Growth Ghost

Growth Ghost: the leading coaching program for aspiring freelancer writers, 9-to-5ers, and digital writers. Teaching writers how to land high paying clients, scale their online ghostwriting business, and build a life they no longer feel the need to escape from.

50+ students served. Multi 7 figures in revenue generated for students. 

https://www.growthghost.com/optin1736208224612

Partner

Ghostlii Inc

The leading ghostwriting agency for founders, coaches, and personal brands.
50+ clients served. 200,000,000+ total impressions. 7 figures of revenue generated through social media content.
https://ghostlii.com/

Co-Founder

Centre for Arts and Technology

College Instructor

College teacher turned ghostwriter | Scaling founders, coaches, and consultants to $100K+ /mo | Writing to build wealth and better self | 98,000 on Twitter (X)

Taylin John Simmonds

My first ghostwriting client made me rich. Not with the money they paid me. But with the mindset shift they created in me.

When I first started, I’d see other ghostwriters online landing clients and think:

"Good for them. But could that ever be me?"

I acted on blind faith that if they could do it, so could I.

(Some Tony Robbin's sh*t, you know?)

But for six months, nothing happened.

No clients.
No money.

No proof it would work for me.

It made it hard to keep going when the only evidence I had what that it was possible for someone else.

But then, I landed my first client!

$0.50 per follower, which came out to about $3,000 a month.

That small win radically shifted my mindset.

I was no longer acting on possibility.
I was acting on probability.

A week later, I signed another client.

Within a few months, I was making over $10K a month from ghostwriting.

Looking back, this shift wasn’t just financial.

it was psychological.

Because when you get your first “yes,” everything you once doubted about yourself disappears.

You realize this isn’t just possible for others.

It’s possible for you.

That’s the moment your life changes.

Not because of the money but because you're no longer held back by disbelief.

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

College teacher turned AI assisted ghostwriter | Helping writers, creatives, and storytellers earn on the internet | 2 billion impressions | $4,000,000+ revenue generated | All in on Substack

In the last 60 days, I've gained 943 newsletter subs from organic content on Substack. No lead magnets. No trendjacking. Here's how I did it:

Most people on LinkedIn have no idea how f*cking incredible Substack is right now.

It's like LinkedIn 2023, only better because you attract subscribers instead of followers.

Imagine this:

You write a short social post—just like you would on LinkedIn—and it gets you 500 newsletter subscribers.

No lead magnet.
No DMs.
No funnels.

You write a newsletter that goes semi-viral, and it brings you new 80 subscribers, $1,000 in customer sales, and 2 podcast invites.

All from a newsletter that went viral on a social media timeline.

Then you launch a paid newsletter, where people happily pay you for your deepest work, and suddenly you’re earning $100 per day from content you’re already writing.

This isn’t theoretical.

Those are all real wins from my Substack.

I’m growing faster on Substack than I ever did on LinkedIn—just by repurposing my old content and adapting it to Substack’s culture.

My newsletters are going viral.

They’re attracting new clients, podcast invites, and collaborations every week.

My paid newsletter alone is on track to gross $4,000 this month.

This is insane.

If you’re a business owner, get on Substack.
If you’re a creator, get on Substack.
If you’re selling courses or digital products, get on Substack.

This platform is insane and it’s still early.

If you’re thinking about migrating, but aren't sure how Substack works, just comment "Substack" below.

I'll shoot over my free growth guide so you can make the most of Substack while it's easy.

Because once everyone figures it out, the easy growth window closes.

—Taylin

I didn’t start believing in myself because I had results. I started believing in myself because I ran out of reasons not to try.

Back in 2022, all I wanted was to make a living as a creative writer.

Not a novelist or a journalist.

Just someone who could write online and get paid for it (if it was even possible).

But everyone around me was saying the same thing:

"Writers don’t make real money."

Still, I kept seeing people on Twitter doing it, and a small part of me hoped that if they could pull it off, maybe I could too.

So I gave myself permission to write for one year straight.

After work.
On weekends.
After eight-hour days teaching college classes.

And I did all of that without earning a single dollar for 6 months.

No clients.
No validation.
Not even much traction on my posts.

