Masters of Search

Claude Cowork is replacing agencies. A Mac Mini is the new must-have for AI enthusiasts. And Bing just gave marketers something Google still hasn't. A lot has happened in the last weeks, so it’s time for a new episode of #MonthlyLandwehr. Malte is CPO & CMO at Peec AI, one of the leading AI search analytics platforms, and one of the brightest minds in the field. So I want to take all the news, new research and interesting developments and get his perspective on them. What we covered in this episode - Why one-click AI content is creating "Mount AI", and why the crash is inevitable - Bing's new fan-out query data in Webmaster Tools: exciting or overhyped? - Why Perplexity is being left behind and how Gemini is catching up to ChatGPT - The hidden insight about English fan-out queries and what it means for non-English markets - Profound's $96M Series C at unicorn valuation and why the math only works if they're replacing agencies ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Malte on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/landwehr/ Peec AI on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peec-ai/

My guest today is Felix Welckenbach, Director of Product for Search and Discovery at HomeToGo, a marketplace where millions of travelers book their next dream vacation rental. In this episode we’ll talk about how SEO is not a marketing function anymore at HomeToGo but a product capability, what this actually means like in the day to day, which companies should also think about making a similar change and why shouldn’t just measure your AI visibility but put more emphasis on the sentiment. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Felix on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/welckenbach/ HomeToGo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hometogo/ HomeToGo Careers: https://www.hometogo.com/careers/

This episode will be about AI. But not the ChatGPT kind of AI, but the building agents kind of AI. We’ll talk about what Alfred has been cooking over the last months, what FAFO really means (not just what the acronym stands for), and about this new kid on the AI block: OpenClaw. If you want to understand where AI-powered marketing is actually heading, not the LinkedIn hype, but the messy, exciting reality of building stuff every single day, this is the conversation Check out these helpful links Repo: https://github.com/Pitcocy/niklas-podcast The OpenClaw guy if you want to get inspired:https://x.com/AlexFinn YouTube video with some extra context about setup:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GrG-dOmrLU Use cases: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7r--i9lLck OpenClaw website: https://openclaw.ai/ Their link to the repo, that you can use to feed to Claude during setup: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Alfredt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alfred-simon/ Alfred on X: https://x.com/AlfredSimon Alfred on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@alfredsimonai

Seven years ago, Nick LeRoy got fired. Today, he runs one of SEO's most trusted newsletters with over 12.5k subscribers, operates SEOjobs.com with over 200k annual sessions, and consults with enterprise brands on SEO strategy that actually moves the needle. Nick is an independent SEO consultant who helps enterprise brands turn SEO into a revenue-generating channel, not just a traffic report. He's also the mind behind SEOjobs.com and PPCjobs.com, connecting talent with opportunities, and publishes the #SEOForLunch newsletter, read by everyone from enterprise SEOs to Google employees themselves. What makes Nick different? He'll tell you the uncomfortable truths most consultants won't. Like why your 5k/month retainer probably isn't working. Or why "organic visibility captures demand; it doesn't create it." Or why SEO alone won't save a business with a shitty product. Check out these links if you want to learn more about Nick's work: - https://nickleroy.com/blog/seo-freelancing/ - https://www.seojobs.com/ - https://www.ppcjobs.com/ ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickleroyseo/

After 10+ years building The Blogsmith into a content agency serving B2B giants like HubSpot and Klaviyo, Maddy Osman French made an unexpected move: she went in-house. Now at DigitalOcean, she represents a "content engineer". A marketer who blend process thinking, technical depth, and AI workflow automation to scale content operations efficiently. What makes Maddy's perspective particularly valuable is this combination of agency and in-house experience, paired with genuine technical depth. She's a bestselling author of "Writing for Humans and Robots," a certified content engineer from AirOps, and someone who actually builds RAG pipelines with n8n and Pinecone rather than just talking about AI in abstract terms. We'll explore how content operations are evolving, why she believes most SEO problems are actually process problems, and what it means to be a "content engineer" in 2026 when AI is reshaping how we create, distribute, and measure content success. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Maddy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madelineosman/ DigitalOcean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digitalocean/ Blogsmith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theblogsmith/

We’re kicking off a new format in the Masters of Search podcast and we’re calling it #MonthlyLandwehr. Malte is CPO & CMO at Peec AI, one of the leading AI search analytics platforms, and one of the brightest minds in the field. So I want to take all the news, new research and interesting developments and get his perspective on them. In this episode we covered (among other things): - His perspective on ChatGPT Ads and what it says about OpenAI’s vision for AGI - Google’s efforts to increase monetization in AI Mode - Why Meta bought Manus for $2B and how this might be just another problem for ChatGPT - The insane growth of AI companion tools like CharacterAI (500M visits and Ø 14-minute session durations) - His take on the State of Search Q4/2025 report from Datos and Sparktoro ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Malte on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/landwehr/ Peec AI on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peec-ai/

M&A in SEO is a topic that you won’t find a lot of content about. But it’s a high-stakes topic that can make our brake organic visibility. My guest today is Daphne Monro, who is Head of Website & Content at hosting.com, where she oversees web strategy, content operations, and SEO for a global hosting network powering over 3 million sites. She lived through multiple high-stakes domain migrations and rebrands, and knows the ins and outs of how to make this a success. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Daphne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daphne-jasmine-monro-b26b87122/ hosting.com on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearehostingcom/

My guest today is Björn Darko. He leads an Enterprise SEO org by day, and hosts one of the largest German SEO podcasts by night. At Aviv Group, Björn oversees a 30-person team building SEO infrastructure for some of the biggest real estate platforms across France, Germany, Belgium. I’m very much looking forward to diving deep into Product-Led SEO at enterprise scale, managing teams across multiple countries and brands, and what it’s like to have a full-time job while hosting or co-hosting the SEOPRESSO Podcast and the SEO Product Unveiled podcast. ▶ Links mentioned in the podcast 🔗 - https://www.amazon.de/Extreme-Ownership-Navy-Seals-Lead/dp/1250183863 - https://seopresso.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/good-seo-bad-bj%C3%B6rn-darko-dytvf/ ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Björn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjoerndarko/ Aviv Group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aviv-group/

Graphite is nothing like your typical agency. While most agencies sell slides and strategic decks, Graphite builds things. While others work on hundred-item SEO audits, they obsess over the 5% of work that actually drives results. They've proven this approach in SEO with companies like Rippling, Webflow, Notion, and Upwork, and now they're applying the same ruthless focus to AI search. That's why I'm excited to have Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite, on the show today. Ethan has led Graphite to the absolute forefront of Answer Engine Optimization, one of the largest new marketing channels we've seen in over a decade. He already gave the ultimate guide to AEO on Lenny’s podcast a couple of weeks ago, but I felt like a lot of questions remained unanswered. So I asked him to do a follow-up deep dive, and now we’re here. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Ethan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanls/ Graphite on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphitehq/

Lodgify is a €30M+ ARR vacation rental management platform that empowers thousands of independent hosts to compete against Airbnb through direct bookings. And over the years they have built a significant SEO and organic footprint contributing that growth. Joining me on the latest episode of the #MastersOfSearch is Volodymyr Korol, VP of Marketing at Lodgify. He joined in 2024 to restructure the entire 30+ person marketing organization across eight functions to drive sustainable ARR growth. I was curious to learn more about how he leads such a big marketing org, how we thinks about SEO fitting into the bigger picture, and where he sees organic growth, SEO, and AI Search heading. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Volodymyr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/volodymyrkorol/ Lodgify on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lodgify/

SEO has already been a proven growth engine for Carta, and in 2025, they've gained strong AI Search visibility driving real pipeline results. Lucy Hoyle is Senior Content Engineer at Carta, and played a crucial role in that. She oversees editorial processes, content strategy, and AI workflow optimization for international markets, building scalable systems that turn content strategy into pipeline results. We talked about how SEO differs from AI Search, why Lucy has been an early champion of the content engineering movement, and her POV on successful content marketing in the Age of AI. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Lucy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hoyle-883381138/ Carta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/carta--/

Wise is moving £145 billion across the globe, serving 15 million customers across 160 countries and 40 currencies. They’ve been profitable for years, with their latest financial accounts posting a £560 million profit before tax while saving customers £2 billion annually on hidden banking fees. And although the absolute number is pretty high, in relation to their scale, they’re just spending about £50 million a year on marketing. One part of this remarkable customer acquisition efficiency is a well-oiled organic growth engine. To understand how Wise built this growth machine, I'm excited to have Fabrizio Ballarini on the podcast today. As Head of Organic Growth at Wise, Fabrizio oversees a cornerstone of their customer acquisition, and he’s already been onboard for 10 years. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Fabrizio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabrizioballarini/ Wise on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wiseaccount/

