SEO in 2026
Majestic.com
SEO is continuing to change at an alarming pace. And yet, in some sense, the principles of good SEO remain the same.
Hello, and welcome to SEO in 2026 – a significant repository of current thinking from many of the world’s leading SEOs.
We're pleased to be able to welcome you to the fifth book and fifth series in this podcast, now well and truly an annual tradition, brought to you by Majestic.
“How people search has seen a bigger shift in the last 12 months than the last 12 years, and this makes SEOin2026 a must-read for anyone working in the industry. Majestic has brought together 117 of the SEO industry's brightest minds to share their insights into what matters, and what doesn't, to continue to drive growth with organic search during a period of massive uncertainty, and the book should be seen as a valuable reference point to keep your strategy on the right track.”
JAMES BROCKBANK
Managing Director and Founder, Digitaloft
“I highly recommend that every SEO professional set aside a couple of days for SEOin2026. You'll thank me for helping you plan your year effectively. I'm extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside some of the world's leading SEO champions.”
NITIN MANCHANDA
Founder & Chief SEO Consultant, Botpresso
“This collection of wisdom from many of the best minds in SEO today is a great line in the sand of where we as an industry are, what problems we face, and how we tackle them. Anyone in SEO or marketing should be dipping into this on a regular basis.”
SIMON COX
Technical SEO Consultant, Cox and Co. Creative
“This series continues to be the industry’s leading source of the most timely advice a marketer could ever want. The most forward-thinking SEO experts in the world come together once a year to create this invaluable collection of new knowledge that should never be passed up on!”
PAM AUNGST CRONIN
President and Founder, Pam Ann Marketing and Stealth Search and Analytics
“2025 has been a sprint for the SEO industry, with AI reshaping how we understand visibility, relevance, and authority. SEOin2026 is not just another trends book; it’s a roadmap for what’s actually coming. I loved being part of it and seeing how experts around the world approach the same challenges from different angles.”
RAMONA JOITA
SEO Consultant and Founder
“David is good at drawing out the substance of a conversation. He will explore the topic and challenge assumptions, steer the conversation into an unexpected direction, and build on your ideas – making you think a bit deeper and sharper. Our recent conversation flew by as always, and as always – I’ve come out energised about the topic with more to think about.”
SUKHJINDER SINGH
Freelance SEO Consultant
Hello, and welcome to SEO in 2026 – a significant repository of current thinking from many of the world’s leading SEOs.
We're pleased to be able to welcome you to the fifth book and fifth series in this podcast, now well and truly an annual tradition, brought to you by Majestic.
“How people search has seen a bigger shift in the last 12 months than the last 12 years, and this makes SEOin2026 a must-read for anyone working in the industry. Majestic has brought together 117 of the SEO industry's brightest minds to share their insights into what matters, and what doesn't, to continue to drive growth with organic search during a period of massive uncertainty, and the book should be seen as a valuable reference point to keep your strategy on the right track.”
JAMES BROCKBANK
Managing Director and Founder, Digitaloft
“I highly recommend that every SEO professional set aside a couple of days for SEOin2026. You'll thank me for helping you plan your year effectively. I'm extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside some of the world's leading SEO champions.”
NITIN MANCHANDA
Founder & Chief SEO Consultant, Botpresso
“This collection of wisdom from many of the best minds in SEO today is a great line in the sand of where we as an industry are, what problems we face, and how we tackle them. Anyone in SEO or marketing should be dipping into this on a regular basis.”
SIMON COX
Technical SEO Consultant, Cox and Co. Creative
“This series continues to be the industry’s leading source of the most timely advice a marketer could ever want. The most forward-thinking SEO experts in the world come together once a year to create this invaluable collection of new knowledge that should never be passed up on!”
PAM AUNGST CRONIN
President and Founder, Pam Ann Marketing and Stealth Search and Analytics
“2025 has been a sprint for the SEO industry, with AI reshaping how we understand visibility, relevance, and authority. SEOin2026 is not just another trends book; it’s a roadmap for what’s actually coming. I loved being part of it and seeing how experts around the world approach the same challenges from different angles.”
RAMONA JOITA
SEO Consultant and Founder
“David is good at drawing out the substance of a conversation. He will explore the topic and challenge assumptions, steer the conversation into an unexpected direction, and build on your ideas – making you think a bit deeper and sharper. Our recent conversation flew by as always, and as always – I’ve come out energised about the topic with more to think about.”
SUKHJINDER SINGH
Freelance SEO Consultant
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 9, 2026 • 15min
Make your writing into mixtapes, for real people – with Will Slater
Will Slater uses a ’90s analogy to demonstrate the importance of being unique, even though it takes a little bit longer to get done. Will says: “Be more mixtape, specifically when you're writing content. To explain that, I need to take you back in time to the mid-90s. I'm a big music fan, I have been for most of my life, and my formative years with music were in the ‘90s. Back then, there were two main ways to share music: listening to the radio and making mixtapes and sharing those mixtapes with your friends. Now, creating mixtapes was hard work. It was a faff because you had to figure out exactly what tracks were going to be in what order. You had to sit in front of your stereo, picking out your records or your CDs and pressing ‘play’ and ‘record’ on your tape deck. However, that meant that every mixtape that anybody made was special because people put so much thought and effort into it.
