How Sansu Abraham is building Simply Sansu around SEO and digital PR
Sansu Abraham is the founder of Simply Sansu, a consultancy helping businesses build online visibility and authority through SEO, digital PR, content strategy and media outreach. In this conversation, Abraham explains how the business found its first customers organically and why strong SEO fundamentals still matter as search changes.
Build a solid understanding of SEO, content and audience behaviour before chasing every new tool or trend. As AI changes how people discover businesses, useful content, credibility and first-hand expertise remain important.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
After more than 10 years working in SEO, digital marketing, outreach, and digital PR for agencies and companies, I reached a point where I wanted to put everything I had learned directly into helping businesses. For years, I had worked behind the scenes and behind other brands. During my maternity break, I started thinking seriously about building something of my own. I realized it was time to put my own face behind my work, take the lead, and create a business on my own terms. That is how Simply Sansu began.
What makes Simply Sansu different is the hands-on approach. I work directly with businesses and bring my own experience into their strategy rather than simply following a standard agency process. My focus is on helping brands build real visibility and authority through SEO and digital PR, which I believe is particularly important now that AI is changing how people discover and evaluate businesses online.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
It has been purely organic. I haven’t spent a penny on paid search so far. My first customers came through my professional experience, organic visibility, networking, and outreach. At the moment, I’m primarily working with small businesses, but my goal is to work with businesses across different sizes and sectors as Simply Sansu grows. I want to build the business through genuine relationships and the value of the work rather than relying on paid advertising to bring in clients.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
It wasn’t one particular decision that changed the direction of the business, but rather a conscious decision to maintain a balanced focus on both traditional SEO and AI SEO. Search is evolving quickly, but the fundamentals of SEO still matter, so I believe businesses need to prepare for both.
One important lesson I’ve learned is not to focus only on large enterprises. Businesses of all sizes need help with visibility, SEO, and digital PR, and smaller businesses often have just as much potential to build a strong presence when they have the right strategy. I realized that I can help businesses at different stages reach the audiences they want to reach, rather than limiting my focus to big brands.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
Very clearly, search behavior has changed. People are no longer relying only on traditional search engines and a list of blue links to find information. AI-powered search and tools such as ChatGPT are changing how people discover businesses, research products and services, and decide which sources to trust.
I’ve adapted by keeping traditional SEO at the core while also focusing on AI SEO and how brands can become more visible in AI-driven search. This means looking beyond rankings and focusing on technical foundations, useful content, digital PR, authority, credibility, and the signals that help search engines and AI systems understand and trust a brand.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
I would tell them to learn the fundamentals properly and get hands-on experience rather than trying to master every new tool or trend. In digital marketing, things change quickly, but a strong understanding of SEO, content, audience behavior, and how businesses actually grow will always be valuable.
I would tell them not to believe that SEO is dead. AI is here to stay, and so is SEO. AI-powered search still needs the information and search ecosystem built through SEO to find and surface content. The way people search and discover information is changing, but the need for businesses to be visible, credible, and discoverable has not disappeared.
At the same time, I would encourage them to develop first-hand experience and not simply rely on everything AI produces. There is already a lot of content out there, and adding more generic AI-generated content will not help you stand out. Use AI as a tool, but bring your own knowledge, experience, and perspective to what you create. Create something that is genuinely yours and make your own mark.
Thank you to Sansu Abraham and the team at Simply Sansu for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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