It is not my formula. It comes from network science and the way success compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fame \u00d7 fitness = AI success.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fitness is what makes your brand a good choice. Your positioning. Your product quality. Your proof. Your performance attributes. The things that allow you to outperform competitors in the marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fame is being known for those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visibility is the fuel of your fame. You can’t become known if you’re not visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are good at something but nobody can see it, the market does not know. The media does not know. The machine does not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is the point that far too many SEOs are missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AI search is not won by answering every possible informational query. It is won by reducing the uncertainty an LLM has about recommending you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the key concept: uncertainty reduction. Or if you want to get geeky, the real term is entropy reduction through the supply of mutual information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When someone asks an AI system \u201cWho is the best digital PR agency?\u201d or \u201cWhat is the best pet food for dogs with sensitive stomachs?\u201d or \u201cWho should I use for enterprise SEO?\u201d, the model is not magically judging the future performance of every provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It does not know, in any objective commercial sense, who is best. So it has to infer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It looks at what exists in the network. Mentions. Links. Lists. Reviews. Articles. Social posts. Third-party references. Brand associations. Category language. Repeated proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The job is to supply enough mutual information to reduce uncertainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In plain English: make it obvious what you do, who you do it for, what you are good at and why anyone should believe you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then make that information visible in as many relevant places as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You do not win AI search by answering every possible question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You win by becoming the least uncertain recommendation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the phrase \u201cbrand co-occurrence\u201d matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do not mean sprinkling your brand name around the internet like cheap SEO confetti. I mean repeatedly connecting your brand to the things you want to be chosen for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand plus category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand plus problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand plus solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand plus proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand plus third-party validation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are a specialist digital PR agency, the machine needs to repeatedly encounter your brand in relation to digital PR, link earning, brand mentions, media coverage, AI visibility, authority and commercial outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are a pet food brand for dogs with sensitive stomachs, the machine needs to repeatedly encounter your brand in relation to dog gut health, dietary issues, nutrition, vet expertise, customer outcomes and product proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are a cocktail bar in Manchester, the machine needs to repeatedly encounter your brand in relation to Manchester, cocktails, ingredients, menus, events, reviews, local recommendations and customer experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why digital PR is not some nice-to-have add-on in AI search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is one of the safest bets you can make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Digital PR builds meaningful brand co-occurrences. That is literally its job. It gets you visible. It earns links. It earns mentions. It builds associations. It activates buyers. It puts your positioning into the market rather than leaving it buried on an About page nobody reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yes, that means PR is basically content marketing focused on the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is what search needs more of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not more theory. Not more pious LinkedIn posts about what is and is not spam. More real-world marketing activity that gives humans and machines a reason to associate your brand with the problems you solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where we need to grow up about listicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few SEOs spend far too much time being pious about spam without really understanding what spam is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Self-promotion is not spam. Saying you are good at something is not spam. Appearing in a list of recommended providers is not automatically spam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Self-referencing listicles exist because in many sectors, there is very little clear information about who is actually good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take SEO agencies. Most of them are interchangeable. Their positioning is broad. Their websites say the same things. Their service pages blur into one another. Their proof is weak. Their differentiation is minimal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when someone asks an AI system for \u201cthe best SEO agencies\u201d, what is it going to find?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because lists are one of the few places where the market has tried to organise choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will some of those lists be paid? Of course. We already live in that world. Publications sell advertorials. Influencers charge for exposure. Affiliate websites monetise recommendations. Supermarkets charge slotting fees while putting their own brands in premium positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not new. This is marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The adult conversation is not \u201cpaid bad, earned good\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The adult conversation is about transparency, relevance, quality and commercial reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The influencer economy is going to become even more important in this world. Once influencers understand the power they have to influence AI systems by repeatedly mentioning brands, categories and products, their value will increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Influencer marketing could easily become the new guest blogging industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That does not mean we should abandon standards. Paid activity should be disclosed. Advertising rules matter. Quality matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But pretending that paid visibility does not exist, or that brands should not promote themselves, is childish nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another thing I keep hearing is that schema and structured data are going to be vital for AI search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course SEOs are pushing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They can sell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to be clear, I am not anti-schema. Structured data can be useful. It can help with rich snippets. It can clarify information. It can support technical hygiene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this idea that structured data is going to come and save you is ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schema is plumbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plumbing matters. But plumbing does not make a brand