You probably have more product ideas than you have time to create.

A question clients ask repeatedly. A process you use in your work. A workshop you could turn into a self-study resource. A checklist, guide, template, or training based on something you already know well.

You may already have half of it somewhere. Old workshop slides, a Google Doc you started months ago, notes from client sessions, a checklist you made years ago, a training recording you forgot about, or a folder full of ideas you still think have potential.

I know that feeling well.

I’ve been a solo business owner for 24 years. I’ve had plenty of ideas I thought could become good digital products. Then I’d start thinking through everything that had to happen before someone could buy one.

Define the offer. Decide what goes in it. Set the price. Create the product. Write the sales page. Set up the checkout. Write the emails. Plan the promotion. Create the graphics. Test everything.

I could do all of it. At this point, I could probably do most of it in my sleep.

I was tired just thinking about doing all of it.

Sometimes I procrastinated long enough that someone else created something similar. Other times I decided the idea simply wasn’t worth all the work required to get it up and out the door.

AI has changed that calculation for me.

I’m more willing now to take an idea, create a beta version, put it in front of people, and see whether there’s a response. I can find out whether an idea deserves more of my time without turning it into a major project first.

That’s a big difference for one person running a business.

Getting an idea out the door takes more work than it seems

Creating the product itself may be the part you enjoy.

You know the topic. You understand the problem. You know what people ask you and how you usually help them.

Then come all the tasks surrounding the product.

You need to decide who it’s for, how much belongs in it, what format makes sense, and what to charge. Then there’s the name, description, sales page, checkout page, emails, promotional content, delivery, and follow-up.

Knowing how to do those things doesn’t create more hours in the day.

And the decisions are connected. Change the audience and the sales copy changes. Change the scope and the price may need another look. Change the promise and the promotional emails may need revision.

One decision you haven’t settled can add another afternoon of work later.

This is one reason a promising idea can stay in a folder for months. You can see all the work waiting on the other side of the idea.

I certainly can.

Sometimes experience makes me hesitate

There’s an odd side effect of doing this for a long time.

I know what comes next.

Someone newer to product creation may think, “I could turn this into a course.”

My brain immediately starts running through the next 30 things that will need to happen before that course makes a sale.

The knowledge is useful. It has saved me from making plenty of poor decisions.

It can make me hesitate too.

I’ve talked myself out of products that might have been worth testing because I pictured the finished version and everything required to get there.

That’s one of the biggest changes AI has made for me.

I don’t have to approach every idea as if I’m committing to the full finished product. I can test a smaller version first.

How AI helps me test digital product ideas faster

For me, creating and selling digital products with AI is less about asking it to come up with ideas.

I have ideas.

What I want is a partner that helps me move an idea through the work that comes next.

If I’m considering a new product, I can use AI to work through questions such as:

• Is the problem clear enough?

• Who is most likely to buy this?

• What belongs in a beta version?

• What material do I already have?

• What could I leave out for now?

• What price range makes sense?

• What questions will a buyer probably have?

• What needs to be on the sales page?

• What promotional content will I need?

I can work through those questions much faster than I used to.

And some days, I simply want a first draft I can react to instead of another blank page.

The order of the work matters

Years of creating products have taught me one decision often affects several that follow.

You need enough clarity about the buyer before writing the sales page. You need a defined offer before deciding whether the price makes sense. The finished offer and sales message give you the material for the campaign.

That matters when you put a project aside for 2 weeks because client work got busy.

I’ve reopened projects and spent the first half hour trying to remember what I had already decided.

What was the price?

Was this going to include the bonus?

Who did I decide the product was for?

Which version of the description was final?

AI can help keep those decisions together.

That’s the kind of partnership I find useful. I want a place to put the details so I don’t have to rebuild the project every time I come back to it.

It helps with consistency too.

If product planning happens in one conversation, sales copy in another, and launch planning somewhere else, the offer can start changing along the way. The buyer shifts. The promise gets rewritten. The promotion introduces another angle.

Then you’re spending time bringing everything back together.

I’d rather carry the decisions forward and keep working from the same source material.

Why digital products are still worth creating

With all those steps involved, it’s fair to ask why I keep creating digital products.

One reason is they give people an easy way to use my expertise.

Someone may read my newsletter for months without needing private consulting. A past client may need help with one specific problem. A new reader may want to learn from me before considering a larger purchase.

A focused product gives that person somewhere to go.

They can solve one problem, learn one process, use one template, or take one useful action without making a larger commitment.

Products also help keep your business top of mind.

You can write about the problem the product addresses, answer related questions, share examples, teach parts of the process, and refer people to the product when the topic comes up in a newsletter, podcast, social post, or conversation.

You’re giving people more opportunities to encounter your expertise and remember what you do.

A smaller product gives a buyer a chance to experience how you think and work. That can matter later when they need more help.

And after years in business, you may already have much of the product sitting in your files.

A workshop you taught 5 years ago may contain a process people still need. A client exercise may become a useful template. A group of articles may contain the beginnings of a guide. A training recording may contain an idea worth updating.

The work doesn’t have to stay buried in a folder.

Which product idea should you test first?

If you have several ideas, choosing one can become another reason to put the whole thing off.

I tend to look for 3 things:

• People already ask me about the problem.

• I have useful experience or material I can draw from.

• The result is easy for a buyer to understand.

That gives me something concrete to work with.

I’m less interested these days in starting with the biggest product I can create. I’d rather start with something useful, get it in front of buyers, and learn from their response.

A beta makes that possible.

It lets me find out whether people understand the offer, whether the problem matters enough for them to pay for help, what questions they ask, and what they want more of.

Then I can decide what deserves more work.

That feels very different from spending weeks building something and hoping I made the right choices.

Try one idea for 20 minutes

Pick one question clients or customers ask you repeatedly.

Set a timer for 20 minutes and write down:

• who asks the question

• what result they want

• how you currently help them

• what material you already have

• the smallest useful resource you could create around it

Then stop.

You don’t need to name the product, build the sales page, or start creating slides.

You’re deciding whether this idea deserves another hour of your attention.

That’s a much smaller commitment.

And if the answer is yes, AI can help you take the next step.

Years of doing this work shaped the AI process

This is where Prompt. Write. Sell. 2.0 came from.

1 and I have each spent years creating, selling, promoting, testing, and revising digital products. We’ve had offers that needed more thought, sales pages that needed another pass, launches with too many moving parts, and products that changed halfway through the process.

We’ve learned which questions need answers before pricing, when an offer is getting too big, what buyers need to see on a sales page, and how much promotion makes sense for a particular product.

I learned those lessons by doing the work.

We built them into 3 Claude Skills.

Digital Product Navigator works through the product idea, buyer, scope, format, pricing, content, and business case.

Sales Page Architect picks up from there and works through the buyer’s problem, outcomes, benefits, proof, objections, FAQs, and sales copy.

Liftoff uses the finished offer and sales message to work through campaign timing, emails, promotional angles, social posts, and the other pieces needed to bring the product to market.

The biggest benefit is continuity. I don’t have to keep starting over.

The decisions made while planning the product carry into the sales page. The sales page carries into the launch.

It’s much easier to work on a product in pieces between everything else going on in my business.

I still want to make the decisions

AI can produce options faster than I can. I like that.

I still decide whether the product solves a problem my audience cares about. I decide when the scope has grown too big, whether the price feels right, whether a claim is true, and whether a launch plan fits my audience and my schedule.

Those are decisions I want to make.

What I’m happy to hand off are many of the tasks surrounding those decisions.

I don’t need to create every first draft myself. I don’t need to reorganize the same information several times. I don’t need to turn every sales-page section into emails and social posts on my own.

After 24 years of running a solo business, getting help with those parts feels pretty good.

AI doesn’t replace what I know.

It gives me a partner for putting what I know to work.

An idea doesn’t have to become a big project

If you have a product idea sitting in a folder somewhere, I hope you feel a little more willing to look at it again.

You may already have the expertise. You may already have much of the material. And you probably know more about creating the product than you give yourself credit for.

You can start smaller than you might have a few years ago.

Take one idea. Create a useful beta. Let AI help with the research, organizing, drafting, checking, and promotional tasks. Put the offer in front of people and see what happens.

Then decide what it deserves from you.

That’s the biggest change for me.

Ideas that once felt like too much work to pursue now feel possible to test.

Prompt. Write. Sell. 2.0 grew out of the way Andy and I have learned to work through these decisions over years of creating and selling products. It includes Digital Product Navigator, Sales Page Architect, and Liftoff, along with installation instructions and a guide for using the process with other AI platforms.

If you have an idea that keeps getting pushed down the list, learn more about Prompt. Write. Sell. 2.0 and see if it can help you get that idea up and out the door.

A visibility problem often first shows up as a complaint about something else.

Clients come to me saying things like, “I need more content ideas,” “I need more people visiting my website,” “I need to get more consistent,” or “My newsletter isn’t bringing me clients.”

That gives us somewhere to start. We talk about what they’re doing now, and I review their website, content, offers, emails, or whichever parts of their marketing matter to the situation. We talk about their experience, the clients they’ve worked with, what people hire them for, and what happens before someone decides to work with them.

Often, the problem they first described isn’t where we end up spending our time. The conversation, the content review, and what I learn about their experience point me to the part of their visibility that deserves attention.

Across very different businesses, I keep coming back to 5 areas1:

• Value Clarity

• Audience Questions

• Expertise Evidence

• Next Step

• Ongoing Connection

I think of visibility momentum as what happens after someone finds you. Can they understand the value of your work, get their questions answered, see evidence of your experience, know what they can do next, and have a way to stay connected?

Each area affects what happens after someone discovers you. A weak spot in one can slow the results of the work you’re already doing.

More traffic can send more people to an offer they don’t understand. More content can keep answering questions your buyers aren’t asking. More posting can spread advice without showing why your experience makes your point of view worth paying attention to.

And more attention can disappear when people aren’t sure what to do next or never hear from you again.

That’s why one of the first things I want to know is: where is the momentum slowing down?

Value Clarity: Can people quickly understand what you offer?

I often spot a Value Clarity issue when I compare what someone tells me in conversation with what I see online.

They can explain their work clearly when we’re talking. They know who they enjoy working with, the problems they solve, and what changes for the client. Then I visit their website or primary online profile and find that much of that clarity is missing.

This can happen after years in business. You add services, develop new interests, work with different types of clients, and create more content. Someone arriving for the first time may see all those pieces without knowing which one matters to them.

The Value Clarity result in the Visibility Momentum Map looks at whether people can understand what you offer, who it’s for, the need it addresses, and the value they receive.

This can be easy to misdiagnose as a traffic problem. Sending more people to a page they find confusing gives you more people experiencing the same confusion.

Audience Questions: Does your content answer what buyers need to know?

Audience Questions often become clear when I review someone’s content.

There may be plenty of good information. Tips, commentary, explanations, interviews, newsletters, social posts. Then I look for the questions a potential buyer might have before deciding whether to take another step.

Does this fit my situation? How does this person approach the problem? Have they worked with someone in a similar situation? What would working together involve? What happens if I contact them?

Those questions may be different from the subjects that make up your regular publishing schedule.

You can have plenty of content ideas and still leave the questions tied to a buying decision unanswered. The Audience Questions result focuses on identifying one of those questions and creating something that addresses it directly.

I’ve been paying more attention to this in my own content too. Before deciding what to create next, I ask what someone needs to figure out before they can make a decision.

That gives the content a job beyond filling the publishing calendar.

Expertise Evidence: Can people see the experience behind your advice?

This is an area I pay close attention to with experienced solo business owners.

You’ve spent years working with clients, solving problems, making decisions, testing ideas, changing your approach, and learning from the results. A lot of what you know feels ordinary after you’ve done it for a long time.

Then I review the content and see broad advice where there could be a client example. I find a claim where there could be a result or observation. I find a list of tips where you could explain why you would choose one option over another.

Your experience exists. Someone who has just found you can judge only what they can see.

The Expertise Evidence result looks for concrete signs of your experience, such as results, examples, lessons from your work, methods you’ve developed, completed projects, and explanations based on what you’ve seen firsthand.

Research supports the role this kind of content can play in buyer decisions. In the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report,

Read the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report

This is why I look at the gap between someone’s experience and what appears online. A person can have 20 or 30 years of expertise, yet a new reader may see very little evidence of it.

Publishing more general advice won’t close that gap.

Next Step: Is the action you want people to take clear?

For Next Step, I look at what happens after someone becomes interested.

I click through the website. I read the article. I look at the newsletter or profile. Then I ask myself what I would do if I wanted more from this person.

Sometimes the answer is easy to find. Other times I see several competing choices, vague button copy, or no clear invitation to continue.

The Next Step result looks at whether the action is easy to see, understand, and complete. It could be subscribing, reading something else, registering, replying, booking a conversation, or making another relevant move.

This is another place where the first diagnosis can be misleading.

You may think you need more traffic. When I look at what happens to the people already arriving, I may find plenty of interest with nowhere obvious for that interest to go.

Before working to attract a larger audience, it’s worth checking what you’re asking the current one to do.

Ongoing Connection: What happens after someone finds you?

Someone can have a good first interaction with your work and go back to the rest of their day.

They may find an article through search, hear you on a podcast, see a social post, or get one of your newsletters forwarded by a friend. They may like what they see and have no reason to contact you at that moment.

When I review Ongoing Connection, I look at what happens after that encounter. Is there an easy way to subscribe? Do you send something regularly? Is there useful follow-up? Will this person have a reasonable chance of coming across your thinking again?

The Visibility Momentum Map looks at whether you have a repeatable way to stay useful and recognizable after the first interaction. That could be a newsletter, follow-up email, new content, community update, podcast, video, or personal check-in.

This can be one of the harder visibility gaps to notice. The first part worked. Someone found you and paid attention.

Then the connection ended.

The first problem you name may be a symptom

This is one of the things 30 years of working online has taught me.

Two clients can tell me they have the same problem and need very different changes. “I need more visibility” could lead me to Value Clarity for one person and Ongoing Connection for someone else. “I need better content” might lead to Audience Questions or Expertise Evidence.

Even “I need more traffic” can turn into a Next Step issue once I see what happens to the traffic the business already has.

That’s why my client work starts with conversation and review. I listen to what you think is happening, look at what your marketing shows me, and learn about the knowledge and experience behind your business.

