Every few years, somebody announces that SEO is dead.
Social media was supposed to kill it. Voice search was supposed to kill it. Zero-click search was supposed to kill it. Now AI is supposedly finishing the job.
I don't buy it.
What has changed is the size of the problem SEO is trying to solve.
For years, the goal was relatively straightforward: help a webpage become visible when somebody typed a relevant query into a search engine. That still matters, but people now discover information through traditional search results, AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot, visual search, video, social platforms, and generated answers that may synthesize several sources before the user ever visits a website.
The job is no longer limited to getting a webpage to rank.
Your business also needs to be understood well enough to become part of the answer.
That is where SEO and AEO begin to converge.
SEO Still Matters in AI Search
There is a temptation to treat AI search like an entirely new marketing channel requiring an entirely new bag of tricks.
The major search platforms are saying something much less dramatic.
Google's current guidance says traditional SEO practices remain foundational to visibility in its generative AI search experiences. Its systems still depend on indexed, crawlable webpages, useful information, quality signals, and the same underlying search infrastructure used elsewhere in Google Search. Google also explicitly warns against chasing AEO or GEO "hacks" at the expense of valuable, original content. Google for Developers
OpenAI takes a similar approach from the publisher side. Public websites can appear in ChatGPT search, but sites that want their content discovered, summarized, cited, and linked should make sure OAI-SearchBot is not blocked. OpenAI Help CenterTemplates
Microsoft is already giving publishers another view of the same evolution. Bing Webmaster Tools now reports when pages are cited in AI-generated answers and shows the grounding queries associated with those citations. Search - Microsoft Bing
So the web still matters.
SEO still matters.
What has changed is what visibility can look like.
What Is AEO?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization.
You may also see the term GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. Google itself now acknowledges both terms, while still treating generative-AI visibility as part of the broader search-optimization problem. Google for Developers
At Catalyst, I find AEO to be the more useful shorthand.
I use it to mean:
Making your expertise easy for search engines and AI systems to understand, retrieve, trust, and use when answering a relevant question.
That is closely related to SEO, but the outcome is somewhat different.
Traditional SEO often asks:
Can this page appear prominently for the query?
AEO adds:
Can this information help an answer engine confidently answer the question?
Sometimes the same page accomplishes both.
Ranking Is No Longer the Only Form of Search Visibility
For years, search reporting revolved around familiar metrics:
- Rankings
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Click-through rates
- Organic sessions
- Conversions
Those numbers still matter, but they no longer describe the whole search experience.
A page may now become a source in an AI-generated answer even when the user never clicks through to the site. Bing makes this distinction explicit in its AI Performance reporting: citations measure when content was referenced in an AI answer, while clicks and conventional search traffic measure something different. Search - Microsoft Bing
Google is expanding Search Console in the same general direction, including reporting for generative and multimodal search experiences. Google for Developers
That creates another form of discovery.
Someone asks a question. Your article helps shape the answer. Your company becomes one of the cited sources. The user may encounter your expertise before they ever visit your website.
That is valuable.
But it also creates a temptation to chase citations the same way people used to chase rankings.
That would be a mistake.
The Best SEO Work Is Often the Quiet Work
One of the ideas I still like from an old Orange Pegs article is that the best SEO services are often the quiet ones.
Not because SEO should be mysterious.
Because much of the work that creates durable search visibility is not particularly glamorous.
It looks like:
- Cleaning up redirects
- Fixing broken links
- Consolidating duplicate pages
- Improving internal linking
- Making navigation clearer
- Correcting titles and metadata
- Improving page speed and usability
- Making important pages crawlable
- Clarifying what each page is actually about
- Updating outdated content
- Organizing content around meaningful topics
- Strengthening the relationship between informational and commercial pages
Nobody announces a major product launch because the canonical tags are finally correct.
There is no standing ovation when three overlapping articles become one stronger resource.
But this quiet structural work gives search systems a cleaner website to understand and gives people a better experience once they arrive.
Google's current AI-search guidance reinforces the point: clear technical structure, crawlability, reduced duplication, useful organization, and good page experience remain part of the foundation for generative search visibility. Google for Developers
AEO has not made the fundamentals obsolete.
