We kicked off spring with a proper St. Patrick’s Day dinner. Corned beef, cabbage, the works. That’s about the only time we eat corned beef and cabbage, and it probably deserves more air time than a single holiday.
This morning, reviewing yet another post by yet another ‘ground-breaking’ and ‘innovative’ ChatGPT brand marketing agency, claiming to have identified the distinctive marketing techniques to drive rankings in LLMs, corned beef and brisket jumped to mind.
See if you can follow along-
Corned beef gets a salt brine, pickling spices, and a long simmer. Brisket gets a dry rub, low heat, steady smoke, and hours of patience. With summer coming fast, I’ll be switching back to the smoker. More meat, longer cook times, and a few weekend barbecues on the calendar. Corned beef falls apart with a fork. A great brisket slices easily. Both taste amazing, and are the centerpiece of two very different family traditions.
And guess what? They come from the same cut of cow. The difference is all in the prep.
SEO works the same way now. Same basic input. Two very different outputs depending on how you treat it.
Table of Contents
Two Kitchens, One Ingredient
In digital marketing, content is still the core. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is how we deliver it. We’re now working in two distinct environments: traditional Google Search and emerging large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews.
They both reward strong content, but they look for different details. One wants structure and links. The other pulls from broad context, clear questions, and structured information it can easily digest.
I’ll include a table that breaks down the different ranking factors below.
What Works in Each Kitchen
From the audits and testing we’ve done this year, here are the levers that matter most:
- LLMs favor deep entity coverage, clear Q&A formats, widespread presence across content sets, recency and structured data.
- Google still leans on backlinks, longer form, more thorough content, strong page-level rankings, user experience and structured data too.
There’s overlap, but each rewards a different type of seasoning.
Lessons from the Brisket
Trying to treat brisket like corned beef doesn’t work. Too much moisture ruins the bark. Too much steam kills the flavor. Flip that around, and boiling brisket just leaches everything out.
In SEO, using only link-building won’t get you featured in AI results. And ignoring links will keep your site buried in search. You have to tailor the approach.
How to Adjust for Today’s Search
Here are a few working adjustments we’ve made across client accounts:
- Keep your base strong. Build out well-researched, clear content.
- Prep for LLMs by including entities, questions and answers, and visible citations.
- Prep for Google by layering in strong backlinks, improving page performance, and reinforcing internal links.
- Use structured data on any content type that qualifies. Products, how-tos, reviews, or anything else repeatable.
- Watch what’s being surfaced in both search results and AI overviews. That’s how you see which version of your content is gaining traction.
Joel’s recent piece, “40 Tips to Rank Your Website in LLMs,” covers a lot of this in checklist format. Worth reviewing if you’re rethinking your content playbook.
Final Thought
Good barbecue isn’t about shortcuts. Neither is good SEO. Whether you’re brining or smoking, the raw material only delivers when you know what it’s being cooked for. Take the same approach with your SEO for ChatGPT or for Google. Or work with an agency who knows how to deliver in both.
