Connor Gillivan

Tomorrow I'm starting a new series on where the money is in search now. AI ate the top of the funnel. The bottom is where the leads are. Authority is how you get there. First issue tomorrow: the flipped funnel.

Tomorrow: two pages from the same website that explain everything that happened to SEO this year. One lost thousands of visitors a month to AI Overviews. The other keeps sending us clients. What the difference is and the 4 keyword types still worth writing for. Saturday morning.

Steal my AI SEO Backlink Process (to rank on ChatGPT & AI): ChatGPT doesn't pick favorites. It repeats its sources. Ask it "best X for Y" and look under the answer. There's a list of pages it pulled from. Get on those pages and you get into the answer. Here's the exact process: Step 1: Find the prompts ↳ List 20-50 questions your buyers actually ask AI. ↳ "Best X for Y." "X vs Y." "Alternatives to X." ↳ The best ones come straight from your sales calls. Step 2: Run them and open the sources ↳ Ask ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity. ↳ Open the source list on every single answer. ↳ Run each prompt twice. Answers shift. Step 3: Log every source ↳ Put each cited URL in a Google Sheet. ↳ Tag the type: listicle, directory, review site, forum, YouTube. ↳ Start with the pages cited across multiple prompts. Step 4: Pitch the listicles ↳ Email the author of every "Best X" post that's cited. ↳ Ask to be added, and give them a reason: real data, a case study, an expert quote. ↳ Offer to help them refresh an outdated post. Step 5: Claim the directories ↳ Build out your G2, Clutch and review profiles completely. ↳ Ask happy clients for reviews. ↳ AI reads these as proof from people who aren't you. Step 6: Show up in the threads ↳ Answer Reddit and forum threads with real, useful help. ↳ Always say who you are. ↳ Help first. Mention your business later, if it fits. Then re-run your prompts every week and track who mentions you. This is still link building. It's just aimed at the pages AI already trusts. Most AI citations come from third-party sites, not yours. So your best AI SEO move might happen on someone else's site. Which source type are you going after first? ♻️ Repost to help someone get their brand into AI answers. P.S. Want content built to get cited too? Join the 10 free articles Beta Program. Email [email protected] to see if you qualify.

SEO teams are WAY different today. It used to be: - Strategist - Researcher - Writer - Editor - Uploader - Optimizer - Link builder Because of AI, it's now: - Strategist - Content creator - Link builder I'm not joking. Seven people used to touch every page. Six handoffs before anything went live. Every handoff was a delay and a chance to lose the voice. Here's what changed: 1. The middle of the process got absorbed ↳ Research, outlines, first drafts, editing passes, uploading and on-page tweaks. ↳ Our agents, Carbon and Ember, handle all of it now. ↳ Keyword to designed, live page in 10 to 15 minutes. 2. The Strategist matters more than ever ↳ Picks the keywords and the prompts buyers type into AI. ↳ Ranks priorities by revenue, not volume. ↳ Signs off on every page before it ships. 3. The Writer became the Content Creator ↳ Feeds the system real proof, real stories and real opinions. ↳ Directs and edits the AI drafts. ↳ Runs the QA so nothing sloppy goes live. 4. The Link Builder didn't go anywhere ↳ AI can't earn a mention on someone else's site. ↳ Digital PR, Reddit, reviews and "Best X" lists still take a human. ↳ And AI search leans hardest on those off-site mentions. The jobs AI took were the handoffs. The jobs it can't take are judgment, proof and relationships. Our team is busier than ever. Just at the front and back of the process. Cost per page for clients dropped 2 to 3x. Is your SEO team still built like it's 2020? ♻️ Repost if your team has already made this shift. P.S. Want to see the 3-person model on your own site? Join the 10 free articles Beta Program. Email [email protected] to see if you qualify.

