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Particularly CMOs and those accountable for a business's marketing success. AI-generated answers look like a direct danger to the standard natural traffic websites used to receive from online search engine. Before, you needed to click a site to see the outcomes. Today, LLMs just rip the material on websites and people no longer need to go to a website anymore.
While I personally think this hazard is blown entirely out of percentage (based on information from websites I have actually personally seen), I do not believe it's a reason to overlook it entirely. From my own experience growing both blog sites and YouTube channels, particularly to offer something, I can tell you that video converts way more than composed material.
And the audience can pick up on more subtleties in your message. It's a lot simpler to tell if someone is lying or filled with it if you can see their facial expressions and their tone of voice. So YouTube ought to definitely be in your SEO and material technique. Usage video as need generation and a way to develop trust with an audience.
And due to the fact that you have developed the trust with video, your conventional SEO efforts will transform much better. However there's even more to it. Previously this year, I had a hunch that if I turned a few of my best ranking post into YouTube videos, and embedded them into my existing post, my post would rank even better.
I utilized rank between 2-3 for the keyword "AI marketing tools." I made a YouTube video about the topic, embedded it into that article, and I've been ranking # 1 because. So in 2026, consider YouTube videos as a way to boost your SEO article to rank even better.
In 2025, we saw everyone talking about how AI search was going to take over 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 discover trusted sources that weren't biased or had a hidden agenda to offer us something. While I do think there are advantages to utilizing LLMs in our workflows, I do think it has been overhyped. And in 2026, I anticipate many online marketers will realize that ChatGPT and Perplexity are just a little part of the SEO market.
How 2026 Search Updates Influence Your SEOGoogle still controls 90% market share and with its AI Mode and AI Overviews, it remains in the best position to win the AI search engine race. Search behavior hasn't basically shifted far from Google. Beyond just that, there are a few things that have rubbed me the incorrect way about the AI SEO trend.
What these marketers don't understand is that Things like homepages, pricing pages, or bottom of funnel content, tends to be revealed in ChatGPT. The informative top of funnel content is "consumed up" by LLMs and revealed to users without anywhere to click.
Google's conversion rates show less because the traffic is greater due to it being diluted by all the top of funnel content that is in the equation. Other things like how ChatGPT can make things up, it never totally follows prompts properly (i.e.
I do still believe that think companies will set aside an experimental budget to test things evaluate ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools.
Don't do it. These tactics 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 with time rather of going after fast wins that will not last. The 2000s are back. Scammy keyword stuffing strategies, paying for low-quality backlinks, delivering thousands of useless short articles all in the name of ranking high.
And now, the algorithm is fully grown enough to overlook all that rubbish. However, ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as mature yet. I can't name this individual, however I satisfied an SEO director at a huge banking company. This individual told me they (and all their competitors) are producing microsites (like small blogs) on various domains.
And from there, they are utilizing their main business domain, that has an extremely strong brand authority, and sending out backlinks to the microsite. And this has actually led to greater rankings for their brand name in LLMs like ChatGPT.It blew my mind that huge, respectable business are doing this. And I understood just how much black hat (or grey hat) tactics are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I forecast these tactics will continue to happen. Until ChatGPT's algorithm gets as wise as Google's search algorithm. That seems like a long time from now. Anyways, I personally would not recommend participating in this. It's short term thinking and your energy is finest spent on white hat marketing techniques that can stand the test of time and enhance your sites trust signals in time.
Share real insights, utilize your own images and videos, and build topical authority in your specific niche. This is how solo creators and small teams can beat big brands in 2026. This is one of the biggest SEO trends for material marketing I'm seeing right now.
You need a genuine service, be it a newsletter business, a service-based service, SaaS business, or ecommerce shop. And then you add on this human-centered specific niche blogging to the site to organically grow your core product/service offering. In 2026, I anticipate that Google's algorithm will continue to get smarter about which websites include AI material and which don't.
I understand heaps of people quietly crushing it with AI created content (even going after top of funnel keywords). What I am stating is that engaging, human material will outrank AI generated material with no initial insights. There are two paths I see with SEO's right now: Produce thousands of AI-generated blog posts and get them to rank in the middle/bottom of page 1.
Produce a hundred human article and get them to rank at the top of the very first page. Quality over quantity. The very first route is based upon sheer volume, and can result in traffic development. You do run the risk of a potential algorithm upgrade injuring your rankings. And anybody who writes much better human material will rank greater in positions 1-3. The second path is slower, but can yield higher ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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