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Specifically CMOs and those responsible for a company's marketing success. AI-generated answers appear like a direct danger to the standard natural traffic sites utilized to obtain from online search engine. Before, you needed to click a site to see the results. Today, LLMs simply rip the material on sites and people no longer require to visit a site anymore.
While I personally think this threat is blown totally out of percentage (based upon data from websites I've personally seen), I don't think it's a reason to ignore it totally. From my own experience growing both blogs and YouTube channels, particularly to sell something, I can inform you that video converts way more than written material.
And the viewer can detect more subtleties in your message. It's a lot simpler to inform if somebody is lying or complete of it if you can see their facial expressions and their tone of voice. YouTube must absolutely be in your SEO and material method. Usage video as demand generation and a way to build trust with an audience.
And because you have developed the trust with video, your standard SEO efforts will transform better. However there's even more to it. Earlier this year, I had an inkling that if I turned some of my finest ranking article into YouTube videos, and embedded them into my existing article, my blog posts would rank even better.
Leveraging AI to Outperform Competitors in DenverI made a YouTube video about the topic, embedded it into that blog site post, and I have actually been ranking # 1 considering that.
Keep concentrating on Google, which still owns 90% of search market share. Buy AI search experiments if you have budget, however do not desert what's really driving traffic and conversions today. In 2025, we saw everybody discussing how AI search was going to take over Google. Beyond just SEO, the marketing neighborhood as a whole started to get bombarded with influencers attempting to ride the AI buzz train.
It ended up being tough to find relied on sources that weren't biased or had a surprise agenda to sell us something. While I do believe there are benefits to using LLMs in our workflows, I do think it has been overhyped. And in 2026, I anticipate numerous online marketers will realize that ChatGPT and Perplexity are simply a little part of the SEO market.
Google still dominates 90% market share and with its AI Mode and AI Overviews, it's in the perfect position to win the AI online search engine race. Browse habits hasn't basically shifted away from Google. Beyond just that, there are a few things that have rubbed me the wrong method about the AI SEO trend.
Some claim ChatGPT has a 16% conversation rate and is better by more than 2X compared to Google. What these online marketers don't recognize is that Things like homepages, pricing pages, or bottom of funnel material, tends to be shown in ChatGPT. The educational top of funnel material is "consumed" by LLMs and revealed to users without anywhere to click.
Google's conversion rates reveal less because the traffic is higher 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 fully follows prompts correctly (i.e.
I do still believe that larger companies bigger business aside an experimental budget speculative spending plan things check ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools.
These tactics may work now in ChatGPT and other LLMs, however they're short-term plays that will eventually get punished. Focus on white hat strategies that build real authority and trust over time rather of chasing after quick wins that will not last.
ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as mature. I can't call this individual, but I met an SEO director at a huge banking company.
And from there, they are using their primary company domain, that has an extremely strong brand name authority, and sending out backlinks to the microsite. And this has led to higher rankings for their brand in LLMs like ChatGPT.It blew my mind that big, trusted business are doing this. And I understood just how much black hat (or grey hat) techniques are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I anticipate these strategies will continue to occur. Up until ChatGPT's algorithm gets as smart as Google's search algorithm.
Focus on quality over quantity. Share genuine insights, use your own images and videos, and develop topical authority in your specific niche. This is how solo developers and little teams can beat huge brand names in 2026. Niche blogging is back infant. However with a twist. This is among the most significant SEO trends for content marketing I'm seeing today.
You require a real service, be it a newsletter business, a service-based business, SaaS company, or ecommerce shop. And then you include on this human-centered specific niche blogging to the site to organically grow your core product/service offering. In 2026, I predict that Google's algorithm will continue to get smarter about which websites contain AI content and which don't.
In truth, I understand lots of people quietly squashing it with AI created content (even pursuing top of funnel keywords). But what I am saying is that engaging, human content will outrank AI created content with no initial insights. There are two routes 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 first page. Quality over quantity. The very first route is based on sheer volume, and can result in traffic growth. You do run the risk of a possible algorithm upgrade injuring your rankings. And anybody who composes better human content will rank greater in positions 1-3. The 2nd path is slower, however can yield higher ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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