Those pieces don’t always point to the same problem. The differences between them give me clues about where to look next.

And this is where trying another marketing tactic too soon can cost you time. You can end up working harder on an area that was already doing its job.

Find where your visibility needs attention

September marks 2 years since I started publishing Your Visibility Edge.

As I thought about what I wanted to create for the anniversary, I kept coming back to the work I’ve been doing with clients for years. I wanted to give you a simple way to look at your own visibility before adding another marketing task to your list.

So I created the Visibility Momentum Map.2

It’s a free assessment based on these 5 areas, and it takes about 1 to 2 minutes to complete. After you answer the questions, you’ll see a short result showing the area that may deserve your attention first, along with an area that appears to be working well.

You can stop there. If you want more details, enter your name and email and I’ll send you more context about your focus area and one action you can take.

If you want further follow-up related to your focus area, you can choose that option too.

You don’t have to fix 5 things at once. Finding the area that deserves attention first gives you a more useful place to begin.

Use AI to examine your Visibility Momentum Map result

Once you know your focus area, you can use AI to look more closely at what may be happening in your business.

Try this prompt:

My priority area from the Visibility Momentum Map is [FOCUS AREA].

Help me examine this area using three sources of information:

1. What I think is happening
2. What my current marketing and content show
3. The experience, knowledge, and client work I may not be making visible

Start by asking me questions one at a time.

Ask follow-up questions when my answer is vague or when you notice a gap between what I say and what someone looking at my marketing might see.

Wait until you have enough information before giving me recommendations.

Then tell me:

- what you notice
- where visibility momentum may be slowing
- what evidence from my answers led you to that conclusion
- one change I can make this week

Keep the action small enough to finish in about 30 minutes.

I recommend using the prompt after taking the assessment, rather than asking AI to decide which of the 5 areas applies to you. Your expertise and beliefs about your business give you the starting point. The prompt can help you examine what’s happening inside that focus area.

And before you add another marketing task this week, take a look at the work you’re already doing.

Got questions or comments? Leave a comment and I’ll get right back to you.

Leave a comment

Your Visibility Edge turns two this month, which gave me a good reason to review what happened across 212 posts.

I looked at what people read, what they responded to, which posts were followed by new subscriptions, and where people unsubscribed. I wanted to see whether the numbers supported my own sense of what was working.

They didn’t always.

Some articles with strong views and engagement produced little subscriber growth. Other posts with smaller numbers brought in more subscribers. And a couple of articles that looked unimpressive by subscriber growth alone went on to become paid products.

That gave me a much better way to think about content performance.

If you publish content to support your business, the same kind of review can help you decide which ideas deserve another article, a new format, or something you can sell.1

Here’s what I tried: Which newsletter metrics did I review?

Over the past two years, I’ve published tutorials, visibility strategy, AI experiments, interviews, personal stories, search updates, content marketing advice, resources, offers, and announcements.

Some posts came from work I was doing in my own business. Others answered a marketing question or shared an experiment or lesson I was still working through.

I tested headlines, calls to action, free and paid content, interviews, and different ways of presenting an idea. Then I reviewed 212 posts and compared:

• views

• engagement

• signups

• unsubscribes

• net subscriber growth

Across the two years, those posts generated 336 one-day signups and 153 one-day unsubscribes, for net growth of 183 subscribers. The totals gave me context, and the individual posts gave me more to work with.

Here’s what happened: Do high views and engagement lead to more newsletter subscribers?

A recent article, Should You Focus on Your Website, Social Media, or Email Newsletter?, had 518 views, 26 reactions, 15 comments, and a 12.1% engagement rate. Within the one-day reporting window, it added two subscribers and lost three.

Another article, The Next Question Matters, had a 7% engagement rate. It added five subscribers and lost none.

I saw the same kind of variation in views.

Maximize Visibility with LinkedIn + Substack had 2,382 views and a 21.1% engagement rate. It produced one signup within the reporting window.

How to Help ChatGPT Cite Your Content had 558 views, 18 reactions, six comments, and a 14.1% engagement rate. It produced no one-day signups.

Each metric answers a different question.

Views tell me whether people found or opened the post. Reactions and comments show that readers responded to it. Subscriber behavior gives me another clue about whether people wanted to keep hearing from me.

If you review your own content, look at several types of response before deciding which topics deserve more of your time.

Can newsletter content drive revenue without growing subscribers?

Those two high-view articles taught me something else about measuring content.

If I judged Maximize Visibility with LinkedIn + Substack only by its one signup, I would miss what happened next. The ideas in that article became The Visibility Loop, my mini-course built around a 10-step content plan.

The same thing happened with How to Help ChatGPT Cite Your Content. That topic developed into Get Cited by AI, a workshop and related AI Skills that help people apply the ideas.

Both articles gave me ideas I could develop into paid offers.

That expands the way I think about the return on a newsletter article. A post can lead to subscribers, and it can lead to a workshop, course, Skill, service, resource, or another offer.

This applies to your content, too.

Look at what happened after you published. Did readers ask follow-up questions? Did one part of the article get more response than the rest? Could the process become a workshop, assessment, resource, service, or AI tool?

Sometimes a piece of content is the first version of something people may eventually pay you for.

What kind of newsletter content made readers want to subscribe?

Several of my stronger recent growth posts showed work in progress and the decisions I was making along the way.

My AI Builder Crushes on Substack added five subscribers and lost none. I Started Building a Simple AI Tool as an Experiment added three and lost none.

In those posts, you could see what I was testing and how I was making decisions. I shared why I chose an option, where I changed direction, what I questioned, and what I learned after trying something.

AI can give you a list of ideas in seconds. It can explain a process or summarize a topic. My experience shows up in the choices I make with that information.

After 30 years of working online, I’ve seen plenty of marketing ideas that sounded good and produced little. I’ve seen simple ideas work for years, and I’ve changed my mind when the evidence gave me a reason.

That decision-making is something I can share with you. If you create content from your own expertise, you can do the same.

Show why you chose an approach and what you ruled out. Share what happened after you tried it and how your experience affected the recommendation you made.

Your reader gets to see how you think through a problem they may be trying to solve themselves.

Why do clear, specific newsletter topics get attention?

Another pattern showed up in the way topics were presented.

Some stronger posts addressed a recognizable question, decision, or problem:

• How to Create Content That Attracts Clients

• Google Search Is Giving AI More Control

• I Started Building a Simple AI Tool as an Experiment

You know the subject before opening the article. Some weaker posts started with broader ideas, and the reason to read was harder to see from the title.

Your reader makes a decision before reaching the first paragraph. They want to know whether the subject connects to something they are dealing with and whether spending a few minutes reading will help them.

Try this with your next headline. Ask whether someone can identify the problem, decision, or result the article addresses before clicking.

How should promotional emails fit into your newsletter?

Offers, announcements, celebrations, and workshop promotions tended to see more unsubscribes than my regular editorial content. I expected that, since promotions ask readers to make a decision.

I run a business, and I’ll keep telling you about services, workshops, and resources I think can help. The data made me pay closer attention to the job of each email.

A teaching email can teach. A conversation email can invite a response. An offer can make the case for an offer.

Trying to fit too much into one message makes the purpose harder to follow. Before you write, decide what you want that email to do.

Here’s what I noticed about content that grows a newsletter

The patterns across 212 posts gave me a clearer way to judge my content. Useful information can bring people in, a clear point of view can give them a reason to return, and a concrete question can make it easier for someone to decide whether an article is relevant.

Showing how you make decisions gives readers access to your experience. An article can earn its place in your business through subscriber growth, conversations, services, products, or ideas worth developing further.

That’s what I want to pay closer attention to in year three.

I have the data from my side, and I’d like your perspective too. Your answer will help me decide which kinds of articles to create more often in year three.

What makes an article most useful to you?

• Seeing what someone tried, what happened, and what they learned

• Getting a clear answer to a specific marketing question

• Having steps I can follow and put into practice

• Seeing examples that help me make a decision

What this means for you: How can you review your own content performance?

You can learn from your content long before you reach 212 posts. Start with your last 10 pieces and look at them together.

Ask yourself:

• Which topics brought people closer to my business?

• Where did my experience and judgment show up clearly?

• Which pieces addressed a problem or decision my readers already have?

• Which idea deserves a follow-up or could become something I sell?

Use whatever evidence your business gives you: newsletter subscriptions, replies, website visits, calls booked, downloads, comments, sales, and referrals.

Then compare what you find across those 10 pieces. Look for topics people responded to, questions that keep coming up, and ideas that led somewhere beyond the original post.

A high-view article may lead to a useful offer. A smaller post may bring in more subscribers. An article with modest subscriber growth may contain the idea for your next workshop or service.

Pay attention to what happens after you publish. That information can help you decide what deserves another article, a new format, or a paid offer.

What will you get from Your Visibility Edge in year three?

The purpose of Your Visibility Edge stays the same: help you get found, show your expertise, build trust, and turn visibility into business without burning out.

The way I share that work is changing. You’ll see more of the experiments I’m running, including what worked, what I changed, and what I learned.

You’ll see more of the decisions behind my recommendations so you can compare them with choices in your own business. I’ll share examples from work I’m doing now, including the AI tools I’m building and the questions I’m asking as I build them.

And I’ll keep coming back to one question that has guided my work for years:

What’s the next logical step?

I want Your Visibility Edge to help you spend less time collecting marketing ideas and more time making good decisions about what deserves your attention.

If that sounds useful, subscribe to Your Visibility Edge and join me for year three. Paid subscribers now have more ways to get direct help from me, with new perks for when you want support applying an idea, making a decision, or finishing a project.

Subscribe now

Two years of publishing gave me plenty of numbers to study. I’m going into year three paying closer attention to what readers do, showing more of the thinking behind my work, and using that evidence to decide what I create next.

P.S. Got questions, comments, feedback? Post them in the comment thread!

Leave a comment

Have you ever had an idea for an assessment, calculator, decision tool, or app and thought, “I wouldn’t know how to build that”?

You may know exactly what the tool should help someone do. The technical part is where the idea stops.

That’s where I was when I started working on the Visibility Momentum Map (now available!).

I’ve spent 30 years working online, but I don’t code or build software. What I did have was an idea based on something I know well: helping solo business owners figure out where their visibility needs attention.

Could I take my expertise from years of working with solo business owners and turn it into a simple AI tool people could use?

That question got me started.1

What I can share now is the thinking behind the build. That may be useful if you’ve wondered whether something from your own experience could become a tool people can use.

What expertise could you turn into an AI tool?

You probably have ways of working that feel ordinary to you after using them for years.

Maybe you ask every new client the same 5 questions. Maybe you can hear someone describe a problem and quickly spot where they’re stuck. Maybe you have a process for comparing choices or deciding what should happen next.

That kind of knowledge can be a starting point.

The Visibility Momentum Map came from patterns I’ve seen repeatedly with solo business owners.

Someone can do plenty of marketing and still struggle to get inquiries. Their offer may be unclear. Their content may answer questions their audience isn’t asking. Their expertise may be hard to see. They may give people no clear next step. Or they may lose contact after someone shows interest.

Those patterns became 5 areas in the assessment:

• Value Clarity

• Audience Questions

• Expertise Evidence

• Next Step

• Ongoing Connection

The framework existed before the app. That gave AI something specific to work with.

How small should your first AI tool be?

Once you start building with AI, ideas can multiply fast.

A simple assessment can suddenly have accounts, dashboards, saved results, integrations, personalization, extra questions, more data, and all kinds of features you hadn’t considered 10 minutes earlier.

Some of those ideas may make sense later.

The rule that has kept the Visibility Momentum Map manageable is:

One problem. One action. One outcome.

For the Map, the problem is lack of clarity about where visibility may be losing momentum. The action is taking the assessment. The outcome is one priority area and one practical next step.

That’s enough for a first version.

Your idea can be small too.

Maybe someone answers a few questions and receives a recommendation. Maybe they enter information and get a calculation. Maybe the tool helps them decide between 2 options or identify which issue deserves attention first.

A useful question here is:

What does someone need to walk away with for this tool to have done its job?

That answer can save you from building a lot of things before you know whether people want the core idea.

Where does your judgment matter when building with AI?

AI can give you options very quickly. Choosing among them is a different job.

One of my beta testers helped me see this when she questioned whether the Map applied to her. The assessment used the word “client,” and that word made the tool feel narrower than I intended.

In my work, the person you want to reach could be a client, customer, buyer, reader, member, podcast listener, video viewer, or someone taking another step with you.

The assessment language didn’t communicate that. Instead, it revealed my bias for the word “client.”

There were several possible ways to respond. I could add N/A choices, create different paths for different business models, or add more personalization.

I went back to what the Map was meant to measure.

The 5 areas still applied. The scoring still made sense. The wording was creating confusion.

So “Buyer Questions” became “Audience Questions.” “Invitation” became “Next Step.” “Follow-Up” became “Ongoing Connection.” I made the welcome page clearer about who the assessment is for and left the scoring alone.

That’s one place your own experience becomes very useful.

How should you use feedback on an AI tool?

If you put a tool in front of real people, they’ll show you things you missed. And it can be humbling!

They may tell you a button moved too fast, a question was confusing, a result felt wrong, or they expected something different.

Their comments give you clues. Your job is deciding what those clues mean.

The “client” issue taught me that. The beta testers were pointing to a real problem, and changing the language fixed it without changing the underlying method.

Another tester noticed something completely different. After clicking an answer, the next question appeared so fast that she wasn’t sure her answer had registered.

AI and I tried a few possible fixes. One version briefly changed the background color between questions.

When I tested it, my reaction was immediate: it looked like an error.

So we tried a simpler response. The selected answer now stays visible for a moment before the next question appears.

Then came a tiny decision that I never expected to make when I started this project.

How long should that moment last?

450 milliseconds felt too fast.

750 milliseconds felt better.

That choice didn’t require coding knowledge. It required using the tool and paying attention to the experience.

You can do the same with anything you create.

How do you decide what to fix first?

Building something new gives you an endless supply of things you could improve.

Deciding what deserves attention now can save a lot of time.

At one point, the live Map took about 15 seconds to load. That was long enough to make me wonder whether I had a hosting problem.

Then I tested it again.

The second load took about 1 second.

Now I had more information. The longer wait appeared to happen on the first load after the app had been inactive.

I changed the loading message so the person using the Map could see something was happening, then kept testing before taking on a larger technical project.

