If you’ve been feeling lost in the SEO world lately, trust me, you’re not alone. Between Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity rewriting the rules every few weeks 🌀, even seasoned marketers are scratching their heads.
So I sat down with Andrei Builov, one of the sharpest SEO minds I’ve come across 🧠, on the latest episode of Inside a Hustler’s Brain Podcast 🎙️. I walked away with a notebook full of insights, and I had to share them with you. 👇
🎧 Watch the full episode here 👉
☠️ The 2023 SEO Playbook Is Officially Dead
The first thing Andrei told me hit hard: what worked in 2023 doesn’t work anymore. Stuffing keywords, mass producing thin content, chasing every backlink. It’s all losing steam fast. ⚠️
With AI search engines now answering queries directly, users are clicking less and asking more. 🔍 That means brands need to rethink visibility from the ground up.
🧠 Welcome to the Era of AI Search
Andrei broke down something I’d been thinking about for months. Search isn’t one platform anymore. People are splitting their queries between Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. 🤖
His advice? Don’t pick one. Show up everywhere your audience makes decisions. That means optimising not just for Google, but for the LLMs your customers are quietly using behind the scenes. 💡
⚙️ Fundamentals Matter More Than Ever
Here’s what surprised me: Andrei is not throwing out traditional SEO. In fact, he doubled down on it. ✅
A clean technical foundation, crawlable and indexable pages, fast load speeds, and strong authority signals like reviews and digital PR 📰 are what allow AI engines to trust and cite your brand in the first place. Skip the basics, and no AI tool will reference you. ❌
📝 Content Strategy in the AI Era
Andrei’s content philosophy is refreshingly simple: stop writing for algorithms. Write for humans who use AI. 🧑💻
He shared how the best-performing content today is:
✨ Conversational, matching how users prompt AI
✨ Genuinely useful, answering the real question behind the query
✨ Brand led, pushing a unique POV no AI can replicate
✨ Entity rich, packed with the right names, people, and references
💎 Build a Brand AI Engines Can Trust
This was my favourite part of the conversation. Andrei said it perfectly: “In the AI era, brand IS SEO.” 🏆
LLMs cite brands that appear consistently across high-authority sources. Forbes, niche publications, podcasts, directories, you name it. The more credible your digital footprint, the more often you’ll be referenced when AI answers a query. 📈
⚠️ The Biggest Mistakes Killing Rankings Right Now
Andrei didn’t hold back. The top mistakes he sees brands making in 2026:
🚫 Mass producing AI content with zero editorial layer
🚫 Ignoring brand authority and digital PR
🚫 Obsessing over keyword rankings instead of share of voice
🚫 Treating Google as the only search engine
🚫 Skipping the fundamentals and jumping straight to “GEO hacks”
🚀 My Biggest Takeaway
Honestly, this conversation reframed how I think about SEO going into the next decade. The brands that win in 2026 won’t be the ones gaming algorithms. They’ll be the ones building real trust across every surface where their audience searches. 💯
If you’re a founder, marketer, or agency owner, you cannot afford to miss this episode.
Drop a comment and tell me your biggest SEO challenge right now. I’d love to hear it! 💬👇
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