When LLMs Don't Like You: Has Your Brand's SEO Survived the Search-pocalypse? Featuring Matt Beaulieu, SEO Director, Level Agency Episode Summary The search engine results page has changed more in the past two years than in the entire history of SEO. In this episode, Brad Stephenson (SVP of Marketing and Sales Enablement at Level Agency) sits down with Matt Beaulieu, a 15-year SEO veteran and Level's resident expert on AI brand visibility, to unpack what is actually happening to your brand inside large language models, and why most companies have no idea. Brad and Matt break down the shift from a 10-blue-links world to one dominated by AI Overviews and zero-click environments, where informational queries are being answered without ever touching your website. That is not the real problem, though. The real problem is that LLMs are building a consensus about your brand from sources you may have forgotten existed, including outdated social profiles, Glassdoor reviews, Reddit threads, attorney websites, and Wikipedia, and the picture they are painting may be costing you business right now. The good news is that this is fixable, and the brands that move first have a real window to pull ahead. Matt walks through Level's AI Brand Consistency Audit process, the content and technical levers that actually influence how LLMs cite and recommend brands, and how to approach reputation repair in a way that is authentic and durable. Whether you are a CMO who has never thought about schema markup or an SEO practitioner trying to evolve your approach, this conversation gives you a clear place to start. What You'll Learn Why clicks from search are down 45 to 50% for many brands, and why leads can still be up if your content strategy is rightHow LLMs build a "consensus" about your brand across dozens of sources, many of which you do not controlThe most common culprits behind unflattering LLM outputs: outdated social profiles, negative reviews, regulatory mentions, fee criticism, and WikipediaWhat an AI Brand Consistency Audit looks at and what Month 1 of an engagement looks likeThe content formats LLMs love most: answer capsules, FAQs, ordered lists, tables, and simple extractable languageWhy off-site activity (backlinks, brand mentions, Reddit, UGC communities) matters more than most brands realizeThe "black hat" LLM tactics that worked briefly and got shut down, and what that means for content strategyWhy challenger brands have a real opportunity to overtake established competitors in AI-driven search right nowThe one thing Matt wants every CMO to do tomorrowFeatured Guest Matt Beaulieu is an SEO Director at Level Agency with 15 years of experience in search. He began his career at a white-label SEO company working across SMB, mid-market, and enterprise brands before joining Level three years ago, where he now specializes in higher education (with a deep focus on trade schools) and financial services. Matt leads Level's AI brand visibility practice and developed the agency's proprietary AI Brand Consistency Audit methodology. Resources Mentioned Level AgencyReddit + AI Virtual Insider Session ReplayFree AI Brand Visibility AuditConnect With the Show Brad Stephenson on LinkedInMatt Beaulieu on LinkedInHow to Support the Show If you found this episode valuable, leave us a review and share it with a marketing leader in your network. Every share helps us keep bringing you conversations that go past the surface level.
