Stop Chasing AI Visibility Scores: Mick Selman & Aaron Towlson, Intrigue Media

00:29 Rob introduces Mick Selman and Aaron Towlson. 01:07 Mick and Aaron explain their roles: Mick handles SEO strategy and research, Aaron applies it with clients. 02:10 Why this episode exists: a flood of AI SEO noise and questionable AI-generated SEO audits. 03:02 The two audiences every business writes for: robots and people. 03:14 What it means to earn a robot's trust, and why Google's guidelines still lead the pack. 03:37 EEAT defined: experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness. 04:38 Aaron's reframe: Google is just trying to answer people's questions well. 05:38 The AI slop problem and why volume of content isn't the goal. 07:13 The biggest AI content mistake: hitting play on a tool and never reviewing the output. 08:01 Better input equals better output. Feed AI tools real experience, testimonials, and specifics. 09:06 What experience actually looks like in a blog post, not just years in business. 10:33 Why experience and content compound like an investment the earlier you start. 11:09 The case for starting SEO now even when the payoff is a year or two out. 13:11 Google Ads as the hit, SEO as the cure. Why SEO is a long term strategy, not a quick fix. 14:12 Authority score explained, and the tools that measure it: SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz. 15:13 What separates a lead-generating authority score from a weak one. 15:57 The three ingredients of authority score: traffic, backlinks, and natural link profile. 17:36 How to actually move the needle: create reasons for people to visit and make the site easy to find. 19:00 Why domain authority plays differently for local landscapers than for national SaaS brands. 20:32 Social media's real role in SEO: more places for people, and AI tools, to find you. 24:29 Why backlinks matter and why most clients ignore them before working with IM Landscape. 24:50 The honest answer on backlinks: earn them with great content, or pay for them carefully. 28:32 The pillar blog and supporting blog content model, localized project by project. 30:37 AI visibility scores debunked as an unreliable, unregulated metric. 32:17 Where real AI visibility data will actually come from: Search Console and Bing. 33:44 The AI readiness checklist mirrors EEAT: helpful content, site structure, backlinks, and buzz. 35:02 Priority one for AI readiness: make sure your site is indexable and check it in Search Console. 36:35 Mick's number one starting move for landscapers: post your own content, consistently. 37:18 The gym analogy: twenty minutes a day beats fifteen hours once. 38:06 Where to go deeper: Google's own EEAT documentation as a starting point.