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What Happens to AI Search Visibility When You Rebrand? · Found in AI: AI Search Visibility, SEO, & GEO

• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid for teams that are s too focused on creating content on just the AI side because I think what that does is lead you to content that's uh competent but not insightful, like it's not adding anything new to the conversation.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when you've spent 20 years building a recognizable brand and then you go and change its name?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I am Cassie Clark.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an AI Search Visibility Consultant, and this is found in AI.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: The show about AI Search, GEO, and what marketers need to know to help their brands get discovered, and then ultimately recommended by AI Engines.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the name change thing.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the challenges my guest today, Holly Eniking, VP of Marketing at Markup AI, is navigating.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: The company was previously known as AcroLinks, and Holly and her team are working to establish the new brand identity across traditional search and those AI search engines.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we also get into something I've been talking about quite a bit lately, and that's whether marketers are becoming so focused on optimizing content for AI that we're really forgetting to make it valuable for people who actually read and consume it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Holly and I talk about balancing content quality with structure, deciding which existing content is worth updating.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, we get into what her team is learning as they work to build visibility for a new brand.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we really try and spread ourselves across as many channels and avenues as we can get to in order to get Markup AI in front of marketers who are doing a lot of content creation and want their content to be not only a high volume but as highly credible as possible.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be on brand and cited by AI and something that they're proud to put their brand name on.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I really spend a lot of my time thinking about our brand awareness, uh demand generation, uh, the event experiences that we're overseeing.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really lucky to work with a great content marketer and a great product marketer as well.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so across the three of us, um, you can find us with our hands in pretty much anything that may be happening in a marketing team at any given time, and which is one of my favorite ways to be in marketing.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I like to be as hands-on and in the weeds as possible and working with a small team that's able to move fast, that's where I really find the most fun.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm lucky to be at another company where I'm doing that again, and really that's been sort of the framework of my career for a long time.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think being in the weeds, especially when it comes to AEO and GEO, you absolutely have to be if you wanna if you want to stay on top of what's happening.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and it's all changing so fast that if you like step back for a minute, you're gonna be a week behind.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So when um I was reading your intake form, you mentioned that writing for humans and not AI is like the best strategy.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Do it explain that?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so one of the things that we've been thinking about a lot at Markup AI, and that I've been thinking about a lot in my role, is there's a lot of pressure to be thinking about like, and I've even heard teams doing this if we have one set of content that's for humans and one set of content that's for robots, or you know, rethinking all of their old content in a way that is more beneficial for a robot reading it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I really take the opinion, and I maybe it's a little bit like old school boomer of like boomer adjacent of me, but I really want the content that we're creating to be as valuable for the humans who are reading it as possible.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that that will still benefit us from a robot perspective as well.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like so much of what we think we know about AEO, GEO, whatever we're calling it these days, is built on a foundation of SEO best practices.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so much of that is driven by the humans who are consuming the content actually finding it valuable, which we know by the time that they're spending on site or linking back to it and all of those things.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: That I think as much as we can focus on creating good quality content that a person at on the other side of the screen is going to get value out of, that is going to serve us when it comes to being cited and you know served up in um the answer engines and the generative engines.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really am afraid for teams that are too focused on creating content on just the AI side, because I think what that does is leads you to content that's competent but not insightful.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not adding anything new to the conversation.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think really having a strong point of view and being hyper aware of what your audience needs from you as they're asking questions, as their search patterns are changing, you're going to be more likely to be able to stand out because you're not just saying the average mean of what everyone else is saying.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um you've got a real point of view and a real perspective on adding value to that audience, uh, which I think helps a brand stand out more when our brand matters now more than ever.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like as everyone is sort of coalescing around this sort of center space.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, being self-aware around what you're saying and how you're saying it, and saying something that if you stripped the brand name away, you would still understand that it's your brand and not someone else's, I think is really something that's going to help set teams apart.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really like to think about it that, you know, from an SEO or AEO GEO perspective, um, you know, we always talk about, you know, are we answering the right questions and are we structured in a way in order to help our content be cited?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think both of those things are incredibly important.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I would argue there's a third leg of that stool, which is what we're writing actually worth reading?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is it worthwhile?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is it adding value?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it adding something, a new perspective that the end user is really looking for?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that third leg of that stool really helps content stand out in this new wild, wild west of AI search.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, how are you balancing, like structuring your content for both the human reader and the AI engine?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I have heard so many different things.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to hear your take on it.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, there's a certain amount of work, like in the content that we create, we always do things like we always have our key takeaways, we always have FAQs, we always have those features that we know and that you know, consultants that we've worked with were really lucky to work with a group called Revisible that helps us on the SEO side and now the AEO side.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they really helped us with some of that structural sort of foundation.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we also put a lot of time and energy into like what are the topics that we're writing about, and then how are we reviewing that content afterwards in order to ensure that it's actually like something that we want to put out there with our brand name on it?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're also in an interesting place in that the Markup AI brand is relatively new.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We were previously a company called AcroLinks for 20 years.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so in September of 2025, we rebranded, we have this huge catalog of content, but now a whole new brand name and a slightly different go-to-market strategy.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got a lot of work to do to teach all of the LLMs that Markup AI and AcroLinks are one and the same and use Markup AI instead.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that really requires me to be thoughtful about some of those like technical structure things in order to do that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then the actual like content and context of the content is really where we get to apply, you know, what we think are like the highest possible quality standards of being in our brand voice, of talking about the things that we know our audience cares about.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we want to publish something.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever we publish something, our goal is that it adds real value to a real person doing content marketing anytime that they're reading it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even if the goal is just like, I want to help teach Claude that AcroLinks is now Markup AI, like there still should be something like valuable in that content for someone reading it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I think having a strong point of view on the what we're writing and why, um, alongside of the like technical work to make sure that it's getting cited gives us a really nice balance of the type of content that we're putting in the market.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: So aside from content quality, what else are you doing to help teach those LLMs what the new brand is about?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, we're doing a little bit of everything.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, one of the things that I think is so interesting is that the rules are still so varied and undefined at the moment.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you had asked me two months ago, I'd have been like, I'm work, I'm actively working on a Reddit strategy, and now all of a sudden, like, Reddit is no longer.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, there's a little bit of like trying to like keep your eye on the prize on the long game.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're doing things that are sort of like easy wins, like um the lm.txt files on the website, you know, really thoughtful about all of the metadata that we're putting into, like the headlines and descriptions and the keywords that we're searching on.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're putting a lot of energy into making sure those types of things are really working for us.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: We also still have the AcroLinks website that's live.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've done a lot of work there to do some updates and redirect content and repurpose content that has been powerful on that site.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: It has a lot of domain authority, um, recreating that on the markup site and repositioning it and you know, giving it a fresher take on sort of where the brand stands now.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so all of those things have really been helpful for us in that regard.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then at the same time, like something could happen tomorrow and it's like, okay, well, I need to start doing this thing too.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like my sort of threshold is like if it's an easy win, like I think that we're all sort of divided on like, does the TXT file actually matter?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it feels like it didn't hurt to have it, so why not give it a try?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so those are the types of things where it's like, if it's gonna give me a little bit of an edge, I'll go for it.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I also don't want to publish like 20 listical pages that I think in two months from now are gonna get our brand really dinged and not be helpful when it comes down to it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree with you.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a bad idea to have that TXD file.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Does it help?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe, maybe, but it doesn't, it takes like what, 10 minutes to put it up?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not hard.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um when it comes to like repurposing your content from the live website to the new website, uh what are you doing exactly?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are you adding in SLE quotes?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: How are you making that a better quality than what you already had?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the things that we're focused on are really, you know, we want to focus on the content with the keywords that really still matter for us.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a slight pivot of um our tools being really applicable and useful for um technical documentation teams.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're focused on content marketers.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: They have a lot of similarities in what they care about, but some subtle differences as well.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, your technical documentation teams have really care and are really passionate about a lot of things like their sentence structure, the words in a sentence, the number of sentences in a paragraph, paragraphs on a page, um, their usage of commas, ampersands, um m-dashes, as we all you know know and feel and regret a little bit, maybe our lack of being able to use them now.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, they have a lot of really specific style rules that they care about.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Marketers may be a little less hyperactive on the style rules, but still have a lot of, you know, things that they care about at a consistency scale of their brand voice and um their brand names, how they're being used, not sounding like a robot, all of those things.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of consistency there, but some subtle differences.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things for us was doing a really big audit of all of our existing AcroLix content and finding the pieces that were high traffic and really still made sense for us in a way that like answered the questions of content marketers as well and how they're thinking about reviewing their content.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So those were our top priorities of both moving over onto the Markup AI website and then updating them with you know updated statistics or resources, either that we had created or research that we could find, um, making sure that they really spoke in the Markup AI voice and not so much the AcroLinks voice.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then where we could be able to link to other content that we were creating that was net new, separate from our existing content.