SEO trends for 2026: How search and AI are changing

SEO trends have changed a lot over the last few years. Search behavior shifted from a linear, traditional search on a search engine like Google to a multi-platform search involving AI search tools like ChatGPT, AI Overviews (AIO), and AI Mode.

The latest SEO trends have made even the most confident marketers question whether SEO is still worth investing in. And questioning this search reality is reasonable, especially with the rise of zero-click results. It makes sense to assume traditional SEO is losing relevance, but as AI-powered search engines nestle their way into the wider search infrastructure, SEO proves it hasn’t disappeared—it’s simply expanded.

Sophisticated SEO specialists and marketers are moving with the times. In 2026, most marketers surveyed (68.2%) understand how to use AI in marketing, and 67.5% (compared to 48% last year) know how to measure AI’s impact.

This guide outlines eight SEO trends defining search in 2026, along with actionable tips and frameworks marketers can use to drive results.

Table of Contents

• How SEO Has Changed: From Keywords to AI-Powered Intent
• 8 SEO Trends Shaping Search in 2026
• SEO Trends 2026: Your Questions Answered

How SEO Has Changed: From Keywords to AI-Powered Intent

Recently, marketers have seen how SEO has changed more dramatically than perhaps any other point in search history. The biggest shift is, of course, generative AI, which has revolutionized how people search. Instead of turning to Google over 90% of the time, users have a wide range of search tools at their disposal, and search behavior is more fragmented.

Marketing teams are now optimizing for answer engines. But there’s less clarity on what people are searching for. Search is no longer short keywords typed into Google. Instead, people ask descriptive, specific use-case questions to AI systems using natural language.

Let’s explore what marketers can learn from how SEO has changed. Recent spam updates and Google’s encouragement of helpful content suggest that high-quality, helpful content is still the goal. Google hasn’t changed its fundamental values at all. The search engine continues to pursue helpful content, regardless of whether it’s AI-generated.

In its documentation, Google is clear that it rewards high-quality content, however it’s produced, and that automation can create helpful content. This acceptance of AI shows that what really matters (as it always has) is quality. Writers and marketers needn’t fear AI; rather, they can use it. As long as the content reads well and helps the user, it’s embraced as part of an evolving digital world.

The way AI tools surface content is new, too. People no longer search on Google, exploring a list of blue links and clicking the few that entice them. Instead, almost two-thirds of buyers are starting their search using genAI such as AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, or other options. This new buyer behavior is challenging for marketers.

More searches take place across a range of tools. This makes it harder to track what people are searching and where they’re searching. This lack of visibility into the buyer’s journey may seem scary, but marketers can still win by focusing on meeting user needs. If anything, this shift has pushed SEO teams to use more sophisticated marketing metrics, such as business objectives as measurement, as opposed to vanity metrics like clicks and impressions.

The good news about ‌evolving AI search is that the trajectory in which it was moving seems to have steadied. This suggests that AI-search has found its place in the search landscape alongside traditional search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

According to research from Sparktoro, 80.76% of desktop searches take place on traditional search engines, and AI tools take only 3.19%. This research includes ecommerce SEO trends and websites like Amazon or eBay that are also part of the search infrastructure. People ready to buy a product may start searching there.

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It’s important not to downplay AI’s role and the impact on buyer behavior and website visits. AI-generated answers have significantly impacted SEO trends. Search graphs that once trended up have dropped significantly as AI search has fulfilled informational search queries.

A search for something like “the best CRM for small business” returns a search engine results page (SERP) populated by AI with CRM recommendations and cited sources. Google’s AIO fulfills the intent (a recommendation for CRMs) without the searcher needing to click a website.

SEO click graphs now look like a loss. Looking at the data, it’s easy to assume that SEO isn’t working anymore. It may feel counterintuitive to create content that doesn’t get clicked, but SEO trends have shifted. Content that appears in AI search may not result in clicks, but it may be entirely responsible for a brand getting cited in AI. And if people are starting to search in AI, brands need to appear there. Brands that don’t will be excluded from the next research phase when web visits and clicks occur.

