SEO isn’t dead - but it’s definitely evolving.
For a long time, SEO has largely been based on foundational elements such as conducting keyword and competitor research, following technical best practice, creating strategic content, building high quality links and ensuring a good user experience on site.
However, the emergence of AI is transforming the way people are searching, with algorithms capable of analysing user behaviours, content relevance and search intent with more precision than ever before.
Whilst many of the foundational areas remain similar, SEO strategies are being re-defined as AI technologies advance.
People are referring to this new age of SEO in a range of different ways: AI SEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), LLM SEO (Large Language Model SEO), GenAI Search Optimisation, AI Search Optimisation and so on.
Despite these evolving names and approaches, the fundamental aspects of an SEO strategy haven’t changed all that much. But there are important new considerations to ensure your website is truly AI-ready and poised for future search success.
Google shared the following article which provides a brief overview of how to succeed in AI search experiences, highlighting the fact that the core SEO principles of ranking well haven’t changed all that much.
In our guide, we delve deeper into AI SEO, how search behaviours have changed, and the key components required to ensure a website is well setup for AI-driven search.
This guide covers:
AI SEO (Artificial Intelligence SEO) combines traditional best practices with AI techniques, to optimise your content specifically for AI-driven search engines such as AI Mode & AI Overviews (Google/Gemini), ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and so on.
Instead of relying solely on traditional keyword-driven strategies, AI SEO focuses on positioning your brand as a trusted authority within AI-generated search results and answers. This means understanding how AI systems choose, interpret, and display information - enabling you to proactively influence where and how your content appears in an AI-dominant search environment.
In today’s digital world, AI has changed how users find information. Modern AI-powered search engines no longer depend purely on conventional indexing methods; instead, they prioritise understanding user intent, context, and personalisation. They analyse factors such as past behaviours, device types, and geographic locations to deliver tailored results. AI-driven search engines generate insights directly from large language models (LLMs) and advanced NLP techniques.
AI SEO is all about adapting your strategy to ensure your website and content are discoverable in a fast-changing digital environment where personalisation and contextual understanding are now king.
Staying ahead means integrating AI-driven tactics into your overall SEO strategy, ensuring your brand remains visible and relevant when your customers are searching in smarter, more personalised ways.
Traditional SEO relied on more of a reactive approach - studying algorithms, implementing changes, and then waiting to see results. The core SEO tactics as part of this were fairly straightforward: identify high-volume keywords, incorporate them into content, build high quality and relevant backlinks around those keywords, with the aim of improve rankings gradually.
AI-driven SEO revolutionises this process by emphasising different methodologies and approaches:
AI-powered SEO signifies a major shift in how to improve search visibility. While traditional SEO offers value through human expertise and relationship-building, AI capabilities provide higher levels of precision, scalability, and responsiveness, bringing in a new era of search optimisation that is faster, smarter, and more adaptable.
Until AI was introduced, searches followed a relatively predictable pattern - users would type a keyword or phrase, browse the results shown and click on a link. However, AI powered search engines are changing this behaviour in multiple ways.
Users are now typing their questions and search phrases in a similar way to how they speak. For example, ‘how do I know how much flour to use when baking cookies?’ rather than something more direct, ‘how much flour when baking cookies?’.
This enables users to offer more context so that search engines give them exactly what they are looking for, meaning search queries are becoming longer. AI search engines can more effectively interpret these nuanced, context-rich search phrases.
It doesn’t stop there either, because users can now interact with AI search engines, asking follow-up questions to refine or broaden their search further. This is making a user's online searches feel more like human interactions that they may have in person.
Advanced AI algorithms and large language models have improved the ability of search engines to grasp the context and intent behind a user’s search query. This means that rather than simply showing results based on a specific keyword, search engines can provide more relevant, comprehensive and intent matched results.
Search features such as AI Overviews on Google, have led to a rise in ‘Zero-click searches’ where a user finds the information they’re looking for directly within the search results, so they no longer click on any website. This is drastically different to the old search journey of a user whereby they had to visit a website to get the information.
As a result of this, many websites are reporting less traffic when these types of search features are present.