You’ve probably made similar decisions in your business.

What belongs on the “later” list?

One of the easiest ways for a small AI project to grow is by saying yes to every good idea.

The Visibility Momentum Map has plenty of possibilities for future versions.

Saved results could be useful. So could more personalization and integrations. I’d also like to test some visual ideas.

For now, Version 1 has a much shorter job description.

Can people complete the assessment?

Do the questions make sense?

Does the result feel accurate?

Is the recommended action useful?

Do the emails arrive?

Those answers will tell me whether the core idea deserves further development.

You can use the same thinking with your project.

AI is very good at giving you more things to build. You still choose when the first version has enough.

Should you build your AI tool yourself or get help?

Your answer may be different from mine.

I could have hired someone to build the Visibility Momentum Map. I may bring in someone with deeper technical skills as the project develops.

For this first version, curiosity won.

I wanted firsthand experience with the process. I wanted to see how far I could get, where I would run into problems, and what I would learn by trying to solve them.

That learning has changed how I would approach outsourcing too.

After working through the first version, I know much more about what I would ask someone to build. I know which parts matter to me. I know what needs explanation and where I’d want technical guidance.

The useful choice is the one that fits your interest, skills, time, and project.

What could you build from your expertise?

You may have been doing something for so long that you barely notice the judgment involved anymore.

That knowledge may be useful in another form.

It could become an assessment, decision tool, calculator, planning assistant, Skill, small app, or something you haven’t named yet.

You can start with one small question:

What do you know how to help someone do?

Then see where your curiosity takes you.

And now I’m curious about you.

What’s something you’ve thought about creating from your own experience or expertise?

Tell me in the comments.

Leave a comment

If you already have an idea and you’re ready to work out what it could become, we can do that together in a Clarity & Action session. We can define who it’s for, what it needs to do, what belongs in the first version, and create a practical plan to get started.

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Recommended Reading

These prompts are the companion piece for this article. Read the article first, then apply the next-step prompts.

Once you have a bank of buyer questions, AI can help you examine them more closely.

These prompts are meant to pull out your experience and judgment, so the final content reflects how you make decisions.

Read more

In my article about creating content that helps people decide whether to work with you, I suggested looking through emails, call notes, DMs, feedback forms, and transcripts for the questions people ask before they buy.

That can leave you with a long list.

So now what?

I come back to a question a business mentor drilled into me years ago:

What’s the next logical step?

If you have 20 questions sitting in front of you, start with the one that can help someone decide what to do next.

I call this decision weight: how much answering a question can help someone make a useful decision.

A question has more decision weight when your answer can help someone choose, compare, rule something out, take action, or decide whether an offer fits.

There’s another test I keep coming back to:

One problem. One action. One outcome.

I use this idea when I think about building simple AI tools. It works just as well for content.

One useful piece of content can address one clear problem, help someone take one useful action, and move them closer to one outcome.

That gives you a much better way to decide what deserves your publishing time.

How to choose which buyer questions deserve content first

Frequency matters. It doesn’t get the final vote.

You might hear the same question 20 times and still decide it isn’t worth writing about right now.

Maybe the question attracts people who are unlikely to buy.

Maybe it sits far away from the work you want to be known for.

Maybe the answer leads to more research with no clear action.

Maybe it sends you into a topic you no longer want to spend time on.

Your publishing time is limited. Every topic you choose means another topic waits.

Ask:

Will answering this help the right person make a useful decision?

That gets much closer to the job your content needs to do.

Buyer questions about price, fit, timing, and risk

Questions with strong decision weight aren’t always the easy ones.

They may be about:

• price

• fit

• limitations

• timing

• risk

• what happens after someone buys

• when your offer may be a poor fit

• whether someone can solve the problem without buying anything

Those questions can feel harder to answer in public. They can still be some of your strongest topics.

Someone considering an AI consultant may care far more about “Do I need a custom AI app for this?” than “What is generative AI?”

A traveler planning Japan may care more about “Is paying a travel advisor worth it for this trip?” than “What are the top things to see in Tokyo?”

A reader considering a nonfiction book may want to know, “Will this help me if I already know the basics?”

A business owner considering coaching may be asking, “Do I need private help, or can I get what I need from a group program?”

Each question sits close to a decision.

That gives it more decision weight.

Why buyer questions matter before someone contacts you

A lot of research happens before someone contacts a business.

The 2025 6sense Buyer Experience Report, based on nearly 4,000 B2B buyers, found that buyers completed about two-thirds of the buying process before speaking with sellers. Source: 2025 6sense Buyer Experience Report

The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 75% of decision-makers and C-suite executives said a piece of thought leadership led them to research a product or service they had not been considering. Source: LinkedIn and Edelman

These studies focus on B2B buying, so I wouldn’t apply the percentages to every type of business.

The useful point is that your content may be answering questions long before someone sends an email, fills out a form, buys a book, books a trip, or signs up for a program.

That gives your answers real work to do.

Start with buyer questions closest to a decision

Here’s how I’d look at a few examples.

A nonfiction author

Say you wrote a book for people considering a career change after 50.

Readers keep asking:

“Will this book help me if I’ve already changed careers once?”

That question has high decision weight.

The reader is trying to decide whether your book fits their situation.

A useful article could answer that one question directly.

Problem: The reader isn’t sure the book fits their experience.

Action: Read your explanation and compare it with their situation.

Outcome: Decide whether to buy the book.

That piece has a clear job.

A broad article about building a reading habit may be useful. It sits much farther from the decision to buy this book.

An AI builder consultant

An organization asks:

“Do we need a custom AI app, or can we use tools we already have?”

That question carries a lot of decision weight.

The consultant can explain what they consider before recommending a build: the task, repeatability, available data, how many people use it, and what needs to happen after the AI produces an answer.

A good answer might lead someone to decide they don’t need a custom build.

I think that is worth saying.

A travel advisor

A traveler asks:

“Is it worth using a travel advisor for a 10-day trip to Japan?”

There’s a decision sitting inside that question.

A travel advisor can explain what makes a trip more complex, what planning support includes, where an advisor can save time, and what type of traveler may prefer to plan alone.

The content addresses one problem.

The reader takes one action: compare their trip with the criteria.

The outcome is a decision about whether to ask for help.

A business coach

A business owner asks:

“Would private coaching or a group program fit me better?”

That question gives the coach room to show how they think.

The answer could cover the amount of feedback the person wants, the pace they prefer, how much outside perspective they need, and how independently they work.

The reader leaves with a clearer way to choose.

That carries more decision weight than another broad article about the benefits of coaching.

Use the One Problem. One Action. One Outcome. test

Take one question from your list and run it through this test.

One problem

What is the person trying to figure out?

Keep it narrow.

“Should I use a travel advisor for Japan?” is clear.

“How do I plan better trips?” covers a much larger topic.

One action

What can the person do after reading?

They might:

• compare options

• assess fit

• review criteria

• choose a format

• calculate a cost

• rule something out

• book a conversation

• read a sample

• request more information

If you can’t name the action, the topic may still be too broad.

One outcome

What decision becomes easier?

Maybe they decide to buy the book.

Maybe they decide they need an AI assessment before commissioning a build.

Maybe they choose private coaching.

Maybe they decide to plan the trip themselves.

That last one counts.

Your content has done useful work when it helps the right person make a sound decision, including a decision that doesn’t end in a sale.

A 4-part test for ranking buyer questions

Some questions belong in your content now. Others can wait.

If I were sorting a list, I’d ask 4 things:

1. Does this question come up more than once?

2. Can the answer change a buying decision?

3. Does answering it let me show how I make decisions?

4. Does it connect to work I want more of?

A question that scores high on those 4 points goes near the top.

A question can come up all the time and still rank low if it has little connection to what you sell or where you want your business to go.

That is a judgment call.

A formula can sort the list. Your experience decides what deserves your attention.

Use the buyer’s exact question in your content

When you find a strong question, keep the original language.

If someone asks:

“Do I need a custom AI app for this?”

Keep it.

If a traveler asks:

“Is a travel advisor worth it for Japan?”

Keep it.

If a business owner asks:

“Should I choose private coaching or a group?”

Keep it.

Those words tell you how the person is thinking about the decision.

They can give you a title, an FAQ, an email subject, a video topic, or the opening for an article.

They can help search engines and AI systems connect your content with the language people use when they look for an answer.

Try this AI prompt

Use AI to help sort the questions. Keep the final call for yourself.

I have a list of real questions from people who may buy my book, product, service, program, or expertise.

My audience is:
[describe your audience]

My offer is:
[describe the offer]

Here are the questions:
[paste questions]

Help me find the questions with the highest decision weight.

For each question, assess:

1. What problem is the person trying to solve?
2. What decision may sit behind the question?
3. What single action could my content help them take?
4. What single outcome could that action lead to?
5. Does this question give me room to share my experience and judgment?
6. How closely does it connect to the work or offer I want more people to consider?

Do not assume how often I hear each question. Ask me.

After I answer, rank the top 5 questions.

For each one, explain why it deserves priority and where my own experience or judgment needs to appear.

Do not write the content.

AI can sort and compare.

You make the call.

Choose one buyer question and answer it well

You don’t need a 3-month editorial calendar before you can publish something useful.

Pick one question.

Make sure the problem is clear.

Give the reader one useful action.

Help them reach one clear outcome.

Then ask yourself the question I keep coming back to:

What’s the next logical step?

That answer can lead you to the next piece.

Questions, comments, and feedback are welcome. Post in the comment thread below.

Leave a comment

Melanie and I met around 2005. We stayed in touch over the years and recently reconnected on Substack. That says something about visibility on its own. Staying present online can reconnect you with people you knew years ago and create opportunities you couldn’t have predicted.

Our conversation focused on a question I’ve been thinking about a lot:

What can you build with AI that lets someone use your expertise?

I’ve used AI for research, writing, brainstorming, editing, repurposing and planning. More recently, I’ve been experimenting with simple tools that help people solve a problem, make a decision, or get a small result.

That gives someone a chance to experience your work in a different way.

A small result can create a stronger connection

Think about the last PDF or ebook you downloaded. Did you read the whole thing?

I have plenty sitting in folders I meant to read and never did. An interactive tool asks for participation. Someone answers a few questions, enters information, makes a choice, or follows a short process. Then they get a result based on what they gave the tool.

During my conversation with Melanie, I put it this way:

“When somebody accomplishes something based on something you’ve given them... they can say, ‘Okay, this worked. Maybe I want to work with that person.’”

That’s where I see the visibility opportunity. You’re giving someone a chance to experience how you think before they hire you.

The result can be small. They might identify a gap, make a decision, choose a next step, create a piece of content, assess an offer, or prepare for a coaching session.

A useful result that takes a few minutes can tell someone a lot about your approach.

Start with one problem, one action, one outcome

This was the advice I kept coming back to during the interview:

Start with a problem people already bring to you.

Maybe clients repeatedly ask:

• Which marketing channel should I focus on?

• Is this offer ready to sell?

• What should I work on next?

• Why isn’t my content bringing inquiries?

• What should I fix on my website first?

Pick one question.

Then decide what action the person will take inside the tool and what useful result they should get. Your first version might have 5 questions and give someone one recommendation.

That’s enough for a first test.

AI will happily suggest 14 extra features, 6 reports, a dashboard, charts, email follow-up and several things you never asked for. I’ve learned to say no and keep going back to the result I wanted the person to get.

Use this filter before you build anything

An idea can sound interesting and still be a poor first project.

Before spending time on it, check your idea against these 3 questions:

1. Do I already know this subject well?
   Your first tool should come from experience you already have. You shouldn’t have to research an entirely new area to make it useful.

2. Can someone get a useful result in a few minutes?
   Look for a small decision, assessment, recommendation, or output. The person should be able to see what they gained from using it.

3. Does the result connect to work I already do?
   A tool makes more sense for your business when the next step connects naturally to your services, products, newsletter, course, or other work.

Melanie shared ’s offer analyzer as a good example. Someone can use the analyzer, learn something about their offer, and then recognize where they may need coaching or strategic help.

The tool has a job. It gives the person a useful starting point.

What could this look like in your business?

Sometimes the hardest part is seeing how an idea applies to your own work.

Here are a few examples:

Business coach:
Answer a short series of questions and get a recommendation for the business priority that deserves your attention this month.

Consultant:
Complete a readiness assessment before starting a project and get a list of areas that need attention first.

Copywriter:
Paste in a sales page and get feedback on where the message may be unclear or missing information.

Visibility strategist:
Answer several questions about your current marketing and find the area where your visibility needs attention.

Course creator:
Answer a few questions and find the program or resource that best fits what you need right now.

You could create the same kind of experience around pricing, client intake, content planning, website readiness, offer development, event preparation or another task you already guide clients through.

The useful question is: What small decision or result do people regularly need your help with?

Your judgment stays in charge

This may have been my strongest point in the conversation.

AI can write code, suggest questions, find errors, and propose features. You decide whether those ideas belong in the tool.

When I’m working on something over several days or weeks, I regularly ask AI questions such as:

• What did we originally decide this tool should do?

• What have we added since then?

• Which pieces still matter?

• What remains unfinished?

• Has this become more complicated than it needs to be?

Those questions bring my own judgment back into the process.

Your experience with clients matters here. You already know which questions need to be asked, where people get stuck and what information changes your recommendation.

That knowledge belongs in the tool.

Make it work before you make it pretty

This lesson took me a little longer to learn.

I like things to look good. I can spend way too much time thinking about the name, colors, images, layout and final report.

Get the function working first. Can someone enter information? Does the tool process it correctly? Does the result make sense? Would you give that recommendation to a client?

Once those pieces work, you can spend time on presentation.

My Visibility Momentum Map started very small. Beta testers gave me plenty to think about. Some of their feedback sent me back to parts of the tool I thought were finished.

People use things differently than you expect. Testing shows you where the gaps are and which parts need more work.

Look at work you’ve already created

You probably have several possible tool ideas sitting inside your existing work.

Look through your articles, courses, worksheets, client intake process, presentations and frequently asked questions. Pay attention to the steps you repeat and the decisions you regularly help people make.

My 15-Minute Content Shortcut came from an article. That idea later became part of a larger mini-course.

The same thing can happen with a framework you teach or a process you repeat with clients.

Ask yourself:

There may be a useful tool sitting inside your answer.

