Stop Chasing Keywords, Here’s What Matters for AI Search
I’ll admit it: for years, I obsessed over keywords. I built websites around them, measured their density like a hawk, and watched rankings rise and fall with every algorithm update. But something subtle, and then seismic, shifted beneath my feet. The old playbook stopped working. The more I doubled down on keywords, the less it seemed to matter. The rules had changed, but for a while, I stubbornly pretended they hadn’t.
Here’s what I finally realized: AI search is not just a tweak to the old system, it’s a fundamentally different game, and playing by yesterday’s rules only makes you invisible today.
So, what’s the core change? We’ve moved from optimizing for strings of words to having to prove, over and over, that we’re a trusted, authoritative answer to the questions real people are asking. Algorithms now care less about what you say you are, and much more about what the world says about you when you’re not in the room.
My thesis is simple: If you want to win at AI search, stop chasing keywords and start earning trust, both on your site and out in the wider world.
It Used to Be About Keywords, Now It’s About Questions and Trust
Let’s start with how dramatic the shift really is. In the old SEO world, it was all about “defining your industry based on keywords.” You’d figure out which words people searched for, sprinkle them lovingly through your pages, and cross your fingers that Google’s bots approved. The battlefield was your own website. Your weapons were technical tweaks and content stuffed with those golden phrases.
AI search ripped up that map. Now, the questions people actually ask, sometimes even spoken out loud, are the starting point. The engines (think Gemini, ChatGPT, Google’s AI overviews) aren’t looking for matches to keywords. They want to answer real, sometimes messy, human queries. And they know that getting the answer wrong could destroy their credibility.
That’s changed the job of AI search entirely. The platforms that deliver answers are “scared to give the wrong answer” and need to be sure they’re sending people somewhere authoritative, somewhere “trusted.” Otherwise, why risk their reputation on you?
Authority and trust, those aren’t just buzzwords. They are the only change that matters now.
Authority Isn’t Just a Ranking Factor, It’s Survival
To become that trusted source, you can’t just say you know your stuff. You have to show it, everywhere. I learned that authority signals aren’t born on your domain alone, they can live anywhere your brand or your team is mentioned, rated, or reviewed. And if you’re in a “your money or your life” category, health, finance, law, this goes double or triple.
So what does real authority look like? On-site, there are things you can control:
Authors: List recognized humans, not just faceless “teams.” Use schema markup so AI can actually “see” who’s behind the wisdom.
Reviews and accreditations: Especially in regulated industries, the presence of industry-specific certifications (and clear display of “medically reviewed by,” “licensed by,” etc.) makes a difference.
Relevant industry markers: Awards, partnerships, any signpost that screams, “You can trust us, others in the field do.”
But those are just table stakes. Here’s where I had my next wake-up call: AI search engines don’t just judge your website. They judge everything said about you, everywhere.
It might be comforting to think, “If I just get my house in order, I’m good.” But that’s naïve in the AI era. External reviews, off-site rankings, chatter on platforms that matter, these influence how engines see you as an entity. For a law firm, that could mean what people say on Legal G’s List. For doctors, it’s the physician rating sites. For B2B, it’s whatever industry insiders use.
What threw me, at first, was the extent to which off-site signals might outweigh anything you do on your own domain. Even if you’ve optimized every header and alt tag, it means nothing if the world’s reviews paint you as untrustworthy.
The Moment When Reputation Hits Reality
There’s a certain pain you feel when you realize AI isn’t listening to your PR team, it’s reading your reviews. I’ve seen the consequences firsthand, and frankly, they can be brutal. I’ve had clients come to me wondering why, despite all the SEO “best practices,” they were getting nowhere with AI-driven results. The real answer? Their actual reputation was working against them.
When you’re sitting across from a business with a “domestic score of 2.5 out of 5,” you see the frustration and, underneath it, the sense of helplessness. If customers don’t like your output, or worse, find you untrustworthy, AI engines won’t trust you either. It’s as simple as that. Sometimes you have to say it directly: “Your problem isn’t your SEO. It’s your business.”
That’s an uncomfortable truth. You can’t hide a bad reputation behind clever optimization anymore. AI reads the room, and what the room says matters more than what you want to say.
