I watched this conversation with Nathan Gotch late at night. The kind of night where you pause the video, stare at the ceiling, and let a sentence sit with you a little longer than it wants to.
Nathan wasn’t selling hacks. That’s what caught my attention first.
He was talking about systems.
And honestly, that felt… grounding.
Because every time SEO “changes”, people panic. New tools. New acronyms. New shortcuts dressed up as strategy. But what Nathan kept coming back to was something simple: if you start every SEO campaign from zero, you’re not doing SEO, you’re gambling.
In the AI era, gambling gets expensive fast.
SEO Is Not a Bag of Tactics. It’s a Machine.
Nathan compared SEO to McDonald’s. Not because it’s fast food, but because it’s repeatable.
A system lets you test without guessing. It lets you learn without burning everything down. And most importantly, it gives you something solid when the algorithm shifts again. Because it will.
His framework made sense to me:
- Playbooks are the big picture. Local SEO. E-commerce SEO. Lead gen SEO.
- Systems live inside playbooks. Like building a client knowledge base first, every time.
- SOPs are the smallest pieces. Clear steps. Clear “definition of done”. No vibes. No assumptions.
That structure matters more now because AI doesn’t reward chaos. It rewards clarity.
Where Most SEO Pages Go Wrong
One part hit a little too close to home.
Service area pages.
Nathan pointed out a mistake I see constantly: people write service pages like blog posts. Long explanations. Educational tone. No urgency. No conversion path.
But a service page isn’t there to teach. It’s there to help someone decide.
If it doesn’t behave like a landing page, with a clear action above the fold, it’s confused. And confused pages don’t convert. They don’t rank either, not for long.
Doorway pages were another warning. Copy-paste locations. Same layout. Same content. Different city name. That trick might have worked once. It doesn’t age well.
E-commerce SEO Is About Restraint
I liked Nathan’s take on category pages because it went against the instinct to “add more content”.
Big blocks of text pushing products down? That’s not SEO. That’s insecurity.
Category pages should feel calm. Products first. SEO woven in quietly. Support pages do the heavy lifting, informed by real data from Google Search Console.
Not guesses. Signals.
When to Create a New Page (and When Not To)
This part felt underrated.
The decision isn’t about keywords. It’s about intent.
If the intent is truly different, and the SERP doesn’t already satisfy it, testing a new page makes sense. Even if it fails. Especially if it fails quickly and cheaply.
Systems allow that kind of experimentation without ego.
Audits, AI, and the Stuff That Actually Matters
Nathan was blunt about audits: if a site has under 100 pages, most technical fixes won’t move the needle. That honesty matters.
Instead, focus on:
- Can the page be crawled and indexed?
- Does it load in under two seconds?
- Is it reachable within three clicks?
- Does it have enough internal links to matter?
He strongly favored HTML over JavaScript, and honestly, after watching AI crawlers struggle with complexity, that feels less like an opinion and more like experience talking.
The AI part surprised me too. Nathan isn’t afraid of it. He uses tools like Replit to fix technical issues, test changes, and reduce dependency on developers. AI as leverage, not replacement.
That distinction matters.
FAQ: Systemized SEO in the AI Era
What does it mean to systemize SEO?
Systemizing SEO means using repeatable processes instead of one-off tactics.
It allows consistent testing, learning, and scaling across campaigns.
Why are systems more important than tactics in modern SEO?
Tactics expire. Systems adapt.
A system survives algorithm updates and AI changes because it focuses on process, not tricks.
What is an SEO playbook?
An SEO playbook is a high-level framework for a specific SEO type.
Examples include Local SEO, E-commerce SEO, or Lead Generation SEO.
What is the difference between systems and SOPs in SEO?
Systems define what needs to be done.
SOPs define how each task is completed, with a clear definition of done.
Why should SEO campaigns not start from scratch?
Starting from scratch prevents learning.
Systems allow controlled experiments and faster optimization over time.
My Takeaway
AI didn’t kill SEO.
It exposed who never had a system.
If your SEO relies on tricks, AI will amplify your mistakes. If it relies on structure, AI becomes a multiplier.
I closed the video thinking about something I learned outside marketing: discipline beats inspiration. Systems beat motivation.
And maybe that’s the real lesson here.
