Steve Brownlie

WTSFest Philadelphia 2025 | Women in Tech SEO The Women in Tech SEO Festival is back in Philadelphia in October 2025! 10 brilliant talks by 10 brilliant speakers in one day.

Thrilled to be speaking at #WTSFest Philly on Oct 7!

My session “Human-Led, AI-Powered: How I Use AI to Supercharge Content Creation” will break down actual AI workflows I use to scale content without losing quality.

No hype. Just what works.

Some are suggesting it is like the decades of the famous 'Brain Drain' in reverse, as it is particularly the highly educated and the academics that are leaving. Some just as US funding is cut from hundreds of academic and scientific projects and institutions.

I can't decide which is more annoying and repetitive. The LinkedIn posting of the fake action figures. Or on here the posting of the sad child by AI meme with some politics on it. I guess AI has destroyed the internet after all though...

Scaling AI on a budget - responsibly! Low budgets and the pressure to scale fast can make it tempting to hand everything over to AI—but should you? In this talk, Emina will explore how SE…

Back to a tired reality 🤪 Here’s my BSEO deck - that was fun speakerdeck.com/eminadw/scal...

A SERP showing results from Paris and California regarding Disneyland.

I wonder how often AIO pulls in incorrect information these days - does anyone track this?

Example below, conversational query regarding changes at Disneyland Paris, information pulled from official website lists changes being made in California.

#SEO

I feel like Google just scrolls social media now to see what they need to 'fix' just to stop people talking about it instead of worrying about what's actually ranking/how to improve things. I'm sure I'm wrong... but...

Have you worked in the SEO industry for 10+ years?

I would love to hear your story for some research I am doing for upcoming conference talks (anonymous submissions are fine!).

Please fill out the below survey, which should only take a few minutes:

lilyray.nyc/survey-seo-t...

"Honestly, it is very hard to create ugly people with AI, you'll get a perfect Greek god before you get a dude who looks mid"

I am translating a meeting happening near me.
That e-commerce meeting is WILD.

*won't say more because I am eavesdropping and that's bad. Don't want to impact innocents.

How is Operator anything but a clone of Computer Use? Anthropic's Virtual Collaborator is going to be so much better for the same reasons that Claude is better than ChatGPT, it's more human aligned and responsive to feedback.

#OpenAI

Not my usual AI, automation or linkbuilding content but I'm back now from a cold trip to the US East Coast. Definitely not used to -10C

Don't worry I'm not mad - I was only outside dressed like that for a moment to take the photo and did have a thermal vest on too!

Who has SMB clients who you’d like to get on an interview podcast? I’ll provide you the transcript you can recycle for on-page optimization and blog content for days. (Also add links in shownotes)

Like this post and I’ll reach out to ya.

💡 Scaling an agency isn’t just about growth—it’s about sustainability. Here’s how to do it right:

1️⃣ Prioritize high-value clients and services.

2️⃣ Leverage automation to reduce manual tasks.

3️⃣ Focus on creating an irresistible brand that attracts clients.

One of the best books I've ever read was "Ghost Town Living" and he wrote it from an abandoned ghost town and actually down the abandoned mine sometimes...

I'm realizing that so much of what I'm grateful for is "real" life -- interactions, family, a good meal, something I got done IRL. I never end the day looking back on the time I spent on social media or some post going viral or the 20 articles I half-doom-scrolled. 4/?

Sync Obsidian or create new vault.

Create new vault menu offers iCloud option but it can’t be undone.

Trying to set up @obsidian.md but immediately faced with an unfixable choice if I choose wrong. Tough onboarding process, like Mastodon.

Starting to see some interesting projects where SaaS folks are working with us to add generative hashtag#AI to their software to make it easier to use or to improve the results clients are getting from using their software.

For more jump to my profile here and sign up to my AI newsletter!

In 2024 we had journalists responding to AI-written press releases by having AI write their articles for them. In 2025 I guess we'll have some sites have AI journalists just write the articles direct from their pitch folder. In 2026...? Your predictions welcome as I have no idea!

I was a little disappointed OpenAI didn't 'save the best for last' on the 12 days thing. o3 looked impressive until you looked at the numbers and some of the little puzzle solving was costing $5,000 per question etc. Not sure we're going in the right direction... we'll see though!

You just use the miniconda if you want to just take advantage of the improved python management etc - docs.anaconda.com/miniconda/

YouTube video by Rob Braxman Tech The Next Scary AI Phase in Your New Windows and iPhone 16 is Here Now!

I think this video is a must watch. He might be a little hard line on the topic for some but I don't think he's wrong at all. We could sleepwalk into pretty bad situations for a 'cool new toy' very easily. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdMl...

Conda seems great for this.

Sounds like an interesting project. I like your BBC angle comment - they do have a cunning way of 'carefully wording' things in a way to change the story but with plausible deniability.

Going 'platform' agnostic is the biggest thing we're getting ready for in 2025. Depending on OpenAI for reliability is just not a practical long-term strategy for our clients they need platform agnostic solutions. For those interested pydantic-ai will be the 'building block' to enable.

Will repeat this experiment in January and incorporate all the things I learned. But three big takeaways

1) Link suppression is a thing on Twitter
2) Engagement matters on every platform
3) Driving traffic from social media remains a viable strategy

ChatGPT Launched some new search specific changes today, that impact volume, local search, and navigational search...I'd be keeping an eye on my data for the following...

Leafblowers make me want to cry sometimes... I know you guys are discussing more important issues but seriously... why...

I wasn't surprised this was better than perplexity by so much but I was a little annoyed it was so much better than my own search/research bot :D :D.

Part of me wonders if it came too late. A lot of us left twitter mostly (the odd post here and there etc instead of regular use) a long time ago. It's like a lost habit - already see less and less people who were all over my followers feed initially not posting much since 'the SEO move'.

Good Bing results

Bad Google results

Look how bad Google is vs Bing on this same search. Looking for a window-minimising bug for very popular game "Hell Let Loose" - Google just returns results about "Helldivers 2".

The entire first page is wrong.

Bing returns relevant results.

I know gippity can be really dumb sometimes but I have to learn how to make it do this REALLY dumb stuff for more social media post excellence like Andrew here...