Chatbase bootstrapped to $8M ARR* and turned AI search into their No. 2 user acquisition channel. So I invited Sandra to the Masters of Search podcast to reveal how they did it. *it was still $7M when we recorded Her answer? There's no glamorous secret. No magic trick. No growth hack. Just proper execution of fundamentals that most teams skip. Here's what drove their AI search success: 1) Crystal clear positioning "AI agents for customer support" - impossible for LLMs to confuse with generic AI tools. Sandra's team maintains this exact messaging everywhere. When AI searches for customer support solutions, it knows exactly what Chatbase does and who it's for. 2) Proper SEO foundation Domain authority, backlinks, technical setup. The boring stuff most startups skip because they're chasing AI search hacks. Sandra's insight: AI search doesn't work without the SEO fundamentals already in place. Everything feeds everything. 3) Obsessive documentation and changelog updates Their docs and changelog get updated religiously. Not just for users - for LLMs. Fresh, accurate documentation becomes the source material AI models cite when users ask highly specific questions about how to build customer support agents. 4) Content that lives everywhere Distribution through "written content influencers" - bloggers, Reddit contributors, not just social media creators. When the same clear message appears across multiple trustworthy sources, LLMs recognize the pattern and are more likely to mention Chatbase. 5) Free plan as entry point The free plan helps spread the word and get more eyeballs on the product. Right limitations let users experience value without burning AI costs. Obviously a much debated topic, but for Chatbase it worked out. Watch the full episode for the complete playbook. Link in comments. 👇 ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Sandra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-dajic/ Chatbase on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chatbase-co/

24 BILLION pages. That's the sheer scale at which Roberto Grasiano led SEO and organic growth at Shutterstock. I'm so excited that I could convince him to come on the Masters of Search to bring you 73 minutes of Enterprise SEO masterclass. Here are my key takeaways, both for Enterprise SEO and for smaller sites: 1. At enterprise scale, you can't crawl the site Roberto couldn't audit individual pages at Shutterstock (24B pages, 500M indexed). Instead, he built comprehensive taxonomy mapping the entire site structure into clusters: broad categories (animals, cars, people), then subcategories (felines, SUVs), with exact page counts for each. This taxonomy determined which optimizations to test and how to measure impact. Even at 10,000 pages, taxonomy thinking beats keyword thinking. Group pages by intent clusters and user journey stages, not just traffic volume. 2. Content optimized for bots actually costs you money Roberto moved SEO content from top of category pages (above products) to below the fold. Theory said top placement ranks better. Result? 15% traffic increase. Users wanting specific products don't read text blocks. They want to see products immediately. When you optimize for bots over humans, you hurt user experience, which ultimately hurts rankings. Plus, bots crawling content cost server resources. His rule: content should be made for humans. If it's good enough, it'll show to the people who need it. 3. ChatGPT commerce will be big When I pushed back on instant checkout in ChatGPT (pointing to Meta's failed checkout), Roberto made a psychological argument: OpenAI builds something that feels like a friend who knows you. Remember when everyone said people would never buy things online? "No one will trust this, we need to touch products." Now our parents spend hours on Amazon. Shopping behavior changes over decades. People will buy through AI interfaces. It won't be fast, but it'll happen. 4. SEOs are underpaid Roberto's advice: learn your data, understand attribution, connect organic to revenue. Don't ask your boss to track revenue if you can't answer "how much money did you make last quarter?" Moving from vanity metrics (rankings, traffic) to commercial metrics (pipeline, revenue) gives SEOs negotiating power. We have the tools and data available. We just need to use them. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Roberto on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertograsiano/ Lottie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thankslottie/ Shutterstock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shutterstock/

Luis Rodriguez has 12+ years of international SEO experience and led organic growth at Uber and most recently Miro. He let me pick his brain for 60 minutes about scaling organic growth in PLG companies. Here are my 4 favorite takeaways. 1) Snake oil is actually useful All the panic and noise in SEO right now is helping the industry. It's forcing SEOs to go deeper, connect with experts, and prove their value. The smoke and mirrors push people to understand what's real versus what's hype. His advice: don't drink the Kool-Aid, but use the chaos to get closer to what actually drives business results. Check your data, look at your bottom line contribution, and let that be your answer to "is this the end of times?" 2) Templates aren't just acquisition tools, but retention engines Most PLG companies think templates are just entry points for signups. But templates are collaboration points that bring more people in, create virality, and drive retention. A user can start their journey with a template, but they can also restart it, continue it, and bring more people with them. This opens up organic growth beyond just the acquisition funnel into actual retention loops. 3) Traffic has never been enough as a metric What generates value for your company is revenue, subscriptions, conversions. The goal isn't to get more visitors, it's to provide growth and business value. For measurement, he focuses on three things: holistic visibility within your category (not just prompts or keywords), sessions as a leading indicator (people still need to come to your product), and retention (are you acquiring repeatable users, not just one-time visitors). 4) SEO profiles need a recalibration He's attracted to people with automation experience who aren't afraid of tools like Lovable, not just traditional content writers. Someone who started their career with ChatGPT has completely different timelines for keyword research across multiple languages, it's a medium task now, not a huge lift. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Luis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisrodriguezc/