Try this prompt to develop your first idea

Once you have a possible idea, take it to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and use this as a starting prompt:

I help [type of client] with [problem].

One step I regularly help them with is [step].

I want to create a very small interactive AI tool that helps them complete this step and get [result].

Suggest the simplest working version I could create.

Keep it focused on one problem, one action and one outcome.

Do not add extra features.

Tell me:

1. What information the user needs to provide

2. What the tool should do with that information

3. What result the user should receive

4. The smallest number of steps needed to make this work

Treat the response as a starting point. Read every suggestion and decide whether it belongs.

You know your clients. AI doesn’t.

A few people I want to acknowledge

A lot of my own experimentation has come from watching what other smart business owners are creating.

was one of the first people who made me look at AI building differently. I saw the sophisticated tools she was creating and asked whether she had made them on a vibe-coding platform. She told me she was working directly with AI and VS Code. I wanted to learn how she was doing it. Ellen and I have since taught 2 hands-on AI app creation programs together.

created Carousel Bot. I volunteered to beta test it after meeting Karen on Substack, and I now use it regularly. Every time I use her tool, I think of Karen. That is a pretty good example of visibility through something useful.

created a process using a Claude Skill and Gemini Gem to create sketchnotes. I can take an article through her process and get a visual I can use with my content within minutes.

Lori Young, a member of Melanie’s Rising Tide Collective, created an offer analyzer. Melanie shared Lori’s example during our conversation. Someone can use the tool, learn something about their offer, and see where they may need more support.

I mentioned the creator behind , too. Her weekly Tuesday visual prompts have become something I look for. I’ve used them, shared the results, and eventually became a paid subscriber.

Each of these examples shows what happens when people can do something with your ideas. They remember where the experience came from.

What you can do next

Set aside 20 minutes and start with one question your clients ask you repeatedly.

Then:

1. Decide what small result would be useful to them.

2. Choose one action they could take to get that result.

3. Run the idea through the 3-question filter above.

4. Use the starter prompt to sketch the smallest working version.

5. Remove anything that makes the project larger than it needs to be.

6. Create a rough version and give it to a few people.

7. Pay attention to what they do, where they stop and what they ask.

You don’t have to decide immediately whether your idea will become a free tool, a paid product, part of a program or something you use with clients.

Create enough to learn whether people find it useful.

One more thing we talked about

Near the end of the interview, Melanie asked me about Substack’s AI detector, Pangram. This article covers the controversy and has info for opting out if you live in the EU or a state that has digital privacy laws.

I had opinions.

My view is pretty simple. I care whether something I read gives me something useful. I use AI in my own work for research, brainstorming, editing, citations, visuals and plenty of other tasks. Here’s my AI Policy.

An AI detector doesn’t change how I decide whether someone’s work is worth reading. I live in California and will be sending an opt-out request to Substack.

You decide how AI fits into your work. Your judgment, experience, and choices shape what comes out of it.

The same applies when you start creating tools. Pick one useful problem, give someone one useful result, and pay attention to what you learn.

Want to see a simple AI build in practice?

My free 15-Minute Content Shortcut grew out of an article I wrote about getting more visibility from the content you’ve already created.

It gives you a simple way to take one piece of long-form content and find more ways to use it, without starting from scratch every time.

It’s a good example of the idea Melanie and I talked about: take something you already know, pull out one useful piece and give people a way to put it into action.

Try the 15-Minute Content Shortcut here

What part of your expertise could become a small tool someone can use?

Leave a comment

That decision may start with recognizing a problem. It may involve comparing options, deciding whether they trust your advice, or working out whether your approach fits what they need.

The prompts below help you apply that idea to your own content.

They are meant to help you think. They will work best when you answer with examples from your client work, your opinions, and the lessons you have learned over time.

Take them one at a time. You do not need to complete all of them in one sitting.

Read more

Several years ago, a woman contacted me about working together in a 6-month VIP consulting program. The program included flying to Los Angeles so we could spend a full day working side by side.

She told me she had been reading my blog for 10 years.

During that decade, she never commented on a post, replied to an email, or contacted me with a question. I had no idea she was there.

Then she reached a point where she needed the kind of help I offered. She knew how I thought, what I valued, and how I worked. She was ready to hire me.

I think about her when people ask whether content brings in clients. Your readers may be paying closer attention than you know.

They could be reading your articles, following your posts, or staying on your email list for years. You might not hear from them until their need and your offer line up.

Your content helps them form an opinion during that time. It gives them information they can use to decide whether you understand their situation and whether they trust you to help.

The decisions prospective clients make before hiring

Once you choose where you want to publish, the next question is usually, “What should I say?”

Start with the decision your reader needs to make. That gives each piece of content a clear purpose.

Your reader may be trying to decide:

• Do I have a problem that needs attention?

• Is this the right time to deal with it?

• Which option makes sense for me?

• Can I trust this person’s advice?

• Would I want this person’s help?

A useful article answers one of those questions. It reduces the number of decisions your future client has to make alone.

This is especially useful when you have years of experience, yet your content still feels broad. You know your subject, but a prospective client may not see how your knowledge applies to their situation.

You may be publishing regularly with few inquiries. You may have several services and feel unsure which one your content should support.

Your content can help close that gap. It can show the reader how you think and what you would recommend.

Ask what the next logical step is

A business mentor drummed one question into me years ago:

I still forget to ask it sometimes. When I remember, it brings me back to what the reader needs.

The next step can be anything that makes sense at that point. It might be another article, a checklist, an invitation to reply, a short assessment, or a conversation with you.

The point is to offer a step that fits the reader’s current decision. Someone who has just discovered you may need more information, and someone who has followed your work for months may be ready to talk.

Ask this question every time you create something:

“After reading this, what is the next logical step for this person?”

Then make that step clear.

Start with the decision your client needs to make

Content ideas are easy to find. Client decisions take more thought.

A topic such as “5 ways to improve your marketing” may give the reader useful information. It may leave them wondering what applies to their business.

A decision-focused article gets closer to the questions they are asking. For example:

• Should I focus on my website, social media, or newsletter?

• Should I create more content or make better use of what I have?

• Which parts of my marketing should AI help me with?

• What should I fix first?

• Can I handle this myself?

• When does it make sense to ask for help?

These questions give you room to share your experience. You can explain what you would consider, what you would recommend, and where you have seen people waste time.

That is where readers begin to see your judgment. They get a clearer sense of what it would be like to work with you.

Create content for moments of client uncertainty

People often look for content when they feel unsure. They know something needs attention, yet they do not know what to do next.

Your content can help at 4 common moments.

Do I have this problem?

Your reader may sense that something is off without having the words to describe it. You can help them recognize what is happening.

An article such as “3 Signs Your Marketing Has Become Harder Than It Needs to Be” gives the reader a way to review their situation. It can help them decide whether the issue deserves attention.

Is this the right solution?

Your reader may be comparing several ways to solve the same problem. They want help making a sound choice.

Share the factors you look at before recommending an option. Explain who each approach fits, where problems tend to appear, and what you would choose under different conditions.

For example, I would not tell every business owner to focus on the same visibility channel. I would look at how they prefer to communicate, where their prospective clients spend time, and which channel they are willing to maintain.

That reasoning matters. It gives the reader more than a list of tactics.

Can I trust this person?

Trust grows when readers see how you think over time. They learn what you pay attention to and how you make recommendations.

This is where your stories, client examples, and lessons from experience matter. They give the reader evidence that your advice comes from real work.

You might explain why you recommend starting with an email newsletter before adding another social platform. You could share what you have learned from helping business owners use AI without losing their voice.

Those details show your experience in use. They help the reader decide whether your approach fits.

Are they the right fit for me?

Your content gives people a sense of what working with you may feel like. Your tone, opinions, and choices all give them useful information.

The right reader may recognize that you respect their experience and will not hand them another long list of things to do. They may see that you care about making a sound decision and finishing the work.

Some readers will decide your approach fits them. Others may realize they need a different type of support, which saves both of you time.

Show your judgment through your content

Information is easy to find. A prospective client needs to see what you do with that information.

You have spent years seeing patterns, testing ideas, working with clients, and learning what tends to go wrong. Share that part of your experience.

You can write about:

• What you would do first

• What you would postpone

• What you would stop doing

• Why you recommend one option over another

• What changed your mind

• What a client taught you

• What you have seen fail more than once

For example, you could write another general article about using AI to create content. Or you could explain which parts of content creation you are comfortable giving to AI and which parts still require your personal judgment.

The second topic shows the reader how you make decisions. It gives them a reason to remember your advice.

You could list several ways to become more visible online. A stronger article would explain how you decide which visibility task deserves attention first when a client has limited time.

That is the work clients hire you to do. Your content can let them see part of that work before they contact you.

Use the questions clients ask before hiring you

You do not need to invent every content idea from scratch. Your clients and prospects have already given you plenty of material.

Look through old emails, consultation notes, direct messages, feedback forms, and call transcripts. Pay attention to the questions people ask before they decide to work with you.

You may find questions such as:

• How long will this take?

• What should I have ready?

• Will this work with what I already have?

• Do I need to learn another tool?

• How much support will I get?

• How will I know what to work on first?

• What happens after our work together ends?

Each question can become a useful piece of content. Your answer helps a future client make the same decision.

Do not stop at the surface question. Ask what decision sits behind it.

A person asking, “How long will this take?” may be deciding whether they can fit the work into an already full schedule. Someone asking, “Do I need another tool?” may be worried that your solution will add more work.

The question gives you the topic. The decision behind it gives the article its purpose.

Give every piece of content a clear next step

The next step does not need to be large. It needs to make sense.

An article that helps someone choose a marketing channel could lead to a worksheet that helps them define the job of that channel. A newsletter about unclear messaging could invite the reader to reply with the sentence they use to describe their work.

A social post may lead to a longer article. A detailed guide may lead to a consultation or a paid service.

Your offer can be the next logical step when the reader has enough information to consider it. Say what the offer helps them do and who it fits.

For my work, Clarity & Action fits the reader who has plenty of ideas but needs to decide what deserves attention now. We spend 90 minutes choosing the priorities, setting the plan, and identifying the work that can wait.

The following 30 days include email support to help the client put that plan into practice. It is a fit for someone who wants a clear direction and personal input on what to do first.

Use this 5-question content review

Before you plan another month of content, choose one article, newsletter, or social post you already intended to publish.

Review it using these 5 questions:

1. What decision is my reader trying to make?

2. What uncertainty does this piece address?

3. What experience or judgment am I sharing?

4. What will the reader know after reading this?

5. What is the next logical step?

This is the action I recommend taking first. One piece is enough to show you where your content is clear and where it still needs work.

You may find that the topic is useful but disconnected from your service. You may notice that the next step asks too much from someone who has only just found you.

Make the adjustment before you publish. Then watch what changes in the questions, replies, and inquiries you receive.

AI prompt to review content before you publish

Use this prompt to review the piece you selected:

I help [describe your audience] with [describe your service].

Below is a draft of a piece of content I plan to publish.

Review it from the perspective of a prospective client who is deciding whether to hire me.

Identify:

1. The main decision this content helps the reader make
2. Any moments of uncertainty it addresses
3. Where my experience or judgment is visible
4. Sections that sound broad or could have been written by anyone
5. Questions the reader may still have after reading
6. The next logical step the content currently offers
7. Whether that next step fits the reader’s likely level of readiness

Then ask me 5 questions that will help me make the content more specific to my experience.

Do not rewrite the draft until I answer the questions.

AI can point out gaps, but it cannot supply your lived experience. The useful part comes from the examples, decisions, and opinions you add.

Give your content time to work

That woman who read my blog for 10 years reminds me that we do not always see the effect of our content right away. People read, think, compare, and return when the timing fits.

Your job is to keep giving them useful reasons to return. Help them understand their situation, see how you think, and take the next logical step.

Some readers may act this week, and some may contact you years from now. You may never know who is paying attention until they raise their hand.

Advanced prompts for paid subscribers

Paid subscribers can continue with the advanced implementation prompts here:

Get Your Implementation Prompts

The companion post includes prompts for uncovering the concerns clients may never say out loud, turning consultation questions into articles, adding your judgment to a draft, and creating a 30-day content plan tied to your services.

The free article gives you the method and a place to discuss it in the comments. The paid companion gives you the tools to apply the method across your content.

Check this out…

How to Keep Your Marketing Moving Without Adding More Work

Read this article first. The 5 prompts below are based on the article and will help you apply the concept and help you move a reader from interest to inquiry.

You may already have plenty of content.

The first step is to study whether your content helps someone move from interest to inquiry. The following prompts will help you review what is happening now and decide what deserves your attention next.

Read more

A client recently asked me which channel deserved more of her attention: her website, social media, or an email newsletter.

She had all three. She posted on a social platform, published articles on her site, and sent an email when she had something to announce.

Each channel existed, and none had a clear job.

That is where experienced business owners can get stuck. They try to choose the best platform without asking what a prospective client needs to learn, believe, or decide before hiring them.

Your choice should come from your client’s decision process.

A website, social media, and an email newsletter support different parts of that process:

• Social media lets people observe your judgment.

• Your website lets them verify your expertise.

• Your newsletter lets them spend enough time with your thinking to decide whether they trust you.

Your social channel might be LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, or another place where your prospective clients already spend time.

You may use all three channels, and one should take the lead based on where prospective clients lose momentum.

Find Where Prospective Clients Lose Momentum

Think about the inquiries you received during the past year.

Where did those people come from? What did they read? How long had they known you? What happened before they contacted you?

Then look at the people who showed interest and disappeared.

Their behavior tells you more than a list of platform features ever could.

Maybe people discover you on social media, visit your profile, and never take another step. Your website may lack a clear page that explains how you think and how someone can work with you.

Maybe people find your website through search and read an article. They leave without subscribing or contacting you. Your site may answer the immediate question without giving them a reason to continue the relationship.

Maybe people subscribe to your newsletter and read for months. They rarely reply, click, or ask about your services. Your emails may be useful, yet they leave your paid work out of the conversation.

Choose the channel that can repair the weakest part of your client decision process.

Use Social Media to Show Your Judgment

A social platform is useful when your prospective clients need to become familiar with you.

They can see the topics you return to, the opinions you hold, and the advice you give. Depending on the platform, they may read your comments, watch your videos, listen to your podcast, join a discussion, or see how you respond to other people’s ideas.

