Lalla Asmaa (00:11)

you

 

Lara Schmosiman (00:11)

Hi

 

everyone. Welcome back to coffee. Number five. I’m so excited today because everyone who knows me knows me that knows about me that I’m a closet gig, but I don’t think it’s a secret anymore. Everyone knows that I’m kind of a gig and I love technology, but mostly what I love is to help businesses grow. And one of the strategies that I love is SEO. I feel like it’s such important part of your ⁓ foundation.

 

on your digital strategy. it’s like I always say that websites, for example, are a window and there could be beautiful windows, but if they don’t have the right information to be, people can cannot find it. So let’s talk today a little more about the CEO. And I want to bring another agency owner and a founder and someone that I respect that is in the…

 

SEO and AI space. So Lala, welcome. I’m so happy to have you here. So I think we bonded a little bit. We were both talking in a panel and we were bonding over the love of SEO and how we can use SEO and geo for AI. so, and I think that there are a lot of ⁓ misconceptions of what SEO is.

 

Lalla Asmaa (01:11)

Thank you.

 

Lara Schmosiman (01:34)

And so let’s start from the beginning. Let’s start. What is SEO for you?

 

Lalla Asmaa (01:40)

Okay, thank you, Lara, for having me in your podcast. I’m really honored for us. And SEO is search engine optimization. So a lot of people underestimate SEO. They just want results ASAP. They want results yesterday. They say, okay, I’m going to have my website is launched and it’s going to work. A lot of people forget that actually you need the right foundation, right? And the right foundation is to have a good SEO. When you go to any agency, right?

 

Lara Schmosiman (01:50)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes.

 

Lalla Asmaa (02:06)

If they’re not good, they will just sell you ⁓ a website. But if they’re good, they will say, we need to work your business plan and your SEO strategy. That’s when you know that there is already, it’s good. You should stay with them because they care about you long-term, not short-term. So short-term is good.

 

Lara Schmosiman (02:22)

I

 

see so many businesses having a lot more ad spend that they needed because they don’t have a strong SEO.

 

Lalla Asmaa (02:31)

And I believe that ad spending is like gambling. Once you stop, there is no more results. While SEO is a long, it takes longer to kick in, but once it’s kicking, you’re there. You don’t go down anymore.

 

Lara Schmosiman (02:35)

Mm-hmm.

 

Well,

 

it’s a balancing art. And also something I want to say, SEO is not something that you can just set it up. It’s an ongoing maintenance. And let’s divide it a little bit because SEO is divided in a few things, because a lot of things, even agencies, they see that they believe that SEO is just putting keywords. That is not right. SEO has a lot of parts.

 

Lalla Asmaa (03:03)

No.

 

Lara Schmosiman (03:10)

So let’s talk about different parts of SEO. Like for example, what people don’t know many times is that if a website is not performing well in Google eyes, in chat GPT eyes, Gemini, then nothing is gonna perform well. Not even your social media because everything’s interconnected now.

 

Lalla Asmaa (03:30)

Yeah, so I think the most thing that is important is like the page. First you have your optimization. When you go, you have the SEO ranking, the speed, the backlink, the Google authority, all this. I think it’s, I said it in your panel, I remember there’s a checklist and you build up gradually. First you have to work on your website speed, the SEO, the meta description in the back and

 

Every single picture has to have a meta description. think, let me just put a picture. Yeah, but that’s that picture. Did you put a meta description under it? Can Google and identify what you put or you put just an alien over there? So I always say like every single thing you put inside of your website has to be categorized properly and labeled properly. So then when someone is searching in Google, we don’t miss you. Even a minor little, minor little section, a minor page have to be labeled properly.

 

So SEO, there’s the technical SEO, the on-page SEO, a lot of kind of SEO. I think you have to, there’s a check-in and then there’s the blogs, which people say, we don’t need blogs, but blogs are very important. It’s 2,500. Yeah.

 

Lara Schmosiman (04:37)

Very important, very important. But also

 

something that is super important is about ⁓ your technical SEO. If your website is not performing well, if you have so many speed issues, also you’re going to be, and I think that very soon also we’re going to be affecting the ranking if you are not ADA compliant.

 

Lalla Asmaa (05:01)

Yes. And also you have also the broken links. So many times broken links affect your page. And a lot of people don’t know. Sometimes you have page that don’t make any sense.

 

Lara Schmosiman (05:04)

Yes.