Most people will tell you SEO takes too long for early-stage startups. That it's a waste of time when you're at zero. Today, you’ll hear proof why this is a limiting belief, and we’ll show you exactly how to start. My guest today is Irina Maltseva, a Barcelona-based Growth Advisor who's helped companies like Aura, Sphere, Artisan, Hunter, Riverside, and Nextiva build their organic growth motion from the ground up. I found Irina's work particularly interesting due to her focus on early-stage companies like YC alumni. They come to her with a brand-new website, zero domain authority, and a fresh product. In other words, she's solving one of the hardest problems in SEO: how do you drive meaningful growth from the ground up? ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Irina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irinamaltseva/

STOP starting your content workflows with keyword research. If you don’t trust me, trust someone way smarter than me — and learn why it’s just one piece of the puzzle. New #MastersOfSearch episode with Margarita Loktionova (Content Marketing Lead @ Semrush) is LIVE now. Here's what we covered: → Why customer research should come before keyword research → How to use keywords to validate demand, not generate ideas → What “net-new value” content actually looks like → Why original research scales distribution across AI, PR & social → How research turns your brand into a source, not a commentator ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Margarita on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarita-loktionova/ Semrush on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/semrush/

This might be the most niche flex ever, but I'm pretty sure this is the first ever publicly documented talk with a Director of AEO. Prove me wrong. Andy scaled a site to Alexa Top 100 and grew revenue from $900K to $22M. Now he's leading AI search strategy at Telnyx with 14K clients like Microsoft, Zillow, and Cisco. Here's what we covered: → Why AEO and SEO will be the same thing in 1-5 years → why most people are overthinking it → The AirOps content workflow that outranked Cambridge and Stanford → How a 4-person team replaced what used to take 15 people → Why he doesn't trust ChatGPT for commercial decisions → How 10% of Telnyx's traffic comes from AI chatbots → How this traffic converts 3x better than Google → The "airport test" for hiring (+ why skills matter less than you think) ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-muns/ Telnyx on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/telnyx/

Tomasz Niezgoda (CMO @ Surfer) let me pick his brain for 60 min on how they bootstrapped to €15M ARR, get ~20% of paying customers from AI Search, and talked to 50+ customers per week in the early days. If you care about SaaS, bootstrapping, SEO, AI Search, or marketing in general, this conversation is packed with insights. Here are 5 things that stood out: 1) They didn't touch SEO for 4 years While building an SEO tool, they focused on community, webinars, and education first. SEO came later when they had the domain authority to compete with Ahrefs and Semrush. 2) 50+ customer conversations per week in year 1 Not async support tickets. Real customer calls. Tomasz and the team split them. The knowledge they gathered became their unfair advantage over competitors. 3) AI search isn't magic, it's discipline Monitor your prompts weekly. When competitors get cited, create similar content. Track visibility like a hawk. Act fast. Repeat every single week without missing. 4) They killed top-of-funnel content completely Traffic dropped as a KPI. Now they focus purely on middle and bottom-of-funnel content. "Best alternatives" and "vs" pages feed LLMs with the exact narrative they want. 5) They doubled down on YouTube and it paid off 10x They started with just 2 videos per month, and it took 3 months to see first signs it worked. Now they have 24K subscribers, published 180 videos, and it's one of their top channels. This is just 5 of 20+ insights from our conversation. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Tomasz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niezgoda-tomasz/ Surfer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/surfer/

Bert Winterfeld runs performance marketing at HERO Software (B2B SaaS, Series B, >$50M funding) with 6-figure monthly budgets. One of the key insights he shared in our Masters of Search interview was: Paid search in B2B always hits a ceiling, and only branding breaks through it. If you're running performance marketing at a startup with serious search budgets, this episode is packed with insights you won't find in any LinkedIn carousel. ▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Bert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bert-winterfeld/ HERO Software on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/herosoftware-gmbh/