The Future of SEO: How People Will Get Their Questions Answered in 2+ Years

I’m optimistic about the future of SEO, and I want everyone who reads this to feel the same. Of course, I can’t deny that things are changing, and I’m preparing for many major shifts over the next few years regarding AI and the future of SEO.

Advancements like Google’s integration of generative AI into search are already changing the digital search landscape, and yes, we can’t deny it: people are using LLMs to solve problems and even buy products. But, to what degree is this new type of search taking over, and how do we prepare?

Many web analysts, SEO strategists, and writers are learning how to leverage AI to create stronger websites and more effective content. This will greatly alter how your competitors approach content creation — and it should alter how you approach it, too.

To shed light on the future of SEO, we’ve reached out to SEO experts at Semrush, Search Engine Journal, and HubSpot. Keep reading to learn how you should prepare your SEO strategy for 2025 and beyond. And if you want to learn more about the latest in marketing, check out our latest State of Marketing Report.

Predictions on the Future of SEO, and How You Should Prepare [Data + Expert Insights]

There’s no doubt that with the rise of AI, the future of SEO can feel uncertain, but after working in this industry for over ten years, I can honestly say I’m not worried. SEO has always been uncertain and ever-changing; that’s what makes it so exciting, challenging, and, yes, admittedly, a bit stressful at times.

I was very careful with the predictions I included in this article. I desperately wanted to balance the narrative about AI and the future of SEO. Please read all the predictions and remember to consider that two things can be true at once:

• AI is great and impactful.
• AI has its limitations.

1. The LLM hype will peak.

I’m going to start with this prediction because I think it instantly adds balance to this discussion.

I know I’m not alone in thinking that AI, generative content, and marketing shortcuts are not always what they seem. The problem is that the hype around AI, the promise of faster, better, and cheaper, is muddying the water. Online, it feels like the benefits of AI are shared far more than the consequences of over-reliance.

With the overly optimistic outlook about AI’s role in the future of SEO, even I can feel under pressure and challenged by clients who, unbeknownst to them, are asking for a sub-par process using AI because someone on LinkedIn shared their AI miracle.

Let me tell you: I was relieved when experienced and respected SEO Mark Williams-Cook shared his thoughts on LLMs and a prediction that we’re near the peak of where we’re going to be with LLMs.

Williams-Cook is the director of Candour and founder of AlsoAsked. I’ve been following Williams-Cook for years on LinkedIn and have always appreciated his contribution to SEO, which includes his unsolicited SEO tips and well-rounded, well-researched, and sophisticated take on the SEO landscape.

With twenty years of experience in SEO, he stays close to what’s happening in the industry and keeps us all updated in his newsletter, Core Updates. Williams-Cook also shares unmissable SEO insights on the Search with Candour podcast.

It’s fair to say that he’s learned a lot about how the SEO landscape changes, and importantly for this article, how people respond to new and exciting developments like AI.

Williams-Cook says, “In terms of the hype cycle, I feel we’re near the peak of where we are going to be with LLMs now. There are a couple of realities that are starting to hit home.”

Source

Williams-Cook notes that the big one is the unsolved problem of hallucinations.

“Many tasks require a series of objectively correct answers, but the very technological nature and, in fact, the ‘magic’ of LLMs, means hallucinations are unavoidable in the base models,” Williams-Cook says.

For those who don’t know, ‘hallucination’ refers to irrelevant, false, and/or inconsistent content generated from LLMs. Naturally, it reduces trust and, if unnoticed, could be catastrophic for businesses.

Below is one of the less serious but completely useless examples of hallucination. AI overviews provide the exact same phone number for a number of businesses.

Source

Williams-Cook brings some data about hallucination rates.

“OpenAI’s technical card for ChatGPT 4.5 stated a 19% hallucination rate on a test designed to catch them; however, it scored a 37% hallucination rate on SimpleQA, a standardized test that asks for facts about known entities published on websites that rank,” he says.

Williams-Cook shares that there are attempts at “grounding’ this output. Arguably, Google is best placed to do so with its extensive web index and scoring metrics. However, Williams-Cook points out that attempts to do so reliably seem to be failing to scale, with Google returning hallucinated information.

