Dan Kern: SEO, AEO and GEO Consultant

Dan Kern, Founder and Principal Consultant of Kern Media

Dan Kern is the founder and principal consultant of Kern Media®, an SEO, AEO and GEO consultancy in Fort Collins, Colorado. He has over 20 years of SEO experience, has optimized 500+ websites and leads the strategy for every Kern Media client.

Connect with Dan on LinkedIn

Experience

20+ Years

In SEO, including travel SEO since 2013.

Websites

500+

Optimized across eCommerce, lead gen and publishing.

Founded

2016

Started Kern Media in Colorado.

Location

Fort Collins

Working with clients across the U.S.

Who Is Dan Kern?

Dan is a senior SEO, AEO and GEO consultant who helps eCommerce brands and lead generation businesses get found in Google and recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. He considers himself more of a strategic marketer than a technician: the work starts with who your customers are and what they ask, then builds the content, technical fixes and brand presence that earn traffic, AI citations and new customers.

At Kern Media, Dan sets the strategy, guides the analysis and prepares the recommendations. Clients talk to him directly, from the first call through every audit, strategy and report.

What Is Dan’s Background?

Founded Kern Media in 2016: a founder-led consultancy that keeps its client list small (typically 10 to 15 active clients)
Senior SEO Consultant at Inflow (2013–2016): a Colorado agency focused on eCommerce SEO, conversion rate optimization and paid search
Director of SEO at F+W Media: led a team of 5 in charge of SEO for 200 websites at a major publisher, including 70+ WordPress sites, 17 Magento eCommerce sites, video streaming sites and databases for collectors
eCommerce SEO: before founding Kern Media, doubled organic search revenue for three eCommerce sites in 12 months
Travel SEO and content marketing: since 2013
IMEC Lab member (2014): part of Rand Fishkin’s IMEC Lab
Publisher and audience builder: ran a guitar gear blog for 13 years, so he knows what it takes to build an audience from scratch

What Does Dan Specialize In?

LLM optimization (GEO) and AEO, so AI tools mention, describe and recommend your brand
AI visibility audits focused on ChatGPT
Technical SEO audits, including AI crawler access and JavaScript rendering
Content strategy and content audits
eCommerce SEO and lead generation SEO
Traffic recovery after AI Overviews, algorithm updates and site rebuilds

What Research Has Dan Published?

Dan published the AI Search Citation Study, an analysis of 1,044 AI answers (mostly from ChatGPT, with a head-to-head test of Claude, Gemini and Perplexity) across 8 industries. One finding: when a company’s own website was cited, that company was recommended 96% of the time, vs. 18% when it wasn’t.

He also writes practical guides on the Kern Media blog, including how to find, select and hire an SEO/GEO consultant, how to write a robots.txt file (including AI crawlers) and identifying Google penalties and algorithmic traffic drops.

Where Has Dan Been Featured?

Dan’s SEO work and advice have been featured in industry publications, podcasts, case studies and expert roundups:

Guest article: Website Content Mistakes that Could Lead to Google Penalties, written by Dan for Website Magazine
Podcast interview: Dan Kern on Technical SEO and Indexation, Business Innovators Radio, with host Neil Howe (also on YouTube)
Podcast mention: Content Pruning, Semantic SEO, and the Future of AI Search with Everett Sizemore, The Page 2 Podcast, where Everett Sizemore mentions Dan
Video mention: Moz Whiteboard Friday on the SEO checklist for 2018, where Rand Fishkin mentions Dan by name
Case study: Is Content Pruning Good for SEO? Case Studies + Experts’ Opinions, cognitiveSEO, featuring Dan’s content pruning and optimization work
Expert tip: 101 Ecommerce Experts Share Their Secrets, Oberlo, with Dan’s advice on writing unique product page content

For media, interview or speaking requests, please use our contact form.

How Does Dan Work With Clients?

Dan leads every engagement personally and brings in U.S.-based specialists he has worked with for years when a project needs them. Communication is by email, with replies within 1 business day, plus a monthly call. See Working With Kern Media for the full picture, or read what clients say.

Dan Kern FAQs

Who is Dan Kern?

Dan Kern is the founder and principal consultant of Kern Media, an SEO, AEO and GEO consultancy in Fort Collins, Colorado. He has over 20 years of SEO experience, has optimized 500+ websites and was previously a Senior SEO Consultant at Inflow and Director of SEO at F+W Media, a major publisher with 200 websites.

