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Particularly CMOs and those responsible for a company's marketing success. AI-generated responses seem like a direct risk to the standard organic traffic websites utilized to get from online search engine. Before, you needed to click on a website to see the results. Today, LLMs simply rip the material on sites and people no longer require to check out a website anymore.
While I personally think this risk is blown entirely out of proportion (based upon data from websites I've personally seen), I do not believe it's a reason to overlook it totally. From my own experience growing both blog sites and YouTube channels, specifically to sell something, I can tell you that video converts way more than composed material.
And the audience can detect more subtleties in your message. It's a lot much easier to tell if someone is lying or full of it if you can see their facial expressions and their intonation. So YouTube ought to absolutely be in your SEO and content strategy. Usage video as demand generation and a method to build trust with an audience.
And because you have constructed the trust with video, your standard SEO efforts will convert better. There's even more to it. Previously this year, I had an inkling that if I turned a few of my best ranking article into YouTube videos, and embedded them into my existing blog posts, my post would rank even much better.
Why Enterprise Sites Required a Technical Overhaul NowI made a YouTube video about the topic, embedded it into that blog site post, and I've been ranking # 1 since.
In 2025, we saw everybody talking about how AI search was going to take over Google. Beyond just SEO, the marketing neighborhood as an entire begun to get bombarded with influencers trying to ride the AI hype train.
It ended up being difficult to discover relied on sources that weren't prejudiced or had a covert agenda to sell us something. While I do believe there are advantages to using LLMs in our workflows, I do think it has been overhyped. And in 2026, I predict lots of marketers will understand that ChatGPT and Perplexity are just a small part of the SEO market.
Google still controls 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. Search habits hasn't basically shifted far from Google. Beyond just that, there are a few things that have actually rubbed me the wrong way about the AI SEO pattern.
Some claim ChatGPT has a 16% discussion rate and is better by more than 2X compared to Google. But what these online marketers do not understand is that Things like homepages, pricing pages, or bottom of funnel material, tends to be revealed in ChatGPT. The informative top of funnel material is "consumed" by LLMs and revealed to users without anywhere to click.
If you were to take that same idea over to Google, you would see the exact same conversion rates. Google's conversion rates reveal less since the traffic is greater due to it being watered down by all the top of funnel content that is in the equation. Other things like how ChatGPT can make things up, it never ever totally follows triggers properly (i.e.
I do still think that larger companies will reserve a speculative budget to evaluate things like ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools. However in 2026, I forecast people will recognize optimizing for Google will permit them to appear in ChatGPT and Perplexity also. Just take a look at ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity's Comet browsers.
Don't do it. These tactics may work now in ChatGPT and other LLMs, however they're short-term plays that will ultimately get punished. Focus on white hat methods that construct genuine authority and trust gradually instead of chasing after fast wins that will not last. The 2000s are back. Scammy keyword stuffing strategies, spending for low-grade backlinks, delivering thousands of useless posts all in the name of ranking high.
Today, the algorithm is mature enough to overlook all that rubbish. However, ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as fully grown yet. I can't call this person, however I satisfied an SEO director at a big banking company. This person informed me they (and all their competitors) are developing microsites (like small blogs) on different domains.
And from there, they are using their main company domain, that has a very strong brand authority, and sending out backlinks to the microsite. And this has resulted in greater rankings for their brand in LLMs like ChatGPT.It blew my mind that huge, reliable business are doing this. And I understood how much black hat (or grey hat) tactics are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I forecast these methods will continue to happen. Up until ChatGPT's algorithm gets as wise as Google's search algorithm. That seems like a long time from now. Anyways, I personally would not advise participating 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 websites trust signals gradually.
Share real insights, use your own images and videos, and develop topical authority in your niche. This is how solo developers and small groups can beat huge brands in 2026. This is one of the most significant SEO trends for content marketing I'm seeing right now.
You need a genuine service, be it a newsletter business, a service-based business, SaaS business, or ecommerce store. And then you include on this human-centered niche blogging to the site to organically grow your core product/service offering. In 2026, I forecast that Google's algorithm will continue to get smarter about which web pages include AI material and which do not.
I know tons of individuals quietly crushing it with AI created material (even going after top of funnel keywords). However what I am saying is that engaging, human content will outrank AI generated content without any initial insights. There are two paths I see with SEO's today: Produce countless AI-generated post 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 writes better human content will rank higher in positions 1-3. The 2nd path is slower, however can yield higher ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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