Williams-Cook continues, “While LLMs can be useful, the danger is that the public at large has no idea how these tools are working, and we’ve been trained at large to ‘trust’ Google and others as a brand for many years. When we hear ‘AI’, a lot of people will automatically think it is something ‘intelligent’, rather than a very fancy but spicy predictive text.”

According to Williams-Cook, the byproduct of generating likely text so confidently is that it sounds so believable. Studies have shown that not only are LLMs wrong a staggering amount of the time, but they are confidently wrong.

Williams-Cook told me a story where a client used AI for a scientific piece. The AI cited studies, including titles, researcher names, and even the year a study took place.

The client’s in-house expert reviewed the content. The verdict? Well, the study was a complete hallucination. It was entirely false. Because of how the AI wrote the content (with conviction), the study looked completely legitimate to the average reader.

It would be very easy to publish falsities using AI. So, marketers (and everyone) must review every word of AI. Luckily for the client, they work with educated industry experts who spotted the incorrect study. Anyone less qualified could easily have missed it. I would’ve.

Source

Williams-Cook believes that we’ll see an erosion in public trust in these tools as this becomes clearer. He points to an “agentic” future, in which AI agents can perform research and multi-step tasks completely independently. Williams-Cook speculates that this will likely end up being an entirely separate technology to LLMs, but it will still need a source of truth.

“Whichever scenario plays out, many of the principles of what we are currently doing will hold true, as they are fundamentally user-centric,” he says. Both outcomes lead to an erosion in public trust.

I believe marketers have a greater understanding of how LLMs work. In fact, for many marketers, the limitations of AI are not news. In HubSpot’s latest survey on the State of AI Marketing, marketers expressed that barriers to using AI tools included:

• Data privacy concerns. Almost half (42.67%) of people surveyed were concerned about data privacy.
• Role security concerns. Over one-quarter (25.16%) of people surveyed were concerned with security.
• Ethical or legal compliance concerns were shared by 22.05% of those surveyed.

Why I liked this prediction: As above, it brought balance. Additionally, I can absolutely see the narrative change as everyone understands the limitations of AI. I believe this will reduce the over-reliance on AI and increase the AI user’s understanding of the value of SOPs when using AI. No business should risk its brand integrity.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

Well, it means we have to be careful when we use AI. I often use AI as a tool. Sometimes, I generate a bit of content, and I love writing. I don’t deny it can be very useful, but a human edit is critical.

2. Conversion from LLMs will increase.

There’s certainty that conversions from LLMs will increase. The facts are, a year or two ago, we didn’t get any conversions from LLMs because they didn’t exist, so the only way is up.

Before I get into this section, it’s vital you remember that we’re still dealing with small datasets when discussing conversions from LLMs. The vast majority of search is still happening on Google. An article by Danny Goodwin in Search Engine Land rounds up a few studies and reports:

• Even if every single one of ChatGPT’s one billion daily prompts were search-related, it would still account for under 1% of global search activity.
• Only about 30% of prompts resemble traditional search behavior.
• Google handled more than 5 trillion searches in 2024 — roughly 14 billion per day — holding onto a dominant 93.57% share of the global search market.
• By comparison, ChatGPT handled around 37.5 million search-style queries each day — a tiny 0.25% slice of the pie.
• ChatGPT’s search share is less than Bing (4.10%), Yahoo (1.35%), and DuckDuckGo (0.73%).

All this said, I don’t think we can ignore the role of AI, the future of SEO, and how it impacts user behavior when considering a product or service.

I was “chatting” with ChatGPT last week about a purchase. I was torn between two brands at very different price points, and it was a conversation with ChatGPT that helped me decide which product to choose.

Nate Tower, president at Perrill, has some interesting data and insights about conversions in LLMs.

In a LinkedIn post, Tower boldly stated that “traffic from ChatGPT and Perplexity is converting at higher rates than any other channel right now.”

Tower believes that ChatGPT and other AI-driven search engines generate higher conversions because users view them and ‘talk’ to them “more like colleagues and friends.”

While the conversion rates are higher, Tower admits that “volume is really low compared to other channels, but there is a potential goldmine of high-quality users waiting for you on ChatGPT.”

I was curious about Tower’s statements and wanted to know if he had the data to support what he was saying, and he did.

Tower shared four data sets from four industries:

• B2B services.
• B2B manufacturing.
• B2B healthcare.
• SaaS.

Some of the findings from this data include:

• Across each industry, conversions from LLMs were higher.
• In the most extreme instance, LLMs converted at 7.75% for the SaaS company compared with a sitewide conversion of 0.47%.
• In many cases, LLM conversion rates were two to three times the sitewide conversion rate.
• Conversion rates have been as high as sixteen times the sitewide conversion rate.
• There are a few cases, particularly in ecommerce, where conversion rates from LLMs are not performing as high as other channels.

Tower predicts that AI search provides a huge opportunity for smaller brands to make their mark in generative engines. Tower says, “Prompts on ChatGPT and other tools are hyper-specific to the user’s needs, giving smaller brands more opportunity to appear as the top recommended option.”

Tower gives an example where a Google user might search “best CRM” or “best CRM for a manufacturing company.”

“On ChatGPT, that same user is providing a very specific prompt like ‘Please recommend a CRM for a $100M metal fabrication company with six sales reps spread out over six territories in multiple countries…’ And often the prompt is more specific than that,” Tower says.

I strongly agree with what Tower is saying here. AI search does provide an opportunity for smaller brands to reach their prospects by showcasing how they can meet their specific needs and differentiate themselves.

However, as AI search develops, I predict there will be barriers to getting visibility in the search, as we see on Google. At the moment, my experience is that the AI search, such as ChatGPT, only shows sites that are performing well in Google, meaning you need a site that can reach the top spots in Google before you’ll get visibility in AI search, and we all know that is no easy feat. Equally, as SEOs know, the algorithm is always trying to provide the best results, and often this isn’t in favor of small businesses.

Top tips:

• You can start tracking your visibility in AI search now. Take a look at Kyle Rushton McGregor’s Looker Studio AI traffic tracker.
• You can also view conversions from people who landed on a page from an AI tool and converted. The screenshot below shows the landing page report with sales made, showing the page the user landed on, the session source, and total revenue.

• You can use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader to understand how LLMs view your brand. It’s easy to use.

With HubSpot’s AI Search Grader, you’ll find your:

• Brand sentiment.
• Share of voice.
• Overview of how your brand is perceived (positive, negative, or neutral).
• General analysis.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

AI search is currently playing a small role in the buyer journey. Although small, early data suggests that AI search and LLMs could be quite a significant part of the decision process. We can also see that Google is by far the most used search engine, and SEOs should be mindful of this while gently pivoting strategies to increase visibility in LLMs.

So far, good SEO that takes a consumer-first approach is what helps brands secure ranks on Google and visibility in AI.

3. Audiences will still want answers from real people.

“AI will change how search works,” says Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios. “You may already find it at the top of many search results.”

However, Crestodina says your audience will still look to your company for answers.

“Your audience needs your help and expertise. As subject matter experts in our niches, we can still publish helpful, useful articles and that content can still be discovered, in search results, in AI overviews, or in prompt responses in the AI apps,” he explains.

Crestodina says we are still subject matter experts in our niches and that our brands can become the most helpful resource to prospective customers. Marketers just have to adapt.

“Likely, the brand with the biggest digital footprint will win,” he says.

And Crestodina believes a brand can win by:

• Writing for many websites beyond their own blog.
• Collaborating with influencers, especially those who create content.
• Appearing on lists, directories, and podcasts.
• Conducting original research and making their site the primary source for new data.
• Doubling down on social media and email marketing.
• Recording videos and making sure the transcript includes the elevator pitch for the brand.
• Publishing true thought leadership because strong opinion is the fastest way to differentiate human-made content from AI-generated content.

In other words, show off your industry expertise while leveraging as many channels as you can to get your brand in front of your audience and in their ears.

“With a few changes to your content strategy, you may be well suited to win in the new era of content discovery, where you optimize for search, but also optimize the AI, training it to recommend your company and your content,” Crestodina says.

Top tip: If you‘re unsure how to get started on updating your content strategy in the age of AI, HubSpot’s AI Search Grader will come in handy.

