SEO in 2026

Taylor Kurtz provides our final SEOin2026 tip, advising that we stop obsessing over AI and instead, focus on high quality content.Taylor says: “Do not obsess about AI. Don't obsess about it.”Why shouldn't you obsess about it?“I'm sure a lot of people have helpful suggestions about it, but frankly, it's all so new that it’s on a trial basis. Anyone saying that they know what to do for this environment, it's not true. They think they know what to do, but nobody knows for sure. It's all based on: What am I doing that's working? What are my peers doing that's working? How do we navigate this?Google has not provided any guidance – and even if they did, who really cares? As we saw with organic search, even if they did provide specific guidelines, those aren’t always true. My issue is more the fact that people feel so concerned about it. For instance, I have so many clients asking, ‘How am I doing on ChatGPT?’, but a study came out yesterday showing that referral traffic from ChatGPT from July 21st through yesterday (August 26th) was down 52%.AI is not going anywhere, and we're very much going to have to adapt to it, but I do not think search will change very much. We're going to have to adapt to utilising it as a new technology, similar to how we had to adapt to voice searches using Siri and things like that.One thing that really does bother me is seeing so many people online talking about GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. To me, that does not exist. If you want to really get down to the bare bones of it, the crawlers – whether they're crawling the robots.txt file or the newer llms.txt file – are still crawling your source code. The source of information is the same. I'm constantly hearing that GEO is the new thing because the landscape has totally changed with AI search. Typically, the people who say that then go on to present obvious and foundational tactics that have always applied to SEO. For example, ‘We should use schema.’One thing we've been really focussing on with our clients is making sure that the authors have authoritative bio pages that show their credentials and show who they are. Are the articles fact-checked? However, that all pertains to EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust), which has been an acronym in SEO for going on a decade.

Stefan Lozo shares the importance of not neglecting traditional SEO int eh age of AI. Talking points include: What activities would you describe as traditional SEO? How should an SEO define their services in 2026? How should this be communicated with clients? What happens if clients push back and are looking for other services or ways of doing things? How do you set realistic expectations for clients? Is it a good idea to do white label SEO for other agencies? How do you see the traditional agency SEO offering continuing to evolve?

Michael MacMillan shares our penultimate piece of advice by encouraging you to ensure that all the good SEO that you already intend to do, is being done. Michael says: “While AI is flooding the web with content, it’s also assisting teams to create huge strategies and big plans. However, we're still not seeing them getting executed.”What does execution actually mean, and why is it not happening?“Imagine that you’ve gone through and done an SEO audit; you've explored all the opportunities, you've gone through the competitor set, and you've gone through what you have for existing content and how you're performing.Then, you get this beautiful list of what you should do to get things done – much like going to the physio, where you get a list of the exercises you should do when you're not at the physio. In the meantime, between visits, the work's not getting done.There's definitely a place for using AI. It's great at analysing data. It's great for giving a first draft of a piece of content. We're leveraging it to get content briefs put together and get a first draft of content. However, a lot of the time, we're seeing things getting shelved.Priorities start getting pulled. It's sometimes the fact that there is a whole lot that needs to get done. A lot of marketing teams are dealing with having fewer people to execute with, and they're having to rely on other sources to get things done.”

Reena Bowden agrees with Jade Pruett about the ability to stay agile as we move through 2026.Reena says: “Make sure that you are discoverable, and be agile with optimizing your business for AI-driven search and answer engines. We're also talking about GEO and AIO, not just for traditional search.To be discoverable and agile, you need to be proactive and not just reactive to market changes because things are moving fast.”How would you summarise the key elements of making your brand discoverable in the age of AI, and how has that changed in the last few years?“Not only have things changed in the last two years, but things have changed more than they have in the last 10 years.Just when you think that SEO is going to become boring, it becomes less boring once again. Gone are the days of just building pages for SEO: looking at your keywords, publishing content, and then waiting a few months for the results. Things have changed so much recently, but things are changing again very fast.The question is, how do you remain discoverable and remain visible in this world? You have to work on your assets and materials (whether that’s information or insights – including those that are owned, earned, and paid) to continue being visible in that new AI world, but it's also important to be mentioned in citations.To remain top-of-mind and visible, there are a number of things that you can do to make sure that you continue being SEO-friendly, but you are also AI-friendly. However, it's important to be recognised by the outside world as well. Off-page SEO and, increasingly, digital PR are gaining importance. All of these high authority, trusted sources are becoming very important, as are citations.It's important to understand what AI is looking at when it's looking for information about you. That is where I see the game changing.”

Jade Pruett is keen to highlight that best practices that existed in the past aren’t necessarily best practices for the future.Jade says: “Forget best practices. SEO in 2026 is about moving beyond checklists and leveraging your own expertise to build effective, trustworthy, and AI-ready strategies.”What best practices do we need to forget?“In the industry, we've become a bit stuck in our checklists. That's often our safe space, as SEOs – especially when you work in an agency setting.Maybe you have a productised system that you offer your clients. So, your SEO has been limited to, ‘We're going to create X number of blog posts every month. We're going to follow these rules that we see online about what matters and what doesn't.’ You provide your SEO services, whether they're really moving the needle for the client or not.In 2026, especially with AI search coming out, things with Google are changing so quickly. It's time to take a step back and really trust your own gut on what's going to move the needle forward for your clients.”