The following study shows that in the EU and UK, 26.10% of searches ended without a click in March 2025 vs 23.6% in March 2024. This is an increase of more than 10% YoY.
Even though clicks are decreasing, if you’re not present within these AI features and your competitors are, your brand is losing out on potential awareness at every stage of a user’s journey. As a result, it’s still crucial that you strive to be visible across search engines driven by AI.
An ‘AI-ready’ website is optimised for both traditional search engines and AI-driven search engines. It should be technically sound, contain contextually rich and trustworthy content, and be structured in a way that allows AI crawlers to understand and use it effectively.
If you’re unsure whether your website is geared up well for AI search engines, you should look at running a full AI SEO audit.
Below, we’ve detailed the core areas that need to be considered for your website to be ‘AI-ready’.
Solid technical foundations are crucial if your website is going to rank well in both traditional and AI search engines. Simply put, if your website and content can’t be easily accessed by crawlers of any kind, it may not even get indexed, let alone rank within the search results!
Some of the key technical areas to review as part of an AI SEO audit are detailed below:
The structure, format and readability of your content plays an important role when it comes to ranking well in AI search engines.
The below areas should form part of your AI SEO audit:
Keywords are still relevant for now, but AI-driven search is more about understanding the ‘meaning’ or context behind peoples search queries. This is where semantic search comes into play and we’ve detailed below the ways in which you can ensure your content is geared up for this:
Google’s EEAT guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) have been around for some time now, but they become even more important in the age of AI-driven SEO. AI algorithms are assessing the credibility and trustworthiness of sources and as a result, you need to signal to these AI search engines that your content is reliable and authoritative.
This has long been a ranking factor from an SEO perspective but is another area that is becoming increasingly more important. It’s crucial that your website provides users with a great experience and different accessibility requirements are met.
Just as you track your Google rankings, you now need to start monitoring your brand presence within AI search engines and in what context your content is appearing. You should also be analysing AI search results to identify opportunities and any gaps within your content.
Existing SEO tracking tools, such as Ahrefs and SEMRush, have adapted their platforms to introduce AI visibility tracking features but there have also been new solutions brought to market since the boom of AI.
Below are just a handful of SEO platforms you could explore for AI visibility tracking, alongside the traditional tracking:
Most of these platforms will enable you to track brand presence and visibility within AI search engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode (Gemini) and other LLMs.
These tools will start to provide you with insight into what content of yours they are using, how they are using it and whether competitors are in a better position than you within the AI search results.
The information gathered from AI visibility tracking tools will enable you to perform in depth analysis on these AI search engines, so you can identify opportunities and any gaps within your content strategy.
For core groups of topic areas and search queries, you can begin to understand how AI search engines are displaying the results, which websites they are pulling information from, what formats are being preferred and which semantically related topics are being included too.
Using this information, you can compare against your content on these topic areas, to identify whether you are covering everything that is expected from a user and AI crawler perspective.
It may be that you need to expand depth within existing pieces of content or create new pieces of semantically related content that can be interlinked.
With any opportunities identified, you need to ensure you’re covering off the key components that make a website ‘AI-ready’ (as detailed earlier in this guide), to ensure your geared up for performing well in AI search engines.
Advancements in AI technology is only going to continue into the future; and users’ online journeys will also continue to evolve so you must keep abreast of the landscape changes that are critical for your business.
Online journeys are becoming increasingly fragmented over time. Customers are using different search engines and platforms to find the information or products they’re looking for, from the likes of ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode through to social channels such as TikTok and YouTube.
‘Search Everywhere’ is another buzzword you may have heard over recent years, which simply refers to ensuring your brand is visible across all the potential search platforms customers are using.
SEO isn’t dead but is evolving and should remain a critical part of a brands overall digital marketing strategy.
If you’ve read this guide and are left wondering whether your brand and website is well placed to rank within AI search engines, then you’re in the right place.
To future-proof your digital presence, now is the time to ensure your website is AI-ready so you don’t fall behind the competition and lose valuable customers.
Our comprehensive AI-SEO Audit is the ideal way to highlight the key areas that require improvement. Get in touch today for a chat!