The Flow Flex Scale Podcast: The Solopreneur Operating System is your field guide for building a sustainable, adaptable, and impactful solo business. Hosted by author and coach Jennifer Britton, this podcast features thoughtful conversations with solopreneurs, coaches, consultants, experts, and change-makers who are designing meaningful businesses and lives in the evolving world of work.
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Each episode delivers field-tested insights, practical tools, and real-world strategies to help you create more flow in your business foundations, build flexibility in your productivity and systems, and scale your one-person business with clarity, focus, and intention.
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Whether you're launching, growing, pivoting, or reinventing — you'll find inspiration, actionable ideas, and consistent steps you can put to work right away. Because daily steps plus consistent action equals momentum.
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Explore the Flow Flex Scale method across three pillars: Flow with Purpose, Flex with Agility, and Scale your Impact.
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For coaches, consultants, creators, and service-based entrepreneurs who are ready to grow a sustainable business — one aligned action at a time.
EP11: Visibility and AI SEO: Staying Findable in the New Search Era with Denise Wakeman (Part One)
•Jennifer Britton•Season 1•Episode 11
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What does it take to stay visible when the way people search and the way they find businesses is changing so quickly?
In this episode, Jennifer Britton welcomes Denise Wakeman, digital marketing strategist and visibility expert, for a conversation about how visibility has evolved from the early days of blogging and social media to today's AI-powered search landscape.
Denise explains what changed when ChatGPT launched in 2022 and why traditional SEO is no longer the whole visibility story. While many of the fundamentals of SEO still matter, search engines and AI tools are increasingly answering questions directly through AI-generated summaries, meaning people may find the information they need without ever clicking through to a website.
If you're wondering whether people can still find you online in an AI-driven search world, this episode offers practical ways to think differently about visibility and make your expertise easier to discover.
In This Episode
How visibility has evolved from blogging and early social media to AI-powered search
How AI-generated search summaries are changing website traffic and clicks
Why answering your audience's actual questions is becoming increasingly important
Practical ways solopreneurs can stay findable as search continues to evolve
Be sure to follow, rate, and review the Flow Flex Scale Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
SPEAKER_00
This is the Flow Flex Gale Podcast, your field guide to the Solopreneur operating system with author and coach Jennifer Britton. Daily steps plus consistent action equals momentum. That's Jennifer's mantra, and it starts right here. Right now with you. Let's get started.
SPEAKER_01
All right. Well, welcome back, listeners. I'm Jennifer Britton, the host of the FlowFlex Gill podcast, and I'm so excited today to welcome Denise Wakeman. I will just say I've known Denise for two decades now. First, through her amazing writing and tips on how to blog, which I first fell into in probably about 2005-6, my second year of business when I started experimenting as a blogger. And then in the 2010s, I got to work with Denise. She was one of my mentors. Denise was very much behind the effective virtual conversations book. So she was in the backdrop. Thank you, Denise. And now I've reconnected. And Denise, I hope that you'll, I mean, do your intro, but Denise is really on the cutting edge of visibility and AI. And I know for all of us as entrepreneurs, myself included, we probably can't learn fast enough about AI and visibility. So let me formally introduce Denise Wakeman. She is a digital marketing strategist who has helped solo business owners build their online visibility since 1996. Think about where you were and what you were doing in 1996. Denise teaches experienced professionals how to turn their expertise into useful content, digital tools, and new ways to serve their audiences. And I can, I'm a walking testament to that. And Denise, most recently, is a co-founder of the AI Success Club and publisher of Your Visibility Edge. Denise focuses on practical ways to use AI to save time, develop ideas, and create work that still sounds human. So welcome, Denise. So excited that you could join us today for two episodes. I would love to dive in like this. You are on the cutting edge. You've not only always been on the cutting edge of visibility, but now visibility and AI tell us like what is the most important thing that we need to know as entrepreneurs and solopreneurs.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, this is it's evolve or you know, disappear and become invisible, really, because uh visibility has changed incredibly over the years. Like how to become visible to your ideal audience, let's say that's the goal, right? You know, because otherwise you're invisible. And you know, it's hard to have a business when you're invisible. Back in the olden days of 2004, 2005, 2004 is when I started my first blog, it was you could write content on the web and it would get indexed by the search engines and drive traffic to your site. And if your site, your blog, and your site was optimized for not only keywords, but also calls to action to, you know, book a book a consult with you or to get a lead magnet, which usually was some kind of PDF or a video or something like that. You know, that was a pretty reliable system for a very long time. And then social media came into play starting in 2007-ish, 2006, 2007, with Twitter um being launched in late 2006. And then, of course, Facebook and Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. And now we've got dozens, dozens of platforms, right? You know, all of that takes some attention to how is it right for me? How does it work? What can I do on those platforms that doesn't get me booted off? Or, you know, what how can I maintain my visibility because there's a gazillion people on every platform now? So how does the how do the algorithms find me? And until about um 22 November is when Chat GPT was launched, and that pretty much changed everything.