Petra Kis-Herczegh encourages you to be more critical in your thinking – and not to initially accept everything at face value.Petra says: “Embrace healthy scepticism.In a time where the SEO industry is drowning in new AI metrics, from AIO attribution to vector index presence, we need to understand that we don't have robust, standardised methods to validate these just yet.When tools show you things like AI visibility, you should be asking: What's the sample size behind this? What's that number or percentage based on? How are these metrics defined? Is the tool actually using LLM training data, or are they reverse-engineering the attribution models?Embracing healthy scepticism and using critical thinking isn't a new thing. It's not a new process; we’ve had to use it before, but this situation makes it crucial. Previously, when featured snippets appeared, we had to completely rethink how we evaluated our existing Google Search Console data, because it now meant something different because of the change, and it was in a new context. We’ve had to ask these questions, and not just chase new metrics, but evaluate the data that we are basing decisions on.Part of the problem now is that people are trying to look at these shiny new metrics as something that they can base decisions on, when they actually might change in a month or two. Everyone's still collecting data, looking at that attribution model, and trying to learn how these LLMs understand your websites, do vector embeddings, understand context, and serve answers – and the models change all the time as well, so that plays a part.Before you bet your credibility on a shiny new dashboard, you need to ask yourself: What would you actually do differently with this data? Do you have any other way to validate this from something that you already trust and know to be proven?If you can't answer those questions, you are just chasing the hype instead of thinking critically.”

Andrew Melnychuk Oseen shares that for effective SEO in 2026 you should be aware of what data sources you're feeding LLMs. Discussion points include: What data sources should you be hooking up to LLMs? What are your go-to LLMs at the moment and why? What are the common mistakes that tend to be made in doing this? What end result are you looking for? Is there any data type that you shouldn’t be getting LLMs to analyse, where human SEOs should be doing the analysis by themselves? You say that AI isn't going to replace human judgement - what does this mean in practice?

Manu Madeddu highlights that the ever-changing world of SEO means that flexibility and being able to continually adapt will be integral parts of future success.Manu says: “Be flexible and be ready to face the unknown.Essentially, be prepared to adapt to all the new and broader challenges we have as marketers, and also flexible enough and ready to absorb knowledge, data, and information about things you might not know, but need to explore.”How do you incorporate flexibility into an SEO strategy?“Long story short, try to anticipate trends. Be flexible by being able to detect trends and adjust your strategy on the go. Don't be stiff and only stick to what was planned 6 or 12 months before, because trends can change swiftly nowadays.Also, you might find that users are changing their behaviour. They may be using a feature or a platform now, but then switch because of recent changes and technological advancements. That’s the kind of flexibility you need in terms of technology and strategy.You also need to be able to discuss and have a more holistic approach. Don't just focus on what you do as a marketer. SEOs tend to work in their silo and just focus on Excel spreadsheets and optimizations. Now, you need to be flexible. Discuss with other teams and other channels to find the best way to achieve the business targets – not only for your channel but overall.”

Sarah McDowell shares that surrounding yourself with the right people is a key part of maintaining personal growth.Sarah says: “Community and your inner circle are not only essential for your well-being, but they are also so important for your career progression as well.”Why is community relevant to SEO?“When it comes to SEO and career progression, as in any industry, looking after your own well-being and looking after yourself is so important. It prevents things like burnout, imposter syndrome, not feeling confident enough to push yourself forward, and not having confidence in your own skills.One of the reasons why Tazmin and I started the SEO Mindset Podcast is that there are lots of great podcasts out there that tell you how to do SEO, but there was a gap for a podcast talking about career progression, personal growth, and mental health for those who work in SEO.Those softer skills are really important. They're at the core of all of that lovely growth.”

Our final chapter begins with Helen Pollitt taking a look at the skills you need to personally build, to remain as relevant as possible in the SEO workforce for many years to come.Helen says: “Keep your SEO career on track.When it comes to your skillset, you need to stop thinking of ‘SEO versus GEO’. Instead, you need to understand how to apply your organic discoverability skills to each and every channel that you may need to – and how you can use AI to enhance those skills.”How much of your SEO time should you focus on developing those skills?“SEO is a career that is constantly changing, and not just in the sense that what works in SEO is changing. The tools and educational platforms that are available are changing as well.As a result of that, we really need to be investing a lot in our own careers and in our skill sets. I like to spend at least a little bit of time every day dipping into articles, watching webinars, or just making sure that there's no breaking news within the SEO industry that I'm missing.Treat it like an investment. Make sure that you are spending a significant portion of your time investing in those skills and keeping current with what's going on, without succumbing to the hype and fear-mongering that also seems to go around the space at the moment.”

Ray Saddiq shares that you need to be both recognisable and discoverable in 2026. Ray says: “If you want to seriously influence your consumer moving forward, brand alone is not going to cut it.We got into this mindset that brand was going to be key to driving SEO success, and it plays a huge part, but if you want to grow and stay top-of-mind, you need to drive demand and be discoverable. It's not just an awareness thing anymore. You need a combination of both. It's not enough to be known; you need to be found as well.That means building brand and category salience. You've got to own your category in search so that, moving forward – with LLMs, AI search, and social search – you are the brand that has salience to the category that you want to be known for. You’re the one most closely related to that category.This can’t just happen across Google. This needs to be across every searchable platform, because that's where intent starts now.”

Nickolass Jensen shares that most sites have high search visibility but zero AI citations, and the gap is diagnosable, measurable, and fixable with a structured three-layer audit. Talking points include... The three-layer diagnostic: Why sites fail AI visibility at the human layer (UX/trust), the search layer (authority/structure), or the AI layer (machine-readable proof) - and why fixing the wrong layer first wastes months. AI crawler visibility: Server log analysis reveals real-time and historical crawl patterns from GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot - most site owners have no idea which AI bots visit them, how often, or what they fetch. The gap between what AI crawlers index and what gets cited is where the work happens. GEO in 2026 is still mostly theoretical. The only practical path forward is tools that enforce structured execution. Rankings remain infrastructure, but the real competitive moat is whether an LLM cites you when a buyer asks. Read the full transcript of Nickolass's interview at https://majestic.com/seo-in-2026/additional-insights/nickolass-jensen

