SEO in 2026

According to Adelina Bordea from FreePik, another key use of your human intuition is your ability to differentiate between AI-generated content and human-generated content.

SEO Consultant Jess Joyce shares that your humanity can give you the edge in multiple SEO disciplines.

Following on from Rebecca’s emphasis on personal adaptability, Petra Kis-Herczegh from Kameleon Journal believes that your emotional intelligence might make all the difference.

There’s no doubt that 2024 will see the wind of change continuing to strike the SEO landscape. Rebecca Berbel from OnCrawl believes that adaptability will be key.

David and Heike discuss how neurodivergent thinking can supercharge your SEO.Talking points include:- What is Neurodivergent thinking?- Is this from the perspective of someone who is neurodivergent or who is managing someone who is Neurodivergent?- How should someone who is Neurodivergent grow their SEO career?- Does an SEO team leader who is managing someone who is neurodivergent need to be aware of anything in particular?

David and Tom discuss how every algorithm update is only ever optimising toward a better user experience - and if you constantly optimise for that, you can't go far wrong.Talking points include:- What sort of user experience should you optimise for?- How does that increase your organic traffic?- How do you measure improved user experience from an organic search perspective?- Why constantly optimise for user experience? Is it not a set it and forget it opportunity?

David and Leanne discuss why you need to educate Google about your brand and control your narrative through the entire customer journey.Talking points include:- How do you Educate Google about your brand?- In which aspects of your customer journey can you control your narrative?- How do you control your narrative?- What measurable impact does this have?

Victoria Olsina discussed the importance of using hybrid models for AI. Topics covered include:- What tasks do humans do best and what tasks does AI do best?- How do you use AI for keyword research?- What AI do you use to cluster topics?

In this episode, David and Ivana discuss how to keep an eye on Google's updates and changing guidelines.Discussion points include:- How should you keep on top of it? Can you follow everything?- How do you prepare for crazy volatility?- How long after Google's update finishes should you panic?- What is AI good for?- What does this mean practically for the way you alter your SEO strategy?

Casie Gillette discusses the importance of being able to adapt, covering:- With all of the changes currently taking place in search, we have to adapt our strategies and tactics faster than ever.- How often should you set a strategy?- What do we adapt?- How do we adapt?- What skills will remain the same?

Yvie Ansari shares how to integrate SEO into the broader marketing mix to drive better results overall, discussing:- How do you integrate SEO into the broader marketing mix?- How does SEO relate to other marketing activities?- How does SEO drive results overall?- How do you measure the impact of SEO when it is positively impacting the sales of other channels?

In this episode Sally Raymer shares how to stay true to brand in a world of AI.Discussion points include:- Staying true to brand in a world of AI- Defining what your brand is - Why is this important?- What are the AI temptations that are bad?- What does staying true to a brand mean?- How do you ensure that every marketer in your organisation can articulate what your brand means?- How do you use AI while still keeping the brand top-of-mind?

Adrijana Vujadin discusses how working on your mindset will make you a powerful SEO Professional.Talking points include:- What does that mean?- How does this actually help?- What do you need to improve?- How do you improve it?- How often do you need to do this?- What impact does it have?

In this episode, David and Adam discuss how writing can help unlock SEO delivery superpowers.Specific topics include:- What kind of writing are you referring to?- How do you use writing to communicate more effectively to stakeholders- What are the specific actions you recommend?- How does this impact strategy?- Where does AI writing come into this?- What SEO delivery superpowers are you referring to?

Stop creating new websites and delve into the power of domain consolidation. This is an approach that not only supercharges SEO, but also provides extensive benefits in sustainability, search generative experience readiness, data and branding. With Damien Robert.

Brendan Awe discusses how to embrace AI content, but at the same time, be smart about how you do it.Discussion points include:How should we embrace AI content?What shouldn’t be AI content?What’s your AI content production process?What software do you use?How do you envisage this changing over the next year?

Martin and David discuss how creating content that your customers need is more important than creating "SEO content".Discussion points include:How do you define SEO content in 2023?Can you not do both at the same time?What if there is no keyword volume for the content that your customers need?What is your current content creation process?How do you measure success?

