Optimization Dos and Don’ts in the AI Search Age

As AI takes a lead role in reshaping search results and behaviors, the rules for search are shifting fast. Success in this new ecosystem isn’t just about visibility—it’s about trust, credibility, and the willingness to continuously evolve your strategy.

Let’s dive into what’s working right now for AI search—and what habits are better left behind. From closely tracking user behavior to modernizing old keyword tactics, here are a few tips to align your search strategy with today’s evolving digital landscape.

Winning Strategies for AI Search

While traditional SEO best practices still apply today, it’s important to adapt your SEO strategy to prioritize the evolving demands and dynamics of AI search. So far, two strategies have emerged to complement (not take over) SEO—generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO).

• GEO strategies support your broader authority in the eyes of AI. The goal of GEO is to ensure AI models understand your content and can easily cite it. Implementing GEO best practices can help your content show up in AI-powered chats and longer-form results like AI summaries—which are usually answering more specific, pointed queries (than those brief, direct answers targeted by AEO).
• AEO strategies aim to get AI tools to “select” your content as the direct answer to a search query. At first, AEO focused on getting your content to appear in skimmable results like Google’s featured snippets. But now, it continues to evolve past rich results into broader AI ecosystems like Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and beyond.

SEO, GEO and AEO At-a-Glance

Strategy	Goal	Metric
SEO	Get a click	Keyword rankings and organic traffic to your site
GEO	Be the cited source	AI mentions and citations
AEO	Be the answer	Brand awareness and share of voice

So, what can you do to speak to the needs of your target audience while balancing SEO, GEO, and AEO (and the evolution of all these things)? Remember that these strategies work best together—and keep the following tips in your back pocket.

Track User Behavior

Have you noticed changes in your website analytics? Tools like Google’s AI Overview and AI Mode are changing the way users search and engage with search results. Some common examples of these new user search trends include:

• Higher search volumes for long-tail keywords and niche question queries
• Less traffic from search engines for high-ranking pages¹
• Longer session times when users do click through to your pages
• Higher conversion rates on tailored, optimized pages

Be sure to compare recent trends to your historical data—and explore tools like heat maps to easily track user behavior as AI continues to evolve. You’ll want to use this behavior data to guide your content strategy.

Build Trust

AI tools are more likely to cite your content if it’s reputable, original, and authoritative. That means Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines still apply. As you write your content with GEO and AEO in mind, be sure to still focus on:

• Experience: Do you have any first-hand experience with the topic you’re writing about? If so, try to share stories, accomplishments, test results, expert opinions, and more with your audience in a way that emphasizes how your experience benefits them.
• Expertise: To demonstrate expertise in your space, show your credentials, quote experts, and cite trusted data and sources. In general, you’ll also want to produce thorough, pointed content that positions you as a thought leader.
• Authority: Google has historically gauged authority by looking at your backlinks—considering both quantity and quality. Now, AI-powered search tools judge authority based on the quality of your content, how effectively you answer nuanced and niche queries, how users engage with your content in real time, and more.
• Trust: Think of ways to build trust with your audience and the AI tools that will scan your content. Focus on clear communication that answers your audience’s specific questions (this is where long-tail queries come in). Your content should always be accurate and well-researched with clear, reputable references.

We can’t leave this topic without mentioning uniqueness. Original content has always been important, but even more so now. Avoid the temptation to copy and paste from AI tools and be sure to check for plagiarism with every piece of content. Remember, it’s possible to accidentally plagiarize. It’s also a good idea to share case studies, interviews, and more to set your content apart from the competition.

Structure Everything

Speaking of authority and trust, topic clusters can also help you showcase your expertise. Topic clusters are groups of web pages that interconnect with each other, usually built around one overarching theme and a central pillar page. The pillar page serves as a broad overview of the topic and links to multiple subpages that dive deeper into more granular subtopics. Clustering is a way to strategically structure your website or blog content so that humans and answer engines can understand the depth of your knowledge.

The way you structure your content within your web pages is also extremely important. Answer engines can scan your content to decide if it’s helpful, authoritative, and worthy of citing. It favors organized, structured content with:

• Clear descriptive headings, including H1s, H2s, and H3s
• Bulleted lists
• Intro summaries like TL;DRs
• Internal links that follow the topic cluster model
• Structured data, including schema markup for FAQ, HowTo, and Product pages, which help AI platforms (like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity) read and understand your content

Prioritize Clarity Over Cleverness

While you want your content to reflect your unique brand voice, avoid sacrificing clarity for cleverness. In the AI-powered world of GEO and AEO, you’ll want to write like a helpful friend who instinctively anticipates questions, answers them straight, and avoids niche, fluffy jargon.

At the end of the day, you want your content to lead with value and clarity—while still adding your brand’s unique flair.

Embrace the Ongoing AI Evolution

These best practices become increasingly important as AI platforms continue to expand their reach and power more online tools and features. To give you an idea of this rapidly expanding reach, Google’s Gemini already powers:

• AI Overview
• AI Mode
• Workspace
• Various Chrome features
• The Gemini app/Chatbot
• AI assistants on many Android devices

On top of that, Apple announced that Gemini will power its next generation of Siri (Apple’s virtual assistant) and other new “Apple Intelligence” features.

What Won’t Work in the AI Search Era

Pretending Like It’s Not Happening

With any large seismic shift, it’s tempting to “let the dust settle” and/or pretend like it’s not happening. While some might dismiss current AI trends as a feature that might fade or quickly transform, you can jump ahead by accepting that it’s not going anywhere.

Now is the time to get comfortable with AI and optimize your content for it. Adapting now could put you ahead of competitors who are choosing to sit back and watch new trends unfold.

Relying on Just Keywords

While keyword optimization remains important, gone are the days of awkwardly stuffing blog articles with exact-match keywords (a strategy that’s always had its limitations). AI tools don’t just look for keywords; they read and interpret the content as a whole. If your content is:

• Thin
• Generic
• Random
• Unhelpful
• Unstructured
• Keyword-stuffed
• Poorly written

You’ll have a hard time showing up in any AI or answer engine results. Plus, with more people searching for answers to specific questions (whether via text or voice search), you’ll want to prioritize long-tail keywords and tailored yet conversational search queries.

Ignoring Long-Tail Keywords and Tailored Queries

Piggybacking off the last section, AI Overviews (and other answer engines) present an incredible opportunity to target niche, long-tail keywords. Searchers are using AI to answer very intentional, specific questions—the perfect chance to spotlight your long-form content.

You can use the topic cluster model to continue to target broad, competitive terms with your pillar pages—and link to subpages that dig into long-tail keywords and other niche searches. This will give your website more authority surrounding entire topics or themes—and make it easier to shine in the realm of GEO and AEO.

Churning Out Thin Content for the Sake of Quantity

This one is a given, but we couldn’t close without saying that it’s important to always prioritize quality over quantity in your content strategy, especially in the age of AI. Thin or fluffy content doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s worth reiterating that if your web pages lack substance or unique, authoritative insights, both users and AI machines will skip right over them.

Navigate Digital Disruptions with WebAgency

Whether you need a forward-thinking SEO/GEO/AEO strategy, help with your paid advertising campaigns, or just general guidance and clarity in the AI era, we can help. If you’re ready to align your digital strategy, marketing, and content to the opportunities and demands of today, drop us a line or call us at 603-891-0304.

1. Ryan Law and Xibeijia Guan, “AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 34.5%,” Ahrefs, April 17, 2025, https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks/