AI's Influence on SEO Strategies

Here's what 99% of B2B SaaS companies get wrong about growth: They're still playing by 2023 rules in a 2025 game. Legacy marketing strategy: keyword research → content creation → hope for rankings. Today? AI has completely reimagined this playbook. The New B2B SaaS SEO Framework: 🎯 Intent-First Content Strategy - Use AI to analyze your customer support tickets and sales calls - Identify the actual questions prospects ask (not what you think they ask) - Create content that matches real search intent, not keyword volumes 🤖 AI-Powered Content Optimization - NLP tools to understand semantic search patterns - Predictive analytics to identify trending topics before they peak - Automated content audits that reveal optimization opportunities 📊 Technical SEO Automation - AI-driven site speed optimization - Automated schema markup for better search visibility - Real-time technical issue detection and fixes 🔗 Smart Link Building - AI identification of high-authority, relevant link opportunities - Automated outreach personalization at scale - Content gap analysis for competitive advantage The companies dominating B2B SaaS search results aren't just creating more content—they're creating smarter content that actually serves their buyer's journey. At GrackerAI, we're seeing cybersecurity companies increase organic traffic by 300%+ using AI-driven AEO strategies that traditional agencies can't replicate. Key Takeaway: Stop competing on content volume. Start competing on content intelligence. #SEO #B2BSaaS #AI #ContentStrategy #DigitalMarketing

AI search volatility is far greater than I ever imagined. I analyzed 80,000 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity, comparing citation data from June to July 2025. Nearly half of the domains cited by answer engines shifted within a single month. Google AI Overviews saw the highest turnover, with 59.3% of cited domains being new. ChatGPT followed closely with 54.1% new domains, Microsoft Copilot at 53.4%, and Perplexity at 40.5%. This is an insane amount of drift compared to traditional search. My take is that this proves that it is going to be critical for marketers to understand the volatility of authority and relevance factors within AI search. Traditional SEO and authority-building strategies clearly don’t = stable visibility in AI search. More importantly, refreshed and relevant content is becoming more crucial than ever. IMO, this is also great supporting evidence that content freshness and adaptability will provide a significant advantage to marketers. (we know from our research that AI search engines significantly prioritize real-time relevance.) Marketers aiming to optimize their visibility and citations in AI search need to prioritize timeliness and relevance and actively monitor citation drift in order to understand where their content stands, if it’s winning or being surpassed, and what the answer engines are citing today vs last month. Because AI search is never the same twice. Would love to hear your thoughts on this one in the comments: in a world with this much volatility, how could we adjust our strategies in response and how do we measure success with this little stability? 👀

I've spent the last week doing (probably way too much) research for a client article on how AI is currently impacting SEO — and this is one of my biggest takeaways: LLMs and Google AI Overviews are leading to lower clickthrough rates and overall traffic, but especially for LLMs, the visitors who do end up on B2B sites tend to be much more likely to convert. Or, as a new study from Ross Hudgens at Siege Media (that inconveniently dropped right after I submitted my article) puts it: "LLMs are taking top funnel traffic from us, but seem to be sending us more bottom funnel (to the right places). This is a positive and should be weighed accordingly." I know there are plenty of legitimate qualms about how AI is scraping and using our painstakingly created content. But right now, if you're responsible for driving high-value leads to your website, optimizing your content for LLMs has to be part of your job. That's my other big takeaway from this research: the actual number of people using LLMs instead of traditional search isn't huge right now for most industries, but it's growing. Fast. Getting your brand to show up in LLMs certainly isn't going to matter LESS anytime soon. So, you might as well figure it out before all of your competitors do.

We've personally spoken with 100+ marketing leaders about AI's impact on SEO traffic in the last year, here’s what our team at Directive is hearing... Clients are panicking, questioning if content is even worth it. Short of building a time machine - B2B brands are wondering how they can shift their strategies to maximize on SERP opportunities. But here’s the truth: traffic was never the best success metric. AI may be changing the game, but it doesn’t mean content isn’t working—it means brands need to adapt. Here’s what has been working: What We’re Doing Differently: ✅ We’re exploring branded listicles and third-party reviews sites and paid placements to ensure your brand owns more real estate in the SERPs. ✅ We're focusing more on long-form content that satisfies commercial-intent queries - this WILL be a better long term play. It may not drive traffic quickly but will play into higher quality leads long term -- still a lot more ROI in this vs. focusing just on traffic-driven, informational intent SEO strategies. ✅ We’re redefining content success. Clicks are just one piece of the puzzle. We’re optimizing for conversions and revenue impact to ensure that your content still delivers business results - marrying CRO with SEO + Content Marketing. Traffic may be declining, but our goal remains the same – using content to drive measurable growth. The brands that evolve with this shift (examine SERP reality - don't manipulate it) will come out ahead. No time machine or crystal ball needed 🔮   Are you ready?   #DirectiveDrillDown

At Duda, we’ve analyzed traffic across more than 1 million websites published on our platform, and the trend is clear: AI-driven traffic is growing extremely fast, especially from ChatGPT.  That doesn’t mean SEO is dead. Far from it, Google is still generating significantly more traffic to websites than all AI platforms combined. But it does mean that web professionals need to adapt their strategies to make sure their clients’ websites are discoverable in both traditional *and* AI search. The good news is a lot of the best practices to rank for traditional search are still relevant in the age of AI discoverability - with some new considerations… ✅ What still works: Authoritative, well-structured content, following E-E-A-T principles   Strong technical SEO (Core Web Vitals, mobile responsiveness, fast load times) Focus on genuinely helpful content, not just ranking tricks 🆕 Where to renew focus in the age of AI: LLMS.txt files (think robots.txt, but for AI) to help LLMs understand your site Structured data like Local Business, FAQ, and Product schema to surface in AI answers IndexNow & Google Search Console integrations to get new content discovered quickly Server-side rendering (SSR) so content isn’t hidden behind JavaScript 🚫 What to avoid: Keyword stuffing Generic backlink strategies Prioritizing visibility over value At Duda, we’re building tools to help agencies and SaaS platforms stay ahead of the curve, including being the first website builder to automatically generate LLMS.txt for all sites built on our platform. If you’re a web pro building websites at scale, it’s time to optimize for both search engines and AI assistants. Learn more about how to future-proof your sites for AI discoverability here: https://lnkd.in/dA_3YrG6

Organic search is changing. Quietly, but meaningfully. Since Google rolled out AI Overviews, we’ve seen a clear shift. Visibility is up. Rankings are stable. But clicks are down. The summary box answers more questions before users ever reach your site. That changes how traffic flows - and how we think about SEO. Here’s what we’re seeing in the data, and what we’re doing about it. What We’re Seeing in Our Data We anticipated this shift early and have already been aligning our SEO strategy with how AI-driven search behaves, focusing on visibility, authority, and influence across both traditional and generative platforms. The chart below (from GSC, excluding branded keywords) tells a clear story: Impressions are rising sharply. We're now at our highest level of visibility since January 2024. But clicks are steadily declining, even though rankings haven't dropped. This means we're showing up more often in searches, but users aren’t clicking through like they used to. This trend began around the launch of Google's AI Overviews in May and has since accelerated. A good example is a high-difficulty keyword where we recently reached the #1 position (Ecommerce SMS Marketing). While traditional clicks are lower, this ranking still gets us featured as the first citation in the AI Overview, which boosts brand exposure and keeps Yotpo part of the answer. In this new environment, presence and influence matter as much as clicks. The Industry Is Feeling It Too We’re not alone in this. Multiple industry studies and leaders are sounding the alarm: Ahrefs found a 34.5% drop in CTR when AI Overviews appear on a search result. Search Engine Land reports publishers losing up to 37.04% of clicks in affected queries. Cloudflare’s CEO warns the shift is "killing the open web" - Google now sends 1 visit per 18 crawled pages, compared to 1 in 2 ten years ago. The biggest impact? On Informational, non-branded queries. What We’re Doing About It Doubling down on ranking visibility - because top placement matters, especially for being cited in AI summaries. Launching LLM optimization with AI trackers & optimization tools - to ensure our content shows up (and gets attributed) in AI-driven answers. Investing in content AI can't replace - like calculators, success stories, and use-case-specific pages that drive engagement beyond what Google’s AI can summarize. While the metrics are evolving, SEO remains a key pillar for discoverability, brand credibility, and long-term growth. We’re embracing the change - not just reacting to it. Curious to hear how your team is planning for this shift. Kudos to Amit for surfacing this one.

