Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 26/02/2026

AI search is the hot topic of conversation at the moment, where businesses have been solely focused on optimising for Google; well, things are now changing.

Google still owns the lion’s share of the search market; however, new boxers are entering the ring, such as Perplexity, Claude, and, of course, perhaps the most famous, ChatGPT.

• AI search is not replacing SEO.
• Let’s address one big, fat elephant sitting in the room.
• That is, is AI taking over and replacing SEO?

The simple answer to that question is a resounding no. The reason is that people form habits; therefore, they are so used to using Google that this is unlikely to change.

So they want a new washing machine and a new pair of hair straighteners. Well, often Google is the place to go, because, well, for a lot of us, we have used it for what feels like eternity.

 

Not so much about keyword density, but structure and trust

If the local SEO business you’re employing is telling you that AI and SEO are two completely different worlds that don’t overlap, well, they are telling porkies.

The reason is simple: if the content is authoritative and has a good page structure, then there’s simply an overlap of optimisation methods.

It just stands to reason that Perplexity would state a piece of content unless the authority were really good.

This is the same for Google’s organic rankings. Why would Google place a website at the top of Google unless it was authoritative?

Page structure is now more important than ever.

Good page structure

You could write 2500 words that dispense the best advice on the planet; however, if the page doesn’t have a good page structure, then the AI platforms and Googlebot can often struggle to decipher what the page is about.

 

Therefore, this is what we would recommend:

• Using the FAQ style of writing
• Split the text up with titles
• Answer questions customers commonly ask you
• Make the sentence short and snappy- which means to the point

 

Schema is now very important

Schema markup is simply a form of structured language. Now that sounds super complicated, right?
It’s not really; it’s just a way of highlighting key information on a page or website. For example, when Googlebot crawls a page, it encounters a large volume of text.

 

How does it wade through that text to know the crucial aspects?

That’s where Schema comes in; it’s therefore a good idea to say, well, this is a product page, this is the product reviews, this is the price, etc.

Human perspective, but be an authority and thought leader

It’s all well and good to use your blog to communicate your company’s view on a certain topic.

However, the work has to do a few things; we recommend that, whether you’re optimising for organic search or AI, you follow Google’s EEAT guidelines.

Therefore, the key aspects that we are interested in here, for example, are showing that you’re an expert in terms of what you are talking about. But also to show your authority by gaining links.

Therefore, this helps not just your organic search engine optimisation; it’s also much more likely that the page will surface more often in AI search. For example, it stands to reason that if you’re an expert, say, in a certain area of law.

If your work is widely cited, as you’re seen as the expert in, say, employment law, then that page will attract more links. If you gain powerful do-follow links from, say, the Solicitors Journal, this will massively improve your business’s SEO. The backlinks would be relevant, high-quality, and could pass substantial link equity.

 

Entity building, the semantic web and Google’s Knowledge Graph

We have been working with clients for, well, donkey years now.

Therefore, we appreciate that the semantic web is now an important part of search engine optimisation. However, again, there are strong crossovers with AI optimisation, that is, entity building, and the semantic web is about the following:

• Becoming more notable or famous as a brand, person or product
• Gaining more authority through links and mentions

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What is Google’s Knowledge Graph, and how does this influence Google AI Overview results?

There is a huge amount of conversation at the moment about how Google AI Updates are impacting organic traffic to many business websites.

You have marketing managers all over the shop, especially on LinkedIn, stating that “SEO is dead”.

But it’s not dead, it’s evolving. What you have to think about is: if the shopper has their query answered in the search engine results pages, well, were they really a shopper?

They obviously don’t have “buying intent” just now; they’re just researching an idea.

For example, someone asking Google, “what’s the most reliable car to purchase”- then having their query answered in Google’s SERP’s means fewer organic visitors, but maybe they were not going to purchase anyway.

Therefore, as marketing companies, we have to concentrate more on the customers with buying intent. Now, this means perhaps a small amount of organic traffic, but perhaps these customers are more likely to purchase, and that is what really matters, right?

 

FAQ’s and scrapable content

When you think of large language models, or LLMs, they have to provide an answer, and then the shopper often follows up with more questions. Therefore, most LLMs, such as ChatGPT, use the “query fan out” technique, meaning the shopper keeps asking follow-up questions.
Now, although the answer can be “synthesised”, meaning rehashed, rewritten, it’s still a good idea to make your content marketing scrapable and easily digested. The reason is that the text can be quoted and used to answer in the LLMS.
To achieve your answer more easily understood by the LLMs, we would recommend:
– Writing using FAQ style
– Cramming the sentences with as much information as possible without the waffle.

 

AI and precision

What we have been reading a lot lately is that the AI platforms, such as Perplexity, do like content marketing to have a lot of factors and figures that are cross-checkable. Therefore, if you write a long-form blog post and support your theories with many facts from leading sources, such as leading brands, this work is more likely to be cited.

 

How can we better optimise our content marketing for AI search?

Let’s now get to the heart of the matter: how do you better optimise content marketing for AI search?

Here’s what we think:

Concise answers, yet comprehensive

The point we are making here is that the work should not be a ton of marketing waffle. It should answer as many relevant questions as possible. However, the solution is to write answers which are very much to the point.

Again, this does have strong cross-overs with organic SEO, we say that because the Google Helpful Content update, in particular, made it crystal clear that Google wanted to reward helpful content.

Now, if the work is helpful, it’s probably best to answer as many related questions as possible. Therefore, if the page is set up correctly, the LLMs can scrape that text and mention it.

 

SEO specialists and on-page SEO

You still see many blog posts and pages lacking basic optimisation. It’s therefore important to add schema, use headings, and use a well-written meta description. It’s still worth adding alt text and using internal and outbound links. It’s also a good idea to use FAQ-style writing; that’s really important.

 

Technical SEO

Make sure that the SEO agencies you employ are not blocking the crawlers. For example, you’ll need Googlebot to crawl and index the work; however, each LLM indexes using its own bot. Therefore, make sure that there’s nothing written in the robots.txt file to stop the page from being read or indexed.

 

How our agency can help:

We have to blow our own trumpet here for a second; we are one of the longest-running SEO companies in South Wales. However, as we have partnered with more and more of our lovely clients, we are increasingly working with businesses based far and wide.

We can improve your business’s visibility, helping more shoppers visit your website.

We are experts in organic search engine optimisation. As this article illustrates, when you get organic SEO spot on, there are strong cross-overs for LLMS and AI Search.

For example, if you do a sterling job of getting your business to the top of organic results, then it’s more than likely the Google AI Overviews will cite your business. Because your work is top of the tree, so to speak, it’s likely to be cited, relied upon, and more trusted by LLMs such as ChatGPT.

 

Optimisation for LLMs- such as ChatGPT

We can therefore help improve your business’s visibility in LLMS.

 

Google AI Overviews

If your business shines brighter than the northern star online, meaning your organic SEO is very strong, then you’re more likely to appear in Google’s AI Overview answers.

Therefore, it’s important to follow Google’s EEAT guidelines. By doing so, if you get a ton of backlinks, your copywriter is writing some of the best articles on the planet, then you will be improving SEO and AI.

If you would like a free, no-obligation quote, do give us a ring today.