Open to consulting & new roles
25 years in search. Now I get brands cited in AI answers.
I’m Brian. I’ve been doing SEO since before it had a name, ran my own agency for 12 years (acquired), and now build the AEO programs that get brands cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and AI Overviews. I build the strategies, tracking, technical SEO fixes, and the automation pipelines to scale it.
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Trusted by teams at AAA, The Dyrt, Cox and 120+ more
GEO / SEO
Technical SEO
25+ years in search
25+Years in search
600K+Keywords grown for AAA
122%YOY SEO growth at The Dyrt
120+Clients as agency founder
Brands I’ve worked with
Where I’ve been
25+ years of search, agency ownership, and now AI answers
SEO Lead · The Dyrt
2025 – 2026 · Camping marketplace, 120K+ pages
Created the SEO logic/framework for a large-scale “self-healing SEO” program for 30K+ programmatic pages using GSC data for decaying content refreshes, built the GEO/AEO program and AI visibility tracking, led technical SEO fixes (crawling, indexation/rendering, internal linking, and link pruning), managed brand-citation and link building, and created pillar content using internal UGC with entity enrichment and query fan-out methods. Helped swing non-paid web users from -28% to +76.5% YoY, grew mobile SEO page views 122% YoY, and contributed to the company’s first profitable year in twelve.
SEO Lead · AAA
2024 – 2025 · The Auto Club Group
Grew keyword visibility from 95K to 600K+ and first-page rankings from 12K to 30K+, led AI initiatives with content development and SEO automations, owned all technical SEO projects and multi-site migrations/redirects (98% of organic traffic retained), built AI content workflows, created core service/product pages and pillar pages across insurance, membership, travel, and roadside, and optimized local SEO for AAA locations in 13 states.
Senior SEO Consultant
2019 – 2023 · Independent, SaaS & B2B
Launched early AI-driven content workflows on GPT-4 and Claude, grew topical coverage 45% with entity, UGC, and E-E-A-T strategies, and lifted conversion rates 18% through UX mapping and A/B testing.
Director, Technical SEO · LOCOMOTIVE
2015 – 2017 (contract 2022) · Enterprise agency
Led technical SEO for Cox, Sunbrella, Credit.com, and NRG — programmatic frameworks for large location and directory sites, and deep technical SEO audits turned into execution-ready roadmaps for C-level clients and dev teams.
Founder · SocialSEO.com
2002 – 2014 · Acquired
Built and led a 15–20 person SEO and content agency serving 120+ clients including Disney, Drugstore.com, Expedia.com, Sony Music, and HughesNet; scaled ThemeSnap.com to 16,000+ customers.
How I work
Toolkit & workflows
AI search · GEO/AEO
Answer-engine optimization for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews with citation programs, content graphs, query fan-out, and current or new methods proven to positively impact AI search..
Technical SEO
Enterprise audits, Core Web Vitals, JavaScript rendering, decayed content fixes, structured data, crawl budget, site migrations, and even UX or AI tooling that keep and grow your traffic and users.
Automation & AI
MCP and automation workflows, programmatic SEO at scale w/UGC, RAG-aligned content pipelines, self-healing SEO programs, and custom AI automation for grading and auto-updating web pages.
Analytics & reporting
Executive-ready dashboards and monthly reporting that tie search work to business goals or revenue, built on custom API integrations and repeatable AI workflows using GA4, GSC, and other tools.
Selected work
Case studies & results
Dashboards, AI page graders, visibility trackers, and before-and-afters from real SEO and AEO programs.
Non-paid web users went from declining to growing in 7 months, contributing to the company’s first profitable year in 12.
Claude-powered page audits for AI retrieval and on-page SEO that output dev-ready Jira tickets with scoped tasks and fixes. Based on Google’s own page grader.
Dashboard that tracked brand citations and competitor exposure across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and AI Overviews.
Custom Streamlit app that models how AI engines split one query into many, used to find content and entity gaps.
Uses GSC decay signals to flag and refresh declining content across 30K+ programmatic pages based on queries, position, CTRs, and impressions.
First-page rankings went from 12K to 30K+, SERP features from 3K to 35K, and membership conversions rose 9%.
From the desk
Recent Articles
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PageGrade: How My Page Grader Scores Content Against Google’s Quality Questions
PageGrade is a page grader I built to answer one question about a URL – how well does this page hold up against what Google says it rewards? You give it a URL, it renders the page, pulls Search Console data, and returns a report that grades the page on 42 questions, each with a…
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Can You Trust Your Rank Tracker? How to Check Suspicious Google Results
On October 10, 2026, Nozzle published research describing unusual Google results reaching automated tracking tools. The concern for SEOs is straightforward: a tool could report a ranking loss that sends you looking for website problems before you’ve checked whether the measurement is reliable. On sizable websites, this could pose lots of added stress with proper…
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Open Knowledge Format for SEO: Useful Tools and What I’d Test First
Google Cloud introduced the Open Knowledge Format in June 2026, then released v0.2 on July 24 with fields for sources, verification, and freshness. I believe it’s worth exploring for organizing the knowledge behind a website, especially when important facts are scattered across multiple pages. But I believe calling OKF a missing “AI visibility file” kind…
You’re in good company
“Brian Gilley is the real deal; he has a level of expertise that only comes from spending more than a decade on the front lines of SEO. We have consulted with him on a broad range of issues including site architecture, on-page optimization, and link building and his expertise has proven invaluable. Highly recommended!”
— Jim Barnes, Digital Marketing Director, Drugstore.com
“I’ve worked with Brian on different projects. His expertise in competitive analysis, online business strategies, and conversion optimization has always helped me get the very best out of client marketing campaigns.”
— Andy Beal, Global Marketing Director, IQVIA
Let’s talk search
SEO consulting engagements, full-time roles, or just a question about getting cited by AI engines – I read every message.
linkedin.com/in/briangilley
Louisburg, NC · Remote-friendly