Welcome back to Koozai Couch, our interview series where we talk to people from across the digital marketing spectrum about the ideas, tools, and changes shaping the industry.
This time we talked to Jojo FurnivalMarketing Director at Location bulbon why technical SEO basics remain important in the age of AI search, how AI has changed the way they work and why brand building should be firmly on marketers’ agendas over the next 12 months.
Jojo has over 15 years of experience in marketing, SEO and communications, having worked agency side in London and Australia as a freelancer and in-house in the charity sector. In 2023, she found herself, almost by chance, working in technical SEO.
As a one-woman marketing function at Sitebulb, she has since built her marketing strategy from scratch, tripled her following and increased brand awareness in a key market from 46% to 65% in less than two years. She’s also an active voice in the Women in Tech SEO community and a familiar face at industry conferences.
The interview
For every Koozai Couch, we ask the same five questions to get a quick but useful snapshot of what people are seeing, using and rethinking in digital marketing.
Here’s what Jojo had to say.
1. What’s the one thing the industry is getting completely wrong right now?
Engage in GEO as the shiny new thing and treat it as a separate discipline from SEO.
Remember, LLM bots can crawl indexed website content to look for information that helps them provide an answer to their users. This means that the technical integrity, crawlability, and indexability of your website are as important as they’ve always been.
This falls under the purview of good old-fashioned technical SEO. And don’t forget it!
2. What tool or resource has recently changed the way you work?
Claude Cowork.
I can legitimately say that Cowork has changed the way I repurpose content. With its help, I can convert a basic piece of content into seven or more different formats and types of content easily.
Manually, this pipeline would take five days or more. Now it can be done in one day.
As a single woman who does marketing at Sitebulb, I can’t tell you how valuable this is. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I can sit down and cross my legs. All the time I saved was filled with more responsibilities and projects!
3. What is something you have changed your mind about in the past 12 months?
Artificial intelligence workflow.
Like most people, I’ve been working with AI for a while now, and models have come a long way since the beginning.
For a while, I may have sat more in the “AI looks smart, but it’s actually the dumbest assistant you’ll ever have” camp.
However, since starting to use Claude Cowork and investing a lot of time into creating and continually improving real intelligence skills that match my exact specifications, AI has become invaluable to my workflow.
4. What are you reading, watching or listening to that others in the digital space should know?
I’m in a unique position at Sitebulb because I talk to really smart people in SEO and digital all the time.
They contribute articles to our website, which I edit. They speak in webinars I organize. They create training courses for the Sitebulb audience, and I work with them on the topics. I also attend conferences throughout the year, where I have the opportunity to interact with some of the brilliant minds in our field.
But many of these people’s ideas are freely accessible.
Anyone can watch Aleyda’s Crawling Mondays on YouTube. Anyone can sign up to receive Candour’s Essential Updates newsletter. Anyone can join Good Signals office hours on Friday mornings. Any woman or person of a marginalized gender can join the Women in Tech SEO community.
So I highly encourage anyone reading this to do just that because, along with the Sitebulb content, of course (!), this is where you can learn a huge amount from smart people actually doing the work.
5. Where is digital marketing headed in the next 12 months?
Brand building.
Sorry for the hats, but they’re worth it!
SEOs have to adopt a brand marketing mindset. The modern SERP is a nightmare for organic results. The average searcher has to essentially scroll above the fold before they see the first position due to AI reviews and paid search placements getting bigger. Thanks to Tom Capper for the data on this.
Since the introduction of featured snippets, we’ve seen a decrease in clicks.
So we know it’s not just about the click anymore. The way customers find and interact with brands has changed. For an increasing number of queries, artificial intelligence provides the answers.
The question then becomes: How can our brand become visible in this environment?
There’s a lot of data showing that strong brands have an advantage, so I think brand building and digital PR will become more important over the next 12 months.
Thank you, JoJo!
Thank you so much to Jojo for joining us on the Koozai Couch.
Her answers are a helpful reminder that although AI is changing how marketers work and how people find information, the fundamentals haven’t gone away. Technical SEO is still important, intelligent workflows can help small teams accomplish more, and building a distinctive brand is becoming increasingly important for visibility.
Catch up on previous Koozai Couch interviews
Did you enjoy meeting JoJo? There are more perspectives from across the digital marketing industry on Koozai Couch.
catch up Shawn BarberSEO Director at Macmillan Cancer Support and host of Search with Sean, shares his thoughts on AI research, SEO basics and where the industry could be headed next.
You can also read our website Causey Coach interview with Erin Simmonswhere Erin discusses trust, community, and why doing less can sometimes fuel growth.
Would you like to sit on the Koozai sofa?
We’re always keen to hear different perspectives from people who work in digital marketing.
If you would like to appear in a future Koozai Couch interview, Submit your answers via our Koozai Couch form. We’d love to hear your opinion.