Just a lot of self-doubt, 5-9 exhaustion, and the constant fear that I was wasting my time.

Then another ghostwriter referred me a client (thank god).

On the call, the client agreed to pay me fifty cents per follower.

When the Stripe invoice came through for $3,000, it pretty much broke my mind.
It was more than I made in a month as a teacher.

And that moment was all it took...

I finally had proof this path could work (for me).

Within 30 days, I landed two more clients and hit around $10K per month.

Looking back, the biggest shift wasn’t the money.

It was realizing that when you don’t have evidence something will work for you, you have to borrow evidence from people it already worked for.

That borrowed belief keeps you going long enough to get your own proof.

And once you get your first yes, it gets a lot harder to quit.

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

Many of LinkedIn’s biggest creators just joined Substack.

Are you going to join them or get left behind?

Whenever a new social platform is easy to grow on, the big creators quietly migrate there first.

They don’t talk about it.

Because they want to grow fast while the growth is easy.

Right now, Substack is that platform.

But why is it easy to grow on?

It's easy to grow on because there is more attention than quality content.

That means when you post something, it gets shown to more people and it stays visible for far longer.

On LinkedIn, my posts last roughly 3-7 day.
On Substack, my posts go viral for up to 40 days.

But how long will this easy growth last?

6 to 12 months (max).

Recently, Justin Welsh joined Substack.
Dan Koe joined Substack.
Dan Go joined Substack.
Naomi Kins joined Substack.

And if I had to guess, Lara Acosta will join soon too because she just launched a newsletter course. Which makes sense for her to sell on the platform.

It’s no coincidence.

All the big creators are moving quietly to Substack because it’s easier to grow and easier to go viral.

I’ve personally gained 1,000+ newsletter subscribers in the past 60 days from short Notes that take me two minutes to write.
I've landed 3 podcast appearances with top Substack creators.
I've gotten more inbound leads from Substack than LinkedIn.

Can a new creator easily do this on LinkedIn without jacking trends?

Not in 2025.
And it won't happen in 2026.

So you have a choice:

Wait around debating whether to join or make the move while growth is still easy.

I missed the early growth window on LinkedIn because I was too focused on X.

I’m not making that mistake again.

That’s why I’m all in on Substack.

P.S. I’m putting together a free Substack Growth Course that breaks down how I'm growing on the platform (because it is different from LinkedIn).

I'll be publishing it only on Substack, so if you want access when it drops, you can subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/gb6dr2mF

—Taylin

How to grow fast on LinkedIn. Don't. Just write on Substack instead. In 30 days, I gained 729 newsletter subs + $3,000 with a paid newsletter.

It got harder to grow fast on LinkedIn over the past year.

So I ran a five-month experiment to see what would happen if I went all-in on Substack, tried to grow, and launched a paid newsletter.

What happened surprised me.

Once I figured out how the platform worked, I started gaining 500–700 newsletter subscribers per month organically.

Think about that.

When was the last time you pulled 500+ newsletter subscribers on LinkedIn without a viral lead magnet or trendjacking?

This was all organic.
No lead magnets.

Just repurposed content from LinkedIn & X.

My most viral Substack post was literally a LinkedIn post I copied over. 
It brought in around 100 subscribers by itself.

If you’re already writing LinkedIn posts, there’s zero reason not to post them there and let the platform hand you free subscribers.

Then I launched a paid newsletter.

In 30 days, 48 people subscribed.

The dashboard says $6,260 annualized, and the actual cash received was around $2,000 USD.

But here’s the wild part:

People started DMing me asking for other things they could buy.

Now they want me to start a writing community.
I sold $1,000 worth of ghostwriting courses I don’t even have publicly available.
I booked 2 consulting calls worth $3,000–$5,000 each.

So in one month of a paid newsletter, I’ll probably end up with $3,000–$7,000 of additional revenue—completely outside of LinkedIn.

This is why I’m posting about Substack so aggressively.

It’s one of the best attention arbitrage opportunities on the internet right now.

It feels like early Twitter.
It feels like early LinkedIn.
And people on LinkedIn are completely sleeping on it.

