To grow my company this year (InboxDone.com), we do something old and new.
The big change is that we are reinvesting the budget away from paid advertising content marketing strategy.
This is not new. I started the business with a strategy that included articles, videos, podcasts, and other forms of link building.
(You can learn here is my full development strategy.)
The goal was to improve our ranking on Google.
I knew it wouldn’t be quick, but I hoped it would eventually be effective.
It worked, Google sent us customers every year and is responsible for millions of dollars in revenue.
But when I started focusing on paid ads a few years ago, I started neglecting organic content.
While this hasn’t killed our content strategy, I know our Google rankings are slowly going down.
Then something new began to happen.
After people found us on ChatGPT, Grok, and Perplexity, they started showing up for sales calls.
AI-powered queries for products and services are growing rapidly, but still remain simple 15% of search volume Compared to Google.
What’s particularly interesting is that this AI-based search doesn’t come with a Google account.
Google search volume has declined, but while AI-based search is doubling every year, it’s not replacing Google search, it’s augmenting it.
AI should still be seen as a new channel to use with content strategy using Google.
Thankfully, when you implement a solid content strategy, you can attract leads from Google and AI from the same content.
However, there are some things you do specifically for AI search that are new to our content strategy for 2026.
Let me share with you some specific examples…
Google SEO Is Also AI Optimization
A basic SEO strategy is simple in concept, but difficult to achieve primarily because of the competition.
You publish articles covering keywords and topics that will attract your target customer from Google searches.
Someone wants to solve the problem and is willing to pay for the solution. Your articles are designed to be seen when they intend to buy – so they search.
The hard part is high enough to be considered.
Without the authority that comes from building links to your web pages from various sources, you have no chance.
Especially if there’s money to be made in your industry, that means the competition is also working hard to get top rankings.
The important thing is to put a strategy in place and continue to build your authority over time.
We did the following for my company:
- Publish new content on our blog
- Create incoming links
I’ll explain exactly how we do these two things in a moment, but first we need to consider a new variable…
AI search.
In particular, people using artificial intelligence chat when they want to get a solution to a problem.
Take for example what happened yesterday as I write this.
A person booked a discovery call later that evening.
They listed GPT as how they found us (ChatGPT).
During the call, this person told me they talked about two problems they wanted to solve with AI:
- Their email inbox
- Cleaning up the wider digital life
In short, they want help with email, admin, and the systems and processes (or lack thereof) that govern everything they do as online entrepreneurs.
Unlike search, which returns links to websites, with AI a conversation leads to recommendations.
Conversations are more contextual, so you get more contextual recommendations.
The AI also responds using natural language and acts as a researcher, so it feels like advice you can trust.
You ask him for the “best” solution to a problem—for example, getting help with your emails—and he returns an affirmation of what he thinks is best.
In this case, our company InboxDone was suggested as the best option for this particular problem.
Why? Not because we’ve optimized for AI, but because I’ve spent years and money optimizing for Google.
How-to articles and videos have been published all these years Leave your email to an assistant and going to podcasts to generate links and publishing content on external websites put us in first place for our very narrow niche.
This led us to settle on artificial intelligence for the same search.
In 2026, we will make more content not only for Google, but also for artificial intelligence.
Creating content for AI search
This year, we’ll continue what’s worked for us in the past, but we’re making special changes to the AI…
We hired the same writer we used in the past to get regular content on our blog
This time he writes not only for keywords but also for AI. This includes:
- Writing comparison articles and top recommendation lists covering our websites as well as our competitors’ websites.
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For example – 10 Best Companies to Hire an Executive Assistant for Email Management.
. - We are creating a “Help Center” with many frequently asked questions covering common questions about our industry as well as our own services.
. - We include “quick answers” at the beginning of articles that give a short version of the article as a reference point for AI (and human readers).
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In addition, we continue to release testimonial videos with blog posts and share all of this content on our social channels.
The key to making this work for AI search is to make sure you still have content that has the potential to be contextually relevant, meaning all the possible ways a human could discuss the topic with the AI.
Plus, just like in SEO, you need inbound links — or “referrals” that your website uses as data sources for AI search.
Just as SEO relies on keywords and topic relevance, plus authority, AI is about contextual discussion relevance and citation authority.
So this year we’re doing the following to help build links for my company and get more mentions in AI.
- My co-founder will be a guest on the podcasts this year. I’ve done this in our early years, but this time she’ll be the star and talk about her concept.Designing Your Perfect Day‘.
. - We will create content on platforms like Medium and Redditexternal platforms that allow us to create inbound links and create referral points.
. - I am currently choosing options to get press coverage(earned media) with articles on sites like Forbes and various business publications.
. - We will also look for contribution opportunities such as presenting webinars for key target clients (Lawyers, Accountants), writing guest articles and interviewing for any content.
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In addition, we will publish more content on our YouTube channel, using what we publish on our blog for video versions of the same content.
All this content and link building should strengthen and improve our Google rankings.
My expectation is that this will keep our company stable, but not lead to any wild advances. We don’t have a lot of Google search volume for our niche, but it’s very high quality (high purchase intent), so I want to get what we can out of it.
AI search is a wild card. Its volume is doubling every year, so that’s a reason to keep an eye on it, but will it provide a jump in growth?
I don’t expect 10x results, but if we can get from AI like we got from Google, that would be a significant thing.
Why Stop Paid Ads?
The simple answer is that they no longer work for us.
After many years and several experts trying to help us use Google, LinkedIn and Meta ads, the results have gone from good to bad to basically nothing.
It doesn’t make sense to use our budget for something that generates zero revenue instead.
I’m not sure why it went down to zero, but I’m guessing it has to do with competition, AI, and maybe economic reasons.
Are we going back to ads? Maybe someday, but for now I’m happy to reinvest our advertising budget into content creation and link building and see where it takes us.
I must be clear – this is not a suggestion for you to copy us.
As I mentioned myself growth guideI recommend both a paid and organic strategy, using test results from both to get results you can use across all campaign formats.
Anything can work for you, as long as you have a strategy that you understand and can learn from.
What you need are actions that produce meaningful results.
We’re getting quality leads from Google and AI, and I see growth potential in search AI, so that’s where we’re going as we start the new year.
Which paths you should follow are based on what stage your business is at, your budget, and what you’re selling.
Here’s to a new year full of growth!
Child
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PS I’m thinking of opening a couple of training slots this year for anyone who wants to build a Google and AI search strategy to get more clients.
Not sure if this is a focus for you and would you like to hire a coach to help you with your strategy?
Let me know if you are interested and what business you have and we can call to discuss further and see if it is worth booking.
