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Specifically CMOs and those accountable for a company's marketing success. AI-generated responses appear like a direct hazard to the traditional organic traffic websites used to get from search engines. Before, you needed to click on a website to see the outcomes. Today, LLMs just rip the material on websites and people no longer require to go to a website any longer.
While I personally believe this hazard is blown entirely out of percentage (based upon data from websites I've personally seen), I do not believe it's a reason to ignore it entirely. From my own experience growing both blog sites and YouTube channels, specifically to offer something, I can inform you that video converts way more than composed content.
And the viewer can detect more subtleties in your message. It's a lot easier to tell if somebody is lying or filled with it if you can see their facial expressions and their tone of voice. So YouTube should absolutely be in your SEO and material technique. Use video as demand generation and a method to build trust with an audience.
And because you have constructed the trust with video, your conventional SEO efforts will transform better. There's even more to it. Earlier this year, I had an inkling that if I turned a few of my finest ranking article into YouTube videos, and embedded them into my existing post, my post would rank even much better.
I used rank between 2-3 for the keyword "AI marketing tools." I made a YouTube video about the subject, embedded it into that post, and I've been ranking # 1 since. In 2026, think of YouTube videos as a way to beef up your SEO blog posts to rank even much better.
Keep focusing on Google, which still owns 90% of search market share. Invest in AI search experiments if you have budget plan, but do not abandon what's really driving traffic and conversions today. In 2025, we saw everyone speaking about how AI search was going to take over Google. Beyond simply SEO, the marketing community as an entire started to get bombarded with influencers attempting to ride the AI buzz train.
It became difficult to find relied on sources that weren't biased or had a prejudice to sell us something. While I do think there are benefits to utilizing LLMs in our workflows, I do think it has been overhyped. And in 2026, I forecast lots of online marketers will realize that ChatGPT and Perplexity are simply a little part of the SEO market.
Optimizing Crawl Spending Plan for Expansive OK SitesGoogle still dominates 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 fundamentally shifted away from Google. Beyond just that, there are a couple of things that have rubbed me the wrong method about the AI SEO pattern.
Some claim ChatGPT has a 16% discussion rate and is better by more than 2X compared to Google. What these online marketers don't realize is that Things like homepages, pricing pages, or bottom of funnel material, tends to be revealed in ChatGPT. The informational top of funnel content is "consumed up" by LLMs and revealed to users without anywhere to click.
If you were to take that very 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 remains in the formula. Other things like how ChatGPT can make stuff up, it never fully follows triggers correctly (i.e.
I do still believe that bigger companies will set aside an experimental budget to evaluate things like ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools. However in 2026, I forecast people will recognize optimizing for Google will allow them to reveal up in ChatGPT and Perplexity also. Simply take a look at ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity's Comet internet browsers.
These methods might work now in ChatGPT and other LLMs, however they're short-term plays that will eventually get penalized. Focus on white hat strategies that develop real authority and trust over time rather of chasing quick wins that won't last.
ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as fully grown. I can't name this individual, but I fulfilled an SEO director at a big banking company.
And from there, they are utilizing their main company domain, that has an incredibly strong brand name authority, and sending backlinks to the microsite. And this has led to higher rankings for their brand name in LLMs like ChatGPT.It blew my mind that substantial, reliable business are doing this. And I recognized just how much black hat (or grey hat) strategies are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I forecast these strategies will continue to occur. 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 suggest taking part in this. It's brief term thinking and your energy is best spent on white hat marketing methods that can stand the test of time and enhance your sites trust signals in time.
Focus on quality over quantity. Share genuine insights, utilize your own images and videos, and build topical authority in your niche. This is how solo creators and little groups can beat huge brand names in 2026. Niche blogging is back infant. With a twist. This is one of the most significant SEO trends for content marketing I'm seeing right now.
You require a genuine business, be it a newsletter company, a service-based organization, SaaS business, or ecommerce shop. And then you include on this human-centered specific niche blogging to the site to naturally grow your core product/service offering. In 2026, I predict that Google's algorithm will continue to get smarter about which web pages include AI content and which don't.
In truth, I know lots of people quietly crushing it with AI generated content (even going after top of funnel keywords). What I am saying is that engaging, human material will outrank AI created material with no original insights. There are 2 routes 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 blog site posts and get them to rank at the top of the very first page. And anyone who composes much better human material will rank higher in positions 1-3. The second route is slower, however can yield higher ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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