They’re not growing on Substack.
They’re not using a paid newsletter as an intro product to sell courses, coaching, or services.

It’s insane.

And the excuse is always:

“I don’t have time. I’m focused on LinkedIn.”

That’s exactly what I used to say—right before LinkedIn got hard.

I’m not making that mistake again.

If you try Substack for 30 days, you’ll be shocked at how much faster you grow your audience and your business.

I put together a free Substack growth guide—you shouldn’t have to pay for the basics. 
I’ll link it at the bottom of this post.

I’m going to keep FOMO’ing you into existence until you finally get on this platform and take advantage of it.

You probably have 6–12 months.

Stop grinding on LinkedIn for 100 followers a month.
At least give Substack a shot.

Free Substack growth guide: https://lnkd.in/gffnDFcD

—Taylin

I’m building my paid Substack newsletter to 500 subs in public. I launched 7(ish) days ago. The update: Paid subs: 24; Revenue: $1,079.25

I looked at the market—most people price their paid tier at $5/month.

Then I asked myself:

“What would I need to offer to price mine 4x higher?”

My answer came in two parts:

1) Value proposition

Help new writers earn $1,000+/month writing online

2) Deliverables

* Weekly custom GPTs & prompt flows (the same ones I’m using now)
* Biweekly manifestos (more in-depth than most people’s courses)
* AI-assisted writing manifestos
* Monetization roadmaps on money models, offer stacks, and marketing ecosystems
* Monthly live Q&A calls (no selling, just having fun and shooting the shit)

With this setup, I can grow revenue 4x faster per subscriber.

That’s what I recommend to new writers with smaller audiences—you don’t need a ton of subs, just high trust per sub. (More on that another time.)

This week’s marketing breakdown (rough numbers):

I built no hype. Did no prelaunch.

Just woke up, decided to launch a paid tier. And launched it by end of day (my attempt at not overthinking it haha).

* One scrappy launch newsletter → 4 subs
* One email to previous buyers → 7 subs
* One email to subscribers with 4–5 star activity scores → 5 subs
* Two paid newsletters with paywalls → ~5 subs
* One Substack Live with Landon Poburan → ? subs

Hard to track where the rest came from.

Next steps:

1. Finish the new AI workflow for writing long form content (relevant to LinkedIn as well)

2. Release the next roadmap: *How to get 100 paid subscribers on Substack in 3–6 months*

3. Host one Substack Live per week to build trust faster (some fun collabs coming up)

That’s it.

If you found this valuable, let me know. It helps me decide whether to keep doing this series weekly.

PS - Substack feels like early Twitter with a newsletter option. It's an arbitrage opportunity for the right creators/founders who get in early. 

We're looking for a few founders or coaches who want us to grow their presence on Substack. Done-for-you content creation and lead generation. Send me a message if that's you.

—Taylin

I just learned this crazy idea from a Harvard Psychiatrist: It’s called Cognitive Drain. And it’s why most people are exhausted 24/7.

Every single:

* Undone task
* Unrealized goal
* Unfinished project

Is causing your brain to leak mental energy.

Basically, your brain is a dusty PC running Windows 99 with 100 tabs open.

No wonder most people are so burnt out.

They're not tired because of working too much.

You’re tired because of *thinking* about too much.

Psychiatrist, Dr. K says there are only two ways to get your energy back:

1) Relieve - finish, delegate, or delete a task

2) Grieve - accept you'll never do it and let it go (goodbye my dream of being a famous DJ)

Grieving might sound dramatic, but it's what unburdens your mind.

If you’re still clinging to a version of yourself who “should” have achieved something by now, that’s energy trapped in a closed loop.

If you're still day dreaming about a goal you haven't worked towards in years, that's wasted focus and mental bandwidth.

Exhaustion doesn’t only come from doing too much.

It comes from carrying too much sh*t in your head.

You might not need to rest more.

Just try thinking less. Committing less. And grieving more (I recommend a weekly journaling practice).

It's the only way to free up bandwidth for what truly matters.

—Taylin

♻️ Repost. Follow Taylin John Simmonds for more on how to earn as an AI assisted ghostwriter without sacrificing income or your love of hard shell tacos.

