0:03 Is SEO dead? And why did 90% of founders
0:06 and marketeers say that AEO was the
0:08 biggest revenue opportunity in 2026?
0:10 I've identified four steps that will
0:11 take you from a complete beginner to
0:13 being able to drive revenue from AI.
0:16 I'll explain exactly what AI search is,
0:18 why it works differently to Google, and
0:19 more importantly, the practical steps
0:22 that you can take right now to get your
0:23 business showing up. My name's Chris
0:26 Donley, and I spent 20 years in SEO. I
0:28 bootstrapped a 100 person agency, Verb
0:30 Brands, running SEO for companies like
0:32 Bugatti and Aston Martin. And I have
0:35 never seen a shift move this fast. And
0:37 today I run Searchable, which is a SAS
0:39 business that provides analytics and
0:41 aentic workflows to help companies
0:44 improve their AI SEO.
0:46 So, let's start with a reality check.
0:49 Most self-titled SEO gurus are screaming
0:51 that Google is dead and that you need to
0:53 abandon everything and focus only on AI
0:56 search. And although chat GBT is the
0:58 fastest consumer adoption of technology
1:00 ever, if you look at this data from
1:03 Spark Toro, Google is handling 13 to 14
1:05 billion searches every single day. If
1:08 you look at OpenAI's own data, the
1:09 majority of their queries are things
1:11 like reformat this email. How do I
1:14 respond to this? And the truth is right
1:16 now people are sticking with what they
1:18 know, Google. So Google isn't dead, but
1:21 the tides are beginning to shift. And
1:23 the point that most marketeteers or
1:25 founders are overlooking is that Google
1:28 itself has now pivoted. More than 50% of
1:30 searches end with AI overviews. And this
1:32 behavioral change is going quietly
1:34 unnoticed as more and more people want
1:35 their answers to be served
1:37 conversationally, [music]
1:39 not just in keywords. So when 7 billion
1:41 of Google searches end with AI
1:43 overviews, you want to create highly
1:45 citable pieces of content. The good news
1:47 is is that AEO and GEO are just an
1:49 additional layer that you need to add to
1:51 your existing SEO strategy. And that all
1:54 the tactics that I'm about to cover
1:56 apply across Chat, GBT, Gemini, Claude,
1:58 and Google's own AI overviews. All of
2:00 these are technically now powered by
2:02 large language models. And so, [music]
2:04 how do you get your business to be
2:07 recommended at a specific time that your
2:08 customer is looking for your product?
2:11 Number one is writing content that AI
2:14 search platforms will use. In short, AI
2:16 search platforms pull the top ranking
2:18 search results and trusted sources on
2:20 the web already. They compose answers
2:22 made up of several different sources.
2:24 So, if you take a look at this graph
2:26 here, you can see that it varies across
2:29 LLMs. Chat GBT uses different sources
2:32 compared to Gemini when it generates its
2:34 answers. So, when we used to optimize
2:36 for SEO, you would structure everything
2:39 around a specific keyword, CRM software
2:41 for example, and that simply won't work
2:43 with LLM. So instead, you need to build
2:45 it far more conversationally. Structure
2:48 it around many queries. For example,
2:50 what is the best CRM software to help
2:53 SMMES generate leads? You're answering
2:55 an exact question. And then you want to
2:58 focus on your headers, H1, H2, H3, and
2:59 so on, and build the entire piece of
3:02 content on natural humanlike sentence
3:04 questions. Then your role is to answer
3:06 that in a very conversational way. So,
3:09 in this instance, try and give an expert
3:12 answer regarding why a certain CRM is
3:15 better for a small business that wants
3:17 simplicity and a fast setup. So, one tip
3:20 I'd give here is to download a tool like
3:22 Whisper Flow or even record a Loom and
3:24 then talk to your laptop as if you're
3:26 describing the answer to a friend. And
3:28 this can form the basis of your article
3:31 and I guarantee it will be written far
3:32 more naturally than if you didn't do
3:34 that. So the second thing I want to
3:36 focus on to make your content work in AI
3:40 is EAT and Google has focused on EAT for
3:43 years. Experience, expertise,
3:46 authoritiveness, and trustworthiness. AI
3:48 focuses here very deeply with answers
3:51 being increased by up to 30% for chat
3:53 GBT and perplexity when brands are
3:56 including clear sections, expert
3:58 commentary, and clear FAQs. So how do
4:00 you create content that aderes to the
4:03 EAT principles? It's actually very
4:04 straightforward and it goes back to my
4:07 point that AI platforms weigh content
4:10 with real expert commentary. So EAT
4:12 means sharing real life experiences
4:15 including expert advice, commentary,
4:17 showcasing case studies and testimonials
4:19 in the content that you are writing. So
4:21 ensure that you're including quotes and
4:23 statistics from high authority sources
4:26 or individuals and aim to try and give
4:29 multiple perspectives on complex topics.