What I think about how SEO has changed: The introduction of AI search was a steep learning curve for SEO teams and marketers. But things seem to be settling. There’s evidence that answer engines have embedded into the search landscape and found their place alongside traditional search. Both traditional search and Google will continue, and SEO certainly isn’t dead. I believe these changes are positive for the SEO industry. Many SEO teams have shifted from chasing clicks to creating content that reaches the right audiences and drives real conversions and revenue.

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8 SEO Trends Shaping Search in 2026

Some trends shaping search in 2026 are previous SEO trends that the best SEO specialists are still leveraging today. Many are increasing in importance or are getting more “air time.” Structured data, for example, has been around for a long time, but in 2026, it’s a focal point. And there’s nothing wrong with this; it’s all advantageous. The more tools and tactics SEO and AEO specialists can draw on, the more opportunities there are to drive meaningful visibility.

Other tactics, like optimizing for a zero-search environment, are entirely new and quite alien to SEO specialists who have been around for a while.

This next section breaks down eight SEO trends predicted to perform in an SEO and AEO environment. It includes tips and tactics for how they can be executed successfully.

AI Content Quality Trumps Quantity

Artificial intelligence is reshaping everything about SEO, from how people search and therefore how SEO teams strategize to get in front of audiences. The role of SEO has changed to incorporate AI search tools alongside traditional search.

But that’s not the only thing affected by AI. In this AI era, SEO workflows are expedited and content creation can take a fraction of the time, which means the quantity of content produced and published is significantly higher than it once was.

The question that should be on everyone’s mind: Is AI content generated at scale a good thing? There are case studies, like the Great SEO Heist, that prove poorly produced AI content at scale inevitably loses. The “SEO heist” involved an SEO taking a competitor’s sitemap, using AI to replicate and scale thousands of similar pages, and quickly driving significant organic traffic.

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At first, it looked like a hack for fast growth, but it ultimately resulted in a severe traffic drop; the kind that leaves you lying awake at night questioning your decisions. See how the traffic rises (orange line in the graph), then falls to nothing? It doesn’t look good.

This case study highlighted a critical shift in modern SEO: while AI makes it easier than ever to produce content at scale, blindly replicating or reworking existing content without originality, relevance, or alignment to a genuine business purpose is pointless.

More importantly, it exposed a deeper tension in the AI era. Just because content can be created at scale doesn’t mean it delivers value. Search engines are increasingly prioritizing usefulness, intent alignment, and brand credibility over volume. Which means we’re back to where we started: Google does and always has rewarded high-quality content.

To reiterate an important point: this doesn’t mean that writers can’t use AI. It just means that AI and humans have to work together using concepts like Loop Marketing.

Loop Marketing is a concept developed by HubSpot that allows AI and humans to work together. The concept can apply to any marketing discipline. Marketers can apply it to large-scale campaigns or strategies, or dial it down to something specific, like content. The idea is that through a four-stage framework, marketing will:

• Express who they are
• Tailor the approach
• Amplify reach
• Evolve in real-time

Applied to content, SEO, and AEO, marketing teams will:

• Define messaging through articles that are prepared for a specific customer profile.
• Create content using AI and make it highly relevant to the audience’s needs.
• Optimize the content for multiple search channels, like traditional search engines and AI search channels, and possibly for social media.
• Evolve content based on ‌data.

Loop Marketing makes AI and human workflows highly efficient, but it doesn’t ask brands to churn out content for the sake of doing it. Each step of the process ensures production is meaningful, in line with brand values, and suitable for target audiences. To do this, human marketers need to be present along the way. SEO teams can get human oversight in AI workflows by combining human expertise alongside the AI within the workflow itself.

HubSpot’s Breeze Copilot creates high-quality content with human oversight. As a content optimization tool, Breeze can write the content, and then a person can fact-check and edit it before publishing. Breeze Copilot is set up to ask all the right questions to generate an excellent output.

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Pro tip: Breeze AI can rephrase and edit content while writing, so the editing process is also expedited.

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Importantly, once the content is live, a human can analyze performance metrics and see what’s working (and what isn’t) so the content can evolve. This combination of AI and human oversight ensures quality content is published. Content is fact-checked, edited, and original. It meets Google’s guidelines while being produced efficiently at scale.

In a HubSpot survey of more than a hundred U.S.-based SEO professionals, 73% either strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, “AI tools, features, or solutions are becoming an important part of my company’s SEO strategy.” AI is also a means to efficiency: Nearly 75% of respondents said they use AI simply to save time. Many SEOs use AI for tasks like optimizing websites for technical SEO and improving SERP rankings.

