SEO in 2026 isn't what it was in 2024 — or even late 2025. Today's most successful businesses aren't choosing between traditional search engine optimisation and AI Search strategies. They're mastering both.While Google still processes 16.4 billion searches daily compared to ChatGPT's 800 million prompts, the quality of AI search traffic tells a different story. Some data shows visits from ChatGPT convert at five times the rate of traditional search, making AI Search Optimisation essential for businesses targeting high-value customers.The challenge? You can't afford to optimise for one at the expense of the other. Google's AI Overviews reduce click-through rates by roughly 50% when present on search results pages, whilst AI tools like ChatGPT rarely recommend brands directly from their own websites — they cite third-party sources instead.In this video, I reveal:• How SEO works in 2026 across both traditional web search and AI search platforms — including the "hybrid SEO" approach that captures traffic from both• Why traditional on-page SEO remains the foundation (and which technical elements matter most for AI search optimisation)• The critical role of schema markup in helping AI tools understand and recommend your business• Why digital PR and third-party mentions have become more important than traditional backlink building — with real examples of how AI tools source their recommendations• A behind-the-scenes look at Elite Renewables (one of our own websites), demonstrating practical optimisation using Rank Math Pro• The emerging impact of AI agents on SEO strategy and what this means for your website's user experienceI'll also demonstrate ChatGPT's Atlas browser in agent mode, showing exactly how these AI tools navigate websites and make purchasing decisions — revealing why optimising for both human visitors and AI agents is becoming essential.If you're ready to understand how SEO works in 2026 and implement a strategy that captures traffic from both traditional search engines and AI platforms, this episode provides your complete roadmap for staying ahead while your competitors figure out which approach to choose.

Watch this as a video instead: https://exposure.ninja/seo-2026

Get the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/373/

Listen to these episodes next:

The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026 — https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/

The BEST AI Search Optimisation Strategies for 2026 — https://exposureninja.com/podcast/366/

How To Create and Optimise Your Content for AI Search — https://exposureninja.com/podcast/363/

You already know your customers are using ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews to research buying decisions. The strategic question is: how do you ensure your brand is the one being recommended?

In this episode, I walk through the five-step framework we use at Exposure Ninja to get clients recommended by AI tools — the same approach that's driven measurable traffic and sales for brands like The Ordinary.

You'll learn how to audit your current AI visibility using tools that aggregate data across multiple platforms, rather than manually testing prompts.

We'll cover the SEO foundations that matter (and why they're necessary but insufficient on their own). And I'll show you the "query fan-out" approach that gets your content cited multiple times within a single AI response.

The most interesting finding from our work: AI tools don't necessarily recommend the biggest brands.

They recommend the brands most clearly associated with specific concepts that match the user's query. This creates an opportunity for businesses with sharp positioning to outperform larger, less focused competitors.

We helped The Ordinary dominate "good value skincare" recommendations across multiple AI platforms by ensuring every mention of their brand — across their own content, third-party publications, and user-generated reviews — reinforced the same core concepts: good value and scientifically backed.

The framework covers five areas: visibility auditing, SEO foundations, content optimisation for AI consumption, strategic ubiquity across trusted sources, and preparing for paid visibility in AI results (which is already beginning with Google's AI Overviews).

Each step includes specific tactics you can implement, tools we use with clients, and real examples of what works in practice.

If you're building your 2026 marketing strategy, this is the AI Search Optimisation roadmap you need.

Listen to these episodes next:

How To Create and Optimise Your Content for AI Search

https://exposureninja.com/podcast/363/

Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns

https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026

https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/

The brands dominating search today aren't just focusing on links and keywords. They're mastering three strategic pillars that deliver sustained visibility across traditional search and AI-powered platforms.After ten years working with national and international enterprise brands (including a recent Global Search Award win for The Ordinary), we've identified the exact framework that separates market leaders from everyone else.In this episode, I reveal:• Why technical SEO performance matters more than ever — including how page load speed impacts both rankings and conversion rates (with data from Cloudflare and Walmart showing the direct business impact)• The onsite content strategy that works for both AI search and traditional SEO — including how we helped ZUGU become the top-recommended iPad case in ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode through content hierarchy and internal linking• Why offsite SEO is now about brand building, not just link building — and how digital PR on high-authority sites influences AI recommendations (with examples from our work with Aged Care Bathrooms)• How tools like WP Rocket can handle 80% of technical SEO automatically — even if you're not technicalI'll share specific examples demonstrating how Core Web Vitals, topic clusters, and digital PR work together to drive rankings across both traditional search and AI platforms.If you're ready to build an SEO strategy that works for both traditional search and AI-powered platforms, this episode provides your complete action plan.