SPEAKER_01
So changed the game, didn't it? Like, and I think many people don't realize. Like, I think a lot of entrepreneurs and business people in general are thinking the game is still the same, but no, it has really changed. So spotlight that for us, yeah. What's the game?
SPEAKER_02
The the new game is you need to be um in alignment with AI. You know, it doesn't have to take your job and it doesn't have to, you know, with solopreneur. That's me, that's who I work with. I have been solo for 30 years, basically. And um you have to be ready and able and willing to evolve with it. Now, it doesn't mean you need to know every single thing about AI because that's impossible. I'm deep in it and I can't even keep up. So I don't try. I try to stay in my lane, you know, so that what I am experimenting with all the time is how can we work with AI to help keep us front and center for our audience. And that's okay.
SPEAKER_01
And I'm just gonna stop there so that people really heard it. Because the lane is, you know, how do you remain visible? You are your visibility edge, and that is critical. If people can't find us, doesn't matter what you do. Yeah, you know, and it's much harder now.
SPEAKER_02
So it's it doesn't, it's more than maintaining uh consistent content on your website because I've been doing that for years and years and years, and traffic's dropped off considerably. And the biggest reason for that is the way search works now with AI. Yes, and so take us into AEO G E O.
SPEAKER_01
And again, it's an interchangeable term, correct? Like it is GEO. I I kind of just call it AI SEO.
SPEAKER_02
Okay, A I S E O. I love it, love it. So we all have our own. When somebody posted a uh poll on LinkedIn recently saying, what do you how do you refer to to it? And I said, Well, and I don't think AI SEO was on my was on the list. I just say I just call it AI SEO. Well, a lot of people have been saying that.
SPEAKER_01
So what's different? Like, because again, I think it's like we need to understand what has changed. So SEO used to be keywords, hashtags, content, like content, but what is the new AI SEO or G-O as I call it? So yeah, what is what is that about?
SPEAKER_02
I call it SE AI SEO because there are still principles of old world SEO that apply. You know, you need to have a primary keyword in you know, generally that you are that your content is focused on. And the difference is how you structure your content now, because if you've done a search on Google anytime in the last three years, you'll notice that there are no more lists of blue links. You get summaries, an AI summary. And that goes for all the search engines now. You get a summary. Now, one of the problems with that is most people get the answers to their question without having to click over to your website. Hence, you lose your visibility, right? And um, I did just read something last week, I guess it was about Google. Now, you know, people are not happy about this, especially if they're advertising using Google ads and stuff like that. It's not something that I've done or do. I don't advertise, but so I can't talk about that. But I can talk about the fact that Google is now making the citations more visible. So when there, when you see that search, uh, that that summary, that AI summary based on the question that you asked, then you'll see little teeny weeny little numbers or something, or that indicates that where the source of that statement in the summary. And now you can open a window to see the search, what the links are to that search.
SPEAKER_01
So again, it still goes back to like you need the content there, you need to have, or really, but the the difference is I'm hearing it's in response to a question, correct? Yes, is that the difference?
