Traditional SEO is on life support

Traditional SEO is on life support.
I’ve said this before, and I said it again on the Unfck My Startup podcast. Host Pete Crowley asked me why traditional SEO is completely fucked.

The answer is simple: Impressions are rising, but clicks are tanking.

But here’s the thing:

SEO isn’t dead — it just left Google.

SEO now means Search Everywhere Optimization: Reddit, YouTube, X, Quora, LinkedIn. If you’re not visible on your audience’s native platform, you don’t exist.

What does this mean for marketers?

LLM SEO is a mirage.
All these agencies promising rankings inside AI summaries? They’re gaming the system. Black hat tactics always burn out. If you want to rank in AI-driven search, it’s still back to basics: great content + strong citations + domain authority.

Play long games with long-term people.
I did 2,900 podcast episodes before being listed #1 by ChatGPT for “best marketing podcast.” That’s not a hack — it’s consistency over the years. If you're not willing to bleed a little, don’t bother.

Product-led growth drives SEO.
Want links? Give away part of your product. With Clickflow, we offer 25K words of free AI-written SEO content. That lead magnet built links and brought qualified traffic, not fluff.

Longtail content still works — if it’s good.
If you're not producing 10–20x more valuable content using AI + human workflows, you're already falling behind. Use tools like Manus, ClickFlow, or GenSpark to output 30–50 high-intent blog posts a month. But remember: volume only works when value leads.

Don’t get stuck optimizing for yesterday’s algorithm. The traffic game is evolving fast, and most marketers won’t keep up.

To playing the long SEO game,
Eric Siu

P.S. We’ve been building and have a couple of opportunities available for newsletter subscribers:

1 - We’re looking for an AI Content Operator to launch and scale our shortform content. If you’re interested, apply at our Careers page.
2 - We launched Clickflow to help automate and scale SEO. We’re giving away 25,000 words for free - sign up for the waitlist at the link.
3 - If you’re interested in 1:1 personalized ads at scale, sign up for the waitlist at Karrot.ai.
4 - If you want to grow faster, my agency Single Grain is offering free marketing plans to Leveling Up newsletter subscribers, check it out here.
5 - For more in-depth marketing content, check out my Leveling Up YouTube channel
6 - To leave feedback on the newsletter, fill out this survey