 

or duplicated links. see people

 

putting a product over and over without meta description, without the right keywords, and then they’re cannibalizing themselves basically.

 

Lalla Asmaa (05:25)

You know, I feel like SEO is like your executive checkup. If you go to like a hospital, tell them, check me out all. You have to be scanned the whole day. So think anybody who has a website, you have to do an audit. I think you have do an audit of SEO, technical SEO, optimization, is it optimized? Backlink is Google authority. You have to have, think, 32 or above to be good, right? And then.

 

Lara Schmosiman (05:33)

of girls.

 

huh.

 

back linking.

 

Yes.

 

Yeah, and it’s hard to

 

get there. It doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why you need an SEO account all the time in your business.

 

Lalla Asmaa (05:57)

You need like someone who’s professional and someone who cares enough because he’s really detailed oriented. Like you don’t want to miss any spots.

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:05)

Yes, but also there is something about NCO that I feel like a lot of people outsource it or

 

They are not, you need to understand the culture and the market that you are doing SEO for, because it’s just not about, see it so many times, people just putting keywords and the keywords are not the right, I mean, something that I always explain to people that search engines and now AI, they do their crawling by intention. So you want to be an intention that is informative.

 

and you need to be informing people with really what they want to know or is like, think about this. You go to Google or to Google ChatGPT and you have a problem and you’re looking for a solution, an answer to your problem. So are your keywords the answer to the problem?

 

Lalla Asmaa (06:58)

Yeah, you have to know your, think by doing that, I think the most important stuff is to know your brand DNA. Like anybody who want to work on your SEO has to first go take three steps back, you know, and know your brand DNA. Who’s your, your target client? Who, what’s your brand persona? What do you want to achieve? You know, the, ⁓ what, how, when, why, like that’s in your life. So it’s good to have it also for you. like, why you’re doing this.

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:05)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Lalla Asmaa (07:27)

what you want to do and how you want to do it. You know, those three are key.

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:31)

One of the things that I always talk to my clients and my team when we do an SEO is that we have three kind of different keywords. One of them, they’re the DNA keywords, that is who the brand is. And those are always going to be there from your setup on. Then you have your competitors keywords, because you need to make sure that if your competition is showing up, you’re showing up too for those keywords.

 

Lalla Asmaa (07:51)

Yes.

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:58)

And the third one, because it’s all about brand awareness and visibility. If you keep showing and showing, showing at some point say, I’m curious. I always see these people. And the last one, which to me is super important is what I personally call trending keywords. And those are things that is a popular culture. Things are changing. Keywords are changing. Interests are changing. If we’re talking about a supplement, for example, and there is an ingredient who becomes popular.

 

Lalla Asmaa (08:13)

Yes.

 

Lara Schmosiman (08:26)

how we’re gonna integrate that. But at the same time, we need to make sure that if we’re gonna integrate that ingredient, there is a way to link it to our story, our products.

 

Lalla Asmaa (08:37)

That’s come also with storytelling, what you say, storytelling. And I think it’s not about the product, it’s how, what’s the story you’re giving to people? Like yesterday I was reading something about Steve Jobs for his iPad is how he wanted to make it so perfect, like how people feel about it, what it will execute, not really about the product, but what is, how people feel about it, right?

 

Lara Schmosiman (08:40)

Yes.

 

Lalla Asmaa (09:02)

Every single brand is how you feel about it and the storytelling, you said. And sometimes it’s funny, there is some trend coming up and if you link it right, you can rank very fast on this first page because the trend was going on right now. And I think you want to be always in the now. You want to keep your eye on it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (09:18)

Of course. And that’s

 

why it’s so important those blogs and now using the same keywords, exporting in social media, like social media, unless you’re a very well known brand that everyone is looking for your products already. And not even that, that’s not an excuse. It should be there anyway. You always need to be doing SEO and cross. ⁓

 

over right now. Use your keywords and use it in social media because social media now they’re search engines too.

 

Lalla Asmaa (09:48)

Yeah. And social media is another thing. Also songs that trend is not just about the keyword. When you post in social media, you want to put the trending song, the trending. Now the keyword is a whole, that’s it’s a whole other concept again, when you take it to, but there is a way if you do, if you do your math right from your website, if your website, which is your foundation is right, then you can just go, you can flourish better because

 

Lara Schmosiman (09:58)

you

 

Lalla Asmaa (10:15)

The awareness is there is the website. And then we’re going to go to social media, which is come, start to be the consideration. And then you’re going to start to have the conversion eventually, right? Coming back to your website to buy. if for the funnel is always awareness consideration and then conversion, right? So if the awareness, which is the website is right and you, you speaking right about your brand, then you’re putting it in the social media.