Despite the major changes it’s brought, marketers feel confident in the age of AI. In the 2026 State of Marketing report, most surveyed marketers reported they felt confident adapting to cultural and social trends and understanding content needs in the AI era.

E-E-A-T Becomes More Prominent

Google first introduced E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines in 2014, using it as a framework to help human evaluators assess content quality. In December 2022, Google expanded the framework to E-E-A-T by adding Experience, highlighting the value of first-hand knowledge and lived expertise in content evaluation.

Interestingly, ChatGPT was launched on November 30, 2022, suggesting that this new “E” for Experience was there to differentiate AI from real human experiences. After all, an AI tool can’t really experience anything for itself.

E-E-A-T is not a single ranking factor; it’s a concept. It reflects how Google’s systems aim to surface content that shows credibility, accuracy, and real-world experience. To many marketers, the rise of AI (and the parallel emphasis on E-E-A-T) represents a return to fundamentals: creating content grounded in genuine expertise, trust, and human perspective.

Victor Pan, product SEO at HubSpot, takes a long view of all this AI-activated change, cautioning marketers to focus more on the grounding principles of good content rather than trying to optimize for every single update.

So what does strong E-E-A-T look like in practice? Truthfully, E-E-A-T covers a lot of different strategies and tactics. I highly recommend that every SEO read the Search Rater Guidelines at least once. Within the guidelines, there are examples of ‌pages showing high levels of E-E-A-T‌. Here are some key SEO strategies that will improve E-E-A-T signals.

Include a named author on content, then take it a step further and link to a page detailing information about the content author. Author bios need to do some heavy lifting. They should outline relevant credentials, lived experience, and professional background that’s directly relevant to the topic. A piece about enterprise SEO strategy written by someone who has managed SEO for Fortune 500 companies carries more authority than the same piece written by an anonymous contributor. Make the expertise visible and specific.

Google is very clear about the importance of authored content. In its guidelines, it says:

• Clearly identify who created the content to support E-E-A-T
• Make authorship obvious and transparent to readers
• Include bylines on pages where users expect them
• Ensure bylines link to author profiles with relevant experience and expertise
• Provide background information about the author’s knowledge and subject areas
• Use authorship as a signal to build trust, credibility, and authority

Want a good example of a bio? Here’s mine on HubSpot:

First-hand experience is the part of E-E-A-T that AI can’t fake. Including original insights, personal observations, or details that only come from doing the thing you’re writing about is increasingly valuable. This might look like a marketer writing about a campaign they actually ran, sharing the results, the mistakes, and what they’d do differently. That kind of specificity signals experience in a way that a well-written but generic article simply can’t.

Case studies are another powerful lever. Real examples with real outcomes show that a brand or author has actually applied what they’re preaching. Honest accounts of what worked and what didn’t are often compelling and more trustworthy for human readers.

Expert quotes and external validation also matter. Citing recognized voices in your field, linking to credible sources, and earning mentions from authoritative sites all contribute to how Google perceives your content’s trustworthiness.

Transparency goes a long way. Clear editorial policies, disclosure of AI use where relevant, up-to-date content with visible review dates, and accurate information all feed into trustworthiness. For Your Money, Your Life (YMYL ) topics, such as health, finance, and legal, these signals matter most, as Google holds that content to a higher standard given the risks of inaccurate or untrustworthy information.

There’s a tendency to view tactics that build E-E-A-T purely through the lens of search performance because E-E-A-T improves content credibility and trust signals, but its value goes far beyond algorithms. Prospects gain confidence when they can clearly see your team delivers on what your website promises, and when they recognize that the people they’re engaging with are actively producing thoughtful, credible content. This visibility builds trust long before a conversation even begins.

E-E-A-T work will always be hard to measure, largely because so many tactics, big and small, build E-E-A-T. Even something as simple as adding clear author bylines contributes to positive E-E-A-T signals.

Marketing teams can use HubSpot’s AEO Grader to analyze brand performance in AI tools quickly, based on what prospects and customers are seeing across AI search engines. The tool then provides easy-to-follow, actionable recommendations.

