AI Marketing Masters by Annika Helendi

Helping marketers and solopreneurs leverage AI so they could easily do a 5-person job alone. 

Follow my Youtube channel for free automation tutorials and join the AI Marketing Masters community to get access to all the shortcuts - blueprints, templates and prompts.

Founder

astronaut.marketing

Custom SEO-driven growth strategies for B2B SaaS startups in the $1-10M ARR range.
// Strategy creation, consulting and advisory
// Open to fractional CMO roles

Fractional CMO, Growth Consultant, SEO Strategist

Blessed Pirate

Get weekly LinkedIn posts for publishing. Build your personal brand as an expert - https://blessedpirate.com

ContentFly

* Developed and implemented the go-to-market strategy
* Bootstrapped ContentFly to $500k ARR in 2019
* Developed and launched 2 add-on products

Co-Founder & CMO

Dashbird

* Developed and implemented the go-to-market strategy
* Built the initial marketing team
* Raised a seed round of $800k in 2018

Teamweek 

* Took over and lead a 12-person internationally distributed team 
* Revamped the business and turned it profitable in 2 months. 
* Grew the revenue by 100% in 2017 (to $700k ARR).

Toggl

* Generated 1.8 million signups over 4 years without a marketing budget (60% year-over-year growth)
* Put together and lead the initial marketing team
* Worked with cross-functional teams to create growth loops, improve the product experience and customer lifetime value.

Head Of Marketing

🪭AI fangirl. Founder. Marketer.

📌 Helping B2B startups grow since 2012

📌 Generated close to 2 million SEO signups in Toggl (and helped to generate many more millions through my consulting work)

📌Favorite roles: founder, CEO, CMO, fractional CMO, SEO strategist, growth consultant

📌Career highlights: made Teamweek profitable and scaled it to €700k ARR with a fully distributed remote team, raised a seed round for Dashbird, launched a bunch of bootstrapped startups during Covid that all failed, been able to avoid having a boss for over 5 years, worked with over a 100 founders, launched a profitable side-business (Blessed Pirate).

Annika Helendi

We are hiring at Vacation Tracker! 

Want to work with me and David Vero in a fully remote, work-from-anywhere B2B SaaS? 

We are looking for a full-time (video-first) Content Marketing Manager to join our marketing team. 

To apply, you must either have a personal Youtube channel, or a company one you have worked on. Please use this form to apply and to get more information - https://lnkd.in/d7znqDBq 

📷 picture from our last team meetup in Greece. 

📌 I've been working on growing Vacation Tracker since September 2025. We are lean and innovative and we have REALLY ambitious plans for dominating the HR space. 

We also have a new hotshot $100M+ CEO Martin Gourdeau who joined at the same time as me and is leading the team with a great vision and experience. 

So, if you want to know more about the company's history (see how the founders Slobodan Stojanović and Lav Crnobrnja got started with it and grew it to close to $3M ARR) and plans for future, then check out these videos here - https://lnkd.in/dRxaTRTp

Grow w/ revenue-driven SEO | Clients: Riverside, VEED, MentorCruise, Buy Me a Coffee | Read our case studies

Hey, I’m Jules, the founder of Embarque. Want to implement your SEO content strategy successfully? Hire us!

We’re powering the growth of 8-figure businesses using the power of ROI-driven SEO.

You’ve probably heard of some of our clients: Riverside, VEED, Flick, EmailOctopus, Buy Me a Coffee, VEED.IO, Levels.Fyi, ScrumGenius and MentorCruise & many more.

We provide high-quality end-to-end SEO services at unrivaled rates and have the case studies to back it up.

If you’re interested in working with us, check out our case studies or drop me a DM.

If not, drop me a follow for more content on:

* Growing a productized business
* Community-centric content strategy
* SEO for founders, startups, marketplaces, bootstrappers, and communities

See you around!

Jules Ignacio Canlas

Want to learn how to 40x SEO traffic in 7 months?

We did it for Hostari.

Before they came to us, they were:

→ Relying heavily on paid ads
→ Getting outranked by bigger competitors
→ Sitting at low organic traffic with no clear SEO engine

After Embarque, they had:

→ $45k+ in reveneue from just SEO,
→ 40x organic traffic in under 7 months

Swipe through this carousel to see the exact workflow we used, what we prioritised first, and how we turned SEO into a reliable pipeline channel. 👇 

Found this helpful? Please like and share. ♻️

Grow revenue w/ leadgen-driven AI LLM SEO | +25 SEO case studies on Embarque.io

How We Helped Hostari  40x SEO Traffic in 7 Months

This week in SEO was pretty practical.