What does Dan Kern specialize in?

SEO, AEO and GEO (getting brands found in Google and recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT), technical SEO, content strategy, eCommerce SEO, lead generation SEO and traffic recovery.

Can I hire Dan Kern directly?

Yes. Every Kern Media client works directly with Dan from the first call. Start with a free 30-minute consultation.

Is Dan Kern available for interviews or speaking?

Yes. Use our contact form for media, interview and speaking requests.

Want to talk with Dan?

On a free 30-minute call, Dan will look at your goals and your Google and AI visibility, and tell you honestly whether Kern Media can help.

★★★★★ 5-star rating on Google20+ years in SEOMonth-to-month, no long contracts

Request a Free Consultation ›

Learn more about Kern Media or see our company facts page.

Amanda Ferm

When Kern Media came in, they inherited nearly 30 years of accumulated SEO debt. Dan helped us untangle and clean up years of technical and content issues, build a much stronger SEO foundation, and ultimately allowed us to outrank our competitors for the most valuable keywords in our industry. What I appreciated most was that they didn't treat SEO as a static checklist. Their strategic appoach helped us understand how search was evolving, what changes actually mattered, and where we needed to adapt. As AI began reshaping search and discovery, they were already helping us think beyond traditional SEO and understand what emerging AI-driven search meant for our visibility. Kern Media brought both deep expertise and a practical, strategic approach to the work. They significantly improved our visibility while building a strong organic search foundation that positioned us to stay ahead of the curve as search continues to evolve—from traditional SEO to the rapidly changing world of AI-driven discovery.

Keith Nickoles

I have partnered professionally with Dan and his team at Kern Media for over five years, and their SEO strategies consistently deliver impressive results. I've never seen a system so detail-oriented. It's impressive to witness and be a part of. I strongly recommend their services to any business seeking a reliable, long-term partner for digital growth.

Ashley Mo

Dan and the Kern Media team so impressed me with their expertise that he was my first call when I changed jobs and needed to hire an SEO consultant. Our organic traffic continues to grow as we've followed the content and technical recommendations from the team. Dan is great at explaining complicated terms simply and extremely responsive. I highly recommend working with Kern Media.

Benjamin Smith

Within minutes of talking to Dan he was able to help me troubleshoot a good deal why my search rankings were struggling. He has fantastic insight and truly is expert in the ever-changing world of SEO.

Mike W

Working with Dan has been a pivotal part of our company. For the past 10 years, we've been selling furniture online and have achieved early success in ranking well on Google. However, our pages were not structured to rank effectively. After our traffic began steadily declining, we decided to engage with Kern Media to improve our ranking and hopefully bring more traffic to the site. Our organic traffic has since more than doubled in less than a year. As the holiday season approached, Dan had the idea to come out with a Black Friday page and created a content brief for us to follow. Within a week, the page was ranking 3rd on Google for "Black Friday cat trees," which helped lead to a record-breaking Black Friday Sale. Kern Media has been quick to respond to questions, always available to talk through issues, and has been a pleasure to work with.

Tim Hampton

Dan & Kern Media have been awesome to work with for many years. We've seen incredible growth with our organic results and have grown our keyword footprint immensely. Dan's technical acumen and knowledge of the "SEO" space is impressive. If you ever get the chance to work with Dan and Team, DO IT!!! Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do! We appreciate you, @Dan!

Karen Johnson

Dan and his team came in and really changed the game for us. To date our organic results have grown 41%. He helped us clean up our site, add quality content and provided excellent guidance so we could continue to make improvements on our own. I highly recommend!

Karyssa Cox

Kern Media has been an incredible partner in developing my team's overall SEO strategy and implementing new tactics. We've worked with Dan on a number of different complex projects as well as ongoing consultation. Dan is on top of the latest SEO trends and best practices and always has ideas on how to ensure we're making the moves we need to in order to stay ahead. Dan's expertise and attention to detail have been crucial in completing our projects successfully, and he's also been great to collaborate with on how we can use SEO as a tool to achieve our overall goals. We've been very pleased and impressed with the results and are so grateful for the opportunity to work with Kern Media. Thanks, Dan and the Kern team!

Sandra G

Dan and his team at Kern Media are truly SEO experts and our trusted advisors to us. Through their hard work our website, customer.com, is now of the first page of google search results for our area of expertise.

Dan Kern, Founder and Principal Consultant of Kern Media