This gives them a public view of your judgment.

For an experienced consultant, coach, or service provider, judgment carries more weight than a long list of tips. Clients want to know how you assess a situation. They want to see what you notice, what you question, and what you would tell someone to do next.

A useful social post, video, or discussion shows one decision.

You might share:

• A recommendation you gave a client and why

• A marketing tactic you chose to skip

• A pattern you noticed across several client projects

• A choice that saved time or prevented wasted work

• A commonly repeated recommendation that lacks context

The content should give the reader enough information to judge your thinking. It should lead somewhere too.

That next step could be a related article, a short assessment, an email series, or a service page. Without that next step, social media can create recognition without creating a client path.

Research from LinkedIn gives us one example of how public thought leadership can influence buying decisions.

The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 91% of behind-the-scenes buyers become more receptive to sales and marketing outreach after reading strong thought leadership. And 79% are more likely to speak up for that company during an internal buying discussion.

A social post may influence someone who never likes, comments, or contacts you. Your ideas still need to give that person a clear reason to remember you and somewhere to learn more.

Use Your Website to Prove Your Expertise

Once someone becomes interested in you, they often look for proof.

They visit your website to answer practical questions:

• Does this person work with people in my situation?

• Have they handled this type of problem before?

• Can I understand their process?

• What do they sell?

• What might happen after I contact them?

Your website needs to support that review.

A polished homepage alone cannot do the whole job. A prospective client needs pages that show how you think and what your work looks like in practice.

This may include:

• Articles that answer questions clients ask before hiring you

• Case examples that explain the decisions behind the result

• Service pages built around client situations

• A clear description of your process

• Proof tied to the type of work you want to sell

• A next step that fits the reader’s level of interest

The 2025 6sense Buyer Experience Report found that 94% of B2B buying groups rank their preferred vendors before contacting a seller. They buy from the early favorite in nearly 80% of cases.

Your prospective client may review your website long before you know they exist. They may be comparing your articles, services, examples, and point of view with several other people.

Your website needs to give them enough information to decide you belong near the top of their list.

I would focus on the website when people know your name, yet your inquiries are vague, inconsistent, or poorly matched. That often points to missing information during the research stage.

Your Email Newsletter Helps Prospective Clients Assess the Fit

Some services require more trust than one website visit can create.

The client may be considering a long engagement, sharing private business information, changing a process they have used for years, or paying for advice they cannot fully evaluate in advance.

A newsletter gives that person repeated contact with your judgment.

Over time, the reader learns:

• Which problems you take seriously

• How you make recommendations

• How you treat clients

• Whether your advice fits their working style

• What you believe produces a good result

• What kind of work you are available to do

This creates a record of your thinking.

Litmus reports an average return of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing in its report, Email Marketing ROI: What Leads to Better Returns?

That number does not mean sending more emails will bring more clients. The content needs to help readers connect what you know with the work they can hire you to do.

A reader can enjoy your newsletter for months without realizing you sell a service that addresses the problem you write about. Your offers need to appear often enough that the connection becomes clear.

You can mention a client question, explain part of your process, share what you are seeing in your work, or invite readers to get help with the decision covered in the article.

I would focus on the newsletter when people need time before hiring you, referrals matter to your business, or your best clients tend to follow your work for several months before getting in touch.

Give Your Website, Social Media, and Newsletter Different Jobs

You can keep this simple.

Choose one job for each channel you plan to maintain.

Social media: Show how I think about a current client problem.

Website: Give a prospective client the proof and details needed to consider hiring me.

Newsletter: Continue the conversation and connect my ideas to my paid work.

Then choose a lead channel for the next 30 days.

Your lead channel gets your strongest thinking, your clearest invitation, and most of your attention. The other channels support it.

For example, you might publish the full article on your website, share one decision from it on your primary social platform, and send the article to your newsletter subscribers with a short story and an invitation to reply.

Or your newsletter may contain the full article. Your social platform introduces the central idea, and your website holds the service page, case examples, and related resources.

My own newsletter data has shown why these roles matter. Posts with a clear stance and a practical plan brought stronger subscriber growth. Content about LinkedIn and Substack drew broad attention and high engagement, yet produced weak conversion when the next step lacked a clear connection to the topic.

Attention needs direction.

Connect Each Piece of Content to a Client Decision

A good piece of content should change something for the reader.

It may help them:

• Name the problem

• See why the problem persists

• Compare possible choices

• Rule out a poor fit

• Decide what to do next

• Decide who they trust to help

Before you publish, ask:

What decision can the reader make after reading this?

Then ask:

What decision comes after that?

Your call to action should match the second answer.

An article that helps someone diagnose a website problem might lead to a website review service.

A social post about choosing a content channel might lead to a detailed article or a planning session.

A newsletter about inconsistent inquiries might lead to a reply, an assessment, or a consultation.

The connection should feel natural. The paid offer continues the work started by the content.

How to Choose Your Primary Content Channel

Focus on the channel closest to the gap in your client’s decision process.

Choose a social platform when qualified people need to discover your thinking and become familiar with your name.

Choose your website when interested people need stronger proof, clearer information, and a better view of how you work.

Choose an email newsletter when your service requires trust, repeated contact, and time.

Since my Substack newsletter is my primary channel, I use it to publish my strongest ideas and stay in regular contact with readers.

Social media can introduce an idea. My website can answer questions and document my work. The newsletter gives me the space to develop an idea, show my judgment, and connect it to a way someone can work with me.

Useful content may earn attention and trust. It still needs to help the reader see when personal support would make sense.

Turn the Channel Decision Into a 30-Day Plan

Choosing a lead channel is one decision. The harder work comes next.

• What should you publish there?

• Which client decision should the content support?

• How will each article, post, email, or video connect with your paid work?

• What can you maintain for the next 30 days?

These are the types of questions I work through with clients during Clarity & Action: Your 30-Day Marketing Plan.

We meet for 90 minutes, choose the marketing priorities that fit your business, and create a plan you can carry out. You then receive 30 days of email coaching to help you keep moving and make adjustments as you work.

Your plan may center on social media, your website, your newsletter, or a small combination of channels. The choice comes from your clients, your offer, and the decisions that lead someone to hire you.

Learn more about Clarity & Action

Build Your 30-Day Client Decision Content Plan

The next step is to review your current content before choosing a channel or adding more work to your schedule.

In the paid section, you will use advanced AI prompts to find:

• Where prospective clients lose momentum

• Which channel should lead for the next 90 days

• Which client questions deserve content

• How your free content connects to your paid offer

• What belongs in a workable 30-day plan

You will finish with a decision you can use and a plan based on how your prospective clients decide to hire.

You may already have plenty of content.

The first step is to study whether that content helps someone move from interest to inquiry. The following prompts will help you review what is happening now and decide what deserves your attention next.

And when you want personal help making these decisions, Clarity & Action: Your 30-Day Marketing Plan gives us 90 minutes to sort through your options and create the plan together.

The following 30 days of email coaching give you a place to ask questions, report what is happening, and adjust the plan as you put it into practice.

Get Clarity, Take Action

Got questions, comments, ideas, feedback? Please share in the comments.

Leave a comment

Recommended Reading

Read this article first: the 5 prompts below are based on the article and will help you apply that process across your full archive.

You’ll use AI to select stronger search questions, revise existing posts, plan internal links, and decide what belongs in public and paid content.

Start with one question your ideal client is asking. Give the best answer you can. Then publish the next useful answer when the reader is ready.

Read more

I’ve published enough content to know how easily one article can grow beyond its original purpose.

You start with one idea. Then you add background, examples, a related lesson, several tips, and a few thoughts you didn’t want to leave out.

By the end, the article covers a lot of ground. The reader may enjoy it. Search engines may index it. An AI search tool may still have trouble deciding which question the article answers best.

Current research points to a simpler approach.

Choose one question for each post and answer it clearly.

That decision can make your Substack archive easier for readers, Google, and AI search tools to interpret.

The quick answer

Substack articles can appear in AI search results when the content is public, focused, clearly structured, and relevant to the user’s question.

A publication with a consistent archive on one subject may have a better chance of being recognized as a useful source. Paid posts are harder for crawlers to access, so keep some of your strongest teaching content open.

In Britopian’s analysis of 1.7 million unbranded prompts, Substack received 1,140 citations, about 0.07% of the citations found in that dataset. Source

That number is small. It still shows that Substack content is being cited.

Why clear, focused Substack articles are easier to cite

A 2026 Semrush study compared hundreds of thousands of pages cited by AI platforms with pages ranking in Google.

The researchers reviewed 11,882 prompts across ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. They found several content traits that appeared more often on cited pages:

• Clear summaries

• Visible experience and authority

• Question-and-answer sections

• Descriptive headings and clear section structure

• Lists, tables, and other structured elements

Clear summaries showed the strongest positive relationship with AI citations at 32.83%. Question-and-answer formatting showed a 25.45% difference, and clear section structure showed a 22.91% difference. Source

The study does not prove that these changes will earn a citation. It shows that clear, well-organized pages appeared more often in the cited group.

That gives solo publishers a useful rule:

Build each article around one clear question and make the answer easy to find.

The title identifies the subject. The opening gives the main answer. The headings separate the related points. Examples and sources add support.

How a focused Substack archive shows your expertise

You’ve probably built up years of useful knowledge.

Your knowledge may be spread across newsletter posts, website pages, interviews, social posts, videos, and client conversations. Each item makes sense on its own. The full body of work may be harder for search systems to connect.

A focused publishing habit can make those connections clearer.

For example, a business coach might publish separate articles that answer:

• How do I choose a coaching niche?

• What belongs in a coaching package?

• How do I explain the value of coaching?

• How can a coach get referrals?

• How should a coach follow up after a discovery call?

Each article answers one question. Together, the articles show depth across one area of expertise.

Over time, the archive gives readers and search tools repeated evidence about what the coach knows.

A 2026 practitioner analysis of Substack citations found that archive depth, topic consistency, open access, and clear article structure were common traits among publications earning AI citations. Source

I’ve seen a similar pattern in my own newsletter.

My strongest subscriber-growth articles tend to make one clear promise and give readers a plan they can use. Posts that cover a broad concern without an easy starting point get attention, but they are less likely to turn that attention into subscriptions.

That experience has made me more selective about how much I ask of one article.

Start with the question your client is already asking

A strong AI SEO article often begins before you write the first sentence.

Start by choosing the exact question the post will answer.

Look at:

• Questions clients ask during calls

• Questions that appear in your inbox

• Phrases people use before buying

• Questions raised by an earlier article

• Search suggestions in Google

• Questions appearing in AI search answers

• Comments on LinkedIn, YouTube, or Substack

The wording matters.

A topic such as Substack marketing could lead to dozens of different articles.

A question such as How can I make my Substack articles easier for AI search to cite? gives you a clear assignment.

You know what belongs in the article. You can spot material that belongs somewhere else. The reader knows what answer to expect.

Put the question where search systems can see it

Once you choose the question, repeat its language in the places that describe the page.

Use it in:

1. The title

2. The opening paragraph

3. At least one subheading

4. The page description

5. The URL, when you control it

6. The answer near the top of the article

The wording does not need to match each time perfectly. It should stay close enough that the subject remains clear.

A title such as:

How to Make Your Substack Posts Easier for AI Search to Cite

could include headings such as:

• Why do focused Substack posts earn more AI citations?

• Do paywalls affect Substack AI search visibility?

• How should you structure a Substack post for AI search?

• How can you improve an existing Substack post?

Those headings answer related parts of the same main question.

Give the answer early

Many writers spend several paragraphs setting up the subject before giving the answer.

For an AI SEO article, place a direct answer near the top.

Aim for 2 to 4 sentences that could stand on their own.

Example:

Substack posts can appear in AI search results when the content is public, focused, clearly structured, and relevant to the user’s question. A publication with a consistent archive on one subject may have a better chance of being recognized as a useful source. Paid posts are harder for crawlers to access, so keep some of your strongest teaching content open.

A reader gets the answer right away. An AI tool gets a clean passage it can interpret.

You can spend the rest of the article adding context, proof, examples, and steps.

Use headings that answer related questions

Headings help readers scan. They give search systems clues about the topics covered on the page.

Write headings in plain language. Use questions people might type or say.

For example:

• What is Substack AI search visibility?

• Can AI tools read paid Substack posts?

• How long should a Substack article be?

• Do source links affect AI citations?

• Should you add an FAQ section?

Each heading should lead to a useful answer.

Skip headings written only to add personality or create suspense. A heading such as “What else should you know?” says very little about the content below it.

Choose the related questions that help the reader act. Save the rest for future posts.

Keep some of your strongest articles public

Paid subscriptions matter. Public access matters too.

Content behind a login or subscription wall is harder for crawlers to access. Keep selected teaching articles public when search visibility is part of their job.

Source | Source

A practical free and paid structure could look like this:

Free public article

• Clear answer to a searchable question

• Explanation of the topic

• A few implementation steps

• Examples or evidence

• Links to related public articles

Paid companion content

• Detailed workflow

• Templates

• Worksheets

• Advanced AI prompts

• Reviews or feedback

• Client examples

• Personal support

The public article shows what you know. The paid section helps the reader apply it to their business.

Connect related articles in your archive

A group of connected articles gives readers and search systems more pages through which to identify your recurring subject matter.

Say your main subject is online visibility for solo business owners.

You might publish:

• How can I stay visible without posting every day?

• How does online visibility lead to client inquiries?

• What evidence does AI need to view content as expert?

• How can I turn one article into several useful posts?

• Which website questions should I answer first?

• How can I make my Substack posts easier for AI search to cite?

Each post has a narrow focus. Internal links connect them.

That connected archive shows a pattern. You keep answering related questions for the same type of reader.

Source:

Substack Coach Community

Will Your Substack Rank in Google Search?

One of the questions I’ve been hearing more often lately is this…

Read more

2 months ago · 24 likes · 14 comments · Adrienne J Clarke

Add proof that supports your answer

AI search visibility depends in part on trust.

Link to original research, official documents, expert analysis, or clear examples. Name your sources. Explain what the evidence means for your reader.