Google answered a couple of questions people keep asking about AI, and Search Console got a much-needed explanation too.

Here’s a quick recap:

➔ Google said llms.txt exists for other reasons and doesn’t impact AI rankings
➔ Google showed fewer AI Overviews when users don’t engage with them
➔ Google explained why some pages are indexed without visible content
➔ New data showed Gemini gaining traffic share while ChatGPT declined

Scroll through for the full breakdown. 👇 

Found this helpful? Like and share ♻️

This Week in SEO: llms.txt, AIO, LLM SEO, ChatGPT

Quick SEO catch up for the week.

Here’s a quick recap:

➔ AI Overviews now push follow up questions into AI Mode
➔ Google may introduce opt out controls for Search AI features
➔ Google shared new research on extracting user intent
➔ AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 3

Swipe through for the full breakdown.

Found this helpful? Please like and share ♻️

This Week in SEO: AI Mode  Intent Extraction, Gemini 3

Does llms.txt affect LLM SEO or AI citations?

Quick answer: NO.

We’ve tested it a couple times and honestly…

it didn’t seem to move the needle.

And it’s not just us either.

SE Ranking confirmed this with a much bigger study.

They analyzed 300K domains and found:

- adoption is low
- it has no correlation with citations
- it’s not a meaningful signal

Swipe through this carousel for the breakdown.
___

If it’s useful, like and share. ♻️ 

#seo #seotips #seoexpert

Does llms.txt affect AI citations?

Quick SEO catch up for the week.

Here’s a quick recap:

➔ Google said Universal Commerce Protocol won’t kill SEO
➔ Google said linking sister brand websites is fine when it’s done sensibly
➔ Google said merchants can’t show higher prices on Google than on their own site

Scroll through for the full breakdown.

Found this helpful? Pls like and share ♻️

This Week in SEO: UCP, Brand Linking, Pricing Rules

Want to know what it really takes to rank for a keyword?

SEO SERP benchmarking shows you the bar upfront.

Average SEOs write in a bubble.

But smart SEOs benchmark the SERP before they write.

That’s where you'll get clues like:

➔ The formats Google is rewarding right now
➔ The angle the top results are taking
➔ Gaps you can cover to win faster

Swipe through this carousel to learn how to benchmark the SERP like a pro and turn it into easy wins.
—

Found this useful? Please like and share.

#seo #seotips #seoexpert

SEO SERP BENCHMARKING 101

Publishing loads of content but SEO's doing absolutely nothing for revenue?

Stagetimer had the same problem.

Solid product, but:

→ No proper strategy
→ Barely any organic traffic
→ Search bringing in £0

We built their SEO from the ground up with one goal: actual revenue.

→ Targeted keywords their ideal customers were actually searching
→ Created content designed to convert, not just rank
→ Earned links that properly moved the needle on rankings

Now SEO drives consistent, high-intent traffic that converts.
_____

Swipe to see the full breakdown. 👇 

Like and share if you found this helpful. ♻️

How We Turned Stagetimer SEO Into a Revenue Engine

Quick SEO catch up for the week.

Here’s a quick recap:

➔ Google warned free subdomains can make SEO harder
➔ Google said it does not endorse LLMs.txt
➔ OpenAI said ads in ChatGPT are coming to some plans soon

Scroll through for the full breakdown. 👇 

Found this helpful? Please like and share. ♻️

This Week in SEO:Subdomains, ChatGPT Ads, llms.txt

Getting SEO visitors who never convert is brutal.

Picflow knows this firsthand.

They had traffic coming in, but:

→ Ranking for the wrong searches
→ Content that informed but didn't convert
→ Zero signups traced back to organic

We flipped their SEO to prioritise one thing: getting users to sign up.

→ Targeted searches with commercial intent
→ Structured content to guide visitors toward conversion
→ Built topical authority through strategic backlinks

Now their organic traffic actually contributes to revenue.

Swipe to see the exact approach.

—
Found this useful? Pls like and share ♻

#seo #seotips #seoexpert

How We Built a Revenue-First SEO Engine for Picflow

Does digital PR affect AI citations?

Quick answer: YES. Indirectly.

PR does not magically “rank” you.

It makes you easier for AI systems to find and trust when they’re building answers.

Most AI recommendations work like research.

They scan the web for third party validation, then cite what looks credible.