It’s a first-of-its-kind, free app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects & customers are seeing across AI search engines — then gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

Human-written content is far from over, writers, especially industry experts, are still very much in need; they are critical to a content strategy that continues to move the needle for businesses.

4. Human-written content will continue to form the basis of AI responses.

As a follow-up to the prediction above, Yannick Van Noy has some thoughts on the role human-written content plays and will continue to play in the future of SEO and AI search.

Yannick Van Noy is the founder and CEO of Alpha Strategy & Marketing. I happen to know that Van Noy’s SEO knowledge is excellent because he recently audited my work. I found his understanding of SEO to be vast, considered, in-depth, balanced, and sophisticated. We had many discussions about SEO, and one particular story stands out.

First, Van Noy’s predictions for the future of SEO and AI. He says, “In the next two to three years, I believe we’ll see a more nuanced approach to how people use search engines versus AI tools.”

Van Noy echoes Nate Tower’s point about the importance of nuance, explaining that AI shines in situations where users are dealing with complex or layered problems.

“AI is incredibly useful for tackling highly complex or nuanced problems — situations where users need a personalized solution, are debugging a technical issue, or are navigating something that doesn’t have a straightforward answer,” he says.

In these cases, AI can offer faster, more synthesized responses than traditional search, which often requires digging through dozens of links. However, Van Noy draws a clear distinction between those scenarios and more straightforward queries.

“For more conventional searches — such as finding a restaurant, shopping for products, looking up tutorials, or following instructions — Google and other search engines will remain the go-to,” he explains.

Existing search tools are already optimized for these tasks through blog posts, forums, and reviews, and AI isn’t expected to replace that. “Just like calculators didn’t replace basic arithmetic in our heads, AI won’t replace simple search habits — it’ll just fill the gaps where traditional search struggles.”

He adds that the content we create for search today — blogs, news articles, how-to guides — will continue to matter in the age of AI.

“If anything, they’ll remain a foundation for AI responses. The future will be about knowing which tool fits the job: AI for context-heavy, layered questions, and search engines for everything that’s already been well-documented and indexed,” he explained.

Van Noy has a great story to illustrate the importance of human-written content in a digital world that may move toward AI search in some instances. Van Noy and his team had an article to edit. The article was already ranking on page one, rank one, but they wanted to keep the article updated.

The team turned to AI to research the topic, but of course, with their article ranking page one, rank one, all the AI could do was regurgitate his own article back at them. The AI didn’t have new data to add anything insightful. The topic was already covered in full, so new insights needed to be added by a human.

According to HubSpot’s data from the State of Marketing, 64% of marketers surveyed are using generative AI for text-based content creation such as blogs, ebooks, marketing email copy, press releases, product descriptions, text-based social posts.

A study by Originality.ai shows that content ranking on Google that includes AI is rapidly increasing. I can see that this may continue for a while; however, we should, in theory, hit a point where human-written content is absolutely critical, and the hype around this will increase.

Source

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

It is absolutely essential that you don’t abandon human-written and human-reviewed content. Although things look great for AI now, we know AI is limited in what it can share. While using AI, your content can only be as good as others have input. If your brand has any unique insights or pioneering thoughts, AI simply won’t be good enough.

5. SEO evolves to include LLMs.

Although Google is the go-to for online search, we can’t deny that SEO is evolving, and visibility in LLMs matters.

Daniel Foley Carter is a highly respected SEO expert with over 26 years of experience across all areas of the industry. He’s currently the director at the digital agency Assertive, as well as the director of SEO Audits, known for its in-depth audits that go beyond SEO to include metrics like user engagement. He also leads SEO Stack, a tool designed to enhance the power of Google Search Console.

I’ve followed Foley Carter for years on LinkedIn and always appreciate his direct and informed perspectives on SEO. To help conceptualize his dedication to SEO, I can tell you that he recently shared a six-hour webinar on technical SEO.

When asked about the future of SEO and AI, Foley Carter says, “With the advent of machine learning and AI, we’re seeing faster and more impactful progression in the SEO space.”

