Jes Scholz is a technical SEO strategist and growth leader who rose to Group CMO at Ringier AG (a Swiss media group with nearly $1B in annual revenue), working across 100+ brands. She’s also an SEOktoberfest World Champion, a published contributor to Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal, and a judge for search awards across the US, UK, EU, and APAC.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why “SEO is dead” is the wrong question (and what’s actually changing)
  
• Keywords vs entities: how Google’s Knowledge Graph understands brands
  
• How to check if your brand exists as an entity (and what Google knows about you)
  
• The step-by-step process to build brand salience through corroboration
  
• Why Domain Authority is a vanity metric (and what to measure instead)
  
• How Share of Search connects to market share (and why execs care)
  
• How to use schema to connect your brand across the web
  
• Quick wins you can validate in weeks (Discover, partnerships, distribution)
  
• How AI assistants are reshaping discovery and repeat purchases
  
  
  In this episode, we cover:
  Chapter 1: Is SEO Dead? What’s Changing in Search
  0:00 SEO is transforming (not dying)
  3:05 Why organic traffic is declining
  3:50 AI as the new top-of-funnel discovery layer
  4:23 Why brand salience matters in AI results
  Chapter 2: Entities, Knowledge Graph & Brand Salience
  4:43 Keywords vs entities (how Google “thinks”)
  5:52 How to check your Knowledge Graph entity
  6:44 What Google associates with a brand entity
  9:19 Where to start (homepage + About clarity)
  10:18 Corroboration: getting others to confirm your narrative
  Chapter 3: Small Business & SaaS Playbooks
  11:18 Local SEO as the fastest trust signal (Maps)
  12:53 SaaS without an office: directories + community mentions
  13:48 Why mentions matter (not just “follow” links)
  Chapter 4: Schema, and Multi-Surface Visibility
  14:31 Using schema to “draw the lines” for Google
  15:57 Why schema helps beyond Google (across indexes)
  17:16 Measuring brand presence in ChatGPT (what’s possible today)
  18:55 LLM visibility tools: how to use them without false certainty
  Chapter 5: Metrics That Matter (And What to Stop Doing)
  21:25 Why Domain Authority doesn’t matter
  23:06 Share of Search explained (market-aware measurement)
  25:17 Short-term wins vs long-term SEO reality
  26:01 Discover: how to test fast via partners
  41:04 Stop selling “X links per month” (outputs vs outcomes)
  Chapter 6: Content, AI, and the Future of Discovery + Purchase
  29:26 Writers: POV, expertise, and digital footprint
  32:00 Content enrichment for deeper, more contextual queries
  49:25 Transactional vs informational content in an API/MCP world
  52:56 Where discovery and purchasing is heading
  57:24 Books + closing advice
  
  
  About the Host:
  Paul Jebasingh Emmanuel is the Founder and CEO of GoX.ai and Two Minute Reports. Two Minute Reports helps agencies and marketers automate reporting workflows across 30+ platforms.
  
  Listen to Paul’s Agency Podcast:
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@gox-ai
  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cyb0NKCaEq0V1x1vNtqj9?si=119f46b74f184143
  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pauls-agency-podcast/id1877052450