So if your brand shows up in places like:

→ top lists
→ roundups
→ comparisons
→ reputable articles
→ credible directories

you give the model more proof to pull into answers.

And that’s the win.

Swipe through this carousel for the breakdown. 👇 

Found this helpful? Please like and share. ♻️

Does Digital PR Affect AI Citations?

Want a growth channel that gets cheaper the longer you run it?

That’s SEO when it’s done properly.

With SEO, you can:

→ Lower CAC as conversion performance improves
→ Bring in high intent traffic without paying for every click
→ Keep generating leads after you hit publish

Swipe through for 7 SEO strategies to scale without ramping up your customer acquisition cost (CAC) 👇 

If it helped, kindly like and share ♻️

SEO Playbook for Series A Startups (2026)

Want to learn how to win at LLM SEO, AEO, and GEO?

Microsoft recently dropped a pretty useful guide on how AI systems discover and recommend brands.

It shows how you can get:

→ More visibility inside AI answers
→ More qualified clicks from high intent searches
→ More conversions when your feed, schema, and site match

I simplified it and broke it down in this carousel. 👇 

Swipe for the breakdown.

Found this helpful? Please like and share. ♻️

How to Win in GEO/AEO

Want a simple way to push a page 2 SEO ranking higher?

Page 2 is the “nearly there” zone. You’re not far off, but small gaps can keep you stuck.

With these SEO tweaks, you can:

→ Tighten intent match and topical coverage
→ Improve internal linking and authority signals
→ Turn one page into a reliable traffic driver

Swipe through this carousel to see how to do this. 👇 

#seo #seoexpert #seotips

How to Move SEO Content on Page 2 to Page 1

Link building gets a bad name because most people do it backwards.

We took a technical SaaS client from no link building strategy and 126 monthly organic visitors to a repeatable system that 60x'd their growth.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

➝ Earn backlinks that make a measurable difference
➝ Focus on the pages that actually deserve links first
➝ Use niche authority to build steady organic traffic over time

Swipe through for the full breakdown.

___

If it’s useful, like and share. ♻️ 

#seo #seotips #seoexpert

How We 60x’d a SaaS Client’s Traffic With Link Building

Anthropic recently found that you only need 250 documents to influence how an LLM behaves.

They tested models from 600M to 13B parameters. The larger model processed 20x more training data.

But both were compromised by the same 250 documents.

This breaks the assumption that you'd need to control some massive percentage of training data. You just need 250 well-placed docs.

Now bring that back to what you and I care about.

LLMs scrape the same messy internet we all use. Reddit posts, blog articles, forum threads, old reviews. 

If misinformation about your brand is concentrated in a few visible places, models can pick it up and repeat it with confidence.

Codesmith learned this the hard way. 

In October 2025, a detailed write-up alleged that a founder of a competing programme (Formation) became a moderator on r/codingbootcamp. 

It also claimed they used that position to amplify negative narratives about Codesmith.

Those threads then started ranking in Google. And the same talking points began showing up in chatbot answers too. The company went from $23.5M to nearly nothing.

I'm not saying every Reddit thread is going to kill your business. 

But if you're working on AI search optimisation and haven't actually checked what these models say about your clients, that's a gap. 

Simple things worth doing:

→ Query your brand across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity
→ Note where information is wrong or outdated
→ Track it back to the source (forums, reviews, old articles)
→ Create better, clearer content that models can cite, and distribute them strategically
→ Actually structure it properly - schema, clean formatting, direct answers

Not saying panic. But if you're investing in AI visibility and haven't checked what these models say about you, you probably should.

–
What do you think? Let’s chat in the comments 👇 

PS: Found this helpful? Pls like and share ♻️

Does schema affect how LLMs understand your website?

This question keeps popping up lately and John Mueller has his opinion recently. 

And his answer was basically
Yes, no, and it depends.

According to him, schema clearly matters for some machine-driven features (like pricing, shipping, availability). 

But in other cases, people massively overestimate what it can do. Adding schema won’t make you “the best” or suddenly improve rankings by itself.

And honestly, I quite agree with him.

From our own tests and internal data at Embarque, schema tends to help most when it does one of these things:

- Removes ambiguity (clear product, org, author, FAQ, review info)
- Makes key information easier to extract fast
- Supports eligibility for features (rich results, product feeds, etc.)

But it doesn’t “upgrade your authority.” It doesn’t magically make your content more trustworthy. And it definitely doesn’t replace strong content.

