Hey Reader,

Grifters have always been a part of the SEO world.

I know, because I've been dealing with them for the last 15 years, which is how long I've been working in this industry.

They come in all shapes and sizes, and the morph over the years, each with their own brand of toxicity:

🤡 The black-hat SEOs, who game the system and exploit loopholes...

😶‍🌫️ The smoke-and-mirror amateurs, using complex language to deliver sub-par work and extortionist prices...

😈 The sneaky types who attack competitors and play dirty to get their clients ahead...

All of these folks are responsible for the black mark on SEO, the one that makes people think everyone in this industry is a scam artist.

Because of them, I have to spend twice as much of my time explaining to people why SEO is not just legitimate, but necessary for most businesses.

I've made it my duty to call out these tactics when I see them, and today, I'm writing to you about a new breed that is really getting on my nerves. I'm talking about...

🐍 Snake-oil salesmen who promise to have the solution for AI

You can see them all over LinkedIn, or showing up in your inbox unsolicited. They use impenetrable phrases like AIO and GEO and SGO, and they promise you that they know "exactly how to optimize for AI."

Usually, they have an extremely expensive course, tool, or subscription to sell you, obviously.

What really gets me about these people is that they are intentionally preying on businesses that are in panic-mode. They know people are worried about traffic loss from AI, and they are promising a solution that is easy, simple, and shockingly expensive.

It's a grift!

🤡 Why "Optimizing for AI" doesn't make sense

When I hear people talking about "optimizing for AI" as if it's some brand new type of SEO, I want to pull my hair out.

The truth: To show up in AI results, you need to practice foundational SEO. High-quality content, authoritative backlinks, refreshing old content, optimizing landing pages for search crawlers---all of that still happens whether you're targeting ChatGPT, Google, Claude, or Bing. None of it is new.

Granted, there are some additional things that you need to do (many of which I cover in my blog about future-proofing your strategy). But there is not secret sauce or super-special tool that will do it.

I definitely recommend taking these extra actions to help your content show up in relevant AI searches. That's extremely important. but it's only one small part of the picture.

Because even if businesses are able to get into the top results from AI Overviews and other AI tools, that won't bring back all the lost traffic on its own. AI overviews and tools have far lower click-through rates, so even the best optimization won't reverse the trend entirely.

What businesses really need to do is shift the way they think about getting their content in front of the right people in the right places. Search engines cannot be the only place where you generate organic traffic anymore.

We have to think bigger than that.

🧠 Here is what I propose...

I've been watching these grifters from the sidelines, feeling conflicted.

I knew my clients needed help with their waning traffic. And over time, after doing lots of research, I began to come up with a plan of my own, one that would help businesses tackle the whole picture of what's happening in Search right now.

I wanted to roll it out, but I had no idea how I could release it without sounding exactly like those grifters I loathe.

I started writing about it, and soon, I'd written a blog that explains in detail how and why I came up with this new strategy. It breaks the whole thing down in detail, which should be enough to show you that this ain't no grift. It's a solid plan that I'm ready to carry out with you.

And you can read about it right here.

There's a lot of information in there, so if you'd have any questions or want to talk through the strategy, just reply to this email and let me know you're interested, and I'll get back to you.

- Liam