The SEO industry is like a slow-paced action movie, and you simply cannot look away.

Recently, we've seen:

• The Crocodile Effect from low traffic and high impressions
• Snakeoil salesmen using content volume to pad declining clicks
• Fearmongers claiming SEO is dead, at least once a month
• Digital PR taking its rightful place at the adult’s table 

My neurospicy brain loves the chaos!

In this article, I share my take on the trends dominating search right now and what you should focus on to win visibility in AI search.

PS: This blog post is a repurposed version of a podcast I recorded with Jon & Marc from RR Digital. Give it a listen to hear my unfiltered take, or keep reading for the PG version.

1. Should we use AI to create content?

Yes, but there’s a caveat.

The problem isn’t AI, but how you use it.

AI is terrible at strategy but great at execution. If you expect LLMs to come up with solutions and basically do your job, you won’t get great outputs.

Instead of asking it to build a content outline from scratch, start with a rough outline of what you want to cover and provide background context so it understands the framing. Then ask it to find gaps and organise for storytelling to improve flow.

This is a machine that swallowed the internet. It can't think or replace your expertise. But it can help you execute faster when you stay in the driver's seat.

Here's my process for writing with AI:

• Start with an example of similar work I’ve done in the past
• Ask it to read the content and explain what it learned from the structure
• Add extra context so it understands what I'm trying to achieve
• Ask it to recap the guidelines so it stays within guardrails
• Write in sections to manage quality
• Give feedback after every output until it gets it right
• Add storytelling at the end so the final version feels like me
• Share my final version for each section and ask it to compare with its response so it learns from my changes

Never use AI output verbatim. Infuse the content with your own examples, workflows, and anything that makes it actionable.

2. AI search features are cannibalizing clicks. Should we still create informational content?

Informational content is important and maintains a high search volume despite declining clicks.

Let’s use the legal industry as an example. People still search for things like what to do after being hit by a car, or can I sue if someone hits my car? These early-stage questions help potential leads to discover you.

The problem is you’re now competing with Google for discovery. AI Overviews and AI Mode provide detailed answers directly in the SERP. Hence, generic content replicating existing information doesn’t give people a reason to click.

Give them something they can't get from the SERP:

• Add a checklist or framework readers can apply immediately
• Include a downloadable PDF or resource that isn’t available elsewhere
• Pull in expert quotes or commentary to elevate the content above the obvious
• Go deeper with a first-person perspective and original insight
• Build yes-or-no guides based on questions you hear on first calls, with detailed steps under each answer
• Make sure every piece ends with a clear, actionable takeaway

3. How do you show value when poor-quality content outranks your best work?

Honestly, it's infuriating. Some of the pages ranking for competitive keywords are from sites that have no business writing that content. 

An email automation tool dominating the SERPs for keyword research is a perfect example.

They're not incentivised to provide value, but they rank because they’re an authoritative source, as demonstrated by  metrics like high DA, links, and Brand Authority.

Great content doesn't always win in the SERPs, so choose your battles wisely. 

Maybe it’s time to look elsewhere to reduce your reliance on Google. Find out where your audience spends time and create platform-specific content to attract them. 

The best part is that you don’t have to create new content. You can repurpose existing content to reach new audiences.

Here are a few tips to try:

• Turn blog content into PDFs and use third-party publishers to collect leads
• Invest in a webinar program and use email to remarket to attendees
• Take a subheading from a blog post and pitch it as a podcast topic
• Find Reddit threads where people are already discussing the topic and add your insights
• If you do public speaking, repurpose your best content as decks for industry conferences
• Focus on product-led content that engages existing customers and nurtures leads

When Google doesn't reward the work, distribution is how you take back control.

4. How do you advise brands to think creatively when competing against AI-generated or cookie-cutter content?

Here are a few things I recommend:

Think more full funnel, not just organic traffic:

Obsessing over organic traffic subconsciously pushes you to regurgitate SERP information and optimize for entities to rank. It fuels an unnatural writing style that is bland, boring, and a replica of existing content.

Here’s an example of what that looked like for me.

When you switch your mindset from organic to full-funnel, several things happen:

• You stop worrying about cookie-cutter content on the SERPs because you’re not trying to copy their strategy.
• You stop using competitor content to duplicate information and start writing from a first-person POV that positions you as an expert.
• Your writing evolves to focus on storytelling because you’re not filling it with entities that don’t make sense.
• You prioritize actionable content that helps your reader to implement your advice.

Make affinity your new north star:

Affinity is about creating content that brings people directly to your website. Your brand becomes a habit based on recognition, and you’re the first choice people think of for solutions you provide.

For example, in the early days of learning content marketing, I would add “crazy egg” when looking for CRO tutorials because I wanted to start my learning journey with them.

If I did a generic search, I would scroll past higher-ranking results and click on Crazy Egg’s content, because they had earned my trust.