Foley Carter explains that, given Google’s stranglehold on the search market and the fact that it has the largest index of documents on the planet, it’s primed to lead progress in search. We know that competing engines such as ChatGPT and BING have pushed forward Google’s integration of AI into search.

As search becomes more conversational, Foley Carter notes, the way people interact with information is already starting to shift — something we’re seeing with tools like Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) and emerging conversational search features.

According to Foley Carter, “conventional SEO is most definitely going to be phased out as Google isn’t reliant on the things it used to be.”

With both technology and user behavior evolving, the strategies behind search optimization will need to adapt as well. Foley Carter predicts that SEO as a skill will see a shifting need to optimize for LLMs. That includes strengthening the selection of citation sources.

In other words, it’s no longer just about ranking well in traditional search — it’s about showing up in AI-generated results and being seen as a credible, high-quality source.

“With LLMs growing, we’re going to see a paradigm shift in a lot of industries, but, fundamentally, end users’ needs need to be met with good quality results, whether they are AIOs or traditional search results,” Folly Carter says. “Subsequently, being present in both is going to be crucial to maintain traffic and to drive conversions/revenue.”

While this may sound like a steep change, he ensures that SEO will continue to incorporate the fundamentals for crawlers, addressing things such as rendering, DOM output, good technical practice, and structured data. However, the field will also rely more heavily on trust signals as well as content types that are more likely to be used in AIO generation or citing.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

I wanted to bring Foley Carter’s insights after the prediction above (that human-written content will continue to form the basis of search) because the two are very linked.

Foley Carter says that SEO will optimize for LLMs to strengthen the selection of citation sources; ultimately, without human-written content and excellent SEO (which is also what gets brands into LLMs), there won’t be new content in the LLMs. SEO is the ticket to visibility in AI search.

6. The type of content that performs best will change tremendously over the next year.

HubSpot’s Senior Director of SEO Global Growth Aja Frost told me that Google is prioritizing “first-person, credible, personality-driven content.” This is a response to the exponential increase in the amount of AI-written, low-value content.

The shift to personality-driven content makes sense. If Google’s consumers are flooded with low-value AI content, Google knows:

1. The content isn’t going to resonate with their audience, and
2. Their AI models won’t have enough new information to keep learning and adapting.

So, what does this mean for the future of SEO?

For Frost and her SEO team at HubSpot, it means drastically increasing their investments in authoritative, human-first perspectives.

And, it means reimagining HubSpot’s existing strategy, with a greater emphasis on perspective-driven content and emerging channels.

7. Human-first perspectives will win over more traditional, educational posts.

Over the next few years, expect to see branded content that is written from the perspective and experience of the content’s creator.

“For years, most companies I wrote for required me to write in their brand‘s voice,” HubSpot Blogger Erica Santiago recalls. “I never had to dive into my own experiences or pepper in my own sense of humor. It was all very clinical, detached. And that was the tone of most branded listicles and articles I’d find in my own search results as well.”

But she says she’s already seeing and experiencing a shift as AI gains more traction in SERPs.

“I wrote an article recently for HubSpot about email marketing trends, and I ended up citing marketing emails in my own personal inbox to ensure I was writing perspective-driven content that AI couldn’t emulate,” she says.

Santiago explains, “Now, when I read branded content, I notice writers are citing their own unique experiences and injecting their personality as well.”

Frost told me that she no longer distinguishes between SEO and editorial. For a post to rank, it needs to meet certain criteria for both.

She says, “That means looking at every piece of content and asking, ‘How do we make this a really unique, compelling piece of content that you can’t find anywhere else on the web?’ And ‘how can we ensure it‘s written by someone who has unique expertise on the topic?’”

8. Brands will have to optimize their content for voice search.

AI is used in voice search to improve language recognition, personalization, and accuracy. As AI becomes more integrated in search engines like Google, users will likely see more improvements in tools like voice search.

It’s also worth noting that voice search is being used more and more when searching for information online.

According to DataReportal, 30% of internet users aged 16-64 worldwide use voice assistants each week. What’s more, 45% of Americans report using voice search on their smartphones.

So, what does this mean for the future of SEO?

Well, it simply means brands will need to optimize their content for voice search results. Marketers can do this by:

• Leveraging featured snippets.
• Optimize your website for mobile users.
• Use long-tail keywords and words like “how,” “what,” and “where” when possible.

