Bots and Brains: the art of writing SEO snippets

In the pre-digital world, marketing was the the art of conveying big ideas with small words, moving hearts and winning minds. In our digital world, marketing is both the art of persuading people and influencing bots so brands can show up on Google page one and become visible on AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini and now on Google AI overviews and AI mode.

Initially, Google bot craved facts and words to build its knowledge graph and search results. AI engines craved spoken and metaphoric language to generate responses. Recently, both Google bot and AI engines have started consuming stats, facts, stories and metaphors to generate recommendations.

Effective SEO marketers write snippets (the short 155 character long sentences that appear on Google search results page) that influence both human brains and bots. They inform the bot. They merchandise hope.

One of the finest SEO snippets my colleague, Todd Erkel, ever wrote was:

“Carnegie Mellon’s masters in information systems is your gateway to fortune 1000 companies.”

The ultimate Haiku. Right, tight and bright. This invitation and a website informed by GMAC research together reversed a 4-year enrollment decline and grew applications by 120% for Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College Masters in Information Systems Management program.

Another potent SEO snippet my. colleague, Craig Otto, wrote was:

“As a high-performance custom glass manufacturer, Kopp Glass has engineered glass to perform in some of the harshest environments on earth.“

For six straight years, this brief yet simple snippet has situated Kopp Glass on Google page one, and positioned them as a global leader in high-performance glass and custom glass manufacturing.

Wish to reverse a declining sales curve or create an ascending growth curve? Let’s talk.