SEO & AI Search guides

SEO for small teams: backlinks, domain rank, programmatic pages and getting cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews.

10 guides

SEO & AI Search

Engineering as Marketing: The Weekend Free-Tool Playbook

Engineering as marketing on a founder's schedule: pick a free tool, scope it to a weekend, bridge it to your product, and see what ours does in Search Console.

Aug 21, 202610 min read

SEO & AI Search

Programmatic SEO for Indie Hackers: A Real Teardown

Programmatic SEO for indie hackers, with our own Search Console numbers: 46 templated pages against 45 written posts, what ranked, what we cannibalized, and how to build it.

Aug 20, 202611 min read

SEO & AI Search

SEO for Solo Founders: The One-Hour-a-Day System

SEO for solo founders on one hour a day: what to ignore entirely, how to pick keywords you can win, a weekly publishing rhythm, and where the first backlinks come from.

Aug 19, 202611 min read

A solo founder at a glowing amber sorting console filing their startup into a tiered directory rack — a wide, bright base of high-authority general directories, a middle band of indie launch platforms, a small niche tier, and a discard bin of low-quality link-farm directories marked skip — while an amber thread carries a single high-value editorial backlink up past the whole rack toward a network of other founders, illustrating that directory links are the compounding floor of a startup's SEO and traded editorial links are the ceiling.

SEO & AI Search

Startup Directory Backlinks: The Filtered 2026 List

Not all startup directory backlinks help your SEO. A tiered, worth-it-or-skip list of the best directories to submit your startup — and when to stop submitting.

Jul 7, 20269 min read

A solo founder studying three glowing amber gauges labeled DA, DR, and Authority Score — each a different needle position for the same site — while a separate, brighter meter labeled Google stays unplugged from all three, and an amber directory-listing tile rises in value as the host domain beneath it grows taller, connected by amber threads to a network of other founders trading editorial backlinks, illustrating that vendor authority scores are estimates, not Google's, and that real authority is earned slowly through trusted links.

SEO & AI Search

Domain Authority Explained (DA vs DR): A Founder's Guide

Domain authority explained for founders: what DA, DR, and Authority Score actually measure, why none of them are Google's, and the only honest way to move the score.

Jul 6, 20268 min read

A solo founder building a glowing amber backlink value pyramid — a wide base of directory listings, a middle band of niche blog links, and a small bright apex of high-authority editorial backlinks — with amber threads carrying editorial links traded to and from a network of other founders, illustrating that the highest-value backlinks are earned through reciprocity rather than bought, and that one editorial link outweighs many one-day shares.

SEO & AI Search

How to Get Backlinks for a Startup (No Budget, 2026)

White-hat link building for startups with no budget and no outreach list: the legit menu, a backlink value pyramid, and why one editorial link beats 50 shares.

Jul 3, 202610 min read

A calm solo founder reading a glowing amber line chart of organic click-through rate that dips into an AI Overview answer box and then rebounds, while the doom-headline noise falls away — connected by amber threads to a network of other founders whose reviews, backlinks, and named-author articles feed the AI answer, illustrating that AI Overviews redistribute traffic rather than kill it and that citable authority is the founder's response.

SEO & AI Search

AI Overviews & Organic Traffic in 2026: The Real Data

Is organic traffic dying in 2026? A data-first read on AI Overviews — what the CTR numbers really show, the rebound nobody mentions, and how founders respond.

Jul 2, 20269 min read

A solo founder standing between two glowing amber surfaces — a classic ranked list of blue links on one side and a single synthesized AI answer box on the other — both fed by the same shared foundation of content, backlinks, and reviews flowing along amber threads from a network of other founders, illustrating that AEO and SEO are one discipline with two output surfaces.

SEO & AI Search

AEO vs SEO in 2026: Same Discipline, New Surface

AEO vs SEO isn't a rivalry — Google itself calls answer engine optimization 'still SEO.' A clean comparison of goals, signals, and metrics, plus where founders should spend next.

Jun 26, 20268 min read

A solo founder feeding three glowing amber answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — each labeled card pulling a different source (reviews, named-author articles, backlinks) along amber threads from a network of other founders, illustrating each engine's distinct citation diet.

SEO & AI Search

How to Get Cited by ChatGPT & Perplexity (2026)

Getting cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity means feeding each engine's source diet. The per-engine checklist — plus the off-page signals a founder can actually earn.

Jun 25, 202611 min read

A solo founder standing beside a glowing amber AI answer box, with three labeled streams — Reviews, Reddit, and Named authors — flowing into it along amber threads from a network of other founders, illustrating the off-page signals that get a startup cited in AI search.

SEO & AI Search

Answer Engine Optimization for Startups: A 2026 Guide

Answer engine optimization (AEO) for startups means getting named inside AI answers, not just ranked. The on-page tactics, the off-page truth, and how to win.

Jun 24, 202612 min read