It’s an exciting time for SEO. We’ve seen a seismic shift in the very way people search online, which necessarily is changing how marketers optimize for visibility—in fact, how we even think about what constitutes effective SEO best practices. The core fundamentals of search engine optimization are absolutely still relevant. But as AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini have become increasingly mainstream, SEO strategies have needed to adapt in order for brands to stay visible, competitive, and relevant. After a rapidly evolving past year, this “State of SEO” is my take on the shift in search and practical strategies and tactics to improve your visibility.

What We Mean by AI SEO

When we talk about AI search, we’re referring largely to the integration of large language models—AI systems trained on vast amounts of data to understand, generate, and synthesize human-like language. These models don’t just fetch relevant pages based on keywords; they interpret complex queries, pull information from multiple sources, and generate coherent, often conversational, responses.

• Claude, GPT-4o/5.2, Gemini, and Grok are actual LLMs.
• Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Gemini are products/user interfaces that use LLMs but are not LLMs themselves.

In my experience, each interface seems to have its own nuanced strengths—Claude seems best for certain types of writing, Gemini for objective research, for example. Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Gemini offer a deep research mode (some at the paid tier). Both Perplexity and ChatGPT also offer the ability to select from multiple platforms on their paid subscription levels, as of March 2026.

AI Search Implications

1. Consumers are developing a whole new way of finding information

All of these AI-driven platforms are rapidly becoming part of consumers’ daily information habits. As users grow accustomed to querying AI directly for very specific answers—rather than scanning a list of blue links to websites—the very structure of search behavior, and by extension, SEO is changing.

Whereas two years ago, people might type 1-4 words into Google, we’re getting increasingly used to typing in exactly what we want to know.

For example, here’s a search I recently did using Perplexity:
“what are 3 good options for tested varieties of flowers that grow easily, bloom all summer, and in particular are good as cut flowers. These would be planted in zone 5 in an area with 6-8 hours of sun a day”

Fun! For this particular search, it was especially rewarding to see that two out of the three suggestions were our client’s plants (AAS Winners)!

2. LLMs compete with Google’s semantic models

The shift beyond focusing on a single keyword per page began with the Google core-algorithm overhaul known as Hummingbird in 2013, which affected roughly 90% of searches at the time according to Google. It made user intent and context paramount rather than keyword matching. And it made long-tail and conversational queries work much better. Since then, Google has gotten better and better at understanding context.

SEO practitioners who have already embraced the philosophy that search values meaning, context, and user intent are finding the new AI-model era less of a conceptual leap; it’s a progression along the same trajectory. That said, the AI model search era has necessitated changes in specific tactics in specific tactics. Massive expansion of Q&A answer-style content to surface in Google’s AI Overviews and AI-powered answer engines has been a new priority for SEOs at the forefront of the field over the past year, for example. This “Generative Engine Optimization,” sometimes called “Generative Experience Optimization” or GEO, will only become more commonplace.

3. Organic traffic is lower but can be more valuable

Direct traffic from traditional SERPs has typically declined as AI systems provide answers without requiring users to click through to a source website. This “zero-click search” dynamic has been accelerated by AI-generated answers.

On the other hand, this presents an opportunity: content that AI models trust and cite is more valuable than ever. If your content is authoritative, well-structured, and deeply relevant, AI search engines are more likely to draw from it, increasing your visibility even if the mechanism of discovery is different from classic SEO.

SEO expert Lily Ray has noted that while AI will change how traffic is distributed, it doesn’t eliminate the need for SEO. Instead, it “raises the bar for quality, depth, and expertise.” Similarly, Eli Schwartz emphasizes that visibility in AI-powered search will hinge more on building topic authority than on tactical keyword placement alone. (Visit Eli’s productledseo.com Substack.)

We’re in a new era—not just a different ranking algorithm but a different user behavior model where satisfying nuanced intent and earning trust signals becomes key.

4. Traditional SEO Strategies and Tactics Are Still Critical

The fundamentals of good SEO remain critical because good Domain Authority matters even more ever. Accurate, credible, and clearly written content deserves to surface and be visible. You still want to aim to have the best content on the internet for the topic you’re trying to be visible for. And keyword research is still important for understanding what people care about related to your products and services.

AI-driven search activities have shifted, however, and how we evaluate SEO success needs to expand beyond simply tracking traffic.

SEO Strategies in the Age of AI Search

Optimize Both Focused and Contextual Keywords

Keyword targeting remains important, but AI models understand topics and context far better than traditional search engines. It’s therefore even more important to optimize for both individual keywords as well as intentionally incorporating semantic (related) keywords as well.

For example, in the article “10 Biblical Purposes for Fasting” for our client New International Version, there are 3,090 keywords driving organic traffic to the page even though the focused keyword is “purpose of fasting.” Those 3,090 keywords include searches for “fasting,” “fasting and prayer,” “what does the bible say about fasting,” “scriptures on fasting” and many others that have both high average monthly search volume and for which the article ranks on page 1 of Google.

