How is SEO Changing in 2026?
You may have seen the length of this article and thought it would be better to summarise it using AI. That would be a good reflection of what SEOs are dealing with as we move towards a new year.
Less attention, more summaries, and less clicks.
AI is everywhere whether you like it or not, and brands are suffering from a loss of traffic.
I don’t think it’s that users have shorter attention spans, more that they are by default getting the answers to their questions in summaries that don’t require a click.
Let’s dive into what’s going on, and what your SEO strategy should look like moving into a new year.
If you’re completely new to the subject of AI & SEO, check out my intro article.
Where are we at?
“Zero click search” is more prevalent than ever due to the rise of AI summaries and overviews.
AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites. An Ahrefs piece showed Position 1 Click Through Rate drops of 34.5% when AI Overviews are present. Search Engine Land reported a 61% drop in organic CTR.
A Pew Research study showed that pretty much no one is clicking links in AI Overviews, as did a SparkToro/Similarweb analysis.
Anecdotally, all of my clients have seen ‘keywords as AI-overviews’ increasing during 2025 and this is supported by data from Semrush.
Not only that, but Google Ads are showing above and below AI overviews, meaning there is more space taken up before organic results are even visible. Some Google ads are also just taking up more space, a topic for another time.
Outside of Google, more and more people are using AI tools such as ChatGPT as ways to search.
We are of course operating in a search market that is changing. It has always been changing, and you could argue the practice of good SEOs is to respond to ongoing change. But it’s been a while since we’ve seen such a monumental shift in search behaviour.
What can we do?
Let’s be clear: for the vast majority of organisations, Google search is still the primary source of traffic.
So my first piece of advice is to keep that in mind, and don’t panic. As with all of the changes to SEO, there aren’t any quick “fixes” to revert traffic drops. As ever, be very cautious of those promising quick results.
There needs to be a bit of a mindset shift for the new way of doing things, focusing on three key areas:
Shift KPIs beyond raw clicks: prioritise visibility in SERP features, brand demand, assisted conversions, and revenue attribution. You are going to struggle to stay strategic if you are only looking at clicks vs keywords.
Practice AEO/GEO: call it “Answer Engine Optimisation” or “Generative Engine Optimisation”, it doesn’t really matter - the main thing is to acknowledge this as a subset of regular SEO, focusing on some key basics that are favoured by AI tools.
Protect and grow non‑overview searches: commercial, navigational, and ‘bottom‑of-funnel’ intents that are less likely to trigger AI overviews should be reassessed for possible improvements.
Understand conversions from AI: traffic from ChatGPT may be low, but a click means a user has decided to visit you despite already having their answers. What information are you surfacing in AI results?
Keep in mind though, that the core practices of SEO haven’t really changed.
So it’s about acknowledging this change in search, but not ignoring the fundamentals.
Let’s take a look at what that might look like in practice.
A 15 Point SEO Strategy in 2026
I’ve tried to distill the most important aspects into 15 points. Again to be clear; hopefully you are already doing most of these, and some are adding inspiration for your strategies.
1.Get Your Technical House in Order
Strong SEO still starts with technical excellence. Ensure your site is crawlable, indexable, and fast. Your pages must render correctly for both Googlebot and users. AI crawlers cannot render JavaScript, so if your site is built using a JavaScript framework, ensure it is rendered server side if you want a chance at being in AI training data.
2. Content Depth and Expertise (E-E-A-T)
Whilst you might feel like we’ve been banging on about E-E-A-T for years, great content is of course still absolutely essential. Prioritise original insights, first‑hand data, professional perspectives, and in general just focus on being experts at what you do. It’s not just good for SEO, it’s good business.
3. Strengthen Site Architecture and Internal Linking
Find the topics and keywords you care about, and internally link to them using your target keywords. Good for AI, good for Google. On top of that, it gets you thinking about site structure - does your information architecture make sense? Can people easily find the information you most want them to see? These are long-time basics that still matter a lot.
4. Schema Markup and Structured Data
Implement schema such as FAQ, Product, Article, and Organisation. It helps Google and AI systems understand context and increases chances of being used as a snippet or being cited in AI Overviews. Don’t become obsessed with this, just get the stuff that matters to you right.