The AEO Grader takes the guesswork out of a notoriously difficult area to quantify. Rather than trying to reverse-engineer whether your E-E-A-T efforts are landing, it shows users directly how a brand is being represented inside AI search tools. For the first time, marketers can see something close to an AI search audit, including where they’re showing up, what’s being said about them, and where the gaps are.

For SEO and AEO teams trying to make the case for investing in E-E-A-T, this kind of visibility is valuable beyond just optimization. It’s a way to bring stakeholders along, showing leadership that brand credibility in AI search is measurable, improvable, and worth prioritizing. Because the reality is, if your brand isn’t being cited, recommended, or even acknowledged by AI search tools, you’re invisible to a growing segment of buyers at the exact moment they’re forming opinions and short-listing solutions.

Zero-Click Search Optimization Takes Priority

A zero-click search is exactly what it sounds like: a user searches, gets their answer directly on the results page, and never clicks through to a website. AI Overviews increase zero-click search behavior, pulling together synthesized answers at the top of the SERP that satisfy informational queries without requiring a single click.

It sounds scary, but marketers are largely unfazed by the introduction of AI Overviews. In a HubSpot survey of U.S.-based SEO professionals, only 6% specifically named Google’s AI Overviews as a threat to search traffic. And the biggest concern, generative AI chatbots, was selected by only 13% of respondents.

A tiny percentage, just 2%, believe that Google algorithm updates will result in search traffic losses. Of the surveyed marketers, 60% said that growth metrics for website visits are actually easier to improve now than 10 years ago.

Mikkel deMib, a Denmark-based SEO (and founder of Elevate Apps), has been doing SEO since before it was called SEO. When asked about zero-click search, deMib points to a study that SparkToro CEO Rand Fishkin did on zero-click. Among the findings, Fishkin found that although there’s been an increase in zero-click searches, there’s been a parallel increase in the number of searches.

deMib says, “The number of people who click away from Google is actually about the same, even though the percentage has dropped.” Read Fishkin’s full study on the SparkToro website.

And not everybody thinks zero-click is the start of the SEO apocalypse. Amanda Natividad, SparkToro’s VP of Marketing, asked on LinkedIn, “Do you want people to see your [content] or not?” She explains: “When I’m telling you to create zero-click content, it’s because you need to optimize for impressions. To optimize your social media content so that people see it.”

For SEO teams raised on traffic as the primary success metric, all of this is a hard pill to swallow. But here’s the reframe that matters: visibility and traffic are no longer the same thing. A brand that appears in an AI Overview for a high-intent query is building awareness, credibility, and trust with a potential buyer, even if that person never visits the site. The goal shifts from earning the click to earning the citation. And that requires a different approach to content. So how do SEO or AEO specialists optimize for a zero-click world?

Answer questions clearly and concisely. AI systems and SERP features are scanning content for direct, well-structured answers, not long, meandering introductions. If someone asks, “What is answer engine optimization?” your content should answer that question in the first sentence or two, then expand from there.

FAQ schema is one of the most practical tools available. Marking up your content with structured FAQ data signals to search engines exactly where your question-and-answer content lives, making it easier to pull into SERP features and AI-generated responses. It’s one of those tactics that have been around for a while but now offers extra value as AI crawlers can “read” the structured data within the HTML. If you’re not already tagging FAQ content with structured data, that’s a quick technical win.

Important note on schema: Schema and structured data is getting a lot of airtime as the newest AEO trend, but its primary purpose is with traditional search engine crawlers who understand structured data. AI crawlers don’t use ‌schema in the same way; however, because schema is part of a page’s HTML, crawlers can read it. And AI crawlers can surface anything they read.

Long-tail, question-based keyword targeting is another lever. Broad keywords are increasingly owned by AI Overviews. The opportunity for brands lies in the specific, nuanced questions that reflect real buyer intent, the kind of queries where a generic AI answer isn’t quite enough, and a well-researched piece of content still earns a citation or a click. Think less “what is SEO” and more “how does SEO work for B2B SaaS companies with long sales cycles.”

Adding a concise TL;DR or key takeaways section at the top or bottom of long-form content gives AI systems (and human readers) a clean, citable block to work with. It also improves user experience (UX), which has its own SEO benefits. Think of it as writing for two audiences simultaneously: the human who wants depth, and the AI that wants a quick, quotable answer.

