A.I. Has Changed Search Engine Optimization Forever - What You Need to Know to Take Advantage of A.I. Search
How A.I. has changed search engine optimization – You’ve not doubt heard of ChatGPT. Maybe you’ve heard of Perplexity. You may be familiar with many A.I. Apps. But did you know that many people now skip their web browser entirely and ONLY search on their ChatGPT or Perplexity App?
This has huge implications for businesses who have configured their websites to show up well on Google, but have not spent any time investing in altering their content for A.I. search.
This trend is a massive meta trend that has is an opportunity for businesses to win big in the A.I. Search game, or lose tons of traffic to competitors who take advantage and adapt.
The rest of this article should help you understand what you need to know about How A.I. Has Changed Search Engine Optimization and how to adapt your content accordingly.
What is Driving This Meta Trend and Changing Search Engine Optimization?
Google dominated the landscape of Search for a long time. At one point it was estimated that 95% of internet searches started on Google. Today, as a percentage of all search, some estimate this to be as low as 15%.
But what is driving this trend?
One factor is that people got really excited about experimenting with A.I. It was exciting and new and everyone who cared about being in the zeitgeist tried it. This gave a lot of people familiarity.
But as people spent more time using A.I. and the A.I. got better, people started noticing something else – they didn’t have to put up with ads, and Google Shopping pictures, and five google ads at the top of every search and five at the bottom. A.I. simply provides a cleaner search experience without all the distractions and ads.
If anything, Google search results have become more muddled with ads than any time in history. This is particularly true of mobile search results. The results are incredibly cluttered.
Another factor – people stopped believing in product review blog posts and also stopped believing in reviews on search engines. With the wide adoption of ad spend on “influencers” – people stopped believing what they wrote.
Aren’t you tired of searching for the best running shoe and reading never ending posts that all say the same thing and are full of affiliate links? Of course you are. Everyone is tired of it. In response, people are skipping all of that and asking A.I. to work through all of that for them and make recommendations.
How People Search Using A.I. is Much Different Than Old School Search Engines
People are also performing searches much differently than they have for the last two decades.
For much of internet search history, people searched with the shortest string of keywords they could.
How People Search on Google: All Inclusive Resorts Bahamas
This is how people used to search if they wanted to go on vacation in the Bahamas. Then they would click and click and click their way through the ads, and all the search results, and maybe read some influencer travel articles.
Here is how people search on A.I.:
I am taking a family of four to the bahamas. We have two boys, age 12 and 16 and two girls age 7 and 9. We want to stay at a resort that is all inclusive, kid friendly, under $10,000 for the whole trip, and offers activities for all these different age groups and has a lot to do near the resort so we don’t have to do a lot of driving between activities. We also all love fishing and snorkeling so please be sure to consider this in your suggestions and make recommendations. We have not decided on specific dates so can you also recommend a five day period for travel in September which will give us the best deals on flights and accommodations.
Do you see the difference?
People on search engines have traditionally searched using the least amount of words possible to filter out as much junk as they could.
Today, they use searches that can range from one paragraph long in detail to multiple paragraphs and considerations.
How to Adjust Your Content to Be SEO Friendly for A.I. Search
The first thing you need to do is look at the examples above and think about the differences between these two searches. One search uses a couple words, which is a very narrow list of words to try to rank for, and the A.I. search uses and entire paragraph.
What you need to do is adjust your content so A.I. can learn as much as possible about your business and what you offer so it can pair up your website with longer searches.
As an example – you can’t just have one page that focuses on an “all inclusive resort” any more. Historically you’ve probably left booking activities to the concierge. You can’t do that any more. You need everything that is near your resort on your website.
If you want your resort to show up for a family of four with two girls, two boys, and a wide age range among them, then you need to have content on your website that explains all the activities for all the age groups.
If you think your guests might want to play tennis, golf, take a yoga class, take a cold plunge, or visit a wine tasting event, you better have that on your website, because if you don’t, and your competitors do, you can be overlooked.
How Far Will This Go?
With the ability to form much more granular and detailed searches, it may be the case that in your “about” page, you will need to add some information you’ve not considered important before.
Example – Some people are definitely searching for XYZ service where at least one of the owners or managers is a graduate of Texas A&M.
Some people are going to add in: xyz service where at least one of the owners or managers is a veteran, or an animal lover, or a vegan, or a female or male or identifies as a fish, or from the south, or from Ireland, or, or, or…
You will need to decide how much information you are comfortable putting on your website, but with A.I. search, if someone might look for it, you might consider including it… if it is to your advantage.
