Two SEO professionals debate whether the field survives AI. They trace SEO from keyword stuffing to today's shift: creating content for humans but optimizing it for AI systems. Staying relevant means adapting your language and skills faster than the industry changes.
Is SEO still a relevant career in this new world?
Yeah, I think it's actually a very booming career in this world as long as you adapt. I was at an event in Denver a few days ago. I think, what day is today? Friday, Thursday? So Wednesday, Wednesday I spoke in Denver. And when I was in Denver, someone asked me a question because I was talking about AI SEO or GEO or SEO, whatever you want to call it, but that You know, doing it for ChatGPT. And they're like, I have a question for you. Isn't it the same? And I responded with 2 different things or 2 points. The first point was, I said, how was SEO 15, 20 years ago? Put in some junk keywords on a page. You write copy, you know, that isn't the best. You build some links from high PR sites and you rank much better. Call it 15+ years ago, maybe 20. And he's like, yeah. And then I'm like, over time it evolved. You had to start writing good content for humans. You got to update the content.
Can't spam as much anymore.
Yeah, can't have duplicate content. Like, can't have 5 pages on the same topic. They want you to merge and prune your content. Schema markup starts mattering and a lot of other things. And I'm like, it evolved, right? And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, and now it's evolving all over again. You're creating content for humans, but packaging it for AI. links matter, but brand mentions matter just as much. And you don't always need people linking to your site. Well, with SEO, brand mentions didn't help you as much. And I'm like, there's a lot of nuances and differences, right? And he's like, yeah. So I'm like, SEO is just evolving over time, just like how it has been. And you can call it SEO if you still want to. So that was my first point. And he agreed with that. The second point was, if your customers are all calling it AEO or AI SEO or GEO, I'm like, It doesn't matter what you want to call it. If your customers want to call it something else and you don't want to adapt to them, you're probably not going to get the business. So I'm like, I'm not disagreeing with you that it should still be called SEO, but I'm like, but if my customers want to call it something else and I'm trying to pitch them and generate revenue, I will adapt to whatever my client wants to call it. I wouldn't deceive them and tell them that I'm going to do this new thing that you've never heard about before, right? I would not be unethical or anything like that. It's more so I'm willing to change my vernaculars for the customer. And I may even tell them like, yeah, some people call it still SEO, it's just adapting. But sure, let's call it AI SEO for this conversation or geo or whatever you want to call it. Because at the end of the day, the customer is always right. I know that's a saying and they're not always really right, but you got to adapt with the customers. It's just like when—
Yeah.
Everyone in corporate America years ago was like, oh, we need a growth hacker.
No.
And you remember the debate being like, this is just a normal marketing exec, CMO, or whatever.
Yeah.
People don't really say we need a growth hacker anymore. You agree with that, right? But back then, if you didn't adapt and you were trying to work for a startup, you were less likely to get a job. Do you agree with this?
Yep.
So you kind of had to adapt or else you're going to be—
You became a growth marketer.
Yeah.
Yeah, now they're called growth marketers today.
Yeah. So you kind of have to adapt. And if you're not willing to adapt, then you're going to be displaced.
The way I see this, is SEO still a relevant career in this new world? Yeah. I mean, here's what I'll say, like the SEOs that adapt or the business owners who adapt, it's no different than anything. You just have to adapt. Yeah. Like, by the way, what SEO worked back in the day? Oh, Yellow Pages. Oh, how did you game it? Oh, AAA. The more A's you had, the more you showed up number 1, right? That's how you, that's how SEO was done with the Yellow Pages. People don't know what the Yellow Pages are today. And then eventually, oh, what happened? You started spamming excite, Lycos, you started spamming a bunch of keywords, you know, maybe you hide it in the, you know, the background text, right? And now it's gotten more sophisticated. Now LLMs are multimodal, they're looking at a bunch of things.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm not, I think it's, there's no sacred cows when it comes to, you know, having a successful career. You just, the most important thing is that you're curious. The most important thing is that you're adaptable. And the SEOs who complain, the people that you see on X complaining all the time, these are people who haven't adapted. Oh, we should, you know, we should go after Google for this. They're being unfair to us, this and that. Like, that is no different than people in the world who complain all the time about not getting what they want, right? 'Cause everyone wants to win. Nobody wants to prepare. So as long as you adapt, as long as you prepare, as long as you are curious, you will win. It's still a relevant career. I think more relevant than ever today if you really look at it. So that is it for today and we'll see you tomorrow.
