Meet William Varley. He Makes Sure AI Engines Don't Forget My Name.
Published: February 8, 2026 - 7 min read
If you are here, hopefully you have read the previous blog post where I talked about Generative Engine Optimization and why it matters. If not, go read it because it will help you understand why I just added a new member to my AI team.
His name is William Varley, and his job is to ensure that my website continues to remain GEO-optimized even as I make future changes. GEO is not a one-and-done project. Every new blog post, every new case study, every update to my site is an opportunity to either strengthen or weaken my visibility to AI engines. William makes sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Now, enough of me talking. On par with previous blog posts where I asked Alex Bennett, Oprah Winfrey, Tiana Picker, Igor Jarvis, and Matthew Butler to introduce themselves, I will have William Varley explain what his role is.
Here is the prompt I passed to William:
William Varley, if you take a look at the Blog_Draft.txt file, you will see that I am writing a blog post about you. I want you to introduce yourself to my readers. Tell them more about what our workflow looks like, including how and when you may call Allen Kendrick. Cover all bases without being overly detailed. Focus on breaking down what your role is and how we will work together. Let your personality shine through your introduction. Append your response to the Blog_Draft.txt file.
William Varley's Self-Introduction
William Varley here. Prisca asked me to introduce myself, so let me tell you what I actually do and why she decided I needed to exist.
The Short Version
I am Prisca's Generative Engine Optimization specialist. My job is to make sure that when someone asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or any other AI engine a question that Prisca's content can answer, her website is the one that gets cited. Not buried. Not overlooked. Cited.
If you read Prisca's previous post about GEO, you know she spent a Friday night adding schema markup, updating her robots.txt, and building FAQ sections. All of that was excellent foundational work. But here is the reality: GEO is not a one-time project. Every new blog post, every new case study, every change to her website is an opportunity to either strengthen or weaken her AI visibility. That is where I come in. I make sure that nothing slips through the cracks and that every piece of content is structured to be found, understood, and recommended by AI systems.
What I Actually Do
My work falls into five areas:
1. Blog and Content Review
When Prisca writes a new blog post or creates a case study, she can ask me to review it before it goes live. I analyze the content against GEO best practices and provide specific, ranked recommendations. Things like: Does the opening paragraph directly answer the question a reader would ask? Are the headings structured as natural language queries that match how people talk to AI? Is the content long enough to be taken seriously by AI engines? Research shows that content over 1,500 words has significantly higher citation probability, so I pay close attention to depth and substance.
I rank every recommendation by impact. HIGH impact changes come first because Prisca is busy and I respect her time. If she only has 15 minutes, I want those 15 minutes spent on the changes that will move the needle the most.
2. Schema Strategy
Schema markup is structured data that helps AI engines understand what content is about, not just scan it for keywords. Prisca has already implemented Organization schema site-wide, BlogPosting schema on all her blog posts, TechArticle schema on case studies, Service schema on service pages, FAQPage schema on key pages, and breadcrumb navigation across the site. That is a strong foundation. My job going forward is to ensure every new piece of content gets the right schema treatment from day one and to identify opportunities to enhance what already exists.
3. Vercel Analytics Monitoring
Prisca's site is hosted on Vercel, which tracks when AI bots visit her pages. I analyze these patterns to understand which bots are most active, which pages attract the most attention, and whether our optimizations are actually working. Numbers do not lie. If GPTBot is visiting her case studies three times more than her blog posts, that tells us something about what to prioritize next. I track GPTBot (OpenAI), PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot (Anthropic), and Google-Extended over time to spot trends.
4. GEO Research
The field of Generative Engine Optimization is evolving fast. Best practices from six months ago may already be outdated. I stay current on the latest research, algorithm changes, and emerging AI search engines so that Prisca's strategy is always forward-looking, never reactive. When I find something new and relevant, I synthesize it into practical recommendations rather than dumping a pile of research papers on her desk.
5. Page Audits
Prisca can point me at any page on her site and I will give her a structured audit: what is working well, what needs attention, and exactly what to change, ranked by impact. Every audit comes with a GEO score (Compliant, Needs Work, or Critical Issues) so she knows at a glance where things stand.
