Yordan says: “My additional insight is to adapt to AI search trends, with a strong brand authority.

The reason why I'm mentioning it is because I feel that, now more than ever, brand authority will allow businesses to differentiate from others. It's about positioning themselves in the right space and in the right time, and to be front of mind across all platforms, not just search.”

Okay, so you started off by talking about the importance of adapting to AI search trends. What AI search trends, specifically, are you referring to?

“I'm referring to the rise of Google AI overview as a new way of displaying results, as well as different search platforms. Now we've had SearchGPT and we've had Perplexity enter the market.

Based on recent data from StatCounter, Google has actually reduced some of its market share globally. Now it's down to 90%, which is the lowest it's been for 15 years, and the actual industry is changing in terms of where people are searching.”

We'll get into how to build a stronger brand that's more appropriate for AI search just in a second there but, with regards to AI search trends, how do you actually stay on top of which trend is more important for your business?

“Personally, I follow a lot of the news outlets that are out there, and I also keep on top of any email newsletters that are out there. SEOFOMO, for example, is a really key one that I keep on top of to give me up-to-date information as to what is happening within the industry right now.

From a brand perspective, for businesses, I'd say that they should work closely with their agency, their freelancer, or their person in-house to keep on top of things. At the end of the day, it is the role of that professional who they've hired to support them.”

Shout out to Aleyda Solis, who runs that particular newsletter. That's a good way, but there's so much happening. How do you actually determine what is just noise and what is important to listen to?

“The way I personally look at it is I check if it's something that has been announced officially by Google/Alphabet on their blog. Alternatively, if it's a lot of noise, I would actually double-check that multiple sources are talking about the same kind of issue appearing, or the same kind of opportunity, and then take it from there.”

So, brand authority in the age of AI search, what's different about that compared with brand authority 5 years ago?

“I feel that the landscape of SERP has changed. We no longer have the blue links and that's it. The real estate on the SERP has changed significantly, to the point where you may have thought, ‘Okay, I’m guaranteed position 1, and I've kept on top of it for a number of years.’, but now Google could change everything and try and make it customisable based on your previous searches to be able to create a more custom result, whereby they're giving you results that are in the top 12.

I saw that there was research done by Botify and DemandSphere where they had mentioned that 75% of links that are in Google’s AI overview come from the top 12 organic results. Therefore, even though you're position 1, now, Google’s AI overview will come on top of that and, therefore, push you down in terms of the SERP.”

You're describing brand authority as being involved within the AI overviews and other AI-driven results.

“Yeah. Thank you.”

If that's the case then, what do you need to do as a brand in order to actually appear there?

“As a brand, you need to optimise as best as you can.

Implement things like schema and make sure that you follow best practices in terms of your technical SEO, where possible. You need to make sure that you enhance trust signals. Focus on things like EEAT, and look at expert-driven content. Depending on your niche, try and get people to come in and give their opinions or be part of your content strategy.

You could use additional trust signals, like having credibility on third-party platforms, like TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, or Yelp for the US, because Yelp is linked to Apple Maps. You could focus on adapting an omnichannel approach where you don't just focus on search, but you also look at socials, PR, etc. to ensure that you have consistent brand messaging and brand authority, and you could also look at NAP citation to support that, whereby everything has the same name address, phone number, etc.”

What was the last one there?

“An NAP citation: a citation of name, address, and phone number.”

Do you have anything else to add there?

“The other one I wanted to add is part of the omnichannel, which is TV advertising.

One of my clients did TV advertising, and we found that that had a very positive domino effect across the remaining channels. When they were running TV ads, our click-through rate was naturally much better for organic, especially for branded terms.”

Interesting. Obviously, it's more important to work more closely with other channels, and perhaps more traditional channels like TV, as you say. How can an SEO do that?

How can they better structure their landing pages, their titles, encourage more click-through rates, and perhaps work with the paid search team in order to maximise that brand uplift from a TV campaign?

“In my opinion, it's about cross-team collaboration: being involved in those discussions early on when a TV campaign is being planned. I've seen a couple of TV campaigns even prompt users to ‘Search for X’, and then you make sure that you optimise your landing page to include those specific terms so that, when people actually search on Google, Bing, etc., you are coming up on top as the brand that they've seen on TV.

Also, being involved in those discussions by talking to PPC, PR, etc. would ensure that there is a joint strategy that everyone is working towards. Then you need to put the necessary measures in place to monitor that traffic, which I think we'll probably go into.”

How do you measure brand authority in the age of AI?

“There are multiple ways to do that. One of the, I guess, easiest ways to do it is through using Google Search Console, as well as through visualising that data with Looker Studio reports.