HubSpot AEO, Marketing Hub Pro, and Marketing Hub Enterprise give a clear, actionable view of how brands show up across answer engines. Marketers can see exactly where they're winning, where competitors are outperforming, and where a brand is missing entirely.

Alternative Search Engines Demand New Strategies

For most of SEO’s history, optimizing for search meant optimizing for Google. Maybe a nod to Bing if you were thorough or if your audience’s demographic was older. But the search landscape in 2026 looks significantly different. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Grok, and a growing list of AI-native platforms are now part of how buyers research, compare, and make decisions.

Each AI-native platform has its own way of finding, evaluating, and surfacing content. Alternative search platforms require multi-platform optimization strategies. That’s not a suggestion to spread yourself thin; it’s a recognition that your audience has dispersed, and meeting them where they search is now part of the job.

It’s not a good idea to attempt to game every single algorithm on every single platform. Instead, look for commonalities that help visibility across platforms. The suggestions below will benefit all of marketing, not just Google. The fundamentals of good content still apply across all of these platforms:

• Clear writing
• Accurate information
• Genuine expertise

What does change is the structure and format of your content, and how well it communicates meaning to systems that aren’t reading the way humans do.

AI search platforms are built around natural language. Users aren’t typing “best CRM software 2026,” they’re asking “what CRM would work best for a 20-person sales team that’s scaling quickly?” Content that’s written in a conversational, question-and-answer style maps more naturally onto how these platforms retrieve and serve information.

Clear, descriptive headers are equally important. AI systems use headers to understand the structure and scope of a piece of content. Vague headers like “More Information” or “Key Points” don’t tell a search system much. Specific headers like “How to Optimize Content for AI Search Platforms” or “What Makes a Strong E-E-A-T Signal” give the algorithm something to work with. Think of your headers as a table of contents that an AI can scan and index efficiently.

Comprehensive topic coverage matters more than ever, too. AI platforms favor content that covers a subject thoroughly over content that covers it briefly. This isn’t an argument for padding word counts, but genuine depth. If you’re writing about a topic, consider all the adjacent questions a reader might have and address them in the same piece.

Entity optimization is a related concept worth understanding. AI search platforms build knowledge graphs, connected maps of entities, relationships, and facts. Brands that clearly establish their entity (who they are, what they do, what topics they’re associated with) are easier for AI systems to reference confidently. This means being consistent about how your brand, products, and key people are described across your own site, third-party sites, and structured data.

On the technical side, structured data helps search engines understand entities and page meaning. Schema markup, whether that’s Article, FAQPage, HowTo, or Organization schema, gives AI systems explicit signals about what your content is, who produced it, and what it covers. This is one of the clearest ways to communicate page meaning to a system that’s processing thousands of signals at once, and it’s consistently underused by brands that treat structured data as optional.

HubSpot’s CMS adds structured data markup to content out of the box. Blog posts, landing pages, and website pages are built with schema baked in, meaning you’re sending the right signals to search engines with no need for a developer to intervene.

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Search Intent Beats Keywords Every Time

In 2026, the most effective SEO and AEO strategies are built around search intent: understanding not just what someone typed, but what they were actually trying to accomplish. This shift has been building for years, but AI-powered search has accelerated it dramatically.

When AI systems evaluate content, they’re matching it to user intent, not just scanning for keywords. Content that answers the real question wins, regardless of whether it’s perfectly optimized around a target phrase. The four classic intent categories are:

• Informational: The user is looking to learn something or find an answer to a question (e.g., “what is SEO” or “how to improve website speed”).
• Navigational: The user is trying to find a specific website, brand, or page (e.g., “HubSpot login” or “Semrush blog”).
• Commercial: The user is researching products or services before making a decision (e.g., “best CRM for small business” or “HubSpot vs Salesforce”).
• Transactional: The user is ready to take action, such as making a purchase or signing up (e.g., “buy CRM software” or “sign up for HubSpot free trial”).

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What this means practically is that content strategy needs to start with the question behind the query, not the query itself. Before writing a piece of content, the most useful exercise is to ask: what is this person actually trying to do, decide, or understand? What would a genuinely helpful answer look like? That framing produces better content than reverse-engineering a keyword list.

