---
title: "Your PhDs Are Your SEO Strategy: Leveraging the Authority Already in the Building"
id: "18320"
type: "podcast"
slug: "your-phds-are-your-seo-strategy-leveraging-the-authority-already-in-the-building"
published_at: "2026-08-04T03:05:00+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-07-27T19:02:12+00:00"
url: "https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/your-phds-are-your-seo-strategy-leveraging-the-authority-already-in-the-building/"
markdown_url: "https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/your-phds-are-your-seo-strategy-leveraging-the-authority-already-in-the-building.md"
excerpt: "ElectraMet uses electrochemistry to pull copper and other critical minerals out of industrial wastewater — technology invented by PhDs and sold to wastewater managers at the world’s largest semiconductor fabs. Chris Richardson, a communications major with no electrochemical background, has..."
taxonomy_podcast_category:
  - "Content Marketing"
---

#### Episode 402

**August 4, 2026**

ElectraMet uses electrochemistry to pull copper and other critical minerals out of industrial wastewater — technology invented by PhDs and sold to wastewater managers at the world’s largest semiconductor fabs. Chris Richardson, a communications major with no electrochemical background, has to make that legible without dumbing it down. His answer isn’t better explaining. It’s association: make sure Google and the LLMs know which published scientists belong to your company, then build content on top of that link. Along the way he argues GEO is mostly just SEO done well, that earned backlinks still pay dividends, and that the surest way to win over a camera-shy expert is to show them what the internet already says about them.

##### *Your PhDs Are Your SEO Strategy: Leveraging the Authority Already in the Building* Transcript:

**Jeff White:** Welcome to “The Kula Ring,” a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners. My name is Jeff White, and joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how you doing, sir?

**Carman Pirie:** I’m doing well. How are you making out?

**Jeff White:** Really good. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah. You know, it’s, um, th- there’s a thing that happens in the space of manufacturing marketing in kind of so many different types of, organizations. Like you think when you think about manufacturing, it’s kind of even silly to think of it as a vertical because it’s just so large and diverse.

But… And, and even in that, there is, it’s the number of marketers I’ve talked to that are just kind of almost in some way, they, they’re, they find it wondrous the talent that they’re surrounded with, the level of technology, the… Yeah. And, and, and I, I think it comes from, you know, if that’s your first foray into that, so much of, um, B2B manufacturing is kind of obscured from the general public.

So if you’ve just been, you know, you haven’t been exposed to it, there’s a, there’s like a sense of wonder even to that. And then, some of the stuff’s just damn, damn cool, you know? And, and, and so I think a lot of marketers when they encounter that, that sense of wonder, then the next thing they wonder is: How do I make this into something that other people can grab ahold of?

Like, how do I give them the same experience in some ways that I just had? How do I make them feel that level of enthusiasm that I just did? Uh, how do I take this incredibly technical, difficult content and make it, mm, you know, get it out there? And I think that’s what I’m interested, uh, for today’s guest to shine some light on that in a very interesting space.

**Jeff White:** Yeah. And I, and I think being able to do that while maintaining the, uh, sophistication and, of the people that you’re working to get that information from, I think is a big part of, uh,

**Carman Pirie:** that’s an interesting point because y-y the people that you’re selling to, um, chances are know more about it than you did as a marketer when you came in. So you have this sense of wonder, yes, but you’re not necessarily trying to be naive in your communication, or you’re not trying to dumb it down.

Yeah. Yeah.

**Jeff White:** Absolutely. So joining us today is Chris Richardson. Chris is a digital marketer at ElectraMet. Welcome to The Kula Ring, Chris.

**Chris Richardson:** Ah, it’s a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the invitation to be, uh, be on your show, and I look forward to the conversation.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, Chris, we’ve been looking forward to having you on the show, so thank you for joining us. But, I’d love to, tell our listeners a bit more about ElectraMet. Can you tell us, what you guys do there? Because it is kind of a little unique.

**Chris Richardson:** See, it’s funny. So I can, on the surface, you know, I can give you all the taglines and stuff. What we do is we, uh, separate… We use electrochemistry to separate, uh, critical minerals from industrial wastewater, and we use a cartridge-based system that uses electricity based on the nodes, and it separates these two items, giving reusable, 99% reusable copper and silver in a lot of cases.

And their goal is to reduce the amount of, you know, copper is on demand, so reduce the am- the need for copper. The ability to create 99% recyclable copper and other critical minerals. Copper is a big focus because of the semiconductor explosion. So that’s one of our focuses, our primary focuses. We can do other things, too.

Hydrogen peroxide destruction, which is another part of the semiconductor manufacturing process. But the main idea is to introduce systems that allow beneficial re- reuse and recovery for these companies so it doesn’t all go to waste, reduce the amount of waste hauled

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, that’s really super cool. Chris, how did you end up there?

**Chris Richardson:** Well, it was, uh, it was strictly luck. I was moving on from a place and, uh, I was at in Colorado Springs, and I had wanted to work locally, and I applied and the ops manager and I hit it off really well, and then the sales marketing manager and I hit off really well, and I’m lucky. I I got a good job at a time where there’re not necessarily a lot of those around.

**Carman Pirie:** So it wasn’t your electrochemical background, in other words?

**Chris Richardson:** Zero! Zero I am a I am a communications major from the University of Kentucky. So I, I even remember my very first day when they were introducing me to the information, I explained to them that I will never understand it on your level, but I can — we can articulate it to maybe not the explain it like I’m five level because our audience is not at that level, but at least make it, make it accessible to where it’s digestible

**Jeff White:** Well, that’s to our, to our earlier point. But, uh, you know, Chris, I, I think, you know, you talk about, luck, but, you certainly have a wealth of digital marketing expertise and experience from the past that I, I’m sure, uh, you know, folks who are used to talking about electrochemistry maybe don’t understand either.

**Chris Richardson:** Sure, sure, sure. And, you know, and electrochemistry is one of the big things that they focus on, and that’s the whole pro- the whole basis of what they do. We are very prominent in the search engine mar- industry because of that term. Um, so it’s taking that, their ability, what they’ve discovered, what they’ve invented, and presenting it in a way where even I understand it. So where I can explain it like we separate by using two electrodes spaced a certain amount of distance apart within these cartridges and shoot electricity down these electrodes, and that causes a chemical reaction, which separates the water from, in this case for semiconductors, copper.

**Carman Pirie:** Hmm.

**Chris Richardson:** And then the copper is then recoverable in a tube that is 99.9% copper.

So how that happens, the electricity causes a reaction within the wastewater itself that causes the separation, and that cartridge captures, on one side captures the, copper and then the wastewater is then returned, where with a lot of the waste removed, there is a chance for water reuse as well.

**Carman Pirie:** And, you know, Chris, I’m certain that the brand, benefits from, from your ability to explain and, and kind of get that across in that way. I’m somewhat equally sure that you obviously must take advantage of all of that authority that you have in the hallways. I, I think you even said to us at one point, you have authority walking around.

It’s almost like you, you almost have to kick it out of the way in order to get to the washroom. There’s, uh… And, and the f- firm was founded by PhDs.

I guess I was just wondering, how do we bring that — Well, how, how do you work to bring that to life, to get that out there, to, um, help others, know and see what they see, not necessarily just what you see?

**Chris Richardson:** Let’s see. It’s, the fundamental principle for me is, again, this is thinking, starting as a search engine optimization, ’cause that’s where my goal… You, all of that is great if, but if they don’t find you, it doesn’t matter. So the initial goal, yes, is getting the content on the level where people like myself can read it and understand it, but that’s not necessarily the end goal because that’s not necessarily our audience.

Our audience is operating on a level that some of these PhDs are operating on. You know, they’re wastewater managers of companies that, are huge semiconductor companies. I’m not gonna mention any names. We don’t need to do that. Everybody can look it up. They know what they’re looking for.

So these people are not me. So we, you know, we do have to talk to them on a different level. But one of the things that I do and is, okay, I’ve got these people. Google loves people that have that authority, that, the PhDs, the published, the stuff that shows up in, uh, Google Scholar and things like that.

So taking those people, making sure that Google knows, or AI, GPT, whoever you, whatever platform you wanna use, and know that they’re associated with this company is the first step. So for instance, Cameron Leopard, our CIO, who had a presentation in Dresden today. I want the internet to understand that this man who has published publications, scientific publications across the internet is associated with this company.

James Landon, our founder. I want the internet to know that he’s associated with, uh, ElectraMet. It’s a funny, little side story. Over the, uh, last Christmas’s, uh, gathering, he’s like, “I don’t know what ChatGPT knows about me,” and I searched him, and because of the work that we had done in ChatGPT, it pulled up his picture, his bio, his LinkedIn, and, and his eyes got, you know, pretty pretty good size.

So, and that right there is the first way to leverage the authority to me as a search marketer or as a digital marketer, whatever you wanna call it. Is to make sure the association is known and is strong. And then, if I may, is to take — they do content, they have an, a content that exists and incorporate that.

We had a paper released with one of the universities, and one of the professors helped write it. That’s — we would leverage that.

We would do a news co- uh, a news article, maybe even a press release, maybe even a blog post, and then have them look at it and give final approval because we’re representing them. Their reputation is on the line as well as the company’s. And then once that’s done, then you do your normal stuff.

Submit it to, to Google Search Console so they know to crawl it, and pop it up on LinkedIn and all your channels that you’re associated with so this gets a little bit of growth and breathing room. And I make it sound simple, but in my case it is because I, I, as I said when we first spoke, I do have authority running around the building.

Not every company has that benefit. Now, in the manufacturing field, they might. But smaller businesses, they may not. So it presents a little bit of more of a challenge.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, I think more have it than know they have it, I think, I think is, is fair. I think in, in your case, it may be the PhDs at the end of the name give it, make it a little bit more obvious. But you can still, uh, get a long ways down this playbook without, uh, without having the PhD to the title.

**Jeff White:** Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that’s absolutely true. One of the things that you do have going for you there is that association with those universities and, and things like that, because especially within AI you can associate under the surface of the content the person with specific titles and experience and degrees and things like that.

Are you using any kind of s- person schema, in the content in order to tell AI platforms that this person is who you’re saying it is and this is the expertise that they have? The, the jury’s out on whether or not that is actually consumed, but, it’s certainly considered best practice within the GEO of optimization.

Are, are you looking into that at all, Chris?

**Chris Richardson:** Well, when, when it comes to GEO, I am of the belief that SEO is GEO. Good SEO is good GEO because they’re still crawling Google, they’re still crawling Bing. So if you can hit your SEO nodes, you will hit your — by almost default, you will start hitting your GEO nodes. And through, you know, certain learning how to set up Google Analytics to track that, and the, the tools that are now being introduced in Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console, you can start to see your, your, your visibility a lot better.

And as soon as we started incorporating those tools, we realized we did have a good visibility, and we started backtracking and what they were referencing. So it’s like, okay, that gave us the building structure. It’s like, okay, if this is what they’re referencing, James Landon, his li — well, that was me feeding the information.

But Cameron Lippert because he goes onto the speaking circuit more than James. James sits, he’s like the quiet-minded scientist. It’s really cool to watch them two work together. Cameron goes out and does the speaking circuits and things like that. And so that association was already made.

I had to ma- you know, kind of, I wouldn’t say force it, but introduce it into the AI world a little bit connect it to feed some documents that he’s wrote, things like that. And yes, we did it through the chat in, but to say it didn’t influence it, well, I searched it from his computer. It wasn’t my account.

I wasn’t logged in, and it pulled all of his information up. So even Gemini says, “Nothing you do here will have an effect on our database,” but oddly enough, it kind of does. So, you know, that’s where you get into that, are you gaming the system or are you, are you training the system? I believe it’s training because there’s nothing that we’re doing that’s, you know, would be considered even gray hat, let alone black hat.

So

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, I find it an interesting debate. Like, well, first off, I mean, my goodness, this is a, the, the GEO versus SEO debate, and that would be in and of itself enough to you could stay warm by that fire for a while. Um, and, and, you know, the what seems like it may move the needle in GEO one week is being poo-pooed the next as, uh, here’s 3,000 examples of how it didn’t do anything at all.

I think to, to say that it’s a challenging environment that marketers find themselves in is, uh, maybe an understatement. Um, but I, I, I do think that on that GEO SEO continuum, I’m curious what either of you think of this. Like, it, it seems to me on the S — when, when we were purely thinking about it from an SEO point, there was a level of, you know, uh, in schema inclusion and things of that nature in a site build that would be considered good practice, best practice, what have you.

And then there was a level of it that just seemed like, look, that’s just overkill for SEO, like that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. And it seems like a lot of those things are now the things like Jeff just mentioned, the person schema is what’s being taught. That kind of stuff that used to maybe be left out before is what’s being talked about now in GEO.

It’s really pushing… It’s, it is just pushing the, where, where we apply effort. It’s changing, uh, the game a little bit, it seems. I kind of had a question there, but it was more just a reaction, like from either of you

**Chris Richardson:** I, I do, I see that. I, uh, and I also, but I also go back to one of the fundamental properties of SEO. So how do you get found? Somebody finds you, somebody with authority and links to you, and then that backlink, you know, Google says, “Oh, wow, .org linked to this company. Maybe they’re worth paying attention to.”

So, and that still resonates. So getting quality, not, and I don’t mean going out… That’s what you do, that’s what you do. If you wanna go buy backlinks, go buy backlinks. There’s a debate whether or not it works or not, but actually earning an organic backlink from authoritative sources will still pay you dividends.

Now, whether that’s SEO, GEO, that is a foundation of being found in search, whatever you wanna call it. So I think that is still important. Now, that’s up to you to produce the level of content that earns those backlinks.

**Carman Pirie:** Fair point. So on that front, Chris, what are we doing? Uh, are we, are you, uh, webinar heavy with the PhD experts? Are you doing a lot of, like, more academic paper type content? Can you give us a bit of a glimpse into that mix?

**Chris Richardson:** So what we do is we, again, one of us is, are heavy into the speaking scene with the major environmental companies, a lot of the semiconductor companies, things of that nature, a lot of the copper in these. So we have that phase going, and then we do, do — We don’t do, you know — Doing academic papers is not like doing a blog.

You don’t, just sit down, wheel it out, boom. But we do, do that, and when they do, do an academic paper, we do we make the most of it. We’ll do a news article, we’ll do a blog post, do a LinkedIn post, all the social media that, that is important to us, and promote it that way, make sure that everybody knows about it, and that’s a big part of it.

But the regular content is taking their knowledge, taking what they’ve shown us, and showing that how it benefits, and that comes across a lot of that in blog posts. We have blog series on — One of the recent ones was about the critical minerals list that was released by the USGS, and talking about how our recovery methods can reduce s- You there’s still gonna be critical m- minerals, especially copper, because of the, the growing and growing need for it.

But we can help alleviate some of that. So that’s where our approach is, finding how our technology fits into current events and how it benefits, you know, companies now, companies that would need our electrowinning, semiconductor manufacturing, anything that uses copper, anything that manufacturing that has, that would need hydro- hydrogen peroxide abatement, things of that nature.

Gold recovery, things of that nature. So that’s where, you know, you, you would aim your content at, and then you promote that content through your normal channels. Submit it to Google through GSC. Get a couple of people that you know in your, your LinkedIn network to, I, I was gonna say retweet it, but in this case, re-LinkedIn it, I guess.

Share it, repost it, whatever.

**Jeff White:** Jeez, you can’t even retweet anymore.

**Chris Richardson:** Yeah, right. I haven’t used Twitter for a while, and I’ll just let that one lie. The concept remains the same. The platforms might change, the names might change. And say, for instance, if Google actually does switch to all AI and AI search, that’s gonna be a games changer that I don’t…

Even experts like Rand Fishkin and pl- people like that may not know what to do next. Because if they go to where it’s just answers, and we’re already at, we’re approaching the point where there’s a 70 click, the 70% zero click-through rate of normal organic search, that’s probably gonna increase that to, I would suspect over 80%, maybe 90.

So that in and of itself will present its own challenges. But that’s the one thing I’ve noticed. I remember when SEO was just backlinks. The more backlinks you got, who cares where they came from? And then Google started being more picky, and that’s when authoritative backlinks came. And I think that foundation for being found is still there, and for being found in the, uh, artificial intelligence universe.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, that makes sense to me.

**Jeff White:** One of the things that you mentioned there, Chris, was this notion of, you didn’t say newsjacking or kind of regulatory, announcement jacking, but it kind of sounded like you were leaning towards that a bit. Are you leveraging what’s going on in the world today and crafting content in response to that, ar- around, the recapture of copper from the semiconductor industry, where that’s so important these days?

Are you, taking advantage of that?

**Chris Richardson:** Yes, that is one of the big things we do like to do. You know, there, the news is everywhere about the need for copper and semiconductors, so what can we do? We can help semiconductors reclaim some of that copper, amongst other things, for some of the semiconductor industry. So for us, it would only make sense to approach it from that angle.

You know, not necessarily trying to insert ourselves into the narrative, more like saying when they’re searching for it, like, “Hey, we’re here if you need help.”

**Carman Pirie:** I gotta say that, Chris, uh, I don’t wanna dim- diminish your expertise here, but you’ve got a tiger by the tail in, in some ways. We’re talking copper, you know, and critical minerals, something that is being talked about in a wide variety of jurisdictions, areas of the economy, different industries.

Um, the, uh, build out and the requirement of the semiconductor, uh, industry for the, uh, that’s been such so, so prominent of late. And of course, you’re bringing a cool technology-based, science and technology-based solution to the problem. That in and of itself is remarkable. And frankly, what you’re doing is, makes this whole thing more sustainable, so that’s more of a good news story.

So it’s an, it’s an embarrassment of riches for you.

**Jeff White:** An infinite loop.

**Chris Richardson:** It, it helps. I’m by no means I’m trying to diminish small businesses, but having the resources and people and brainpower and acknowledgement from outside sources that I have is a boon, a boon.

And if you’re a small barber trying to make it in a town with 15 other barber shops that are really popular, that’s a different approach.

And so what do you do there? Maybe the expertise of your barber will help a little bit, but that’s a different kind of marketing, so.

**Jeff White:** They may have some copper to remove from the wastewater. I don’t know. Maybe you can help with that.

**Chris Richardson:** I’ve done both. I’ve done the, the dental clinics in Fort Collins, so Colorado, and now I’m doing a company like this, and it’s, they all present their own different challenges. But you, like you said, you have to find the authority within your company and leverage it somehow, some way, feature it.

Say, “Hey, this guy works at our company.” In some way, shape, or form, whether you’re that, you know, beating over the head with it like, “This guy works here,” or it, or organically, it’s to let it be known, to build your reputation in your community, whether it be the town you’re trying to sell to, or in our case, a group of manufacturers who have a very special focus.

**Carman Pirie:** Hmm. Chris, I, I’ve got a one — just as we’re coming to a close here I’m wondering what advice you might have on this front. ’Cause a-as you just said, like, you know, if you’re encouraging marketers that are listening to this to, find the authority, f-find the authority in the organization and find a way to amplify it, and I think that’s great advice.

Sometimes one of the things that stands in the way of amplifying authority is the authority itself. Sometimes they don’t want to be amplified. Sometimes they don’t want to be on stage. They don’t like being the center of attention. So if you’ve encountered that, any tips on how to maybe encourage people to get out of their own comfort zone and, uh, do what will really move the org forward?

**Chris Richardson:** I think for us, one thing that has worked is showing previous results of the work that we’ve done and the effect it has had and the impact it has had. Wow, okay. Like again, I go back to the, uh, example of James on ChatGPT. He realized how strong that was and how much of a presence he had, and, you know, that opened his eyes to it.

And not that he was shut off to our content or anything. He’s got his own world. I Right now he’s out of the country. James is in another part of the world right now, so it’s not, I can’t just run into his office and say, “Hey,” can you make sure his blog is cool? But it also helps that he, we have eyes in there that can look over our content and make sure we’re on the right path. So I think showing them the results of, “Hey, this is beneficial. You being with us benefits the company,” it might soften the blow a little bit, maybe, loosen that resistance a little bit.

**Carman Pirie:** If they realize that they, that it, this can actually have, this is really gonna have an impact. Yeah. I, I see what you’re s- what, what you’re saying. If you can show them how you’ve gotten to that end result with other spokespeople and how they can maybe see it coming to life for them, or even some early indications of it, that totally makes sense.

**Chris Richardson:** Absolutely.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah. Yeah. Chris, this has been a fun show. Thanks for joining us on the program today. It’s it’s been good to kick this around.

**Chris Richardson:** I am very much honored to be here. I’ve, you know, I’ve — this is one of my first times doing something like this, and to do it for you guys is really awesome, and I consider m- myself blessed for being here. Thank you for your time, and you ever need any more input from the manufacturing side of digital marketing, I’ll be here for you.

**Jeff White:** We’re, we’re Just looking to amplify the experts to make us look better, Chris. That’s really all this is.

**Chris Richardson:** Well, I appreciate that very much, and you guys have a safe rest of your week and enjoy the summer that’s coming to us. And if you’re watching the World Cup, enjoy that too.

[Read Full Transcript](#podcast-transcript)

[« Episode 401: Why Your Distributor Cares More About Your Brand Than Your End Customer Does](https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/why-your-distributor-cares-more-about-your-brand-than-your-end-customer-does/)

[Episode 403: Curiosity Is the Whole Job: Building Trust in a Tight-Knit, Deeply Informed Market »](https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/curiosity-is-the-whole-job-building-trust-in-a-tight-knit-deeply-informed-market/)

#### Featuring

### Chris Richardson

Outbound Marketing- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/em-csr/)

Chris Richardson is a digital marketing and SEO professional at ElectraMet, where he helps connect industrial manufacturers with emerging technologies in wastewater treatment, metal recovery, and resource sustainability. Throughout his career, he has focused on helping organizations grow through content strategy, search marketing, and digital communications, with a particular passion for making complex technical topics accessible to broader audiences.  
 His work today centers on industrial innovation and resource recovery, bridging the gap between engineering expertise and market awareness. When he’s not analyzing website data or writing about industrial innovation, he’s usually cheering on the Kentucky Wildcats or revisiting Star Wars as a proud 1977 alumni.

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