Podcast 239: Your EDO Website Looks Great. So Why Isn't It Working? with Max Karren

Episode 239 of the Econ Dev Show Podcast is out. Listen now.

In this episode of the show, Dane Carlson talks with Max Karren, founder of Choose Our City, about why economic development websites need to do more than look pretty. 

Max explains how search engine optimization (SEO) is evolving as site selectors increasingly use ChatGPT and other AI tools to research communities before sending an RFI, and why some EDOs may be practically invisible to those tools. 

Drawing on his work with the Dallas Regional Chamber and his review of nine economic development and talent attraction websites, Max identifies two surprisingly common weaknesses: slow websites and poor lead capture. They discuss practical ways to improve discoverability, make community data accessible to AI, use Google Search Console to understand website performance, and turn anonymous visitors into meaningful connections. 

Max also shares how he's using AI coding tools to run a lean web development agency and how his childhood obsession with SimCity eventually turned into a career helping real communities grow.

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Ten Actionable Takeaways for Economic Developers

1. Find out what AI says about your community. Open ChatGPT or another AI search tool in a fresh session. Ask questions a site selector or prospective resident might ask. Does your community appear? Is the information accurate? Identify what is missing and what your organization can do to improve its online information.
2. Make your community data accessible to AI crawlers. Ask your web developer whether important information is buried in JavaScript. Max explains that some AI crawlers cannot reliably access JavaScript-rendered content. Publishing important facts in accessible HTML can improve discoverability.
3. Run a mobile website speed test. Visit Google PageSpeed Insights, enter your website URL, and examine the mobile results. Look for oversized images, unnecessary JavaScript, and excessive files. Share the recommendations with your web developer.
4. Give anonymous visitors a reason to identify themselves. Add opportunities for visitors to connect with your organization through contact forms, valuable downloadable resources, newsletter subscriptions, or interactive tools. Make sure you're offering something worth exchanging contact information for.
5. Set up Google Search Console. Use Google Search Console to understand which searches bring visitors to your website and how your content performs. Don't assume you know what prospective businesses are searching for.
6. Use AI to analyze your search performance. Connect your Search Console data to an AI assistant, or export the relevant data and ask it to identify trends, missed opportunities, and pages that could perform better. Max uses Claude to uncover insights without manually sifting through reports.
7. Audit your website before paying for a redesign. Use the evaluation rubric from Max's 2026 EDO website roundup to assess your existing site. Prioritize discoverability, lead capture, and page speed rather than assuming a new visual design will solve your problems.
8. Build talent attraction content around relocation decisions. Prospective residents want information about schools, neighborhoods, parks, jobs, housing costs, and amenities. Consider interactive maps or cost-of-living calculators, similar to the tools Max discusses building for Say Yes to Dallas.
9. Create useful content that answers specific questions. Develop evergreen content around the questions businesses and site selectors actually ask. Max emphasizes that good SEO still depends on authoritative, useful content, even as AI changes how people find answers.
10. Experiment with AI as a practical member of your team. Identify a recurring technical, research, or content task that takes too much time. Test whether an AI assistant can accelerate it. Max describes using Claude Code to handle development work he previously outsourced, while emphasizing the importance of reviewing and refining the results.

Episode Links

• Marketing Built for Economic Developers | Choose Our City
• Choose Our City: Home | LinkedIn
• Max Karren | LinkedIn