How Search AI Will Revolutionize the Future of SEO, According to HubSpot's SVP of Marketing

By kflanagan@hubspot.com (Kieran Flanagan)

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Let’s be honest: SEO is going to be disrupted by AI. Plain and simple.

AI platforms and search features have changed how we find information. Gone (nearly) are the days of sifting through SERPs, clicking links galore, and scouring each page to get what you need.

In seconds, AI does that for you.

Plus, OpenAI just announced its new SearchGPT — a great example of how AI is transforming the search landscape as we know it.

This isn‘t just changing your audience. It’s likely changed how you work, too. We found that 35% of marketers use AI for research — it’s becoming a go-to option for finding solutions online.

Fortunately, as marketers, we‘re used to this. ’Marketing‘ is practically synonymous with ’change’.

Just look at the shifts in popularity we’ve seen across social media platforms, or how content consumption habits have changed in the last decade. (My podcast consumption rose so much in the last three years that I had to just start my own show.)

Leaning into these shifts is critical for the long-term health of your business. So let’s jump in with some of my predictions for how AI-powered search will change SEO, and how you can prepare.

How AI-Powered Search Will Revolutionize SEO – and How to Prepare

1. AI-powered search will decrease CTR on search engines — so you’ll need to appear in LLMs.

Let’s start with the most obvious — and potentially most anxiety-provoking — change occurring in the SEO space: AI-powered search results.

As a user, I‘m fascinated by AI-search results. As these LLMs continue to become more sophisticated, we’ll be able to retrieve more personalized and targeted guidance faster than ever before.

But, as a marketing leader at a large SaaS company, I’m well aware of the concerns. As AI-powered search results start appearing for common search queries, it will be harder for your website to get clicks.

Ultimately, marketers and SEOs driven by CTR may need to make a drastic philosophy shift: Aiming to appear in Page-1 LLMs rather than driving search result clicks.

Image Source

Like all of us, I‘m only beginning to understand how to rank in AI-generated responses, but there’s a few things our SEO team at HubSpot (as well as those across the industry) have found most effective:

Create high-quality content: Your content can’t just answer common questions with relevant information. Now, it needs to provide credible perspectives, authoritative tips most readers won‘t find elsewhere, and other elements that comply with Google’s EEAT philosophy. This has been vital to helping the HubSpot Blogs protect and defend our search traffic in the era of AI search.
Optimize for featured snippets: Structure your content so it’s easily scannable and provides direct answers to common queries.
Focus on user intent: Tailor your content to address specific user needs, which can improve your chances of being recommended …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron