SEO Is Alive & Kicking, So Let’s Get On With It
TL;DR: SEO isn’t dead. AI is changing the interface, not the fundamentals. The winners will prioritise great product, strong technical foundations, truly helpful content, credibility and revenue over vanity KPIs.
2025 was one of the most enjoyable years for the SEO industry that I can remember. Honestly, technological advancements, new surfaces to optimise for, a levelling of the playing field for small to medium-sized brands and plenty of informed debate. Yes, the whole “SEO is Dead” debate can be irksome, but that’s nothing new.
I also visited some of the best conferences I’ve been to last year (kudos Digital Olympus, Search n Stuff and obviously BrightonSEO), and seen HiveMCR grow into the north’s favourite SEO event. With plans to introduce a festival feel, the 2026 edition is set to be pretty special.
Despite this, the current rhetoric still seems to be dominated by LinkedIn gurus and grifters continually trying to tell us our sector is dead or dying. We’ve always had to deal with this, it’s always been nonsense and this has never been more nonsensical than it is today. With new surfaces, misinformation, hallucinating AI agents and the changing shape of search, having authentic and trustworthy SEO counsel has never been more important.
So, long live SEO, GEO is still not a thing and our sector is alive and kicking. I’m about to tell you why.
SEO Has Always Been About Change
Pivoting isn’t new. If you’ve been doing SEO for some time, you’ll remember the early 2010s. Keyword stuffing, sketchy link schemes, Warrior Forum packages and a simple WordPress theme and you were away. To be honest, as someone who had just graduated with a Journalism degree and was looking for a creative career, I was ready to walk. Then Penguin and Panda dropped and things got exciting. The rest is history.
Suddenly, creativity mattered. Brands that cared about content marketing, user experience and technical performance started to win big, sometimes even over behemoth brands who weren’t taking the channel seriously. It was the start of real SEO in my eyes, where prudent strategy was essential. Fast forward a decade and yes, things are shifting again, this time at pace. But this isn’t a funeral for SEO, it’s the next chapter. The fundamentals are still the same, but as always, the tactics evolve and we love to see it.
SEO Has Never Been the Perfect Acronym
The whole debate about SEO, GEO, LLMO, AEO is mundane, and as I discuss in Majestic’s SEO in 2026 series, it’s a terrible waste of time and resource. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the term “SEO” has never been an accurate description of what we do.
We don’t optimise search engines. We optimise for them, but I can’t ever remember optimising Google, Bing, Yahoo or even ChatGPT. Can you?
SEO may not be the perfect acronym, but our jobs are to promote visibility in organic (non-paid) search results, wherever those searches are taking place. The opportunity and scope for this has never been bigger.
Are You an SEO or Digital Marketer?
I’ve been trying to come up with a succinct way to describe the recent and forthcoming changes to search, and this is my most recent effort. I think it pretty much hits the nail on the head.
“If you are a talented marketer who chose SEO or organic search as your channel, then the future is bright. If you are an SEO who has always felt they’ve needed to do marketing or put that hat on reluctantly, then you may need to change your mindset or consider a career change.”
The days of the “SEO guy/gal” sitting in the corner doing their technical stuff and providing a report once a month have been gone for some time. But organic search will continue to be the backbone of any successful brand’s digital marketing strategy and, to excel, SEOs will need to be more hybrid than ever.
AI Isn’t the End, It’s the Next Phase of Search
Google’s AI experiences are rolling out, and they will inevitably impact clicks, especially for informational queries. Publishers face a tricky period but credible and innovative sources will win. I don’t think many of us will miss many of the lower quality, advert-ridden, affiliate-style news websites, so although a rude awakening, the end user will most likely end up better off.
We will be approaching this much like we do migrations at Whitworth. Instead of sitting there thinking “how can we survive AI mode?”, approaching it with the mentality of “how can we roll with the changes, learn what works and actually use these new features to get ahead of the competition and win big for our clients” will likely be the way forward.
Revenue Over Rankings (Obviously)
We have all become so used to reporting on metrics such as impressions, clicks and sessions. It’s hard not to when we start to see these graphs moving upwards in Google Search Console, but deep down we’ve known for some time that if this isn’t resulting in revenue, it’s pure vanity.
Our ultimate job as SEOs is to drive demand, engagement and revenue from organic search. If Google’s AI mode and other LLMs succeed in their goals of better connecting users to the content they want, then the drop in traffic could be a reasonable trade-off if revenue increases. But this will require, guess what? A comprehensive, AI-ready SEO strategy.
What Will Win in the Post-AI Era?
The mantra of “it’s all just SEO” has been coined by many as a response to the aforementioned rhetoric. This is because the fundamentals of organic search are still:
A Great Product or Service
No amount of optimisation can save a poor product, especially as search engines and LLMs are favouring advocacy and trust more than ever. If your product is great, then this is a huge lever for SEOs to pull. If it isn’t, then you have a lot of work to do before even thinking about SEO in 2026 and beyond.
Strong Technical Foundations
Fast, crawlable, well-structured sites are still the foundation of performing on most surfaces. Schema matters, feed hygiene matters, index control matters. Your website is where the LLMs are training, where search engines are crawling and where users, in the vast majority of cases, are converting. Make sure it’s first class.
Truly Helpful Content
Write for people. SEO content shouldn’t feel like SEO content. People-first content performs in AI contexts because it’s what users and systems need, and the wealth of guidelines from Google around people-first content, helpful content and general E-E-A-T are not there for no reason.
Credibility
Google still wants trusted answers. Again, E-E-A-T signals and brand matter. Be consistent, clear and authoritative wherever you show up.
Transactional Clarity
Unfortunately, even if you are one of the very best providers in your sector, being transactional in a commercial space is vital. AI mode product SERPs are likely to be predominantly feed-led, so if you offer a subscription or brochure style experience it is going to be hard, though not impossible, to gain traction in AI Mode.
This may be as simple as activating WooCommerce, or as complex as having a complete reboot of your tech stack in order to optimise for the new era of organic search. But the grid, currently, will win should AI mode become default here in the UK.
SEO Consultants: This Is Your Time
Clients Need Calm
They’ve read the headlines. They need someone to cut through chaos: what matters, what to ignore, and the plan. Our value isn’t just execution; it’s interpretation, strategy and not overreacting.
AI Won’t Eliminate SEO Work – It Will Streamline It
We’re already fixing low effort AI content, hallucinated answers and broken schema. AI makes mistakes as fast as it speeds processes up. Cleanup, governance and quality control are real concerns and they need SEO experts in charge of that. AI is also a long way off being able to properly understand personas, search intent and customers, that will need human intuition long into the future.
The Community Feels Ready
Running HiveMCR twice in 9 months and speaking with some of the UK’s sharpest SEOs, the vibe isn’t doom, it’s optimism. We’ve seen “shiny” before (AMP, authorship, voice search). This time, the opportunity is bigger and any SEO who isn’t excited about this new era of technology and optimisation, is probably in the wrong job.
Final Thought: Embrace the Evolution
If you’re still reading, you’re probably with me. You like the challenge. You like the unknown. Search isn’t dead. SEO isn’t dying. It’s just morphing and we have more data and tools with which to do our job than ever before.
For those who value clarity, creativity and helping real businesses grow via their organic channel, this is a brilliant moment to be in the game.
We’re ready. Are you?
If the answer is yes, then just check out our AIR SEO page and get in touch should you want to learn more.