 

Lara Schmosiman (10:17)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes, absolutely.

 

Lalla Asmaa (10:40)

Look at us, it’s what we do. And then they look at you and then they come back and then convert in the website and buy from you.

 

Lara Schmosiman (10:46)

Yes,

 

absolutely. It’s about controlling the narrative and how we connect with people. But at the same time, you need to remember that you cannot control completely your Facebook, your TikTok, because they can shut down. The only narrative that is really yours, it’s your website. But also now we have a new funnel that is the AI funnel that basically is one question, one answer.

 

Lalla Asmaa (11:14)

That’s nice. That’s faster.

 

Lara Schmosiman (11:16)

Yes, it is much faster,

 

but at the same time, how do we help brands compete in AI? I know that we’re doing it at the Darl, but I would love to hear what changes you had to do or implementing in website on SEO to become ⁓ searchable by AI. ⁓

 

Lalla Asmaa (11:37)

Right now we’re talking about generative engine optimization. So you want to pop in in perplexity, Claude, Shadgpt, Gemini, and for that you have to answer the right answer to the prompt, right? So you work backward. That means what would people look for?

 

Lara Schmosiman (11:40)

Yes, we are.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Lalla Asmaa (11:57)

And I have to answer it again in the blog, in the wording and everything. And Google is smart. You don’t want to just pop in and throw words here and there there just to say, Hey, I have keywords. No, actually, if you do, if you spam Google, Google put you in the back. So there is an art to do it. Like a lot of people say, Oh, I’m going to just put keywords. can do it by myself. And they say, I will do it for me.

 

Lara Schmosiman (12:10)

Yeah.

 

no, no, no, you have to structure the data in certain way.

 

Lalla Asmaa (12:21)

And I love when they say that I’m like, okay, go try the AI do it for there is an art behind it. It’s like, you know, AI is a co-creator, is a co-pilot. It’s not the one who’s going to take your place. What’s going to happen, he’s going to work fast to execute better. But it’s like, if I’m a surgeon and I know my surgery, I’m going to ask him the right question, right? And he’s going to answer, or if I am like a plumber, but if I’m not, and he’s going to tell me, put this piece in there.

 

Lara Schmosiman (12:40)

Yeah.

 

Well, I

 

always say that we are a tool using, we are using AI. AI is not using us. We are the ones, if you don’t know how to prompt AI right, you’re gonna get the wrong answer soon. So you need to know enough to guide AI. AI to me, what it does is to make us faster. That’s it.

 

Lalla Asmaa (12:52)

definitely.

 

Yeah, it’s a faster execution.

 

Lara Schmosiman (13:11)

Yes, exactly. So let me ask you a question. ⁓ how would you structure data differently for AI?

 

Lalla Asmaa (13:20)

So as I said, for AI, will work backward. So I will see what people are going to go and prompt. So when they’re going to prompt, I have to think of every single person, the person who knows nothing and the person who knows something about it and the person who’s expert. And I will work backward. Then I will answer that. what is the best thing is I think the blogs have been doing very well in ranking and also the service page.

 

Lara Schmosiman (13:26)

Mm-hmm.

 

Lalla Asmaa (13:45)

Your service page have to have a lot of, let’s say I am selling cars, right? So put as much features of the car and what you’re doing and how you’re doing it and what you’re doing. Like as more as you have storytelling is better, then AI find you. Because as you say, AI is about the intention. So you really want to know what’s the intention, like why I’m looking for this, right?

 

Lara Schmosiman (14:03)

Mm-hmm.

 

Well, that’s really important. Something that I think we do really well, because I feel like a lot of brands out there, they have their branding and what they’ve been talking about branding and maybe because I come in from the digital and I’m always such a big advocate of SEO, but I feel like most brands that we work with or that I talk to, when we talk about the brand, they give you colors and a palette and fonts.

 

and they don’t tell you who is their consumer. So if we don’t understand who is their consumer, then how can we create the right content for them? ⁓

 

Lalla Asmaa (14:45)

So I think this is where comes the onboarding session for every client, right? That’s the great question. Even I think this is the lengthier is then, you know, the emotion, the soul behind each brand, right? And then you create a SWOT analysis, you create the differentiation, a positioning of the brand, and you try to know what’s the weakness and who’s the competitor. If you don’t know your competitor, cannot compete, period. You’re out of the game.

 

Lara Schmosiman (14:50)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Lalla Asmaa (15:13)

And then you want to be not just compete because you want to stay in your lane. You want to be ahead of the game. So before they catch on is like, always say, catch me if you can to everyone. So always thinking of the next step before you catch me. already have the next step because competition is beautiful. I love competition because without competition, there is no challenge in the story. Right. But you have to always think of the next step.

 

Lara Schmosiman (15:24)

Yeah.

 

But things, it’s not even about competition. It’s good to know who your competitors and how you’re going to be different. So you have a place for some target audience, it’s not going to be a place of competition. It’s going to be your, there is no option that choosing your brand.

 

Lalla Asmaa (15:45)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, sometimes you have no options. Sometimes they took the whole market so that there’s no even need. Maybe you reposition your brand. Sometimes you have to reposition your brand and go another route. So it’s good to know everything. I think data is very important. Like any data you have. Like everybody think what we do sometimes is easy and you just design and just this every single data we assimilate in the ⁓ onboarding session in our business plan.

 

Lara Schmosiman (15:59)

Mm-hmm.

 

So important.

 

Lalla Asmaa (16:20)

We put it in the UX UI, the user experience, we it in the SEO, the content, and we know how to go to market, and we know how to market our product, and we know how to win the game. if we don’t have, you know, you cannot miss any step. I feel like missing a step is missing a part of the story.

 

Lara Schmosiman (16:23)

Mm-hmm.

 

Absolutely, and you need to be, you cannot have gaps in your marketing. And it’s more than ever, need to be an omnichannel doesn’t mean that you need to be everywhere. It means that you need to choose your channels and then in those channels, you need to be consistent because consistency is key.

 

Lalla Asmaa (17:00)

Yes, consistency is key and repositioning also and always changing if you need to change the narrative as you grow. It’s okay. Especially with now with AI things are going fast, so fast. So sometimes to keep up, you have to change the narrative and you have to be up for it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:12)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah. And so I, what would you say to brands and companies that they say I cannot, it’s not important to a for marketing or I can have my cousin’s nephew brother do my Instagram.

 

Lalla Asmaa (17:32)

Let them be. They’re going to break. They’re going to, they’re to come back to you. This happened a lot. You know, happens a lot. And it also happens sometimes you have a client that already good and you’re doing amazing. They’re like, I don’t see what you’re doing. You know, I’m like, okay.

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:38)

And love.

 

I mean,

 

we are very big at reporting and to understand where the data comes in, but I think it’s super important to share it and brands need to learn how to read the data because there is a lot of information there. Or for example, also listening, social listening, listening what people say, the reviews say, so you can address things. And even I saw that when ⁓

 

let’s say that you have a lot of returns. So in your brand, why are those returns? You need to listen, you need to find out what the returns are. So then there’s a lot of things that we can address by information that maybe will remove some of those returns.

 

Lalla Asmaa (18:33)

Yeah. So feedbacks are important work, work on the feedbacks to get better. And you want to work on retention. Customer retention, I think is the best. You don’t need to go get new ones. Sometimes if you stay with your customer and you make them better is the best. I work a lot on customer retention, always listen to them. What’s going on? What is it? You know, and, it’s nice to set them free at one time. You don’t want them also to be addicted to you. Like, okay, we’re going to teach you how to do it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (18:35)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes.

 

Lalla Asmaa (19:01)

But you want also somebody who listened, like last time I had a client and it’s funny, we did a 2,500 blog for her, all SEO very well research. said, yeah, but nobody read it. have to make just a five line. We’re like, it’s for SEO. So we had to explain to her and said, Chachi Pitti said that. We’re like, I know Chachi Pitti will tell you what you want to hear, but you have to have a physical AI, like an SEO expert behind it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (19:22)

Yes.

 

Lalla Asmaa (19:29)

to tell Shad GPT what to do. There were two people, there was a person that got an answer and there were the SU experts who got the same answer. Then she ended up understanding that Shad GPT will give you the answer you want to hear. That’s it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (19:29)

Yes.

 

Yes, absolutely.

 

Yeah. If

 

you, it’s not what you, if you don’t tell them exactly, you need it. Like you were saying before, it’s like a surgery. You need to know how to perform that surgery. And I feel like it’s so weird even sometimes because I will never even think of going and buying surgical kit. I mean, I could and try to perform a ⁓ surgery, but there’s so many people that they can say, ⁓ I can do marketing.

 

Lalla Asmaa (20:06)

Yes.

 

Yeah, yeah, but I don’t think then there will be no school of marketing. There will be. And even if you go to a school of marketing, it’s by practice that you learn.

 

Lara Schmosiman (20:21)

So Lala, ⁓ I heard that you’re having a very exciting lunch coming up.

 

Lalla Asmaa (20:28)

Yes, I’m so excited. That’s my new digital. Okay. So actually it’s all about what we just spoke about, right? Okay. So in a few weeks, I will be launching all my AI. So all my AI is a digital platform. It’s an AI platform. So I trained many agents. So as I told you from the beginning, we cannot skip this line.

 

Lara Schmosiman (20:29)

So tell us about it.

 

I know, so share with us.

 

Lalla Asmaa (20:52)

and you as a creative agency, you will understand that this is it. So I have an onboarding session with an agent. Then we have a brand DNA agent, right? And after that, have the one who creates the brand DNA. Then we have the business expert who will give you the whole strategy of business agent. And then we’re going to have the UX UI agent who will create the website. Then you have the content SEO, GEO agent who will fix it.

 

And then we’re going to have the marketing agent and the sales agent. Right. And one extra agent that I created is the AI fashion and AI product designer. So let’s say you want to go to market fast, right? For founder, VCs, you have an MVP. I’m skipping all these lines. Let’s say you have a fashion designer that want to put the collection and you saw that when we did the with a Corp, then we can have.

 

Lara Schmosiman (21:43)

Yeah.

 

Lalla Asmaa (21:46)

like collection done in second, right? So it’s good because it’s faster to go and launch your brand. So what I’m doing right now, and it’s nice, is the multi LLMs in one. So it’s no more just chat. I have chat.gpt, gemini, Claude, many, right? Lama, Grok, I can name them. So every time, those are vertical agent that I created and each one will perform its task. So why did I do that? It’s more.

 

Lara Schmosiman (21:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

Lalla Asmaa (22:13)

That’s the most important. And one thing that is beautiful with my app, let’s say you said to try GPT to create you a picture. It will use SOAR and create it, right? But then mine also edit it. Instead of going back and talk to him and takes, sometimes you just want to take control over and just do it fast, right? Let’s say I’m doing slides like a pitch deck and you finished and it’s already generated, but I want to change colors, font, position. Then I have editing inside of it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (22:22)

Mm-hmm. Mmm.

 

So one of the things that I found challenging sometimes working with AI is that they forget and you need to prompt them again. So how are you resolving that issue?

 

Lalla Asmaa (22:50)

Yes.

 

So this is what I do. So that’s why I have vertical agent. I have a brand DNA. So once you give your brand DNA, let’s say I’m working on the dark project, right? So automatically, once I click on the file dark project, all your memory is saved. So if you go between agent, remember exactly who you are, what you do, what we need your brand persona, everything, brand identity. But I’m going to say something. We’re not removing the creative agency behind it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (23:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

I’m so looking forward to try it. ⁓

 

Lalla Asmaa (23:20)

Because once you’re to do a react website or 40 page website, you really need a professional, right? Yeah, we’re not.

 

Lara Schmosiman (23:27)

Yes, absolutely. That was my next question because

 

you really need to have a professional behind it. This is to expedite processes, but it doesn’t put the business together.

 

Lalla Asmaa (23:36)

Yes.

 

No, this is if you say it’s a smart tool for creators like for you I’m sure you’re juggling between many many AI tools which you judge GPT whatever to get your answer So this is all in one. That’s why we call it all my AI

 

Lara Schmosiman (23:56)

Perfect. All right, can’t wait to try it. I Lala before we go. I have one more question for you How do you drink your coffee?

 

Lalla Asmaa (23:59)

Thank you.

 

Go ahead.

 

How do I trend my coffee? Latte, no sugar. 2 % is good or almond milk.

 

Lara Schmosiman (24:08)

Drink your coffee.

 

But no sugar. What kind of milk?

 

Okay.

 

Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for geeking out with me today.

 

Lalla Asmaa (24:20)

Thank you so much for having me, Lara, and I’m looking forward to see you in person and have that coffee a lot with you.

 

Lara Schmosiman (24:27)

I would love that. And to you

 

guys, I will see you next week with more coffee number five.

 

Lalla Asmaa (24:33)

Thank you, bye bye.