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AI-generated answers appear like a direct danger to the traditional organic traffic websites used to get from search engines. Today, LLMs just rip the material on websites and people no longer need to go to a website any longer.
While I personally think this threat is blown totally out of percentage (based upon information from websites I've personally seen), I do not believe it's a reason to disregard it completely. From my own experience growing both blogs and YouTube channels, particularly to offer something, I can inform you that video converts way more than written material.
It's a lot much easier to tell if someone is lying or complete of it if you can see their facial expressions and their tone of voice. YouTube needs to absolutely be in your SEO and content technique.
And because you have actually constructed the trust with video, your traditional 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 article, my post would rank even better.
Why Your SEO Audit Is Only Half Ended upI made a YouTube video about the topic, embedded it into that blog site post, and I've been ranking # 1 given that.
Keep concentrating on Google, which still owns 90% of search market share. Invest in AI search experiments if you have budget plan, but don't abandon what's actually driving traffic and conversions today. In 2025, we saw everyone talking about how AI search was going to take control of Google. Beyond just SEO, the marketing neighborhood as an entire begun to get bombarded with influencers trying to ride the AI hype train.
It became hard to find relied on sources that weren't prejudiced or had a surprise agenda to sell us something. While I do think there are advantages to utilizing LLMs in our workflows, I do believe it has actually been overhyped. And in 2026, I forecast lots of online marketers will recognize that ChatGPT and Perplexity are simply a little part of the SEO market.
Why Your SEO Audit Is Only Half Ended upGoogle still controls 90% market share and with its AI Mode and AI Overviews, it's in the ideal position to win the AI search engine race. Search habits hasn't basically moved away from Google. Beyond just that, there are a few things that have rubbed me the incorrect method about the AI SEO trend.
Some claim ChatGPT has a 16% conversation rate and is much better by more than 2X compared to Google. But what these 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.
If you were to take that same concept over to Google, you would see the exact same conversion rates. Google's conversion rates show less since the traffic is greater due to it being diluted by all the top of funnel content that remains in the equation. Other things like how ChatGPT can make things up, it never completely follows triggers correctly (i.e.
I do still think that larger companies will set aside an experimental spending plan to test things like ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools. But in 2026, I predict individuals will recognize optimizing for Google will permit them to reveal up in ChatGPT and Perplexity too. Simply take a look at ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity's Comet web browsers.
Do not do it. These techniques might work now in ChatGPT and other LLMs, but they're short-term plays that will ultimately get penalized. Concentrate on white hat strategies that construct genuine authority and trust gradually instead of going after quick wins that will not last. The 2000s are back. Scammy keyword packing tactics, spending for low-quality backlinks, delivering countless worthless posts all in the name of ranking high.
ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as mature. I can't name 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 a very strong brand name authority, and sending backlinks to the microsite. And this has resulted in greater rankings for their brand name in LLMs like ChatGPT.It blew my mind that huge, trusted business are doing this. And I understood just how much black hat (or grey hat) strategies are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I anticipate these tactics will continue to occur. Until ChatGPT's algorithm gets as clever as Google's search algorithm. However that appears like a long period of time from now. Anyways, I personally would not recommend engaging in this. It's brief term thinking and your energy is best spent on white hat marketing strategies that can stand the test of time and improve your websites trust signals with time.
Share genuine insights, use your own images and videos, and construct topical authority in your niche. This is how solo developers and small teams can beat huge brand names in 2026. This is one of the biggest SEO patterns for content marketing I'm seeing right now.
You require a real business, be it a newsletter service, a service-based business, SaaS business, or ecommerce store. And after that you add on this human-centered 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 web pages include AI content and which don't.
I understand loads of people quietly crushing it with AI produced content (even going after top of funnel keywords). However what I am stating is that engaging, human content will outrank AI produced content without any original insights. There are 2 paths I see with SEO's right now: Produce countless AI-generated article 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 first route is based on sheer volume, and can lead to traffic development. But you do risk a possible algorithm upgrade hurting your rankings. And anybody who composes much better human content will rank greater in positions 1-3. The second path is slower, but can yield greater ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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