Traditional e-commerce SEO is turning into an absolute bloodbath right now.

When people want to buy something, they aren’t scrolling through pages of blue links on Google or fighting through keyword-stuffed blog spam anymore. Instead, they are opening ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews and typing incredibly specific phrases. They say things like: "Find me a non-toxic, ceramic skillet that is oven-safe up to 500 degrees and costs under 80 bucks."

If an AI chatbot cannot scrape your product data and immediately verify those exact specs, your store basically does not exist to them.

We have been testing actual workflows for a few e-com clients over the last couple of months to fix this. Here is the real, fluff-free playbook on how to get LLMs to actually recommend your products.

1. Check your robots.txt file right now

A lot of default Shopify firewalls or security plugins automatically block unfamiliar bots. If you are blocking the scrapers, you are completely locking your store out of ChatGPT or Perplexity shopping results.

Go into your robots.txt file today and explicitly make sure these agents are allowed:

Plaintext

User-agent: oai-searchbot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /

2. Kill the creative copywriting and use hard data

AI models absolutely hate fluffy, romantic product descriptions because they contain zero extractable facts. To rank in a conversational search engine, your product copy needs to be highly specific and mathematically verifiable.

• The old way: "Our premium travel mug keeps your drinks cold all day and looks stunning on any desk!" (AI has no clue what "all day" or "stunning" actually means).
• The optimized way: "24 oz double-walled vacuum-insulated stainless steel travel mug. Keeps liquids below 40 degrees for up to 18 hours. Base diameter is 3.1 inches to fit standard car cup holders."

When a user asks ChatGPT for a mug that fits a standard car cup holder, the second option gives the engine the exact spatial measurements it needs to confidently recommend your link.

3. Fill out every single "optional" feed attribute

AI shopping engines heavily rely on your structured product feeds via Google Merchant Center or your Shopify backend to compare items side by side.

First, fix your identifiers. Make sure every single SKU has a valid GTIN or MPN. AI engines use these numbers to cross-reference your site with third-party reviews.

Second, fill out the gaps. Treat optional attributes like material, fit, age range, and intended use as mandatory fields. If the AI filters for a specific material and your feed is blank, you get dropped instantly.

4. Overhaul your schema markup

Your website might look pretty to humans, but AI models read the underlying JSON-LD schema code to pull real-time data. You need deep schema nesting across all your product pages.

Make sure your dev team is dynamically piping the following information:

• Product and Offer Schema: This shows the exact pricing, real-time stock availability, and condition.
• AggregateRating Schema: This provides machine-readable star ratings and total review counts.
• FAQPage Schema: Add a quick Q&A section under your products. AI engines love pulling direct text fragments from FAQ schemas to answer user sub-queries.

5. Build off-site brand authority

An LLM does not just trust what you say about yourself on your own website. It crawls the rest of the web to see if you actually exist in the real world.

If a brand has zero organic mentions on forums, third-party blogs, or review sites, AI models assume it is an unverified dropshipping store and won't risk recommending it. You need consistent data across Reddit discussions, Trustpilot, and niche comparison tables to build real authority.

TL;DR: Traditional SEO was about winning the click. This new wave is about winning the recommendation. Stop optimizing for algorithms that track keywords, and start optimizing for models that track hard facts.

What are you guys doing to combat the drop in traditional organic traffic? Anyone else seeing referral traffic spike from ChatGPT or Gemini yet?

When I first started out in PR, I spent a massive amount of time studying the history of public relations and the legends who basically built the industry. Honestly, it was the best thing I could have done for my career.

Too many digital marketers get totally distracted by the algorithm of the week or the newest AI tools. But if you look at the foundations, you realize that while the channels change, human psychology doesn't. The way people trust brands is exactly the same as it was a century ago.

Whenever I’m building a high-stakes campaign or handling a crisis for a client today, whether it’s a B2B SaaS startup or a consumer brand, I still pull plays straight from the history books.

Here are four of the most influential figures in PR history, what they pulled off, and the exact takeaways we can use today.

1. Ivy Lee (The guy who invented the press release)

Back in the early 1900s, corporations hid everything. If a train crashed, the railroad companies tried to pretend it didn't happen. Ivy Lee flipped the script in 1906 while working with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Instead of covering up an accident, he invited journalists to the scene, gave them the facts, and put out the world’s first formal press release.

• His Philosophy: Radical transparency beats secrecy. He later told the ultra-wealthy Rockefeller family to stop hiding from the public, go down into the coal mines, actually listen to the workers, and humanize their image.
• The Takeaway: Control the narrative early. If you don't tell your story immediately during a mess-up, the internet will happily invent a worse version for you.

2. Edward Bernays (The master of crowd psychology)

While Ivy Lee focused on sharing facts, Edward Bernays focused on pure psychology. Fun fact: he was actually Sigmund Freud's nephew. He realized that to change public opinion, you have to tap into people's subconscious desires and biases.

