Date: 19/08/2025

Author: Ryan Walsh

About the author: Ryan Walsh is the agency owner at Walsh & Partners. Ryan is the best SEO consultant in Cardiff, with 11+ years of experience working with clients worldwide.

Search Engine Land and other leading SEO news websites have mentioned us. We work in fiercely competitive business sectors, and Ryan has earned the top spot as the best SEO expert in this area.

 

Google’s Organic Algorithm vs Google’s AI

 

Traffic dipping?

You may have noticed this when having a nose at your Google Analytics recently.

Well, there’s a good reason for this. It could be that Google’s rolling out yet another update, but underneath that, something more seismic is happening.

AI Search is becoming more dominant, more confident, and more involved in how search works.

This is big; we know agencies of all sizes report on the most minuscule changes that Google makes, such as writing endless 3,000-word articles about “how to write an effective meta description”. Such blog posts make for good bedtime reading, as they’re a bit dull.

However, this change (AI Search) is exciting because it’s similar to when car owners switched from internal combustion engines to electric cars; the change was massive. This is similar to the change that has been happening here, since the days of Google’s PageRank. Fast-forward to relatively recently, search has worked based on “ranking factors”, with a little bit of AI mixed in from RankBrain.

However, now that AI Search has gone “full fat” mode, meaning there’s no semi-skimmed AI mixed into the algorithm, it now has a full AI version available.

 

This is why some businesses’ content marketing should be improved to attract more shoppers.

 

ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

So, it’s not just Google that’s changing; it’s the whole way that people find and buy services and products online.

Google is now just one part of the equation; ChatGPT is becoming more and more popular, and there are also other businesses, such as Perplexity.

Pardon the pun, but this is why things are getting perplexing: you’re now thinking about optimising your business’s content marketing for multiple platforms.

Now, you need to consider how to optimise your business’s content marketing for all of these different platforms. You should be thinking along the lines of how you can make your content marketing the most helpful, conversational, and best answer by a country mile, so that more AI programmes cite you.

Traditional search could be on its way out.

If you don’t innovate and keep up with the times, the grass grows beneath your feet, and your skillset becomes outdated.

This is why SEO agencies need to adopt a multitasking mindset, with one eye on traditional search and organic SEO for now. Yet the other eye, well, that must be on AI-powered search (be careful you don’t cross-eyed doing that, it is possible)

Many now believe, including new research from Semrush, that AI-powered search is projected to overtake traditional search by 2028.

Which, when you think of it, well, that’s not long at all, so those dinosaurs that have been running SEO companies must adapt, as a giant comet is heading for you, with AI search slapped on it.

 

Focus on the positives.

Someone working in an SEO agency may now be worried about their job, Bob from accounts may have a look on his face like a startled cat.

Bob, our advice to you would be to focus on the positives of AI and here are some of them:

Shoppers are more likely to convert (buy something)

So, here’s the thing, your website might be getting, let’s say, 10,000 organic visitors from Google right now. Give yourself a good pat on the back.

 

Now this sounds fantastic, right?

But when you look more closely at the numbers, well, less than 1% may well be converting?

For those of you who are not in the know, “converting” is just a fancy way of saying someone is buying something. It could also mean the visitor is doing something like signing up for a newsletter, purchasing an item, or filling in a contact box. It ultimately depends on what you have stated as a conversion to your chosen SEO company.

Anyhow, numerous facts and figures suggest that visitors from AI websites like ChatGPT or Perplexity are more likely to convert.

And why is that?

Well, because they usually have gone through a more in-depth, almost human-like conversation with the AI programme to get a much more precise answer thrown at them.

Now they’re not just Googling around for an extended period, trying to find the perfect shoes for the wedding.

Nope.

Instead, they chatted with AI, using ChatGPT to describe the shoes, refine the search, and ask a crazy amount of questions to find the perfect shoe for that wedding that’s just around the corner.

Now, with ChatGPT, they may feel like Cinderella, having found the perfect shoe. They are therefore more likely to convert.

 

50% of ChatGPT citations now link to businesses

You might wonder why I drink all those espressos and write so many blog posts, articles, and evergreen content marketing pieces until my eyes hurt.

Why?

Why, when I may not even get mentioned by AI?

Well, we will tell you why: roughly half of the citations now link to businesses on ChatGPT.

So it’s worth sipping those espressos and writing all of that content marketing. The reason is that you can potentially gain a new income stream by leveraging ChatGPT to attract more customers to your business.

Synthesised answers and Google AI Overviews

Here’s another reason why you should stay busy and create top-quality content marketing.

Google has been using “Google AI Overview” answers for quite a while now.

Which, in a nutshell, is a short, succinct, to-the-point answer to a question.

However, this allows businesses another way to bring shoppers to their website. Therefore, this is why you need to be a “thought leader”, not just a run-of-the-mill content creator, pushing out content marketing because you have 2 hours allocated to write it! Nope, doesn’t work.

Now you need to write content marketing that’s the best, shows you know your stuff, and answers the question to the point. In return, there are even more prizes up for grabs now; you could be mentioned as a Google AI Overview answer. You could be noted in the organic results, and you could also be mentioned on various AI programs.

 

Don’t get too focused on your rankings

Okay, where your business ranks on Google, sure, it matters.

It’s the bread and butter that helps you attract more and more customers.

But Google is not the only show in town.

Now, with ChatGPT on the march, 90% of its citations reportedly come from Google pages ranking beyond page 20.

Why is that?

Well, ChatGPT understands Google’s algorithms and how they work, but it doesn’t use this as the primary way of determining whether to use that answer.

What we mean by that is simple: just because you rank 1st on Google doesn’t automatically imply ChatGPT is going to cite your work until the cows come home.

Nope, if ChatGPT deems an answer on page 20 more relevant, a better answer, or a page that offers a more precise answer, it will answer that.

 

How can our business in Cardiff write higher-quality content marketing

The name of the game is now simple, well, complicated, depending on how you look at it, we guess.

Well, your content marketing must be superior, more helpful, and better written if you want your business to be cited by the AI platforms.

Here’s how your business can increase its chances of getting cited:

 

FAQ’s written by an expert

You may have read on the best SEO agencies’ websites, including ours, that Google E-EAT has crossovers in terms of how you better optimise your content marketing for, say, AI Overviews and other AI platforms.

For example, if the work is written by an expert, well-written, and original, it will rank higher on Google.

 

FAQ

Using an FAQ style of writing is something our SEO agency has been recommending long before the introduction of AI.

The reason is simple: it allows the algorithms, now the AI, to precisely match a question with an answer.

Instead of presenting the work as a rambling block of text, using FAQs helps crawlers like Googlebot better understand the content.

It can therefore read the question and the answer. Then, Google, for example, may use dwell times to see that the average shopper is spending a very long period reading that page. Then Google has all the information it needs to cite you in a Google AI Overview answer, for example.

 

Come to Walsh & Partners:

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