I have 37,892 LinkedIn followers. I earn more per month from my 5,724 subs on Substack.

What? How?!

Too many people still believe the “big audience = big income” myth.

I did too.

I optimized for LinkedIn virality earlier this year.
I wrote posts I didn’t like.
I told myself the money would show up once the numbers got big enough.

Spoiler:
It never did.

I didn't realize what actually happens when you chase audience size:

You create content for dopamine, not depth.
You grow followers, not trust.

You’re “known,” but not believed.

And without belief, nobody buys.
Nobody invests.

Nobody respects you as an authority.

So I decided to try a different strategy on Substack and this is what I learned:

You don’t need a big audience.
You need high trust per follower.

Because one person who trusts you is worth more than a hundred who barely register your existence.

I have 100,000 followers on X. 
37,892 on LinkedIn.

I have 5,724 subscribers on Substack.

Guess where most of my money comes from?

Substack.

Because that’s where I write what I actually care about:
Creating your life's work.

That’s where I build trust instead of reach:
Publishing hour long podcasts (you might like them).

And trust converts at a level many “big audience” people never experience.

When someone trusts you, they buy the expensive thing.

They tell their friends.
They get excited to work with you.

You don’t need thousands of customers.
You need a few hundred believers.

Stop trying to get famous.
Start trying to get trusted.

That's the real game where you can actually win.

PS. In the past 30 days, I got 700 new newsletter subscribers from organic content on Substack.

If you don't want to miss out, here's a free guide on how to do the same:
https://lnkd.in/gffnDFcD

—Taylin

CEO @ uSERP — Your SEO & Link Building Growth Partners | Hiring! | Forbes 30 under 30 | We'll scale your SEO-driven revenue 10x faster than hiring in-house

• WHAT I DO: 
Founder and CEO at uSERP, a 55+ person agency. We earn SaaS companies high authority backlinks on the most coveted websites, like Qualtrics, Crunchbase, G2, HubSpot, and thousands more. And we do it all through digital PR and SEO strategy.

• HOW I DO IT: 
1. We don't just "build links" — we earn them through stellar content, relationships, and pitches
2. Strategize how to leverage link building for the biggest impact on traffic, rankings, revenue
3. Audit, analyze, and improve your SEO from technical to on-page to off-page
4. Scale high authority backlinks that 99% of brands won't get on their own

• AWARDS

- Ranked #1 link building agency by: Single Grain, Codeless, Growth Ramp, SEO For Growth, Respona, Noupe, and top ranked Colorado SEO agency by Design Rush.

• NEXT STEPS?

Message me on Linkedin or jeremy@userp.io and let's chat!

• TESTIMONIALS 

Zoe Dayan, Content Marketing Manager, monday.com: 

"By far the best decision we’ve made. The results have been amazing. SEO takes very long, but with a clear SEO strategy that they helped to shape, we really have seen results within a month. So that's extremely, extremely rare."

——————————————

Andy Crestodina, Founder and CMO at Orbit media:

"Get uSERP on your team before one of your competitors does. I've never seen quality link building scale up like this." 

——————————————

Adam Enfroy, Founder at adamenfroy.com 

“uSERP is the only reliable, consistent, clean, and by-the-book digital PR and SEO team I trust. Teaming up with 𝐮𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐏 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝟓𝟎𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎+ 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 in less than two years.”

——————————————

Garit Boothe, Nav.com:

"My number one keyword target was 'business credit cards.' With uSERP's help scaling strategy and brand mentions, I outranked NerdWallet and CreditCards.com with 70% fewer backlinks than competitors recommended."


——————————————

Mark Spera, Founder at Growth Marketing Pro and GrowthBar

"uSERP has helped us achieve huge organic growth across our blog and our SEO tool, GrowthBar. Working with them is like having a scrappy extension of your team. These guys are growth-minded operators."


——————————————

Caleb Frankel, Founder of EarlyBird

"We've gone from an unknown brand in the space to one that is thought of as a market leader, competing with NerdWallet. We've seen our site traffic increase from nothing to 70,000 organic visitors per month in 16 months."