If you’re doing schema, do it like this:

1. Start with schema that maps to real surfaces (Products, Reviews, Organisation, FAQ, HowTo where relevant)

2. Make sure it matches visible on-page content (don’t get fancy)

3. Treat schema as infrastructure, not a one-off SEO task
Build it so it’s easy to update as Google and AI systems change

Schema won’t carry weak pages.
But it can make strong pages easier for machines to understand.

___

If this helped, like and share ♻️ 

#seo #landingpages #seotips

How to actually get clicks in AI Overviews (straight from Google)

Google's VP of Search just explained exactly what makes people click through from AI search results.

Turns out, it's not what most SEOs are doing. However, ideally, everyone should be doing it. 

Liz Reid said people click on "content that is richer and deeper" with a unique perspective.

People don't click on surface-level content because "they don't actually learn that much more than they previously got."

It makes sense when you think about it. 

In fact, that's one of our core principles at Embarque: evidence-based writing. 

We’re heavy on real-life tests, examples, case studies, actual use both for SEO and GEO. 

So what does that look like in practice?

→ Stop regurgitating what's already out there
→ Bring your actual experience to the content 
→ Share original analysis, not aggregated info from competitors 
→ Put proper effort into it

Google's also now treating repetitive content like spam. Proper spam.

If your content "doesn't add very much, kind of tells you what everybody else knows," it's getting downranked.

Meanwhile, they're upweighting content from people who "really went in and brought their perspective or brought their expertise, put real time and craft into the work."

___

Look at your last few posts and ask yourself whether they just repeat what everyone else already knows, or if they show your actual perspective.

If it's just a more comprehensive version of what competitors wrote, that's the problem.

Update and fix that. 

Found this helpful? Pls like and share ♻️

Want to learn about Google UCP?

You’re not alone. A lot of people are seeing the announcement and wondering what actually changed.

In simple terms, Google is making it easier for people to buy products directly inside its AI experiences.

With UCP, stores can plug their products into Google’s AI so browsing and buying happen in one place, without bouncing through a bunch of pages.

That sounds convenient, but it also shifts where attention and clicks happen.

If shopping starts inside AI, product discovery looks different.

And naturally, SEOs are asking the same question.

Are we in trouble, or just adapting again?

I'll break it down in this carousel 👇 

_____

Found this helpful? Pls like and share ♻️

Google Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) 101

Want to grow your Series A startup in 2026 without burning through PPC spend?

SEO is still one of the few channels that compounds. The tricky part is picking the right priorities, fast.

Once you get it right, you can:

→ Lower CAC over time
→ Build demand that outlives paid campaigns
→ Capture buyers already searching
→ Win visibility in Google and AI search

This carousel breaks down the SEO playbook we use with Series A teams to drive measurable growth in 2026. 👇 

Found this helpful? Please like and share. ♻️

What to do when ChatGPT gets your business positioning wrong.
(you might want to save this)

A web analytics client came to us because ChatGPT kept describing them as mobile only.

They actually do both mobile and web analytics. But once ChatGPT decided they were “just mobile,” 

it stopped recommending them to people looking for full website analytics solutions. That is a quiet way to lose high intent leads.

Here’s what we did to fix it:

1. Run an audit

Use Temporary mode and ask:

→ What is [brand]
→ Who is [brand] for
→ What does [brand] do
→ [competitor] vs [brand]

Then test your category entry point queries:
→ Best [category] for [ICP]

2. Build a correction map

 ChatGPT shows you its sources. Open every cited page and log:

→ URL
→ What it gets wrong
→ The exact correction
→ The supporting link you want it to learn from

3. Fix your own pages first

 For this client, we updated their product listicles, jobs to be done content, and older blog posts where they positioned themselves as mobile only. 

It was true when they wrote it. It was wrong now. LLMs do not care about “now” unless you make it obvious.

4. Update external pages

 Directories: claim and edit your listing.
 Blogs: email the author with the specific correction plus a link they can cite.

5. Create one source of truth

Publish /ai or /llm-info with:

→ Current positioning
→ Who you serve
→ Core use cases
→ Key differentiators
→ Facts LLMs repeat (pricing, integrations, categories)

P.S: If this was useful, like it so more people actually see it, and share it with someone who keeps getting mislabelled by AI.

taplio

The Battle

Annika Helendi

Jules Ignacio Canlas

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAnnika Helendi's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJules Ignacio Canlas's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Annika Helendi

Jules Ignacio Canlas

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Annika Helendi's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJules Ignacio Canlas's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAnnika Helendi's LinkedIn Performance