In addition, this article shows up as the top citation in Google’s AI Overview for “purpose of fasting” and in fact, it appears for 143 different SERP Features, not just the AI Overview. SERP Features give instant answers to people’s queries and help brands take up more real estate in search results.

Build Content Hubs

Rather than focusing narrowly on a single primary keyword, marketers should think in terms of broader topical authority. Building content hubs of related pages and posts with related content reinforces topical authority, strengthens relevance, and makes pages even more likely to be cited or referenced in AI responses.

Use H1, H2, H3 Headlines for Clear Structure and Topic Depth

Strong H1s should capture real user intent and signal relevance clearly. Supporting subheadings (H2s, H3s) should naturally incorporate variations and related concepts, as has always been an SEO best practice. Clear headline structure helps readers, traditional search engines, and AI models more easily understand the structure and depth of your content. It also improves the likelihood that content snippets will be pulled into AI-generated answers (assuming your site has appropriate Page/Domain Authority).

Write Keyword-Rich, Human-Friendly Content

Keyword placement in headers, copy, and metadata remains a best practice, but the emphasis should also consider completeness, clarity, and depth. AI models seek out content that fully satisfies user queries—not just pages that mention keywords frequently.

For AI SEO, you want to be intentional about incorporating structured, easy-to-navigate content such as FAQs, bullet points, tables, and natural-sounding language. Focus on answering real questions comprehensively and conversationally. Models favor the clearest, most semantically rich explanations over those that repeat keywords the most often.

Create Relevant New Content

Newer, higher-ranking content is more likely to be visible. New content signals that a website is active and current, something which both traditional search and AI models recognize. Even if a page is indexed, it may stop being retrieved or referenced if it is deemed no longer accurate or relevant. Adding new content to your site not only tends to build authority overall, it gives you more opportunities to rank and be cited.

Write Compelling Title and Meta Descriptions

Titles and meta descriptions matter for organizing and communicating page relevance. However, AI-generated answers often pull content from the body text rather than relying solely on these traditional elements. SEOs should continue optimizing titles and meta descriptions. But shift slightly from rigid keyword formulas to writing clear, compelling mini-promises that accurately represent the page content.

In actuality, Google often rewrites meta descriptions to match what is typed into search. The description you see in results picks up on the search query, but it’s still to your advantage to write a strong meta description, particularly for AI searches.

Outbound Links Signal Accuracy and Expertise

Linking will always be important for SEO. There are links coming into your site (backlinks) and links going out from your content. Internal linking is one of the easiest ways to build links to your content by using your own site pages to link “out” to other pages on the same site. This helps search engines and AI models crawl and understand the full scope of your content and supports your content hub. As always, you use anchor text (the words you link from)  that reflect semantic phrases related to the main topic of the page rather than generic text like “click here.”

Outbound links to external sources are a way to send meaningful trust signals. It may seem counterintuitive to send people away from your site, but when you link to credible, authoritative (high domain) sources, you’re signaling to search engines that your content is grounded. AI models, in particular, favor content that demonstrates accuracy and source awareness.

Backlinks Still Fundamental for Domain Authority

Backlinks continue to play a vital role in establishing a site’s authority. Earning mentions and references across high-authority external domains is still important. It signals that your content is important and accurate because other pages on the web are linking to it. Topical depth and presence across the web matter just as much as classic backlink-building strategies, especially for content-rich, informational sites. These increase naturally as a site gains authority and produces consistent, solid content.

That said, proactive backlink outreach to secure links from high authority sites is always worthwhile. Backlinks help train models to recognize a site or brand as a trustworthy information source as it weighs overall credibility and topical relevance. Quality still matters over backlink quantity. A relevant link from a high-authority site is gold.

Schema Markup Assists Content Visibility

The need for fast, accessible, well-structured websites remains unchanged. A technically optimized site helps both search engine crawlers and AI models index, interpret, and surface content accurately. Structure helps models understand your content and when to make it more visible. Even if indexed, a page may be skipped if it’s not clear what it contains.

What’s interesting about schema in the new AI search age, and why schema still matters despite LLMs billions of parameters:

• Schema.org has over 1,400 structured data types. This covers everything from articles, products, and recipes to events, FAQs, and how-tos. When you implement schema markup (particularly via JSON-LD, which Google strongly recommends), you’re providing machine-readable signals that explicitly tell search engines and AI models what your content is about, who created it, and what relationships it has to other entities. Google’s Knowledge Graph, rich results, and AI Overviews all draw heavily on schema-structured data.

• GPT-4 has approximately 100 BILLION parameters. This gives it remarkable capacity to infer context and meaning from unstructured text. It can often “figure out” what a page is about even without schema. But inference is not the same as certainty.