4:31 And lastly, use your own content to
4:34 address known limitations and objections
4:36 to your product or service that exists
4:38 today. And this will allow you to
4:40 control the narrative in the answers
4:43 that LLM provide and give you a positive
4:46 sentiment when LLM talk about you. The
4:47 third thing I want to talk about is how
4:51 AI chatbots prefer semantic richness and
4:53 [music] context. So unlike in SEO where
4:55 we used to repeat the same keyword again
4:57 and again and again to try and get it
4:58 ranked, you want to be using many
5:01 [music] natural variations explaining
5:03 the same thing or explaining related
5:05 concepts around the same topic. So if
5:06 [music] you're talking about your CRM,
5:09 you want to have multiple different
5:11 descriptions and multiple different
5:14 questions about the CRM rather than just
5:16 plugging the CRM term. So, ensure that
5:18 you're using clear structures and
5:20 headings to separate your text and your
5:22 content into really clear, logical
5:24 sections. Focus on trying to separate
5:26 your content into bite-sized question
5:28 answer content. [music] Try and use
5:30 bullet points more and lists. And tables
5:32 are even shown to improve your ability
5:34 to be answered. And it makes sense. If
5:37 an AI is asked a very specific question
5:39 and you have the answer as a header and
5:41 that specific answer in a bullet [music]
5:43 point, it's much more likely to mention
5:45 and site you and drive traffic towards
5:47 you because it's easy to retrieve the
5:48 answer. Another way that you can think
5:52 about using tables is for comparisons of
5:53 features [music] and for comparisons of
5:55 pricing. And using a table in this
5:58 regard is an excellent way of passing
5:59 the information straight [music] through
6:01 to AI machines. Which takes us nicely on
6:03 to the fourth part, which is FAQs. [music]
6:04 [music]
6:06 This is quite literally gold right now.
6:09 If an AI is asked a very specific
6:10 question and you have that exact
6:12 question as a header with a clear answer
6:14 underneath, it will probably site you.
6:17 So those are the four points to focus on
6:19 to really get your content cited by AI.
6:21 But the problem that most marketers have
6:23 faced for years is there hasn't been a
6:26 reliable way to track traffic from LLMs.
6:28 There is no Google search console. So
6:29 how do you know if it's working? So
6:31 tracking clicks also isn't as helpful as
6:33 it used to be as most people will get
6:34 the answer to their question
6:36 conversationally right there in the
6:37 chat. And right now the best way to
6:39 track your success in AI search
6:41 therefore is how often your brand is
6:43 mentioned in the answers and how often
6:46 the LLM will link to your website as the
6:48 source in their answers. So how do you
6:49 do that? How do you get mentioned? How
6:51 do you get cited? And that question was
6:53 the fundamental reason that I launched
6:54 searchable earlier this year. It lets
6:56 you automatically pull data from your
6:58 business and your website and create
7:00 relevant prompts so you can immediately
7:02 start tracking how you are performing
7:05 versus your competitors and see which
7:07 LLMs are actually citing you and
7:09 mentioning you [music] every single day.
7:11 Honestly, try it. I've dropped a link
7:12 below in the description for you to give
7:14 it a go. So, the next part of your AI
7:16 optimization is schema. So, what is
7:19 schema and how can you use it? Schema
7:21 markup is a specialized form of
7:23 structured data that is used to tell a
7:26 search engine or AI exactly what content
7:28 you are showing. It's literally code
7:30 that machines read that humans don't
7:32 see. And there are two core types of
7:34 schema that you need to focus on to
7:37 really win in SEO. One is foundational
7:38 [music] and is known as your
7:41 organizational schema. This tells the AI
7:43 about your brand, your business, and
7:45 directs them towards your social
7:47 channels. In the eyes of AI, this is
7:50 fundamentally what it sees you as. It's
7:52 what it knows you as. And that is why I
7:54 think it's so important to work hard on
7:56 ensuring these elements are very clear
7:58 that your social profiles are set up and
8:01 posting consistently as this forms your
8:03 social fortress around your entity. So
8:06 AI really understands what your business
8:09 is. The second type is article schema.
