Jake Ward

Started an SEO agency in 2019. Making $20M/yr for Contact.so clients. Also building: Mentions.so Byword.ai Kleo.so

I’m 27 with 4 businesses and no home.

Here’s how I got here:

Age 0-15:

Spent early life growing up in a hippie commune.

Raised by an incredible single mother who wore both hats. Gave everything to support me.

Overly shy and didn’t speak much.

Seen as a problem by a teacher who suggested there was something wrong with me.

Age 16:

First job stacking supermarket shelves.

Completed high school with bang-average grades.

Started sixth form college.

Age 17:

Quit sixth form college after 3 months due to illness.

Doctor said I was 24 hours away from dying.

Spent my 17th birthday in hospital, tubes everywhere.

Became an apprentice at a print marketing agency. Learnt my way around Adobe’s design suite.

Started doing bits of design work on the side.

Age 18-19:

Discovered search marketing to help get more clients for the print marketing agency.

Became obsessed with SEO. Spent my free time messing around with the websites I built.

Age 20:

Wanted to take marketing more seriously. Quit my job to start a marketing degree.

Quit after 2 weeks.

Started an apprenticeship at an SEO agency where I managed 25 clients and attended college part-time.

Quit after 9 months.

Realised traditional education sucks. I learnt 100x more (and quicker) through self-education.

Went all-in on learning and building whilst living at home with my mum and 2 young siblings.

£0 income.

Age 21:

Got my first 2 freelancing clients on Upwork. They referred me to other clients.

Built a 6-figure business by the end of the year.

Age 22-23:

Started a podcast side project and quickly reached 300,000 listeners per month. Sold it for 5 figures.

Bought and sold 5 websites.

Maxed out my freelancing capacity.

Age 24:

Founded Content Growth and built a team to help companies turn their blog into a 7-figure sales channel.

Started posting on LinkedIn.

Grew revenue by over 200% in 6 months.

Age 25:

Co-founded Byword and launched a platform to help marketers generate articles at scale for SEO.

Sold my belongings, moved out of London and started travelling the world.

Merged Content Growth with Contact Studios to take the SEO agency to the next level.

Helped my mum quit her 15-year corporate job.

Age 26:

Lived out of a suitcase and travelled around 16 countries.

Grown the userbase of my SaaS tools to over 130,000.

Helped multiple unicorn companies scale their SEO with our 25-person team at Contact.

Age 27:

Continuing to levelling up, exploring, following my curiosities, collaborating with great people, and helping family and friends along the way.

Founder

We help software companies get more qualified traffic, sales and revenue through conversion-focused SEO and content marketing. Turn your blog into a 6 figure sales channel.

"I don't know how to do SEO in 2026"

Start from level 1 in The New SEO Game:

SEO isn't just Google rankings anymore.

It's now "Search Everywhere Optimisation".

Reframe your “New SEO” project as a game, and you'll become addicted to levelling up.

Level 1: Traditional SEO

- Fix technical problems killing your rankings
- Research keywords and target quick wins
- Optimise on-page elements (titles, content)
- Earn quality backlinks through outreach and PR

Level 2: AI Search Optimisation

- Format content so AI can parse it easily
- Build pages that AI platforms want to cite
- Structure information for machine consumption
- Test how your brand appears in AI search results

Level 3: Paid Search Visibility

- Run Google Ads for high-intent keywords
- Target competitor terms with YouTube Search Ads
- Capture Bing traffic through Microsoft Ads
- Measure paid performance across every platform

Level 4: LLM Answer SEO

- Produce authoritative content LLMs trust
- Build a knowledge base for AI training data
- Position your brand as the definitive source
- Monitor brand mentions in LLMs with Mentions

Level 5: Brand Authority SEO

- Get unlinked brand mentions across the web
- Feature in industry roundups and expert lists
- Build brand recognition without traditional backlinks
- Track brand mention volume and sentiment

Level 6: Community SEO

- Provide value in relevant Reddit threads
- Share expertise on Quora in your space
- Engage in Slack communities and Discord servers
- Build reputation in industry forums and groups

Level 7: Parasite SEO

- Repurpose content on Medium and LinkedIn Pulse
- Publish beehiiv newsletters to rank in Google
- Guest post on high-authority platforms/websites
- Leverage existing domain authority for quick rankings

Level 8: Platform-Specific SEO

- Optimise for Amazon search if selling products
- Focus on YouTube SEO for video content
- Master TikTok's algorithm for short-form content
- Optimise App Store listings for apps/extensions

Level 9: Topic Domination

- Own conversations across ALL channels
- Create content ecosystems to reinforce each platform
- Become the go-to expert mentioned everywhere
- Monitor and maintain authority across all channels

Completed all levels?

