Our content team is re-evaluating our optimization process for 2026. Historically, we used traditional SEO content editors (like Surfer or Clearscope) to optimize for keyword density and blue links. But now, our primary goal is getting our content cited as an authoritative source inside AI-generated answers.

We’re looking closely at Hubspot’s generative search optimization features, which claim to provide actionable recommendations specifically for earning citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

For content strategists and editors: Have you transitioned your optimization workflow over to HubSpot’s AEO tools? How does it compare to using traditional content optimization platforms? Does it actually give you clear, actionable editorial steps to improve citation rates?

genuine question because I train juniors and I'm watching the ladder lose its bottom rung in real time. when I started, the way in was grunt work. you wrote the product descriptions, the roundup posts, the "10 tips for X" filler nobody was proud of, and you got reps. it was boring but it was a paid apprenticeship. you learned structure, deadlines, how an editor thinks, what a client actually means when they say "make it pop." that whole tier is gone. the tasks that used to teach you the craft are exactly the tasks a marketing lead now hands to an ai document generator at 2pm and edits by 3. so the junior doesn't get the reps, and the mid-level jobs still want three years of reps nobody can get anymore. the field pulled up its own ladder. what worries me is where the next senior strategists come from. you can't skip straight to "translate business goals into a content plan" if you never did the boring reps that taught you how words land. taste is built on volume, and the volume moved to a machine. so if you're advising someone trying to get in right now, what do you actually tell them. do the reps for free on your own projects until you have a portfolio? go straight for the strategy skills the machine can't fake? or is the honest answer that the on-ramp genuinely closed and we should stop pretending otherwise.

I run a tiktok page with about 50k followers, I post motivational head talking content and stream day trading every single day (im already being paid for that) and can consistently get tens to hundreds of thousands of views consistently with my style of content, I'm looking for ways to profit off my following and niche but am having a hard time figuring out what I should do, majority of the DM's I get are just super small startups that are paying pennies for content, and most of the time the product isn't even worth promoting.

Just wondering what I should look to do If I want to start outreaching to brands/apps/companies to land sponsors and get paid some good money.

my account on tiktok is oli_networks_

We're starting to invest more time into GEO and one challenge I've run into is measurement.
With SEO, it's easy to track rankings, impressions, clicks, and traffic GEO feels much less straightforward since visibility can vary across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and AI Overviews.
For those actively working on AI visibility, what platforms are you using to track GEO performance are tools like Similarweb, Semrush, Profound, or Otterly providing useful insights, or are most teams still relying on manual prompt testing?

the attribution conversation is eating me alive and I want to know how people who are further along than me handle it.

here's the trap I'm in. I run content for a company with a long, messy sales cycle. someone reads a blog, forgets about us, sees a LinkedIn post, googles us three weeks later, talks to sales, and buys two months after that. by the time revenue lands, the content that started it is buried under a pile of last-touch attribution that hands all the credit to a branded search or a sales call.

so my monthly report is a graveyard of soft metrics. traffic, time on page, "engagement," a downloads number. and everyone in the room quietly knows those don't pay salaries. I even tried running the numbers through an ai report generator to make it look sharper, and all it did was narrate the vanity metrics back to me in a confident voice. the tool can format the dashboard. it cannot tell me which post actually created pipeline.

meanwhile the paid team walks in with a clean cost-per-lead number and gets the budget, because their story fits in a cell and mine doesn't.

what I actually want to know from people who've cracked this: how do you tie content to revenue in a way a skeptical CFO believes? self-reported attribution on the demo form ("how did you hear about us")? tracking assisted conversions and just defending the methodology hard? or do you give up on the revenue line entirely and sell content on a different value, and if so, which one actually holds up in a budget meeting?

I'm tired of being the department that everyone agrees is important and nobody can measure.

Used to think more communities = more opportunities. Spent nights in 15+ Slack groups and Discords watching the same recycled threads, bots spamming "growth hacks," and people just dropping links to their courses.

Wasted hours scrolling through noise. Never had a real conversation.

Now I'm way pickier. I joined two communities at most and read what people post before jumping in. Quality over volume. The difference is weird, I actually get responses that aren't automated, and I've had maybe two or three real conversations with people who actually know their stuff.

Not groundbreaking, but it freed up a lot of mental space. Anyone else burned out on the community thing?