famous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My daughter is a boxer. If I search for her in AI Mode or Google, she comes up. She has only had a few bouts. She does not have a website. There is no grand SEO strategy. No structured data. No entity optimisation campaign. Nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What exists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few Facebook posts from her boxing club mentioning her, her bouts and her wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is enough for AI to understand who she is and what she does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the reality of modern search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Information can be found because it has been covered, written about, posted, mentioned or connected somewhere accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On-page is no longer just your page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On-page is every page anywhere where text can be gathered and meaning can be extracted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LinkedIn. Facebook. Reddit. Media sites. Review platforms. Affiliate pages. Directories. Influencer posts. Event pages. Podcast notes. YouTube descriptions. Industry lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The supply of relevant information is what modern SEO really is in an AI search world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But because the machine is no longer only reading your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is reading the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now let\u2019s talk about helpful content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone says brands should create helpful content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what exactly is helpful content?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helpful content is content that helps someone achieve a goal. That sounds simple, but there are two sides to the equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The customer has a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The business has a problem too. It needs more customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The useful content sits in the middle. It helps the customer solve the kind of problem the business is built to solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the missing commercial lens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Too much SEO content helps the customer with a broad informational problem while doing almost nothing for the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is not strategy. That is publishing. And publishing is expensive when nobody knows whether the content will ever be found, cited, surfaced or commercially useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the industry is going wrong again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The white-hat answer is usually: create helpful content, add structured data, chase query fan-out, be present in millions of searches, build topical authority and pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is how you spend a lot of money not achieving anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHelpful content\u201d is commercially vague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Promotional content is clearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And no, promotional does not mean spammy. It does not mean shouting \u201cbuy now\u201d into every paragraph like a desperate market trader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Promotional content promotes your knowledge, your experience, your expertise, your proof, your product, your service and your positioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For SEOs who need the familiar language, yes, it showcases experience, expertise, authority and trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But more importantly, it promotes your performance attributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The things you are good at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The things you want to be chosen for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The things the market and the machine need to associate with your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the practical shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stop asking: \u201cWhat keywords can we target?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Start asking: \u201cWhat do we need the market to know about us?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stop asking: \u201cWhat informational content can we produce?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Start asking: \u201cWhat customer problems do we solve, and how do we make our solution visible?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s use a simple example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine you are a direct-to-consumer pet food company. Your product improves dog health through better nutrition, and you are especially useful for dogs with dietary issues or sensitive stomachs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your content and PR should orbit that positioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You could produce expert commentary on dog dietary issues. You could create a data study on the most common causes of stomach problems in dogs. You could work with vets to explain the symptoms owners ignore. You could run dog health clinics in city centres or outside train stations. You could invite local media. You could work with dog influencers to run feeding trials. You could publish customer stories showing before-and-after improvements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of that creates content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But more importantly, it creates commercially useful content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It links your brand to dog health, sensitive stomachs, nutrition, expertise, proof and real-world outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is meaningful co-occurrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now take a cocktail bar in Manchester that specialises in some of the world\u2019s best cocktails and premium ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What should it do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could create a list of ten new cocktails on the menu and promote it locally. It could run a tasting evening. It could invite local influencers. It could create short videos showing the ingredients and craft behind each drink. It could pitch local media on a seasonal cocktail trend. It could get customers posting and tagging the bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, that is content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is content that promotes the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has value at the point of publish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That should be the stress test for every piece of content now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does this have real-world marketing value at the point of publish?