The Uncomfortable Truth About Getting Eyeballs on Your Thing

Here’s something nobody wants to admit: you could have the best product in the world, and nobody would care.

Not because it’s not brilliant. Not because you haven’t worked hard enough. But because in 2026, simply existing isn’t enough. You need to be found. And finding… well, that’s become a bit of a nightmare, hasn’t it?

I’ve spent the better part of a decade watching people launch things into the void. Courses. Coaching programmes. SaaS products. Handmade candles that smell like “entrepreneurial ambition” (or was it bergamot? Hard to tell). And the pattern is always the same: they build it, they launch it, and then they sit there refreshing their analytics dashboard like it’s a fruit machine that’s about to pay out.

It doesn’t.

Because here’s what we don’t talk about enough: the game of getting attention has fundamentally changed, and most people are still playing by rules that stopped working around 2019.

The Old Dream is Dead (And We’re All Pretending It Isn’t)

Remember when the advice was simple? “Just rank on Google,” they said. “Just do some SEO,” they said. “Content is king,” they bloody said.

Right. So you did that. You wrote your 2,000-word blog posts about “The Ultimate Guide to Whatever.” You researched your keywords. You built your backlinks. You optimised your meta descriptions like a dutiful little digital marketer.

And maybe… maybe… if you were lucky and persistent and didn’t get crushed by some massive site with infinitely more domain authority than you, you’d eventually rank on page one.

Congratulations. You’ve won a prize: approximately 12 visitors per month, three of whom were your mum checking if you spelled your own name correctly.

The harsh reality is that traditional SEO has become an arms race that most small operators simply cannot win. The top spots are dominated by massive publications, review sites, and increasingly, AI-generated content farms that pump out articles faster than you can say “but mine has personality.”

Then AI Turned Up and Made Everything Weirder

Just when you thought you’d figured it out, just when you’d made peace with the fact that ranking on Google required the patience of a Buddhist monk and the budget of a small nation-state, AI waltzed in and rewrote the entire playbook.

Now people aren’t just searching. They’re asking. They’re having conversations with Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and whatever other silicon-based oracle happens to be flavour of the month.

And here’s the thing that keeps me up at night: when someone asks an AI for recommendations, your carefully optimised website might not even get a look-in. The AI doesn’t crawl your site the way Google does. It doesn’t care about your backlinks. It has no loyalty to your domain authority.

It just… knows things. Or thinks it does.

So where does that leave you? Well, in a rather awkward position, frankly. You’re no longer optimising for an algorithm. You’re optimising for… what, exactly? For being memorable enough that an AI trained on the entire internet happens to mention you when someone asks the right question?

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

The Bit Where I Tell You What Actually Works (Sort Of)

Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’ve cracked the code. Nobody has. Anyone who tells you they have is either lying or selling you a course (or both, usually both).

But after watching this chaos unfold, after trying approximately seventeen different strategies and failing at most of them, here’s what I’ve noticed:

The people who get eyeballs aren’t the ones playing the optimisation game. They’re the ones building relationships.

I know, I know. That sounds like the kind of vapid LinkedIn advice that makes you want to throw your laptop out the window. “Just add value! Build authentic connections! Engage with your community!”

But hear me out.

When I look at the businesses and creators who are actually cutting through the noise right now, they’re not doing it by ranking for “best productivity app 2026.” They’re doing it by showing up, consistently, in places where their people already are. They’re writing newsletters that people actually want to read. They’re making videos that don’t feel like watching paint dry. They’re having conversations, not broadcasting into the void.

They’re being interesting.

The Search Engine Isn’t the Customer

This is the realisation that changed everything for me: I’d been optimising for the wrong audience.

I was writing for Google. I was structuring my content for algorithms. I was choosing topics based on keyword difficulty scores rather than what I actually had something interesting to say about.

And the result? Content that ranked (sometimes) but didn’t connect. Traffic that bounced. Visitors who didn’t remember my name five minutes after leaving.

