--- title: "Andy Ball, Founder & CEO" site: "Silverback Marketing" domain: "silverbackmarketing.com" type: "About" description: "Andy Ball is the founder and CEO of Silverback Marketing: 27 years in search and digital marketing, now leading a team building AI visibility technology." canonical: "https://silverbackmarketing.com/about/andy-ball" markdown: "https://silverbackmarketing.com/about/andy-ball.md" --- Founder & CEO # Andy Ball 27 years of helping companies get found online. Founder and CEO of Silverback Marketing. Leading a team that builds proprietary AI visibility technology and turns search, paid media and AI into more leads, more sales and real growth. ## Every major shift in search, since 1999. Andy Ball is the founder and CEO of Silverback Marketing. He has spent 27 years in digital marketing and has seen every major shift in how buyers find businesses online. Andy started his career in 1999 at Traffic Results, an early search marketing firm, before Google became how the world searched. He went on to business development at MyGeek. He then moved to USWeb, where he rose from VP of Business Development to President and ran the company for six years. In 2007 he founded Silverback Marketing in Queen Creek, Arizona, and built it into a data-driven digital marketing agency serving B2B, CPG, ecommerce and consumer brands, from complex sales cycles to fast-moving retail. Silverback's proprietary SEO, GEO and AI technology powers every strategy, from search and AI visibility to paid media, AI-powered Next.js web development and automation. Every decision is backed by data and measured by what matters most: more leads, more sales and real growth. Now Andy is guiding clients through the biggest change since he started: buyers researching purchases in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews. Rather than resell other companies' tools, he has Silverback building its own. The agency created the [AI Readiness Kit](https://ai.silverbackmarketing.com), an open toolkit and MCP server that helps AI assistants accurately understand and cite a brand, and the Silverback GEO Audit, which scores how visible any website is to AI search. Brands across CPG, ecommerce, SaaS, insurtech, financial services and a range of other industries rely on him for senior strategic counsel. Andy studied at the University of Oregon and lives in Queen Creek. Family comes first for him: he has been happily married since 2000 and is the proud father of two boys. Outside the office, he coaches football, hits the slopes whenever he can, and is a die-hard fan of every Philadelphia team and the Oregon Ducks. - 27: Years in digital marketing - 1999: Started in search - 2007: Founded Silverback ## Tools, AI Surfaces & Silverback Technology - ChatGPT (AI Search) - Gemini (AI Search) - AI Overviews (AI Search) - Google Search (Search) - AI Readiness Kit (Silverback) - MCP Server (Silverback) - GEO Audit (Silverback) - Next.js (Web) - Claude (AI) - Claude Code (Dev) - Cursor (Dev) - GitHub (DevOps) ## Specialties - Marketing Strategy (Strategy) - Search Marketing (SEO) - AI Visibility (GEO) - Paid Media (Paid) - AI in Marketing (AI) - Marketing Analytics (Data) - Business Development (Growth) ## Experience - Founder & CEO, Silverback Marketing, 2007 to present - President, USWeb, Rose from VP of Business Development · led the company for six years - Business Development, MyGeek, Before USWeb - Search Marketing, Traffic Results, From 1999 ## On the record ### Built at Silverback - [AI Readiness Kit](https://ai.silverbackmarketing.com): An open toolkit and MCP server that helps AI assistants accurately understand and cite a brand. - [Silverback GEO Audit](https://geo.silverbackmarketing.com): Scores how visible any website is to AI search. ## Articles by Andy Ball. Every article on this site bylined to Andy, generated from the blog's author field. - 2026-11-11: [ChatGPT's Business Hub Is Not Search Console, but You Should Claim It](https://silverbackmarketing.com/chatgpt-business-hub-claim-your-business) - 2026-11-09: [How to Measure AI Overview Clicks Search Console Won't Show](https://silverbackmarketing.com/measure-ai-overview-clicks-search-console) - 2026-11-04: [Reddit's Earnings Show What AI Search Does to Clicks](https://silverbackmarketing.com/reddit-earnings-ai-search-traffic) - 2026-10-29: [GEO Is SEO, So Stop Treating Them Apart. Here Is the Real Gap](https://silverbackmarketing.com/geo-is-seo-where-they-differ) - 2026-10-20: [SEO Fundamentals First: The Build Order for AI Search Visibility](https://silverbackmarketing.com/seo-fundamentals-before-ai-search-layers) - 2026-10-14: [AI Doesn't Rank Your Website. It Decides Whether to Vouch for You](https://silverbackmarketing.com/seo-authority-vs-reputation-ai-search) - 2026-10-06: [One Question, Ten Searches: Why AI Just Made SEO More Important](https://silverbackmarketing.com/query-fan-out-seo-more-important) - 2026-10-01: [The AI Trust Stack: Every AEO and GEO Signal That Matters in 2026](https://silverbackmarketing.com/aeo-geo-trust-signals-2026) - 2026-06-09: [How Internal Linking Supports SEO and AI Visibility](https://silverbackmarketing.com/internal-linking-seo-ai-visibility) - 2026-06-07: [SEO Reporting Metrics Executives Actually Care About](https://silverbackmarketing.com/seo-reporting-metrics-executives) - 2026-06-04: [How Google Search Console Data Should Guide SEO Strategy](https://silverbackmarketing.com/google-search-console-seo-strategy) - 2026-06-03: [Technical SEO Checklist for Growing Websites](https://silverbackmarketing.com/technical-seo-checklist-growing-websites) Talk search, AI visibility, paid media and what it takes to turn them into more leads, more sales and real growth. [Follow on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyball/) Ready when you are ## Build a smarter growth strategy. An audit takes 15 minutes of your time and gives you a prioritized 30‑60‑90 plan, whether or not we ever work together. [Request an audit](/contact/request-an-audit) [Book a discovery call](/contact/book-a-discovery-call) - No vendor pitch - Senior strategist call - Plan you can keep