For this topic, two useful research findings are:

• Britopian found 1,140 Substack citations in its analysis of 1.7 million unbranded prompts. That was about 0.07% of the citations in the dataset. Source

• Semrush compared pages cited by AI platforms with pages ranking in Google. Clear summaries appeared 32.83% more often in its positive citation scores, question-and-answer formatting showed a 25.45% difference, and clear section structure showed a 22.91% difference. Source

These numbers give the article substance. They show why the recommendation exists.

Your own experience adds another type of proof. Include what you tested, what changed, what surprised you, and what the reader can learn from it.

How to improve a Substack article for AI search in 20 minutes

Take one article from your archive and review it with these 4 steps.

Minutes 1 to 5: Identify the main question

Write down the single question the article answers.

If you come up with 3 or 4 questions, choose the strongest one.

Minutes 6 to 10: Check the opening

Does the first section answer the question?

Add a short answer near the top if the reader has to search for it.

Minutes 11 to 15: Review the headings

Do the headings use clear language?

Do they stay connected to the main question?

Cut or move any section that takes the article into a different topic.

Minutes 16 to 20: Add proof and links

Add a credible source where one is needed.

Link to 1 or 2 related posts from your archive.

Check that the article is public if you want it to be found and cited.

An AI prompt to help you focus one article

Copy this prompt and add your draft.

You are reviewing an article for AI search visibility.

My audience is [describe your audience]. They want clear, practical advice that respects what they already know.

Read the article and identify:

1. The single main question it answers
2. The clearest one-sentence answer to that question
3. Any sections that move away from the main question
4. The 4 to 7 related questions that deserve their own headings
5. Any claims that need a source, example, or explanation
6. A revised title that closely matches the main question
7. A 2-to-4-sentence answer for the opening section
8. Two related follow-up articles I could publish later

Do not rewrite the full article yet.

Keep the recommendations specific. Use plain language. Do not add topics that are missing from the draft.

Article:
[Paste the article]

Read the AI review as advice. Keep the decisions that fit your reader, your experience, and the purpose of the article.

Frequently asked questions about Substack AI search visibility

Can ChatGPT cite a Substack article?

ChatGPT can cite public Substack posts when its search or retrieval system finds the page relevant to a question. Citation results vary by query, platform, topic, and the sources available at the time.

Do paid Substack articles appear in AI search?

Content behind a login or subscription wall is harder for crawlers to access. Keep selected teaching articles public when search visibility is part of their purpose.

Does a custom Substack domain improve AI visibility?

A custom domain gives your publication a clearer branded address. It does not remove Substack’s formatting or paywall limits. Content quality, access, relevance, external mentions, and article structure still affect whether a page is retrieved.

How long should a Substack post be for AI search?

There is no ideal word count for AI citations. An Ahrefs study of 174,048 cited pages found almost no relationship between article length and citation position. Write enough to answer the question clearly, then stop. Source

Build a stronger AI search article system

The public article outlines the core process: choose one question, answer it early, use clear headings, add evidence, and connect related posts.

• The section for paid subscribers helps you apply that process across your full archive with 5 advanced prompts.

• You’ll use AI to select stronger search questions, revise existing posts, plan internal links, and decide what belongs in public and paid content.

• Start with one question your ideal client is asking. Give the best answer you can. Then publish the next useful answer when the reader is ready.

After you use the prompt above, let me know what you discovered!

Leave a comment

Related Articles

Google Search looks very different this week.

AI-generated responses now take a much bigger role in how people find information. In many searches, the answer appears before the familiar list of website links. People can ask follow-up questions and continue searching without leaving Google.

For a solo business owner who depends on search traffic, this raises a fair question:

Will people still visit my website?

Some will. Many may get what they need from the AI response and move on.

That makes the content inside the answer more important than its old ranking position.

What changed in Google Search

Google announced a new AI-powered Search box in May 2026. Gemini 3.5 Flash is now the default model in AI Mode across the countries and languages where the feature is available.

The search box accepts longer questions, images, files, videos, and open Chrome tabs. A person can move from an AI Overview into a longer conversation without starting a new search. Google says users will continue to see links and other types of results.

TechTimes reported that the AI response now takes the primary position in search results, with traditional results farther down the page. Classic links remain available through Google’s Web filter.

The exact search screen may vary by user, location, account, and query. The bigger change is harder to miss:

Google is becoming an answer system, not simply a list of pages.

What this means for your website traffic

An AI response may give the searcher enough information to skip the website visit.

TechTimes cited research showing lower click-through rates when an AI answer appears.

An Ahrefs study found that the presence of an AI Overview correlated with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page.

A separate 2026 study found that Google AI Overviews reduced traffic to matched English-language Wikipedia pages by about 15%. The largest declines appeared on topics where a short answer could satisfy the search.

Traffic reports may start telling a different story. A page could influence a buyer’s decision without earning a click. Your expertise may appear in a summary, comparison, recommendation, or follow-up answer.

This makes traditional traffic numbers less complete.

Keep tracking visits, email signups, inquiries, and sales. Add a few other checks:

• Search your main topics in Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.

• Look for your business name, website, ideas, and examples.

• Note which pages get cited.

• Watch for inquiries from people who say they found you through an AI tool.

• Ask new clients how they first heard about you.

This gives you a better view of how your content is being found.

Your old SEO work still matters

You don’t need to rewrite your website for every Google announcement.

Clear pages, descriptive titles, useful headings, internal links, original examples, and accurate information still help search systems read your work. Google’s AI features rely on web sources. The system needs pages it can find, interpret, and quote.

Your content now has 2 related jobs:

1. Give a person a useful reason to visit your site.

2. Give AI systems clear information they can connect to your name and business.

I’ve written about several parts of this process in my AI SEO article collection, including how ChatGPT cites content, how AI recognizes expertise, and how answering the next reader question adds useful context.

This Google update adds urgency to that work. It doesn’t change the basic approach.

Write the part only you can provide

Short factual answers are easy for AI to summarize.

Your experience gives your content more value.

Add details drawn from your work:

• What have you seen happen with clients?

• What mistakes come up again and again?

• How do you decide which approach fits?

• What conditions change your advice?

• What steps do you follow?

• What happened when you tested the idea yourself?

A generic article may give AI a definition. An experience-based article gives it a source worth naming.

For example, a marketing consultant could write a basic article explaining how to choose a social platform. The same consultant could add the 5 questions she asks clients, the signs that a platform is taking too much time, and a story about a client who chose email over Instagram.

The second version carries more evidence of expertise. It gives a reader a reason to visit the source and learn more.

Connect each topic to your business

Getting mentioned in an AI answer has limited value when the topic has no connection to your services.

Review your recent content and ask:

• Which offer does this support?

• Which buyer question does it answer?

• What experience does it show?

• What useful next step can the reader take?

• Where can someone learn more from me?

This connection matters more as clicks become harder to earn.

A person who visits your site after reading an AI summary may arrive with a specific question. Make the next step easy to spot.

That next step could be:

• Read a related article.

• Download a checklist.

• Join your email list.

• Review a service.

• Submit an inquiry.

• Book a consultation.

One clear invitation is enough.

Build topic depth one useful question at a time

AI search often turns one question into a conversation.

Someone may start with:

How can a consultant get more clients?

Then ask:

Which marketing method works with a small audience?

How long should it take?

What can I do each week?

How do I know whether it’s working?

A single article rarely answers the full set.

You can build stronger coverage by publishing connected articles that answer the next useful question. Link them together. Keep each page focused. Give readers a clear way to continue.

This helps people. It gives search systems more context about your work, your point of view, and the topics connected to your name.

Your website becomes a stronger source when several pages show consistent expertise.

Don’t depend on Google to keep the relationship

Search platforms control what people see before they reach you.

Your email list gives you a direct way to stay connected after they arrive.

Review the pages that receive the most search traffic. Check whether each page has a clear invitation to subscribe. The invitation should match the article.

An AI SEO article could provide a visibility checklist. A content planning article could offer a weekly planning template. A client-attraction article could lead to a visibility assessment.

The offer should continue the same conversation.

This gives the visit somewhere useful to go, especially when search traffic becomes less predictable.

A 30-minute visibility check

You can respond to this Google change without spending a week rebuilding your site.

Choose 1 page connected to an offer you want to sell.

1. Search the main question

Run the question through Google, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.

Write down:

• Which sources appear

• What the answer covers

• What it leaves out

• Whether your page appears

• Which follow-up questions the tool suggests

2. Review your page

Look for:

• A direct answer near the top

• Clear headings

• Your own process

• An example from your work

• Your point of view

• Links to related pages

• A clear next step

3. Add one missing piece

Choose the strongest gap.

You might add a client example, a short process, a comparison, a common mistake, or a question the current page does not answer.

4. Connect the page to another useful resource

Add a link to a related article or service page. Give the reader somewhere logical to go next.

5. Track what happens

Check the search again in a few weeks. Note any new citations, changes in wording, traffic shifts, and inquiries.

AI answers change often. One search is a snapshot.

What I’m doing next

I’m paying less attention to the idea of holding one fixed search position.

AI-generated answers can use different sources for similar versions of the same question. Citations may change from one search to the next. A page can appear in an answer without ranking first in the traditional results.

I’m focusing on work I can control:

• Publishing clear answers

• Showing how I think

• Adding firsthand examples

• Connecting related questions

• Giving visitors a reason to subscribe

• Tracking inquiries along with traffic

For paid subscribers, I’ve included an AI prompt that reviews a web page and identifies 5 ways to improve the page/article so it appears as a useful source in Google AI mode, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and other answer based search tools.

Read more

TL;DR: makes a strong case for proximity as one of the most practical ways to build trust, visibility, and collaboration. Instead of relying only on cold pitches or more content, look for the people already connected to your audience, your values, and your work. Start by getting clear on what you want from collaboration, choose partners who know how to follow through, and create a win for you, your partner, and the audience.

Conversation with Melanie Benson

I’ve known Melanie Benson for more than 20 years, so talking with her about proximity felt very fitting.

Proximity is defined as the state or condition of being near or close. In business, Melanie described it as much more practical.

It’s about being in the right conversations with the right people, so your work can be seen, trusted, and referred.

Melanie describes herself as an authority amplifier. Her work is with thought leaders, coaches, and consultants who are tired of being “the best kept secret” in their market. She’s been podcasting for more than 10 years, is close to 500 episodes, and her podcast ranks in the top 1% using the Listen Notes score.

That long view matters. Melanie has seen what worked years ago and what is working now. Her take is clear: cold pitches are getting harder. Trust matters more. Real connection carries more weight.

As Melanie said,

“The people who were landing the best podcasts were landing it through the power of proximity.”

Visibility is changing

Melanie talked about how podcast hosts used to welcome pitches. Then the shift started.

Hosts became more selective. They ignored pitches. They felt annoyed by people who clearly had not done their homework. Many were being pitched by people who wanted access to their audience, with little regard for the host, the topic, or the listeners.

If you host a podcast, a Substack Live, a summit, or any kind of interview platform, you know what she means. Your audience trusts you. You don’t want to put just anyone in front of them.

That’s where proximity changes the conversation. When someone knows you, has experienced your work, or has been referred by someone they trust, the door opens faster.

“When you’re in proximity, people get to know you at an accelerated pace.”

For solo business owners, that matters. You can create content every week and still feel unseen. Proximity gives people a way to experience your voice, your thinking, your values, and your follow-through.

Start with what you want from collaboration

One of Melanie’s strongest points was about clarity.

Before you start reaching out to people, get clear about what you want from collaboration. More clients? More podcast guests? More visibility for your Substack? More speaking opportunities?

“You have to get really clear. What do you want from collaboration?”

She called this your “collaboration compass.” I know that phrase will land for a lot of people because it gives you a way to make better decisions. If an opportunity does not support the outcome you’re working toward, it may not be the right opportunity right now.

That does not mean the person is wrong. It means the timing, audience, or offer may not fit what you’re building.

Melanie gave a good example. Someone invited her into a bundle or toolkit giveaway, and she turned it down. It didn’t support her current collaboration goal.

As she said,

“When we know what we’re focused on, it’s easier to discern what do I say yes to, what do I say no to.”

That’s a useful filter.

Choose partners with care

Melanie gave 3 questions to help you decide who might be a good collaborator.

First, do you share an audience?

In her words: “Do we both speak to people who need and want what we both do?”

That’s the first filter. If the audience is too far apart, the collaboration may feel good in the moment, but it probably won’t create the result you want.

Second, do your offers work well together?

Melanie called this “offer synergy.” If you both serve the same audience in different ways, the partnership can feel natural. You’re giving the audience more context and support without competing for the same exact sale.

Third, does the other person know how to collaborate?

This is where a lot of people get burned. One person promotes, follows through, shares the content, and creates a good experience. The other person does the bare minimum.

Melanie said, “I like to partner with people that they’ve kind of established collaboration as part of the model they do.”

That’s practical. Look for signs. Do they share other people’s work? Do they promote interviews they’ve been part of? Do they show up prepared? Do they make the experience better for the host and the audience?

Make it easy to say yes

If you want to ask someone to collaborate, Melanie’s advice was simple: make a clear, low-risk ask.

You might say:

I see we share a similar audience, and I think our topics would work well together. Would you be open to exploring a collaboration?

You don’t need to overcomplicate it.

“Just make the ask. What’s the worst that happens? They say no.”

That’s the part many of us need to hear. A no is information. It may be about timing, fit, capacity, or priority. It does not need to become a personal story.

Give before you ask

One of my favorite parts of the conversation came near the end, when we talked about untapped collaboration opportunities.

Melanie suggested starting with what is already close to you. Feature other people. Share their work. Restack their posts. Invite clients or partners into conversations. Look for people in your network who would benefit from being seen by your audience.

As Melanie said, “Find a way to be nice. Give visibility.”

You don’t have to start with a huge partnership. You can start by being generous in a specific way. Feature someone in an article. Invite them to a short live conversation. Share one of their posts with a thoughtful comment. Introduce 2 people who should know each other.

This is especially easy on Substack. Restacks, Notes, comments, recommendations, Lives, and guest posts all create simple ways to build connection.

Make the collaboration a win for everyone

Melanie talked about the difference between collaborations that look good on paper and collaborations that work for the host, the guest, and the audience.

She used virtual summits as an example. Many have become less useful because they often give the audience more information without a clear result.

Her standard is a “win-win-win.”

The host wins. The guest wins. The audience wins.

“People don’t really need more information. They want transformation.”

If you invite someone to your audience, what will your people walk away with? If you say yes to someone else’s event, what will their people be able to use?