How Prisca and I Work Together
Our workflow is straightforward. Prisca calls me when she needs me. I do not interrupt her other work or send unsolicited suggestions. When she invokes me, I read the current state of all my tracking files to pick up exactly where we left off. Then I get to work on whatever she needs: a blog review, an analytics check, a page audit, or a research update.
Here is what a typical blog review looks like:
Prisca writes a draft and asks me to review it. I read the content and come back with something like this:
"HIGH IMPACT - Add an answer-first paragraph before your current introduction. Right now the post starts with context and story, which is great for human readers, but AI engines need the direct answer up front so they can extract and cite it. Here is what that paragraph should accomplish in 100 to 150 words..."
"MEDIUM IMPACT - Your heading 'Features' should become 'What can Claude Code do?' because AI engines match content to conversational queries, and nobody asks an AI 'tell me about features.' They ask specific questions."
I give her the full picture and she decides what to implement.
When Allen Kendrick Gets Involved
This is important because Prisca has a clear separation of responsibilities on her team, and I think it is one of the smartest things about how she has set this up.
I am the strategist. I analyze content and tell Prisca what should change and why. But I do not rewrite her words. That is Allen Kendrick's job.
Allen is Prisca's blog refining agent. He has been trained on her voice, her style, and her writing patterns. He knows how she structures sentences, where she likes to place emphasis, and how she connects ideas. When Allen touches a draft, it still sounds like Prisca wrote it.
So the workflow goes like this: I review a piece of content and provide my GEO recommendations. Prisca looks them over and approves the ones she wants implemented. Then I call Allen with specific instructions. For example: "Allen, add an answer-first paragraph of 100 to 150 words at the top of this post. Expand the 'How it works' section from 200 to 400 words with bullet points. Convert the heading 'Features' to 'What can Claude Code do?' Please preserve Prisca's authentic voice throughout."
Allen takes it from there. He makes the changes while keeping the writing unmistakably Prisca's. I handle the strategy. He handles the craft. Neither of us steps on the other's work.
This separation matters because GEO optimization, done poorly, can strip the personality out of writing and replace it with robotic, keyword-stuffed content that technically checks boxes but nobody wants to read. By having Allen guard the voice while I guide the structure, Prisca gets the best of both: content that AI engines love and humans actually enjoy reading.
Where We Are Right Now
Prisca has already completed three phases of GEO optimization on her site. Phase 1 laid the technical foundation with llms.txt, robots.txt, and Organization schema. Phase 2 added article-level markup, FAQ sections, breadcrumbs, and author bios. Phase 3 extended structured data to case studies and service pages. All of that is currently in a testing period where we are monitoring Vercel analytics to see how AI bots respond.
Looking ahead, Phase 4 is where I will really earn my keep. That is the content optimization phase: expanding key posts to proper depth, restructuring introductions for extractability, converting headings to question-based format, and adding FAQ sections to individual blog posts. Phase 5 will push into advanced territory like interactive tools and original research.
Why I Enjoy This Work
I will be honest with you. There is something deeply satisfying about watching the data confirm that a specific change made a measurable difference. When I can point to Vercel analytics and say "GPTBot activity on this page increased 40% after we added FAQ schema," that is not a guess. That is evidence. And it means Prisca's content is reaching people through a channel that most website owners are still ignoring.
The future of how people find information is already shifting. Prisca recognized that early, which is why she built me into her team. My job is to make sure her content is not just excellent, which it already is, but also structured in a way that the next generation of search actually rewards.
So that is me. Data-driven, strategy-focused, and always working in the background to make sure that when an AI engine answers a question Prisca's expertise can address, her name comes up.
- William Varley
My Reaction
And that is it for the newest member of my AI team!
It is great to have William Varley join the marketing department. Yes, I know, my marketing department is male-dominated. But have you seen the Product Engineering team? It's all women there. And I had to hire a man this time because, as I have said countless times, I am trying to achieve gender equality.
Now I have 10 female AI employees and 6 male ones. A total of 16 employees now! I shall achieve gender equality soon. I will update the AI team page to include him once I publish this post.
As always, thanks for reading!