Isa and David discuss:As Google loves a backlink profile with referring domains, focus on content that tells your story in a way that connects with untapped audiencesTalking points include:- How do you connect with untapped audiences?- How do you target the most appropriate untapped audience?- Why focus on content that tells your story?- How does this build backlinks?

In this episode, Vanda and David discuss how to prioritise carefully and solve the right SEO problems.Specific topics include:- How should you prioritise?- What is your prioritisation process?- Typically, what are the right problems to prioritise?- How do you know that you are focusing on the right problems?- What are the wrong problems to prioritise?- How do you communicate what you are prioritising with your team?- What software do you use to assist you with your prioritising?- When do you need to review what you are prioritising?

Anna and David discuss:How to work on developing and publishing interactive content. Interactive doesn't have to cost the earth and it has multiple benefits, from increased customer satisfaction, to the thing all SEOs want... more links!Topics include:- How do you define interactive content?- How do you make interactive content?- Why does interactive content encourage more links?- What other SEO benefits does interactive content offer?

David and Andreas discuss how to use data science to inform your SEO, including:- What does this mean in practice?- Data science driven website user experience- Data science driven competitor analysis- On-site SEO- Content marketing- Link building

David and Edward discuss how an EEAT-first strategy will set your SEO campaign up for success, focusing on examples of the 4 key areas:ExperienceExpertiseAuthoritativenessTrustworthiness

David and Alan Discuss:How to be proactive about promoting your content and acquiring backlinks, don't wait for them to come naturally (although that should always be the #1 goal). Avoid getting stuck in the "Content Graveyard".The discussion includes:How do you define the Content Graveyard - unindexed content?What are the best practical ways to promote your content and acquire backlinks now?What is an effective content promotion plan?What are the best type of backlinks in 2023?

In this episode, David and Kelly discuss how changing how you think about on-page trust will increase your rankings and conversion rate.Specific topics covered in this interview include:- What do you mean by on-page trust?- How do you build your on-page trust?- How will this increase your rankings?- How will this increase your conversion rate?- How do you measure the value of your on-page trust?- Can this help to increase your traffic or rankings?

David and Julia discuss AIO - the new process of AI-led, humanly-assisted content creation.The conversation focuses on how to optimize for CRAFT:C (cut the fluff - editing AI output to be better),R (reviewing and optimizing SEO to be as human as possible),A (adding visuals and media to tell a story with pictures),F (fact-checking for accuracy), andT (trust-building with personal style, story & client features)

David and Yagmur discuss:Revisit your website’s Information Architecture strategy to support your business with technical and on-page SEO improvements and task/project prioritization in 2023What do you mean by your website’s Information Architecture strategy?How does this Information Architecture strategy support a business with technical and on-page SEO improvements?How does the Information Architecture strategy help with task and project prioritization?

David and Hope discuss:Move away from viewing your site as a collection of individual pagesMove away from chasing ranking fluctuationsMove away from forgetting your site is a wider entity.How do you SEO your site as a whole?How do you measure this? Paid traffic vs Social

David and Marcus discuss:What tools do you use and what is your process for doing this?SERP Snippet Scraper Chrome pluginCan you keep historical records of the previous reports and compare your current results?What are you looking to compare?What’s a tangible result from improving your snippet?

David and Amel discuss:How do you optimize images for Google's AR feature?Does this also improve accessibility?What kind of image file is best?How do you name image files?Does schema help as well?

David and Julia discuss:Do SEOs use too many tools?Give me an example of tools that aren’t used wellHow do you become better at using tools?What tools should SEOs be using?How do you train others to use tools more effectively?

David and Marco discuss:What are some examples of processes that SEOs should review?Should all SEOs be doing this or is it just the responsibility of SEO Heads and Managers to boost productivity?How do you stay focused?Where does AI fit into this?

David and Garrett discuss:What content can be used producing ChatGPT?What editing is necessary for ChatGPT content?How is content produced by ChatGPT picked up by Google?Are there other AI content tools that you would recommend?What is the future of AI content?

We’re seeing less impact through digital PR campaigns which has led agencies to favour reactive PR strategies. However, if you make your campaigns work extra hard, you can achieve just as high successes. This means watertight data, strong methodologies, great copy and validating them before launch.