SPEAKER_02
Questions have been around that's the answer AEO AEO, answer engine optimization. It's really all about are when somebody is looking for something and they're typing in their question, whether it's a whole long, full, complete sentence or just a partial sentence that's a question, what they're looking for is a solution to their problem. You know, and problem, you could take that loosely. And that's why you get a summary now from the AI search tools, because they're pulling from lots of sources to answer that question. So for the people who are wondering why no one's clicking on their website anymore, it's because they're getting that answer. And your content, in order for it to show up in that summary, needs to answer the question. There you go.
SPEAKER_01
So you need to be problem focused, solution focused, opportunity as well. Like, because I know for coaches that I work with, they're like, but I don't deal with a problem, I deal with an opportunity.
SPEAKER_02
But how does the AEO or AI your client probably has a problem why they why they activate um yeah. I mean, that's nobody's saying I'm looking for an opportunity, so I'm gonna look for a coach. It's like I don't know how to do this, and so I'm gonna look for a coach. Or I I'm feeling this issue, and so I'm gonna look for a coach. And so you want to be able to craft your content so it's clearly stating what the question is. Now you can find these things out very easily. You can ask your clients, or you know what their questions are because they're asking you in emails or whatever. You can ask AI. Here's the profile of my target audience. What are their top 10 questions about X that you serve, you know, that you're serving. So then you start structuring your content so it's like an FAQ. This is really important because it makes it easier for the AI to know what the question is, what the answer is, why this is the answer, how to solve the problem, and then what's the solution to the problem, which should lead to a call to action, maybe to set up a discovery call or buy one of your products, or got your lead magnet, or whatever it is. And so it's a very clear setup that you can follow.
SPEAKER_01
Uh what you just said, Denise, is gold. So I hope people will go back and listen to this and maybe follow you so that they can see this in action.
SPEAKER_02
Because I have several articles on your visibility edge about this exact system. Um, because I started researching it. What how do you get seen now? And you know, one of the first things you can do around this is go to you know, perplexity search engine, go to Google, go to Gemini, and just ask a question about a common problem your audience has and see what comes up. Are you one of the citations? Yes. Probably not.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I hate to say that, but that's probably the case. And I did that on better online visibility for solo business owner. I didn't even put a question. I did it with, I guess I did it with Google. And I just did this recently and it was eye-opening. So I was reading the summary and I thought, I said, gosh, that sounds like something that I might have said. So I clicked on the citation and it was a LinkedIn post that I had made.
SPEAKER_01
Wow. Oh, I was just gonna ask, like, what is it searching? Is it so it's searching LinkedIn, it's searching blogs? Like, is there if there's like a rank order of because LinkedIn, I guess, would be more open. Like it's more open and people will Facebook is not open, really. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02
Um LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_01
Like, does it do video in the same way? Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Um, and Substack is an open platform as well. So yeah, that that was interesting because I wasn't expecting to yourself.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. But it's interesting that you say this because I'm increasingly getting calls. Like I had a call yesterday. I do a couple of open windows where anyone could book 15 minutes with me. I had two calls yesterday where people said, Oh, I was referred to you. And I always ask at the end of the call, not at the start, but at the end of the call, who referred you? And the first caller was very sheepish in saying, actually, it was Claude. And I said, Oh, I'm so happy that Claude recommended or connected us. And it was, it was again, it was like, I think there's that stamp of approval. So the next call, same same situation.
SPEAKER_02
Same thing.
SPEAKER_01
It was Claude, it was Claude. Thank you, Claude.
SPEAKER_02
But I'm whatever they were looking for. Yeah, I know exactly what they were. Something that you that you have written about on offered. Yes, that's exactly right. So that's that's great. I know I'm starting to see in my stats, like from Substack referrals um from Google. From Google. Not not, you know, huge amounts of traffic.
SPEAKER_01
No, but but some and and not some that you can fan the flames, right? Like once you know the data, that was something I think I learned from you, is really like you were around in my years of plan do track and preparing for that book, which is now it is the underpinning of FlowFlex skill. And part of that is tracking, knowing our numbers and being able to see it. So, what should we be tracking in today's AI era, Denise?
SPEAKER_02
Definitely who's the referral engine. But the the thing is that I what I actually want to sort of back into is these this FAQ idea, because this is really important. I've taught two classes on it. So because there's very specific workflow to create your content. And then what do you do with that? So that goes on your web page. And then you can link to it in lots of other places because it's like a long article, right?
