Why SEO is not dead?
Two modes of buyer behavior
1. Sensemaking mode (learn/decide):
When buyers are clarifying what to buy and why, they’re increasingly turning to LLM answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews).
These systems lean heavily on UGC sources like Reddit/YouTube/Quora & high authority websites so the “research” clicks (and influence) often happen there before they head back to a brand.
Source: Search Engine RoundtableCybernews
2. Task mode (buy/act now):
Shoppers with high commercial intent still start on Google and retail marketplaces because they want prices, inventory, delivery dates, returns, and reviews.
That’s why retail media “search” keeps growing (Google, Meta ads are scaling).
Budgets follow that intent because it converts.
Search Ads network expansion
- Q3 2024: Google Search revenue up 12.2% YoY to $49.4 billion
- Shopping ads: Up 18% YoY
- YouTube ads: $8.9 billion (up 12.2%)
- Total Google ads: $65.85 billion in ONE QUARTER
The total number of searches has increased, and that's why even paid ads are
working more.
If the searches are increasing more, the real question is, "How can you appear on those searches?"
And then, SEO becomes a sustainable growth channel.
If search was dead, why is search advertising having its biggest growth ever?
Commercial demand didn’t vanish > it split across surfaces.
Google/retail for the transaction.
LLMs/UGC for the story, proof, and consensus-building.
What's Happening
search behavior → fragmented.
User journey now
- Discovery Phase (User asks AI "what should I look for in project management software)
- Research Phase (Takes those criteria to Google. Example - "project management software with time tracking")
- Validation Phase (Sees your brand mentioned in AI/SERP → reads about you)
- Comparison Phase (Goes to Reddit/YouTube to see real reviews / compare your brand with alternative solutions)
- Decision Phase (Types your brand name directly into browser)
(Analytics tracks: 1 direct visit, 1 conversion)
What actually happened > SEO influenced every single step.
The attribution is broken, not the channel.
- Google search volume grew by over 21% in July 2025 despite AI disruption - link
Why SEO Remains Best Acquisition Channel
SEO Lead Close Rates vs Other Channels
- SEO leads close at 14.6%, while outbound marketing efforts close at 1.7% - source
- This means SEO leads convert 8.5 times better than those from traditional outbound methods, such as cold calling or direct mail - source
- Email marketing close rates commonly range between 2.6% and 6%, while social media leads rarely exceed a 2% conversion rate
(Source - link)
Why B2B Can't Ignore It
- 57-70% of B2B journey happens before sales contact
- Stakeholders/Buyers self-serve through search surfaces
- Not findable = Not considered
- Trust signals compound through consistent presence
Yes, clicks are down but intent isn’t (and that’s the arbitrage)
AI Overviews, traditional result clicks drop to ~1% of visits
So pure CTR is the wrong metric now. Pew Research CenterSearch Engine Land
Measurement is broken (AI referrers are opaque), so most teams under-invest.
Opportunity here is to measure visibility and influence across the whole search landscape, not just Google sessions.
Difference between AI search & traditional search
TLDR:
- Users are more informed (read comprehensive answers)
- Higher intent (asked specific questions)
- Pre-qualified through education
- Trust established before click
- AI search traffic converts better than traditional search
Top Generative AI Chatbots by Market Share – August 2025 – First Page Sage
Old Way vs New Way of doing SEO
Product Demo -
Referenced to the features and why it works
Case Study 1 -
Okay, great “After we launched the tool in February and March, we led to 1,000+ new ranking keywords and a 100% increase in SEO conversions per current performance metrics. Search Console data shows growth in impressions from 80,000 to 140,000. Though there were not a lot of clicks because the clicks are dropped from the searches, the system has helped us a lot. AHF metrics indicate over 1,000+ top 3 ranking keywords, highlighting substantial SEO performance improvement. Content velocity reached 30 blog posts monthly due to SEO Agency in a Box enabling extensive topic coverage previously unachievable.” .
This was one of the first companies we worked with our AI/SEO system. That's why it's a good one to break down because we have 8 months of data on this company now. What we did is we
This is one of the first companies we worked with using our AI SEO system, and therefore we have good metrics over a long time.
The company we are talking here is a Saas in the legal space. What essentially we did here is we went ahead and started somewhere around 6,000 to 5,000 organic visits a month and we scaled the website's overall traffic to 16,000 to 17,000 on an average. When working around with legal niche it's very difficult to rank there. So we purposely didn't choose to build backlinks just to understand the overall content quality and how well the AI content ranks in this space. And when we went ahead with the strategy execution, we started seeing a massive growth in the total organic keywords and also started seeing those content pieces for being cited by AI.
