Host: Sean Barber — https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanrbarber/ — He/Him

In this Chat With Sean, I sit down with Ross Simmonds — founder of Foundation Marketing, author of Create Once, Distribute Forever, and one of the most recognisable voices in digital marketing — fresh ahead of his Brighton SEO headline slot. Ross has spent the best part of a decade arguing that in a world where anyone can create anything, the people who win aren't the best creators — they're the best distributors.

We get into why distribution now matters more than creation, the three things that actually hold people back (time, algorithms and plain fear of being judged), and how Ross is using AI agents and workflows to automate the mundane so he can spend his energy on the things only a human can do.

From there we tackle the big one: is Google dead? Ross makes the case that Google is still "the front page of the internet," why optimising for Google is increasingly the same thing as optimising for the LLMs, and why he'd bet on bottom-of-funnel and video over chasing shiny AEO hacks. We also dig into whether you can genuinely engineer LLM visibility, what Google's move towards preferred sources means for marketers (and for society), click-friendly vs clickbait, what happens when AI agents start choosing brands for us, and the channels Ross would focus on right now.

Ross discusses:

- Why distribution now beats creation — and the "Create Once, Distribute Forever" philosophy

- Using AI agents and workflows to automate the mundane and augment yourself

- The three barriers to distribution: time, changing algorithms and the fear of being judged

- How his platform Distribution.ai turns one piece of content into many

- Whether Google is dead — and why he still bets on it as "the front page of the internet"

- Why optimising for Google and optimising for the LLMs are becoming the same job

- Whether you can actually engineer LLM visibility (and where the real opportunities are)

- Where he'd spend £500k today — and why the answer is video

- Google's preferred sources: the marketing opportunity and the echo-chamber risk

- Creating "click-friendly" content, not clickbait, using the information gap

- What it means when AI agents start making buying decisions for us

- The channels he'd focus on right now: YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn

- His advice for anyone trying to break into marketing today

Topics covered include:

- Content distribution

- AI search & LLM visibility

- AEO / GEO

- AI Overviews

- Bottom-of-funnel SEO

- Preferred sources

- AI agents & agentic commerce

- Content marketing careers

Connect With Ross Simmonds:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosssimmonds/

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