——————————————

Kathryn Kosmides, Propel PLM:

"These are some of the greatest results I've seen coming from a backlinking campaign"

Jeremy Moser

When the CMO at Semrush (Andrew Warden) tells you backlinks matter and influence visibility, you listen. 

Links = more visibility in AI models, by whatever category you want to place it in.

This shouldn't be a shocking revelation given LLMs and AI are… pulling data from search engines and spitting it back out to you in conversational formats.

Platforms may shift but the core of marketing has been the same for an unfathomable amount of time.

It’s not that complicated.

Acquire exceptional links and you will rank better in traditional search and have massive AI visibility. 

Links are and have always been king.

Yes, other optimization tactics and strategies help and work. But links are still the 80/20 of results in both traditional SEO and AI visibility. 

Authority >

Peace ✌

CEO @ uSERP — The Link Building Agency You Hire When ROI is Priority #1 | Forbes 30 under 30

I posted this on Linkedin 2 years ago. 

And it still reigns true today…


I truly cannot count the amount of companies I spoke to 2-3 years ago (I’ve done, not exaggerating, thousands of sales calls as founder of my agency) who said something along the lines of:

“We’re not doing SEO because ChatGPT.” 

That was two years ago! And guess what? Those brands are either defunct or barely afloat, getting crushed by competitors.

Ironic, too, as their chief hesitation was actually dead-wrong: SEO and LLMs go hand in hand.

If they simply did great SEO for the last two years, they'd be reaping the rewards of AI visibility as we speak. Instead, they now have no SEO and no AI presence. 

Ouch.

All the brands that just kept plugging away at SEO with us, or new brands that started SEO with us 2 years ago despite the AI hype at the time, are crushing it with BOTH traditional SEO and AEO. 

There will ALWAYS be a news blurb, a hype cycle, a shiny object, a reason to convince yourself not to invest in SEO.

Back then it was TikTok searches on the rise. Before that it was voice search. Before that it was a billion other reasons. 

Yet the folks who simply ignored that have been laughing all the way to the bank. They are lining their pockets, growing their business valuations, and driving record profits as you spend years fussing over the decision to finally invest in the channel. 

And in that time, they’ve had years and years of effort to built a moat, competitor free. 

Inaction is crushing your business. Spending months to years toiling over investing $10k/mo in the channel is costing you $100k/mo in lost revenue.

The longer you continue to wait, the harder it will be to capture SEO and AI visibility. 

If you’re sitting there making the same mistake these brands did years ago, now realizing that good AI SEO is 95% simply doing good traditional SEO, you must be kicking yourself.

Stop trying to be the 0.001% stock trader by timing the market. You can’t. It’s about TIME IN THE MARKET. 

You are likely flushing cash down the drain monthly on plenty of tools, services, and expenses that aren’t driving any ROI.

Shift those areas of waste into SEO, stick with it for the next year, and watch as your revenue climbs.

I recently dove into Semrush One… and it’s an absolute GOLDMINE when it comes to search and AI visibility. 

It pulls up the exact prompt you are looking at, displaying the most common ChatGPT response to that prompt, as well as an exact breakdown of the brands mentioned and sources cited. 

It also tells you exactly how ChatGPT arrived at that conclusion and what data it sourced. 

Meaning your job is now to turn those sources into link building and brand mention targets – get your brand cited on those Source domains and you’ll start showing up for that core prompt. 

Rinse and repeat for all prompts in the tool for your brand. 

Purpose-built for how people search, Semrush One gives you visibility across every channel, AI or SEO. 

I am seriously blown away by how great this is.

Optimizing for LLMs isn’t as complicated as many folks on LinkedIn will have you believe. 

If you want to be visible in AI search, prioritize optimizing for ChatGPT first. Why? 

• ChatGPT owns 90% of the LLM market share 
• It has 10% of the total organic search right now
• If you’re already doing good SEO practices, you should be solid in Gemini and AI Overviews

My AI SEO approach… 

1.Look for prompts where you’re not showing up. 
2.See which URLs your competitors are appearing with. If you have a similar URL, optimize it. If you don’t, create it. 

LLM adoption will continue to increase in 2026. 

