Broaden what "SEO" means
SEO only dies when people stop searching and that will never end unless AI manages to kill curiosity.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by North Star Inbound and Semrush Enterprise & AI Optimization
SEO only dies when people stop searching, and that will never happen unless AI manages to kill curiosity. The claim that SEO is dying (I am not linking to the articles, but you can Google for them) because search has evolved is fundamentally misguided.
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SEO has certainly changed over the last two years, but only if you adopt a very narrow definition of what SEO is and was. I have never met a Bing-only SEO expert in my career, which makes it seem just as shortsighted for any SEO professional to consider themselves solely a Google expert. If only Google Search is SEO then with the decline of traditional Google search, the entire medium seems lost.
SEO is a broad discipline
In reality, SEO is much broader, as it is the discipline of ensuring content surfaces when a user seeks information, no matter how they express that need. SEO isn’t tethered to a single method like typing keywords into a search box; it’s a dynamic framework that adapts to how users interact with technology, whether through text, images, voice, or eye motions.
This means that search is diversifying, not replacing itself, and SEO must evolve in lockstep. Marketers don’t need a new channel or a catchy new term to stay relevant. They remain relevant by embracing what SEO should always have been, recognizing that it encompasses both paid and organic strategies, each adapting to new mediums to meet user intent.
SEO is discovery
SEO is about connecting users with answers. Full stop. It doesn’t matter whether those answers are AI overviews, AI responses, search results, images, videos, and whatever else is invented to meet a user need.
When someone types a query, snaps a photo to identify an object, asks a voice assistant for recommendations, or, in the near future, glances at an item to trigger a search, they’re expressing a desire for information. SEO ensures that the content you want to appear at the right moment is optimized for discoverability, relevance, and user satisfaction. Search engines and LLMs will make their own decisions, but it is the role of SEO to help make that decision in a way that benefits your business or your clients. Why leave your visibility to chance when you can put the effort in to make it happen?
Paid vs organic
Paid teams craft ads to capture attention, bidding on keywords, visuals, or placements to align with user intent in whatever search medium or engine has traffic. Organic teams focus on earning visibility through high-quality content, technical optimization, and relevance. Both channels are essential, and both must adapt to new search interfaces.
Paid teams aren’t declaring the death of SEM because they might suddenly be able to buy traffic on Perplexity. Instead, they have just added that platform to their toolbox. Paid teams adapt by placing ads in visual search results or sponsoring posts on social platforms, targeting users based on image-driven intent. Paid search has also gone through many transitions, but no one has ever declared its premature death.
The idea that SEO is obsolete because search has changed ignores its adaptability. SEO is not a static tactic but a living playbook, and to be totally cliché: an organic playbook that grows with technology, encompassing every way users seek answers.
Evolving formats
Google claims to have 15 billion lens searches per month, this is a format change and no one would argue that it needs a new acronym, a new individual responsible, and a new agency. Similarly, voice search was at one time thought to be the future, and it still might be with the rise of more device types. I have never met a company that had a voice organic specialist, and articles about voice only hypothesized that voice would overtake text, but not that the channel was dead.
Voice became popular with the rise of intelligent assistants, but those never reached their full potential. Things might be different now with AI assistants where conversations replace spoken commands and then those conversations themselves become queries to both optimize organically and bid against. It’s not that the voice search itself becomes the focus, rather than the ability to use voice transforms the query.
What’s next
Along those same lines, it’s increasingly possible that searches can be done with eye motions, nods of the head, and maybe just thoughts. It’s not that futuristic to imagine a driver glancing at a roadside sign while wearing AR glasses, triggering a search for the advertised product. Or more likely a car’s heads-up display that uses eye motions to detect focus on a café and pull up reviews or a menu in real time, which offer all sorts of new possibilities both for paid and organic. Does this mean text search is dead? Of course not; these motions are again translated into queries that are optimized against.
These interfaces are not far off, and SEO will be the channel and the team that owns these new platforms. An evolution in reporting and responsibilities is needed rather than a renaming.
Don’t miss the forest because of the trees
The argument that SEO is dead often stems from a narrow view of its scope. Some claim algorithm changes, AI-driven answers, or new interfaces make traditional tactics obsolete. SEO already encompasses the strategies needed to connect with users, whether they’re typing, speaking, snapping photos, or glancing at objects.
Leaders who resist this evolution by refusing to evolve their current tactics and instead delude themselves into inventing new tactics for a new channel risk falling behind their competitors who keep their foot on the pedal with traditional SEO while also expanding their responsibilities to new surfaces.
New ways to discover information, new devices, and the long-awaited competition in search will mean that searches will inevitably grow. Google recently admitted that total search volumes are down, but that’s because users satisfy their needs faster. Satisfied users will remain as hooked on the products as they have ever been. We are in the middle of an evolution that search engines are also adapting to.
Please don’t sit on the sidelines or worse, reallocate budgets because those that do will find themselves playing catch-up very soon.
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I agree, search isn't dead, only the old ways of attacking the problem. Hopefully the changes will clear the decks of agencies that have preyed on businesses by pitching magical solutions.
I think the challenge is what the public perception of SEO is.
I explain my SEO Compass Audit because traditional SEO roadmaps are broken and they seem to forget the simple truth and lead Right back to 'so what keywords and check list "
Every business is different and with contextual ramifications of your history of online exposure making it unique from your suspected competition.
They say so what keyword or make me a prompt that writes content for SEO and AI. Lol