SEO in 2026

Greg Heilers emphasises the importance of not letting newer tactics direct your existing good SEO practices. Greg says: “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t throw out all of your SEO best practices just because we're in the hype cycle of GEO.” How do we know which SEO practices to throw out and which ones to keep? “Right now, we're simply adding on and not throwing out. We are worki...

Anthony Barone understands the importance and impact of AI, but tempers that with the essential nature of fundamental SEO principles. Anthony says: “AI/GEO/LLMEO is all the rage, but core fundamental SEO principles still apply.” What's distracting SEOs at the moment, that isn't worth spending time on? “A lot of SEOs are just jumping on the bandwagon, which I get. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Manus...

CJ Emson shares that brand is back and it’s bigger than before. If your branded search footprint isn’t strong, you’re going to lose out in AIO and as we see continually seeing and hearing - traditional organic search traffic is down, zero click search is up. The remedy to this is branded search. From there you can determine if your Demand gen engine is really only a demand capture engine…and remed...

Nitin Manchanda agrees with Simon Cox, encouraging SEOs to concentrate on timeless activities. Nitin says: “Don't get lost in buzzwords and stay focussed on the fundamentals.” What buzzwords do people get lost in? “A lot of them. People talk about AI-first indexing, zero-click optimization, voice search dominance, entity-first strategies, and much more. Now, they're also talking about AEO, GEO, an...

Simon Cox sides with Bill Hartzer, sharing that there are plenty of activities that SEOs could be doing without focussing on AI. Simon says: “The web was a revolution. Everything since has been evolution, and it's been fast-paced. The smartest strategy is to focus on what hasn't changed.” What hasn't changed? “There are a lot of things that haven't changed. What I'm really talking about are the co...

Bill Hartzer is a strong advocate for traditional SEO best practices as the bedrock to your future SEO success, no matter the technology or platform. Bill says: “My number one tip has really not changed for the past few years: follow classic, traditional SEO best practices for creating content and optimizing pages and websites. With some search engines, you can get away with 150 words of content a...

According to Gordon Meagher, the foundations of AI ranking success lie in traditional marketing activities. Gordon says: “It's time to put your old school digital marketing hat on, as we move forward in this new age.” What does that mean in practice? “We know that search behaviour is changing. ChatGPT, and LLMs in general, have basically given birth to a new way of searching that we never knew bef...

Daphne Monro shares the importance of prioritising video-led, verifiable content in 2026. Talking points include: What do you mean by video-led content? Why publish video-led content? Why priorise video-led content? What video content works best? What do you mean by verifiable content? How do you verify content? How do you measure success?

Olga Zarr says that AI SEO success isn’t achieved by focussing on what AI is doing. Instead, good, traditional SEO can deliver in an AI-driven era. Olga says: “AI SEO still runs on SEO. Although SEO has practically turned into AI SEO, and no one thinks about SEO without thinking about AI these days, AI SEO is still based on good SEO.” Does existing best practice SEO assist with AI SEO? “Yes, gener...

Nikki Halliwell shares the VISIBLE Framework to improve LLM and AIO Visibility. Talking points include: What led to the creation of the framework What are the principles of the framework What is the framework? How can SEOs use it?

Victoria Olsina shares that AI can and should be used to automate your processes, ensuring that key tasks are delivered as efficiently as possible. Victoria says: “Define an SEO process and then automate it with custom GPTs or no-code tools like Make.com.” How do you determine the processes to focus on? “Every person who does SEO and has done on-page optimization or an SEO audit 50, 100, or 500 ti...

For Giulia Panozzo, SEOs don’t have to compete with AI – rather, AI should be an effective working partner. Giulia says: “Turn AI into your partner, not your problem.” How do you do that? “The industry as a whole has been panicking a little, ever since the AI revolution started taking over. There's been quite a lot of conversation about AI taking over our jobs and replacing us. I don't think we're...

Carla Dobson Elliott shares how to have fun with content formats in 2026. Talking points include: - How to write different content formats - How to produce various content formats - Why and how we should profile audiences by curiosity and not demographic - What to include in content - How to measure the success of content

With all of your competitors using AI in some form, how do you stand out from the crowd? For Rana Abu Quba Chamsi, increasing productivity is key. Rana says: “Increase productivity using AI – not only in SEO, but beyond.” How do you decide what you should and shouldn’t use AI for? “You should look at AI like it’s a real assistant. AI should handle preparing the data, summarising the data, and find...

With the advancement of AI, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with new developments – and for that, Sante Achille believes that it’s essential to revisit learning to learn. Sante says: “Learn how to learn, and use AI to enhance your ability to learn.” Has the way that we learn how to learn changed in the era of AI? “Not yet, but it is going to. The winners are going to be the people who can master...

Just because you’ve tidied up the content on your website to cater for the needs of AI, that doesn’t mean that your job is done! Rose says: “Your website casts an AI shadow: a distilled version of your content that AI search systems present to users. It's often this shadow, not your site, that people now meet first. It might look like a two-sentence summary, a list of bullet points, or an AI-curat...

In the past, it didn’t matter so much if old, less relevant content existed on your website and elsewhere. Dani Leitner shares that this isn’t the case anymore. Dani says: “My tip is a really easy one: Clean up your online presence because AI sees everything.”

Kristina Bergwall discusses the importance of translating SEO into a language of tangible business impact in the future AI search landscape, and using that narrative to align all teams such as social, PR, and brand to work together, is what's going to make you win at SEO in 2026. Talking points include: How do you identify the areas of SEO that are likely to result in tangible business impact? Wha...

Damien Robert explains the need to move beyond traditional web content, achieved by making content modular, leading with irrefutable evidence. In addition, he recommends managing all assets from a single source of truth to please both humans and AI consumption. Damien says: “Re-order your content to future-proof your search dominance.”

Mark Williams-Cook explains that you also need to consider the type of search that you’re attempting to optimize for, and the way that AI engines deal with different types of searches. Mark says: “Everyone should be determining whether their AI searches need grounding or not.”

Jason Barnard shares that you can’t look at LLMs alone as the standalone way to determine whether or not your AI optimization has been a success. Jason says: “I'm going to explain how any marketer can optimize for AI-assistive engines. People call it generative engine optimization; I call it AI-assistive engine optimization. Whichever name you use, the principle to SEO in the AI era is very simple...

Garrett Sussman shares that, even though there is great opportunity in being included in AI search results, results aren’t guaranteed. Garrett says: “Treat AI search as probabilistic, not predictable. Build content strategies rooted in deep audience understanding, because what shows up in search results depends on who's searching and how they search.”

Katie New shares the importance of tracking metrics that actually matter to you in 2026 (not just the default ones that you're used to asking for!) Talking points include: What are the default metrics? How do you determine the metrics that matter to you? How do you know that these are the best metrics to track? How do you know the best way to go about tracking them? How often should you review you...

Nik Ranger shares that you shouldn’t necessarily conclude that ranking on Google means ranking well on AI search engines. Nik says: “Stop thinking just about ranking on Google and start focussing on a new discipline: AI visibility engineering. This is where you can systematically probe AI models to measure brand associations, quantify perception, and then use those insights to engineer on-page, of...

When we consider the fact that AI agents are starting to visit our sites, with a view to making purchase decisions or recommendations, and other AI engines are regurgitating our content, we have to ensure that they understand the essence of what we provide. Chris says: “Technical success for SEO in 2026 requires us to understand the interpretability of content rather than just the crawlability.”