The way I personally did it was I used regular expressions, or ‘regex’, to identify what the branded terms are, and if there are any slogans that we're trying to focus on, and then I copied that and made a note of it on the side. Then I used regex to filter my data within Search Console for me to analyse it.

Then, as part of Looker Studio’s functionality, I also added that to some of the back end of Looker Studio to be able to visualise that data and show the client, ‘Okay, year-on-year (or quarter-on-quarter), this is the results we have achieved following our efforts and the additional investment put into SEO, into PR, into TV advertising, etc.’, as well as breaking down those channels individually so that we could see where the impact was felt.”

What metrics, specifically, are you looking for here? You can certainly measure brand uplift in terms of increased search traffic for the brand, but are you also going deeper down into the funnel here and seeing what impact that traffic has?

“The example I was thinking of was in relation to memberships for the client that I worked with. We looked at how many memberships they were able to basically secure on the back of the TV advertising that they ran.

Therefore, it was that conversion, in terms of the bottom of the funnel, as a result of the clicks which were generated from organic or other channels, to be able to provide that reporting – as well as the time spent on page, which I think is still a metric that we should consider. I know that GA4 deprioritised bounce rate, but some people argue that it's something that we need to also be mindful of.”

I'd just like to dig into a couple of areas that you've already highlighted there: name, address, and phone number. Where is it important for that information to appear? I guess what you're looking for is to ensure that everything's consistent across different platforms.

“Correct. You would be looking at various platforms or directories out there. Start off with the easiest ones that you could pick up and that everyone, in my opinion, should start from, which are Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps (which is linked to Yelp). Then, go into any local directory, if there is anything specific to the location where that business is based.

Alternatively, if it's a bigger business, you could look at any directories that are focusing on that specific niche or market, so that you could make sure that all that data is consistent. That way, when a user looks up that brand within Perplexity, for example, all the results are pointing to the same source, referencing the same information, and ensuring that credibility.

Again, taking into account things like domain authority and building that out with quality backlinks from relevant sources.”

You also mentioned expert-driven content. Ideally, are you talking about internal experts that are within your organisation, or does it not matter? Can it be experts from your industry as well?

Also, what's the best way to actually demonstrate to Google that it is a particular expert that has been used, and harness their credibility?

“When it comes to experts, it needs to be someone who actually has a lot of articles and has been featured across different websites or already has existing credibility.

I feel that in-house experts are great up to a point but, if they are not actually known, it doesn't have the same weight as someone who has already established themselves. For example, earlier we talked about Aleyda. If you invite Aleyda as a guest speaker, Aleyda will bring that additional credibility to your website and be a trusted source of information – unlike, say, someone internal who hasn't had the same exposure.

In terms of how to amplify that, I would say focusing on author schema and implementing that. If a person publishes multiple articles for you, you could have an author page where all their content could be featured.”

Author schema can obviously be used for blog posts. How about if someone appears as a guest on a podcast, for example, or a webinar? Is that still a legitimate use of author schema then?

“I feel like, yes, because you'll then be referencing them. Similar to how NAP citations work, you'll be giving them a backlink, and then they will most likely (depending on their approach) backlink to you and feature you on their socials, etc.

That helps everything be interconnected.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“If they're struggling for time, I think that they should focus on how to begin measuring brand and analysing what they can do to improve that.

As I mentioned, look at your branded traffic versus non-branded traffic, and then think, ‘Okay, if we produce new content or if we make some changes to our strategy as a team through omnichannel marketing, how can we improve our brand performance and drive it further to be able to grow?’”

Is it important to actually try to define the medium that has referred the traffic? Because, if you're working for a big business and there's a TV campaign going on, there's a press campaign, there are some PR releases, and there's a social media campaign as well, it's quite difficult to determine precisely which sources have driven the traffic when it's just brand searches.

You mentioned, when you were talking about the TV campaign, encouraging people to search for a particular phrase. Is that one way to do it? Also, what are your general thoughts on how to determine which source has referred the brand traffic?

“We are restricted by cookie consent in a lot of cases. Recently, I know that Apple, for example, has been more strict in terms of privacy. However, where possible, it would be ideal if we could identify which channel the user came from because all of us are trying to prove the concept of our channel.

For example, myself as an SEO, I'm always looking at organic and saying, ‘Okay, this is how many visitors we brought to your website. This is what we've done to improve it.’ Whereas the other channels would also be doing the same.

I feel like, if we provide a breakdown, we know what is driving it, and what's having the positive domino effect. For example, when people are using a specific search term, we can see a term that may never have been used before, because it's part of our new campaign. We could be like, ‘Okay, we launched the TV campaign. These are the results. This is how many people we've actually had land on the landing page, rather than on the homepage, and these are the results.’”

Yordan Dimitrov is an SEO Manager, and you can find him over at Yordan.bio.link.