems out there. So in terms of implementing that content it's really easy as well.

Jonny Ross

-: 21:49

but you can use it for things like ad campaigns, social posts, blog articles, ultimately accelerating content creation. And what I also like about RightSonic is that they are investing heavily in AI analysis in terms of metrics, in terms of understanding your visibility. So they've got tools where you can sort of plug your own website in and start understanding how visible you are in AI. So it's, yeah, I like the tool, and it's definitely worth having a look at.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 21:58

Super. I've forgotten about it. I think I heard about it maybe two or three years ago. But that's the whole point of the show, that it brings you back to the fore.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:04

So listen, Mass Selection is, once again, not book LM by Google.

Jonny Ross

-: 22:05

And I feel terrible about it.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:30

But, you know, Notebook LM or Google, stop adding exciting stuff and I will stop talking about it. But, you know, listen, this is now becoming my number one recommendation for a small business owner who wants to build a good marketing campaign. It's incredible. So the Studio feature that made the headlines, and certainly you and I have been championing it with the audio and video overviews, they've added more interactive elements.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:40

So to begin with, there's one element called Reports. And you can be forgiven, Johnny, to kind of dismiss it. Ah, I don't need Reports. Actually, it's a misnomer.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 22:57

It's actually about content creation. And what the Reports tab will do, Johnny, is study your website content and themes and recommend literally live. Every recommendation is unique to the website itself, a range of articles and more. But the new interactive elements are as follows.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:19

Two content creation tools, one for an infographic that will summarize the key information of your website, and one, a slide deck, or think of it as presentation slides, that will again summarize the key messages of your website. And both of them you can tailor. Both of them you can actually write a brief. to focus the attention of your assistant.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 23:45

I've done the test with 10 businesses on Tuesday during a workshop here in County Durham. The infographic blew everybody's mind. I don't want to use the term likely, you know me, I'm not a big fan of mind-blowing and that kind of nonsense. But there was one chap, he did a test actually with the second business he has, where he's renting a a cabin in Cornwall, and that infographic was literally so good, he could post it right away.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:06

It was like a flyer that was summarizing all the key features of his venues, using the photos of his website, but putting it to more of a 2D graphic. It was incredible. So infographic and slider, which means that right now on Notebook LN, free of charge, you have eight interactive tools. This is the future of AI, as far as I'm concerned.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:15

and telling it the brand colors you want to use and the fonts you want to use, that infographic feature alone is mental.

Jonny Ross

-: 24:40

I agree with your passion about notebook LM because it's, it's crazy. It's it, it, it, it really does supercharge the ability of a, uh, a website manager or a content creator or a website owner, business owner to, to have such a powerful, uh, tool to really, um, uh, power every aspect of their marketing growth.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 24:46

Like, like I'm just as passionate Pascal. Um, you keep bringing it back with pleasure.

Jonny Ross

-: 25:05

It really is good. So yes, rightsonic.com would be my tool of choice for highlighting writing of content creation and Notebook LM, love it, brilliant. What are they gonna do next? Let's move on to website culture action.

Jonny Ross

-: 25:08

Good idea, here we go.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 25:21

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

Jonny Ross

-: 25:33

Well, you're going to think I'm mad. You're going to think I'm coming out of like the 90s because I'm going to talk about meta descriptions. But the reason I talk about them is because I still think they have value. I really, really do.

Jonny Ross

-: 26:00

I think they have value in terms of not just search engine optimization, not just AI overviews, but the power of improving the click-through. It's as simple as that. You've still got the ability to manipulate, even in this AI era, how to increase click-through to your website and use it before it genuinely does disappear. So meta descriptions, they're often overlooked.

Jonny Ross

-: 26:16

They're often not thought about. They're often duplicated across different pages. They're really easy to update. And the point being is that you just need to make them compelling, keyword rich, and improve search engine optimization, AI visibility, and ultimately click-through rates.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:42

That's my website call to action. Thank you. And you know, recently someone said to me, oh, and they showed me a screenshot of the search results where their website listing below the term was enter description here. And from the first impressions point of view, that's almost sabotaging your own kind of traffic because some people may think we are being very, very harsh about someone.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 26:53

No one's going to care. They're still going to click. I said, no, you're going to lose a percentage of visitors. who are going to reach the conclusion that you're not paying attention, you're not pleasant, that you're not working on your website, and so on.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:24

So yeah, method description, enter description here, is not the right one to go for, everyone. And I think for me as well, the method description is a discipline to stopping for a moment, And challenging yourself about the clarity of the information on that website, because the description is meant to summarize the information that would be revealed should someone choose to go further. And I like the discipline of stopping for a moment and writing a description. And if you're struggling, is it because the content on this website is not clear to you or would be clear to the audience?

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:45

All right, so mine is, I suppose, informed by the fact that we're approaching the end of this calendar year, which is absolutely crazy. So I'm going to invite people to actually review their high-performing posts on social media. Don't worry, we're going to get to the website bit in a minute. So we're going to go back on LinkedIn, we're going to go back on Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest, you name it, and you're going to look at the high-performing posts.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 27:58

That's pass number one. Number two, that selection needs to be grouped into themes. And those themes essentially give you the chapters of a branded digital magazine. And I want you to kind of celebrate the year.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 28:18

I want you to celebrate 2025 by offering a free download in a form of a 2025 highlights magazine. Use Canva, use any kind of platform you favor, use PowerPoint. I was discussing with one of my mentees that she's such a genius on PowerPoint. She can work so, so fast that she can create PDFs that are absolutely amazing and branded.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 28:38

But this would become an offer on the landing page and maybe indeed on a one-page website. So look at social media, shortlist a high-performing post, group them into themes. These become chapters of a magazine and have fun creating this and offering it back to your supporters but also your prospects.

Jonny Ross

-: 29:02

Yeah, lovely idea, and what a great way to round up 2025, some of your best moments on social. Fantastic idea. We've talked about one-page websites, Search Console, AI updates, and tools you need to be using in 2026 to start feeling web-proud, which is our book, of course, on Amazon. but to start feeling proud of your website.

Jonny Ross

-: 29:27

Yeah, one page websites. I mean, you know, we talked about how there's definitely use cases, but don't think that that is enough. If you want a substantial business and you want a real business where you're going to convert real users and they're going to trust you, you need more than a one page website, but it absolutely has its use cases. We've shared some great updates from Google and got us thinking about some of the things that we need to be thinking about in 2026.

Jonny Ross

-: 29:32

And of course, Some great tools. Thanks, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 29:45

Well, thank you. Hope you've enjoyed yourself. Very much so. And although we can't match John Muller's talent in six minutes, half an hour is pretty good for us because you and I love to share information, whether it's in person or online.

Pascal Fintoni

-: 29:48

So thank you so much, everyone.

Jonny Ross

-: 30:07

We absolutely do. Listen, that is a wrap for episode 51 of the 90 Day Website Mastery Podcast, your audio companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery Program. For more information, head over to 90daymarketingmastery.com where you can book a discovery call with either myself or Pascal. It's goodbye for now.

Jonny Ross

-: 30:20

We'll leave you with a bit of a fun video and audio montage to enjoy whilst you review your notes and action steps. And more importantly, start thinking about how you're going to put those actions into place. We'll see you all soon on the next episode. Take care.

Jonny Ross

-: 30:21

Thanks for being here.