It has made them relevant to more kinds of discovery.
SEO Cannot Fix Everything That Is Wrong With Your Marketing
Another old Orange Pegs idea deserves to survive this consolidation:
Professional SEO services alone cannot cure what ails you.
More visibility is valuable only when there is something useful on the other side of it.
Suppose SEO doubles your traffic, but visitors still cannot tell what your company does.
That is not primarily an SEO problem.
Suppose AI engines begin citing your articles, but none of those articles connect naturally to your services or another meaningful next step.
That is not primarily an AEO problem.
Suppose your page ranks well, but the offer is weak.
Or the positioning is generic.
Or the site is frustrating to use.
Or the content attracts people who will never buy.
Or the sales follow-up is inconsistent.
Search optimization can bring more attention to those problems. It cannot automatically solve them.
This is why I prefer thinking about SEO and AEO as parts of a larger marketing system.
Visibility should create an opportunity for the customer to move.
Before You Chase More Traffic, Ask What Happens After the Click
This is one of the most useful SEO questions a small business can ask:
If this page suddenly received ten times as much traffic tomorrow, would that actually help us?
Sometimes the answer is clearly yes.
Other times, the page has no meaningful conversion path, targets the wrong person, makes no connection to the larger customer journey, or exists simply because somebody once found a keyword with search volume.
More traffic doesn't improve any of those things.
The same applies to AI visibility.
Being cited for a topic that has little relationship to what your business sells may look interesting in a dashboard, but it may do very little for the business itself.
Search should eventually connect to movement:
Discovery → understanding → engagement → opportunity → customer
Not every page needs to sell something directly. But every important page should have a reason to exist inside the larger system.
Become Useful Source Material
Older SEO strategies often started with the keyword.
Find the phrase.
Put it in the title.
Use it in some headings.
Write enough words.
Publish.
AI makes producing that kind of content incredibly easy, which makes the problem more obvious.
There is already more generic information on the web than anybody needs.
Google's current guidance for generative search strongly favors unique, valuable, non-commodity content and specifically calls out first-hand experience and distinctive viewpoints as useful ways to add value beyond material that could easily be regenerated from existing sources. Google for Developers
That means businesses should increasingly publish material that deserves to become source material.
For example:
- An original framework
- First-hand experience
- A practical process you actually use
- Original data
- A clear decision model
- Real examples
- A strong definition
- A useful comparison
- Lessons from actual implementations
- Evidence supporting a claim
- A well-reasoned disagreement with conventional wisdom
AI can summarize commodity knowledge extremely well.
Your advantage comes from contributing something worth summarizing.
AEO Rewards Clarity
Expertise isn't very valuable when it is impossible to understand.
That is why good AEO does not require strange new writing techniques.
It requires clarity.
If you're answering a question, answer it.
If a concept needs a definition, define it.
If two ideas are commonly confused, explain the distinction.
If your recommendation depends on the situation, say when it changes.
If something has five steps, make the five steps easy to identify.
Microsoft's guidance for AI visibility specifically encourages clear headings, concise sections, evidence, strong topical focus, and content aligned with user intent. Search - Microsoft Bing
Those are good human-writing practices too.
You are not writing for robots.
You are writing clearly enough that both people and machines can understand what you mean.
Topic Authority Beats Random Keyword Wins
This is one of the biggest changes I would make to the way many small businesses approach SEO.
Stop treating every keyword like an independent lottery ticket.
Decide what your business wants to be known for.
Then build useful depth around those subjects.
For Catalyst, a Growth Marketing Services page might be supported by content about experimentation, growth metrics, sprint cycles, prioritization, retention, and customer learning.
A Sales Enablement Services page might connect to articles about sales and marketing alignment, inbound sales, sales process design, CRM adoption, and follow-up.
A Lead Generation Services page might connect to qualification, conversion paths, inbound lead generation, offers, and sales follow-up.
Now the pages reinforce each other.
A person can move naturally through the subject.
Search engines have more context for understanding the relationship between the pages.
AI systems have a deeper body of information to retrieve from.
Bing's newer AI reporting is already moving toward this kind of topic-level understanding by grouping citation activity into broader themes and intents rather than viewing every query as an isolated event. Search - Microsoft Bing
Your Commercial Pages Still Need a Different Job
AEO does not mean every service page should become a 5,000-word educational guide.
