Liam Quirk on NEW Rules of ChatGPT SEO 💰 Why SEO Is Bigger Than Google Now

“I think AI is the great equalizer. I don’t think you can get away with doing SEO badly anymore.” ⚖️

At the Phuket summit, I sat down with Liam Quirk, MD of the Liverpool-based agency Quirky Digital, for Inside A Hustler’s Brain. Liam has been doing SEO since 2014 and grew his agency from his bedroom into a seven-figure business. 🚀

We covered GEO, directories, internal linking, digital PR, and the risky hires that changed his business. 🔥

📊 In this episode, we unpacked:

• ⚖️ Why AI is the great equalizer
• 🤖 Most “GEO” clients need SEO basics first
• 🗂️ Conversational content and the directory comeback
• 📈 The hires that scaled his agency
• 💸 $7–8K a month on tools, and 45% growth
• 📊 Share of voice and real SEO ROI
• 🎠 The internal linking “merry-go-round”
• 📰 Digital PR, niching down and personal stories

🎥 Watch the full episode:

⚖️ Why AI Is the Great Equalizer

Liam started SEO in 2014, “pretty much since I left school.” Algorithms have become much more sophisticated, and for black hat to work today “you’ve got to be really clever.” 🧠

For the past 18 months to two years, AI has played a major part. Brand building matters more than ever. Claude can help with some of the work, but building a brand people trust and recognize “is how you get search engines and LLMs to love you now.” His best-performing clients are the ones who didn’t skip that step. 🏆

🤖 Most “GEO” Clients Need SEO Basics First

Quirky Digital ranks on Google and in LLMs for terms like “generative engine optimization agency,” so they get lots of GEO inquiries. 📥

But many of those businesses haven’t covered the basics: a crawlable, indexable site, the right content, no broken links, authority signals, and reviews. “They actually just need traditional SEO with a bit of extra sauce on top.” That’s created more demand for his SEO services. 🔧

🗂️ Conversational Content and the Directory Comeback

For long-term clients, they haven’t changed the strategy much for GEO. What’s changed is making content, especially FAQs, more conversational, based on people’s prompts, not just their questions. “People treat LLMs more as their therapist.” 🛋️

That means truly understanding your ICP and where they make decisions. Reddit plays a big part in most industries. 💬

The big comeback is directories. For B2B, sites like Clutch and DesignRush were “absolutely dying” two years ago, but LLMs revived them because “ChatGPT takes what Clutch says at face value.” Agencies and SaaS companies are now pumping money into them. 📒

📈 The Hires That Scaled His Agency

At first, Liam hired less experienced people he could train, and growth was slow because every question came back to him. 🐢

The turning point was hiring people who knew more than him about SEO, finance, and operations. Now he sometimes gets “forgotten about,” except for serious issues and sales, which he’s passionate about. 🙌

It was risky. Senior hires were on bigger salaries, some came with “baggage” from bigger agencies, and his profit margin “dropped massively” at first. But “if you hire the right people, the positives always outweigh the negatives.” 💪

For more on growing an agency, read how to grow a 7-figure SEO agency. 🔗

💸 $7–8K a Month on Tools, and 45% Growth

Liam admits he’s “very impulsive” about new tools. The agency spends about $7,000–8,000 a month on software, including traditional tools like Semrush and Ahrefs. 💳

Spending rises at the start of each quarter while they test, then shrinks once they know what works. New tools are also cheaper than a few years ago. 📉

The result: 45% growth in 12 months while headcount grew by one person. AI helps them make decisions faster, spot patterns faster, and stop what isn’t working. Informative content for a Forex broker that took a day can now take about an hour. ⚡

📊 Share of Voice and Real SEO ROI

When tracking is solid, they tie every page produced or optimized to conversions and revenue. Most clients are lead generation, so the main question is: are leads being generated? 🎯

They still report keyword rankings, but rankings aren’t something they control. What they can control is visibility in a category, so they report share of voice across Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity for a set of keywords or prompts. Then they track how that turns into qualified traffic and leads. 📊

🎠 The Internal Linking “Merry-Go-Round”

Internal linking is something everyone has access to, and you don’t need a publisher to do it. Yet after auditing hundreds of sites, Liam says “no one nails internal linking.” 🔗

With content production going crazy, people focus on “more, more, more” without tying it into the bigger picture. His team builds a category or cluster to own, and connects transactional, commercial, and informational pages in a “merry-go-round” so no page is left as an orphan. 🎠

📰 Digital PR, Niching Down and Personal Stories

Everyone can have similar content and similar backlinks, because agencies buy links from the same people. “Digital PR is how you stand out.” You need unique data or an unusual perspective. 📰

In company-level AI searches, LLMs often refer to PR features in outlets like Wired, HuffPost, and Forbes. LLMs are getting better at spotting paid placements, so also target the sector publications LLMs trust in your space. 🧠

His biggest lesson for new agencies: know what you specialize in. He took on clients too big and too small, and some sectors “caused me the biggest headaches in my life.” Going into sales calls with a ready-made case study shortens the process, and once he focused, “the agency’s growth compounded.” 🎯

On the personal side:

• 🧑‍🏫 Biggest influence: his first boss Simon, who hired him at 16 and introduced him to self-development books
• 💙 Last wish: building a digital service to help people with drug and alcohol addiction, something close to him and underfunded in the north of the UK
• 🇬🇧 PM for a day: lower taxes, more support for young business owners, and a culture where success isn’t frowned upon
• 🌟 Best year: 2023, when he turned his passion into a proper business
• 💰 “F-you money”: £7 million
• 📈 Best month: $170K for the agency

📝 Key Takeaways From the Liam Quirk Interview

• ⚖️ AI rewards real brands, so you can’t get away with bad SEO
• 🔧 Fix crawlability, content, links and reviews before chasing GEO
• 💬 Write conversational, prompt-led content
• 🗂️ B2B directories like Clutch carry weight with LLMs
• 👥 Hire people who know more than you
• 🎠 Link every page in a cluster so none are orphaned
• 📰 Use digital PR with unique data to stand out
• 🎯 Specialize to shorten sales and compound growth

❓ FAQs About Liam Quirk

Who is Liam Quirk?

Liam Quirk is the MD of Quirky Digital, a Liverpool-based SEO agency. He has been doing SEO since 2014 and grew the agency from his bedroom to seven figures.

Do businesses need GEO or traditional SEO?

Liam says many businesses asking for GEO really need traditional SEO basics first: a crawlable, indexable site, good content, no broken links, authority signals, and reviews.

Why do directories matter for AI search?

LLMs treat B2B directories like Clutch and DesignRush as trusted sources, so they’ve made a major comeback.

How does Liam Quirk measure SEO ROI?

Through share of voice across Google, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, then qualified traffic and, above all, leads generated.

🎙️ More Inside A Hustler’s Brain Interviews You’ll Love

• How to Rank Inside ChatGPT & AI Search FT. Anirudh Agarwal (GetMentions.ai CEO)
• Google’s AI Mode Changed SEO Forever : My Chat With Jes Scholz
• The Secret to SEO Agency Success in the LLM SEO / AI SEO World ft. Adam Chronister
• Navneet Kaushal: Building a Million-Dollar SEO Agency and Life Lessons 🧐

If Liam’s lessons helped you, share this with an agency owner who’s chasing GEO before the basics. 💬

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