Sara & Nik’s Podcast:
Russ Macumber

About this conversation

Sara and Nik welcome Russ Macumber in today’s episode of Sara & Nik Podcast, a US agency owner and host of the SEO Success Stories podcast to discuss AI, SEO, and why generalists will lead the search game in the years to come.

Russ has his own SEO journey to share, a journey that turned him into a generalist with a few clear specializations, including ads and marketing.

Why Generalists Will Become the Leaders in SEO

Russ’s career path dates back to his copywriting days in the early 2000s, but a lot has changed since. Over the years, he got familiar with marketing, participated in specialty events, became a DJ for a short period, and even ran his own companies for a while.

This multifaceted career allowed him to specialize in several fields, like SEO, marketing, ads, and website optimization.

Today, he describes himself as a generalist and David Epstein’s book “Range” to Sara, who expresses her desire to follow in his footsteps. At the same time, Russ warns against one of the main dangers of becoming a SEO generalist: being good at everything, but a master of nothing.

For this reason, he recommends mastering at least two areas: sales and copywriting. One area will deepen your understanding of lead generation, while the other is the foundation of good SEO.

When it comes to the future of generalists in the age of AI, Russ is blunt and clear:

"I think that specialists are crucial and will always be needed but I think the generalists will be the leaders."

In his view, this is especially true due to the fact that the SEO ecosystem itself is changing and broadening. At its origins, SEO typically only meant Google. Today, it means much more than that, including LLMs and social media platforms.

In other words “SEO as a skill set is actually becoming more generalized”.

Too Early to Say Whether AI is Good for SEO

Sara’s question of whether LLM traffic converts better prompted Russ to express his incredulity. The way he sees it, most of the current AI positivity comes from tech companies that have a direct stake in the game and that the data doesn’t support them clearly.

“There's just a lot of bold statements being made right now about very very small pieces of data”.

In his view, classic SEO still has its place in today’s market, after pointing out that LLMs really only send around 2% of the total web traffic.

However, despite that, Russ explains that so many agencies today are “selling snake oil” and that they seem to regurgitate the same stuff, much of it pulled from AI tools. Based on his personal assessment, only a handful of agencies are still running real experiments based on real data:

“When I say a handful, I reckon 1% honestly”.

The rest, he says, are only in the business of reassuring their clients to protect retainers, which is the opposite of good SEO.

Ads in AI Answers, Google’s Next Moves, and Black Hat

As the discussion moves to ads in AI answers, Russ admits that he has no idea how they’ll work but that they will likely only appear for queries with obvious buying intent, like looking for the best running shoes, for instance.

“They'll roll out the ads only for really really bottom-funnel terms”.

As Russ explains, this isn’t just his opinion, but more of an educated guess based on actual data, as he observes how quickly AI tools have evolved from top-of-the-funnel questions towards more purchase-related queries. Sara shares his view and adds that AI tools are “copying Google a lot of the time”.

The discussion then moved to Google and its decision to stop showing 100 results per page, which led to agencies scrambling to explain the sudden traffic drop to clients. In Sara’s view, this can give rise to dangerous times, because “Google can pull the rug from underneath anyone at any point.”

But are self-ranking listicles worth recommending, asks Russ. Sara is clear about it: yes, but only when done in a non-spammy way.

This prompts Russ to highlight a wider perspective on these types of SEO tactics: how the notion of “black hat” can be manipulative. In his view, we only put something in the “black hat” category once we’ve demonstrated it’s bad.

If it works, we say it’s part of a wider strategy – it’s just SEO.

As for Russ, he’s now in the middle of preparing the SEO budget for a client who’s nervous about his last weak quarter. Russ’s reassurance lies in accordance with his professional philosophy:

"We're going to be fine. This is a long game."