David and Annika discuss the importance of uniting SEO and wider brand strategy for enhanced engagement.Discussion topics include:- What does Uniting SEO and wider brand strategy mean?- What does this mean in terms of SEO and brand marketing departments working together?- How does this enhance engagement?- How does enhanced engagement have a measurable impact on SEO?

David and Andy discuss:What does that mean in practice?What can you rely on AI to do?What type of content can AI help with?What type of content should you not use AI for?What does the optimum process that uses AI to help with content look like?How do you ensure that search engines think that your content was written by humans?What tools do you recommend?

David and Gerry discuss:Why do you describe entities as the most critical thing?How do you target your strategy to entities?What does enhancing with multimedia and internal linking mean in practice?What’s an example of good automation?

David and Katherine discuss:- Google Search Console crawl stats data report- Hosts- How Google is crawling your subdomains - Robots.txt- DNS resolution - domain provider- Server connectivity- HTTP Response - File Type - HTML, javascript, images or videos- Purpose - Discovery and refresh- Googlebot

David and Heba discuss:What are the key areas in accessibility?How does accessibility impact SEO?How does Google analyze accessibility?How do you measure the impact for accessibility?

Sophie Gibson shares that it's become very important in 2023 to have comprehensive structured data added to pages - It's no longer an 'added bonus' but will become essential to get ahead, because of Google's Generative Search Experience and the rise of AI requiring machine readable content summaries. This will mean you will need to add further markup than competitors and use additional fields within structured data , beyond what the online generators can create. Talking points include:- What does comprehensive structured data mean?- Use additional fields within structured data - which ones?- Information to add - founders in organisation schema (Founding, organisational)- Meet the team pages - people, job title, accreditations - What type of content is most important to mark up?- How do you measure success?

Chris Green believes that volume/depth of content doesn't mean you will rank well - the content has to be good and specific to the need. For SEOs working with multiple brands/clients, the challenge becomes connecting effectively with the user's needs and how to satisfy that meaningfully.

During this conversation Jonas and David discuss:- Understand search intent- Measure the value of user intent?- Build topic clusters to cover a topic completely- Add unique perspectives while still answering the query- Create linkable assets (spam links are being devalued more, good links still pass value)- Be a trusted source of information beyond search (social, email, etc) because that reinforces your value

Orit Mutznik has advice for SEOs looking to stand out in the job market in 2023, and suggests that you should highlight all your previous SEO wins and avoid sending generic CVs if you want to land your dream role.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/orit-mutznik

Fili Wiese gives SEOs in 2023 advice on how to stand out from the crowd, improve the quality of your content, and ensure that your pages are a step above the competition.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/fili-wiese

Aleyda Solis gives SEOs in 2023 tips for creating a quality assurance framework that will prevent you from becoming part of your own SEO horror stories - including education, validation, and monitoring.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/aleyda-solis

Kerstin Reichert believes SEOs in 2023 need to stop relying so heavily on tools to tell you what to aim for, roll up your sleeves, and do the manual work yourself to identify what really matters to you.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/kerstin-reichert

Mert Azizoğlu reminds SEOs in 2023 that the main logic of SEO has always remained the same. You still need to be aware of how the content that you create is relating to the intent of the users that are searching for it.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/tevfik-mert-azizoglu

Helen Pollitt believes that, in 2023, SEOs need to stop striving for perfection and trying to tick every box. Instead, you should be paying attention to nuance and looking for ways to be more forward-thinking.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/helen-pollitt

Nik Ranger implores SEOs in 2023 to remember the basics and stop committing cardinal sins in the areas of crawlability, rendering, indexability, ranking, and conversions.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/nik-ranger

Luis Rodriguez believes the key for SEO in 2023 is to keep experimenting to keep up with Google’s changes - and not give up after just a few tries. If you want to keep up, you need to be willing to take some risks.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/luis-rodriguez

Si Shangese encourages SEOs in 2023 to get over a fear of forecasting and use a test and learn approach, utilising historic data, so that you can look to the future, confident in the knowledge of what does and doesn’t work.For the full transcript of the episode, please visit https://majestic.com/seo-in-2023/si-shangase