9. Web analysts predict trustworthiness will become the most important ranking factor in the SERPs.

When it comes to Google’s E-E-A-T, web analysts say that trustworthiness will become the most important factor in ranking highly on SERPs, followed by expertise, experience, and authoritativeness.

It makes sense that trustworthiness will continue to matter most in the coming years since trustworthiness is essentially the sum total of the other three rating factors.

In other words, your website’s rating for expertise, experience, and authoritativeness helps Google dictate how trustworthy your website is overall.

I spoke with Katie Morton, Search Engine Journal’s senior managing growth editor, to learn her tips for increasing trustworthiness.

She told me, “Since Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness support Trust, it’s best to look at the whole of the E-E-A-T concept rather than focusing on any single aspect of the acronym.”

That said, Morton points out that Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines specifically call out the following three points to increase Trust:

• E-commerce sites with secure online payment systems and reliable customer service.
• Honest product reviews meant to inform rather than solely to drive purchases.
• Accurate content about Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics to prevent harm.

For companies looking to increase trustworthiness, again, it’s important to address all aspects of E-E-A-T. Here are her suggestions:

Expert Authors

Source content from authors with direct experience, a depth of knowledge, and expertise in the topic they are writing about. Anyone could Google a subject and write an article about it, but if the writer isn’t a subject matter expert, this doesn’t establish E-E-A-T.

Having recognized experts and authorities in your industry as authors on your site can boost the credibility of your website and brand. On your website, provide bios of your authors and content creators that include their expertise, experience, and credentials.

Accurate Content from Trusted Sources

Publish truthful and well-researched content that cites credible sources. Support claims via the experience and expertise of the author’s first-hand knowledge, with research and statistics from trustworthy sources, or both.

Originality and Value

Ensure that your content is original, substantial, comprehensive, and provides valuable insights. Content that provides value to users is more likely to be shared. When a piece of content gets positive attention through shares and backlinks, it can lend a sense of authority when your content is cited as a trusted source.

Morton adds, “It takes a lot of effort to create content that establishes E-E-A-T, but the results are well worth it. If you follow these suggestions, you will also create Helpful Content, which Google strongly encourages.”

This can help serve both your business and your audience while establishing a positive brand reputation.

10. Marketers will leverage social search and other platforms.

Search engines are still dominant, but social search is growing in popularity, especially among Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X.

In fact, 31% of consumers use social search when looking for answers to questions online, and 1 in 4 consumers aged 18-54 actually prefer social search over search engines.

This could have a major impact on the future of SEO by shifting your focus from Google to Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms.

HubSpot’s Santiago has first-hand experience with this shift.

“I‘m leading a quick-hit video initiative with other HubSpot bloggers so we can add more value to our posts for readers as well as get more eyes on our content,” she explains. “This means we’re making videos for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts and then embedding these videos into our posts.”

Santiago says with more people using the above platforms as search engines, it‘s important marketers create content for these channels that leverage back to the brand’s website.

“I don‘t Google things nearly as much as even just a year ago,” she says. “Just the other day, I looked up ’Best platform sandals for the summer‘ on TikTok and found so many new brands I ended up following. I even bought a pair directly from one brand’s Instagram. A year or two ago, I would have Googled that query and bought from the brand’s website.”

Marketers who optimize their accounts for social search have three top strategies:

• Include relevant keywords and hashtags in your social posts.
• Include relevant keywords and hashtags in your bio.
• Make sure that your username is easy to search for.

I’ve seen the power of social search first-hand. When I hear about a new brand, I don’t Google them anymore — I search for their Instagram account. And oftentimes, their social media page is the determining factor in whether I end up purchasing one of their products.

While it’s early days, social media might someday take the lead in product discovery. Many users prefer visuals over text, so it makes sense that they might not want to read a lengthy webpage about a product:

They just want to see it in action.

Additionally, SEO experts are leaning more heavily into multimedia content to expand beyond search regarding opportunities for reaching audiences.

This makes sense: During volatile times, it’s critical that your business becomes adaptable, and you learn how to find new avenues to obtain traffic and leads.