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
Um, and then you can have a page like a hub page, so that you call FAQ or your questions answered or whatever, you know, start here. You know, and so then then you put that list of all your FAQs. So this is more than like, what are your office hours? This is like why the find of using. Yeah. So you know, I started with I built a uh major super prompt and then made it into a cloud skill for this class that I was teaching on FAQs. And it does a compl did a complete audit. I have it do a complete audit of all my content. So I gave it, you know, the link to my website, which has gazillion years of content, and also the the link to my Substack where I've been publishing this current publication for almost two years, two years next month. And so there's a lot. There's a lot. I and so it did this whole audit on what are the top topics that I write about, what the potential questions could be about those topics, uh, where the gaps are in my content so that I can fill them in.
SPEAKER_04
That's classic.
SPEAKER_02
And then the top five questions that can be answered by an FAQ. And then how to build that document based on your content. So anyway, that's now is this a course that people can find you?
SPEAKER_01
Are you still offering it?
SPEAKER_02
I did it live uh twice for the once for the AI Success Club and then when it's a paid uh workshop, actually, because we did it in real time and it was fast enough that somebody could publish uh an completed FAQ on their blog during class. That's amazing. So I haven't offered again, but I'm looking into different ways.
SPEAKER_01
This might be a good time to give us to share your how do people find you, Denise, for this. Give us your deeds, please.
SPEAKER_02
Okay, well, my primary website is adventures in visibility visibility.com. And then my Substack where I am the most active all the time, every day, is your visibilityedge.com. And um, so I'm on Substack most of my time, and then I also am on LinkedIn a little bit, using that as an awareness platform to drive people to my articles over on Substack.
SPEAKER_01
So please check Denise out. It's really for you as a benefit as a solo, your visibility edge. And I know I'm gonna go over there. I don't think we are connected over there yet, but I'm new to Substack, and I just think, wow, like it really is the blogging of 2026.
SPEAKER_02
It really is, and you know, there's a monetization option on it if one chooses to do that. And it's a very well connected platform. It's it's its own ecosystem because there's a social um aspect to it with their notes, they're like endless tweets. It can be as long as you want, the notes. And everything that you post on Substack carries with you with it a link to your profile and to your publication if you're publishing on there.
SPEAKER_01
That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02
And so no matter if you're commenting, if you're publishing a note, if you're liking, it all goes back to where people can find you and follow you, or subscribe to you. Those are two different things.
SPEAKER_01
Love it. Well, listen, Denise and I are coming back for a second episode. Today we've talked about visibility and AI. I think the biggest spotlight that I really want to invite listeners to think about is what needs a change in terms of your visibility and how you're showing up in whether you call it the AEO, the GEO, or the AI S E O. So listen back. There are literally golden nuggets in today's episode, which will help you get found if you apply. Like what I'm also hearing is we can't rest on our laurels, right? And I speak as a seasoned business owner, a seasoned content creator. I need to keep doing the work as well. And this is where years ago I talked about the three R's repurpose, republish, re-syndicate. Repurpose, republish, re-syndicate. Yeah. That was in Plan Dutrack and Coaching Business Builder, a little bit in FlowFlex scale as well, because like chances are you've already got content that can be repurposed into this new format.
SPEAKER_02
Oh, definitely, definitely.
SPEAKER_01
Don't always don't start from scratch. And that's something I learned from you was really the repurposing. And so thank you, Denise. I can't wait to sit down with you in the next 15 minutes. And we're going to be looking in that at AI and the flow flight scale model. So with that, thank you, listeners. Any closing thoughts on this episode that you want to mention?
SPEAKER_02
Keep in mind that AI can generate a ton of information, more than you'll ever need or want. But your expertise is where the judgment lies. So that's, you know, that's why it's not going to, for especially solo business owners, everything we've done, no matter whether it's been six months or 30 years, that's where all your expertise brings the judgment to AI. And I I really want to stress that.
SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you, Denise. And I think that's such an important message to wrap with. So please come back. We'll be looking at AI and the different elements of flow, flex, and scale. I think this is going to be a very practical episode. So we'll see you soon. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Thank you.