• His Famous Campaign: In the 1920s, a packing company hired him to help them sell more bacon. Instead of running ads saying "buy our bacon," he got 4,500 doctors to sign a statement saying a heavy breakfast was healthier than a light one. Newspapers ran with it, and American breakfast culture changed overnight.
• The Takeaway: Stop pitching the product features. Pitch the lifestyle or the validation. People buy how a brand makes them feel or who it connects them to.

3. Arthur W. Page (The corporate PR pioneer)

Arthur Page was the first person to get a true seat at the executive table for PR, taking a VP role at AT&T back in 1927. He proved that public relations isn't just "spin" or damage control you do after you screw up—it’s how you run the business.

• His Philosophy: Public relations is 90% doing and 10% talking about it.
• The Takeaway: PR cannot fix a broken product or a toxic company culture. True branding starts internally. If a client's customer service sucks, no amount of clever copywriting is going to save their reputation.

4. Judy Smith (The real-life "Fixer")

Looking at modern history, Judy Smith is the go-to crisis management expert. If you’ve ever watched the TV show Scandal, the main character Olivia Pope was literally based on her. She’s handled communications for massive corporate meltdowns, celebrity scandals, and political disasters.

• Her Philosophy: Move quickly, drop the emotions, and stick to a calculated path to redemption.
• The Takeaway: Own the mistake immediately, lay out the exact solution, and then stop feeding the media cycle. The fastest way to kill a PR crisis is to give people the facts and show how you’re fixing it, rather than getting defensive.

The Bottom Line

When you strip away the software and the platforms, PR is just the art of managing relationships at scale. The strategies I picked up from studying Lee, Bernays, Page, and Smith are the exact tools I use to protect and grow my clients' brands today.

Who do you think is missing from this list? Drop your favorite PR campaign or strategist below and let’s break down why it worked.

I see a lot of founders and marketers treating brand awareness like this vague, mystical concept. They think it just means throwing money at Facebook ads or posting 5 times a day on TikTok hoping something goes viral.

Over the past few years, I’ve built brand awareness strategies for companies across completely different industries, everything from local service businesses and B2B SaaS to e-commerce and niche tech.

What I’ve learned is that while the platforms change depending on your audience, the framework for getting noticed stays exactly the same.

If you are trying to get a brand on the map in 2026, here is the exact 4-step playbook I use to build organic awareness that actually translates into revenue.

Step 1: Define Your Unfair Angle (The Positioning)

You cannot build awareness if you sound exactly like your competitors. Before spending a dime or writing a caption, you need a hook.

• For B2B/SaaS clients: We usually focus on a "villain." What old, frustrating way of doing things does your software fix?
• For E-commerce/D2C clients: We focus on the "objection." If everyone else is selling cheap, fast shipping, our angle might be radical transparency in manufacturing.
• The Takeaway: Find the one thing your competitors refuse to say, and say it loudly.

Step 2: Borrow Other People's Audiences (The PR & Partnership Strategy)

Starting from zero followers is brutal. The fastest way to build awareness is to tap into communities that already exist.

• What we did for a tech niche client: Instead of pitching major news outlets (which is hard and expensive), we pitched niche industry podcasts. A 30-minute interview on a podcast with 5,000 highly targeted listeners converts better than a brief mention on a massive generic news site.
• The Takeaway: Look for newsletters, micro-influencers, and podcasts that your specific audience already trusts. Partnering with them transfers that trust to your brand instantly.

Step 3: Create Search-First Authority Content (The SEO Play)

Awareness isn't just about people seeing your logo; it's about them finding you when they have a problem.

• The Playbook: Figure out the exact questions your target audience is asking Google. Write comprehensive, no-gate answers to those questions.
• Why this works across niches: Whether I'm working with a professional service brand or a consumer app, ranking for high-intent keywords means you capture people right at the moment they need expertise. It makes your brand look like the ultimate authority.

Step 4: The 1-to-10 Distribution Rule

Most brands spend 90% of their time creating content and 10% distributing it. It should be the exact opposite.

• If we write one killer case study or breakdown for a client, we don't just post it on their blog and hope for the best.
• We chop it into a LinkedIn carousel, turn the core data into an infographic for Pinterest/X, script a 60-second video explaining the main takeaway, and rewrite it as a newsletter blast.
• The Takeaway: Give your ideas multiple chances to be seen. One piece of core content can fuel your awareness engine for a month.

Every time I take on a brand in a brand-new niche, the biggest challenge is always patience. Brand awareness is a compounding asset. The first 3 months usually feel like screaming into a void, but by month 6, those SEO rankings, podcast appearances, and distributed content pieces start looping together.

I'd love to turn this into a bit of a workshop thread. Drop your niche and what you sell in the comments below, and I’ll give you a specific unfair angle or awareness idea you can use for your brand.