Is SEO still worth it now that AI answers searches?

It's changing so fast, who knows what it'll look like in 3 to 6 months. But I always tell everyone it's so much of the same as SEO. As far as we're seeing, the fundamentals still matter a lot.

The only difference is how you measure, because we're seeing so many zero click searches. Then make sure your content is very structured, so tools can parse it correctly.

Correct schema markup on all of your pages is important. For structured content, that's as simple as giving your blog posts an FAQ section and a summary section. Make it so easy for both people and AI tools to scan.

The way it's looking, AI search is here to stay and will probably replace traditional searching. Click-through rates from the top 10 results are falling across the board. People just go to AI Overviews instead.

The good thing is that a lot of traditional SEO tactics will work for AI as well. I'd say the overlap is probably 80% or even higher. So there's not really a ton of new stuff you need to do.

It's always worth keeping track of the prompts people type in to see you. If your mentions drop or you drop out of a search, see who replaced you and try to figure out why.

If these LLMs don't have the information, they will search for it on Google search. They do what's called a fan out query search, looking at questions similar to what you're asking for. Then they look at the top results.

If your website is not in the top search result, or if you don't have a website, you're not going to appear.

SEO, the way I look at it, is no longer search engine optimization, but search everywhere optimization. Have a good website that explains what the company does and what the service is. Then the LLMs will eventually discover you as you start to grow in the rankings.

Everything has an impact. Google still has more than 80% of the pie. The very obvious terms, where people mostly just need an answer, are kind of being pulled from tools.

If your list posts include your own brand, you may potentially increase its mentions in LLM answers. But this doesn't mean they will click your post and convert through it. Maybe they will just type your brand on Google and convert with a branded search.

Another exercise could potentially be to see whether a spike in AI search visibility correlates with a spike in branded search. That would also be a good way to justify your work.

Honestly, I don't read blog articles as often as before, and I create hundreds of them a month as an agency. But if you want to be in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, anywhere, you have to write blogs.

My mentality didn't change, it only became even more serious. In SEO, you just had to be in Google. Now you have to be everywhere.

Make sure you have FAQ schema markup that tells LLMs you can take info from here. Traditional SEO content is OK, but it's only for LLMs. If you want people to read it, you should think about interactive content, maybe a poll or gamification. Then people will stay.

For lots of the websites I've been working on, traffic has dropped wherever AI overview was picked up, and wherever they were relying more on editorial as a source of SEO.

Whatever is a best practice for SEO is usually a best practice for LLMs as well, at least at this point. LLM traffic is not much bigger than the SEO traffic for all the websites I've worked on. But the conversion rates are much, much higher, I would say two to four times, depending on the website.

You have to provide added value so that the user lands on your website and then you can convert them.

After AI content came up, more people are able to create content, so that content advantage you had has come down. The second issue is fewer people are going to search results. If I want a recipe, I can just go on ChatGPT.

I would also say do not kill SEO. It can still get you some traffic. High quality backlinks are very helpful, ideally over 60 DR but minimum 40 DR. Backlinks will still be very relevant, because it's likely AI answers will have to cite sources. We're still not 100% sure.

If the site is your main business and not a hobby, keep focusing on getting backlinks.

People think that blogging is SEO, and it's not. Blogging is not irrelevant because of Gen AI, but it needs to be in its proper priority and position.

You shouldn't care whether or not you're in an AI overview or losing stuff to zero click. What we want to care about is whether or not Gen AI is providing you as the answer to a problem, and thereby sending referral and conversion traffic to your site.

If you can open an API endpoint, you should. If you can create an MCP server, you should. If you can create technical documentation that you can serve in an MD file, you should.

One thing that works really well is having a chart on your website that compares you directly to competition, and compares you favorably. Agents are going to digest that chart really easily. And when somebody asks an agent what the difference is between you and a competitor, they're going to get a real clear answer. Of course, it's the answer you want them to read, and your competitor's team might find argument with it. That's how you win at AEO.

But for the foreseeable future, at least half, if not more, of a website's traffic is still going to be human traffic.