On top of search intent, there’s the follow-up search intent, which reflects how users continue refining their queries after an initial answer. While AI Overviews will satisfy some users immediately, many continue searching to validate or expand on what they’ve learned. Accounting for these secondary and tertiary searches helps content meet users where they actually are in the research process, not just at the first point of entry.

Even with the increase in zero-click queries, Amanda Sellers, HubSpot’s Manager of EN Blog Strategy, highlights how critical it is to think beyond the initial search. “Let’s say a user searches for something extremely basic, and the AI Overview provides an answer. Some people are going to be satisfied with that answer—and some are not. So, for the people who are not satisfied, what follow-up searches will they do to further refine their journey?”

Sellers says that anticipating follow-up search intent is key to content strategy in 2026. Ultimately, we should be writing content for our audience—not Google. Ironically, this is also exactly what Google says.

In practice, this looks like building content clusters that map to a full line of inquiry, not just a single search. If you’re covering a broad topic, think about all the follow-up questions a reader might have after consuming your top-level piece and make sure those are answered somewhere in your content ecosystem—ideally linked together in a way that keeps the user moving through their research with you, rather than bouncing back to a search engine to find the next answer elsewhere.

Anticipating follow-up search intent requires visibility into how content performs across related topics—something teams can monitor using HubSpot’s SEO tools within Marketing Hub. Tools like HubSpot’s Content Hub and SEO tools make this easier by helping teams map topic clusters, identify content gaps, and internally link related pages in a way that reinforces authority.

In practice, I’ve found the pillar-and-cluster approach improves rankings and increases the likelihood of being cited in AI-generated responses. This is because your content demonstrates comprehensive coverage of a topic rather than a single, isolated answer.

With AI search, the bottom line is this: if a website hasn’t created the content, it simply cannot appear within the AI Overviews. AI-generated search summarizes what already exists; if the content doesn’t exist on your site, someone else will get the visibility.

Voice and Visual Search Go Mainstream

Voice and conversational search reflected a shift from keywords to natural, spoken language. Users increasingly ask full questions (rather than inputting a few keywords). Search engines rely on natural language processing to understand intent, context, and follow-up queries. Voice searches come from:

• Smartphones (Siri, Google Assistant)
• Smart speakers (Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Home)
• In-car systems
• Wearables and smart devices
• Voice input features built into operating systems and browsers

Voice search probably didn’t take off as anticipated when it was first predicted as a major shift in search. But I believe it’s yet to have its day, especially with AI copilots like Gemini or Siri built into modern mobile phones.

Voice search will continue to push SEO toward conversational phrasing, question-based content, and clear, direct answers that mirror how people actually speak (also called natural language queries).

Search engines also now support multimodal search, meaning they can interpret and combine text, video, and images to generate relevant results for a single query. While SEO has encompassed multimedia for years, Google increasingly blends these formats directly into the main search results, allowing users to explore visual, video, and text-based answers without leaving the SERP (see example below). Visual and video search optimization basics include:

• Descriptive titles, captions, and transcripts to support NLP
• Structured data and metadata for videos and images
• Visually clear thumbnails for engagement and higher click-through rates

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Visual content can also showcase human experience. Rather than serving as a supporting content format, video now functions as an independent search channel where users research. Video SEO has been a powerful part of search visibility for years, and more growth is expected in this area as search engines increasingly surface video results across SERPs and AI-driven discovery experiences.

Victor Pan, product SEO at HubSpot says, “Consumers want to watch videos on their favorite platforms”—not necessarily your website—and that requires an understanding of both YouTube optimizations and how social media platforms give visibility to native versus externally hosted videos.

Sellers adds, “When you’re creating content in this challenging search landscape, it’s more important than ever to keep in mind how your audience searches for and consumes information.”

Consumers have the tools and ability to research quite literally anything, and an increasing number of prospective customers are turning to YouTube.

Rory Hope, HubSpot’s senior manager of digital marketing, says it’s because they’re “seeking human perspectives in relation to their pain points.”

Plus, Hope points out, more and more video carousels are popping up in Google search results “as part of its goal to serve more human-led perspectives for users.” All of this adds up to an important focus area for SEOs, Hope says. “SEOs should be monitoring the search results pages for target keywords and topics to see which ones have video carousels, and then coordinate with media teams to create relevant video content.”