The best way to stand out in all the AI noise? Have a good brand, build a good product, create good content, show up where your audience is, and the rest will follow.

Here are 11 SEO & AEO tactics that are working right now for 100+ of my clients: 




1.) Comparison content. Comparing X brand to Y brand. Listing + reviewing multiple brands in a “best of” list while adding your brand into the conversation. Not only is Google showing more of this intent in SERPs, LLMs are citing these VERY often in decision making for buying conversations.

2.) Make your knowledge base content center discoverable, optimized, and indexed. Create conversational long-tail pages that read like follow-up QAs from LLM chats.
 
3.) LLMs in my testing are more frequently citing sources for research-stage content, even at the very basic informational level. While you can’t expect clicks or direct ROI tied to this, there is a strong correlation in our 100+ clients in regard to authoritative informational content + rankings for BOFU terms.

4.) Good backlinks. And I mean VERY GOOD backlinks. DR scores and traffic are ok metrics, but they are often gamed. Is the site actually good. Do you know the brand. Do they get cited as a source in LLMs often? Do they rank organically for competitive terms? That’s a good domain. DR90 but ranks for nothing? Bogus. The former are the only links worth getting or you’re simply burning budget.
 
5.) Getting seen in Google and chat often comes down to how many Qs a page answers. If you cover the conversational questions others skip, you will see ranking improvements. 

6.) Build and engage in communities online authentically. Stop trying to spam reddit with bogus accounts, that is not going to improve AI visibility, and you can’t scale it. 

7.) Land listicle mentions on 3rd party sites that rank services, products, and solutions in your space. Specifically on LLM cited pages for a dual channel impacts. 

8.) Similar to 7, reverse-engineer citations for buying conversations on LLMs in your space and use those as link building targets — again, a double benefit of traditional SEO and AEO

9.) Increase branded search as much as possible. The more direct searches for your brand name, the stronger the correlation with SEO rankings and AEO citations. Correlation does not equal causation but there is a monstrous correlation between branded search volume + ability to rank fast for competitive keywords, AND for Ai visibility in market, too.

10.) Stop focusing on “keyword difficulty”, crazy outdated metric that ain’t gonna do much for you, and look at topic authority. What pages and topic clusters rank well for you in comparison to others? Focus on those and triple down, you can rank in these spaces with far less authority and effort. 
 
11.) Less content pages, more page depth. AEO “topics” are dense clusters of questions. Instead of creating dozens of pages targeting varying questions, create one dense page answering all similarly grouped questions based on intent. 

Just a glimpse of a few things that are working and mutually impact both your traditional SEO efforts and Ai visibility efforts, too. 

Cheers ✌️

I’ve used 100s of SEO + content tools over the last few years… 

Only a few are truly worth the money. 

Here’s a roundup of 7 Black Friday deals that I’ll be shopping this year: 

1. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) — Up to 65% off Pro plans
2. Kinsta® — 6 months free off any plan
3. SE Ranking — 20% off all annual subscriptions 
4. Riverside — 35% off yearly Pro, Live, and Webinar plans. Code: BF2025.
5. Mangools — 35% off any SEO plan + 50% off LLM rank tracking when you bundle. 
6. Taplio (lemlist) — 30% off all plans. Code: BF30. 
7. SEO Power Plays - DM me to get access to our exclusive holiday sponsorships deals. 

📌 Get access to all the tools here:
1. AIOSEO — https://lnkd.in/ehyQPVnh 

2. Kinsta — https://lnkd.in/em8-hVhP

3. SE Ranking — https://lnkd.in/e6zcVDPk

4. Riverside — https://lnkd.in/eejihMHQ

5. Mangools — https://lnkd.in/e5Sr3aVY

6. Taplio — https://lnkd.in/eCUQKVV4

7. SEO Power Plays - https://bit.ly/4p2Hwyg

7 Best Black Friday Deals for Marketers

Very few understand SEO at all, let alone AEO, LLMs.

I've had dozens of leads from top brands message me saying...

"We're not interested in authority links. We want more offsite citations."

That's a real, verbatim quote. 

This is one of the biggest problems with AEO right now. 