Because here’s what nobody tells you about SEO: even if you win, you might lose.

You might get the traffic. You might get the eyeballs. But if those eyeballs are attached to people who don’t care about what you’re actually doing, who landed on your site by accident while searching for something adjacent to your thing… what’s the point?

I’d rather have 100 people who actually give a toss than 10,000 who clicked by mistake and left disappointed.

So What’s the Actual Strategy Then?

Right. Here’s where I’m supposed to give you the seven-step framework or the ultimate blueprint or whatever other nonsense we’re calling prescriptive advice these days.

I’m not going to do that.

Because the truth is, there isn’t one strategy. There’s your strategy, which depends entirely on who you are, what you’re selling, and who you’re selling it to.

But here are some things worth considering:

Stop trying to be everywhere. You cannot win at SEO and social media and email and podcasting and video and whatever else the gurus are banging on about this week. Pick one or two channels where your people actually are, and go deep.

Create things people want to share. Not because they’re “viral” or “engaging” but because they’re genuinely useful or interesting or make someone feel less alone. That’s your distribution strategy right there.

Build an email list. Yes, everyone says this. Yes, it’s boring advice. Yes, it’s still the most reliable way to actually own your audience rather than renting attention from platforms that might change the rules tomorrow.

Show up consistently. Not because you’re trying to game an algorithm, but because that’s how trust gets built. That’s how people start to think of you when they need what you offer.

Be specific about who you’re for. The more clearly you can articulate who your thing is for, the easier it becomes for people to recommend you. “This might be helpful” is weak. “This is exactly what you need” is powerful.

The Bit About AI You Actually Need to Know

Since AI is now part of this conversation whether we like it or not, here’s what matters:

If someone asks an AI for recommendations in your space, you want to be mentioned. But you can’t optimise your way into that. You can’t trick an AI into recommending you.

What you can do is be genuinely good at what you do, have a clear point of view, and make sure that information about your work exists in places that AI systems actually reference.

That means:

Having a website that clearly explains what you do and who it’s for
Getting mentioned in articles, podcasts, and publications that matter in your field
Building a reputation that precedes you
Creating content that demonstrates your expertise rather than just claims it

In other words, the same stuff that’s always mattered. Just with a slightly different distribution mechanism.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here’s what I’ve learned after years of trying to figure this out: there is no hack.

There’s no secret keyword. There’s no perfect algorithm to game. There’s no AI prompt that will magically make your business succeed.

What there is, is work. Consistent, often boring, occasionally terrifying work.

The work of showing up when you don’t feel like it. The work of creating things that might not get noticed. The work of building relationships one person at a time. The work of staying interesting and relevant when everything in you wants to just follow the template and blend in.

Because here’s the thing about eyeballs: they’re attached to humans. And humans don’t follow algorithms. They follow people who make them feel something. People who teach them something. People who give them a reason to pay attention.

You can try to trick Google. You can attempt to manipulate AI. You can spend thousands on ads and agencies and growth hackers.

Or you could just… be worth paying attention to.

I know which one sounds harder. I also know which one actually works.

What This Means for You

If you’re sitting there with a product or service that nobody’s finding, the question isn’t “How do I rank better?” or “How do I get AI to recommend me?”

The question is: “Am I creating something worth finding?”

And if the answer is yes, if you genuinely believe you’ve got something valuable… then the path forward isn’t about manipulation. It’s about visibility.

Not the kind of visibility that comes from gaming a system. The kind that comes from consistently showing up, being useful, being interesting, and trusting that the right people will eventually find you.

Is it slower than we’d like? Yes. Is it less sexy than “I hacked the algorithm and made £100k in 30 days”? Absolutely. Does it actually work?

Well, you’re reading this, aren’t you?

The uncomfortable truth is that getting eyeballs on your thing requires being worth looking at in the first place. Everything else is just logistics.

Until Next Time