As we managed to move forward with the strategy, we started seeing a lot of referral backlinks pointing towards the content, increasing the overall domain authority. Yes, so the first thing we did is we went ahead and started understanding the business, what it does, understands its target audience, and on the basis of that, we created what is the overall topical map for this niche. In that niche, we identified somewhere close to 1700-1800 content pieces across the stages of the funnel. Then we moved forward with content publishing with 10 to 15 content pieces per month as a content velocity and then we scaled it up progressively.
We went ahead and started understanding what are all the topics that essentially we should be publishing so that we become a subject matter expertise. The moment we started publishing those content pieces (because of the research we did for each of the content pieces, by the way, we do like 2000 to 3000 research words of research before moving on to the content).
Right. What essentially we did is we went ahead and understood what is the real reason people are actually searching for those specific phrases, questions, keywords, and created detailed intelligence around that.
Once we have a detailed understanding on what is the real reason people are actually searching for that, then we went ahead and understood the Google SERP and did a detailed research around the key findings and any kind of statistics/data that can increase the overall information density of the content and added a lot of relevant internal links, focusing on providing only first-party data sources as external citations which is a feature of our SEO system.
Through all of these specific things, the moment we started publishing the content, the content started to rank on traditional search as well as one specific content started to get site for a lot of questions.
One of the biggest challenges while working with this client was they wanted to expand their business. They want to expand their market in the United States but their current traffic demographics were South America, North America, UK, and India. 6 months into the strategy, their dominant traffic is now the United States and we are ranking internationally and expanding them.
Receiving their all-time high keywords ranking in Feb 20, 24, right? Which was around 400 keywords in top 3 and 1000 keywords in 4 to 10. But right now these guys are sitting at more than 2000 plus keywords in thousand plus around keywords in organic position which is 1 to 3. That is the screenshot which is below keyword by position. So they have seen a massive growth in top 3 keywords which is very difficult to do in SEO space. And top 3 keywords if you are able to rank your content on top 3 search results right now that's huge. Also because those tend to get cited by AI too.
Baselane -
For BaseLane, the major problem working with this company was:
- The manager reached out to us
- The VP of growth reached out to us
They were like, "My team, I told my team to publish 30 pieces of content, and my team is scared on how exactly they can do that." They would want a system in such a way that could increase the content velocity while making sure the content quality remains optimum. That's what we have been doing using our system. We went ahead and implemented an entire SEO agency in a box in such a way that helps them create super informative, detailed, intent-fulfilled content that is helping them rank on commercial keywords as well as on informative keywords. As of now, they have gotten the maximum conversions from SEO as a channel for the product.
While we started, these guys were getting 118 conversions from their website (Feb 2025), but all the way walking up till July, they received the maximum conversions, which was 172 tracked in the CRM. And as of now, SU remains the highest acquisition channel and progressively scaling to it. As per the overall traffic, what these guys are getting is somewhere close to 30K-35K. And we started off somewhere around 10-12K.
We used SU System to understand the problems in their niche and based on their business context, we amalgamated both ideas. In such a way that the content SU System generated and published helped them increase their conversions.
CBD niche -
AI SEARCH DATA -
AI Overviews are synthesized, AI-generated summaries built to fulfill the query without sending people elsewhere (unless they’re going to buy your product or service).
Google’s AI Overviews are now showing up at the top of the search results more often than not.
Intent Orchestration
We’ve now entered a stage where AI orchestrates multiple intents at once. Intent isn’t static. It uses the literal query, your past interactions, your profile, and real-time data to predict your next steps.
As we examined last chapter, Google AI Mode might respond to “Plan a trip to Lisbon in October” by:
- Pulling flight and hotel data.
- Filtering based on your past booking behavior.
- Suggesting local events aligned with your interests.
ChatGPT-5 with integrated tools could:
- Draft a custom itinerary.
- Book the reservations.
- Add reminders to your calendar.
For GEO, the challenge is ensuring your brand stays in the mix as the AI orchestrates these transitions.
That means:
- Mapping content to multiple intent states.
- Using structured data to make it easier for the AI to “jump” between your assets.
- Anticipating adjacent topics the AI might pivot toward.
- Products and services need clear parameters and structured data.
- How-tos should be modular so AI can reformat them into checklists.
- Local or niche data must be current and precise to be recommended in real time.