Voice search optimization requires a shift in how content is structured and written. The most effective approach is to align content with how people naturally speak, not how they type. That means targeting long-tail, question-based queries and providing clear, concise answers early in the content.

Structuring pages with FAQ sections, using conversational headings, and answering questions in a direct, digestible format all increase the likelihood of being surfaced in voice responses and AI-generated answers. It’s also important to consider intent. Voice searches are often immediate and action-oriented, so optimizing for local modifiers, “near me” queries, and quick decision-making content can significantly improve visibility.

Visual search, on the other hand, requires thinking beyond text entirely. As search becomes more multimodal, images and video aren’t just supporting assets—they’re entry points. To optimize effectively, marketers should ensure all visual assets are fully indexed and understood by search engines. This means using descriptive file names, detailed alt text, and implementing structured data to provide context.

In fact, structured data helps search engines understand entities and page meaning, making it a critical component of visual SEO. Beyond technical optimization, there’s also a strategic layer: creating original, high-quality visuals that demonstrate products, processes, or expertise increases the likelihood of appearing in image packs, video carousels, and AI-driven results. The brands I see performing best here treat visual content as a core part of their SEO strategy—not an afterthought.

Hyper-Personalized Local SEO

Local SEO has evolved far beyond static listings and basic proximity signals. In 2026, results are increasingly shaped by context, user location, behavior, preferences, device, and even previous interactions.

Local search is about being the most relevant option for that specific user in that specific moment. This is why Local SEO extends beyond Google Business Profile optimization. While your profile still matters, it’s only one piece of a much broader, more dynamic ecosystem.

This shift matters because local intent is often high intent. Whether someone is searching for a service, a restaurant, or a provider, they’re usually close to taking action. But with personalization layered in, two users in the same location can now see completely different results.

That’s where Loop Marketing and personalization come into play. Instead of treating local SEO as a one-off tactic, the most effective teams are creating feedback loops between search behavior, content, CRM data, and on-site experience. The goal is to continuously refine how your brand shows up based on real user interactions. To implement this, start by expanding your local strategy beyond listings:

• Create location-specific landing pages that reflect real user needs and local nuances, not just duplicated templates.
• Use first-party data and CRM insights (via tools like HubSpot’s Marketing Hub) to understand how different segments search and convert, then tailor content accordingly.
• Optimize for conversational and “near me” queries, and ensure consistency across platforms—including review sites, directories, and social channels.
• Most importantly, think in loops: analyze how users discover you, what they do next, and how marketing strategies can improve that journey.

In 2026, local SEO isn’t just about being found. It’s about being the most relevant choice for each searcher.

Brand Authority is the Competitive Edge in Search

In an AI-driven search landscape, brand has become one of the strongest levers for visibility—not in the traditional sense of a “ranking factor,” but as a signal that influences whether your content is trusted, cited, and surfaced.

I’ve seen this play out repeatedly. When multiple sources provide similar answers, AI systems and search engines tend to favor the brands they recognize, trust, and see referenced elsewhere. That’s why brand authority is no longer just a byproduct of SEO—it’s a core driver of it.

This matters even more in 2026 because search is no longer limited to blue links. AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other answer engines are synthesizing information from multiple sources, often without users clicking through. In this environment, being mentioned can be just as valuable as being visited. This is where AI visibility tracking measures brand presence in answer-driven search experiences, helping marketers understand not just rankings, but how often and where their brand is appearing in AI-generated responses. The shift here is significant. Success isn’t just about traffic—it’s about influence.

The brands that win in 2026 won’t just rank—they’ll be the ones that are recognized, referenced, and recommended. Here’s how to build brand authority as part of your seo strategies 2026:

• Focus on consistent, high-quality visibility across channels.
• Invest in digital PR, thought leadership, and expert-led content that earns mentions and citations beyond your own website.
• Encourage branded search by creating memorable campaigns and distinctive points of view.
• Ensure your content is attributed clearly (authors, experts, brand signals) so it can be recognized and trusted by both users and AI systems.
• Measure beyond clicks. Use tools and platforms that help you track brand mentions, citations, and presence across search and AI environments.

SEO Trends 2026: Your Questions Answered

Is SEO still relevant?