Too many grifters are spewing new jargon-heavy terms, rebranding what already exists and works to appease C-suite execs trying to capture lightning in a bottle from the latest shiny object. 

Offsite citations...that is just link building, brand mention building, forum discussions, unclaimed mentions, etc, repackaged. 

These tactics are off-page SEO fundamentals 101.

I've been building links on "best XYZ" listicles for a decade because it worked. And it still works, and is now critically important in showing up in conversational searches with LLMs, too.

Heck, LLMs will literally give you a source list to show the decision making process. Those "citations" are your link building targets.

Shocker, there is overlap and certain strategies benefit efforts on both platforms!

These platforms are symbiotic, not mutually exclusive. This is not a zero sum game. You don't "ditch the old SEO for AI". They work together (or should) in your strategy now. 

And this is great news!!

If you are being sold the idea that "old SEO is gone" and "new SEO is AI" you are being sold an oceanfront property in Arizona. Doesn't exist. 

Conversely, if you are being sold the idea that AI is a fad and won't stick around, the same holds true.

Without any organic, traditional SEO presence, you are almost never going to show up in LLM conversations. 

And without an effort to impact and increase your AI visibility, you are going to hinder brand presence and share of voice on a platform that your users are engaging with. 

Good SEO benefits AI visibility. And AI efforts return the benefit back. 

Why is the current narrative pitting these two platforms against each other as if you should ignore one in favor of the other and expect to win in todays market? 

You can do both, folks. 

In fact, you are already doing (though not maximizing) AEO if you simply are doing the same SEO you did last month. 

This one-or-the-other narrative is getting tiresome. 

The brands that rightfully treat these efforts as symbiotic will win in 2026.

“We can’t find good link builders!”

...caps budget at $350 a link and picks the cheapest firm.

People want elite links, especially since top-tier links increase LLM citations heavily, BUT they don’t want to pay what elite links actually cost.

So they force link builders to cram high quality work into a price ceiling they decided was “fair” (made up in their mind) — without ever spending a single day trying to earn links themselves 🙃

Let’s break down what a $300–$500 max per link actually gets you...

Because here’s what real link building actually costs, from someone who has done this for a decade and scaled it from a few links per week to 100+ clients doing high volume, high quality links. 

I know the math, the COGS, all by heart. It's literally my business to know it.

1. Running SEO software (that isn’t cheap and goes up in cost weekly at this point) to analyze the niche and opportunities

2. Building a vetted list of credible, authoritative, non-competing sites — again, using more paid software

3. Using pricey, credit-based tools to find accurate emails for those targets, then using another pricey credit-based tool to clean the list and ensure no spam

4. Using more paid outreach tools to send targeted campaigns, spinning up multiple domains, multiple G-suites (more money, yay!)

5. Paying a very good copywriter to craft the outreach and sequences (more money, yay!)

6. Reviewing responses and re-qualifying sites (half will be link farms or demand cash)

7. If accepted, spending an hour researching their site to pitch 5–10 viable topics

8. Once approved, creating a content brief with more expensive tools (yay!)

9. Paying a subject matter expert writer to produce a quality 2,000+ word article (this alone costs more already than the max per link ceiling most people randomly make up in their head as "fair" LOL)

10. Going through 1–3 rounds of edits because great sites actually care about the content they publish (if yours don't, you are getting absolute trash can quality links 🙃)

10.5 Hoping the link stays live — and eating the loss if the publisher removes it...think of a grocery store, some foods go rotten and you must account for that as inevitable losses on your balance sheet, link builders do the same. 

That's all for 1 type of link building and doesn't price in connections with journalists, publishers, etc, that have been fostered for 10yrs: priceless.

Yet most people cap their budget at $300–$500 because that number “feels fair”…

…then complain they aren’t getting Forbes-level placements.

If you want a 2,500-word editorial masterpiece on the best site, perfectly contextualized to link back to you, it won't be cheap.

And that's the point and the value: it's HARD AS HECK to get.

Which is EXACTLY why top-tier links drive rankings: not everyone can simply snap their fingers and get one.

Going to build links? Quality is the goal. Stop stressing quantity + cost per link. 10 links from top domains > 500 links from OK domains.

