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

3 years ago, a friend lent me $40K to pay off my debt. So I could focus on business.

2 years ago, I offered to pay it back. He said no. Reinvest. Pay me later. 1 year ago, first payment. 

Yesterday, I paid him back!

Find the people who bet on you before it makes sense. Then spend your life proving them right.

College teacher turned Substack ghostwriter | Thoughts about craft, ideas, and AI as a creative partner (not a replacement) | 2B impressions | $4M+ revenue generated | All in on Substack

One pattern I’ve noticed in all the people that inspire me: They live a diverse life.

They layer unrelated skills. 
Read widely. 
And have friends you'd rarely see together. 

A rich life isn't only about money. It's about the range of experiences that made you who you are.

Stop calling yourself a content creator. Content creators chase algorithms. You're cultivating a body of work.

You're not in the content game. You're in the depth game.

And depth doesn't scale. It compounds.

I'm noticing a quiet rebellion against balance. 

People who disappear into their craft. 12, 15 hours a day for weeks. Then step back completely. No guilt. No routine. No splitting the difference. Full immersion, then full recovery. 

Seasons, not schedules.

You don't actually want to stop working. You just haven't found work worth your devotion.

The goal isn't to do less. It's to care so deeply about one thing that everything else becomes noise.

Find that thing. Then you'll never need convincing to start.

Everyone's trying to escape work. Fewer hours. Passive income. Early retirement. That's not freedom. That's avoidance.

You don't want to do less. You want something worth pouring everything into. Work that's worthy of your full attention, your full energy, your full devotion.

Find that first.

If AI is speeding up your writing process, you're using it wrong.

AI should slow you down. Stress-test your ideas. Pressure-test your arguments. Find the angle that actually matters before you write a word.

The bottleneck was never your writing speed. It was your thinking clarity.

You don't need 100 clients. You need a handful of the right ones and the devotion to serve them so well they never want to leave.

No empire. No team of 30. No "scaling to seven figures."

Just craft you're proud of and a livelihood that lets you live well.

A book you highlighted but never practiced is a book you never read.

Understanding doesn't live in the notes you took.

It lives in the choices you made differently afterward.

A life-changing habit I picked up recently: Fifteen minutes of breath work before work.

The breath brings me out of my head and into stillness. A stillness that makes creative work feel effortless.

Your best work is hiding behind the ritual you're skipping.

The real value in the AI age isn't what you know. It's who you can inspire.

Give them an aim, a compelling reason, and the next small step when everything feels overwhelming.

If you want to matter in the AI age, don't just share knowledge. 
Lend direction.

You're behind because you've never given 100% of yourself to the thing you care about.

Subtract everything that isn't it. Give it everything you have. Not 40%. Not most days. Everything.

You've never seen what happens when you actually commit. Find out.

Helping brands get rankings and revenue from Google, LLMs, AI Overviews | CEO of Contact.so | Mentions.so | Kleo.so

I help tech companies turn attention into predictable revenue.I am the CEO and co-founder of: • Contact (Most innovative SEO + AEO Agency in the World) • Kleo (AI tool that helps you create content optimized to go viral, build an audience, and get you customers)• Mentions (Helps you track your visibility and rank in ChatGPT and other LLMs)Across these businesses, we’ve built and scaled multiple bootstrapped, profitable companies, while also helping dozens of teams grow through SEO, LinkedIn, and AI-driven distribution.Most teams have the same problem: they invest in content, rankings, or social, but none of it compounds into a reliable acquisition engineMy work focuses on building distribution systems that actually scale:• Programmatic SEO and AEO that compounds• Organic content and distribution designed to convert, not just get likes• Content that helps you rank and get recommended by ChatGPT and other LLMsI work with tech teams and founders who want predictable growth without hiring massive teams or chasing tactics that stop working in six months.Here on LinkedIn, I share what we’re learning while building and scaling these companies, so other founders can avoid the mistakes that slow growth and waste years.My goal is simple: be the most transparent founder in the world, share everything, and hide nothing (so you can steal all our tactics to grow your own business) If you’re building a real business and care about predictable demand, following me will be useful.☎️GETTING IN TOUCH IS EASY:📞 Schedule a 30-minute free brainstorm and jam session with me here: https://calendly.com/trykleo/30min (Zero pressure, and if you need to reschedule, go right ahead.)

Rob Hoffman

SEO?
“Just add some keywords”
”Get green lights on Yoast”
”Let’s write a blog and rank #1?”
”Can’t we just buy some backlinks?”

But SEO in 2026 is a totally different beast.

Here’s what it actually involves:

- Total Addressable Search Market
- Google Search Console
- “Don’t change URLs”
- Quick win keywords
- Customer research
- Programmatic SEO
- Entity optimization
- LLM optimization
- Keyword Insights
- Topical authority
- Site architecture
- Schema markup
- Core Web Vitals
- Monthly reports
- Log file analysis
- Google updates
- Brand mentions
- Screaming Frog
- Technical audit
- Content decay
- Internal linking
- XML Sitemaps
- Topic clusters
- “llms.txt file?”
- Search intent
- Link building
- “It depends”
- Crawlability
- Canonicals
- Robots.txt
- Digital PR
- Mentions
- Semrush
- E-E-A-T

Just adding keywords or getting green lights on Yoast doesn't get SEO results.

True SEO and holistic marketing does.

PS. Want to see what SEO in 2026 looks like?

Join our first ever LIVE session later today. RSVP here (it’s free): https://lnkd.in/eiF7S-yM

Daily tactics to grow revenue with organic content and AEO / SEO. | My businesses: Contact.so | Mentions.so | Kleo.so (all bootstrapped, all profitable, all growing)

"I don't know how to do SEO in 2026"

Start from level 1 in The New SEO Game:

SEO isn't just Google rankings anymore.

It's now "Search Everywhere Optimization".

Reframe your “New SEO” project as a game, and you'll become addicted to levelling up.

Level 1: Traditional SEO

- Fix technical problems killing your rankings
- Research keywords and target quick wins
- Optimize on-page elements (titles, content)
- Earn quality backlinks through outreach and PR

Level 2: AI Search Optimization

- Format content so AI can parse it easily
- Build pages that AI platforms want to cite
- Structure information for machine consumption
- Test how your brand appears in AI search results

Level 3: Paid Search Visibility

- Run Google Ads for high-intent keywords
- Target competitor terms with YouTube Search Ads
- Capture Bing traffic through Microsoft Ads
- Measure paid performance across every platform

Level 4: LLM Answer SEO

- Produce authoritative content LLMs trust
- Build a knowledge base for AI training data
- Position your brand as the definitive source
- Monitor brand mentions in LLMs with Mentions

Level 5: Brand Authority SEO

- Get unlinked brand mentions across the web
- Feature in industry roundups and expert lists
- Build brand recognition without traditional backlinks
- Track brand mention volume and sentiment

Level 6: Community SEO

- Provide value in relevant Reddit threads
- Share expertise on Quora in your space
- Engage in Slack communities and Discord servers
- Build reputation in industry forums and groups

Level 7: Parasite SEO

- Repurpose content on Medium and LinkedIn Pulse
- Publish beehiiv newsletters to rank in Google
- Guest post on high-authority platforms/websites
- Leverage existing domain authority for quick rankings

Level 8: Platform-Specific SEO

- Optimize for Amazon search if selling products
- Focus on YouTube SEO for video content
- Master TikTok's algorithm for short-form content
- Optimize App Store listings for apps/extensions

Level 9: Topic Domination

- Own conversations across ALL channels
- Create content ecosystems to reinforce each platform
- Become the go-to expert mentioned everywhere
- Monitor and maintain authority across all channels

Completed all levels?

SEO is constantly evolving in 2026.

Stay ahead or get left behind.

PS. Need help levelling up?

Join our first ever SaaS SEO in 2026 LIVE session tomorrow, March 4th. 
RSVP here (it’s free): https://lnkd.in/eiF7S-yM

We analysed 1,000s of AI answers to find out how LinkedIn content can improve your AI visibility.

Semrush found that LinkedIn is the 2nd most cited website in AI answers (behind Reddit).

But their only other insight?

"LinkedIn: A steady rise across all AI platforms"

So we went much deeper with Mentions and analysed 4.8M AI answers and 13.4M citations.

Here are 7 key insights we found:

1. Almost half (42.5%) of all AI prompts we’re tracking cite LinkedIn at least once. Huge reach for a single platform.

2. AI citations of LinkedIn grew by 72% in just 6 months. AI tools are finding and using LinkedIn content more every month.

3. 85% of LinkedIn citations come from Google’s AI products (AI Mode and Overviews). Using LinkedIn for AI visibility is mostly playing a Google game.