Intent still matters.
Someone asking:
What is growth marketing?
is doing something different from someone searching:
growth marketing services
The first person is learning.
The second may be trying to hire someone.
Your site should reflect that distinction.
The commercial page should own the service intent.
Supporting articles can answer the narrower informational questions surrounding it.
Then connect them through useful internal links.
That creates a clearer structure for everyone involved:
The customer understands where to go next.
Search engines see the relationship between the concepts.
AI systems get evidence that the business has both a commercial offering and meaningful depth around the subject.
AEO Is Not an Excuse to Write for Machines
There is already plenty of advice suggesting businesses should restructure every page specifically so an AI can extract little chunks from it.
I would be cautious about that.
Google's current guidance explicitly pushes publishers away from AEO/GEO gimmicks and back toward helpful, reliable, people-first content. Google for Developers
A human still has to want to read the page.
Develop the argument.
Use examples.
Tell a useful story.
Explain why the issue matters.
Bring experience into the writing.
Clear structure helps machines, but good communication still helps humans.
You need both.
Structured Data Reduces Ambiguity
Schema and structured data still have a role.
Google uses structured data to better understand specific information on webpages and determine eligibility for certain enhanced search experiences. Google for Developers
That makes it useful.
It does not make it magical.
Adding schema to weak content does not create expertise. Marking up a confusing business does not suddenly make the business clear.
Structured data works best when it accurately reinforces information already present on the page.
Think of it as another way of reducing ambiguity.
Crawlability Is Now an AEO Issue
Technical SEO used to ask whether Google could reach and index the page.
Now there are additional retrieval systems to think about.
OpenAI says publishers that want their content eligible for discovery and citation in ChatGPT search should make sure OAI-SearchBot has access. OpenAI Help Center
Bing says its AI visibility reporting reflects eligible indexed content and continues to honor publisher controls such as robots.txt. Search - Microsoft Bing
That makes crawlability part of the AEO conversation too.
Your technical checklist should include questions like:
- Can important search crawlers reach the page?
- Are valuable pages accidentally blocked?
- Are redirects clean?
- Do duplicate URLs exist?
- Is the canonical version clear?
- Can systems discover updated pages?
- Does the site structure make important pages easy to reach?
Again, this is not exciting work.
It is foundational work.
Freshness Depends on the Subject
Not every article needs to be rewritten every three months.
A useful definition of a stable concept may remain accurate for years.
A software comparison from 2022 probably will not.
An article about AI search definitely will not.
Bing's AI visibility guidance explicitly includes keeping content fresh and accurate among its recommendations for publishers. Search - Microsoft Bing
Good content maintenance means knowing which kind of page you're dealing with.
Update information when reality changes.
Consolidate overlapping content.
Redirect outdated URLs.
Retire material that no longer deserves to exist.
The goal is not to maintain the largest possible archive.
The goal is to maintain the strongest possible body of knowledge.
Search Is Becoming Multimodal
Search is also expanding beyond typed questions.
People increasingly search with screenshots, cameras, images, voice, and combinations of media.
Google expanded Search Console reporting in 2026 to include web multimodal search activity connected to experiences such as Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads, and other visual interactions. Google for Developers
That makes visual information more relevant.
Use useful images when they help.
Create diagrams when a diagram communicates the idea faster.
Use video when the process is easier to show than describe.
Give images enough surrounding context that both people and systems understand why they matter.
Modern search is increasingly trying to understand subjects, not merely match strings of text.
Brand Consistency Helps Machines Understand the Business
If your website describes the company five different ways, you're creating unnecessary ambiguity.
One page calls you a growth marketing company.
Another calls you an AI agency.
Another calls you a coaching business.
Another describes something unrelated.
People get confused.
Machines do too.
Your service pages, About page, author information, Organization schema, profiles, reviews, interviews, and external mentions should tell a reasonably consistent underlying story.
What does this business do?
Who does it help?
What services does it provide?
What topics does it know?
Which people are associated with it?
AEO is partly about content quality.
It is also about making the entity behind that content easier to understand.