When you’re analysing data, you shouldn’t necessarily treat it at face value, shares Dixon Jones.Dixon says: “You need to think about what you are trying to measure.Buyer behaviour is changing dramatically with the advent of AI. Users are going to be sending out their little AI bots to ask questions on your website instead of going there themselves.If you're trying to buy a vacuum cleaner, you might ask, ‘What's the best vacuum cleaner for pet hair?’ Of course, Shark, Dyson, and Hoover all want to be in that list of recommendations, but it's the AI that's going to do the investigating.Potentially, an AI is going to go and find these brands, have a look at those brands, compare the information about pet hair, and then come back and provide an answer to the user that says, ‘X brand is slightly better than Y brand for this particular type of pet hair.’ At that point, the user doesn't need to click on any of the websites, but they will still buy a Shark, a Dyson, an Electrolux, or whatever it may be. They'll have made their decision.All of the metrics that we've been using for the last 20 years have measured the visitors that come to the website. That's been a key performance metric: has your visitor come from search, from pay-per-click, from direct, affiliate, etc.? That's been the mentality, but that doesn't really work in an AI-driven world.Firstly, that’s because AI is doing the search for you. Secondly, the AI doesn't typically trigger a visit on most web analytics systems. Most web analytics systems are JavaScript-based: the web page loads, it triggers a JavaScript call, and that will record the visitor. However, LLMs are really lazy when it comes to crawling the site. They just want the text. If the text doesn't appear, they can't be bothered to call the JavaScript.Often, it won't even come up as a click in your systems, so you're going to have to change the way you measure success.”

Something else that’s arguably changed a great deal in the past few years is keyword research. Andy Mollison advises on tracking more than basic keywords.Andy says: “In a world of generative AI, keyword tracking as we know it is no longer good enough.”Why is keyword tracking no longer good enough?“The way we track performance in SEO has historically been through organic sessions, organic revenue, organic lead generation, and that kind of thing. Obviously, that is still very relevant, but it's also been about keyword position tracking as well – tracking your individual single keywords, or long tail keywords, or whatever it is you're tracking.To an extent, that's still fine. However, you can’t ignore what’s going on. If you're not tracking outside of that, you're not tracking your performance as a whole. With AI overviews, AI Mode, and ChatGPT, people are searching in so many different ways now. Tracking keywords is not everything anymore.”

Following on from the previous ‘Testing’ chapter, Marta Szmidt begins chapter 19 with an introduction to newer metrics that you should be considering.Marta says: “You need to add new metrics for measuring SEO success and face the reality that search has changed.It's no longer the same traditional search engines we used to know, and you need to adapt to the reality. You need to combine classic traditional SEO metrics with new ones that target AI search visibility.”Which metrics aren't as relevant anymore, compared to the metrics that you have to focus on in 2026?“There has been a big shift in metrics. Clicks, organic traffic, and click-through rate have all been hit by what is happening with the shift in search behaviour, so they have become less relevant. They're not going to give you the picture in the same way they used to.We are seeing a big rise in zero-click search results. People find the answer very quickly now with AI tools, and even if you appear in an AI overview, that doesn't mean that the user will click on to your site. This shift means that we’re seeing a drop in clicks and organic traffic.In the same way, the rankings are not going to show us the whole picture because, according to some data, 36% of people in the US will be using AI for search by 2028. We need to adapt to it. That doesn't mean that the normal traditional search and engagement metrics are going to disappear, but we need to adapt and find the metrics that are relevant for us now, with AI search in the picture.”

There’s one tool that Priya Verma finds particularly useful at combining data from various sources and conducting analysis – BigQuery.Priya says: “Gear up your SEO analysis through Google BigQuery.”Why BigQuery in particular?“SEO analysis in BigQuery is powerful because it lets you move beyond the existing tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, etc., and their limitations. It allows you to see the full picture at scale.By analysing millions of queries alongside other data, you uncover deeper patterns, user behaviour insights, and real opportunities to grow your traffic. We are focussing on BigQuery because of a subtle limitation of the most widely used tool for SEO, Search Console: you can only look at the top 1,000 keywords.For big businesses, that doesn't give a full picture. That's where tools like BigQuery come in. There are alternatives like Google Sheets plugins, where you can import 25,000 rows. However, if you are in an industry with thousands of keywords, that is still a huge limitation.That's where bulk export comes in. By connecting your Search Console to BigQuery, through the BigQuery API and the BigQuery Storage API, you can capture and store all your data at scale, without hitting those raw limits.This is where it really gets interesting, because the retention policy in Google Search Console is 16 months. After 16 months, the data is lost. In BigQuery, you can keep it for as long as you want.Then, when you take those insights and combine them with your analytics data – in GA4, for example – suddenly you're not just looking at what people are searching for, but how they behave when they land on your site. You can connect the dots between search demands, journeys, and conversions, and it makes the game more interesting.Not enough SEOs are aware of this. They just think of BigQuery as a database where you kind of store your data, which is true, but when you talk about the analysis of your historical data set, that's where it all changes.When you go to legal, they will ask you questions about retention and what you are storing. You need to spread that knowledge around to say that this is something that could be changed in BigQuery, and not just for SEO, but for things like analytics as well.”

Leo Poitevin shares how to write the best listicles & find the best media to push them to be cited by GPT. Talking points include: How do you define listicles? How have listicles changed? How do you structure a listicle for success in 2026? You say that GPT uses Google to find solutions via fan-out - what do you mean by that? You say that you should find the media that'll rank according to topic and competition - why, and how do you do that? How do you monitor success?

