From Blog Post to AI-Cited Brand: How to Survive in the AI Era

How a solo or small-team blogger turns expertise into content that performs across Google, AI Overviews, newsletters and brand partnerships without becoming generic AI output. This session gives independent creators a practical survival map: choose topics machines can cite but audiences still crave, turn lived experience into E-E-A-T, and decide when to allow, block or optimise for AI extraction. At the end of this session you will understand how AI systems interpret authority, clarity, experience, and trust—and how you can compete without large marketing budgets. Judith cuts through hype with SEO, AI and creator-economy pragmatism, including explanations on how the technology works. Attendees can expect to learn: How to make content citeable by AI systems and Google. How to avoid AI slop signals. How to measure success beyond pageviews. How to stay discoverable, useful and paid when platforms increasingly answer, recommend and remix before anyone reaches a site. And most importantly how to future-proof content for evolving AI systems. Plus this session will include what methods stop (as much as possible) content from being included in LLMs.

How a solo or small-team blogger turns expertise into content that performs across Google, AI Overviews, newsletters and brand partnerships without becoming generic AI output. This session gives independent creators a practical survival map: choose topics machines can cite but audiences still crave, turn lived experience into E-E-A-T, and decide when to allow, block or optimise for AI extraction. At the end of this session you will understand how AI systems interpret authority, clarity, experience, and trust—and how you can compete without large marketing budgets. Judith cuts through hype with SEO, AI and creator-economy pragmatism, including explanations on how the technology works. Attendees can expect to learn: How to make content citeable by AI systems and Google. How to avoid AI slop signals. How to measure success beyond pageviews. How to stay discoverable, useful and paid when platforms increasingly answer, recommend and remix before anyone reaches a site. And most importantly how to future-proof content for evolving AI systems. Plus this session will include what methods stop (as much as possible) content from being included in LLMs.

Transcript

1. #waypoint26
2. #waypoint26 From Blog Post to AI-Cited Brand: How to Sur vive in the AI Era
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4. #waypoint26 Emcee and compère, expert trainer, speaker, fractional CMO, and strategist Runs DeCabbit Consultancy specialising in global digital marketing consultancy Non-Executive Director (NED) of the Academy of Chocolate Technical Lead of the WBA think tank in Switzerland working on AI in viticulture Contact: decabbit@gmail.com Who I Am & What I Do
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7. #waypoint26 LLMs do not store facts the way we assume they do images in this style by ChatGPT
8. #waypoint26 Words do not exist in LLMs – Tokens do
9. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
10. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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12. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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14. #waypoint26 What does the machine REALLY want?
15. #waypoint26 Building ‘Brand’ Trust Through AI Readiness Generally on Site https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/ai-search/ai-search-winning-brands-characteristics/
16. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
17. #waypoint26 https://inblog.ai/blog/how-to-increase-domain-authority
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19. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
20. #waypoint26 https://entitymap.org/
21. #waypoint26 This is why content structure is important https://brandwell.ai/blog/seo-content-template/
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23. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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26. #waypoint26 It helps to have answers to popular questions already within content, structured to make it easy to understand and deliver in a result https://alsoasked.com/
27. #waypoint26 This is taking keyword research and turning it into question research https://alsoasked.com/
28. #waypoint26 Be the answer
29. #waypoint26 On every platform https://chatgpt.com/
30. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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32. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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34. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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36. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
37. #waypoint26 E-E-A-T Experience First-hand experience but not necessarily an expert with credentials. Expertise Based on qualifications and recognised knowledge related to the topic area. Authoritativeness Reputation and recognition of the author within the industry by peers (awards, etc) as trusted source Trustworthiness Relates to transparency of author/site, accuracy of content, and objectivity. • Each of these elements are inter-related and essential for ranking. • Sites can rank without EEAT in verticals where there is little to no competition or little to no EEAT generally.
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39. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
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41. #waypoint26 Ways to rework existing content and restructure it to perform better in AI results Topically focused Structured paragraphs Top lists FAQs
42. #waypoint26 Think about how this might be slightly tweaked to stand alone and be an LLM answer
43. #waypoint26 Think about whether this is what someone would be searching for
44. #waypoint26 FAQs with Schema are important
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46. #waypoint26 FAQs Just like the rest of the site, FAQs need to be specifically on the topic for the page they are on. Content needs to be relevant. Should be optimised towards the topic of the page. Requires schema to be implemented. Must be focused, not broad (just like the page).
47. #waypoint26 Optimising for zero click search results With searcher behaviour changing, delivering the right content into the results is imperative. People are not clicking results but are getting answers within the search results page or AI. With no click, it is more difficult to track website performance.
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49. #waypoint26 A User Searches…
50. #waypoint26 Google AIO makes an attempt to help
51. #waypoint26 They weren’t quite right… but oh!
52. #waypoint26 I don’t call, I don’t click, but I do pop in and buy the champagne truffles – because the SEO worked!
53. #waypoint26 Or maybe I go to Amazon to find those cute and fun cat truffles
54. #waypoint26 SEO did its job but never got credited with the sale
55. #waypoint26 How do we measure a sale where SEO was involved but no click from the SERPs ever happened?
56. #waypoint26 Metrics
57. #waypoint26 These KPIs Matter – Not Keywords Conversions from each channel Brand awareness (brand searches) Profitability performance User engagement Cost per acquisition overall & by channel Visibility by channel Information accuracy within LLMs
58. #waypoint26 Conversions from each channel
59. #waypoint26 Brand awareness
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61. #waypoint26 Visibility by channel (build a dashboard/report)
62. #waypoint26 Information accuracy
63. #waypoint26 WAIKAY shows where info came from
64. #waypoint26 Since ChatGPT uses search results… https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ chatgpt-appears-to-use-google-search- as-a-fallback/552089/
65. #waypoint26 https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ai-changing- search-behaviors/ … and Google is a hard habit to break..
66. #waypoint26 …optimising for Google
67. #waypoint26 Means optimising for AI
68. #waypoint26 And ChatGPT among other LLMs
69. #waypoint26 But what if…
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71. #waypoint26 image by ChatGPT
72. #waypoint26 Robots .txt your blog
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74. #waypoint26 Ask questions
75. #waypoint26 You Can Find Me Online Bluesky/X: @JudithLewis Threads/Insta: @Decabbit LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/judithlewis Web: https://www.decabbit.com Food Blog: https://MostlyAboutChocolate.com Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/decabbit https://www.slideshare.net/DeCabbit/