Yesterday I joined Patrick Stox and Ben Senescu for the first panel on Jeremy Rivera's Unscripted SEO Podcast. The question was how AI has changed building and marketing SEO software.
We came at it from three places. Patrick is building his own tools after Ahrefs and IBM, and said his site had about 104 free tools. Ben runs OpenSEO alone: development, support and marketing. I'm getting OppAlerts ready for release after years of engineering work.
What I took away:
- Faster development still needs review. I write C and C++ for data processing, and AI helped a lot with my weaker front-end side. It also made database decisions that went against my instructions, and I had to reorganize the database.
- Build what people will use. My databases support more than 100 ways to find opportunities. I have to cut that down. Patrick's question from his Ahrefs years stuck with me: "will this actually be used enough?"
- Find out who the product helps. Ben expected SEO professionals. Most of his customers turned out to be entrepreneurs doing SEO for the first time. His advice was to release early.
- Getting a new product into AI recommendations. Patrick separated what's in model training from the pages retrieved for an answer. For a new product, the existing lists of SEO tools are the faster place to get an accurate mention. I suggested GitHub's lists of open source and marketing tools, and publishers who cover free tools and small business marketing.
The full recap has the video, the audio, and more from each of us:
SEO SaaS Panel: Patrick Stox, Ben Wills and Ben Senescu on Building Tools in the AI Era
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