People ask me fairly often whether SEO is dead. I get why. A lot of folks ask ChatGPT or Claude now instead of searching, or they read the AI summary Google puts at the top of the page and never scroll any further.
If nobody clicks, why bother? Well, those AI answers have to come from somewhere. They pull from websites, and they're picky about which ones. So SEO matters as much as it ever did. What it takes to show up has changed a bit, that's all.
What AI changed
Quick questions don't send much traffic anymore. If someone wants your hours or a definition, they'll probably get it without ever visiting your site. I don't see that changing.
Bigger decisions are a different story. When someone is hiring a contractor, picking software, or looking for a specialist, they still dig in. They read the summary and then they want to know who's behind it. The AI tools tend to quote businesses that explain things clearly, look established, and show up the same way across the web. If your website is thin and your listings don't agree with each other, you're probably not the one getting quoted.
Those AI answers have to come from somewhere. They pull from websites, and they're picky about which ones.
Using AI without sounding like everyone else
I use AI for marketing too. It's good at research, outlines, keyword ideas, and a rough first draft. The trouble is how easy it makes it to publish the same page everybody else already published.
Google even has a name for mass-producing pages to game the rankings. They call it scaled content abuse, and their spam policies apply whether a person or a tool wrote the pages. Fifty generic AI posts can hurt you more than they help.
What I do is let AI handle the rough draft and then rewrite it with the things only I know. Put in the job you just finished, the question a customer called about, something specific to your town, and what you actually think.
Why I still tell clients to blog
Your service pages tell people what you do. A blog shows them you know what you're doing. Every post that answers a real customer question gives Google, an AI assistant, or a potential customer one more reason to trust you.
It also gives people something to link to. Nobody links to a services page, but they'll link to a good guide or a checklist. And it gives you something to post on social media and send to your email list.
Don't skip the email list. Facebook can change who sees your posts whenever it wants. Your website and your list belong to you.
How our blog is set up
A blog only helps if search engines and social sites can read it properly, so we put some care into the setup. Our clients' blogs get the same treatment. Here's what's under the hood:
- Every post gets a short, readable web address made from its title.
- The summary we write for a post doubles as the description Google shows under the title, so we keep it around 160 characters to avoid getting cut off.
- Each post includes structured data, which is a standard way of telling search engines that the page is an article, who wrote it, and when.
- Posts have a featured image, so when someone shares one on Facebook, LinkedIn, or in a text, the preview looks right instead of pulling a random picture.
- As soon as a post goes live, it's added to the sitemap so Google finds it, and to our RSS feed, which tools like Zapier, Make, and IFTTT can watch.
- We can write a post ahead of time and schedule it. It publishes itself on that date.
- If a post is marked as a newsletter, it goes out to subscribers by email when it's published.
- New posts get shared to our Facebook Page automatically. Only posts a person has published get shared, and it won't go back and repost old ones.
- When AI helps with a draft, the draft just sits there until someone reviews it and hits publish.
Links from other websites
When another site links to yours, it's basically vouching for you. Search engines have used links that way for a long time, and the AI search tools rely on a lot of the same signals.
Most small businesses already have the relationships to earn good links. Think about your chamber of commerce, trade groups, suppliers and partners who list who they work with, events you sponsor, local news, podcasts, and blogs your customers read. Your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and the directories in your industry count too.
Be careful with listings. Your business name, address, and phone number should be exactly the same everywhere. When they don't match, search engines aren't sure which version to trust.
And please don't buy links. It's against Google's spam policies, and it can backfire. Write something worth linking to, then make sure the right people see it. It's slower, but it holds up.
Social media
Social media doesn't boost your rankings directly. What it does is get your posts in front of people who might share them, link to them, or pick up the phone. Plenty of good links start that way.
A couple of things help. Use the same business name, logo, and contact info on every profile. Link to your profiles from your website, and add them to your site's structured data so Google knows they're really yours. We just did that on this site, in the footer and behind the scenes.
I use social media to start conversations, and the blog and email list to keep them going.
What we can do for you
At ACAA Solutions we handle this for clients, and we built the tools for it into EvoMerge, our own platform. That includes:
- A scan of your website with a plain-English summary of what to fix first
- Google Search Console and Google Analytics set up and connected, including your sitemap
- Rank tracking that searches from your own city, plus competitor tracking if you want it
- A side-by-side comparison of your website and your competitors' sites, with their Google reviews and backlink counts if you'd like those too
- Regular checks on your business listings
- A Website Analysis Report every two weeks, emailed as a PDF and also available in your client portal
- A blog set up like ours, with the newsletter, RSS feed, and Facebook sharing, and hosted websites that come with their own blog
- AI-assisted blog drafts based on your keywords and your site, which a person reviews before anything goes live
- Alerts when something important changes
If you're not sure where to start
Here's the order I'd go in:
- Connect Google Search Console and submit your sitemap so you can see how people find you.
- Fix your business listings so your name, address, and phone number match everywhere.
- Write one post a month answering a question a real customer asked you. Use your own words.
- Share each post on social media and send it to your email list.
- Ask the partners, suppliers, and groups you already work with to link to you where it makes sense.
None of this happens overnight, but it adds up. If you want help with any of it, reach out.