SEO in 2026

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 wel...

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 eve...

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...

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 wron...

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...

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 revenu...

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 tr...

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 s...

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 top...

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 worthw...

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 relea...

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...

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 reac...

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 revie...

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 traf...

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 go...

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, fro...

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...

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 br...

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...

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 p...

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...

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 t...

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 ev...

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 pla...