My Ultimate SEO Tool Stack in our 2026 AI World: Now the layout fixes. Most SEO tool stacks are 12 tabs nobody opens. Mine is 8 slots. Each one has a single job. Ranking on Google isn't enough anymore. More buyers ask ChatGPT before they search. So the stack has to track both. Here's exactly what I'm running in 2026: 1. Ahrefs ↳ Backlink gaps against our top 3 competitors ↳ Brand Radar shows where AI mentions us 2. Semrush ↳ Keyword clusters mapped to search intent ↳ AI Visibility tracks our share of voice 3. Profound ↳ Tracks citations across ChatGPT and AI Overviews ↳ Shows which prompts we win or lose 4. Google Search Console ↳ Real clicks, queries and impressions ↳ Flags indexing problems before they cost traffic 5. GA4 ↳ AI referral traffic broken out by source ↳ Connects rankings to actual leads 6. Carbon (built in-house at TrioSEO) ↳ Takes a keyword to a publish-ready page ↳ Writes from real client proof, not filler 7. Screaming Frog ↳ Full crawl before every launch ↳ Catches schema, links and broken pages 8. ChatGPT + Perplexity ↳ We ask what buyers actually ask ↳ Then read the answer, not a report The weekly loop is simple. Find with Ahrefs and Semrush. Build with Carbon. Audit with Screaming Frog. Track with GSC, GA4 and Profound. Tools don't rank pages. Process does. Most teams pay for tools they never open. One owner per tool fixes most of that. We built Carbon because nothing else fit. What's one tool you'd cut from your stack? ♻️ Repost to help someone audit their SEO stack. P.S. Carbon's Beta Program is open. 10 free articles. Email [email protected] to apply.

Every page on this site was written by AI agents. No human writers. Google still rewarded it. Two years ago I'd have bet against that. I called AI content garbage. Publicly. A lot. Then we built Carbon and tested it on our own site first. Here's what happened. Case study 1: Our video game content site ↳ Built end to end by Carbon and Ember. Zero human writers. ↳ 750+ published pages. ↳ 2,000+ daily readers, averaging 1m 48s on the page. ↳ 144.5K AI citations a month across 237 cited pages. ↳ It kept growing straight through Google's June 2026 spam update. That was the stress test. No clients. Just traffic. So we put it to work for a real business. Case study 2: A specialty tax services firm ↳ We produced every page on their site, on their own domain. ↳ 43 qualified proposal requests in 90 days. ↳ AI traffic converted at 6.45%. Google traffic at 1.76%. ↳ AI was 4% of sessions but 14% of leads. ↳ Google clicks up 52%. Average position 14.3 to 10.3. ↳ 26 of 46 keywords in the top 10. 10 of them at #1. ↳ 1,885 AI citations. Daily citations went from 8 to 30. Here's what I took away. Spam updates don't punish AI. They punish slop. AI search traffic is small, but it converts hard. Citations move before traffic does. And a cheaper page means we can help smaller businesses. Would you have guessed AI traffic converts 3.5x better? ♻️ Repost if you still think AI content can't rank. P.S. Want to see what Carbon does on your site? Join the 10 free articles Beta Program. Email [email protected] to see if you qualify.

My SEO + GEO Content Calendar: (How I plan, create, and track content that ranks on Google AND gets cited by AI) This is the exact Google Sheet my team and I use to run SEO for my businesses and 40+ clients. It's not complicated. It's structured to remove the guessing, keep us consistent, and get results. In 2026 I added two new columns for AI search. Here's what each column means: 1. Keyword ↳ The primary keyword we're targeting ↳ Comes from our keyword research and clustering ↳ Prioritized by what we want to rank for most 2. Target Prompt (new for GEO) ↳ The question buyers actually ask ChatGPT or Google's AI ↳ Pulled from AI answers, Reddit threads and sales calls ↳ Shapes the direct answer at the top of the page 3. Group ↳ The month it gets published ↳ Keeps us on schedule and organized ↳ Shows how fresh each piece of content is 4. Format ↳ Blog post, service page, comparison, listicle, etc ↳ Tied directly to the search intent ↳ Based on the top 10 results and what AI cites 5. Style ↳ New page or an Update ↳ Decides which process it goes through next ↳ An update adds to content that already exists 6. Funnel ↳ BOFU vs MOFU vs TOFU ↳ Where the content falls in the funnel ↳ BOFU first, then work your way out 7. Rank ↳ The current Google rank of the content ↳ If it's ranking, we add the rank and a link to the article ↳ No rank means it's a brand new piece 8. AI Citations (new for GEO) ↳ Is it cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT or Perplexity? ↳ Tracked weekly in our AI visibility tools ↳ Not cited means we add clearer answers and more proof I organize it all here, then it goes into Airtable. That's where the content creation process starts. A content calendar isn't just "organization." It's a system that turns ideas into traffic, leads and sales. When you can see what's coming next, SEO stops feeling random. Consistency is still the real SEO superpower. What do you think? Would you add a column? ♻️ Repost to help others stay consistent with SEO. P.S. Want help with your SEO + GEO content? Join the 10 free articles Beta Program. Email [email protected] to see if you qualify.

