Hey Reader,
Inside this week’s newsletter you’ll find:
- SEO becoming your growth infrastructure
- How to stay indispensable in the age of AI
- 2 weeks until WTSFest Portland (final tickets!)
- WTS x brightonSEO meet & greet details for next week 🌊
- & Part 4 of sponsorship for local visibility series 👀
- & more!
Thank you to this week's WTSNewsletter sponsors: Peec AI, Canva, Screaming Frog, & Profound.
Let's get started =)
& today, we're getting starting with an ask to share or donate in support of one of our long-time WTSers...
Support Jenn’s fight against Breast Cancer
Jenn Bauguess has been a long-time, active member of WTS.
Many of you will know her not just as a brilliant SEO, but as someone who consistently shows up for others with empathy, generosity & action.
Today, Jenn is facing something incredibly tough and it's our turn to show up for her. 🫂
She’s undergoing intensive treatment at the Mayo Clinic, while also doing everything she can to keep life feeling normal for her son.
Alongside this, she’s a single mum, doing everything she can to keep life feeling normal for her son, even while travelling long distances for treatment.
Funds raised will help cover treatment, travel, childcare, lost income and support her family through this incredibly difficult time.
Brilliant work by our brilliant members
1) Chima Mmeje - Here Are 10 Strategies To Improve AI Visibility
2) Dana DiTomaso - We Are Not Data Accountants
3) Rachel Andrea Go - 6 Early lessons from building with AI
4) Rewati Khare - Why Local Brands Need to Think in Entities
5) Veruska Anconitano - Shopify SEO: a practical guide to ranking your store in 2026
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For future editions, if you’d like to recommend any articles (and yes, you can totally recommend your own work!), fill out this form:
AI search is the fastest-growing discovery channel.
[Headline Sponsor: Peec AI]
Your customers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini for recommendations daily.
Is your brand the answer?
Peec AI shows you exactly where you stand:
- Track your visibility and sentiment across all major LLMs
- Benchmark against competitors to see your share of voice
- Get step-by-step guidance on improving your AI visibility
Turn AI search from a black box into a measurable growth channel with clear metrics and a scalable strategy.
Share your message with 9,000+ SEOs & Marketers -
Transparent pricing & details
Our latest WTSKnowledge
Is omnichannel finally back? In the age of AI, it never really left.
Katie Mishner makes the case for SEO evolving beyond rankings to become the infrastructure connecting every channel.
Learn how to:
- Use SEO as the “glue” across fragmented customer journeys
- Adapt to AI-driven search behaviour & complex queries
- Understand the shift from SEO → GEO (AI visibility)
- Leverage schema & structured data to unify messaging across channels
- Align SEO with paid, PR, brand, and product teams for stronger performance.
Turn your brand into sales with Areej & Freddie
[Spotlight Sponsor: Canva]
Our very own Areej AbuAli & WTSPartner Freddie Chatt will discuss founder-led marketing strategies that build trust and drive real conversions.
Their conversation will explore how to optimise your key digital touchpoints, from your homepage to your checkout flow, so your brand delivers a seamless, high-quality customer experience.
You'll also discover how to move beyond traditional sales tactics & build a community-first approach to growth that feels authentic, sustainable, & genuinely aligned with your brand.
Make Yourself Hard to Replace in the Age of AI
Missed our latest WTSTalk with Aimee Jurenka and Nick Lafferty? Here’s the quick takeaway 👇🏽
AI isn’t replacing SEO, it’s raising the bar. The opportunity lies in becoming the person who can measure, explain, and lead on AI visibility.
In this session, they cover:
- How to track and communicate AI visibility to stakeholders
- Ways to expand your impact, budget, and role
- The skills and frameworks that keep you indispensable in 2026
Plus, practical insights on tools, reporting, and real-world use cases.
🌱 Green SEO: Optimisation with impact
[WTSPartner Feature: Screaming Frog]
We optimise for speed and performance, but rarely for sustainability.
In this new piece from Screaming Frog, the team breaks down how GreenSEO helps you reduce your site’s carbon footprint while improving performance.
Key takeaways:
- The web drives ~4% of global emissions and growing
- Lighter pages = faster sites = lower carbon
- New SEO Spider features let you measure CO2 per page
- Combine carbon + traffic data to prioritise high-impact fixes
- Even your crawls can be more efficient (and greener)
Bottom line: Better SEO and greener SEO go hand in hand.
2 weeks until Portland!
We’re just over 2 weeks away from WTSFest Portland … and it’s all starting to feel very real 💗
This is the event for SEO & marketing, and the energy across our community is already building. From first-time attendees to familiar faces (and our US WTSers, we’ve missed you!), we can’t wait to be together in Portland.
Whether you’re coming to sharpen your skills, meet people who get it, or just take a day to invest in yourself - you’ll be in the right place.