Practically speaking, schema markup acts as clear, authoritative instruction that reduces ambiguity for both traditional crawlers and AI models. It’s the difference between a model guessing that your event page is an event, versus you telling it definitively. Schema also unlocks eligibility for rich results in Google search, which can dramatically improve click-through rates.

In an era where AI models are processing vast amounts of content at scale, the pages that communicate their structure and intent most clearly are the ones most likely to be surfaced and cited. Schema markup remains one of the highest-leverage technical SEO investments you can make.

Multi-Channel Marketing Builds the Trust Signals AI Models Reward

LLMs learn from the entire web. So a fully integrated multi-channel marketing program is more important than ever both from a practical, as well as SEO, standpoint. Every piece of information on your topic/brand contributes to helping models associate your brand with the information you want to be visible for.

• Reddit and Social Communities: Customers often look for “unfiltered” advice so seed discussions on high-level subreddits or LinkedIn Groups. AI models look to high-ranking indexable channels like Reddit, Github, and LinkedIn.

• Video-to-Answer Conversion: Transcribe your relevant videos. Host them on your site with VideoObject Schema so AI models can read and cite the content.

• Email: Google Workspace’s smart features, which are enabled by default for most users, allow Google’s AI to analyze email and other Workspace content such as Gmail, Drive, Docs, and Meet to power personalization features. This means that email content from senders whose recipients have smart features enabled may be processed by Google’s AI systems. This is distinct from training the core Gemini model (Google states it does not use Workspace content to train Gemini without explicit permission), but it does mean your email copy can influence AI-powered personalization and content associations within Google’s ecosystem. Well-written, on-brand email copy contributes to how Google’s AI understands your brand, services, and products.

• iOS Spotlight Search: Apple’s Spotlight Search—accessed by either swiping down from the middle of the iPhone screen or tapping the Search button above the bottom row of the Home screen—is a universal search that accesses across your device and the web. Users can control which apps Spotlight is allowed to index, but it can query the web directly, bypassing Google entirely for a large share of mobile searches. With iOS 18, Apple significantly enhanced Spotlight with semantic, natural-language search capabilities powered by on-device machine learning models. This means users can now search in their own natural language. For SEO purposes, Spotlight pulls web results and rich data much like Google does, meaning that strong technical SEO, schema markup, and authoritative content all contribute to appearing in Spotlight results.

These are just some examples of digital content—and it’s a reminder of the importance of having a well-thought through brand strategy, consistent key messaging, tone, and a visual identity that connects and inspires! All communications are leveraged at every touchpoint with your audience, and SEO success is a reflection of its coherence and excellence all the way through to conversion.

A Site’s Purpose Directs Its Best AI SEO Opportunities

While the above shifts apply broadly, informational sites and product-driven ecommerce sites may feel the impact of AI-powered search somewhat differently.

• Informational websites (e.g., blogs, news, education) can see more opportunities to be directly cited in AI answers—provided their content is deep, authoritative, and well-organized.

• Ecommerce sites may need to double down on structured product data, technical SEO, and building brand trust to ensure their offerings are surfaced in AI-driven shopping recommendations and vertical searches.

Understanding your site’s primary purpose helps tailor your AI-era SEO approach even more effectively.

Is SEO Dead? (No.)

With every major technology shift, the same question echoes across the marketing world: Is SEO dead?

SEO is not dead. Search is thriving. It just looks different and is happening in more ways and places. There will always be a need for brands to be visible to the audiences that value who they are and what they do.

What’s dying is the overly tactical, short-term view of SEO focused solely on manipulating rankings through checklists and tricks. What’s thriving is a more strategic, user-first, quality-driven SEO—one that mirrors the sophistication of how AI models find and surface valuable content.

It’s not about abandoning proven practices; it’s about adjusting focus to align with how AI models surface and synthesize content.

The future of SEO belongs to brands and marketers who:

• Prioritize real expertise and helpfulness over shallow keyword stuffing
• Build trust and topical authority using proven SEO best practices
• Create clear, complete, structured content that AI systems and humans alike find useful
• For ecommerce, proactively provide rich product meta data with detailed attributes as consumers increasingly use detailed product searches.
• Remember that SEO is just part of the customer journey; well designed websites ensure conversions once visitors arrive.
• Stay agile and keep learning as search technology continues to evolve

Take Charge

Optimizing for today’s search environment means serving both traditional crawlers and sophisticated LLMs with clean code, strong internal linking, structured schema markup, excellent page performance, and content that clearly communicates nuanced details at a level AI can understand and trust. Success comes by continuing on with the fundamentals and serving the informational needs of users, wherever and however they seek answers.

Marketers who embrace this new era—those who refine their core SEO practices—will thrive. In the AI-search model world, the reward is visibility to a more precisely targeted audience of highly motivated consumers who are looking for exactly what you offer.

By Joan Begitschke, Chief Brand and Marketing Strategist at Verve Marketing Group. Follow Joan on LinkedIn.