The best collaborations are designed with the audience in mind from the start.

Your message has to be clear first

Melanie closed with a point every solo business owner needs to hear.

Before someone can refer you, promote you, interview you, or partner with you, they need to understand what you do.

She said, “If we make people work too hard to figure it out, we’ve lost their attention.”

That applies to your website, your Substack, your social profiles, your podcast bio, your speaker page, and your offers. If someone lands on your page and can’t tell what you’re known for, it becomes harder to collaborate.

The same is true for clients. People need to recognize your work quickly. They need to see who you help, what you help them do, and why it matters.

Melanie’s reminder was direct:

“Can somebody go to your page and go, yeah, I get it. I see what they’re doing. I know what they’re known for?”

That’s where many people need to start.

Key takeaways

• Proximity can help people know, trust, and refer you faster. It works best when you are clear about your goal, selective about your partners, and generous in how you show up.

• A good collaboration partner shares your audience, brings a related offer, and knows how to follow through.

• A good collaboration gives the host, guest, and audience a real win.

• A simple first step is to feature someone you already know and respect. Invite them into a conversation, share their work, or give them visibility with your audience.

• Before you reach out, check your own visibility. Make sure your message is clear enough for someone to understand what you do, who you help, and why they should introduce you to someone else.

Looking back, the biggest reminder from this conversation is that visibility is still human. Tools change. Platforms change. Trust still grows through real conversations, shared values, and consistent follow-through.

What’s next?

Get your complimentary copy of Melanie Benson’s 7 Step Framework to be the Un-Ignorable Expert:

Download Melanie's Framework

You’ve probably tested your name or business in ChatGPT.

You asked a question related to your work. You scanned the answer for your name. Maybe you checked the links to see whether your website appeared.

That kind of test can satisfy your curiosity. It doesn’t tell you much about where your best opportunities are.

A stronger AI visibility check starts with the questions your ideal clients ask before they hire someone. Then you study which sources AI cites when answering those questions.

That is where citation research becomes useful.

What an AI citation can tell you

A citation appears when an AI answer links to a source that supports a claim, recommendation, definition, example, or instruction.

A mention works differently. The AI may name you or your business without linking to your content.

A citation gives the reader a path to your website. It can introduce your ideas to someone who has never heard of you.

That still doesn’t make every citation worth chasing.

A citation attached to a broad question such as “What is digital marketing?” may bring little business value to a visibility consultant. A citation attached to “How can a solo consultant stay visible without posting every day?” is much closer to a client problem.

The question behind the citation matters as much as the citation itself.

What I mean by a citation slot

A citation slot is the part of an AI answer where the system uses an outside source to support one point.

One answer may contain several slots.

For example, someone asks:

How can a solo consultant stay visible without spending hours on social media?

The AI answer might cover:

• Choosing one primary platform

• Publishing on a steady schedule

• Reusing one idea in several formats

• Tracking which content brings inquiries

Each point may cite a different source.

Those are 4 separate citation slots. Each source earns its place by supporting one part of the answer. This changes how you study AI visibility. You’re no longer looking at a list of websites and wondering why they appeared. You’re looking at the job each cited page performed.

The citation slot method

I use 4 questions to study each slot.

1. What buyer question triggered the answer?

Start with a question connected to a real client concern.

A travel advisor might study:

Is it worth using a travel advisor for a complicated European trip?

A web designer might study:

How much should a small business website cost?

A business coach might study:

How do I know whether I need a coach or a consultant?

These questions sit close to a decision. The person asking may be comparing choices, checking costs, or deciding whom to trust.

That makes the citation more relevant to the business.

2. What claim did the citation support?

Open the cited source and find the part that relates to the AI answer.

The citation may support:

• a definition

• a price range

• a step in a process

• a warning

• a recommendation

• a comparison

• an example

• a result

Write down the exact purpose of the citation.

“HubSpot was cited” tells you very little.

“HubSpot was cited to support the recommended posting frequency” gives you something you can study.

3. Where does the question sit in the buyer’s decision?

I sort questions into 4 groups.

Early interest

The person is learning about the problem.

Examples:

What is AI visibility?

Why does online visibility matter?

How often should a small business publish content?

Problem recognition

The person knows something is wrong and wants an explanation.

Examples:

Why is my content getting views without inquiries?

Why doesn’t ChatGPT cite my website?

Why am I posting regularly without getting clients?

Option comparison

The person is comparing approaches, providers, costs, or tools.

Examples:

Should I hire a consultant or join a group program?

Is a custom website worth the cost?

Is it better to use a travel advisor or book everything myself?

Action decision

The person is close to taking the next step.

Examples:

What should I ask before hiring a visibility consultant?

How much should I budget for a brand website?

What information does a travel advisor need before planning my trip?

Citation slots tied to comparison and action questions often deserve more attention. They sit closer to a purchase.

Your business model still matters. An early-interest question may be useful when it brings the right people onto your email list. The point is to know why you want the citation.

4. What earned the source its place?

Study the cited page for evidence.

Look for:

• a direct answer near the top

• first-hand experience

• original examples

• a clear process

• current facts

• useful comparisons

• stated limits or conditions

• proof that supports the claim

• This step keeps you from copying a competitor’s headline or article structure.

You’re trying to see what made the source useful to the answer.

How to run a citation check

Start with 5 questions tied to your offer.

Choose questions your ideal client asks before making a decision. Client emails, sales calls, discovery calls, comments, and search queries are better sources than a generic keyword list.

Run each question in the AI platforms your audience is most likely to use. Record the date, platform, question, answer, and cited sources.

AI answers can change. One test is a snapshot, so repeat your highest-priority questions on another day before making a major content decision.

For every citation, record:

• the cited page

• the claim it supported

• where it appeared in the answer

• the buyer-intent group

• what evidence the source provided

• whether the citation connects to your offer

A simple spreadsheet is enough.

Which citation slots are worth pursuing?

Use this 5-point check:

• My ideal client asks this question.

• The question relates to a service or product I sell.

• I have real experience or evidence to add.

• The current AI answer leaves out something useful.

• A reader who clicks could take a sensible next step with me.

A slot that meets 4 or 5 points is worth serious attention.

A slot that meets 1 or 2 points may be interesting without supporting a business goal.

Seeing a competitor’s name can trigger the urge to create content around every topic they cover. That spreads your effort across questions that may never lead to a subscriber, inquiry, or sale.

Find the weakness in the current answer

Your opportunity comes from improving the answer.

Read the cited sources and ask:

• Is the advice too broad?

• Is the information old?

• Does the answer ignore solo business owners?

• Does it leave out cost, time, risk, or conditions?

• Is the recommendation based on theory?

• Is first-hand experience missing?

• Does the answer tell the reader what to do next?

A missing perspective can give you a useful angle. So can stronger evidence.

Example: AI answers about content consistency may repeat the same advice about publishing on a schedule. Your experience may show that consistency depends on choosing a format the business owner can keep producing during busy client weeks.

That is a clear contribution. It adds judgment from real work.

Decide whether to update or create

Once you find a worthwhile citation slot, choose the right content response.

Update an existing article when it already answers the main question and needs a clearer section, stronger evidence, or a more direct explanation.

Add an FAQ when the question can be answered clearly in a few paragraphs and supports a service page or core article.

Create a new article when the question needs its own examples, process, comparison, or point of view.

Leave it alone when the question has little connection to your offer or you lack something distinct to add.

That last option matters. Your time has value. AI citation research should narrow your content choices.

Make your answer easier to cite

Once you select a slot, write for the reader first.

• State the answer early. Explain your reasoning. Add evidence from your experience, examples, client patterns, original research, or trusted sources.

• Include the conditions that change your advice.

For example, a useful answer to “How often should a consultant publish content?” would explain how the answer changes based on platform, sales cycle, audience size, available time, and content format.

That kind of answer gives an AI system more than a general statement. It gives the reader a better decision.

Track results that matter

A citation is one visibility signal.

Track whether the work leads to:

• referral traffic from AI platforms

• email subscribers

• visits to relevant service pages

• branded searches

• inquiries

• sales conversations

Citation patterns can change across platforms and over time. Review them as part of your visibility work.

The business result still counts most.

A prompt to build your first citation question list

Use this prompt to create a starting list:

I am a [profession] who works with [ideal client] and sells [offer].

Generate 15 questions this person may ask an AI assistant before deciding whether to hire someone, buy a service, or choose an approach related to [topic].

Sort the questions into these groups:

1. Early interest

2. Problem recognition

3. Option comparison

4. Action decision

Write each question in plain, conversational language.

For every question, explain:

- what decision the person is trying to make

- how closely the question connects to my offer

- what first-hand experience or evidence I would need to answer it well

Do not suggest questions that sit outside my services or experience.

Review the list using your own client experience. AI can help you draft the questions. Your sales conversations and client work tell you which ones deserve attention.

Build your citation slot plan

You now have a way to spot citation slots and judge which ones connect to a buyer’s decision.

The next step is choosing which opportunities deserve your time.

Paid subscribers can download the Citation Slot Plan, a step-by-step worksheet that helps you review cited sources, score each opportunity, and choose the right content response.

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You may have years of experience, strong client results, and a clear way of solving problems.

AI cannot see any of that until you publish enough evidence.

That is the part of AI visibility that often gets missed. Your expertise exists in your work. An AI system needs to find it in your content.

A stream of short tips may show that you know the topic. A detailed explanation shows how you think, what you have learned, and how you make decisions.

That gives AI more reason to treat your work as a source.

I started blogging for my business in 2004. By early 2005, I was teaching other business owners how to use blogs to reach and serve their audiences.

From the beginning, I saw long-form content as one of the best ways to inform, educate, and entertain a reader. A blog post can be short, of course. The posts that stayed useful over time usually gave the reader enough context to follow the writer’s thinking.

That belief has stayed with me as the tools have changed. AI gives us another reason to publish the thinking behind our advice. It can only recognize the experience, judgment, and process we have made visible.

AI needs more than a conclusion

Consider a common visibility question:

“How often should I post on LinkedIn?”

A short answer might recommend posting 3 times a week.

That gives the reader a number. It gives an AI system one fact it can repeat.

A stronger source explains how the answer changes based on the person’s goals, available time, audience, and existing content. It may include examples, tradeoffs, and the reasoning behind the recommendation.

The second version contains evidence of judgment.

That evidence matters when someone asks AI a detailed question such as:

“I’m a consultant with limited time. How often should I post on LinkedIn if most of my business comes from referrals?”

The system needs more than a posting schedule. It needs a source that has considered the reader’s situation.

The 5 kinds of evidence AI can find in your content

AI systems look for information that helps them answer a question with confidence. Your content becomes more useful when it includes several forms of evidence.

1. A clear point of view

Your content should show what you believe about the topic.

A clear point of view goes further than stating a preference. It explains how you reached that position and what experience shaped it.

For example:

“Posting more often can help when each post supports a clear business goal. Frequency on its own gives you activity without a useful way to judge the result.”

This gives the reader a position and a reason behind it.

2. A decision process

Expertise often appears in the choices you make.

What do you look at first? Which factor carries the most weight? What would cause you to change your recommendation?

When you publish that process, AI has something it can apply to a new question.

A useful article might explain:

• Which factors you review

• The order you review them in

• How you make the final choice

• What conditions would change your answer

This turns advice into a method.

3. Examples from real work

Examples show how an idea holds up outside a clean explanation.

You can include a client situation, a project, your own experiment, or a pattern you have seen repeatedly.

The example does not need to reveal private details. It needs enough context for the reader to see what happened.

For instance:

“A consultant I worked with posted every weekday and received little response. We changed her plan to one detailed weekly post based on client questions. She had more useful conversations because the content showed how she approached the problem.”

That example gives the advice weight.

4. Limits and conditions

Experienced people know that advice changes with the situation.

State who the advice is for. Explain when it applies. Name the factors that could lead to a different result.

This gives AI a more accurate source to work from.

A recommendation for someone with an established referral network may differ from advice for someone building an audience from the beginning. Both can be true within the right conditions.

5. A repeatable structure

AI can work with a process more easily when the steps are clear.

You may already use a process with clients without having written it down. Publishing those steps makes your experience easier to find, explain, and cite.

A useful structure could include:

1. The problem you identify

2. The questions you ask

3. The factors you compare

4. The action you recommend

5. The result you review

A simple name can help readers recall the process when the name adds meaning.

Why many short posts fall short

Short posts can share a strong observation, useful tip, or timely response. They can keep you visible and give readers regular contact with your ideas.

Their limited space often leaves out the details that show judgment.

The reasoning may remain inside your head. The example may be reduced to one line. The conditions may disappear. The process may never be explained.

AI can quote the tip. It has less evidence for treating the creator as a source with a developed method.

This is one reason experienced professionals can publish often and still remain hard to identify through AI search. Their best thinking stays inside client calls, workshops, private notes, and years of practice.

Long-form gives your evidence a place to live

A detailed article gives you room to gather the evidence in one place.

The word count has little value by itself. The article becomes useful through the depth and quality of the information it contains.

A strong piece may include:

• The question readers ask

• Your direct answer

• The reasoning behind it

• An example from your work

• Conditions that shape the advice

• The process the reader can follow

• Related questions that come next

This creates a complete source an AI system can draw from.

Which idea should you develop first?

Choose a question where your answer depends on experience and judgment.

A good candidate often meets 4 of these conditions:

• Clients ask you about it regularly.

• Your answer includes “it depends,” followed by clear reasons.

• Your experience has changed how you think about it.

• You have seen a common approach fail.

• You use a repeatable process to solve it.

• The topic connects to work you want more clients to hire you for.

• You can include a useful example.

• You want your name connected with the subject.

The strongest topic may already be sitting in a client conversation you have had many times.

A useful test for your content

Choose one article or post you have already published.

Read it through these 5 questions:

1. Does this state what I believe?

2. Does it show how I reached that belief?

3. Does it include evidence from my work?

4. Does it explain when the advice applies?

5. Does it give the reader a process they can follow?

Count how many questions you can answer with a clear yes.

A piece that meets 4 or 5 gives readers and AI more evidence of your expertise.

A piece that meets 1 or 2 may still be useful. It may work better as a starting point for a more developed article.

Your experience needs to be documented

Years of experience matter. Published evidence helps other people find and use that experience.

