While Stack Overflow, G2, and most B2B directories watched their organic traffic collapse under AI Overviews and LLMs, SoftwareFinder did the opposite. Adnan Malik, co-founder and CEO, grew organic traffic more than 300% over the last two years. Today, roughly 30% of their traffic comes through LLMs and AI Overviews, up from under 5% a couple years ago.

In this episode, Adnan breaks down the exact strategy shift that made it happen. We get into the semantic and JSON-level changes on the front end, the content map approach that pushes articles in both LLMs and traditional search, and why user-generated reviews became one of his biggest visibility drivers. If you publish content and want it consumed by AI, this is the tactical breakdown.

We also cover the part most SaaS founders get wrong: the human element. Adnan turned down VC money and built an AI system on the back end that recommends software in real time, while keeping human consultants on the phone. He explains why a fully autonomous AI agent failed in software discovery, and where the human touch still wins.

Finally, Adnan gives his prediction for the next 12 to 18 months. He expects 60-70% of searches to run through AI, a sharp compression in speed to demo and speed to close, and downward pressure on pricing as buyers get more sophisticated. If you sell software or buy it, this is the shift to prepare for now.

Five takeaways

• Prepare your content for LLMs before the traffic shifts, not after. SoftwareFinder moved early on semantic markup and LLM-friendly structure, which is why they captured AI demand instead of losing to it.
• Optimize at the passage level, not just the page. Surround your money pages with category, alternatives, and comparison content so you own the full cluster of buyer prompts.
• Reviews and user-generated content are AI fuel. LLMs favor authentic UGC, so a real review collection engine is now a visibility moat.
• Directory leads convert better than PPC because they match your true ICP. Lower churn and higher LTV justify paying the premium.
• AI handles initial discovery, humans close the complex decision. Keep a human in the loop for high-stakes B2B purchases where buyers need to open up.

00:37 Founding SoftwareFinder and 300% growth through the AI shift

01:48 The revenue model: pay per lead

02:34 The AI strategy shift: semantic markup, content maps, and reviews

07:42 How buyer behavior changed with LLMs as the initial search layer

11:16 Turning down VC money and the AI-plus-human system

14:38 Why directory leads beat PPC on ICP fit, churn, and LTV

18:09 Prediction: 60-70% of search through AI and the speed-to-close shift

Learn more at https://softwarefinder.com/

Connect with Gen: www.linkedin.com/in/genfurukawa

Learn more at https://supermarketers.ai

Rand Fishkin ran 2,961 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI.

Fewer than 1 in 100 produced the same brand list. In this conversation, he breaks down why the entire "AI ranking" category is built on probability, what actually moves your brand into LLM answers, and how he's marketing his new product AlertMouse with zero AI search visibility on day one.

Rand Fishkin is the cofounder and CEO of three companies: SparkToro, software that makes audience research accessible to everyone, indie game maker Snackbar Studio, and the the superior alternative to Google Alerts: Alertmouse.

What you'll learn:

→ Why AI answers are probabilistic, not deterministic, and what to track instead of rankings

→ The two real mechanisms that influence LLM visibility (RAG and training data)

→ How user prompts actually behave when 150 people are asked the same question

→ Why PR and positioning are now 100x more important than tactical SEO

→ The white hat playbook for showing up in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews

→ How to use AlertMouse and SparkToro together to find prompts your buyers actually use

→ What "audience intelligence" vs. "audience research" teaches you about brand positioning lag

→ The Seattle Ultrasonics knife story: how one founder turned mentions into product roadmap

→ Where Rand says marketers should spend attention in 2026 (and what to ignore)

Chapters:

0:02 Intro

0:38 The Datos prompt study and why AI answers are random

4:13 The two mechanisms that move LLM visibility

8:47 How Rand is marketing AlertMouse from zero visibility

13:42 Why positioning is the biggest AEO lever

17:08 AlertMouse use cases and the Seattle Ultrasonics story

22:11 Where to actually invest attention in 2026

Connect with Rand:

SparkToro: https://sparktoro.com

AlertMouse: https://alertmouse.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkinWhat are other ideas that we can add for the YouTube thumbnail? I don't really love "AI rankings don't exist." What are some of the main takeaways from the episode?

Ryan Doser shows the exact Claude Code workflow he uses to turn one YouTube video into a fully SEO-optimized WordPress blog post — screenshots, internal links, affiliate links, and meta data included — in about five minutes.

Ryan runs ryandoser.com, has a 33K-subscriber YouTube channel, and has been building production SEO systems with Claude Code. In this episode he screen-shares the whole pipeline: the skill markdown file that holds his SEO playbook, the Taddy MCP that scrapes the YouTube transcript, the Python script that pulls screenshots from the video, and the WordPress MCP that posts the draft. The result ranks on Google with a fresh domain and zero backlinks.

We also cover why "AI content" gets confused with "AI slop," how to organize skills so they don't collide, and why YouTube should be the foundation of any content strategy in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• A skill markdown file is your brain dump turned into a system. Without it, Claude Code produces slop. With it, you get publishable posts in five minutes.
• Start your content strategy on YouTube. Google ranks YouTube videos in search results, and one long-form video becomes the source material for a blog post, social posts, and an email.
• One task, one skill. Don't build three SEO skills. Build one and iterate. Use a Skill Creator skill plus auto-research to compound improvements.

Connect with Ryan

• Site: https://ryandoser.com
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RyanDoserAI