4. LinkedIn Pulse articles get 8x more citations than regular LinkedIn posts. Long articles work way better than short posts for AI visibility.

5. LinkedIn Pulse articles are doing two things at once: They help content rank on Google and then get picked up by AI answers.

6. Company pages get cited more often than any other LinkedIn page type. If your company page ranks well, it is cited more consistently by AI.

7. AI loves LinkedIn most when people ask about people, companies, experience, and practical advice.

Here are the types of prompts where AI is most likely to pull from LinkedIn (from highest to lowest):

- Hiring and HR questions (69.17%)
- Real examples and case studies (65.12%)
- “Who is this person or company?” (58.89%)
- Learning and training topics (57.04%)
- Software and tools (56.10%)
- “Why” questions (54.76%)
- “How” questions (49.72%)
- “Best” or “top” lists (48.92%)
- Recommendations (48.59%)
- Reviews and opinions (48.21%)
- Comparisons (47.35%)
- “What” or “which” questions (45.14%)
- Everything else (33.34%)

We’re currently building an AI visibility strategy for beehiiv using these exact insights.

Worth sharing the process in real-time?

Our SEO Agency is trending on X News right now... last time this happened the CEO of Google himself weighed in.

If you haven't seen it yet, Jake Ward published a controversial article yesterday.

It breaks down his AI-powered SEO experiment that will likely redefine how founders think about organic content and SEO in 2026.

So far, the results are insane:

- +466% SEO traffic growth in 60 days
- 13,000+ pages published in just 3 hours
- 50% of those pages aren't even indexed yet

People think SEO is slow. But this proves it could be the fastest growth channel for startups in 2026.

The two biggest takeaways for founders looking to invest in this growth channel:

1. Content today is built like software, not written.
2. People want to interact with content, not read it.

I've talked to dozens of founders over the past weeks, and one thing is clear…

Most know this is a growth channel they can't miss out on, but have no idea where to start.

If that sounds like you, or you’re wondering whether this would work for your site, DM me or book a call (link in comments).

I called my shot last year, then spent 183 days making it happen:

Launched 2 businesses in 4 cities and hit $75k MRR.

I lived out of a suitcase, built in public, experienced setbacks, took massive risks…

But here’s what calling my shot has made painfully clear:

1. Define the shot before you take it

I asked myself: What would the best 6 months of my life look like?

I wrote down the answer. Then showed it to my co-founder, Jake:

"We’ll spend 6 months moving from city to city, meeting interesting people. Launch two businesses and grow them fast. Build in public, and get invited on all the podcasts we've been fans of for years."

And it all came true.

You can't call your shot if you don't have total clarity on what it is. Write it down. Make it specific. Then do it.

2. Go to where the interesting people are

Whatever shot you're calling, you will need people.

I spent 6 months moving from city to city, connecting with unique and talented people.

The people I met ended up becoming my co-founders, clients, and team members.

Moving cities is your competitive advantage because so few people are willing to do it.

3. Be the first to drink the Kool-Aid

People want to join a mission and get excited about something. So don't be afraid to sell it.

You may never arrive at the original destination, but here's a secret: nobody cares.

Most people just want an excuse to go on an epic adventure.

Dream big, define your vision, then build a team around it.

4. The biggest mistake is moving so slow you don’t make any

Our first CTO quit. And we didn't let it slow us down.

In less than 24 hours we:

Met with a new candidate
Made a handshake deal for equity and comp
Flew him across the world to sleep on our couch

If you make mistakes, good. That means you're moving fast enough.

You can't steer a stationary ship.

5. Be loud and unapologetic

I’ve documented everything we built on platforms like LinkedIn and X.

People told me not to share our numbers and growth strategies publicly. But I did it anyway.

I used Kleo to turn my ideas and stories into posts (like this one) that got attention.

That attention turned into:

- 2 dream podcast appearances
- Incredible talent asking to work with us
- lead flow for all three of our businesses

The most powerful lesson in all this (for business and life)?

When you call your shot…Call it loud.

Life is short. So tell the world exactly what you want, then go get it.

Helping founders make predictable revenue from organic content and rankings on LinkedIn, Google, and LLMs | CEO of Contact.so | Mentions.so | Kleo.so

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The Battle

Taylin John Simmonds

Rob Hoffman

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taplio

The Battle

Taylin John Simmonds

Rob Hoffman

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Taylin John Simmonds's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreTaylin John Simmonds's LinkedIn Performance