I just spent 3 hours analyzing Google's new AI search guidelines released yesterday. There's a hidden message that 95% of marketers will miss. While everyone focuses on the technical advice, the real game-changer is in paragraph 7: "We've seen that when people click to a website from search results pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality... users are more likely to spend more time on the site." For 20+ years, the search playbook was clear: - Rank higher - Get more clicks - Drive more traffic Google is now explicitly telling us that model is outdated. Why? Because AI-powered search experiences give users more context BEFORE they click. This means visitors who do click through are: - More qualified - More engaged - More likely to convert Having analyzed search behavior for 100s of brands over the past few weeks, I can confirm this matches what we're seeing in the data. Visitors from AI search experiences behave differently. This shift explains why we built Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) capabilities at Writesonic – to help companies understand and improve how they appear in AI-generated responses, not just traditional search results. The brands that adapt first will win big. Those still fixated on raw traffic numbers will increasingly wonder why their "successful" SEO isn't driving business outcomes. 👉 Comment "VISIBILITY CHECK" below if you want to discuss how your brand currently appears in AI search results and what specific improvements could drive better outcomes. I'll share some of our key findings and tactical suggestions based on what we're seeing work across industries. What has your experience been with visitors from AI search experiences? Are you seeing different engagement patterns?

AI Overviews are now appearing in 47% of Google searches, and up to 65% of travel searches, yet most travel marketers are completely unprepared for this shift. Here's what our data shows about winning in the AI-first search landscape: The most shocking finding from our recent study: Position in organic search DIRECTLY correlates with AI Overview inclusion. When our clients rank #1 organically, they appear in the AI Overview 100% of the time. At position #2, this drops to 69%, and position #3 only gets mentioned 42% of the time. Translation: SEO still matters, but with a new end goal - MENTIONS, not just clicks. Here's what's actually working for travel brands right now: 1. QUESTION-BASED HEADINGS Structure your content with H2/H3 headers phrased as actual questions: "What are the best seasons to visit Tuscany?" This gives AI models a natural hook to pull your content. 2. ANSWER FIRST, DETAILS LATER Provide the direct answer immediately after the question heading, then elaborate. If AI only grabs one sentence, make sure it's complete and valuable on its own. 3. STRUCTURED DATA SUPREMACY AI models love structure. Use schema markup, bullet points, and numbered lists. We've seen mention rates increase 3X when comparing structured vs. unstructured content with identical information. 4. THIRD-PARTY VALIDATION AI heavily weights external mentions. Getting your brand included in "Best of" lists and industry roundups dramatically increases the likelihood of being mentioned for relevant queries. 5. DON'T BLOCK AI CRAWLERS Check your robots.txt file. If you're blocking crawlers like GoogleBot-News or OAI-SearchBot, you're essentially invisible to AI. The metrics that matter have changed. Traffic is no longer the primary KPI - it's brand VISIBILITY and SENTIMENT across AI results. Is your marketing team still optimizing for yesterday's search landscape? #AImarketing #travelSEO #AIOverviews #searchmarketing #travelmarketing

