Learning hub / career paths
Career paths intomodern AI-search.
The roles that actually run AI search — SEO, GEO, answer engines, citation work — taught as skill modules by seniority. Examples span industrial e-commerce, home services, and dental. Written by the operator doing the client work, not an influencer selling a cohort.
What these are
Reading lists, not courses. Written by the operator.
Each path is a structured walk through one role inside the new search stack — SEO, content strategy, citation engineering — written by the same person who runs paid client work. Same vocabulary, same trade-offs, no marketing gloss.
- By.
- Working operators currently shipping in industrial e-commerce — not platform influencers selling cohort courses.
- Not.
- A bootcamp. No live calls, no Discord, no recruiter pipeline. We don’t hire from these paths.
- For.
- Practitioners who learned SEO five years ago and want to know what changed when AI Overviews arrived.
- Format
- Reading-first, ungated
- Length
- 8–15 hours per path
- Cadence
- Self-paced, no deadline
- Cost
- Free — no signup
Note
Every chapter ends with a “test it on your own site” prompt. The point is the work, not the certificate.
The map
How the paths connect.
Three stages: the foundations you start from, the roles you can hire full-time, and the specializations you usually buy as a project. Open any card to read the path.
- 01
Start here
Foundations and entry points
- 02
Core roles
Professions you can hire
- 03
Specialize
Skills you buy as a project
Foundations → roles you hire → skills you buy as a project
The library
7 paths. All free, all self-paced.
Each path is a numbered run of skill modules — a real scenario, the edge cases, and a check-yourself prompt at every step. No video lock-ins, no email-gate, no upsell ladder.
Roles
4 paths
Professions you can hire for full-time, each with a career ladder from entry to senior.
Entry → Senior · self-paced
Read firstAEO Specialist
For · SEO and content leads moving from rankings to being the answer an AI gives, on a distributor catalog, a multi-location home-services site, or a multi-office dental group
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of being the answer an AI assistant gives when a buyer asks, and making sure that answer is right. This path covers the role at scale. What to master from Entry to Senior, on a big distributor catalog, a multi-location home-services site, or a dental group with several offices.
Open the path
Entry → Senior · self-paced
AI Search Specialist
For · The one search hire who owns both Google rankings and AI visibility, whether that's a distributor, a home-services company, or a dental group
An AI search specialist runs one program for two outcomes: pages that rank on Google, and a brand that gets named inside AI answers. This is the role at scale. Here's what to master from Entry to Senior, whether you're the only search hire at a parts distributor, a roofing company with 40 city pages, or a dental group with six offices.
Open the path
Entry → Senior · self-paced
SEO Specialist
For · SEOs running large catalogs or multi-location sites: industrial distributors, home-services contractors, and dental groups.
An SEO specialist gets the right pages found, read, and ranked, so buyers reach you on Google and inside AI answers. This path is the role at scale. What to master from Entry to Senior, whether you run a big distributor catalog, a multi-location home-services site, or a dental group with several offices.
Open the path
Entry → Senior · self-paced
GEO Specialist
For · SEOs and content marketers moving into AI search, on any large or multi-location site
GEO is the job of getting your pages quoted inside AI answers, not just ranked in a list. This path is the role at scale. You'll see what to master from Entry to Senior whether you run a big distributor catalog, a multi-location home-services site, or a dental group with several offices.
Open the path
Specializations
3 paths
Skills you usually buy as a project or keep inside a role, not a constant full-time hire.
Entry → Senior · self-paced
AI Visibility Analyst
For · Marketers, SEOs, and analysts who track what AI assistants say about a business, whether that's a distributor catalog, a multi-location service site, or a dental group
An AI visibility analyst tells you what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini say about your business right now: who they cite, where you're invisible, and where the answer is flat wrong. This path is that work at every level, from running your first batch of test prompts to owning the whole measurement. You might track a distributor catalog, a roofing company with 60 city pages, or a dental group with a dozen offices. The skill is the same. What you watch changes.
Open the path
Entry → Senior · Self-paced
Technical SEO Specialist
For · Technical SEOs and SEO engineers on large or multi-location sites
Technical SEO is the plumbing that decides whether search bots and AI bots can find, read, and trust your pages. This path is the role at scale: what to master from Entry to Senior, whether you run a big distributor catalog, a multi-location home-services site, or a dental group with several offices.
Open the path
Entry → Senior · self-paced
Citation Engineer
For · SEO and content people who want their pages named inside AI answers, across distributor catalogs, multi-location service sites, and dental groups
A citation engineer gets your pages named inside the answer an AI gives, not ranked on a blue-link page below it. Getting cited is a separate outcome from ranking. This path teaches that skill at scale, Entry to Senior. It works the same whether you run a big distributor catalog, a multi-location home-services site, or a dental group with several offices.
Open the path
Find the hole. Then decide.
Most owners think they need more leads. They usually don’t. The calls that ring out and the quotes nobody chased are a bigger hole than the ad budget. Either way you leave with the numbers: the exact gap and the highest-payback fix, whether or not you hire us.