SEO Isn’t Dead, It Just Smells Funny

Despite rumors, SEO remains essential. Key fundamentals like keyword research, understanding customer intent, and maintaining a strong local presence are more important than ever. Creating authoritative content, distributing it across multiple platforms, and engaging with the community ensures that SEO continues to thrive alongside AI advancements.

Which Are the Most Important SEO Fundamentals for AI Visibility?

SEO fundamentals are still incredibly important. For instance, keyword research is all about understanding your customer. You can have a perfectly optimized website and business presence, but if you don’t understand what your customer wants, you’ll miss the mark with your messaging. This means gathering data on what people are searching for, using tools like Google Keyword Planner, and even recording customer calls to hear directly how they talk about your products.

Content Formatting and Authority

How you format your content matters a lot. We’ve pivoted to techniques like logical chunking, concise answers, using FAQs, and putting summaries at the beginning of articles. It’s also important to highlight the authors and their credentials, linking to institutions to establish credibility and trust. This aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, which are especially crucial for industries like healthcare and wellness.

Content Distribution

It’s not just about creating content; it’s about where you put it. Your website is the primary source, but you also need to syndicate that content across social media and other platforms. Using different formats like videos and infographics can help reach a broader audience, but it’s important to have a solid brand message first before expanding into new content types.

Content Strategy

When it comes to content strategy, it’s all about creating topical clusters. Instead of just optimizing one page for one keyword, you’re building a network of content around a topic. This means focusing on what makes your brand unique and addressing customer needs in a comprehensive way. It’s also important to consider the different types of customers you have and create content tailored to each persona. Kevin Indig’s Growth Memo is a great resource for diving deeper into this approach.

Engaging with the Community

Engaging with the community on platforms like Reddit and Medium is also vital. AI engines look at the consistency and consensus of your presence online, so having accurate citations and a strong local profile matters. Using a method like the CORE method (Create Once, Replicate Everywhere) helps ensure that your content is consistently represented across different platforms.

Local Presence and Citations

For businesses with a local presence, Google remains a top driver through Google Maps and Places results. It’s crucial to have consistent citations because AI engines, as well as search engines, look for consistency, correlating data, and consensus. This means ensuring your business name, address, and phone number are consistent across multiple directories online.

If you’re a local business, understanding how people search for you and showing up where they’re searching is key. This includes not just AI but also Google and other industry websites, forums, and similar platforms. It also means regularly updating your business profile. For example, there’s a Google Business Profile Optimization checklist that’s a great starting point.

Other things that can help with your local presence include getting on local websites with your listing, earning high-quality backlinks (not the kind you pay for but the kind you earn), and focusing on getting great reviews. A great product or service naturally leads to better reviews, and having recent reviews is crucial.

Public Relations and Brand Authority

For brands with budgets or in competitive verticals, public relations plays a crucial role. Strong PR signals—such as getting quoted in trusted publications or being mentioned in relevant news stories—can increase both search visibility and user trust. These mentions also contribute to your brand’s perceived authority by AI models and search algorithms alike.

So, is SEO Dying?

SEO is evolving—not dying. While AI is reshaping how content is discovered and consumed, the underlying principles of SEO remain vital. What’s changing is how we apply them. Those who adapt with strategic content, community engagement, strong branding, and technical precision will find that SEO is not only alive—but thriving.

By Jason Demmon SEO expert