SEO is constantly evolving going into 2026.

Stay ahead or get left behind.

PS. Need help levelling up? We'll help build and execute your “New SEO” domination strategy.

Book a call: https://www.contact.so/

I analysed 66,796 sites to understand where their SEO traffic came from last month.

(You can too at chatgpt-vs-google .com)

Google still dominates at 40.31%.
ChatGPT is just 0.24%.

But here's what most people miss:

Traffic isn't the ONLY metric that matters anymore.

Zero-click searches are everywhere now.

ChatGPT processes 2.5 billion prompts every day, but barely any of them send direct traffic.

AI Overviews now appear in 60% of U.S. searches. And position 1 CTR dropped by -34.5% when AI Overviews appear.

People aren't clicking through like they used to.

They're getting answers directly from AI, and that creates a massive blind spot.

Your brand could be mentioned 10,000 times in ChatGPT responses.

Your product could be recommended in Claude conversations.

Your company could appear in Google AI Mode answers.

None of that shows up in your traffic data.

That's why I've been building Mentions for the past few months. I needed a way to track this visibility.

Because the future of SEO isn't just ranking on Google.

It's being visible wherever people ask questions.

Successful SEO looks like:

- 120 new blog posts
- 60 high DR backlinks
- 500 AI-created pages
- 1,000% growth in traffic

But remember, it also looks like:

- Removing 3 cannibalising pages
- Improving a cluster’s internal linking
- Tweaking 5 titles for better targeting
- Fixing internal links to canonical pages
- Writing a featured snippet in 10 minutes
- No-indexing low-quality pages in Google
- Redirecting a 404 page with 30 backlinks
- Creating indexable URLs for 15 sales pages
- Adding a new section to an existing blog post

Don’t forget to consistently do the little things.

They can be just as impactful.

Sergiu Bungărdean

Demand Hive

We help expertise-based businesses get their next 10+ clients with a strategy that focuses on the 2 most critical yet ignored elements of success:

What people buy and how they do it.

What people buy is nothing more than the offer you sell.

How they do it is nothing more than your funnel.

And that’s what we do.

We create a strategy about the What and the How:

1 High-Demand Offer™ that clients feels stupid saying “No” to

1 Client Pathway Funnel™ that guides them from “Hmm” to “Yes”

These 2 combined are your simple strategy for getting your next 10+ clients as a business that sells expertise – whether it’s design, development, consultancy, or anything in between.

Founder, Strategist

Stride

RFM segmentation tool that let you categorize your customers into different segments according to their buying behaviour.

Uptrain

Uptrain was an online coaching platform that allows companies to offer coaching as a benefit to their employees.

My responsibilities:

- conduct market analysis to obtain understanding of the competitive landscape and help establish product differentiators;
- work closely with product team to develop product key messaging, benefits and value proposition;
- create and execute innovative strategies and marketing plans that drive awareness, engagement and product adoption;
- develop actionable, data-driven insights to inform product and marketing strategy;
- work across several aspects of marketing – from branding and positioning to targeted outreach and strategy, go-to-market strategy, campaigns, advocacy, and communication;

Product Marketing Manager

BestJobs

Since May 2017 I started to work full time on SEO in order to achieve better rankings and increase traffic. Now the BestJobs main source of traffic is Google (organic) and the website gains traffic from over 35.000 keywords every month.

Responsibilities:

- optimizing copy and landing pages for search engine optimization;
- track, report, and analyze website analytics;
- develop and implement link building strategy;
- performing ongoing keyword research including discovery and expansion of keyword opportunities;
- researching and implementing content recommendations for organic SEO success;
- execute tests, collect and analyze data and results, identify trends and insights;
- work with the development team to ensure SEO best practices are properly implemented on newly developed code;
- recommend changes to website architecture, content, linking and other factors to improve SEO positions for target keywords;

SEO Specialist

BestJobs is one of the most powerful recruitment platforms on the Central and Eastern European job market. With a powerful database of more than two million resumes and over 90.000 companies, BestJobs is able to match in no time the best candidates with the newest job openings in every field of activity.