This is where long-form content can support your visibility. It gives you space to document how you think, why you make certain choices, and what your work has taught you.

Dorie Clark explores a related idea in The Long Game. Recognition often grows from a body of work created over time. For this purpose, your body of work needs to contain enough substance for someone to recognize what belongs to you.

AI adds another reason to document that thinking. It can only work with what it can find.

Take one action today

Write down the question you explain most often to clients.

Under it, add 5 headings:

1. What I believe

2. How I reached this conclusion

3. What I have seen in my work

4. When this advice applies

5. The steps I recommend

Add 2 notes under each heading.

You now have the core material for a source that shows more than your answer. It shows the experience behind it.

Prompts to document your expertise

4 prompts + a SuperPrompt (download below) will help you find the evidence already present in your work and turn it into useful content.

Read more

In this Substack Live, I talked with about his new book, Refuse to Be Irrelevant: The New AI & Video System for Being Seen, Trusted, and Paid in the Age of AI, and his AI Video Authority System.

The big theme is simple: AI can help us create faster, but it does not replace trust. For solo business owners, coaches, consultants, and service providers, the real advantage still comes from your voice, your experience, your point of view, and your willingness to be seen.

Lou talked about the fear many experienced business owners are feeling right now. He calls it FOBO, or fear of becoming obsolete. It is that nagging worry that people may stop opening your emails, watching your videos, taking your calls, or seeing you as relevant.

The answer is not to panic or try to do everything. The answer is to build a simple visibility system that helps people see you, trust you, and remember why you are the person they want to work with.

Trust matters more when content is easy to create

AI has made it easier for anyone to produce content. That creates a lot more noise.

Lou’s point was that people now need to know who they can trust. A polished post, image, or video is no longer enough. Viewers want to know there is a real person behind the message.

That is where video still has an advantage. When people can see your face and hear your voice, they get a stronger sense of who you are. Video helps create familiarity faster than text alone.

AI should support your expertise, not replace it

Lou was clear AI is useful for speed and support. It can help with research, scripting, editing, repurposing, and distribution.

But AI should not take over your judgment.

One of the best uses Lou shared is using AI before you record. Ask it to help tighten your message, find a stronger way to frame your idea, or suggest a case study that supports your point.

Then use AI during editing or after recording to turn a single piece of content into a blog post, Substack article, LinkedIn post, YouTube description, or short clip.

The key is this: start with your real expertise. Let AI help you move faster.

Lou’s system has three parts

Lou described his AI Video Authority System around three engines:

Visibility
People need to see you. You cannot build trust if people never hear from you.

Authority
People need proof that you know what you are talking about. Your content should show your experience, ideas, examples, and point of view.

Relevance
People need to feel that your message fits what is happening now. What worked three years ago may no longer be enough.

Together, these three pieces help you stay visible, trusted, and useful.

Video does not have to be perfect

One of the best moments in the live video was Lou’s camera glitching while we were talking about video.

It made the point for us.

Perfection is not the goal. Showing up is the goal.

Lou said one of the biggest mistakes people make is creating video and then leaving it on the hard drive. They wait for it to be better, cleaner, or more polished.

His advice was to get it out there. A 20-second video is enough to start. A live video can work well since you do not have to edit it. If you already record audio interviews or podcasts, turn on the camera and give yourself more content to work with.

Repurposing makes video easier to sustain

Video becomes more useful when you do not treat it as one-and-done content.

Lou shared how AI can take a podcast, video, or interview and help turn it into several useful pieces of content. That might include a blog post, Substack article, LinkedIn post, YouTube short, or social clip.

This matters for solo business owners who do not have a large team. You can create one strong source piece, then use AI to help you reshape it for different platforms.

That makes video less of a heavy task and more of a repeatable content habit.

Start with one small action

If you are new to video, Lou’s advice is simple: start small.

You do not need a big studio setup. You can use your phone. You do not need a five-minute video. You can start with 20 seconds.

Now sure where you stand on the “impossible to ignore” spectrum? Take Lou’s quick assessment to get a detailed diagnosis of where you’re strong and where you could improve.

Are you impossible to ignore?

How to take action

Here are a few ways to put this conversation into practice.

Try this first

Record a short video answering one question your clients or readers ask often.

Keep it simple:

• State the question

• Give your answer

• Add one example

• Tell people what to do next

That could be enough for your first video.

Use AI before you record

Before you turn on the camera, ask AI:

“Help me tighten this idea for a short video. Keep my voice natural. Make the message clear and useful for [your audience].”

Then review what it gives you. Keep what sounds like you. Edit the rest.

Use AI after you record

After you record, use the transcript to create:

• A short summary

• A LinkedIn post

• A Substack note

• A YouTube description

• A few short clips or pull quotes

This is where AI can save time without taking over your message.

Keep the human layer visible

Use AI to help with the process, but keep your voice, point of view, and lived experience in the content.

That is what makes the content believable.

A simple prompt to use

Copy and paste this after you record a short video or live conversation:

“I’m going to give you a transcript from a video. Pull out the main idea, the 5 strongest takeaways, and 3 simple actions a [your ideal client] can take this week. Keep the language clear, practical, and conversational. Do not make it sound overly polished or generic.”

Final takeaway

AI can help you create faster, but trust still comes from you.

Your experience, your examples, your face, your voice, and your judgment are what make the content worth paying attention to. Video gives people a way to feel that faster.

Start small. Keep it useful. Let AI help with the parts that slow you down.

What are your questions about using AI and video about staying visible and impossible to ignore? Post them in the comments, and I’ll get Lou Bortone back to answer them!

Recommended

A few days ago, I had one of those “what if I tried this?” ideas.

June is my birthday month, and I wanted to do something fun for my community. I didn’t want to send a plain discount email. I didn’t want to create a big campaign that would take days to set up.

Something that gave people a reason to engage and helped grow my Your Visibility Edge subscriber list at the same time.

That’s how the Visibility Adventure Wheel started.

And here’s the part to pay attention to: I went from brainstorming ideas to a live AI-built promotion in about 3 to 4 hours.

Was every part perfect? No.

Did I get stuck on the tech? Yes. More on that in a minute.

But the promotion got built, branded, customized, and launched. That’s the useful part if you’ve been thinking about running a small campaign of your own and keep making it bigger than it needs to be.

Start with one clear reason

Before I opened WooBox or asked AI for ideas, I had to answer one question:

Why am I doing this?

For me, the reason was simple. I wanted to grow my newsletter audience and give people a fun way to interact with me during my birthday month.

Your reason might be different.

Maybe you want to:

• grow your email list

• bring attention to one offer

• re-engage people who haven’t heard from you in a bit

• promote a workshop

• get people to try a paid newsletter

• create a fun reason to reconnect with past clients

This is where a lot of promotions go sideways. The tool becomes the focus too soon. The wheel, quiz, giveaway, or landing page gets all your attention before you’ve decided what the promotion is supposed to do.

For me, the wheel was only the format. The real goal was list growth and engagement.

That made the next decisions easier.

The first idea probably won’t be the best idea

Most spin wheels look and feel generic.

Discounts. Coupons. Freebies. A basic spin-to-win setup.

Nothing wrong with that. But it could belong to almost anyone.

So, I discussed it with ChatGPT.

I explained the goal, the audience, the birthday-month angle, and the fact that I wanted the promotion to feel connected to my brand. I wanted it to be playful, but still useful. I wanted it to feel like me, not like a random promo template.

This is where you can use AI well.

Don’t ask it to “write a promotion.”

Ask it to help you think.

Give it your rough idea. Tell it what feels off. Tell it what you don’t want. Ask it to compare options. Ask it why one theme might work better than another.

That back-and-forth helped me land on the Visibility Adventure Wheel.

The theme made sense for my brand because I’ve used adventure language in my work for years. Once I had that idea, the wheel stopped feeling like a coupon dispenser and started feeling like a branded promotion.

That’s the shift you want in your own campaign.

Use a template, then make it yours

I did not build this from a blank page.

I started with a WooBox template.

That helped because the basic structure was already there. I didn’t have to figure out how to create a spin-to-win wheel from scratch. I could focus on the parts that mattered more: the names, prizes, branding, colors, copy, and flow.

Then I used the built-in WooBox AI builder (think vibe coding, like with Lovable) to customize the promotion.

That part surprised me a little. The built-in AI helped speed up the setup inside the tool, and ChatGPT helped me evaluate the bigger brand and content decisions outside the tool.

That combination worked well.

WooBox AI helped with the build.

ChatGPT helped with the thinking.

If you’re creating a promotion, that’s a useful distinction. Some AI tools are good at producing the thing inside the platform. ChatGPT is better for talking through the strategy, testing the idea, checking the copy, and deciding whether the promotion still sounds like you. You’ll also burn fewer AI tokens.

Your theme has to do some work

Once I had the Visibility Adventure Wheel idea, I needed each slice to feel connected.

The slice names became:

• Compass Point

• Scenic Shortcut

• Trail Map

• Discovery Route

• Adventure Map

• Guide’s Insight

• Summit Pass

• Treasure Chest

The names are simple. That’s good. A confused person doesn’t sign up. A confused person clicks away.

Your theme should make the promotion easier to understand, not harder. It should give the campaign a little personality and help the pieces feel connected.

For your business, that theme might come from:

• the language you already use

• the way your clients talk about the work

• a repeatable framework you teach

• a seasonal event

• a milestone

• a problem your audience wants to solve

• a small result you can help them get

The theme doesn’t need to be brilliant. It needs to fit.

Choose prizes you can deliver

This is where I had to slow myself down.

A promotion can look fun on the front end and become a hassle on the back end.

At one point, I considered offering a custom visibility audit. It sounded useful. It also would have created too much manual work if several people won.

So I changed it.

The final prize list included things I already had, could deliver easily, or could create without turning the promotion into a second job:

• Annual Your Visibility Edge subscription discounts

• A free month of paid Your Visibility Edge

• 50% off The Visibility Loop

• An AI Prompt Pack

• A Visibility Adventure Map worksheet

• Ask Denise One Question by Email

• Entry into a Visibility Accelerator Package grand prize drawing

That mix gave people something real without creating a delivery problem for me.

Use that as your filter.

Before you add a prize, ask:

• Would my audience care about this?

• Does it connect to my business?

• Can I deliver it easily?

• Will this create follow-up work I don’t want?

• Does it point people toward a next step?

A good promotion gives people value and protects your capacity.

Both matter.

Let AI help you make decisions

I used ChatGPT throughout the process, but not in a “write everything for me” way.

I used it to discuss and evaluate:

• design choices

• branding

• prize names

• copy

• theme fit

• whether an idea felt too generic

• whether a prize created too much work

• whether the promotion made sense for my audience

That’s the part I wish more solo business owners would try.

AI is useful when you need a first draft. But it may be even more useful when you need a thinking partner and you don’t have another person sitting next to you.

You can say:

“This feels too generic. Give me 5 stronger directions.”

Or:

“Which of these prizes creates too much manual work?”

Or:

“Does this promotion feel connected to my brand, or does it feel like a random giveaway?”

Or:

“Here’s my copy. Make it warmer and clearer without making it sound overdone.”

That kind of prompting saves time because you’re not staring at the same decision for 45 minutes.

The build took 3 to 4 hours

From brainstorming to live promotion, the whole thing took about 3 to 4 hours.

That included:

• choosing the promotion idea

• working through the theme

• naming the slices

• deciding on prizes

• customizing the WooBox template

• using the WooBox AI builder

• reviewing copy in ChatGPT

• adjusting the branding and design

• testing the wheel

• getting it live

That is the part I want you to sit with for a second.

This did not require a huge launch plan.

It did not require a designer.

It did not require a week of planning.

It did require decisions.

That’s usually where the time goes. The tech matters, but the bigger time drain is often deciding what the campaign is, who it is for, what it offers, and why anyone should care.

AI helped me move through those decisions faster.

The tech snag was Zapier

The hardest part was not the wheel.

The hardest part is (still) getting Zapier to send email addresses from WooBox to my MailerLite list.

That’s the unglamorous part of these projects. The idea is fun. The branding is fun. Watching the wheel work is fun.

Then you have to connect the tools.

This is where I’d give you one practical warning: before you spend too much time polishing the promotion, check the connection between your promo tool and your email platform.

Can you send new subscribers to the right list or group?

Can you tag them?

Can you test the form?

Can you confirm the email lands where it should?

That one step matters because the whole point of the promotion is to create a follow-up path. If the names and emails don’t go where they need to go, you have a pretty campaign with a broken handoff.

I still don’t have it working, but that part takes the most patience.

What I’d do differently next time

I’d test the email connection earlier.

That’s the big one.

Before I spent much time polishing the final copy, I’d make sure WooBox, Zapier, and MailerLite were talking to each other properly.

I’d also write the follow-up emails before launch. Not a long sequence. Just a few messages that welcome people, deliver the prize, and point them toward the next useful step.

The wheel gets people to enter.

The follow-up is where the relationship continues.

What this means for you

If you’ve been thinking about a small promotion, don’t start by asking, “What tool should I use?”

Start with:

What do I want people to do?

Then ask:

What would make that action feel easy, useful, and connected to my business?

That’s where the promotion starts to take shape.

You might not need a wheel. You might need a quiz, a giveaway, a short challenge, a coupon, a live session, or a simple email-only promotion.

The format can change.

The process stays pretty much the same:

• choose the goal

• pick the audience

• create a simple theme

• offer prizes or incentives you can deliver

• use AI to test your ideas

• build from a template when you can or create from scratch

• check the tech connection early

• launch before you overwork it

That’s the real lesson from my Visibility Adventure Wheel.

A small idea can become a live promotion faster than you think when you stop trying to figure out every piece alone.

The Visibility Adventure Wheel is live only during my birthday month. The process behind it is something I’ll use again, and it may be worth trying the next time you want to bring fresh attention to your work.

Take the Wheel for a Spin!

Maybe your next AI project isn’t a promo wheel.

Maybe it’s a simple app that helps your clients make a decision, complete a task, organize information, or get a useful result faster.

That’s what we’re working on inside the AI App Creation Lab. In 4 weeks, Ellen Britt and I will guide you through building a real app with AI, even if you don’t code and don’t have a finished idea yet.

You’ll get live weekly sessions, replays, support, and 3 custom GPTs to help you move from “I have an idea” to “I built this.”

The next small group cohort starts June 17.

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