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so the, you know, the goal there was really not so much like, oh, we need to rewrite every piece of content that we had had, but like, what are the content that's doing the most work for us that is a natural fit that we think is relevant to our audience?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we get that more up to date and more aligned with our current brand so that it can be valuable and still take advantage of some of that domain authority that we had, um, but in a new sort of refreshed light that we can focus on.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that means sort of giving up some of the other content and 20 years of like a really established brand, but that doesn't really serve our audience and where we're going in the future.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a certain amount of just like being content with letting that go.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think focusing on like the the brand voice for what we're creating now and making sure that that's really strong and really with a lens to that content marketer, those have been really like our two guideposts for what we're trying to do.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if if you were thinking about publishing for one specific brand and you already have that already over there, are you adding on the bottom of your post or anywhere on your post specifically, this is what our new company does, this is who we serve, and adding it to each post?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that is not something that we're doing right now.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: We do it, you know, obviously when we have things like press releases or more announcement type content, we are putting it in those places.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: On our average blog post, we don't, but we are making sure that like in the structure of our website, like in our footer, for example, we've got, you know, really clear brand statement and that that's applied consistently throughout the site.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then where there are other sort of like assets that we have as far as like sidebar call-outs or content sort of in our main navigation, those are where we're really making sure that you know we've got the really clear messaging and positioning and audience sort of built out.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We also have sort of built into our website as we've built out the structure more, um, being able to incorporate more of those sub pages around like use cases and audiences and things like that, which I think are helpful.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's not not every single blog post has that sort of like um snippet that we're inserting every single time, but we try and like work it in in other ways where it makes sense.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so final question.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Once you started updating your pages and adding it to the new brand website, how long did it take to notice movement inside those AI engines?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Were you tracking that?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we've been tracking it both with AI engines and then just generally in the engagement on our website with the content.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of the things I've been really excited to see is that um over the set the last six months in particular, we have seen our engagement on our blog content increase by over 30%.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So people are spending more time on the content and going to other pages of our website.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, similarly, when we are sharing our content through third-party sources, so if we're sponsoring like a newsletter or something, or we're pushing content out like um through some of our partners or our own team members, we see the engagement on that content increasing and in the 60 plus percent range.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: So they're spending, you know, a lot of time on the rest of the site, going to other content.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's telling me that not only is the content being served up to them, especially in that organic traffic where they're coming into the website or where it's being presented to them, but then they're staying.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're not just immediately bouncing, they're not just reading that one article and leaving, they're going to other pages of the site.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we've steadily seen our um AI visibility.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of different scores, and so it's kind of hard to track.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's a lot of disconnection between what the scores mean and how they're being gathered.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I see them in all places sort of generally ticking up slowly over time.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen like a massive spike or anything, but it feels like there's a good steady like upbeat of motion, and that's exciting to see.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And seeing the types of um prompts that we're being cited in more consistently as we're looking in places like HubSpot's new AEO tool, um, that has been encouraging for us as well.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we're sort of keeping our eye on the ball in a lot of places, um, but we're starting to see some really good movement.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, one of the things that Holly said that really stuck with me was that content can be competent without being insightful.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is something that every marketer should be thinking about right now.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And because I love to leave you with something that you can do this week, here's what I would do.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Pick five pieces of content from your website.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Ideally, choose pages that are already getting traffic or that you consider to be, you know, super important for your business.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then look at each one through three questions.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: First, is this content still relevant to the audience that we're trying to reach today?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Second, does it offer anything that someone could couldn't find on a dozen competing websites that might be original research, a strong point of view, or actual experience?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And third, does it clearly reflect who your brand is and what you do today?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: If any answer to those questions is no, you found a good place to start improving your content.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have been doing this on my own website lately.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like it takes forever and a day, but it is so worth it.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: You don't necessarily need to publish something new.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: You may have something already on your website that might be worth making better.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a matter of going in and making those updates.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's it for today's episode.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you want more practical AI search strategy, research, news, all the things, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, The Visibility Report.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can find that at Cassie Clark Marketing.com or information in the show notes.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's all I have for you today.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, stay visible.