Ethan Smith is the founder and CEO of Graphite, a research-driven growth agency. He teaches SEO and AEO at Reforge, is an adjunct professor at IE Business School, and previously advised MasterClass and Robinhood on growth. — Graphite — Ethan Smith Biography.
On SEO Strategy and Prioritization
Smith describes an “SEO death spiral”: a long list of technically plausible but low-impact tasks yields little traffic, erodes engineering confidence, and prompts another cycle of audits. He argues that teams should identify and test the few initiatives with real impact. — Ethan Smith — The 5% of SEO.
Key Learnings:
- The 5% of SEO Work: Smith says that, in his experience, a small share of SEO work produces most of the impact—often about 5% of tasks producing 95% of results. Treat this as his prioritization heuristic, not a fixed industry statistic. — Ethan Smith — The 5% of SEO.
- Avoid the SEO Death Spiral: A long audit checklist can absorb time without moving traffic; when results disappoint, teams lose confidence and repeat the cycle with a new agency. Smith recommends testing for impact rather than equating task completion with progress. — Ethan Smith — The 5% of SEO.
- Focus on Impactful Activities: Smith distinguishes technical, programmatic, and editorial SEO. The mix should fit the business and prioritize changes such as readable pages, useful internal links, relevant category pages, and content on topics where the site has authority. — Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy.
- Technical SEO Is Necessary but Often Overemphasized: Technical foundations matter, especially crawlability and internal linking, but Smith warns that teams often spend too much time on technical audits rather than the editorial or programmatic work that could produce more growth. — Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy.
- Time New Marketing Channels to Their Value: Smith argues against overinvesting solely for a claimed first-mover advantage. Assess a channel’s present value and your company’s stage, then invest when it is large enough to matter. — The Intelligent Marketer — AEO vs SEO.
- Keep AEO Tool Commitments Flexible: Smith recommends choosing the least expensive tool that meets the need and avoiding annual contracts while the AEO tool category is changing. — The Intelligent Marketer — AEO vs SEO.
Topics Over Keywords
Smith treats a topic as a cluster of related queries rather than a single keyword. That cluster informs both the size of the opportunity and the structure of the page. — Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy.
Key Learnings:
- Topics Over Keywords: A topic such as “five-year plan” contains many related searches. Smith recommends grouping queries by overlapping results and designing a page around the main user needs, not repeating every keyword. — Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy.
- Comprehensive Content Matches User Needs: For a five-year-plan page, Smith says the outline should address themes such as examples, templates, and personal versus professional plans because those are the related needs users search for. — Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy.
- Build from Existing Topical Authority: Smith advises newer sites to publish first on subjects adjacent to areas where they already have traction. Graphite’s 332-URL study associated higher topical authority with faster initial search visibility; it does not guarantee a smaller site will outrank a larger competitor. — Graphite — Topical Authority Study.
On Content and AI
Smith and Graphite have studied the performance of AI-generated content in search and answer engines. Their findings caution against treating fully generated articles as a substitute for distinctive, useful material. — Graphite — AI-Generated Content in Search and Answer Engines.
Key Learnings:
- Use AI Assistance without Assuming Automation Wins: Graphite found that primarily AI-generated articles were underrepresented near the top of search and among AI-answer citations. Its study did not test heavily human-edited AI-assisted content, so the defensible lesson is to preserve human judgment and original inputs rather than assume mass generation will work. — Graphite — AI-Generated Content in Search and Answer Engines.
- Enhance Existing Content: In his recap of a conversation with Gaetano DiNardi, Smith highlights a tactic: find existing pages with impressions but few clicks, then fill relevant content gaps before automatically commissioning more pages. The recap does not establish which speaker originated the tactic. — Ethan Smith — Interview Recap on Existing Content.
- Match Page Format to the Opportunity: Smith argues that teams should choose the page type—article, listicle, browse page, product page, tool, or template—based on the content users need, instead of treating “editorial versus programmatic” as the strategy itself. — Ethan Smith — Marketplace and Programmatic SEO.
The Rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization asks how a brand appears in AI-generated answers. Smith and Graphite distinguish between owned pages that answer specific questions and earned mentions in third-party sources for broader questions. — Graphite — Ultimate Guide to AEO.