Measure Search More Broadly
Traditional SEO metrics still belong on the scorecard:
- Organic impressions
- Rankings
- Clicks
- Sessions
- Conversion
- Pipeline
- Revenue
AEO adds another layer:
- AI citations
- Pages cited
- Grounding queries
- Topics associated with your site
- AI referral traffic
- Citation share
- Branded search growth
- Assisted conversions
Bing is already exposing several of these measurements in Webmaster Tools, including cited pages, grounding queries, topics, intent, and citation share. Search - Microsoft Bing
The important thing is not to replace old SEO vanity metrics with new AEO vanity metrics.
A citation is interesting.
A citation that helps the right customer discover, understand, and eventually engage with the business is more useful.
AI Makes Original Expertise More Valuable
There is an irony in all of this.
AI makes content dramatically easier to produce.
That makes expertise harder to fake.
Anybody can generate another article explaining the basics of lead generation.
Far fewer businesses can explain what they learned after running fifty campaigns.
Anybody can publish generic advice about HubSpot.
Far fewer can explain the recurring implementation problems they've seen in real customer portals.
Anybody can summarize a marketing framework.
Far fewer can show how they use it, where it fails, and what they changed after learning from customers.
Those are the assets worth creating.
They also happen to be the content Catalyst should be publishing anyway.
The goal is not to become a content factory.
The goal is to become a useful source around subjects we have a legitimate reason to understand deeply.
SEO and AEO Share the Same Foundation
Marketers will probably spend years debating terminology:
SEO.
AEO.
GEO.
AI optimization.
Generative search optimization.
The practical work is less confusing than the acronyms make it sound.
Make the website technically accessible.
Create a clear site structure.
Develop useful commercial pages.
Answer real customer questions.
Build depth around subjects important to the business.
Publish first-hand expertise.
Support claims with evidence.
Use structured data appropriately.
Maintain consistent information about the company.
Keep changing information current.
Measure traditional search performance and AI visibility.
Then use what you learn to improve the system.
Google's own position is fairly direct: the fundamentals of SEO remain the foundation for generative AI search, while unique, useful, non-commodity content creates the strongest long-term opportunity. Google for Developers
Search didn't disappear.
It expanded.
Build for What Happens After You Get Found
The biggest SEO mistake may not be failing to rank.
It may be successfully generating attention for a marketing system that isn't ready to do anything useful with it.
Search visibility should connect to the rest of the customer journey.
A useful article can attract someone through Google.
The same article may become a citation in an AI answer.
A salesperson can use it during an opportunity.
An email campaign can distribute it.
A prospect can use it to understand a decision.
A customer can share it with a colleague.
That is when search content becomes an actual business asset.
Catalyst Digital Marketing Services connects SEO, AEO, content, websites, email, social media, paid campaigns, lead generation, sales, and strategy around that larger customer journey.
The goal is not simply to rank higher or collect more citations.
It is to make your expertise findable, understandable, credible, and useful—and then give the right people somewhere meaningful to go next.
Be Suspicious of SEO and AEO Shortcuts
Search changes constantly, which guarantees a steady supply of people promising they have discovered the trick everyone else missed.
Years ago, that looked like keyword stuffing, link schemes, manufactured traffic, and mysterious “proprietary” SEO tactics. Today, some of the same behavior is reappearing around AI search: promises of guaranteed citations, mass-produced AI content, artificial authority signals, and tactics designed to manipulate answer engines rather than become genuinely useful to them.
A few red flags have stayed remarkably consistent:
- Guaranteed rankings or AI citations
- Strategies the provider cannot clearly explain
- Large-scale production of generic content
- Links or mentions acquired primarily to manipulate algorithms
- Reporting that celebrates traffic without connecting it to customers or revenue
- Obsession with a single technical trick
- Recommendations that ignore positioning, customer experience, or conversion
- Tactics built around exploiting what an algorithm does today rather than creating something customers will still value tomorrow
Good SEO and AEO should become easier to explain as you understand it better—not more mysterious.
The work may be technical, but the objective is straightforward: make useful expertise accessible, understandable, trustworthy, and connected to a meaningful customer journey.
That preserves the best idea from the “Ninja SEO” article without dragging the dated terminology or irrelevant search intent into Catalyst.
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