If you’ve already got your ticket, we’ll see you there 💗
If not, we have a few final call tickets left & we'd love you to join us.
Your WTSFest conference countdowns
We'd love to see YOU at one of our upcoming full-day marketing events!
⌛ 15 days - Portland on May 7th, 2026
🎟️ 5 Final Call tickets remaining!
⏳ 162 days - Philadelphia on October 1st, 2026
🎤 Speaker agenda now live
⏳ 331 days - London on March 19th, 2027
🎟️ 17 super early bird tix (£299) before early bird tix (£399)
🎥 2026 On-demand Insights - From AI Search to Real Influence & Trust
🎟️ $99 for all 10 talks
Use our Dear Boss template to request budget to attend!
🥂 WTS Meet & Greet Drinks at brightonseo
Wrap up your first day of talks and head straight to 2Bar for one of the most-loved WTS traditions!
Whether you’re arriving solo or with your team, this is your space to:
- Meet new people
- Catch up with familiar faces
- Swap highlights from the day
- Find your crew for dinner or the after party
It’s relaxed, welcoming, and one of the easiest ways to feel part of the community from day one.
🗓 Thu 30 Apr, 17:45–19:00
📍 2Bar (Brighton Centre)
🎟 No ticket needed, just show up
Come as you are, grab a drink, and find your people 🤝🏽
This event is exclusively for people of marginalised genders including: women, non-binary folks, transgender men, and other gender expansive identities.
[WTSNewsletter Series] Improving AI Visibility for local businesses through sponsorships
Series Author: Ellen Sartin
Ellen is the Client Success & Growth Manager at ZipSprout.
A research-driven Local SEO nerd with over 12 years of experience in marketing and business development, and a background in applied statistics and data analysis, Ellen explores how community partnerships between brands and nonprofit organizations drive real local visibility and engagement - and how AI is shaping Local SEO.
Missed Part 3? Check it out here!
Part 4: Leveraging Sponsorships for Local Visibility
Follow this process to build impactful sponsorship relationships:
1) Start by creating a list of potential organizations to sponsor
Google “nonprofits near me,” or use an AI tool to generate a list of local organizations.
Ideally you’re looking for organizations that align with your business’ values, and have a presence in the location you are targeting. This will also make building a relationship much more natural.
2) Begin outreach - but keep it personable!
Over the years we’ve found that building links with nonprofits, organizations, and events is all about relationships and maintaining that personal, human touch. It’s why we call ourselves matchmakers.
In my experience, the best approach is to call each organization. These are primarily volunteer-run groups, so taking the time to have a conversation helps you stand out and get things moving.
Ask about their sponsorship tiers and confirm what a sponsor listing includes. Every organization structures its tiers differently, so this conversation can save you weeks of back-and-forth.
3) Confirm the sponsorship will include what you need for online visibility
From a visibility standpoint, any sponsorship activity should include:
- A link directly on the organization’s website - not a PDF or third-party site - that stays live for at least 12 months
- Include anchor text if possible, as it adds much-needed context for AI
I’ve found many organizations that don’t list sponsors are happy to add them, or create a page, so it’s worth a conversation even if you don’t see sponsors listed on their website.
If they don’t list sponsors on their website at all, this relationship may still be valuable for your business, however it won’t contribute to building visibility in search or AI answers.
Many of these types of organizations are run by a small number of volunteers. You may need to talk them through the process. Be patient with them and keep following up.
A lot of businesses stop once the link is live. That’s a mistake.
For greater impact, you should also add the organization to your own site. Use the organization’s full name, link to their site, and include a short description of what they do.
In the final part of “Improving AI Visibility for Local Businesses Through Sponsorships”, I will discuss how to track the impact of your activity.
Profound is hiring - and it’s an exciting one!
[WTSNewsletter Job Sponsor: Profound]
🇺🇸 Demand Generation Lead (Profound)
Salary: $150,000-$220,000 + equity + benefits
Location: New York (On-site, Union Square)
Details:
→ Own full-funnel demand generation from awareness to revenue
→ Build & scale core channels (paid, ABM, SEO/SEM, webinars, social)
→ Identify highest-impact growth levers, prove ROI, & scale what works
→ Own attribution, forecasting, & performance reporting
→ Partner closely with Sales, RevOps, & Product Marketing
→ Leverage AI-native tools & experimentation to continuously improve
→ Build & mentor the team as the function scales
You’ll be marketing to marketers, with real ownership, high visibility, and a fast-moving environment.
👉🏽 Apply first, then DM Nick Lafferty to flag your application from WTS
If you've made it this far, thank YOU!
A reminder that everyone is more than welcome to subscribe!
Our goal is to amplify all the brilliant folks of marginalised genders in our industry - so the more people who subscribe, the more amplification!
As always, thanks for allowing us into your inbox!
- Areej, Erin, & Himee
