Does Blogging Still Work? SEO and AI Traffic Changes in 2026 (Live Interview)
Does blogging still work? In 2026, the real answer is messier (and more hopeful) than most people think. In this live interview, I sit down with Val Sopo, founder of BlogMaker (3,500+ customers), to talk about what's actually working right now in blogging, SEO, earning AI citations, and in content distribution.
We get into the stuff most founders, marketers, and creators are feeling but rarely say out loud... clicks are dropping, AI overviews are changing search behavior, and "write a 10,000-word guide" isn't the cheat code anymore. Instead, we talk about breadth vs depth, internal linking (t…
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Chapters (15)
0:02
Welcome, meet Val Sopi (BlogMaker founder) and what we're covering today
3:04
What BlogMaker is (and why it's positioned between Substack and WordPress)
4:30
Substack vs your own domain, what you really "own" for SEO
6:50
SEO as a garden, what's changed about content that ranks now
8:29
What's actually working now, shorter posts, broader coverage, topical authority
10:27
Training LLMs with your own site, why "factual" content matters
12:39
Backlinks vs mentions, plus why internal linking matters more than most people t
15:40
If you're starting a blog today, pillar-first or map-first?
17:17
Topic buckets, hub-and-spoke, and building content around business goals
18:50
Using AI to draft, then adding your real experience so it sounds like you
22:05
Long-term plays, FAQs, user guides, support tickets, and building a "source of t
27:03
Distribution in 2026, what do you do when SEO clicks drop?
28:21
Why I'm all in on YouTube, and how it supports search too
30:14
Personal brand vs brand channels, what I'd do as a founder
34:36
Biggest mistakes I see with blogging and SEO right now
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