Affinity makes you the preferred choice, and that's a powerful way to grow an audience. 

Tap into trends and seasonality:

One of the biggest mistakes I made early on was planning content months in advance without leaving space for flexibility. Trends are a great way to build affinity because they let you show up in conversations people are already having.

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn observing which conversations are driving the most engagement. When I see thought leaders sharing hot takes on a topic and people responding, I immediately think about how to capitalise on that moment.

Let’s stay with the legal space as an example. The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce engagement was a huge moment in pop culture. 

If I were doing content marketing or digital PR for a family law firm, here's how I'd approach it:

• Get one of the lawyers to author a post on “Inside Taylor & Travis’ potential prenup agreement.”
• Create a YouTube and TikTok video on “I’ve created prenups for the super rich: Here are 5 mistakes most people make.”
• Start or contribute to a Reddit thread on “How do super-rich people protect their assets before marriage?”
• Find a podcast looking for a subject matter expert to cover the topic
• Nurture the new leads with a webinar on “Getting married? Here’s everything you should know before tying the knot.”

I’ve implemented this strategy at Moz. Some of our best-performing content isn’t ranking on SERPs but drives traffic through distribution. 

Algorithms on LinkedIn, TikTok, and other social platforms are designed to serve trending content. Use it to capture audiences who wouldn't find you through organic search.

5. How can we show clients that branding assists SEO and AI visibility?

Brand has always mattered in SEO, but now it’s everything. 

When an LLM generates a response, it pulls from known, authoritative sources. In a piece I published on the Moz blog, we found that LLMs favour brands with high Domain Authority and strong third-party recognition.

Think major media websites, high-authority publications, and established industry voices.

If your brand is earning third-party mentions, reviews, and citations on credible websites, you're feeding the ecosystem these models draw from.

The effect is cumulative:

• Great branding strengthens off-site signals
• Those signals influence what AI models train on and surface
• Visibility compounds across AI answers and Google search

If your content ranks but your brand isn’t strong enough to be the source people click or mention, you’re doing half the job.

6. How would you recommend showing clients that increasing impressions (but decreasing clicks) still has value, especially downstream in the funnel?

This question keeps coming up because SEOs have trained decision makers to treat traffic as the end goal. When clicks drop, and impressions rise, leadership hears “performance is down,” even if the business is still generating leads and revenue.

The only way forward is to tie visibility back to outcomes. If traffic declines but you still see brand awareness, pipeline activity, and new business, that’s the metric to highlight. If business drops alongside traffic, then it’s time to audit conversion.

Here’s how to make it actionable:

Track revenue outcomes 

Measure leads, calls, form fills, consult bookings, and new business, then report those alongside impressions and clicks.

Prioritize CRO because declining clicks force the issue

Identify your main organic landing pages and optimize them to convert, not just rank.

Test the user journey

Ask someone to go from a Google result to your contact page and complete the journey. Next, highlight friction points and fix them. Heatmap tools like Microsoft Clarity are a great way to see where friction happens on conversion pages.

Audit traffic quality 

Not all traffic is good traffic, and content libraries can get expensive quickly, as Helen Pollitt explained in this post. 

Check how much traffic comes from commercial and transactional keywords, then look for gaps your competitors are using to drive revenue.

Explain the value of impressions

Impressions mean people are seeing you. Even if they’re not clicking right away, the visibility builds recognition. 

Think about how people search in a fragmented journey. They might not click the first time, but if they see your name repeatedly across different queries and platforms, they’re more likely to choose you. 

Mark Williams-Cook gave an excellent example of using ChatGPT to find a vendor and then going directly to the website to convert. That's zero clicks attributed, but impressions did the work.

7. How do we educate the C-suite who make decisions based on traffic growth and content volume, even when it doesn't show the full picture?

Start by questioning the goal, not defending the metric.

When a client says, "Our competitors are publishing 50 pages a month, why aren't we?", ask why they want to copy their competitors because FOMO is not a strategy.

The most effective way to educate leadership is to make goals the filter for every decision. What is SEO supposed to do for this business — drive leads, build brand awareness, or win market share in specific areas? Define KPIs, then measure every tactic against it, including competitor activity.

Next, make these changes:

Replace vanity metrics with business outcomes 

Stop reporting impressions and traffic in isolation. Show leads, consult bookings, and pipeline activity alongside them. When leadership sees the connection between visibility and revenue, traffic becomes a means to an end rather than the end itself.

Reframe competitor activity 

Instead of copying competitors, identify the strategies that align with your goals and the gaps they've missed. Copying keeps you reactive, but finding gaps and innovating puts you ahead.

8. If every LLM prompt generates a unique response, how should business owners and SEOs track AI visibility?

There is no single way to track AI visibility right now, and anyone telling you otherwise is oversimplifying.

Every prompt is unique. No two people type the same thing into ChatGPT or Perplexity, which means traditional search volume as a measurement framework doesn't apply. 

