This chapter covers
- Exploring the effect of AI on web searching
- Choosing the best keywords
- Asking AI to scan a site
- Earlier AI search implementations
- Taking advantage of Google Search Console
- Using the AIOSEO plugin and sitemaps
- Maximizing backlinks
- Anticipating ways to optimize AI site ranking
Search engine optimization (SEO) used to matter. It meant modifying your website so that search engines such as Google or Bing would list your site up high in the results when people search for your site’s topic. This no longer works.
The goal was to get a link to your site listed at least on the first page of the list of links Google displayed. Few people looked at the links on the second page. This was what SEO meant in the past. AI is seriously disrupting SEO. Things are very different now. SEO is being replaced with AI optimization (AIO).
Google just displayed a list of links that you could visit to get the information you were after. Now, AI skips the links and just gives you the info. Some AIs, such as Gemini and Perplexity, include a list of links as citations. And you can request citations from any of the AI systems. But links are optional.
AI scans sites and reads their contents. Then, like a research assistant, AI provides you with the answer to your query. And if needed, you can chat with AI, asking for a different or more precise response.