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
Feb 23, 2026 • 16min
Get hyper-specific about your ICP – with Casie Gillette
The way that Casie Gilette understands more about her audience is to define an Ideal Customer Profile. Casie says: “Get hyper-specific about what your ICP (ideal customer profile) actually needs. The era of generic SEO content is over. AI overviews already own those answers. They already own those broad surface-level questions, and the only way to really stand out is to understand what your customers want. Who is your target audience? What do they want? What do they struggle with? What's missing from the AI summaries? What are the insights that they can't get anywhere else? I use the term ICP because I like the idea that you have an ideal customer: This is who they are. This is what they want. This is what they're asking. When you really break it down, that's who you want to be targeting, and that's who you're writing for. Understanding that is so important.”
Feb 20, 2026 • 17min
Understand your users through research and query semantics – with Lazarina Stoy
Lazarina Stoy shares how to start understanding your users through research and query semantics. Lazarina says: “Learn how to incorporate and scale query semantics and user research, with the help of AI and machine learning.” What are query semantics? “Query semantics means understanding anything that relates to how users search. It's not just the words that are being typed, but also the context of where they're being typed, the device being used, the platform people choose, and why they choose it in different situations. It's also different types of user signals, like trends or the user’s search history.
Feb 19, 2026 • 18min
Focus on your audience to avoid getting bogged down – with Emina Demiri-Watson
Emina Demiri-Watson shares that focussing on your audience can help you avoid getting bogged down in what technology can offer. Emina says: “First of all, don't get bogged down with all of the flashy terms. We're all talking about fan-out, chunking, and cosine similarity. All of that is amazing, I love technology, but also go back to the basics of marketing and who your audience is. Those tools are brilliant as a way to help you understand your audience better, but they are not the goal in themselves. Understand the basics first.”
Feb 18, 2026 • 17min
In an AI-heavy world, localized and culturally aware content is essential - Silvi Nuñez
Silvi Nuñez shares that in an AI-heavy world where content feels generic, localized and culturally aware content becomes a powerful SEO strategy in 2026. Talking points include: What is localized and culturally aware content? How do you localize content as effectively as possible? How do we make content more culturally aware? How do we measure the impact of this? Why is this a powerful SEO strategy? How do we incorporate this as part of an overarching SEO strategy?
Feb 17, 2026 • 15min
Learn who your audience is and find out where they are – with Travis Tallent
For Travis Tallent, it all begins with discovering who your audience is before deciding on how to serve them. Travis says: “Audience-first marketing has and will always win, no matter how technology advances. It's not a new concept, but it's more critical than ever. With AI entering the space, we are seeing huge shifts with AI and agentic search. The only way to thrive is to really understand your audience and how the people you are trying to reach search and find brands.”
Feb 16, 2026 • 15min
Keep doing proper SEO – with Tin Đudajek
It’s easy to get dazzled by the next shiny bright thing, but Tin Đudajek is keen to highlight the importance of delivering on ‘proper SEO’. Tin says: “Don't get lost in AEO or GEO, and keep doing proper SEO.” Answer Engine Optimization focuses on answering common questions and long tail queries that can appear in AI, so isn't that good for SEO? “It's good for SEO, but what I'm aiming at is that, currently, nothing exists that proves that optimizing solely for generative AI is different from real, proper SEO. What I'm trying to say is, just keep doing SEO as you have been doing so far, and you will be featured in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and everything else. As far as I've seen, there's nothing different that you have to do in order to rank better in generative AI right now.
Feb 13, 2026 • 19min
Don’t throw away all of your best practices – with Greg Heilers
Greg Heilers emphasises the importance of not letting newer tactics direct your existing good SEO practices. Greg says: “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t throw out all of your SEO best practices just because we're in the hype cycle of GEO.” How do we know which SEO practices to throw out and which ones to keep? “Right now, we're simply adding on and not throwing out. We are working with the assumption that roughly 90% of GEO best practices are rooted in SEO. We need to tweak a little bit and add in some new best practices, but most of our SOPs are still valid.”
Feb 12, 2026 • 18min
Avoid shiny toy syndrome – with Anthony Barone
Anthony Barone understands the importance and impact of AI, but tempers that with the essential nature of fundamental SEO principles. Anthony says: “AI/GEO/LLMEO is all the rage, but core fundamental SEO principles still apply.” What's distracting SEOs at the moment, that isn't worth spending time on? “A lot of SEOs are just jumping on the bandwagon, which I get. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Manus, and all of these are coming in, and yes, some behaviours are changing. We've got AI Mode coming in. We'll have Web Guide coming in. I get it. However, from an SEO perspective, but also from a business perspective, core SEO fundamentals still apply. You want to be able to crawl before you can sprint. With shiny toy syndrome, and everyone wanting to be the latest and greatest and wanting to jump on the trends, they're forgetting that those SEO principles still apply.
Feb 11, 2026 • 14min
Brand is back and it’s bigger than before - CJ Emson
CJ Emson shares that brand is back and it’s bigger than before. If your branded search footprint isn’t strong, you’re going to lose out in AIO and as we see continually seeing and hearing - traditional organic search traffic is down, zero click search is up. The remedy to this is branded search. From there you can determine if your Demand gen engine is really only a demand capture engine…and remedy how brand building in search can fuel demand gen and pipe. Talking points include: What does successful brand SEO look like in 2026? What does success look like? How does brand SEO fuel demand? How has brand SEO changed? How will it continue to change? How do you future-proof brand SEO?
Feb 10, 2026 • 17min
Stop chasing what’s new and start mastering what’s timeless – with Nitin Manchanda
Nitin Manchanda agrees with Simon Cox, encouraging SEOs to concentrate on timeless activities. Nitin says: “Don't get lost in buzzwords and stay focussed on the fundamentals.” What buzzwords do people get lost in? “A lot of them. People talk about AI-first indexing, zero-click optimization, voice search dominance, entity-first strategies, and much more. Now, they're also talking about AEO, GEO, and a lot of other different names. Essentially, though, it’s SEO.”