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If the answer is no, and the only argument for creating it is that one day some invisible AI system might cite it for some invisible prompt, you are not doing strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are gambling with the budget… and it’s probably not your money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal is to trigger preferential attachment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In simple terms, preferential attachment is the rich-get-richer effect. The visible become more visible. The known become more known. The brands that are talked about are talked about more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silicon Valley calls this escape velocity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You start to grow more easily because the market begins doing some of the marketing for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look at the Sydney Sweeney effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She is everywhere. Films. TV. Ads. Social media. Commentary. Articles. Memes. Discourse. More discourse about the discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because visibility compounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She has performance attributes the market currently wants. A particular look, tone, presence and cultural relevance. Then the more visible she becomes, the more roles she gets. The more roles she gets, the more visible she becomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same pattern has happened with countless stars before her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It happened with Google. Google was not the first search engine. But it had superior fitness. It was a better product. Once that product got enough visibility, usage compounded until it destroyed the old market structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It happened with Harry Potter. The first print run was tiny. The books got into readers\u2019 hands. The product was good enough to create talk. That talk created more demand. More demand created more visibility. More visibility created more demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fame multiplied by fitness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it applies to brands too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your product or service is genuinely good, your job is to make that goodness visible. Repeatedly. Creatively. Commercially. Through content, PR, partnerships, social, media, events, influencers and customer proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not by hiding in a keyword tool hoping the machine eventually notices you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Links have always been a proxy for growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brands that do real marketing get talked about. Brands that get talked about get mentioned. Brands that get mentioned get links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That has not gone away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If anything, AI search makes it more important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are now two related assets to think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, physical hyperlinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Links still matter because they are connections. They allow discovery. They pass authority. They connect one entity, page or brand to another. They remain a deeper signal than a casual mention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, branded unlinked mentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These matter because modern systems are good enough to understand entities and relationships without needing every reference to be wrapped in a hyperlink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My daughter\u2019s boxing example proves the point in miniature. A few Facebook posts can help a system understand who someone is, what they do and what has happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For brands, the same principle applies at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need mentions. You need links. You need repeated context. You need the market to say what you want the machine to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do you earn those links and mentions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n You conduct marketing activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not just SEO activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marketing activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PR campaigns. Expert commentary. Data studies. Events. Partnerships. Influencer work. Thought leadership. Product stories. Customer outcomes. Research. Tools. Reports. Local activations. Industry contributions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the machine you need to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this means SEOs are useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Technical SEO still matters. Internal links matter. Site architecture matters. Measurement matters. Crawlability matters. Indexation matters. Search intelligence matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In-house SEOs, in particular, may be in one of the strongest positions in this new world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They can see what is happening on the website. They can measure traffic. They can analyse which pages are working. They can monitor LLM referrals. They can gather prompt examples. They can track citations. They can connect search data to commercial outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there is no room now for bullshit SEO advice from some consultant clinging to authority built in a different era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The consultant industry works because people time out of agency life. Some want flexibility. Some never built agencies. Some realised it does not take many retained clients to make a very good living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And because many consultants have been visible for a long time, the market assumes they must be right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But longevity is not strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The loudest voices at the top are often now the weakest voices because they do not understand the underlying commercial mechanics of AI search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They still think in keyword terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They still talk in non-commercial abstractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They still use strategic ambiguity as a weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that advice filters down into agencies, brands and freelancers until the whole conversation becomes commercially irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the SEO industry wants to survive and thrive, it absolutely can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it needs to start talking in terms that are attractive to the people who pay the bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Positioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commercial outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not invisible prompts. Not fan-out fantasies. Not schema salvation. Not another thousand informational blog posts nobody asked for and nobody will remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this sadly is the harsh reality. The SEO industry needs new voices to lead it. As I’ve said for a long time now, your SEO gurus will not be your GEO ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrew Holland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was at BrightonSEO last week. Not the first time I\u2019ve been. It won\u2019t be the last. I had a great time catching up with friends, swapping notes, listening to talks and watching the industry do what it does best: dress up old problems in a new language and pretend the future has arrived because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"","tve_custom_css":"","tve_user_custom_css":"","tve_globals":{},"tcb2_ready":0,"tcb_editor_enabled":0,"tve_landing_page":"","_tve_header":"","_tve_footer":""},"categories":[23,25,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-search","category-geo","category-search","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growththroughcontent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Meaningful Brand Co-Occurrence Is the New Search Asset<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Listicles Are Not Automatically Spam<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Schema Is Plumbing, Not Strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHelpful Content\u201d Is Too Vague to Be Useful<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Fix: Create Promotional Content Around Your Positioning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Visible Become More Visible<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Links and Mentions Are Still the Growth Engine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
SEO Still Has a Role. But It Needs to Grow Up.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n