Free and open on GitHub
The Visibility Handbook
Marketing and go to market for people who build things.
The Visibility Handbook is a free 29 chapter guide to marketing for engineers, technical founders and open source maintainers. It covers positioning, AI search visibility, developer marketing, launching, pricing, analytics and privacy law, it is current for 2026, and it is explicit about which once standard tactics no longer work.
- 29
- Chapters
- 45,000
- Words
- $0
- To read
Why we wrote it
We work on AI visibility for a living. We kept sending clients the same handful of marketing links, and kept finding those links dead or describing a platform that had changed underneath them. Eventually writing the thing properly was less work than explaining it away every time.
The gap is real. Most marketing guidance aimed at engineers was written between 2015 and 2019. It still ranks, and people still follow it, and then they lose months on channels that closed years ago. So the most useful section of the handbook is the graveyard: every dead tool and tactic, with the reason it died and what replaced it.
What changed for 2026
Being good is no longer enough to be found
Roughly two thirds of searches end without a click to the open web. Answers get assembled from passages by systems that may never send you a visitor, so you can rank first and be quoted nowhere.
Your first reader is often not a person
A coding agent reads your documentation, resolves your package name and picks your library before a human sees your homepage. Gated content is now actively hostile, because an agent cannot fill in your form.
Generic content went to zero value
Anyone can generate a competent blog post now, which means none of them differentiate anything. What still works is what a model cannot produce: your data, your incident, your benchmark, your name on it.
Some old tactics are now enforcement matters
Fake reviews, undisclosed endorsements and bought upvotes moved from distasteful to regulated, with civil penalties attached.
What is inside
Twenty nine chapters, organised by the problem you are actually trying to solve.
Foundations
The work everything else depends on.
- Positioning and audience
- Pricing and business model
- Brand, naming and identity
Getting found
Distribution, from zero users to a repeatable channel.
- Zero budget growth
- Content marketing
- SEO and AI search (GEO and AEO)
- Launching
- Communities and social
- Video, YouTube and podcasting
- Events and developer education
- International and localisation
Selling to engineers
Why the standard playbook bounces off technical buyers.
- Developer marketing and DevRel
- Open source and product led growth
- Founder led sales
- Trust, security and compliance
- Case studies and social proof
Converting and keeping
Turning attention into customers, and customers into renewals.
- Email and lifecycle
- Outbound and partnerships
- Landing pages and conversion
- Retention, churn and support
- Performance and accessibility
Spending, measuring, staying out of trouble
Where budgets and reputations get lost.
- Paid acquisition
- Analytics and attribution
- Psychology and ethics
- Privacy and compliance
- The AI marketing stack
Scaling beyond yourself
Money, press and the first people you bring in.
- Fundraising, investors and press
- Hiring, agencies and outsourcing
- Reading list
Free, and yours to build on
CC BY 4.0
Share it and adapt it, including commercially. Credit the original and link the licence.
Built to be forked
Translate it, or specialise it for your stack, industry or region. Open an issue and we will link to it.
Corrections welcome
Removals and fixes are the most valuable contribution. Anything about law or deliverability gets fixed fast.
Questions
- What is The Visibility Handbook?
- The Visibility Handbook is a free, open guide to marketing and growth for engineers, technical founders and open source maintainers. It runs to 29 chapters and roughly 45,000 words, covering positioning, AI search visibility, developer marketing, launching, pricing, analytics, privacy law and more. It was written by Roger Wong Won of Capture That Media and published in 2026 under a Creative Commons licence.
- How much does it cost?
- Nothing. It is free to read on GitHub, licensed CC BY 4.0, and there is no signup, no email gate and no paid tier. You can also fork it and build your own version.
- Who is it for?
- Engineers who built something and now have to market it. That includes solo developers, technical founders, open source maintainers, the first marketing hire at a developer tools company, and developer relations professionals who need to show business impact. It assumes a technical or business to business buyer throughout, so it is a poor fit for consumer retail or local services marketing.
- Why does marketing advice for engineers need rewriting for 2026?
- Because the ground moved. Roughly two thirds of searches now end without a click to the open web, answers are assembled from passages rather than pages, AI coding agents often read your documentation before a human sees your homepage, and several tactics that used to be merely distasteful are now subject to regulatory enforcement. Most guidance still ranking on Google was written between 2015 and 2019 and describes channels that have since closed.
- Can I fork it or translate it?
- Yes, and you are encouraged to. It is licensed CC BY 4.0, which permits sharing and adaptation including commercially, as long as you credit the original and link the licence. If you build something substantial on top of it, open an issue and it will be linked from the repository.
Who wrote it
The Visibility Handbook was written by Roger Wong Won, founder of Capture That Media, an AI visibility marketing agency in San Antonio, Texas. We work on branding, social, SEO, AEO and GEO, web development, e commerce and full stack marketing, which is why the handbook exists.
Nothing in the handbook is a paid placement. No vendor was compensated for inclusion and there are no affiliate links.