John McAlpin, Director of SEO at LOCOMOTIVE, joins our host Ranmay on E-Coffee with Experts to talk about technical SEO, AI crawlers, and why so much of GEO is SEO under a new name.

John started building websites at eleven, learning from W3Schools after watching his dad code. That developer background shapes how he audits sites today. He explains why drag-and-drop WordPress builders slow sites down with extra code, and how SEO leaders should decide whether to build their own tools or pay for a platform, including the story of a Google scraper he built that stopped working within three days.

He also walks through an enterprise case where ChatGPT discovered only 3.2% of a large website because internal links were rendered client-side, and why years of band-aid fixes lead to problems like this. For John, AI visibility worries are finally getting long-delayed technical SEO work approved.

On the GEO and AEO debate, he argues that content chunking, question-and-answer formatting, and brand mentions are things SEOs have done for years, and that selling them as brand new is misleading. He also shares how he handles training bots, AI assistants, and AI search crawlers, how he keeps clients engaged while fixing fundamentals, and what technical SEO may look like as AI agents start booking and buying for users.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:50: Introduction

00:50 - 03:06: John's path into SEO and Locomotive

03:06 - 04:47: What developers spot in WordPress audits

04:47 - 07:03: When to build your own SEO tools

07:03 - 09:03: Selling SEO without overpromising

09:03 - 10:47: Why ChatGPT found only 3.2% of a site

10:47 - 13:08: Is GEO just SEO with a new name?

13:08 - 14:46: Should you block AI bots?

14:46 - 15:55: Claude vs. Gemini: John's AI tools

15:55 - 17:45: Technical SEO in the age of AI agents

17:45 - 19:35: If not SEO: cybersecurity

Connect with John McAlpin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnvmcalpin/

https://locomotive.agency/

FOLLOW US

Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Church websites are getting less traffic, and AI is a big reason why. In this episode of E-Coffee with Experts, Jason Hamrock, Partner at Missional Marketing, explains what zero-click search means for churches and what to do about it. Jason spent 11 years building an in-house communications team at a multi-campus church before joining an agency that now works with more than 500 churches.

Jason walks through his three rings model: your own people, people looking for a church, and people searching for help with a felt need like marriage, parenting, or stress. He explains why felt-need blog posts lost clicks almost overnight, why "looking for a church" searches still lead people to a website, and how to check whether ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude describe your church accurately (one church found AI still naming a pastor who left five years ago).

You'll also hear his case for adding at least 52 pages a year by turning each sermon into one focused page, the one topic, one page, one answer approach, how multi-campus churches should treat every location as its own business, how to use YouTube's 5,000-character description and short pastor videos, and why new churches should start with digital ads before backlinks.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:52: Introduction

00:52 - 02:19: From church volunteer to communications director

02:19 - 03:49: Why Missional Marketing only works with churches

03:49 - 06:46: Roadshows, a 38K Facebook group and teaching first

06:46 - 08:59: Accountability and owning your mistakes

08:59 - 11:14: The three rings model in the age of AI

11:14 - 13:56: Why church website traffic is dropping

13:56 - 15:48: Is AI describing your church accurately?

15:48 - 18:53: Local SEO for multi-campus churches

18:53 - 21:53: Felt-need content and the 52 pages a year rule

21:53 - 24:11: The four content lanes and keeping your voice

24:11 - 27:48: YouTube descriptions and pastor Shorts

27:48 - 30:14: Where to spend first: ads, website, then SEO

30:14 - 31:32: What is next for Missional Marketing

31:32 - 32:20: Closing thoughts

Connect with Jason Hamrock

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhamrock

https://missionalmarketing.com/

FOLLOW US

Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Most marketing agencies chase Fortune 2000 clients and leave small and mid-sized businesses with few good options. Erik Huberman, Founder & CEO of Hawke Media, built his agency to change that. Hawke Media now has about 250 full-time employees, works with roughly 650 brands, and calls itself your outsourced CMO.

In this episode of E-Coffee with Experts, Erik explains why he stopped closing deals himself at a run rate of about $7 million, what happened when his first salespeople closed at half his rate, and why a salesperson who can't close is just a conversationalist. He also shares what 27 agency acquisitions have taught him, including the year Hawke Media bought 10 companies on purpose to learn what breaks.

The conversation then turns to AI. Erik says traffic from AI converts at about three to three and a half times other sources, and explains why people trust AI recommendations the same way they trust Amazon reviews they know are unreliable. He talks about using AI for productivity instead of cost cutting and why he treats it like an army of 17-year-old interns. He also explains why LinkedIn ads underperform Instagram and why Google is now Hawk Media's top ad channel.

If you run an agency, lead a sales team, or want a practical view of how AI is changing marketing, watch the full episode.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:41: Introduction

00:41 - 01:34: Why Erik built Hawk Media for SMBs

01:34. 02:56: Hawk Media as your outsourced CMO

02:56 - 06:27: Picking clients and the punching bag problem

06:27 - 09:49: From door-to-door sales to a $7M ceiling

09:49 - 14:02: Hiring your first salesperson

14:02 - 19:46: Lessons from 27 agency acquisitions

19:46 - 23:27: What Hawk Media hires for in the AI era

23:27 - 25:27: Hiring an assistant when AI does the busywork

25:27 - 28:06: Why AI recommendations drive trust

28:06 - 30:01: Instagram vs LinkedIn ads: context over targeting

30:01 - 32:03: Where AI helps marketing teams and where it doesn't

32:03 - 33:52: Building an AI co-pilot for every employee

33:52 - 35:21: What's next for Hawk Media

Connect with Erik Huberman

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikhuberman/

https://hawkemedia.com/free-consultation/

FOLLOW US

Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./