Holistic SEO

Authority, content, technicals, and UX to rank #1 with Manick Bhan and Search Atlas

Author

Royce Hall
May 13, 2025

This episode explores the shifting landscape of SEO, the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT and Bing AI, and how Manick Bhan's company, Search Atlas, is empowering marketers with AI-powered SEO strategies. Manick shares his journey, insights, and why SEO still reigns supreme—if done right.

You can find the full transcript of our conversation here.

🔑 Key Themes and Takeaways:

🚀 How Manick Got Into SEO:

  • His first startup competed with StubHub and Ticketmaster.

  • Discovered early that Google is the real gatekeeper of the ticketing industry—more than any platform.

  • To succeed, they had to “win on Google,” leading him to dive deep into SEO.

🧠 ChatGPT, Bing & The New SEO Frontier:

  • LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT and Bing are changing how people discover and buy.

  • Over 50% of his community made a purchase decision based on a ChatGPT recommendation.

  • SEO today must consider visibility in LLMs, not just Google and Bing.

🧩 LLM Visibility is the New SEO:

  • Search Atlas is developing tools to track how visible brands are inside LLMs.

  • This is like “keyword rank tracking for ChatGPT or Claude.”

  • Manick emphasizes this as a vital channel for brand discovery going forward.

🧱 The Four Pillars of SEO – Holistic SEO Framework:

Manick introduces a powerful framework called Holistic SEO, which blends:

  1. Authority – Trustworthiness and backlinks

  2. Content – Quality, relevance, keyword coverage

  3. Technical SEO – Tags, metadata, indexing

  4. UX Signals – User behavior, experience metrics

🧠 “If you get all four right, you can rank on page one—even against giants.”

🛠 Search Atlas & Otto AI:

  • Search Atlas: A next-gen SEO platform designed to simplify and automate the complex parts of SEO.

  • Otto AI: Their flagship tool stands for:

    • One-click

    • Trusted

    • Transparent

    • Optimization

Together, they:

  • Automatically improve technical SEO.

  • Dynamically reoptimize content as rankings shift.

  • Act as a bridge between LLMs and your CMS (WordPress, HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.).

⏳ Why Traditional SEO Fails (And How Search Atlas Fixes It):

  • Many SEO tools give data without direction—keywords, backlinks, etc., but no clear action plan.

  • SEO consultants often overpromise and underdeliver—many are “great salespeople, not great strategists.”

  • With Search Atlas, businesses can:

    • Get a clear strategy based on real gaps in their SEO.

    • Deploy AI-powered optimizations quickly.

    • Reduce wait time from “6 months to see results” down to “2–3 weeks.”

🎯 Dynamic SEO = Future-Proof SEO:

  • Rankings are constantly shifting.

  • Otto identifies new search queries a page ranks for and reoptimizes content accordingly.

  • Example: A blog on “holistic SEO” started ranking for related terms like “holistic SEO methodology” → Otto auto-updated the content.

🎓 Lessons for Beginners in SEO & Marketing:

  • Don’t rely only on analytics—ask customers how they found you (especially if ChatGPT was involved).

  • Focus on medium to long-tail keywords with high buyer intent, not just big-ticket ones like “Salesforce.”

  • Democratization of SEO: Great content still wins, even against bigger players with more history.

🧠 “Google rewards expertise—if your content is better, you win.”

🔍 Where to Learn More / Get Involved: