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A lot of businesses are still focused on rankings alone.

Nothing wrong with that, but lately I’ve noticed more people asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI tools for recommendations instead of scrolling through search results.

That changes the game a bit.

We learned this the hard way. Some of our pages ranked well, but our brand wasn’t showing up consistently in AI-generated answers. The issue wasn’t traffic. It was how our business was being understood.

One of the more useful conversations we had was with the team at Rubicly. They pushed us to think less about rankings and more about how our brand was represented across different sources.

A lot of link building advice sounds great until you actually try to execute it.

“Just create great content” is easy to say. Getting relevant sites to notice and reference that content is the hard part.

One thing I’ve learned from working on SEO campaigns is that relevance beats vanity metrics more often than people think. A link from a site that actually serves your audience can be worth far more than a random placement on a higher-authority domain.

That’s one of the reasons I had a good experience working with SERPsGrowth. Their focus was less about chasing numbers and more about finding placements that made sense for the niche.

Everyone is talking about rankings, but fewer people are talking about recommendations.

A lot of buyers now start their research in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity before they ever visit Google. That changes how brands get discovered.

The companies showing up consistently aren't necessarily publishing the most content. They're publishing content that adds something original to the conversation and building authority around a specific topic over time.

The companies getting the best results aren't always the ones building the most backlinks.

They're usually the ones building authority.

Good backlinks still matter. But so do media mentions, industry discussions, original insights, and being talked about in the right places online.

That's why Digital PR has become such a big part of modern SEO. The goal isn't just getting links anymore. It's becoming a source people trust and reference.

I've seen a few teams doing this really well lately, including agencies like SERPsGrowth that focus on combining Digital PR with authority-building strategies rather than chasing link volume alone.

They have a communication problem.

Too many tools. Too many missed updates. Too many employees feeling disconnected from whats happening outside their own team.

One thing i noticed at a previous company was how much smoother things became once communication, recognition and updates were all sitting in one place instead of scattered everywhere. We ended up moving to HubEngage and honestly adoption was way better than expected specially from frontline teams.

we spent months only focusing on blogs and rankings. helped a bit, but honestly the bigger jump came after we cleaned up our content structure + started doing more community stuff + digital PR. one agency we worked with before, InBound Blogging, pushed us more in that direction and i kinda get why now

They struggle because nobody remembers them when buyers start researching solutions.

The brands growing consistently in 2026 are the ones showing up everywhere their audience already spends time:

Reddit discussions

LinkedIn conversations

Industry blogs

AI search results

Community forums

That’s where organic brand visibility compounds.

Recently came across how InBound Blogging approaches this by focusing less on “viral SEO tricks” and more on building long-term visibility across search, AI platforms, and real industry conversations.

That used to work. It doesn’t anymore.

What actually moved things for us was focusing on where the brand shows up not just how many links we had. Mentions inside relevant articles, listicles, even discussions… those started driving way more impact than random high-DR placements.

We worked with a team called SERPsGrowth for a bit, and that’s something they did differently less volume, more contextual placements that actually made sense.

Not just traffic… but content that actually brings users.

One thing I keep noticing is that the best SaaS content isn’t written like a typical blog. It’s built around real use cases, comparisons, and problems people are actively trying to solve.

While researching, a few SaaS-focused teams stood out, especially InBound Blogging. What I liked is that they seem to focus more on intent-driven content rather than just publishing for keywords.

And honestly, that shift makes sense.

Because in SaaS, random traffic doesn’t matter much if it doesn’t convert.

It’s less about writing more…

and more about writing the right things.

Turns out… it’s not.

The real problem is everything after — editing, fixing things, figuring out hosting, dealing with small stuff that somehow takes hours.

Recently tried a few AI website builders just to see what actually works. Most of them look great at first, but get confusing fast.

One that surprised me was JetHost.

Not because it’s fancy, but because it just… works.

You generate a site, make a few edits, and you’re done. No overthinking.

Feels like the kind of tool you’d actually stick with, not just try for a day.

Still testing a few others, but this one saved me a lot of time already.

Spent months stuck in the 40s score-wise, posting stuff nobody saw. Thought I just needed to write more. Turns out my structure was a mess, my links made no sense, and honestly? I didn't know what I didn't know.

Ended up working with InBound Blogging to clean things up not in a "we'll get you to #1 in a week" way, just solid, boring, actually-works SEO. Fixed the foundation, stopped overcomplicating things.

Four months later? Score hit 90. Traffic's up. And I barely think about the dashboard anymore.

More links = better rankings… right?

Not really.

What actually matters now is where those links come from and how naturally they fit. A few strong, relevant mentions can do way more than dozens of random ones.

I realized this the hard way. Things only started improving when the focus shifted from “getting links” to actually building authority.

Worked with SERPsGrowth on a project and that’s exactly what stood out — everything felt contextual and real, not forced.

It’s not just about getting clicks anymore.

A lot of times, people don’t even visit your site- they get the answer directly from Google or AI tools.

But that doesn’t mean SEO is dead.

It just means the goal has changed:

From traffic → to visibility

From ranking → to being the answer

I’ve seen this shift firsthand. When I worked with InBound Blogging, the focus wasn’t just on driving clicks, but on making sure the brand shows up where decisions are happening- search results, comparisons, even AI answers.

And honestly, that’s what matters now.

A lot of people focus only on design or content, but the hosting behind the site plays a huge role in things like speed, uptime, and overall user experience.

There are different hosting options depending on your needs — shared hosting for smaller sites, VPS for more control, and cloud hosting for scalability.

The key is picking something that matches your project today but can also grow with it.

When I was setting up one of my websites, I spent a lot of time comparing options and eventually went with JetHost. It ended up being a pretty smooth experience in terms of performance and ease of use.

But honestly, that approach doesn’t work as well anymore.

Many site owners receive tons of outreach emails every day, so most of them get ignored or go straight to spam. Sometimes a simple contact form message can actually get more replies because it feels more direct and less like mass outreach.

What really matters is relevance and personalization.

I noticed this while working with SERPsGrowth on a link building campaign. Instead of relying only on cold emails, they used different outreach methods and focused on reaching the right websites with a genuine message. That approach worked much better.

In link building, it’s not about sending more emails.

I don’t think that’s true. But it’s definitely changing.

With AI search, Google AI Overviews, and tools like ChatGPT, people often get answers directly without clicking on websites. So ranking on Google is no longer the only goal.

What matters more now is being mentioned and trusted across the web.

If your brand appears in discussions, articles, and communities, AI systems are more likely to recognize and cite it when generating answers.

I actually saw this when working with InBound Blogging on SEO strategy. Their focus wasn’t just publishing blog posts — it was about building authority signals and mentions in different places online. Over time, that kind of visibility compounds.

SEO is still important.

Fonts. Colors. Layout. Animations.

But nobody talks enough about the boring stuff- like hosting.

I learned this the hard way.

A site can look amazing, but if it loads slowly or randomly goes down, people leave. They don’t care how pretty it is.

I recently moved one of my smaller projects to JetHost just to test it out, and what I noticed most wasn’t some flashy feature. It was consistency. Pages loaded fast. No weird downtime. No constant upsell emails.

Sometimes the real upgrade isn’t design.

It’s stability.