5. Build a Brand
In a sea of endless competition and AI generated content, brands will stand out. Be present outside of search using other marketing channels, and create a visual identity that users can remember. SEOs are still struggling to shift client thinking towards brands, so if you’re an organisation working with an SEO consultant - listen to them when they talk about brand.
Related article: What is a Brand?
6. Measure Brand + topics
You want to understand how your brand is shown to users of AI tools vs the topics you care about. Choose 10 key topics and use Waikay (or similar) to monitor these. Create content that addresses any relevant gaps - and of course use intuition - don’t try to fill topic gaps that you simply don’t offer.
7. Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO / GEO)
Anticipate AI and SERP summaries by structuring pages to answer users’ core questions concisely. Think about introducing definitions, tables, and step‑based guides. Lean on question‑based H2s and ensure answers are factually dense, scannable, and copyable; exactly what large language models and AI Overviews look for. But be smart - if it doesn’t feel right for users, prioritise their experience first.
8. Understand Non-summarisable Intents
Commercial, local, and navigational searches are still less impacted by AI Overviews. Find these keywords and analyse the important pages ranking for them - are these up to date? Are they high quality? A simple process like the following can help.
9. Invest in Multiple Channels and Video Content
AI‑summarised text is everywhere, but images, video, and tools still attract clicks. Add calculators, videos and invest in other channels. YouTube can not only improve your search presence but get you thinking about how to convey your expertise clearly. Producing content that is related to your written content for social channels like TikTok and Instagram could keep your brand in the minds of those using the platforms. If you’re only thinking about written content, you’re probably going to get left behind.
10. Topical Clusters and Semantic Coverage
I hope you’ve been doing this all along, but build depth rather than breadth. Create “pillar” pages supported by subtopic content that answers related questions in detail. Strong topical clusters help Google and AI systems recognise your site as authoritative within a subject domain. Links to point 2: keep it quality.
11. Monitor SERP Features and Zero‑Click Patterns
Track where your keywords trigger AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, People Also Ask, and video or shopping blocks. Measure impressions versus clicks to calculate “visibility without visit” ratios. This helps you defend vital queries and reallocate energy toward those that still send traffic.
12. Realign KPIs Around Influence, Not Just Clicks
Track assisted conversions, brand impression share, engagement rate, and conversion value attribution - not just sessions. Your organic channel now has a broader job: influence, validation, and ongoing presence, even if the visitor doesn’t click the first time.
13. Consolidate Brand Search Demand
Did I mention brand is important? Users who already know you will seek you out regardless of SERP features. Encourage branded search via PR, thought leadership, and consistent multi‑channel campaigns. This type of work also of course builds links, still a very important part of the web - and getting crawled. Branded queries likely remain the least disrupted by AI summaries.
14. CRO and UX
Conversions of course depend on usability, and good SEOs should be questioning CRO whilst clicks are becoming scarce - how do you ensure on-site changes like basket or form optimisation aren’t getting in the way of someone converting?
15. Use Automation and AI Tools Wisely
AI tools are brilliant at summarising, structuring and doing research. But do not make the mistake of relying on them to write all of your content. Original data, opinions and insights are always a good place to start.
A Note on Tools
Monitoring AI Search is difficult. Prompts of course change by the user, and keywords aren’t easy to transfer over to this method of monitoring.
With AI monitoring tools, you have to monitor topics, and what I’ve found is that it’s super useful for discovering topic gaps vs competitors - something that is sometimes less obvious when doing traditional monitoring. Again, apply intuition on top of your AI monitoring, don’t just blindly follow the recommendations of tools.
Of all the tools I’ve used, there are two that have been actionable and useful:
Waikay is great for topic reports and ongoing monitoring, whilst SEMRush is solid on competitor discovery.
SEO, GEO, AEO, Whatever
I hope this article provided you with some inspiration for your own SEO strategies, and a look at what the industry is going to be focused on in 2026.
One thing that is coming up often is people trying to name this new era of search, and I’ve used a few of these acronyms in the article.
To be honest it doesn’t really matter what we call it, what matters is that we’re preparing for a new way of not just how people are searching, but how they are using their computers and interacting with information. Maybe I’ll do a 2030 version of this article and be proved wrong, we shall see; but I think things are definitely changing and those who aren’t adapting are going to be left behind.
If you’re looking to understand what this shift means for your business, or need help turning these ideas into an actionable strategy, get in touch with me here.