I have done SEO for 13+ years and AI is by far the biggest change-catalyst I have seen in the industry.
Here’s my take on what it will look like to get organic visibility in 2025 and beyond. This is long, so TL;DR at the bottom, feel free to skip to that.
- First off, this is all changing so quickly. How we approach increasing organic visibility AND the platforms themselves AND how users actually use these platforms. It’s all a moving target and strategies are still majorly in 🤷♀️ testing mode.
- LLMs and platforms like TikTok are taking a lot of the TOF search queries. Discovery and exploratory product/brand searches are happening first in these platforms, rather than on Google or brand websites. So when your customer actually visits your website for the first time, they likely are already way more educated than before. They might already know a LOT about you, your offering, the types of customers you work with, your prices, reviews about your company, etc. Website traffic now is much further along the buying journey. This means you need to think about your content strategy differently.
- SEO efforts by nature are going to need to be much more collaborative across teams. While SEOs could operate somewhat as lone rangers (not saying this was the right approach) in the past, this will shoot brands in the foot moving forward. Your social, search, brand/PR, product, and sales teams will need to be TIGHT 🤝, working in concert with consistent positioning and messaging across every. single. channel.
- A “website audit” is now only a small piece 🧩 of the picture. While I don’t think the importance of traditional SEO fundamentals is going anywhere anytime soon, understanding the full scope of a company’s organic visibility needs to include “search everywhere” components. ChatGPT, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, G2 — that’s where your brand story is starting (and those become LLM sources).
- Search fundamentals (e.g., website and content optimization) are still very, very important. Google still has significant market share. Your website will still get organic traffic from Google. Your website will be used as a source about your company in AIOs and LLMs. Your content could get cited and be sent referral traffic from LLMs.
- Content has already shifted to heavier-lift 💪🏻, hard-to-replicate content. Think proprietary data, original research, new trends, unique perspectives from SMEs. Stuff someone else couldn’t create tomorrow with an hour and ChatGPT.
- Focusing on the benefits of your product, the value of working with you, etc is going to be more important than ever. This is the information your customers will be asking about you in Reddit, in ChatGPT, and it needs to be super easy for these platforms to return clear, compelling information in their answers. Again, users are beginning (and sometimes completing) their consideration stages outside of engaging with your brand, so what might have been reserved for a sales call or your slick capabilities deck, should now be available without someone ever talking to you.
- Because so much discovery is happening off your site (and often outside your control) doubling down on owned channels (email, podcast, Slack) is your best bet for building staying power. These are the places you can speak directly, consistently, and without the algorithm playing middleman.
- A lot of this is experimental. If you want to take this ride in 2025+, you have to be okay with that.
TL;DR
- Search is happening across ChatGPT, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube.
- Customers arrive more informed, often mid-funnel.
- Content must go deeper: unique insights, data, expert POVs.
- SEO fundamentals still matter, but they’re just one piece.
- Success now requires cross-team alignment across content, brand, and sales.
- There’s no playbook. Be ready to experiment.
