Unscripted SEO · Host: Jeremy Rivera · Guest: Josh Shankowsky, Snap SEO
Josh Shankowsky learned to code at 12 from a book called HTML in an Instant, built an e-commerce site in high school, and now runs Snap SEO in Edmonton, Alberta. We talked about why AI tools keep giving everyone the same answer, the onboarding he borrowed from a rock-and-roll publicist, how he builds local links by sponsoring nonprofits, and the Search Console filter that shows you customers writing their life story into a search box. He also answered the Google Discover question my last guest left for him. Listen to the full episode, then subscribe to Unscripted SEO so you catch the next one.
Delayed gratification meets speed to lead
I asked Josh how growing up next to the internet changes marketing. His answer: we used to wait for things, and that made us appreciate them. Now everyone refreshes an ad campaign an hour after launch and asks why there are no results yet. With ChatGPT making content instant, “we no longer take the time to make things great. So we might get good things, but not necessarily great things.”
I pushed on the other side of that. Buyers still expect speed. Ignitvio’s lead response study mystery-shopped 1,824 local businesses and found 68% never responded within 24 hours. (On the call I guessed a higher number and said I was probably misquoting it. I was.) Josh sees the same thing when his team cold-calls for lead gen: businesses don’t answer, and they don’t call back either. His balance is to take the extra day up front to get a client’s branding right, then launch at about 80% and optimize live.
AI tools are consensus engines
The idea that kept coming back was information gain: the internet has to get better because of what you put on it. Models answer from their training data plus a little query fan-out, and studies of creative-writing prompts show different chatbots drifting to the same answers. They pull from the same pool. You and I don’t.
Josh put it in four words I’ll be repeating: “These are consensus engines.” They report what most people are saying, and if that consensus is two years old, so is the answer. He checks landing pages against Google’s information gain patent and asks whether the copy is commodity.
Cultural onboarding, borrowed from Howard Bloom
Here’s his fix for commodity copy. Josh reverse-engineered press releases from Howard Bloom, the publicist behind Prince, AC/DC and Styx. Bloom looked for the culture around an artist. Snap SEO turned that into a cultural onboarding for every client: the story behind the business, what makes the founder unique, the founding principles, the challenges they faced, and which communities around them are growing or shrinking. That material goes into the content. It speaks to the reader more directly, it sells better, and it is the information an LLM cannot guess.
Google Discover, answered for the last guest
My last guest, Laura Iancu, is digging into publisher SEO and asked the next guest for Google Discover resources. Josh has a live test case: Aurora Admin, a northern lights forecast site competing with news outlets for “big aurora storm tonight” stories. What he has heard works so far:
- You don’t need a Google News sitemap, but you do need article schema with the start and end date.
- Titles read more like news than like a typical SEO article.
- For a normal landing page, you front-load the answer. For Discover, you put some of it in the middle, so people keep reading.
He was honest that he hasn’t cracked Discover yet and that local businesses are his home turf. Laura, that’s one practitioner’s field notes for your list.
Local search in Canada: same culture, different words
Josh says Canadian and American SEO are close enough that US-traffic links still help. He goes as local as he can first, then Canadian, American, UK and Australian sites. The difference shows up in the words: Toronto searches for home renovations, while Edmonton searches for home reno and home remodeling. That’s why he researches each city’s people, not just its keywords.
Sponsor a nonprofit, earn a link that lasts
His favourite local play right now is nonprofit sponsorship. Find a little league, community league, charity or food bank, donate, and ask for a link and a social mention. Then tie it together with your own blog post and social post. Nonprofit sites rarely change, so most of those links hold for over a year, and you reach their local audience too. Snap SEO did exactly that with the Silver Skate Festival.
One sponsorship paid for itself. Josh offered Santa’s Anonymous a donation in exchange for a link, and they asked what else he did. They became a Google Ads client. I added that US 501(c)(3)s can apply for Google Ad Grants, and that most nonprofits value help with outreach and collateral as much as the check.
The Search Console “I am” filter
Here’s a quick win you can run today. In Google Search Console, filter queries that contain “I am.” Some people type their whole situation into the search box, and those queries show you their pain points in their own words. Josh has AI write the regex for him, and he uses the same approach to pull “how to” and recommendation-style queries into a secondary keyword list.
Use Bing to find what ChatGPT cites
I triangulate Search Console, GA4 and Clarity through their APIs to match a query to a session and spot bots. Google’s Direct bucket carries a lot of what Clarity flags as bot traffic, and I showed how far the two drift in a Search Console vs Clarity check across 4 sites. Josh added a step I’m stealing: search the same best-of terms in Bing. Because ChatGPT leans on Bing, the directories and lists that rank there are close to what ChatGPT cites. Get listed, ask a happy customer for a review on that directory, and you’re where the grounding queries are. Grounding searches also favour what sits at the top of a page, so put the facts you want cited up front.
“It depends,” and why you hold course
We both admitted we’re tired of saying “it depends” and can’t stop, because it’s true. Josh’s version with clients: “You’re going to hate me, but it depends,” then a pause, then the why. Google tests changes constantly and some of its systems are built to confuse anyone watching ranking moves. When a rising site dips on purpose, his advice is to hold course, dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
Brand is what the internet says about you
The question nobody asks Josh on podcasts is about brand. Not colours and a logo, but what the internet says about you, consistently, and whether the sentiment is positive. I shared Matt Brooks of SEOteric‘s framing: people online are your off-site customer service team, and if you don’t train them with the right answer, they’ll make one up. Josh’s reply is the line I’m keeping: “When your team’s going to make it up, it’s almost like they’re doing a hallucination as well, not just the AI.”
Where to find Josh Shankowsky
Find Josh at Snap SEO, on LinkedIn and on YouTube. He answers the phone as fast as he can, and he’s happy to talk through an audit. He also ranks for “sexiest man in Edmonton,” which he says is just for fun.
Want more practitioner conversations like this? Subscribe to Unscripted SEO, read my notes at Jeremy Rivera SEO, and find the tools at SEO Arcade.