PR Is Having a Quiet Renaissance, but Only If Built on Substance
Interestingly, all this has breathed new life into old-school PR, but in a way that’s finally measurable. For years, PR was the expense that got questioned at every board meeting, sure, it felt nice to be in that publication, but could anyone prove it moved the needle?
Now, it’s possible. Every time your name or brand gets quoted and cited “on third-party places that Google has already accepted as being trustworthy,” you have another brick in your authority wall. You can even watch your authority scores improve numerically, no longer relying on wishful thinking. Candidly, I think this has made companies rethink PR’s value, because now, “by looking at authority scoring, you can actually now get a numerical sense of to what degree is PR helping you.”
So how do you play this new PR game? You have to get yourself (and your business) mentioned in places that matter, not in the eyes of your ego, but in the eyes of AI. That means industry publications, review platforms, or wherever your audience gets information.
And here’s the kicker: sometimes, that means hustling just to get a listing on the relevant sites. Other times, it means being strategic in targeting the publications that consistently show up when you Google the questions your target audience is asking. Don’t guess, search those questions yourself, see which brands and sources appear, and make it your job to be included there.
If You Want to Win at AI Search, Be a Better Business
You can’t fake it anymore. That’s both terrifying and liberating.
When I look back at what actually works, it’s almost disarmingly simple. The businesses that succeed in AI search are the ones that are… just better. They deliver good experiences. People like them enough to leave positive reviews. Their expertise is recognized in their industries, and they aren’t chasing every SEO fad or shortcut.
Sometimes the advice is “be a better business, because that really matters today.” That may sound mundane, but it’s the honest answer.
The other shift? “Don’t be so focused on keywords and spammy SEO tactics.” Instead, spend your energy figuring out what questions your real audience actually cares about and then provide answers, real, valuable, cited, credentialed answers.
I wish someone had told me that years ago.
Here’s Where It Gets Complicated (And Good)
Part of me wants to say, “That’s it! Just do good work and you’ll be rewarded.” But I know the truth is more nuanced.
Earning trust isn’t “set and forget.” It requires absolute honesty about your weaknesses, relentless improvement where you fall short, and a willingness to seek reviews and quotes, even when it feels awkward. Authority signals don’t build themselves.
And you have to do the work to find where your audience’s questions live and which sources count. This isn’t spray-and-pray PR. It’s surgical. Sometimes that means humbling yourself, asking past customers for reviews, tracking down the right industry lists and forums, or crafting content that answers questions your competitors ignore.
But once you start seeing off-site authority translate to actual AI search prominence, it’s hard to go back to the old ways. There’s a feedback loop: higher quality leads to better reviews, which leads to more visibility, which leads to more accountability. The engine rewards authenticity over artifice, reliability over ranking hacks.
Is this more work than the old “optimize and forget” world? Absolutely. But it’s work that actually makes your business stronger, not just your search results.
What You Can Use Today
Here’s my short checklist for adapting to the new AI search reality:
Audit your reputation, not just your site. Google your own business and your category’s typical questions. If you don’t like what you see, start fixing it, urgently.
Make sure every author or expert connected to your site is listed with real names, titles, and credentials. Use schema markup so AI systems can “see” them.
Get reviews, not just on your own site, but across industry-specific platforms that customers and algorithms both trust.
Don’t ignore PR. Target getting mentioned and quoted where it counts. Find out which publications show up when your audience searches your category’s questions. Put yourself in their path.
Consider business operations part of your search strategy. If customers are unhappy, fix the real problem before you optimize content.
Shift your writing focus from keywords to real questions. Build content that answers them completely, with citations and proof.
If it feels like slow work, that probably means you’re doing it right.
If You Only Remember One Thing...
AI search doesn’t care about your keywords; it cares about whether you’re the most trustworthy answer to a real, human question. Authority comes from what the world says about you, not just what you say about yourself. Be obsessed with earning trust, everywhere.
If any of this rings true, hit reply and let me know where you’re seeing the biggest challenges. Or if you’ve cracked the off-site authority code, I’d love to hear your story. If this was helpful, consider subscribing or share it with someone mired in old-school SEO.
This article was written with the help of HelloGordon.com. Spend 10 minutes being interviewed by Gordon, and instantly generate content, quotes, and ideas.