8:10 This is the machine code that is used to
8:12 communicate the author, the date of
8:15 publication, the meaning of the article.
8:16 It's the core element [music] and
8:19 therefore it's how you're going to be
8:21 understood by AI. Think of it as
8:23 labeling your content. It helps AI
8:25 quickly search through to spot any
8:28 relevant articles before citing. So,
8:30 three quick wins for article schema.
8:33 First, attach it to a real expert, not
8:35 like an admin as part of the company.
8:37 Use a proper author with credentials and
8:40 a bio. AI trusts people, not anonymous
8:42 [music] brands. Second, don't just mark
8:44 up the page. Mark up the details. You
8:46 need a headline, publish date, last
8:48 [music] updated, and author, and the key
8:51 entities that you mention. Third, I want
8:52 you to keep it fresh. If you update the
8:55 article, update the schema. AI systems
8:57 favor content that's maintained and
8:59 current. So, that might have sounded
9:01 complicated, but here's three quick wins
9:03 for article schema. So, the first point
9:04 sounds technical, but it's truly not.
9:06 You need to ensure that the majority of
9:08 your content, which is what you want to
9:11 get mentioned and cited for, is in HTML
9:13 rather than in something like
9:16 JavaScript. AI systems mostly read raw
9:19 HTML. So, if it's not in that format,
9:21 you simply cannot get read by an AI
9:24 machine right now. Similarly, AI bots
9:26 aren't yet very good at capturing images
9:28 or videos from your website. So, if you
9:30 have images or videos, the most
9:32 important thing to do is to add clear
9:34 alt text to your images and to add
9:36 transcriptions to your videos to make
9:38 [music] it as easy as possible for the
9:40 AI to understand what those pieces of
9:42 content actually are. The second
9:43 technical point is you need to ensure
9:45 that your website's site map and site
9:47 structure are very clear. A few years
9:49 ago, there was a trend to push all of
9:51 your content onto one single page. But
9:53 these design styles make it extremely
9:55 confusing for an AI to understand what
9:57 your site is, what's more important than
9:59 anything else. So instead, you want to
10:02 lay it out in a very logical human
10:04 hierarchy that helps a crawler to
10:06 understand your business and what the
10:08 key of your website actually is. And
10:10 then make sure that your highly valuable
10:12 content that you actually want to be
10:13 read is not hidden away. And I thought
10:15 I'd end the technical section on a very
10:17 quick one, but just make sure that
10:19 you're not disallowing Google crawlers
10:22 or Microsoft Bing or Chat GBT's bot from
10:24 actually being allowed to crawl and
10:26 scrape your website. So to do this, you
10:27 just need to submit site maps in two
10:30 places. Number one, Google because
10:31 [music] Google is still the dominant
10:33 engine and as we covered earlier,
10:35 receives 7 billion AI summaries a day,
10:38 but also Bing because Bing, if you
10:40 didn't know, is what powers chat GBC.
10:42 You can update your robot.ext text file
10:43 easily in your website control settings.
10:45 And if you don't know how to do that,
10:47 you can simply work with your existing
10:48 developer cuz they will know how to do
10:51 that. There is some controversy around
10:54 LLM.ext files. However, my view is that
10:56 providing additional context to crawlers
10:58 cannot hurt the outcome as to whether
11:00 you are answered within a chat service.
11:02 The next stage that I'm going to talk
11:04 about is perhaps the most vital and it's
11:06 how you build authority on your own
11:08 website. But because this channel is
11:10 new, 82% of the people who watch the
11:12 videos on this channel haven't
11:14 subscribed. [music] So if you've got
11:16 this far and you like the videos,
11:18 subscribe to the channel and I promise I
11:20 will always deliver strategic and
11:21 tactical advice on how to grow your
11:23 businesses. So thus far we've spoken
11:25 about two core areas. We've spoken about
11:27 the content that is on your website and
11:28 how to optimize that for AI search and
11:30 how to technically optimize your website
11:33 so it's more easily crawled. But there's
11:34 something that most people overlook
11:37 entirely with regards to AI search, and
11:40 that is that AI models don't just read
11:41 your website. They're trained on the
11:44 entirety of the internet. The sites that
11:46 form the backbone of the training of the
11:49 AI models carry enormous weight in how
11:51 they think and answer. So, Wikipedia,
11:54 Reddit, Quora, Crunchb, Yelp, Google
11:57 Maps, these are primary training data
11:59 sources. So getting your business
12:01 accurately listed and described in these
12:03 places doesn't just help humans find
12:06 you. It literally shapes how AI models
12:08 understand what your company is and what
12:11 it does. So there are three core things
12:13 to think about here. Number one is user
12:15 generated content. Places like Reddit,
12:18 Quora, and other forums have millions of
12:20 users and conversations happening every
12:23 day and are heavily prioritized and used
12:25 by LLMs to formulate answers. So, don't
12:28 just set up a fake account and spam your
12:31 ideal messaging into these forums. Find
12:33 threads that really matter and reply
12:36 with things like, "I work at X company
12:38 and based on your specific understanding
12:40 of the problem and the use case, here is
12:42 how you fix it. Here is how you change
12:44 it and here's how I can help you do
12:47 that." And the point is you're trying to
12:50 give context to a user who has asked
12:52 that specific question because that
12:54 informs how an LLM will think about you
12:56 and it will inform the sentiment that
12:59 the LLM has about your brand. Number two
13:01 is large knowledge basis. The LLMs are
13:04 very focused on large reputable and
13:06 established knowledge sources like
13:10 Wikipedia, Yelp, Maps, Crunchb. These
13:12 are the primary training data for most
13:14 of the models and as such you should
13:17 focus on getting your business listed
13:19 and described in these knowledge bases
13:21 as this will strengthen your entity the
13:23 entity [music] that the models are
13:24 trying to understand and it will make it
13:26 more likely that you are mentioned and
13:28 more likely that you are cited. Number
13:31 three is publications. And so you as a
13:34 business want reputable publications to
13:36 write about your brand, to mention your
13:38 name and to site you because [music]
13:40 when an LLM is considering an answer,
13:43 they consider large publications as
13:44 authoritative sources on that subject
13:47 matter. And if those sources are talking
13:49 about you in the context of being an
13:51 authority and the context of being an
13:52 answer to the question, you are more
13:54 likely to show up as an answer. So the
13:57 advice is reach out to journalists,
13:59 offer comments, form a differentiated
14:01 opinion. You want to create highly
14:04 citable pieces of content. For example,
14:06 at searchable, we have just created the
14:09 state of AI SEO, the algorithm report,
14:11 analyzing millions of data points and
14:13 giving objective data on how the models
14:16 are working and creating answers. And
14:18 dozens of journalists want to site this
14:20 content when they're talking about the
14:22 evolution of technology and the
14:24 evolution of consumer behavior,
14:26 resulting in us getting lots of
14:27 different links back, which increases
14:30 our knowledge entity in the AI machine
14:32 databases, meaning we're more likely to
14:34 get mentioned and cited in future for
14:36 topics around AEO. So ultimately, this
14:38 is what we call digital PR or link
14:39 building. So you're trying to get your
14:42 comments and your content to be cited by
14:44 small and large publications alike. And
14:45 the more established and the more
14:47 authoritative, the better. So think
14:49 niche blogs through to international
14:52 newspapers. The more novel and on trend
14:54 that your content is, the more likely it
14:56 is to get cited. So reach out to
14:58 journalists, build relationships, and
15:00 give them something to write about. This
15:03 is the new era of PR or digital PR. Earn
15:06 citations, earn authority, and you will
15:08 go on to earn traffic. I remember when
15:10 we were first optimizing websites for
15:13 Google in 2009 and it was so easy for
15:15 sites to gain traffic and now that
15:18 opportunity exists again. So any
15:21 business can make huge leaps forward if
15:22 they take advantage right now. If you
15:24 want to use searchable, I've included a
15:26 link in the descriptions which will give
15:28 you incredible insight and analytics on
15:30 your AI search. It will give you the
15:32 actions you need to take to improve your
15:34 mentions and your citations and your
15:35 content. and you will get a customized
15:38 agent within your profile that you can
15:39 work with as a co-pilot. So once you've
15:41 nailed this, make sure that you check
15:43 out my next video on creating adverts in