"SEO changes fast. Google updates their algorithm daily…”

False.

Google’s algorithm “changes” daily (or so they say…), but SEO does not change fast. 

For example, links are still the #1 factor. Have been forever. 

Want to rank for high level business keywords? Almost impossible without good links.

The websites that have won in the past and will continue to win in the blended Google and AI future have done 4 distinct things...


1. Created an easy to navigate, organized, fast website with a positive user experience (technical SEO)

2. Created interesting, truly helpful content from a subject matter expert angle that matches the intent of the researcher (content) 

3. Promoted that content to earn links, mentions, citations, build authority, and grow their brand in the eyes of consumers (link building / pr / brand)

4. Did the above steps for a LONG time and did not ever stop putting budget behind it due to fear of algorithm updates 

We tend to overcomplicate SEO.

Yes, algorithms do change, for example quality links have become more important than just links overall, but the core foundations of SEO don't. 

You can give yourself stress and anxiety by reading SEO news, or you can just tune it out and put your nose to the grindstone and actually do the work that will always be needed.

Thanksgiving table checklist today 🦃🥧:

✔ Turkey
✔ Mashed potatoes
✔ Family
✔ Someone inevitably asking what "link building" and "SEO" are
✔ Me giving a 40-minute TED Talk on importance of authority backlinks
✔ Grandma whispering "since you're so good at the internet, can you fix my phone?"

Weekends are built for:

✅ Time with friends and family
✅ Long walks outside
✅ Recharging your batteries
❌ But then you remember your backlink profile needs help
❌ And suddenly you’re three espresso shots deep, analyzing anchor text ratios instead of touching grass

If I were Director of SEO at a $50m SaaS with a $50k/mo budget, here’s how I’d spend it to drive pipeline:

 • $20K – Quality link building

Still the most underused lever in SaaS. Now more important than ever with its massive impact on LLM and AI visibility. 

You won't beat competitors' LLM share of voice without top-tier links. 

In 2025, search visibility is a combo of Google rankings AND citations in ChatGPT, etc. When you ask LLMs about "best XYZ solution" they are pulling sources. You need to show up on those sources. Aka link building.

Focus on:
 - Editorial links in relevant content 
 - Links on "source" URLs for LLMs
 - Podcast placements
 - Quote outreach 

I’ve seen this strategy play out repeatedly with our clients at uSERP. Link velocity + smart targeting = compounding rankings and more AI inclusion. We even do this for ourselves and get many sales qualified leads per month from ChatGPT now.

 • $10K – High-quality, SEO-driven content (3–4 pieces/month)

Content is still the engine, but volume isn’t the strategy. Every piece needs to drive revenue or reinforce a core funnel motion. Prioritize BoFu and decision-stage content with embedded video, smart internal linking, and strong CTAs.

We made this switch with client content, going from high volume 50 per month to just a few per month that spoke directly to the ideal customer profile with authority. Guess what? More SQLs than ever before. 

Stop spending ~$500 an article. Spend 3-4x that per article and actually see its impact. 

I’d also invest in original studies since these are link magnets and keep bringing in revenue long after its initial investment.

 • $5K – AEO

This is where most SaaS companies are behind. LLMs are a popular tool for discovery, but most content isn’t optimized to show up.

I’d rework key pages with:
 - Structured TL;DRs
 - Semantic formatting
 - Question-based headers
 - Schema markup
 - Quote-worthy language

 • $10K – Founder + employee content

Build a light async workflow to produce LinkedIn posts, prep short-form clips, and turn founder POVs into weekly newsletters. It builds authority, attracts talent, and feeds the pipeline.

It can be as simple as sharing what you’re doing to grow your company or your clients’ companies. 

Next, get your team involved, too. Encourage them to share their expertise. Team-level posting is compound interest. 

 • $5K – Video

 Turn top performing content into video explainers, walkthroughs, reels, and testimonials. It keeps people on your site longer and multiplies distribution without creating new assets from scratch.

Also, tons of high-value keywords are getting 1st page video placements – get there first and you can rank faster with video AND content. Double-win.

What would you add in if it was your budget to spend? Let me know 👇

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