Thousands of Subs from a Custom GPT? Nina’s AI Funnel Strategy EXPLAINED

Welcome back to Market Movers: Building Brands and Links with Linkifi! Your backstage pass to building brands through SEO, digital PR, and entrepreneurial creativity. Hosted by Nick Biggs and Chris Panteli of Linkifi.

This episode features Nina Clapperton, the powerhouse behind She Knows SEO and a travel blogger turned SEO educator pulling in over $30K/month. Nina shares how she built her blog while living in 18+ countries, monetized quickly, and now uses AI, automation, and storytelling to build lean but high-impact online businesses.

Key Talking Points:

🚀 How Nina Built a $30K/Month Blog in 18 Months Starting with zero knowledge, a full-time law job, and “critical ADHD”—she gamified SEO and scaled fast.

📉 She Bought 20 Spammy Links… On Purpose Yep. To test if they’d hurt her site. They did. But the site still earns $10K/month with no recent updates.

🌎 The Travel Blogging Rollercoaster Post-HCU How Google is shifting affiliate opportunities, why ad-only models are fragile, and why niche travel bloggers with personal experience are thriving.

🤖 GPT Hacks for Traffic, Products & Automation Nina’s GPT automations auto-write social posts, power product funnels, and even pitch her own freebies mid-chat—sending thousands of subscribers her way.

📚 Treat Every Category Like a Book Instead of random keyword targeting, she maps content like a narrative—with “chapters” that guide readers and satisfy Google.

🎯 The “Follow Your Fun” Business Philosophy Working 5–10 hours/week, building micro-communities, and using AI to multiply output without scaling stress.

Quotes from Nina Clapperton:

“I follow my fun. If I’m not enjoying it, I’m not doing it. And that’s what led to multiple 6-figure months.”

“I treat content like novels. Every category is a book. Each article is a chapter with a beginning, middle, and end.”

“Most of the travel bloggers who lost traffic didn’t lose income—because their real audience stuck around.”

“PR-style link building beats PBNs every time. Don’t just buy links. Build a brand.”

“A good GPT? It’s like a salesperson that works 24/7 and pitches your product every five messages.”

Takeaways & Strategy Highlights:

✅ Ditch Spam Links, Build Brand Links Nina tested low-quality links and saw firsthand how they crushed rankings. Instead, she leans into digital PR, podcasting, and small-site backlinks that drive real traffic.

✅ Use AI to Actually Scale She automates social content, GPT-driven lead magnets, email workflows, and even niche site publishing—without hiring a massive team.

✅ SEO Alone Is Not a Strategy Nina balances SEO with email, Facebook Groups, and product funnels. Her 17K-member Facebook community drives engagement most SEOs would dream of.

✅ Blog Posts Shouldn’t Stand Alone Think ecosystem, not isolation. Interlink posts, build topic depth, and structure content like a hero’s journey.

✅ Make Your GPTs Work for You Use ChatGPT custom instructions to pitch your freebie every 5 chats. Build traffic inside OpenAI's GPT store—and drive it back to your brand.

 

About Nina Clapperton:

Nina Clapperton is an SEO educator, blogger, and founder of She Knows SEO. She helps creators and business owners scale their organic traffic and income—without burnout. With a background in storytelling, literature, and global travel, Nina combines SEO with authentic content and smart automation to build lean digital businesses. She also builds niche sites, runs a 17K+ Facebook group, and has a dog who’s more famous than most SEOs.

 

🔗 sheknowsseo.co

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