SEO is still relevant, but it has evolved. The latest Google SEO trends show that SEO is no longer just about rankings and clicks. It’s about visibility across search engines, AI tools, and discovery platforms. Even with zero-click behavior rising, SEO remains critical for being cited, trusted, and considered during the buying journey.

What are the latest trends in SEO?

The most important trends shaping SEO strategies in 2026 include:

• Prioritizing content quality over quantity
• Stronger emphasis on E-E-A-T
• Optimizing for zero-click search
• Adapting to alternative search engines
• Focusing on search intent over keywords
• Investing in voice and visual search
• Leveraging hyper-personalized local SEO
• Building brand authority as a ranking signal

How has SEO changed with AI?

Understanding how SEO has changed with AI means recognizing a shift from ranking pages to earning visibility in AI-generated answers. AI tools now interpret, summarize, and recommend content. This means AI-generated content requires human editing and original insight. Quality, clarity, and authority are essential for being surfaced.

What should I focus on for SEO in 2026?

Focus on creating helpful, intent-driven content that performs across platforms. That includes optimizing for AI answers, strengthening trust signals, and ensuring your brand is visible beyond traditional SERPs. Brand authority increases visibility in search and AI answers, so building recognition and credibility is just as important as technical SEO.

How has SEO changed over the years?

SEO has evolved from keyword-heavy tactics to a sophisticated, user-focused discipline. From early search engines to today’s AI-powered experiences, the shift has been toward understanding intent, context, and trust. SEO content strategy benefits from continuous updating and performance monitoring, reflecting the need for ongoing optimization in a constantly changing search landscape.

How has SEO changed over the years?

SEO has evolved beyond keyword optimization and generic search engine results pages into a more personalized, AI-driven experience. Today, AI Overviews surface tailored answers to user queries and links to relevant web pages, which often results in fewer clicks. While traffic is more competitive, search optimization remains essential as SEO strategies now focus on helping search engines and AI systems understand, trust, and surface content across the buyer journey.

HubSpot’s State of Marketing report reveals that using AI to create personalized content is a top 2026 trend. Using tools like HubSpot’s Content Hub coupled with HubSpot SEO tools, teams can produce content that adheres to current SEO best practices through AI-assisted suggestions for structure, headings, and internal links.

What is the difference between old SEO and new SEO?

SEO evolution is ongoing. Old SEO focused on straightforward optimization tactics like keyword density and backlinks, primarily targeting text-based searches. New SEO encompasses text, video, images, and conversational queries, requiring marketers to optimize for search engines, answer engines, and users simultaneously. Modern SEO strategies prioritize topical authority, structured data, and tools that help teams adapt to AI-powered search environments, like HubSpot’s SEO Tools.

How is search evolving?

Search is becoming increasingly personalized due to advances in AI. AI Overviews now curate direct, context-aware answers to queries, which reduces the number of clicks to individual websites. As organic traffic becomes a scarcer commodity, marketing strategies must evolve to emphasize visibility, authority, and influence across search results, AI responses, and multiple discovery channels.

Not sure how your site stacks up today? Tools like HubSpot’s free Website Grader can quickly highlight common SEO and performance issues.

The Future of Search: How Marketers Are Shifting Gears

Search has shifted away from SEO as a channel focused purely on rankings and traffic toward a broader discipline centered on visibility, influence, and trust. Marketers who are succeeding in 2026 and beyond aren’t chasing algorithms. They’re building systems (like Loop Marketing) that help them understand their audience, create genuinely useful content, and show up consistently across every place their buyers search, whether that’s Google or AI tools.

The practical shift is this: focus less on chasing clicks and more on being present at every stage of the journey. That means investing in high-quality content, building brand authority, and using data to refine your approach.

Platforms like HubSpot’s Content Hub, SEO tools, and HubSpot AEO make this far more achievable, helping teams create, optimize, and measure content performance across both traditional and AI-driven search. Because ultimately, the future of search isn’t about one platform or one tactic. It’s about building a marketing engine that keeps your brand visible, trusted, and chosen wherever decisions are made.

HubSpot AEO Tool

See exactly where your brand shows up in answer engines and take action to close AI visibility gaps.

• Track AI mentions.
• Analyze citations
• Monitor prompts
• Benchmark competitors

Learn more.