In today’s newsletter we’ll share some insights, tips, and next steps to prepare your site (and team) for changing behaviours as more and more of us start to use AI.
Grab a coffee and a biscuit, this is a pretty long one.
Before that though, we wanted to remind you about the AI-powered features we’ve built for Craft that can help streamline your content creation:
- Automatic Alt Text Generation: can automatically generate descriptive alt text for images you upload, improving both accessibility and SEO.
- Brand Tone of Voice Assistant: can help your content maintain a consistent brand voice across all your pages.
If you’d like either of these features enabled for your site, simply let us know and we’ll work on enabling that.
How People Are Searching Is Changing
Google search traffic is declining across the board as the platform shifts toward a “zero-click” model. Simultaneously, AI-powered search alternatives like ChatGPT and Perplexity are gaining traction, particularly among younger audiences. This represents a fundamental shift in content consumption patterns rather than an isolated issue affecting individual sites.
How to Win on AI Search Engines
AI search engines operate differently from traditional search platforms. Instead of ranking positions, they employ a citation model—generating prose answers while linking to source websites for deeper exploration.
Build Authority and Expertise
AI engines prioritize established authorities. Focus on in-depth, well-researched content that demonstrates genuine knowledge and provides fodder for social media amplification.
Optimize Your Metadata
Clear titles, meta descriptions, and structured data serve as teaching tools for AI crawlers, helping them understand your content’s relevance and when to cite your pages.
Create Original Content
Surface-level information ranks poorly. Comprehensive answers to specific questions make pages more likely to become citation sources. Reconsidering gated content strategies may prove valuable for AI optimization.
Maintain Clear Site Structure
Logical hierarchy and navigation help AI systems understand content relationships and your expertise domains.
Human Expertise Remains Essential
AI-generated content feeding AI engines creates a closed loop with diminishing returns. Your unique perspectives, approaches, and experiences represent your competitive advantage. Focus on creating content only you can produce—material that provides clarity and potentially shifts conversations in your field.
The Current Landscape
We’re experiencing unprecedented innovation at a pace reminiscent of the early internet. While predicting which services will endure remains speculative, quality content serving genuine user needs consistently retains value regardless of algorithmic changes.
Traffic Patterns and Engagement
Many clients report that while overall traffic declines, the quality improves. AI-generated citations attract more invested visitors—prospects who’ve already received summaries and deliberately chose deeper exploration. These constitute warmer leads than casual search comparison shopping.
Next Steps
Technical optimization through structured data markup—especially schema markup—increasingly matters for AI discovery. FAQ schema proves particularly valuable for question-answer alignment.
Recommended technical audits should evaluate:
- Existing and expandable schema markup opportunities
- Metadata quality across key pages
- Site structure clarity for AI crawlers
- Technical elements affecting proper indexing
Contact your agency to request audits, enable CMS AI features, discuss schema implementation, or review analytics changes. Support is available to navigate these evolving dynamics.