What AI visibility tools are doing instead is aggregating prompts with similar intent to show you the types of queries your brand is appearing in. It's directional guidance and should be treated as such.

Here's how to track AI visibility in a holistic way:

Track AI search traffic in GA4

First, set up GA4 to see referral traffic from LLMs. Go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. 

It gives you a baseline view of how much traffic you’re getting from these tools and whether it’s driving results. 

Use AI Visibility tools 
If you want to get more granular, Moz’s AI visibility tool aggregates brand mentions across ChatGPT and Gemini and shows you how often your brand appears in specific models. It’s a great way to understand your AI search performance and benchmark against competitors.

Crystal Carter covers this section in more detail in her prompt tracking guide.

Monitor sentiment 

It's not enough to appear in AI answers. Check that the responses accurately represent your brand. If an LLM is describing you incorrectly or associating you with the wrong topics, address it at the source.

Check server log files 

Log files show which pages LLMs are crawling repeatedly. Consistent recrawling signals that your content is being pulled into responses somewhere, even if you're not seeing direct referral traffic.  

For some further reading, check out this article where Jamie Indigo shared tips on using log files to identify LLM crawlers.

Track impact

You can also track impact without knowing the prompt. To do this,  follow the attribution from LLM referral traffic to the landing page, then to the lead and new business, and use it to identify which pages convert best from LLM referrals. Next, apply CRO best practices to improve conversion on those pages.

9. How can businesses evaluate if their SEO agency is the right fit for this new era of marketing?

This is a dicey one. The other day, I saw an agency owner bragging about publishing 100 blog posts a month for a client. I call them snakeoil salesmen because it’s a version of SEO that looks busy, reports on traffic, and delivers very little business value.

Here’s what to look for instead:

They offer Digital PR as part of a holistic marketing offering

If an agency is serious about evolving, they’ll have Digital PR baked into their services. It drives citations, mentions, and visibility that help you diversify your discovery channels. 

There’s also a creative element to Digital PR, such as publishing research that attracts 3rd-party mentions and tapping into trends in meaningful ways.

Reporting on AI visibility

The second sign is reporting. A good agency should already be reporting on AI visibility. They should have a strategy to improve your LLM's visibility and tie results back to metrics such as brand awareness, citations, and leads. 

Diversified content plans

If they’re publishing 100 blog posts a month that AI can already answer, they’ve created content bloat, and that’s a waste of investment. 

You want an agency that thinks full-funnel and knows how to distribute content for discoverability, reaching new audiences beyond owned channels.

They measure success by business goals, not vanity metrics

Paid media often gets all the credit because last-click attribution is easy to report. SEO is rarely afforded such luxury, especially when the journey is fragmented, and people bounce between multiple channels before converting.

A good agency proves impact by tying SEO work to business outcomes. They measure success by the new business you've generated, not vanity metrics like content volume and traffic.

10. Can you define digital PR for people who think it's just link building, placements, or guest posts?

Digital PR is everything you do to earn mentions and visibility on third-party websites. The keyword is earn, not buy or swap.

It's reactive to what's happening right now and proactive in positioning you to respond when something relevant breaks.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

• Responding to a trending topic with a commentary piece that gets picked up by a media publication
• Finding podcasts actively looking for subject matter experts and pitching yourself as a guest
• Contributing informed, relevant answers to UGC platforms where your audience hangs out
• Publishing original research that naturally attracts citations and third-party mentions
• Creating content tied to a news event that earns coverage because it's timely and credible

This is an oversimplification because I’m not a Digital PR expert. But the creative element is what separates Digital PR from everything else 

11. Are traditional content skills still enough, and what roles are emerging as a result?

Many content folks are going to struggle with this transition, and I'll tell you why.

The traditional agency model feeds clients keyword lists and content briefs pulled from the SERP. Everything flows from search volume and competitor analysis. 

It's a system that worked, but it trained an entire industry to think within a narrow box.

The next generation of content-led SEOs requires an evolved skillset:

• Storytelling: The ability to take a brand's expertise and turn it into content people want to read and share.
• Trend awareness: Knowing what's happening in your industry and adjacent spaces in real time.
• Distribution thinking: Understanding that creating content is only half the job, and getting it in front of the right people is the other half.
• Creative research: Finding data angles and original ideas that naturally attract citations and third-party coverage.
• Digital PR: Earning visibility beyond your owned channels through relevance and consistency.

In my opinion, creative-led content is the ideal role. They sit at the intersection of content, PR, and brand, and think less like optimisers and more like journalists and storytellers. It’s not an erosion of traditional SEO, but the next evolution of search.

Stop moving with the crowd and start innovating in ways that set you apart. Brand affinity is your best lever for discoverability and trust. Create addictive content that makes people return for more. Use digital PR to reach new audiences and measure everything against your business goals.