Krzysztof Marzec emphasises the alignment between organic search and paid search – and the useful additional data that one can provide the other.Krzysztof says: “Use your data from Google Ads to improve SEO, and use data from SEO to improve your Google Ads campaigns.Also, mix it and blend it with AI, because now we have AI to improve it all.”If you're not actively using Google Ads, is it worthwhile having a small campaign up and running simply to use as data to power your SEO?“Yes. If you are not using Google Ads, you are losing a lot of data, and you are also losing clients. When you are generating organic traffic to your website, you should fight for a conversion rate. Using remarketing in Google or Meta Ads can improve your conversion rate because you simply have more attention from your users after they leave your website.We also see that, in long-term projects, when you are fighting for keywords in organic, you are losing the potential of getting new clients when you could use Google Ads to run for the same keywords and the same targets, and then gather some data.When you run a Google Ad campaign, you can check the Quality Score, the CTR, and whether it's a good ad, and you can check your landing page. You can learn whether your SEO campaign might fail, or it might be much harder to gain traction, visibility, and a high position in SERPs because there's something off with one of these parameters.With Google Ads, you can test your ideas. In SEO, you only have one landing page. It's extremely hard to do A/B testing on the same website because you want to use everything for the user base, and you don't want to risk anything. In Google Ads, it's very simple.

Dan Taylor feels that SEOs aren’t taking full advantage of the data that they already have.Dan says: “Start understanding your analytics platforms a lot better, and start leveraging them – not just for attribution and ROI, but to look at your organic strategies and the second-order effects of what those strategies are bringing to the business.”Have SEOs focussed less on analytics since the release of GA4?“We didn’t put our heads in the sand, but it is a very different model. We'd grown accustomed to something. We'd grown used to reporting, and then bringing in user events and other event types really mixed that up.A lot of opportunity was lost in terms of what could be set up with the analytics models itself, and it gave us greater scope. We probably did want to divert attention to data analysts and away from SEO in the actual setup of it, because it was like relearning a completely new skill.Realistically, you don't always get paid for analytics; it's seen as a given in terms of using those platforms, reporting, and understanding the data. It's a heavy investment into a skill set that you don't necessarily get a direct return on.”

Marco Giordano highlights that the most successful SEOs will take data from multiple sources – not just traditional SEO platforms.Marco says: “Use multiple data sources, not just SEO data, to make decisions.”What's the difference between the alternative data sources and the typical data sources for SEO?“Most of the time, people use Search Console, which is our default option for several reasons. For one, it's the only first-party tool that contains Google queries, which is the dominant search engine. People also rely on crawl data from tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb, or they scrape websites themselves. There are other third-party tools as well, like Majestic, Semrush, Ahrefs, etc. That’s the traditional suite.Some people have a decent knowledge of GA4, which is used for other data and tracking conversions, events, and what happens inside the website – which is not strictly SEO, of course.However, there are data sources other than GA4 that are also super important and can help you. For example, in your CMS (Content Management System), you can get metadata about your articles and pages that can be useful. For example, the classification of a page or even the tags or categories you assign to a given page.Also, your CRM. If you're doing B2B, you can’t exactly connect your SEO data, like queries, but it gives you the opportunity to better understand how your website contributes to your leads, because there are connections with Salesforce and HubSpot, if you're using GA4.”

Of course, what happened in the past isn’t necessarily an indication of what might be likely to happen in the future. Folashade Uba shares that we should stop reacting and start predicting.Folashade says: “The best and most successful strategy will be to shift from reactive SEO to proactive SEO.”What would be an example of reactive SEO compared to proactive SEO?“Reactive SEO is when you're reacting to trends, reacting to your competitors' moves, reacting to keyword spikes, and reacting to every Google algorithm change.Proactive SEO is when you're intentionally shaping what the search could be, what the feature could be, and using predictive analysis and behavioural forecasting.”

Sophie Brannon shares the importance of not focusing solely on the new shiny thing and that the fundamentals will always matter most. Talking points include: How do you know what should be fundamental? How often should you revisit this? What is holistic marketing? Why is this key to SEO? How do you measure success? How would you summarise the fundamentals of SEO in 2026? How often should you review what the fundamentals are?

Kyle Rushton McGregor provides us with a timely reminder to know your numbers, while all the changes happen around us. Kyle says: “SEO is changing, and you need to know your numbers more than ever.”How is it changing, and how do you go about knowing your numbers?“SEO is changing in a variety of different ways, but most importantly, we've got the rise of AI and large language models, and the traffic that's coming from that. Consent is much more pertinent than it used to be (quite rightly so), and we also have Apple’s much more stringent tracking preventions.That all means that you need to understand your numbers: where your traffic is coming from, and what that means in terms of actions and insights. You need to know that to a greater degree than ever before, and you need to take your reporting away from talking about sessions and users and start talking about the things that matter: leads, e-commerce numbers, and all the things that a typical boss would be concerned about.All these different changes mean that you need to be a lot more focussed on the numbers that are occurring and how you can use those numbers to drive actions and make a difference for your clients and your business.”

Julia-Carolin Zeng shares some of the key areas that you should be continually monitoring in order to know what to adjust.Julia says: “Monitoring, testing, and adjusting.The search landscape will keep on changing. What we've seen so far in 2025 is nothing yet.”How is the search landscape continuing to change?“Right now, the buzzword in SEO is the ‘great decoupling’, where we see impressions going up and clicks going down. I see it more as a democratisation of the search landscape, with new players in the field now.Google is suddenly getting a lot of competition because people don’t just perform their searches on Google or Bing anymore, as they did historically. There are now all these LLMs out there like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, etc. Google has expanded the AI overviews. They've rolled out AI Mode. I've also suddenly seen quite a significant amount of traffic from Yahoo for some of my clients. We don't yet know where that's coming from. Then there's still DuckDuckGo and Ecosia out there.However, ChatGPT seems to have become the big competitor to Google, even though the actions and searches that are performed in those places aren't exactly equivalent. We've seen a democratisation there, because Google is not the default for everything related to search anymore.”

Yordan Dimitrov shares that you need to accept constant change in the world of SEO. Just because something works well today doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be trying to improve it for tomorrow.Yordan says: “Embrace change and test relentlessly.”Is there any type of change that we're most likely to have to embrace?“In the last 12 months, there has been so much change within the SEO industry, from AI Mode to AI overviews, dramatically changing how people discover content and brands. We've moved way past the 10 blue links, and people are shifting towards AI-driven answers, zero-click results, and new discovery platforms.To succeed, you need to put yourself into the customer's shoes and explore ways of accessing the tools that are coming up in order to do better testing.It also means putting yourself into your customer’s journey and thinking, ‘Does my brand appear in those AI-powered results? Is my content being cited? How does the format change, and what do I need to do to make sure that I remain visible?’”

One of the keys to continually enhancing your SEO performance is to keep on testing, shares Andrew Cock-Starkey.Andrew says: “Test, test, test.Test a lot. Test lots of different things. Do some testing.How do you know what to test?“You don't want to test everything. What I normally advise is testing what your customers use, or what your target customers use.I used to work with a company where the boss would come and say, ‘This doesn't work, the website looks awful on my computer,’ but we couldn't work out what was going on. We were testing all these things, checking in different browsers, and checking on different devices. Eventually, I went into their office, and they were using an extremely old version of Internet Explorer (not even Edge), and they had the magnification set to 150%.

Laura Iancu talks about Inclusive language & LLMs and shares why what we feed AI matters. Talking points include: - How LLMs mirrors and multiplies human language - Setting up the core idea: the inputs we give AI systems shape the outputs they produce - How bias enters the system - Frame inclusive language not as “political correctness” but as data quality and system integrity; - End with a brief talk about being an ally to humanity, and how you don't need to relate to other groups to show empathy in your language.

One of the non-traditional platforms for SEO is app stores, and this is an opportunity that Filipa Serra Gaspar wishes to highlight.Filipa says: “This year, you should be considering App Store Optimization.Now, in the AI era, it is really important to be in a good position everywhere on the web – not only on traditional search engines. I'm talking about ASO because app stores should not be left behind.You should be doing ASO as part of your activities. Of course, it only applies if the website that you are working on also has an app. If you have an app, this is 100% something that you should be looking at.”Should you create an app just for the additional opportunity to drive traffic into your ecosystem?“It really depends on the area your website is in.I've mainly been working with e-commerce, and I would say the benefits of having an app are quite significant, but it really depends on where you are operating. You shouldn't create an app just for the sake of it, obviously – only if it really makes sense for the business.”

AI can be used in many ways within the SEO function, and for Crystal Carter, it can be an effective tool to assist with the analysis of your digital footprint.Crystal says: “Use AI search optimization to deliver value across your business and your whole digital footprint.”What does the whole business look like these days?“With the emergence of AI search optimization and LLMs as a channel that people are using, the importance of multi-channel marketing and having an omnichannel presence is very acute.LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini are surfacing content from across the web. It's not just what's on your website; it's what's happening on Reddit, it's what's happening on YouTube, and it's what's happening on Instagram. That means that you need to think about the whole of your digital presence in order to move forward.Some people say that it's the same as SEO, which is potentially true. Ideally, they should complement each other in the same way that YouTube optimization should complement your core SEO activities, but they also can help you identify gaps in the information about your business across the web.”

Mathilde Høj adds her voice to the call to diversification, highlighting that search and search behaviour have entirely changed.Mathilde says: “Search is no longer a channel, it's a behaviour.You need to adapt your entire marketing strategy to it, and have a more integrated approach.”What do you mean when you say that search is a behaviour?“It means that we see a lot of different things coming into play in how users are interacting with platforms.Usually, when users want to find something, they will go to Google and search, then go to a web page, and then maybe convert or go to a physical store. Now, though, they are doing much more than that. They are searching across multiple platforms and visiting multiple sites before making a decision on whether or not to buy.There are two factors coming into play here, and affecting the way users are behaving. First of all, we have generative AI and machine learning changing the way traditional engines work. We have AI overviews and AI Mode, but also this behaviour is taking place in new environments, and the platforms in those environments are adapting to it as well.For example, TikTok is doing a lot to make themselves more like a search engine, which means that users are turning to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or Reddit to search for stuff.”

Ivana Flynn shares that in her opinion, your business may be in danger if you don’t diversify your SEO efforts.Ivana says: “First of all, don't give up: survive.Google is going crazy with all the updates. Diversify. You cannot rely on just one source of traffic.Google’s market share is shrinking, and there are new sources of traffic that we need to look into, including Reddit, which I will be talking about today.Sometimes, in SEO, it feels a little bit hopeless. There is an update, you survived, there's an update, and you're down, and then there's another update. You start thinking, ‘What now?’ It is a little bit tiring, but that's SEO for you.SEO keeps changing the rules and updating their updates. You just need to keep learning. Don't give up, keep learning, and stand tall.”

David Iwanow shares how to focus on the things that are hurting your brand. Discussion points include: What is typically hurting brand and revenue now? What is genAI? How do you track genAI success? How do you obtain genAI guidance? What tools do you use an why? How do you incorporate this into an overarching content strategy? What industries does this impact the most? How will this continue to evolve?

Leading on from Ed Ziubrzynski’s tip, Sean Barber muses over what platforms you should consider optimizing for in 2026.Sean says: “Think beyond Google. The search landscape has gone way further than Google now.”What do you define as being beyond Google?“It's two-fold. First, there’s the fact that users aren't just starting their search journey on Google. They're starting it on all different platforms and places. Also, it’s not just at the start of their journey; they're bouncing around. They're going to Google, then they may go to Reddit, Amazon, or large language models.On the other side, AI models are coming into play a lot more now. They're also using different sources to gather the information they need about a certain query or brand.”

