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AI-generated responses seem like a direct risk to the standard organic traffic sites used to get from search engines. Today, LLMs just rip the material on sites and people no longer require to check out a website any longer.
While I personally think this hazard is blown entirely out of percentage (based upon information from websites I've personally seen), I don't believe it's an excuse to disregard it completely. 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 content.
And the audience can select up on more subtleties in your message. It's a lot much easier to tell if someone is lying or loaded with it if you can see their facial expressions and their intonation. YouTube ought to absolutely be in your SEO and material method. Use video as need generation and a method to build trust with an audience.
And because you have actually built the trust with video, your standard SEO efforts will convert much better. However there's a lot more to it. Earlier this year, I had an inkling that if I turned some of my best ranking post into YouTube videos, and embedded them into my existing article, my blog posts would rank even better.
I made a YouTube video about the subject, embedded it into that blog post, and I have actually been ranking # 1 because.
In 2025, we saw everybody talking about how AI search was going to take over Google. Beyond simply SEO, the marketing community as a whole begun to get bombarded with influencers attempting to ride the AI buzz train.
It became difficult to discover relied on sources that weren't prejudiced or had a prejudice to offer us something. While I do believe there are advantages to using LLMs in our workflows, I do believe it has actually been overhyped. And in 2026, I forecast many marketers will realize that ChatGPT and Perplexity are just a small part of the SEO market.
Advanced Site Audits for Top-Tier Regional RivalsGoogle still controls 90% market share and with its AI Mode and AI Overviews, it's in the best position to win the AI online search engine race. Browse behavior hasn't fundamentally shifted far from Google. Beyond simply that, there are a couple of things that have rubbed me the wrong method about the AI SEO trend.
Some claim ChatGPT has a 16% discussion rate and is much 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 content, tends to be revealed in ChatGPT. The informational top of funnel content is "consumed up" by LLMs and shown to users without anywhere to click.
If you were to take that exact same concept over to Google, you would see the exact same conversion rates. Google's conversion rates reveal less due to the fact that 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 totally follows prompts correctly (i.e.
I do still think that bigger companies will set aside an experimental budget to check things like ChatGPT apps and other AI SEO tools. In 2026, I predict people will realize enhancing for Google will enable them to reveal up in ChatGPT and Perplexity. Just take a look at ChatGPT Atlas or Perplexity's Comet internet browsers.
These tactics might work now in ChatGPT and other LLMs, but they're short-term plays that will eventually get punished. Focus on white hat techniques that develop genuine authority and trust over time instead of chasing after fast wins that won't last.
Now, the algorithm is mature enough to disregard all that nonsense. Nevertheless, ChatGPT and other LLM algorithms are not as fully grown yet. I can't name this person, but I met an SEO director at a substantial banking business. This individual informed me they (and all their competitors) are developing microsites (like little blog sites) on various domains.
And from there, they are utilizing their primary company domain, that has a very strong brand name authority, and sending out 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, respectable companies are doing this. And I recognized how much black hat (or grey hat) strategies are going on behind the scenes.
In 2026, I predict these methods will continue to occur. Until ChatGPT's algorithm gets as wise as Google's search algorithm.
Share genuine insights, use your own images and videos, and build topical authority in your specific niche. This is how solo developers and small groups can beat huge brand names in 2026. This is one of the biggest SEO patterns for content marketing I'm seeing right now.
You need a genuine organization, be it a newsletter service, a service-based business, SaaS business, or ecommerce store. And then you add on this human-centered 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 websites consist of AI content and which do not.
I understand lots of individuals quietly crushing it with AI generated content (even going after top of funnel keywords). What I am stating is that engaging, human content will outrank AI generated content 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 post and get them to rank at the top of the first page. Quality over quantity. The very first path is based on sheer volume, and can cause traffic growth. However you do risk a prospective algorithm upgrade injuring your rankings. And anybody who composes better human content will rank greater in positions 1-3. The second path is slower, but can yield higher ranking positions and more trust with readers.
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