Key Learnings:
- Earn Mentions across Multiple Sources: Smith argues that AI answers often synthesize several citations, so relevant mentions across sources such as Reddit, YouTube, and independent publications may matter more than one top-ranked link for a broad question. — Graphite — Ethan Smith’s AEO Interview.
- Early-Stage Companies Can Test AEO: Smith says a young company may appear in AI answers relatively quickly when relevant third-party sources mention it, even though building traditional search authority can take longer. This is a possibility, not a guarantee. — The Intelligent Marketer — AEO vs SEO.
- Use Owned and Earned AEO: For specific long-tail questions, publish a useful answer on your own site; for broad category questions, earn relevant mentions in sources that AI systems consult. Graphite calls these owned and earned approaches. — Graphite — Ultimate Guide to AEO.
- AI Referral Conversion Can Be High in Specific Cases: In Graphite’s Webflow case study, AI-referred visitors signed up at 24% versus 4% for non-brand organic search. That sixfold difference is a Webflow observation, not a general rate for all ChatGPT traffic. — Graphite — Webflow LLM Signups Case Study.
- Treat Reddit as One AEO Source: In Graphite’s Webflow analysis, Reddit was among the top five cited sources for the questions studied and appeared in 10% of ChatGPT citations. This supports testing relevant community participation, not assuming every Reddit mention is trusted or effective. — Graphite — Webflow LLM Signups Case Study.
- Participate Authentically on Reddit: Smith’s practical advice is to use a genuine account, disclose affiliation, and give useful answers instead of automating or impersonating users. The goal is credible participation, not spam. — Graphite — Ethan Smith’s AEO Interview.
- Make Help Content Answer Specific Questions: Smith highlights help centers as an AEO opportunity: answer the narrow feature, integration, and support questions customers actually ask, and make those pages discoverable from the main site. — Lenny’s Podcast — How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Product.
- Measure More than Last-Touch Clicks: Because AI answers may mention a product without a referral click, Smith recommends asking customers how they heard about it, considering multiple touchpoints, and tracking whether the brand appears in answers. — The Intelligent Marketer — AEO vs SEO.
For Startups and Marketplaces
For young companies and marketplaces, Smith advises testing modest, useful SEO pages before committing to a large programmatic build. Channel choice should also reflect how soon the business needs a return. — Ethan Smith — Marketplace and Programmatic SEO.
Key Learnings:
- Test Static Marketplace Pages First: Smith recommends manually creating a few useful static or editorial marketplace pages and waiting for traction before funding a full scalable backend; a listicle can sometimes outperform a browse page. — Ethan Smith — Marketplace and Programmatic SEO.
- Match SEO to the Company’s Time Horizon: Smith contrasts paid ads’ immediate return with organic pages that may take months to rank. If a company needs results within six months, he says SEO may be a poor primary use of its budget. — Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy.
- Size the Search Opportunity: Before investing, Smith recommends assessing competitor traffic, addressable demand, and expected return over time; the Lenny episode names Similarweb as one tool for traffic analysis, not as a precise measure of the true market. — Lenny’s Podcast — The Ultimate Guide to SEO.
- Use Marketplace Inventory Selectively: Marketplaces can turn useful product, service, category, or location combinations into search pages, but Smith advises testing page formats and demand before investing in a large programmatic system. — Ethan Smith — Marketplace and Programmatic SEO.
Sources
- Lenny’s Podcast — The Ultimate Guide to SEO
- Graphite — Topical Authority Study
- Ethan Smith — Marketplace and Programmatic SEO
- Ethan Smith — The 5% of SEO
- Pearmill — Building an SEO Strategy
- Graphite — Ultimate Guide to AEO
- The Intelligent Marketer — AEO vs SEO
- Graphite — AI-Generated Content in Search and Answer Engines
- Graphite — Webflow LLM Signups Case Study
- Graphite — Ethan Smith’s AEO Interview
- Lenny’s Podcast — How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Product
- Graphite — Ethan Smith Biography
- Ethan Smith — Interview Recap on Existing Content