What is SEO nowadays? According to Ed Ziubrzynski, it’s a lot more than just Google.Ed says: “SEO needs to be everything, everywhere, all at once – and at all times.”Does that mean everything in marketing, everything in business, or everything in the world?“Definitely everything in marketing. Gone are the days when SEO was solely split into on-site (your content work, blogs, landing pages, commercial pages, etc.) and then just having off-site reserved for digital PR and typical link building strategies. We've very much gone beyond the idea of those being the most important things in SEO.Now you need to go where your users are. This also ties into the idea of passive marketing and getting in front of your audience at all times, even when they're not necessarily looking for your products or services.With apps like TikTok, short-form video content has over a billion users a month, and YouTube has over 122 million users every day on its platform. Making sure that you cover every medium imaginable with your content is almost a necessity with how the world has changed, and how internet behaviour and consumer behaviour have pivoted with it.We've got more information available at our fingertips than ever before, but the way that we digest and use content is changing rapidly. Even simple things, such as looking for a recipe. Previously, you'd read a 2,000-3,000-word blog article all about the history of that recipe before you got the information that you wanted and needed, like ingredients and cooking time. Now, it's readily available in AI overviews, and that information needs to be lifted from somewhere.As another example, for tutorials on how to change a tyre, users are heading straight to YouTube or TikTok to get that answer within the smallest timescale possible. They’re looking for a 45-second video telling you exactly how to do it and what tools you need, as opposed to landing on a website and reading a 3,000-word article that would take a lot more time and involvement from the user.”

For Montserrat Cano, the key elements to include in your 2026 strategy are the parts that scale.Montserrat says: “In 2026, SEOs should stay grounded and focus on those strategies that scale across global markets, instead of chasing every single AI-related shiny object.”What are the strategies that scale across global markets?“The strategies I'm referring to are those strategies that reflect your business values, your business objectives, and everything that you've been trying to do.I would use AI as a helper, as something that will actually help achieve those business objectives in your target market and with your target audiences. It is really important at this moment in time because, from what I can see, artificial intelligence is actually evolving at a pace faster than most individuals and companies can adapt to.I understand that the hype is so big and the temptation is very strong to jump on to every single AI strategy that comes out and gets published, and use every single AI tool, but all of this can only be useful if you think about what you actually need to do, and why you need to use those strategies, tactics, AI tools, etc.When it comes to global businesses, the adoption of AI is quite different across global markets. According to McKinsey, in Europe, the UK is leading the way with AI adoption. It's used in many different areas, including marketing, sales, and the public sector.Whereas in other markets, such as Denmark and Belgium, AI is mostly being used in automation. It's important to bear this in mind because your target users may not even be using Perplexity, or they are using Perplexity, AI Mode or AI overviews for different reasons. They may just be validating their answers, but what are they validating their answers with?Research what your users are actually doing, and what their preferences are. There are sociological and regulatory environments that might determine what platforms they are using and how they are using them. For example, do they prefer Mistral’s Le Chat to ChatGPT? Why might that be?”

Cathryn Stormont shares that good local SEO can still provide a lot of traffic.Cathryn says: “Focus on local SEO.With AI overviews and AI Mode dominating the SERPs, it's really important to focus on local SEO to try and maintain a certain level of traffic volume.”Is this more relevant for certain types of businesses?“There are businesses where their content is very much informational, like solicitors or accountants, where their blog content is being picked up by AI overviews dominating that space, which means their traffic volumes are starting to decrease. We're seeing that in lots of different sectors.However, they have a local edge. They have a local office, and it's those local searches where people are looking for ‘solicitors in Brighton’, where the AI overviews are not being shown as much. It’s typically around 40% for those versus about 90% for informational-led content.There's an opportunity to try and maximise that element, your local SEO, to try and get more traffic and keep that traffic up as much as you can.”

Tom Rudnai says that instead of chasing citations, focus your AEO strategy on showing up in Dark AI conversations where problems are framed. Talking points include: What are Dark AI conversations? How do AI responses change at different stages of the buyer journey? Why are citations is a bad north star metric? How should SEOs measure AI performance? What analytics to use? What content performs best in AI? How do you research what content to write? - Key trends: intent-matching, convergence - What is "Dark AI"? - How to measure AI performance and why citations is a bad north star metric

Gemma Fontané recommends that personalisation is key when it comes to international SEO success.Gemma says: “Focus on personalisation, adapting your content in each language and across different formats, to really build your brand in each region.These actions will allow you to stand out from your competition, demonstrate authority and expertise, compete in multilingual markets, and stay visible in the era of generative AI.”How do you go about personalising content?“First of all, personalising content is very important nowadays because search engines today are rewarding depth, expertise, and true relevance, in order to stand out.In 2026, with AI-generated content everywhere, what will really make the difference is cultural, linguistic, and format-specific personalisation, if you really want to differentiate your brand.How can you do that? There are two different things that you can do. If you want to start your strategy in a newer market or you are already working in that region, you can do an EEAT analysis to analyse which channels will allow you to show expertise, experience, trust, and authority. Also, you can analyse the main experts to see how people show trustworthiness through different formats.In order to personalise your content, you can also conduct multilingual keyword research in each market. This will not only help you know what people are looking for, related to your product or service, but also understand how people are looking for your product in each market. This will help you identify the best strategy related to the format.For example, you might find that people are looking for images related to your product, a step-by-step guide, or maybe a video that will help them to understand, know, or choose to purchase your product.”