If your blog gets traffic and no leads, today's newsletter is the fix. It's not the content. It's the page. And it takes about a month. Just posted.

New issue is live: 10,000 visitors a month and almost none of them became leads. The redesign that fixed it, the 7 design elements that convert, and why CRO now gets built into the page from day one. Free to read. Link below.

What makes the "Ultimate SEO" in 2026? You know, the SEO Marketer that's going to get you ranking on ChatGPT, AI tools, and still Google as well. You know, the one that's going to lean into AI for research, strategy, writing, and publishing...but w/out relying blindly on it. You know, the person that's obsessed with the data and using it to reverse engineer the algorithms. You know, the guy or gal that's just living, breathing, sleeping SEO and ranking on AI search. They're rare. But they exist. Here are the 10 traits I look for: 1. Ranks everywhere ↳ Google, ChatGPT and AI Overviews. All three. ↳ SEO and GEO aren't two jobs anymore. 2. AI-powered, not AI-blind ↳ Uses AI for research, outlines, drafts and publishing. ↳ Checks every fact before it ships. 3. Data-obsessed ↳ Lives in GSC, GA4 and AI visibility tools. ↳ Trusts the numbers over opinions. Including their own. 4. Reverse engineers the algorithms ↳ Studies what ranks and what AI actually cites. ↳ Then builds the pattern into every page. 5. Authority builder ↳ Earns links, Reddit threads, reviews and "Best X" mentions. ↳ AI looks off your site first. 6. Technical foundation ↳ Indexing, speed and schema handled. ↳ If Google and AI bots can't crawl it, nothing else matters. 7. Writes for humans ↳ Real voice. Real proof. Real opinions. ↳ Zero slop. 8. Thinks in revenue ↳ Rankings are the means. Leads are the point. ↳ Knows which pages actually make money. 9. Builds systems ↳ Turns every win into an SOP or a workflow. ↳ One great article is luck. A system is a business. 10. Lives and breathes it ↳ Reads every update. Tests everything. ↳ Never thinks they're done learning. The tools change every quarter. The habits don't. When I hire, I look for curiosity and data first. I can teach anyone the tools. Which of these 10 is the hardest to find? ♻️ Repost to help someone hire their next great SEO. P.S. Want an SEO system that already works this way? Join the 10 free articles Beta Program. Email [email protected] to apply.

October in one line: content is one layer of seven. Strategy. The page. The money. The measurement. And tomorrow, the design. The layer that decides whether all the others make you any money. Last issue of the month, tomorrow.

Tomorrow closes out October. The story of a blog with 10,000 visitors a month and almost no leads, the one-month redesign that fixed it without changing a word, and the 7 design elements that turn readers into leads. Saturday morning.

Most teams use Claude like a fancy keyword list generator. That’s the least valuable thing it does. The SEO tools give you data. Claude gives you reasoning on top of that data. Here’s how we run it for SEO and GEO: Step 1: Projects ↳ Load brand voice, top pages, and GSC exports ↳ Every chat starts with full context Step 2: Connectors ↳ Plug in GSC, GA4, Ahrefs, Semrush ↳ Ask which pages gained impressions but lost clicks Step 3: Skills ↳ Save your briefs, schema, and audit SOPs ↳ Same quality output on every single run Step 4: Claude Code ↳ Crawl for broken links and missing schema ↳ Schedule weekly reports and ship fixes as a CSV Step 5: GEO, get cited ↳ Answer the question in the opening ↳ ChatGPT pulls 44% of citations from a page’s first 30% Step 6: GEO, earn mentions ↳ Run your buyer prompts weekly and log who’s cited ↳ 85%+ of AI citations come from earned media AI doesn’t fix a broken SEO process. It just runs the broken one faster. Get the system right first. Then let Claude do the heavy lifting. Keep a human on strategy. Always. Which of these are you already using? ♻️ Repost to help someone in your network rank and get cited. P.S. We’re giving 10 free articles to brands in our Carbon Beta Program. DM to apply.