There are definitely people who will be searching for service providers who identify with their political party affiliation – but – putting that out there may cost you 50% of your potential customers versus not having it listed. Just something to think about.
Isn't All That Content Going to Hurt UX/UI?
Needing to add tons of content to your website to rank on A.I. search definitively has the potential to hurt user experience. You don’t want to “junk up” your website design just to add all the content you need.
Web designers need to think through traffic flows and how to organize information in a logical way so A.I. search engines can find and display the information, without completely ruining the experience for an actual website visitor with endless drop down menus and links and clutter.
The best thing to do when thinking about designing web for user experience is to split all content onto its own page, and then link to it in a logical way.
Also remember, a lot of times people who are searching using A.I., if they do click through, don’t want to sift through your website to find what they were looking for, so they will go straight to the content or hit the back button. So to start off, make sure you separate your content in a logical and straightforward way.
Navigation
More and more, especially with mobile first design and responsive web design it is important to not have a ton of drop down menus with sub-menus off of those.
That is old school web design and does not create an excellent user experience.
Instead, use you home page and top navigation to get people to pages that offer “buckets” of areas to choose from with large navigation icons or blocks that are mobile friendly, easy to understand and easy to return to.
Nobody wants to look through all those drop down menus – especially on a mobile device.
And remember, more and more, A.I. search is going to take them straight to a page and to a paragraph or sentence, so make sure the A.I. can do that easily.
Navigation – Hiding Content
We call it hiding content, but it is really placing content that does not need to be in the top bar navigation menu or even in a sub-menu, out of the way of the user, in a place where search engines and A.I. searches can still read it and take people to that content.
Many times what we do is place a link in the footer called SITEMAP – OR – MORE INFORMATION.
Then we will have an entire page of named links in there to individual pages with individual topics. This is also a great place to put content like pages centered around lots of service areas or service locations.
This enables us to put large amounts of content in an area that doesn’t junk up the navigation for site visitors so we can maintain the integrity of our UX/UI design.
Share - Don't Sell to Maximize A.I. Search Effectiveness
I remember going to a Sandler Sales Training and they said, “telling ain’t selling.” or “Tell, don’t sell.”
If you want your content to be found on A.I. Search, you need to share information freely. You also need to make sure that information solves a problem someone is likely to have.
A.I. search engines are not interested in all in your “sales copy.” Meaning, “we are the best blah blah blah, in the blah blah blah industry, and our mission is blah blah blah.”
Nobody cares – and A.I. search definitely doesn’t care about that kind of content.
You need to understand the types of questions your potential customers wonder about, want answers to, and offer solutions to those problems or concerns.
Short version – figure out what your potential customers are asking A.I. and provide the best possible answer in your content.
I live in Utah. It would not surprise me at all if someone would ask A.I. if there is an electrician within 10 miles of my location who can get to my house for an appointment in less than an hour because my hot water heater keeps tripping my breaker box, and if at all possible, I would like the owner or manager to be someone who identifies as being mormon.
Now let’s say you want A.I. to find that on your website, but you don’t want it front and center on your home page. You could easily make a page about identifying as a mormon in a page that isn’t part of any navigation menu, but that could be found by A.I. without anyone else seeing it (if you wanted to).
Summary - How A.I. Has Changed Search Engine Optimization
How A.I. Has Changed Search Engine Optimization – Remember, Google is still a powerful player in the search game. People still use it and you need to make sure your content ranks well on search engines.
But more and more, people are turning to A.I. search and skipping browser based search all together.
Searches are getting longer, more complex, and include all kinds of things people want to take into account. If you want to take advantage of this meta trend, you need to start learning about your customers and getting as much information about you and your business on your website as you can.
You also need to do this without messing up the experience of the user visiting your site by mucking it up with tons of content that is all over the place.
Modern web design needs to account for adding tons of information to a website, without messing up the user experience. This includes understanding how to place information on the site so A.I. can find it, without necessarily being a place a potential customer would find it.
Find out what people want to know – and adjust your content to answer the questions they have.
Lastly – a PRO-TIP: Write your content, video your content, put up shorts on YouTube, and add info-graphics to your website. The ability for A.I. to take a short little blurb out of a video you created where you answer a question is already here – make sure you take advantage.
About The Authors
Stay Wild Digital Marketing is a web design company located in Salt Lake City Utah. They specialize in WordPress Web Design, Wix Web Design, and Shopify Web Design.
They have successfully ranked content for their clients on all search engines and all A.I. search platforms. If you are concerned about your content ranking on A.I. searches or on major search engines or even on YouTube, they are world class at understanding and implementing tactics and strategies that have worked since 2003 and continue to work for their customers in 2025.