Global SEO isn’t about treating every market the same. As Lau Míguez puts it, ‘European markets demand full commitment and strong EEAT signals — well-positioned experts are now essential for success,’ and that expectation has only grown over the past few years.Lau says: “What’s really shifted is how demanding each market has become. Working closely with Spain, and across international campaigns, I’ve seen clients move away from the idea of ‘Europe’ as one block. A few still ask for LATAM as a region, but no one says, ‘Can you do Europe?’ anymore.The penny has finally dropped: each country behaves differently. If you want results, you have to show genuine expertise, authority, and brand trust – not generic international presence.”Is using hreflang and a direct translation of content not enough anymore?“If you’re translating a piece that was originally written for the US, what you end up with is a perfectly translated article about a completely different reality. It will still talk about states instead of regions or cities, and even if you mention Spain once or twice, you might pick up a couple of links – but you’re not building any real trust.Nothing in that content shows an understanding of the Spanish audience or what’s actually relevant to them.That’s why localisation matters. If you’re talking about the job market, and Spain is currently debating a 37-hour working week, include it. Reflect what’s happening in that country.When you speak to the concerns and conversations happening locally, the audience feels it — and so do journalists. That’s why localising your content and your strategy has become more important than ever.”

Simone De Palma warns that client-side routing and rendering can be problematic for rankings.Simone says: “Align with marketing goals, and make sure to challenge anything that is client-side routed or client-side rendered, especially within React web-based apps.”What do the terms client-side routed and client-side rendered mean, and what impact does that have on SEO?“To start with, I will just make sure that everyone is familiar with routing and exactly what that is. Routing essentially means how the website itself is able to create a URL path that allows users to change pages, from one page template to another.This routing element can be a bit problematic for SEO when it happens exclusively on the client side, causing the generation of a new URL path when you click a link, which only happens within the browser.To give you an example, imagine that you land on a category page with plenty of filters to refine your customer journey. You can toggle a filter on or off, or click on a link, but the URL doesn't change. That means that no server request is being produced, which in turn means that both search engines and users will not have any idea that new content has been loaded. This is client-side routing, and it may cause a few issues with crawling and indexation.Client-side rendering can be a blocker as well. While client-side routing can affect the crawling, the discovery of search engines, and indexation, client-side rendering impacts the rendering (as it says in the title).This is particularly a problem if we're talking about web apps based on React. React is basically a pre-packaged JavaScript library, which makes it quite difficult for even the most seasoned web developers to tweak it because it's pre-configured. Unfortunately for SEO, React is built on the client side by default, so it has client-side routing and rendering by default.If you're landing on that same category page with lots of filters, it will take you some time for React to gear up the page template on the first load, because during this initial load, React will execute JavaScript in the browser, causing the browser's main thread to overload. Not only will this result in a slower initial page load time, but more importantly, it will be hard for search engines like Google to render all the content from the page.

One of the ways that AI engines struggle with determining a brand’s topical relevance and authority is when they encounter inconsistent data, highlights Kaspar Szymanski.Kaspar says: “My tip is about data consistency, which is a topic that is very close to my heart.”How do you ensure data consistency in 2026?“Some people may not consider this to be the most innovative or popular concept, and it’s certainly not a buzzword making the rounds nowadays.However, data consistency differentiates the companies and brands that are really successful in competitive environments from those that try to catch onto the latest buzzword or bandwagon, promising a silver bullet in an industry where silver bullets are few and far between.Data consistency is ensured when we make sure that all the data points towards the desired landing pages that we wish to be indexed, reindexed, and ranked within Google.It's important to remind ourselves that Google is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, the dominant force in the industry. Particularly for those YMYL companies and companies that deal in retail, with Q4 coming up, it's not too late to work on that.For these companies, it is most important that their websites, their stock, and their products get crawled and re-crawled on a regular basis, so they can put their best foot forward in order to generate relevant converting traffic – more than anything else.”

Krešimir Ćorluka shares that SEO is not dying, but bad SEO most certainly is. Talking points include: What is bad SEO? What doesn’t work anymore? What fundamentals work now? Where are SEOs confused with what works now? How do you learn and stay on top of what works now? How do you futureproof your future success? A lot of the stuff the average SEO has been doing has had the wrong fundamentals. Technical SEO, backlinking and good content is more important than ever. But, most SEOs weren't doing these things right so now they're confused with what LLMs expect of us. This stuff works and jumping on every new technique is killing your SEO gains, especially like the stuff we've seen with listicles, Reddit SEO, trying to manipulate Quora etc. Do the fundamentals right and only then can we go on to experimenting.

Arnout Hellemans advises that you don’t have to provide AI crawlers with full access to all of your content.Arnout says: “People really need to look at their technical setup.With that, I mean the rendered version versus the raw HTML – especially with a lot of AI crawlers not rendering yet, and also because I've seen a lot of discrepancies in that area.”Is the rendered version typically quite different for different search engines?“As with a lot of things in SEO, it depends.Sometimes, when websites are built using JavaScript frameworks, the content is actually different in the raw HTML versus the rendered HTML.Titles might be different. There might not be schema markup, there might be different headings, etc., because those can be changed by the execution of JavaScript.That can severely impact the discoverability of your page.”

One of the ways that you can enhance your website foundation is to combine high technical SEO standards with great user experience, shares Iva Jovanovic. Iva says: “Technical SEO and user experience will remain the foundation for websites, even when optimizing for AI chatbots.”Why do AI chatbots like user experience?“To start with, crawlability has been a topic in SEO for years and years. It's now gaining even more importance because of the way that chatbots crawl websites. They crawl a bit differently.We're used to Googlebot and other search engine bots adapting to what the websites are serving, and adapting to crawling them. Chatbots are not exactly the same. A lot of studies and research confirm that many of the chatbots do not crawl JavaScript, for example. So, a lot of websites that have been using JavaScript, that Googlebot has been able to crawl, are now not going to be as accessible to chatbots. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and even Perplexity don't crawl JavaScript.Aside from that, the bots crawl websites a little more simply, and it's really important to structure your website properly for that, so that the chatbots can access your link. Also, make sure all the links are there, avoid having 404s and redirects, have a pure structure of the website, pure links, and make sure the link juice is going on.Even before, websites that used JavaScript were not rendered as much. A long time ago, using JavaScript, you could hide links and do spammy stuff. Later on, Googlebot developed a way to make sure your JavaScript is crawled properly, and Martin Splitt has talked about it many times.However, it is frustrating for developers who are used to using JavaScript in frameworks like React and Vue to create their websites, especially in SaaS businesses. Now, the way that the bots will render it is a bit different. It's going to be a bit difficult for developers and SEOs to find common ground in that.”

