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by Melissa Rogozinski and Nate Nead
A version of this article first appeared in Law Journal Newsletter on January 1, 2025.
The digital world is buzzing with claims that SEO is dead, buried by the rise of AI. But the truth is more nuanced. AI hasn’t killed SEO—it has redefined it.
Still only in its infancy, the Generative AI market is predicted to grow at a 46.57 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by 2030, reaching $356.10 billion.
Traditional keyword strategies and ranking tactics are losing ground to a more dynamic approach in which optimizing for search now means optimizing for every platform and user interaction. This evolution is appropriately being called “Search Everywhere Optimization.” The redefined SEO reflects how AI is not just changing how people find information but also how businesses need to think about visibility in an increasingly connected digital ecosystem.
According to Neil Patel, “More than 45 billion searches take place on the internet each day. 8.5 billion of them are on Google – which means a lot of your potential traffic is hanging out on other platforms. One of the key SEO strategies for 2025 will be to optimize not just for Google, but for other search tools as well.”
To remain competitive, businesses must now adapt their digital marketing strategies to account for AI’s transformation of the way search engines grade the quality of the company’s website content and how their prospects are searching for them.
How AI Changed SEO
Traditional search engine optimization techniques focused on identifying keywords that appear more frequently in user searches with the aim of having a website rank prominently on a search engine result page (SERP). However, SERPs became increasingly populated with snippets, “people also ask,” knowledge panels, and ads years before AI entered the picture, pushing webpage links lower on the page. Now, an AI Overview appears at the top of most Google SERPs.
The cumulative impact of these features is a reduced rate of organic traffic of people searching for products or services. B2B marketers using traditional SEO techniques to attract website visitors whom they hope to convert into paying clients are seeing diminishing results.
Organic traffic is evaporating because AI and other top-of-page features answer a user’s query often eliminating the need to click on any website. As of May 2024, about 60% of searches lead to no clicks and no traffic to websites.
While Google and other search engines continue to profit by selling ads and top SERP page positions, the prospects of growing website traffic for businesses using traditional SEO practices are quickly dimming.
User Intent and Context Prioritized over Keywords
AI-driven search engine algorithms have shifted from merely keyword indexing to analyzing the user’s purpose for initiating a search. This reordering of priorities means that B2B marketing efforts can no longer rely on generalized website content to attract the attention of serious potential clients. Since general questions can be answered by the SERP’s AI overview or snippets, B2B marketers must provide useful, actionable data addressing issues deeper in the funnel that cannot be found in generative AI overviews.
B2B marketing strategies creating more detailed website content, including more specialized short-form videos and podcasts, and integrating that new content into multiple platforms will enjoy increased success with AI-driven search engines.
Economic realities compel competitive businesses to go where the consumers are, and that means social media. LinkedIn, Youtube, and podcasting are the primary platform on which B2B consumers search for products and services. Effective marketing strategies in the new AI-driven paradigm require reaching your target audience across all platforms.
B2B Marketing Success at the Bottom-of-the-Funnel
Information presented on the internet is often described as being in a funnel. Online searches and search engine responses are broadest and most general at the top of the funnel and become increasingly more detailed and specific as they go lower in the funnel.
A top of the funnel blog post on a company’s website might be, “What is Marketing Operations?” The middle of the funnel content may include, “Why Investors Should Care About Revenue Operations.” At the bottom of the funnel, content would offer a post entitled, “Case Study: Lead Mapping.”
Top of the funnel search responses will rarely lead a prospect to your website unless they scroll down beneath all of the available AI-generated answers or snippets responding to their general query. To rank well with new AI-driven search engine algorithms, a business must offer information on a more granular level. This could include targeting a more localized issue than would be easily provided by the AI overview.
A B2B company may create content (videos, podcasts, or blogs) describing significant recent developments in marketing technology. Content designed to rank well with the new algorithms will feature information responding in detail to a prospective client’s intent when initiating the search. Instead of the heading “What is Marketing Operations,” a more effective piece would be, “How does marketing operations support sales?”
AI’s Role in PPC Advertising
In the world of Pay Per Click (PPC) market advertising, AI analysis of immense amounts of data in seconds enables a business’s marketing team to better frame its SEO strategy for success in efficient bidding.
AI provides an opportunity to shape a PPC marketing approach to succeed by exploiting AI’s analysis of large datasets, including user search history, online behavior, and offline data, to pinpoint high-value audiences with precision. By better targeting prospective clients who are closer to deciding to hire a business, PPC campaigns will yield a higher return on investment.
For businesses to successfully exploit AI’s increased role in PPC advertising, they must shift from keyword-centric campaigns to audience-focused ads.
AI and the Decline of Cookies
User privacy interests have risen to a paramount concern in the global community and among government officials. In response to the widespread rejection of being “tracked” by advertisers and other domains across multiple platforms, people have demanded that the use of third-party cookies be restricted or eliminated. Google is currently phasing out third-party cookies and expects to complete this process by the end of 2025.
This development forced digital commerce to adapt data collection to both AI-assisted contextual targeting and first-party data collection. Rather than allowing user vulnerability to third-parties with whom they had no direct interaction, first-party data collection permits sites to onboard marketing data only from those who directly interact with the website.
Adapting to Voice Search
Another necessary SEO adaptation required of businesses attempting to convert website visitors into paying clients is creating content responsive to voice search instead of only typed search queries. Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT, Perplexity, SIRI, and search engines enable users to click a microphone to search the web vocally. These searches are spoken in natural language from which AI interprets meaning and intent. Search responses are also returned in natural, conversational language.
It is essential for a B2B company’s marketing strategy to incorporate long-tail keywords and conversational phrases in their content across all platforms. Search engines no longer reward scattered keywords in blog posts alone. Now, key-phrases, ideas, and granular explanations of products and services will more likely bring motivated and relevant prospects to a business.
Key Takeaways
SEO is far from dead. Rather SEO 2.0 is evolving into a broader, more holistic discipline. Just as businesses have become increasingly specialized over the past decades, AI requires companies to adapt to “Search Everywhere Optimization” in order to thrive in the new age of digital competition.
B2B companies can no longer be satisfied with static webpages quietly waiting for serious prospects to come knocking. Instead, those who incorporate dynamic content, short videos, and podcasts, with detailed information about specific subtopics, and that do so over multiple platforms will enjoy the most traffic and convert sales.
Businesses must embrace AI’s transformative power to remain visible and relevant.