Responsibilities:

- brainstorming and coming up with ideas for creative marketing campaigns;
- conducting market research to find answers about consumer requirements, habits and trends;
- planning and executing initiatives to reach the target audience through appropriate channels (social media, e-mail, etc.);
- implementing PPC campaigns;
- implementing and measuring SEO campaigns;
- setting analytics goals and measuring campaigns revenues;
- reporting results to upper management;

Marketing Specialist

I joined BestJobs in October 2016 as an Facebook Ads Intern in the marketing team. The internship lasted for 1 month and after that I joined the company as a full time Marketing Specialist.

Responsibilities:

- implementing Facebook Ads campaigns;
- measuring campaigns revenues;
- reporting results to upper management;

Facebook Ads Internship

FP Betting

In collaboration with Doru Craciun and Ciprian Craciun from Look TV we reached the milestone of 1 million pageviews in only 3 months of activity.

I was the Product/Marketing Manager of Facem Pariurile and my duties was to take care of marketing strategy, build strong relationships with our clients and make sure that the product is successful. Facem Pariurile is active even today, as an online video show.

ClickDecor

From August 2015 I was co-founder and CEO of the architecture & interior design magazine ClickDecor. I was focused especially on marketing and SEO strategy. The website gained traffic day by day and became profitable in a short time. After almost 2 years in charge of ClickDecor I've decided to sold it.

Co-Founder & CEO

After bringing in over $730K in revenue for clients…

I’m inviting 4 more people to work 1:1 with me and use the same approach in their business so they can:

1) Start getting consistent leads every week.
2) Turn those leads into 4-5 figure clients.

Here's exactly how we'll be doing this:

📌 Step 1: Bring in the right people

We start by fixing your content and messaging so the right people actually pay attention. No more “how-to” tips that attract freebie seekers.

Instead, we shift to what and why content and messages, the kind that makes people think, “This is what I’ve been missing.”

I’ll help you nail it, then coach you on how to keep showing up in a way that brings in qualified leads every week.

📌 Step 2: Guide them to the next step

Now that the right people are paying attention, we give them a clear next step. Could be a resource, a video, a workshop, a quick conversation — something simple.

We tie it to your offer so it naturally moves them closer to working with you.

Not a generic lead magnet or random freebie. Just something that makes them think, “I want more of this.”

📌 Step 3: Make it easy to say “YES”

Once they get closer to working with you (on purpose), we help them take the final step.

Whether you already have an offer or not, we’ll make sure it’s clear, simple, and easy to buy (and maybe even tie a micro offer to it too).

Then we put it in front of the right people. They've already raised their hand, so saying “YES” feels like the obvious next move.

That’s how you turn them into 4–5 figure clients.

💭 Want proof this approach works?

☑ This approach got my clients $730K+ in revenue.
☑ M.N. made nearly $60K in 3 months.
☑ D.A. added 50+ qualified leads and signed a $12K client in 2 weeks, after 1 workshop.
☑ A.N. got 200+ people on a waitlist for a new offer.
☑ A.H. signed their biggest recurring client after improving their offer.
☑ & more.

(drop me a DM with "proof" and I'll share with you more of this)

So... how does it sound?

If good, then DM me “clients” and I’ll send the full breakdown so you can see if this is the right fit for you.

Or simply scroll a bit and click the "Work with me →" link below.

P.S.:

I’m taking 4 people through this. Once the spots are gone, it’s off the table for a while.

So if you want this... let's talk today.

Founder & LinkedIn Personal Brand Manager

We help solopreneurs, founders, coaches, CEOs & executives build their personal brand on LinkedIn in order to increase visibility, generate inbound leads and improve credibility.

Most B2B founders struggle to clearly explain what they do.

Of course, they win fewer projects because of this.

But why does this happen?

Why is something so simple so difficult?

After working with 100+ clients, I noticed why.

I explain the reasons and how to fix it in today's carousel.

You can find everything below:

Unf*ck Your Messaging | B2B Messaging & Homepage Copywriting | I’ve helped 100+ founders explain what they do more clearly, rewrite their homepage, and win more projects.

Why most founders can't explain what they do

Knowing if your messaging works is difficult.

I know because I have done 100+ projects on messaging.

I've also talked with probably 1,000+ founders of service businesses.

Yet, there are a few key things you could look at.

They'll give you the answers you were looking for.

You can find everything below:

How to know if your messaging is actually working

This is the best way to unf*ck your messaging ↓

1) Delete everything you wrote about your ICP:

- Where they live
- How much money do they make
- How big their businesses are

Etc.

2) Rebuild your ICP starting from this:

- What's the main problem they face
- What are the top 3 symptoms of the problem
- What are the top 3 ways they can solve the problem

Then, build your solution as an answer to these.