To commence our technical SEO discussion, Jono Alderson advises against settling for an average website.Jono says: “Stop accepting technical mediocrity.”What does mediocrity look like in the world of technical SEO?“We all know it, and we see it all the time. We have accepted that it's normal for websites to be rubbish.Whether they're the ones we work on, our clients’, or the ones we browse, things are slow, we hit 404 errors, there's a bunch of JavaScript loading so that when you click the thing, it doesn't respond quickly, stuff doesn't quite show on screen properly, the font's too small, things are ugly, it takes four minutes for something to add to the cart, and then the cart was empty all along.Somehow, we're all okay with this. It's so normal for all of these interactions to be this bad that we just get on with it – and, for the most part, Google has coped with that and made the most of the web being janky, broken, and poorly built.However, as we enter the age of AI, the rules change slightly because those systems aren't as good at unpicking that mess. They’re simply not as incentivised to. When you look at their commercial, political, and product roadmaps, and the way they interact with websites, it's a very different machine. They are much less tolerant of faults, errors, omissions, and gaps – and they won't put in the same resources that Google has to wade through that.We all feel how janky the web is, and see it all the time, and we just kind of accept it. It's nice to take a step back and say, actually, this isn't good enough. It's not how it should be.”

In the previous tip, Eva Cheng shares the value of combining social and content with digital PR. Charlotte Crowther adds to that by also incorporating traditional PR.Charlotte says: “Don't ignore digital and brand PR. They are becoming really entwined with SEO, GEO, and LLMs.Ignoring branded digital PR is going to have a large impact on your visibility, particularly as we're seeing a move towards a zero-click world.”What are the differences between traditional, digital, and brand PR? Where are they blurring, and where do they remain separate?“Back when marketing first started, we thought of marketing as an entire piece, and traditional PR fed into that.With the rise of SEO, particularly in the early 2000s, there came a brand-new side of things, which was link building. That has since morphed into what many of us now know as digital PR. However, we've been seeing a blurring of the lines.We can no longer look at traditional PR (newspapers, radio, TV) and digital PR (online content) as two separate things because a brand is living and breathing. It should be the same message everywhere a consumer sees it.It's making sure that we're working together, making content work as hard as possible for that brand – but also, really importantly, staying true to that brand, true to the brand voice, and true to the brand values so that, no matter where a consumer sees you, everything aligns.”

Jeremy Moser discusses how to create a SERP monopoly with off-page SEO. Talking points include: How to crowd SERPs with your brand and capture more mindshare at the bottom of the funnel - Why leveraging paid off-page strategies can still work - Zero click searches are less common at MOFU and BOFU searches, your goal is going narrow and deep and capturing market-share at decision making stages - Topic Taker strategy is not just for traditional blue link SEO, it currently is the most impactful AEO lever you can pull and the window won't last forever...

Eva Cheng shares that aligning social and content strategies will boost your digital PR success.Eva says: “Make your digital PR work harder with social and content alignment.”What does digital PR look like in 2026?“Digital PR in 2026 is all about trying to get your work featured within AI searches.We’re now seeing that a lot of people are relying on AI for the simplest queries, like the best restaurants to go to, travel tips, and advice for something that is a lot simpler and easier than Google.Even with Google’s AI overviews, the main focus at the moment is trying to get that exposure, so that AI recognises it and pulls it through for your brand.”

One of the key reasons why you should be embracing digital PR in 2026 is that AI pays a keen ear to what the press is saying.James says: “You need to be earning press mentions if you want your brand to be recommended by AI-powered search.”Why do you suggest press mentions over other content online?“When I talk about AI-powered search, I'm talking about Google's AI overviews and AI Mode, but also the AI chatbots like ChatGPT and those sorts of platforms.They disproportionately pull their sources from trusted and authoritative sources: third-party mentions on the web. It just so happens that a large percentage of those are what we would class as press publications.It's all rooted in the idea that you can't be recommended as the best if you're the only person who's saying it. When AI-powered platforms are making summaries and recommendations, they're pulling from a multitude of sources, almost for validation that you should be recommended. One of the most effective ways to do that is to get mentioned in the right way in press publications.”

Annabelle Sacher shares that digital PR is one of the most powerful keys you can use to unlock the door to AI search visibility in 2026.Annabelle says: “As we move into 2026, it's clear that AI search strategy needs to become a core focus for us as SEOs.We know that the search landscape is evolving really, really fast. While, currently, AI only makes up a small percentage of the search landscape, it's growing – and it's growing quickly. One of the biggest unlocks/most powerful levers in this new era is digital PR (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a little biased).While general industry consensus suggests that platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Wikipedia are the most heavily cited by AI systems (which is not untrue), what my peers and I are increasingly noticing across the industry is that features in high-quality, topic-relevant, authoritative publications are having a significant impact on AI-driven search visibility.I'm noticing a really clear trend through my work with clients: AI systems are prioritising credible and relevant media placements, and those are being served more and more frequently in AI-generated responses. This is a really big opportunity for brands to tackle the new world of AI search.If you want to future-proof your SEO strategy, it's key that you invest in digital PR that earns mentions and backlinks from trusted voices in your niche. It's not only going to build more broad brand authority, but position your content, brand, and products to be surfaced by AI – which might very well become the dominant mode of search.”