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Specifically CMOs and those accountable for a company's marketing success. AI-generated answers look like a direct danger to the traditional natural traffic sites used to get from search engines. Before, you had to click on a site to see the results. Today, LLMs simply rip the content on sites and people no longer need to check out a site any longer.
While I personally think this hazard is blown entirely out of proportion (based upon data from websites I have actually personally seen), I do not believe it's a reason to disregard it totally. From my own experience growing both blog sites and YouTube channels, specifically to sell something, I can tell you that video converts way more than composed material.
It's a lot simpler to inform if somebody is lying or full of it if you can see their facial expressions and their tone of voice. YouTube should certainly be in your SEO and material strategy.
And since you have constructed the trust with video, your conventional SEO efforts will convert better. There's even more to it. Previously this year, I had an inkling that if I turned some of my best ranking post into YouTube videos, and embedded them into my existing post, my blog posts would rank even much better.
Technical SEO Audits for Enormous RoiI utilized rank in between 2-3 for the keyword "AI marketing tools." I made a YouTube video about the subject, embedded it into that article, and I've been ranking # 1 because. In 2026, think of YouTube videos as a method to beef up your SEO blog posts to rank even better.
Keep concentrating on Google, which still owns 90% of search market share. Invest in AI search experiments if you have budget, however don't abandon what's actually driving traffic and conversions today. In 2025, we saw everyone talking about how AI search was going to take control of Google. Beyond just SEO, the marketing neighborhood as an entire begun to get bombarded with influencers attempting to ride the AI buzz train.
It ended up being difficult to find relied on sources that weren't prejudiced or had a hidden agenda to sell us something. While I do think there are advantages to using LLMs in our workflows, I do think it has been overhyped. And in 2026, I predict lots of marketers will realize that ChatGPT and Perplexity are just a little part of the SEO market.
Technical SEO Audits for Enormous RoiGoogle still dominates 90% market share and with its AI Mode and AI Overviews, it's in the perfect position to win the AI search engine race. Search habits hasn't fundamentally moved away from Google. Beyond simply that, there are a few things that have actually rubbed me the wrong way about the AI SEO trend.
What these marketers do not recognize is that Things like homepages, pricing pages, or bottom of funnel content, tends to be revealed in ChatGPT. The educational top of funnel content is "eaten up" by LLMs and shown to users without anywhere to click.
If you were to take that same principle over to Google, you would see the very same conversion rates. Google's conversion rates reveal less since the traffic is higher due to it being diluted by all the top of funnel material that is in the formula. Other things like how ChatGPT can make things up, it never ever totally follows prompts correctly (i.e.
I do still think that bigger business will reserve a speculative budget plan to evaluate things like ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools. In 2026, I anticipate people will realize enhancing for Google will permit them to reveal up in ChatGPT and Perplexity. Simply take a look at ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity's Comet internet browsers.
These strategies may work now in ChatGPT and other LLMs, but they're short-term plays that will eventually get penalized. Focus on white hat techniques that build real authority and trust over time rather of chasing fast wins that won't last.
But now, the algorithm is mature enough to overlook all that nonsense. Nevertheless, ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as mature yet. I can't call this individual, however I met an SEO director at a substantial banking company. This individual informed me they (and all their rivals) are creating microsites (like small blog sites) on different domains.
And from there, they are using their main business domain, that has an incredibly strong brand name authority, and sending backlinks to the microsite. And this has resulted in greater rankings for their brand in LLMs like ChatGPT.It blew my mind that substantial, trustworthy companies are doing this. And I realized just how much black hat (or grey hat) strategies are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I forecast these strategies will continue to take place. Up until ChatGPT's algorithm gets as smart as Google's search algorithm. That appears like a long time from now. Anyways, I personally would not recommend engaging in this. It's short term thinking and your energy is finest invested in white hat marketing techniques that can stand the test of time and improve your sites trust signals with time.
Share genuine insights, use your own images and videos, and build topical authority in your specific niche. This is how solo developers and small groups can beat huge brand names in 2026. This is one of the most significant SEO trends for material marketing I'm seeing right now.
You require a real business, be it a newsletter service, a service-based service, SaaS business, or ecommerce shop. And then you include on this human-centered specific niche blogging to the website to naturally grow your core product/service offering. In 2026, I forecast that Google's algorithm will continue to get smarter about which websites consist of AI content and which do not.
I know tons of individuals silently squashing it with AI created material (even going after top of funnel keywords). What I am stating is that engaging, human content will outrank AI produced material with no original insights. There are two paths I see with SEO's right now: Produce thousands of AI-generated article and get them to rank in the middle/bottom of page 1.
Produce a hundred human post and get them to rank at the top of the first page. Quality over quantity. The first route is based on sheer volume, and can cause traffic growth. You do risk a possible algorithm update injuring your rankings. And anyone who writes better human material will rank higher in positions 1-3. The second path is slower, but can yield higher ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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