🚨 SEO is in crisis—double-digit traffic drops across industries! 🚨 🔥 Key takeaways from Lindsay Boyajian Hagan (Conductor): 🔹 Fewer searches—Users are turning to AI for direct answers. 🔹 Organic results pushed down—AI Overviews, ads, and image carousels now dominate the top. 🔹 40% of searches display AI-generated summaries. 🔹 Reddit & Quora are outranking brands—Forums are seen as more “authentic.” 💡 What can you do? ✅ Ditch generic content—Double down on expertise. AI-generated content is everywhere—your edge is experience, authority, and trust. ✅ Meet your audience where they are—Create content on Reddit, Quora, and forums that Google prioritizes. ✅ Rethink your KPIs—Traffic is down, but brand impressions in search engines are up (thanks, AIO!). Measure what matters. ✅ Remember: Your great content is feeding LLMs. Don’t just create—strategize. And then, Chris Andrew (Scrunch AI) dropped this bombshell: 🔹 AI crawlers—not humans—are now your biggest site visitors. 🔹 Browsing is dead. AI delivers answers, not links. 🔹 2B+ users search in AI tools every month. 🔹 Optimize for AI search: • Give AI access to your content. • Create conversational, persona-adjusted content. • Ensure your site’s infrastructure is AI-friendly. At the Chief Marketing Officer Summit by CMO Alliance, the conversation was clear: Google Search is transforming at an unprecedented pace, and brands must adapt—fast. SEO isn’t dying—it’s evolving. The question is: Are you keeping up? Would love to hear—how is your brand adapting to AI-dominated search? #SEO #AI #Marketing #DigitalMarketing #CMO #SearchOptimization #AIO #MarketingStrategy #CMOSummit #CMOAlliance

Forbes estimates 60%+ of organic traffic is being effected due to the introduction of AI summaries, the adoption of LLMs, and ultimately the changes in SEO. I recently spoke at Affiliate Summit East on the emergence of AI and the impact to eCommerce. I touched on SEO and the move to SGE (search generative experience), the issues facing identity capture and noise created by bots as well as AI-generated content, and how content goes viral with changes to TikTok & Meta's algorithms. Sharing some of the learnings (and slides) on AI summaries and rankings: Impact - Google's AI summaries can take up to 3 full mobile scrolls or 2 desktop scrolls (1500 pixels) - LLM search went from 0.25% of traffic to 2.25% in <12mo - 60% of organic site traffic is impacted meaning the CTR drops aka people do not end up landing on your site. How to adapt - SEO & SGE are underpinned by the same recipe: content. - How to show up as the featured AI summary or authority? 1. Create unique content and lots of it 2. Build contextual content At Checkmate we get 1.5M+ unique visitors/week to our public-facing product pages. We also are featured on 1700 ChatGPT pages. How we were able to do that is by pulling in long-form structured content for the products we help sell as well as using LLMs to generate some unique content. For those in eCommerce I featured Stanley 1913 with what I think as a really strong product pages that rank well for SGE. If you look at any of their products they have extremely rich, unique content. They leverage product descriptions, product specs, related other products, reviews (not hidden or collapsed) & FAQs. For SGE shorter isn't better, the more unique content the generally better the indexing. Stanley 1913 also has a really strong formatting structure with clear H1, H2 tags, and containers. You have to remember if a bot can't make sense of the text then it won't surface in AI summaries. This will also be extremely important in the future of agentic commerce. 2. Building contextual content The way people are searching is moving from "black shoes" to "best shoes for running a marathon". Context is key. To be able to show up in LLMs or AI summaries, you need to associate your products within that context. 3 easy ways to do that: 1. Create and leverage a PR strategy 2. Build your own written contextual information in a blog on your website 3. Contribute/invest to review sites If you are able to both create unique content with a strong structure and build contextual content AI summaries and LLMs can be a great source of traffic. It is early days so investing in content and structure is a must. Drop me a note if you have other tips you see working or other brands doing it well!