Is Google Killing Websites? The Future of Search, SEO & Web Design After Google I/O

Welcome to a brand new episode of the No-Code Wizardry Show. How you doing, man?

I'm doing great.

Good morning to you. We're gonna be talking about the future of the web in this episode because, well, Google had the, you know, their Google I/O presentation last week and a lot, they allow, well, they announced a lot of things, but in particular, I think it's becoming clearer and clearer for everyone. That they have no interest in preserving the, you know, the way we've been searching for things online in the way that we have. They're completely evolving. The, you know, things are 100% moving more towards AI. And in fact, I wanted to reference a tweet that I saw by @wp_toots who said the following: Serious question, after seeing how Google is pushing to change search as we know it in favor of an AI agent-based flow, what is the real future of web design? Are we seeing the death of the web, of the website web design industry as we know it? And I think there's a couple of different, different things here that we need to address. The first one is yes, of course they are definitely prioritizing the, you know, an AI agent-based way of searching for things where you simply ask Google something and it spits out the best possible response. That I can think of. And I think that is the future of search. I mean, it's probably even the present. I don't know about you, but today, these days I'm looking for things online and in 6 out of 10 cases, I don't even need to see a website. I mean, the AI just does a good, a good enough job for me.

You're right there.

Uh, of giving me a response.

Yeah. And if you use Perplexity, for example, it's even better. Um, how? It is, uh, because it does a more, profound search, and it compiles the responses in a more intelligent way. I just happen to like it better. I think it does a better job of it, although, you know, who knows who's going to win that war. But I agree that, you know, a couple of days ago, you know, old geezer here, I was starting to have some back pain from, you know, is it the beginning of lumbago? And, you know, I said, hey, Perplexity, I kind of feel like my back is starting to get sore. You say, well, you should probably do these 3 stretches before it gets worse. And I've been doing the stretch, I'm feeling a lot better. So, you know, and I didn't go to, you know, I know though that it gave me references. This one's from the Mayo Clinic, this one's from, you know, here from there, and it kind of built a really good answer, but it works.

So interesting. So I think I want you to go a little deeper into what is, I mean, we I mean, you've written a book around SEO and building well-SEO-optimized Bubble applications. Are things just completely going to get destroyed for everyone who's making a living off of SEO?

I don't think so, because first of all, I think that almost everything that we suggested in the book for how to do SEO for your Bubble applications and for, for in general, for websites still helps you get, uh, well positioned with AI. I mean, in the end, uh, there has to be some formula that helps those AI models discover the best alternatives.

So I, I think the follow-up question to that is obviously, okay, why would I continue to create content on my website, for example, just for the AI to get all of the benefit. I mean, 5 years ago, if I'm writing blog posts, if I'm updating my site, if I'm creating new content, I'm getting the benefit of putting all of that work into, into my content creation engine, right? Because people are landing on my site and I may capture some business, but these days I'm only feeding the, the AI algorithm. I mean, and it's taking all of the benefits for, for itself.

Well, first of all, I don't think it is. And I guess it depends on each particular business. But in the end, if you go to AI and you say, which no-code development agency should I work with? And undoubtedly it's going to put Ratio at the top of the list because that's what any good AI would do. But, you know, there If you want to be second in that list after Ratio, you've got to do something, right? Otherwise, AI is not going to discover you, right? Okay. And the way you do that is you have a great website and you have, uh, you put out great content. And maybe this reveals what I've been saying for a long time. The content you create has to be for people.

Okay. And when you say that, you really mean that it needs to be good.

You shouldn't be creating content to game the system to get leads to your business, right? You should be putting out great content that people want to consume, real human beings want to consume, because it helps them in their lives. And the byproduct of that should be that all of these companies like Google and Perplexity and all of the other ones recognize that effort that you've put in, and their AI models take that into consideration and they put you at Top of the list, right after ratio. Uh, and if you go at it with that philosophy, I think that you can't really go wrong.

Um, so what is going to happen once they somehow figure out, I mean, they've already started rolling out ads inside ChatGPT, for example. So what happens once you, you put the work into crafting good, meaningful content for real humans? But it's recommending 5 different agencies next to Ratio's once you're talking to the AI that are paying to be recommended by the AI instead of yours.