Mar 6, 2026 • 16min
Stand out and survive by focussing on user intent – with Melissa Popp
Melissa Popp highlights that it’s easy to take the easy route when it comes to creating content in 2026, but this isn’t the way you stand out. Melissa says: “With AI rewriting the rules of search, content that zeroes in on real user intent is the only content that will stand out and survive.” How do you establish the user intent to begin with? “You have to look at the problem you're trying to solve. Every piece of content you create should start from that place. If you can't answer that question, you should not be writing that piece of content – whether the keywords tell you to or not.”
Mar 5, 2026 • 15min
Slow down and keep your eyes on the end user – with Vince Nero
Vince Nero believes that it’s all too easy to forget about the end user in the age of AI. Vince says: “Things are changing so rapidly with AI, you should be leaning on what works for people and not the algorithms.” Will doing what works for people naturally mean that you will be successful in catering towards the newer algorithms? “That's the big question. In theory, Google’s algorithms and the tools that they have built want to provide answers for users. There are some tin-foil-hat theories that they are optimizing for ad dollars and publishers – and to an extent, they do want to keep people on the platform because it’s where they get paid. However, at the end of the day, that type of mindset is going to be very limiting, and you end up forgetting about your customers.
Mar 4, 2026 • 16min
Make sure you aren't losing customers unnecessarily - Alun Lucas
Alun Lucas shares that there's no point perfecting your SEO if people get to your site and there is a horrible form that causes them to abandon - use form analytics to improve the UX of your form and make sure you aren't losing customers unnecessarily. Talking points include: What are the typical differences between a well converting form and a poorly converting form? What fields are necessary? What are form analytics? How do you improve the UX of your form? Is is sometimes a good idea not to have a form? What customer data can you acquire on your website without requiring a form? What is good form design? What software do you use to design forms? Does having good forms help with SEO? How can you measure this?
Mar 3, 2026 • 17min
Prioritise the person beyond the screen – with Ebere Cecilia Jonathan
Ebere Cecilia Jonathan explains why she believes that user experience is much more than just the way you deliver your content on your website. Ebere says: “Focus on the user experience. This has always been my advice, but with the change in user search behaviour and the introduction of AI, it is even more important now.” Why is user experience even more important in the age of AI? “Before now, we looked at what keyword had the highest volume, because that showed what users were searching for. Then, we tried to write content for that keyword and track our ranking for that keyword. This is how SEO operated in the past, and that made sense. With AI, however, it's possible for you to rank for that keyword without getting any conversions. You're ranking on the first page, but you might not even be getting any impressions. We have AI overviews, we have ‘from sources across the web’, and every day there's a new product coming from Google.
Mar 2, 2026 • 14min
Integrate with UX to create content for real people – with Sanja Markovic
According to Sanja Markovic, user experience is now an essential part of modern SEO. Sanja says: “Integrate SEO and UX to build content strategies for real people.” Is it not necessary to think about algorithms or bots crawling your site? “Technical SEO is, of course, an essential aspect. However, especially nowadays, with all this noise about AI, we're forgetting that content is still king, and we still need to create content for real people and not search engines. Creating content for real people is the baseline for building your authority on the internet. If you create content that is only focussed on search engines, who is going to read it? Who is going to share it? You need to focus on understanding what users need in order to create content for real people that people will actually read, like, engage with, and share. That is the basics for building authority nowadays.”
Feb 27, 2026 • 18min
Make your content into assets by creating for the user – with Ashley Segura
For Ashley Segura, you should be revisiting the way you think about your content and how your content is designed to meet the needs of your users through their entire journey. Ashley says: “Stop building content for ranking purposes and start thinking about content as assets for every stage of the user journey. By doing that, you’re going to build trust, address their questions, supply helpful information, and bring the user through the entire journey, to eventually convert them.”
Feb 26, 2026 • 18min
Be in the right place at the right time – with Ryan Jones
For Ryan Jones, it’s not just about where your audience is likely to interact – it’s meeting them at the right place at the right time. Ryan says: “Leverage multi-channel SEO, along with customer journey matching for a two-pronged approach. First, you need to understand where your audience is, where they spend their time, what platforms they visit, where they communicate with other people, and where you can show up to generate the maximum amount of impact. The second prong is customer journey matching. You want to match where they are in their journey to the platform they're using. Some businesses might still find a lot of success with top-of-funnel content, social media posts, and generating interest on Reddit and similar platforms.
Feb 25, 2026 • 16min
Treat your brand as a multi-platform entity in 2026 - Bengu Sarica Dincer
Bengu Sarica Dincer shares the importance of treating your brand as a multi-platform entity in 2026. Talking points include: What does treating your brand as a multi-platform entity actually mean? How do you treat your brand as a multi-platform entity? How does this interplay across search engines, social platforms, AI assistants, and niche communities? What search engines are key in 2026? Why do they like multi-platform entities? What social platforms are you referring to and how do you take advantage of social in this context? Where do AI assistants fit in? Why are niche communities important? How does it integrate into other marketing channels? How do you incorporate this into a plan? How do you measure success?
Feb 24, 2026 • 15min
Learn more about the generation you’re targeting – with Izabela Janczak
Once you identify who your audience is, Izabela Janczak shares that the next step is to learn more about the generation you’re targeting and to identify where they interact. Izabela says: “Meet your target generation where they search.” How would you define a generation, in this context? “You can start with the typical generations: Generation Z, Generation X, Boomers, Millennials, etc. Obviously, we're all quite familiar with the classic generational groups by now, because we hear more about them more than we ever used to before, and each of those generations has its own habits when it comes to searching for information or products.
