Hayden SchusterSEO and AI visibility

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Senior SEO Manager at Optimal · Austin

Hayden Schuster

I build the systems that make complex sites visible. So the right people find you, trust you, and choose you.

24Ksearch clicks across my own sites in September 2026, up 21% on August. Google and Bing, data through Oct 10, 2026. Month by month

See the work Press Play

I cannot turn this off. It runs in the background constantly. Press Play: every line you clear unlocks a dated result from one of my sites, and every third one is one of my misses.

Clear a line, unlock a real result

Every line you clear unlocks a dated result from one of my sites. Press Play, or just watch it run.

  • slide (hold to glide)
  • Z turn
  • faster
  • Space drop
  • C hold
  • V verify
  • Esc pause
  • Drag the piece, or hold an arrow, to slide
  • Tap the board to turn (the left edge turns it the other way)
  • Flick down or tap Drop to place
  • Tap Hold at the top to save a piece
  • Tap Verify to fix the lowest unfinished row

Fill a row to clear it. Combos, back-to-back four-line clears, T-spins and a clean board pay extra, and it speeds up every 5 lines. Every level charges Verify, this site's own move: it fills the gaps in the lowest unfinished row and clears it, the way a check fixes a page. From line 10, every ten lines one of my misses rises from the bottom as a red row: clear it to read what went wrong.

93 days in a row with 100+ Google clicks, The Crawler's Cookbook, and still going. See every high score

High scores

  1. 1You?any score gets on

Top 10 on this site, up to 8 letters each. Beat the last row and the board asks for your name.

    What I do for enterprise brands

    At Optimal, a OneMagnify company, I work on SEO and AI visibility for enterprise brands across many industries. Every account starts from the same place: who is searching, what they typed and what they need to do next. How I work

    1. 1Strategy for search and AI answers Where a brand should show up, in Google and in the answers AI tools give, and what it takes to earn that.
    2. 2Roadmaps built around how customers search No two brands share priorities. Each gets a plan that fits how its customers decide, built from who is searching and what they need next.
    3. 3Programs that hold up at scale Templates, content programs and structured data that have to stay right across hundreds of pages, because one bad template repeats everywhere. Fix source files, never generated output.
    4. 4Measuring AI visibility How AI tools mention, cite and describe a brand, against its competitors, so the work is judged on what searchers did, not on what we shipped.
    5. 5Getting the right people in early Developers, design, data, PR and paid search in the room before anything is built, so good ideas don't die in a ticket queue.
    6. 6Checks that keep the work right A wrong fact or a broken page gets stopped before anyone sees it, so the same mistake doesn't happen twice and the next project starts ahead.

    One system: get found, get understood, get chosen

    Everything I do on a site serves one of three outcomes. Miss the first and nobody sees the page; miss the second and nobody trusts it; miss the third and they pick someone else.

    1. 1 Get found Can the person with this need find the right answer?
    2. 2 Get understood Can they quickly tell what the answer means for their situation?
    3. 3 Get chosen What makes this answer worth trusting and acting on?

    Why it adds up: when something goes wrong, the fix goes into the process as well as the page, so the next project starts where the last one finished. The process keeps changing too: what changed in how I work, and the data behind each change.

    Hayden is the Eevee here. It adapts to whatever is around it, and these six are how that shows up in his work.

    1. AStart from the personEspeon
    2. BTell it as a storyVaporeon
    3. CBe the source worth citingLeafeon
    4. DNever ship a wrong factUmbreon
    5. EMeasure, then double downJolteon
    6. FTurn every lesson into a systemGlaceon

    The six pillars and seven steps behind it

    How my own sites are doing

    They're growing, mostly from pages that answer one question well, with a miss or two along the way, written up next to the wins. Every site, and what happened on each or the month-by-month dashboard

    One block per site, by search clicks in the last 28 days against the 28 before them: 2 up more than 10%, 4 fell or held within 10%, 4 under 50 clicks or not measured yet.

    UpFell or flatToo small or not measured

    Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, both engines added together, data through .
    The numbers, month by monthSearch clicks across my sites, data through Oct 10, 2026

    Search clicks across my sites, month by month

    September 2026: The Crawler's Cookbook's best Google month yet (13.8K clicks), WireRef's best Bing month yet (2.8K clicks), and 93 days in a row of 100+ Google clicks.

    • September, compared with Augustup 21%24K search clicks, up from 19.7K
    • August, compared with Julyup 39%19.7K search clicks, up from 14.2K
    • Best month on recordSeptember24K search clicks

    Search clicks up 21% in September, a new best month, and the fifth month in a row it grew.

    Google Bing A measured result A mistake, and the fix Each marker sits under its month; tap one for the 28 days before and after. Under each month, how much it rose or fell from the month before. Complete months only. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, data through .

    These compare months; they don't prove what caused a change. Too few to tell means under 50 clicks in both months, where a percentage swings on a handful of clicks.

    What I'm writing about

    The recommendation layer in AI searchHow AI answers pick which brands to name, the three tests content has to pass, and the receipts from a fan site that wins.

    All writing, by topic

    I post on LinkedIn about what I'm building and what the numbers show.

    Follow on LinkedIn

    Lately on LinkedIn

    1. The Quack Report“Live and breathe Oregon Duck Football? Cool, same.”
    2. Poll: where people start a major purchase“My research habits have changed a lot recently, so curious where everyone is starting the process these days.”
    3. The recommendation layer“Like it or not, there’s a new decision-maker in town.”

    The rest are on my profileFollow on LinkedIn

    Off the clock

    I'm from Portland, OR, and recently moved to Austin, Texas, where I'm currently melting in the sun.

    I was going to Autzen Stadium before I could walk. I also follow the Seahawks, the Blazers and the Timbers. Bella is my corgi.

    More about me, including Portland, where I grew up

    Panorama of a packed Autzen Stadium in green and yellow on game day
    Autzen on game day
    Bella, a tri-color corgi, lying on the sand inside a homemade #1 Ducks Fan photo frame
    Bella, number one Ducks fan
    Hayden Schuster courtside at the Moda Center in a Rip City jersey before a Trail Blazers game
    Courtside, Rip City
    Hayden Schuster in a number 7 jersey taking a corner kick
    Taking a corner
    A drone light show drawing the Oregon O in the night sky over Autzen Stadium
    The O, in drones over Autzen
    • Ducks
    • Seahawks
    • Blazers
    • Timbers
    • DCC
    • Portland, home

    Where to next

    See the work My SEO system Resume Follow me on LinkedIn

    Ask Bella

    Ask Bella Hayden's corgi. Answers from this site, every fact sourced.

    BELLA

    WOOF. I'm Bella, Hayden's corgi. He's my human. Ask me about him; every answer cites its source.

    How it works: answers written ahead and checked against this site's pages, plus a search of the site that quotes it word for word. Every claim has a numbered source you can tap. Nothing is generated while you wait, nothing is made up, and nothing you type leaves your browser. Every answer, in plain HTML

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    This page was last updated .