In the last 18 months, I lost count of how many “AI marketing” titles I picked up, flipped through, and put back down. Most of them are the same thing dressed up differently: a stack of ChatGPT prompts, a few screenshots of someone’s dashboard, and a victory lap. That’s not a playbook. That’s a screenshot.
I run an agency. Two of them, actually — OptFirst for local businesses and FirstFirms for Med Spas, dental practices, and law firms at the national level. Every week I talk to business owners who’ve read three of those books and still can’t tell me what their next move should be on Monday morning. They have prompts. They don’t have a plan.
So I wrote the book I wish those business owners had been handed instead.
What’s actually different about this one
SEO & AI Growth System: 2026 Guidebook with AI Search is the operations manual we use at OptFirst and FirstFirms — cleaned up, opinionated, and put in the order a person who’s never done this work before can actually follow. It covers the full modern search stack: Generative Engine Optimization (so AI search engines cite your brand), Google AI Overviews, the Map Pack, traditional organic SEO, paid search, paid social, reputation management, and tracking.
But the difference isn’t the table of contents. Plenty of books cover those topics. The difference is the depth.
Most marketing books tell you what to do. “Optimize for AI Overviews.” Great. How? At what URL depth? With what schema? What’s the test? How do you know it worked? Mine tells you how. Step by step. Every system has a process, a checklist, and the actual decision tree we use internally when we’re staring at a campaign that isn’t working yet.
That’s why it took longer to write than I expected. AI can summarize. It cannot teach you a craft. The craft is the part I cared about.
Who this is really for
I wrote it for three groups:
The business owner who’s been quietly paying someone for “SEO” for three years and has no idea whether it’s working. After this book, you will. You’ll know exactly what to look for, exactly what to ask for, and exactly what answers should make you fire your agency.
The in-house marketer at a small or mid-sized company who has to do all of this — SEO, paid, social, reviews — usually alone. You don’t have time to read 12 books. You need one with a process you can run.
And the marketing student or career-switcher who’s tired of theory and wants to learn what the work actually looks like inside a working agency. This book is closer to what I’d hand a new hire on day one than it is to a textbook.
Why I’m giving it away
Through Saturday, May 23, the Kindle edition is free on Amazon. No email gate, no upsell, no funnel.
Two reasons.
First, the people who most need this book — small business owners, in-house marketers, students — are also the people least likely to take a chance on a $30 paperback by someone they’ve never heard of. I’d rather they read it. If even a fraction of them stop wasting money on bad SEO or get-rich AI-prompt schemes because of something I wrote, that’s worth more to me than the book sales.
Second, I want the work itself to be the marketing. If you read it, run a few of the systems, and they work for you, you’re going to remember that. Some readers will become OptFirst or FirstFirms clients. Most won’t, and that’s fine. The book stands on its own.
Grab it before the window closes
The free promotion runs through end of day Saturday, May 23, 2026. After that, the book returns to its standard list price.
Download SEO & AI Growth System free on Amazon →
If you read it and have feedback — what worked, what didn’t, what you wish was clearer — I want to hear it. The next edition will be better because of it.
— John Kriney