After that, make sure:

- Your website copy reflects that
- Your content, outreach, etc, reflects that
- Your sales process is built around that

It doesn't matter if I'm from X, making Y, with a team of Z...

It matters if I have a headache and you have the pill to make it go away.

Your homepage doesn't describe exactly what you do?

It never will until you change this:

Talk less about you and more about them.

"We do..."
"We helped..."
"We're good at..."

All these means you talk about you... for you.

Some of you might even think this is a good idea.

"We talk about us so they trust us."

Trust you for what?

Before trusting you, they have to understand you...

That happens only when they feel you get them.

Talk about THEIR problems.
Talk about THEIR success, not yours.
Talk about your solution for THEIR needs.

This doesn't mean to say, "We increase revenue."

It means saying things like, "We do X so you no longer..."

Always talk from your clients perspective, not yours.

P.S.: This advice applies to all your marketing and sales.

If you want to win more projects, check this free resource: https://lnkd.in/dkg4agEE

Are you selling the wrong thing or just selling it wrong?

Most founders don’t ask that, even if they should.

They just rebuild.

A new offer.
A new tactic.
A new "everything".

They do it just because something "wasn't working."

But here’s what I’ve seen after 100+ projects:

What you're doing is often fine. It’s the framing that’s broken.

So before you reinvent everything…

Pause.

Read this essay and go through:

1) The most common mistakes.
2) The key things you need to fix.
3) 3 questions you need to answer clearly.

After that, go back to reinventing.

But odds are, you won’t need to.

Are you selling the wrong thing or just selling it wrong?

Can you clearly explain what you do?

If yes, you're ahead of 99% of your competitors.

That's because most of them can't do it.

They either said it loud or noticed the symptoms:

1) Their prospects are confused about what the business provides.
2) Sales conversations are often about explaining the service instead of selling it.
3) Marketing and sales don’t produce the expected results.

These problems are solved when you unf*ck your messaging:

1) You clearly explain what you do and trigger people.
2) They pay attention and feel you understand them.
3) They choose you because you're the most relevant.

Isn't this cool? I bet it is...

I recently recorded a free training about this topic.

It's finished and goes live tomorrow morning.

Everyone inside my email list will get it, for free.

Make sure you're there too: https://lnkd.in/dtwaM-sv

This is the best way to win more projects as a service business.

Yet, 8 out of 10 founders don't do it.

The truth is, most of my clients didn't know how.

That's why I decided to put everything in today's carousel.

You can find everything below:

How to win more projects by naming the ignored problems

There’s a moment in sales that decides everything.

It happens before price, fit, or objections.

It’s when the other person thinks:

“I get what you do and this is what I need.”

If that moment never happens, the sale won't happen.

I’ve seen it over and over.

Calls go well. Rapport is good. Interest is real.

But then nothing moves forward.

The buyer still doesn’t have a clear picture in their mind.

After 100+ projects, I've seen why it happens:

You’re too close to your own work to describe it simply.

That's why I built something to help you with this.

It's a free 19-minute training. It will show you:

1) How to clearly explain what you do
2) How you can easily win more projects

It's short, practical, and packed with real examples.

You can watch it here: https://lnkd.in/dQhYruEx

There’s a big chance the way you present your offer is wrong.

I know because I’ve reviewed hundreds in the last few years.

Most founders present their offers like a full package.

"We can do A, B, C... fix X, Y, Z..."

Even if it feels right because there's a lot of value... it's not.

People don’t take action until there’s a real, felt problem in front of them.

If their problem is X, why would they pay for Y and Z?

Because that's the correct way of doing things, right?

Well, it doesn’t matter what’s right to you but what’s right to them.

If you had a headache now, which one would you buy?

1) A pill that takes your headache away in 30 minutes.
2) A plan that involves blood tests, lifestyle changes, etc.

You’d choose number 1 even if number 2 is the “correct way.”

So why not build your business the same way?

Don’t sell “blood tests” when people have headaches.

Sell the headache pill. Focus on the felt problem.

P.S.:

I just finished writing an in-depth issue about this.

It goes out tomorrow at 11 a.m. EET.

I’ll show you how to turn your offer into the pill everyone wants.

Subscribe if you’re not on the list yet: https://lnkd.in/dtwaM-sv

taplio

The Battle

Jake Ward

Sergiu Bungărdean

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJake Ward's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreSergiu Bungărdean's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Jake Ward

Sergiu Bungărdean

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);}Jake Ward's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreSergiu Bungărdean's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJake Ward's LinkedIn Performance