As Frost told me, “At HubSpot, we are dramatically increasing our investment in other types of media, like video, podcasts, newsletters, and types of media that will be far less affected by the changes in search happening on Google.”

11. AI will change how SEOs and content creators do their jobs …

And finally, for the least surprising prediction in this list: AI will change how SEOs and creators do their work.

In fact, more than half of blog writers already use AI, and 74% of web analysts say it improves their content’s performance and ranking on the SERPs.

Over 50% of web analysts have already incorporated AI tools into their workflow.

Some of these analysts are gradually testing it and comparing results to performance without AI, while other analysts are building entirely new teams to leverage AI.

In particular, these web analysts are using AI for specific tasks, including keyword research, automating tedious tasks, optimizing their websites, and idea generation.

Nick LeRoy is an SEO consultant who has worked in the SEO industry for over fifteen years. He is the author of the SEOForLunch newsletter, where he brings updates, articles, SEO interview tips, the latest jobs, and more to the industry.

LeRoy has some thoughts on how the future of SEO will impact how SEOs are tracking data. LeRoy warns that “If you’re still measuring SEO success only by rankings and organic traffic, you’re missing the bigger picture.”

Instead, LeRoy says, SEOs should be shifting their tracking to:

• How does our SEO work impact email, social, and referral traffic?
• What’s the total “halo effect” of our content investments?
• What efficiencies or scale are we providing to our paid media counterparts?
• Are we building a brand that Google cannot ignore?

I agree that conversion tracking and the way we talk and think about SEO have to change. I stand strong with the notion that impressions, clicks, and clickthrough rate still matter, but it’s critical that SEOs think about the wider marketing landscape and how SEO fits into it.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

When used correctly, AI can drastically improve an SEO team‘s strategy. That’s why it’s critical to work with AI, not against it, as you consider how you might shift your strategy to meet these new challenges.

12. … And it will greatly improve marketers’ web optimization strategies.

Kyle Byers, director of organic search at Semrush, told me there are innumerable ways marketers can leverage AI.

As he puts it, “AI is incredibly powerful and flexible in what it can help marketers accomplish — from purpose-built tools like our own ContentShake (AI content generator app) and SEO Writing Assistant to general chat-based interfaces like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google’s Gemini.”

AI can also help marketers optimize their websites.

Here are some of the ways Byers suggests marketers leverage AI for web optimization:

• Conversion copywriting. (“Act as a tech-savvy small business owner who is shopping for accounting software. Grade the following landing page headlines on a scale of 1 to 10 based on how likely they are to make you want to try or purchase my product, then draft five new headline ideas that would be more compelling.”)
• Rephrasing content. For example, simplifying a long paragraph or sentence to meet an 8th-grade reading level. Or rewriting content to make it more unique, to strike a different tone, or to follow your brand’s style guide.
• Getting “unstuck” with content writing. (“Help me finish the following paragraph.”)
• Brainstorming additional angles to add to your content. (“Act as a sales manager who wants to develop an internal training program to improve your team’s sales skills. What important subtopics or angles are missing from the following content, which you would want to learn more about?”)
• Quickly drafting a list of 10 possible title tags and meta descriptions for a given webpage.
• Generating Schema markup. (“Generate FAQPage Schema markup for the following FAQs.”)
• Generating tags for different languages/locations.
• Translating content from one language to another.
• Generating regular expressions (for example, using Google Search Console or Google Analytics).
• Generating new robots.txt rules will also help understand existing robots.txt rules.

He adds, “AI tools can be amazingly powerful if used correctly. Just keep in mind that they’re just that: tools. Use them to leverage your expertise — not to replace it.”

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The Next Evolution of SEO

From speaking with experts, I can see that AI is here to stay, and with it comes a new dawn of SEO.

After having discussed the future of SEO and AI with experts, the reality is that this shift may not be as scary as it can seem. Good SEO is what’s keeping LLMs updated, and people are still using Google significantly more than anything else.

As a content creator long-trained in the art of writing for SEO, I’m personally thrilled about this evolution.

It will require businesses to recalibrate and continue putting innovative, novel, human-first perspectives ahead of rote, cut-and-dry content.

As a marketer, nothing could make me happier.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.