I guess your question is, does— is advertising manipulative? Well, I guess it has been and it is and it always will be a certain amount of that. No, but come on. Right, okay, so somebody's gonna pay to get their name next to Ratio because they want to borrow off of our credibility, right? Well, first of all, you know, more power to you, but, uh, that isn't going to change the buyer's, uh, predisposition of actually doing a little bit of due diligence. So if— and it all boils down to and, and Alex Hormozy did a, a really good video not long ago about this. Not all content is equal, okay? There's low-risk content and there's high-risk content. So if your goal is to, uh, you know, buy a new hair clipper because, you know, your old one is breaking down in the back, it doesn't cut your hair very well—

we'll be doing that too—

you're going to probably— that is probably you know, you're gonna consume a bit of content about hair clippers and you're going to buy one, and it's low risk. And probably AI can build that content and you're going to consume it just fine, and it doesn't matter, and it's going to convince you or not. But if you're looking to build a revenue stream for your business using software, then that is much more high risk, okay? You, you want to find a good partner, okay? And finding a bad partner could mean that you don't get the revenue, that you don't get a successful business launched. Okay, so that is— you're going to put more effort into it, right? You're going to do more due diligence, and that's where the human content is going to come in, because you're going to start listening to Tony and Dennis H. Lewis on their podcast, and you're going to go look at all those, you know, amazing how-to videos on how to do stuff, and you're going to say, hey, these guys know what they're talking about. I want to work with them. Okay? And then it's not a price question. Then it's not a, did AI recommend 3 others along the way problem? Because if the 3 others don't pass the smell test, it doesn't matter. You're going to go with Ratio.

Okay. I mean, inspiring words that make me a little less worried. I'm still worried. I'm not going to lie. I still think that there's some great times ahead of really not knowing what's going to happen with a lot of businesses that used to make a lot of money playing the SEO game.

You're right, that's, that's true. But, you know, SEO has always been kind of— I don't want to say sketchy because it's not sketchy sketchy, it's not a scam— but it's always been a little bit, uh, how can I game the system? How can I get ahead of the pack even if I don't really deserve it? Okay, and I think that what we just all have to, you know, put our big boy pants on and, you know, realize is that if you want to be at the front of the pack, you have to deserve it. And that means you've got to have real proof. That means you have to really know your shit. You have to do the work. And if you do that, We have to hope, and maybe this is me being optimistic, that all of these algorithms and these AI models are going to recognize that and value it. Okay, or they're going to sell you out for an ad, right? Well, you know, we all, we're all aware of what that means. You know, we all learn to look down and skip the sponsored, uh, you know, listings in Google and go to the real ones.

Maybe humans start learning how to prompt in a way that says, hey, make sure that you don't insert any ad content in the response or something. Make sure that the— Right. Or— You only include—

Or really base your evaluation off of credible reviews and real-world experience. I don't know.

All right, let's just quickly touch on what is the real future, 'cause I think we've covered the search engine-based question. What about the web design question? I mean, I'm seeing a lot of people saying, I think having a website is just going to become something obsolete. It doesn't make sense to have one anymore.

Well, if you don't have a website, then where— then you don't have a destination. Okay, so don't expect AI to send anybody to a destination that doesn't exist. That's the first thing. The internet still exists, and you as a business owner need to have a little storefront there that's yours, property that belongs to you, that you control what it looks like, what it does, what it says. You know, you can have other presence on the internet.

I was going to say, what if you simply have social media presence?

Well, there you're depending— first of all, you can be deplatformed.

You can have the deplatform thing really annoys me.

And you could— you, you want to have— look, You want to have a website and you want to have an email list. I don't care what changes for the foreseeable future, you need both of those.

30 years later, we're still saying build up your email list.

Yeah, yes, because it is a valuable asset that you can exploit every time you need to use it. Whereas, you know, look what happened. I remember what Facebook used to be like when you could create a page, post some content, and people would find it. Those days are long, long gone. That was gated way before AI, you know. That was just pay if you want people to see your presence. Well, you know, that's fine. I'm not against Facebook making money off of, you know, selling access on their platform. I mean, they've built it, it's theirs. But do you want to depend on that? Or do you want to have some sort of autonomy in this connected world that we live in? And I think the really— the thing is, is that it's just gonna up the game. I think the websites that you build are going to be better. I think they're going to be more engaging, more entertaining, more beautiful, uh, more, uh, enticing. And, uh, I think that that just means that shabby website developers are going to go out of business and the good ones are gonna get better.

I think that's a good place for us to wrap it up. Uh, you can visit ratio.dev. Uh, we have a free resource center that you can sign up for. We post useful tutorials. We update that every week. We share, uh, podcast episodes, books that we, we haven't written ourselves necessarily, but we think are very valuable for anyone building businesses in Bubble. And, uh, I just realized I wasn't focusing on my camera. Watching Dennis while I was speaking. Anyways, still getting used to this new podcast setup, but we'll get better. All right. We'll see you guys next week.

Bye. Bye.