SEO (search engine optimization) is the work of earning free, organic visibility for your website in search engines such as Google and Bing. Search now also includes AI answers: Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. The good news is that the basics carry over. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in its AI features beyond being indexed and eligible to show a snippet (Google Search Central).
The stakes have changed, though. In a Pew Research Center study of real browsing behavior, users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits, compared with 15% when no summary appeared (Pew Research Center, July 2025). Fewer clicks are available, so the pages that earn them, and the pages that AI answers cite, need to be stronger. These five basics are where to start.
1. Research What People Actually Ask
Keyword research still tells you the words your customers use, how often they search for them and what they expect to find. What has changed is the shape of the query. People now type and speak longer, more specific questions, especially into AI tools.
So research questions as well as keywords. Pull them from sales calls, support emails, site search and the “People also ask” box, then group them by intent: learning, comparing or ready to buy. Our comparison of keyword research tools for small businesses covers free and paid options.
2. Earn Real Mentions, Not Just Links
When this post was first written in 2020, the advice was to use influencers to lift engagement. The lasting lesson is broader: search engines and AI tools build a picture of your brand from what other credible sources say about you. Links from relevant sites still matter. So do consistent mentions in reviews, industry press, directories and partner pages.
Social signals are not a direct Google ranking factor, but genuine mentions bring visits, links and branded searches. Be careful with paid endorsements, though. Trust in influencers is shifting, as we covered in our analysis of the AI impact on influencer marketing.
3. Answer Conversational Questions Directly
In 2020, the prediction was that voice search would dominate results. It did not replace typed search, but its core lesson now matters more than ever: people ask full questions and want a direct answer. AI answer tools work the same way, and they favor passages they can quote.
Put the answer in the first one or two sentences under each heading, then explain. Use headings that mirror real questions, and add specific facts such as prices, times and steps. Our guide to how LLMs choose sources to cite explains why this works, and our GEO and page speed services help brands put it into practice.
4. Use Video Where It Helps People Decide
Video helps people understand a product, a place or a process quickly, and it can appear in video results and on YouTube, which many people use as a search engine. Make videos that answer a real question, such as a product demo or a walkthrough, rather than generic brand reels.
Give each video a descriptive title and description, add captions or a transcript so the content is readable as text, and embed it on a relevant page. Google’s video SEO best practices cover how to help it find and index your videos. Make sure videos play well on mobile and don’t slow the page down.
5. Publish Helpful, Trustworthy Content
Google’s systems aim to reward content made to help people rather than to game rankings. Its guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content describes this through E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
In practice, that means content written by someone who knows the subject, with sources for its facts, a named author, a visible date and something original, such as your own data, examples or photos. Generic summaries are easy for AI tools to replace. First-hand detail is not. Keep every page accurate and free of errors, and update it when the facts change.
The Foundation Still Wins
SEO tactics change, but the foundation lasts: pages that search engines can crawl and index, clear answers to real questions, and evidence that you know what you are talking about. Get those right and you are well placed for both classic results and AI answers.
If your CMS makes these basics hard to maintain, Apex®, the AI-native digital experience platform (DXP), builds metadata, structured data and fast pages into publishing, and tracks how AI engines cite your brand.
