Alexandra Julian

Unsolicited #SEO tip: "in 95% of cases you need to pay for link placement" ❌❌❌ In my opinion, 𝐩𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲. Candour pays for 0% of the links we acquire for clients, we've been building links from: 📰 Papers such as The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, Metro, The Express, Huffington Post 💻 News sites such as Yahoo News, MSN News, Business Insider, IBTimes, Forbes, 📚 Sites like TakeABreak, Hello Magazine, Toda, Indsider, TheKnot, Hitched, Dicebreaker, as well as .gov and charity websites. If you've got good ideation, and your acquisition team is being both proactive with opportunities as well as reactive, there is almost unlimited scope to earn links from these kinds of websites. Why is paying for placement a bad idea? You're building a house of sand. At some point, even if those links are working now, at some point, Google is going to be able to work out they are likely paid placement and devalue them - this is why you see so many sites, especially during Google updates have the rug pulled from under them. If your strategy is aligned with search engine's goals, it doesn't matter what algorithm changes happen, your links are deserved and you have a solid foundation to build on year after year. "It works until it doesn't." Links in these sources are only going to become more important as we move deeper in AI search territory.

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Most brands are doing SEO wrong in 4 layers. (And don’t realise which one’s holding them back.) Here’s the brutal truth: Every drop of visibility you're losing falls into one of these buckets... And in 2025? SEO isn’t one game. It’s 4 distinct battles you need to win: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) – The Citation Battle - Ranking isn’t enough, Are you cited in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity? - Think prompt phrasing, comparison blogs, expert lists No GEO = No mention = No trust AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) – The Snapshot Game - Own snippets, AI overviews, voice searches - Structure wins here: FAQs, schema, entity-rich answers No AEO = You don’t even show up AIO (AI Integration Optimization) – The Scale Factor - Plug into tools, APIs, workflows... let AI use your content - Think programmatic briefs, data-fed summaries, markdown chunking No AIO = No scale = Content chaos SXO (Search Experience Optimization) – The Conversion Engine - SEO isn’t just to rank, It’s to convert - Fast UX, scrollable layouts, mobile-first pages No SXO = Traffic that bounces Let’s take 2 real-world examples: DTC Brand Reality: AEO: Missed voice snippets and product schema GEO: No AI citations, poor content depth AIO: Manual content ops, no workflows SXO: Slow checkout flow, low conversions SaaS Startup Truth: AEO: Weak FAQs, no entity markup GEO: Blog lacks citations or prompt relevance AIO: No system for scaling blog or docs SXO: Long forms, high bounce on mobile You don’t have a traffic problem. You have a structure problem. Break SEO into 4: AEO: Gets you found in AI GEO: Gets you cited and trusted AIO: Gets you scalable content SXO: Gets you real conversions Common SEO Traps Long blogs, no structure = AEO fail No citations, no depth = GEO fail No workflow = AIO fail Poor design = SXO fail Your competitors ranking in ChatGPT? They cracked this. While you publish more posts and blogs randomly… They’re being retrieved, summarized, and chosen. Your next SEO breakthrough isn’t another post... it’s a new lens: AEO, GEO, AIO, SXO. Try These LLM-SEO Tools Built for AI visibility, citations, and structure: Semrush Enterprise AIO/AI Tool-Kit Peec AI Brandlight GrowthX AI AthenaHQ Cognizo Bluefish That’s how you rank and retrieve in 2025 and stay there. ♻️ Repost it to share with your network Follow me Madhav Mistry for insights on marketing

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SEO works when you stop overcomplicating it. Here’s what drives results: ✅ A site that loads fast and works smoothly on any device ✅ Content that answers buyer questions better than anyone else ✅ Keywords tied to intent, not vanity phrases ✅ Consistently publishing and optimising every week That’s literally it. The problem is most companies treat SEO as a side project.  They put out short blogs, chase irrelevant keywords and expect overnight results.  Then they call SEO “dead.” It’s not dead. It’s just being done wrong. SEO doesn’t replace ads. Ads create demand today. But SEO makes sure you’re visible when buyers search tomorrow. If you ignore it, you’re invisible when it matters most. if you do it right, SEO becomes the channel that compounds for years.

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Fab to join the State of Play panel last night on the future of SEO Worried about how AI might affect SEO? Key things we're thinking about right now at eight&four: 1) AI hasn't and will not 'kill' Google The actual big story going on in Search isn't LLM stealing market share, it's expansion & fragmentation of search surfaces... Datos’ Q2 report showed YouTube has tripled YoY, Pinterest search doubled, Reddit search +30%. Meanwhile, LLM prompt growth is modest (and early evidence seems to indicate the more people use the LLM's, the MORE they then use Google...!) So - don't get too focused on AI panic, instead stand back and think about how to build distributed influence across as many search surfaces as possible.. this means SEO teams need to be partnering with social teams, PR teams, paid teams - breaking down these baked in digital siloes internally (it's why we integrated a PR & comms agency into eight&four this year - to drive that integrated thinking for our clients) 2) If an agency is trying to panic you, walk away ESPECIALLY if they're trying to sell you a "GEO Ranking dashboard" 🙄. As always with any AI hype, step back, think critically, trust your professional judgement. Replace GEO theatre with clear roadmaps to assist with LLM inclusion, adapt owned content entities to support answer generation (in LLM's, or new AI features being implemented in Google - AI mode, Overview etc.). And yes, take those traditional SEO techniques (technical, schema, IA) into Reddit, YouTube, TikTok! 3) This is a huge opportunity for "SEO" Any hype cycle brings one clear benefit to marketeers - ATTENTION. Use this window of attention SEO is currently getting to make powerful changes to the way your organisation values and prioritises world class content strategy. Reclaim that consultancy seat. Authoritatively push for more effective content investment. 2026? Let's break down silo'ed digital channels, and work effectively together to drive DISCOVERABILITY for our brands. One integrated team, different specialists, working together to show up for our customers, with the right information, in the right places. Fortune favours the brave - go get it!! 🔥🔥🔥 Big thanks to Jessica R. for the invite, and fellow panellists Andrew Fox Helen Pollitt Jessica Atkinson João Filipe Pereira Mark Evans for a great chat 🙏

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"SEO is dead" We are still doing the same fundamentals we were doing 12 months ago. The only difference is a slightly greater focus on PDP pages and merchant feed optimisations. AI achieves speed to market, but it doesn't magically make you rank higher. cc: Jason Mun Ash Fuller Nicholas Tie Sereena Furse Leslie Tan Judy Kim Darren H. Huang #seo #geo #chatgpt #searchengingoptimisation #results

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