n an article “The end of the web? Goodbye HTML, hello AIDI!” on Search Engine Land, Mario Fischer said, “Disruption is normal, even when we don’t see it coming.” Disruptions are a fact of life. They could be bad disruptions like hurricanes, floods, fires, etc. Those we have no control over, yet we must deal with them.

For me, artificial intelligence (AI) is a major disruption that has upended what I do—both good and bad. On the other hand, the AI is changing how people search. They ask questions and expect answers. They have a pain point, and they want a solution—fast. Additionally, they expect accuracy, authority, credibility, and trustworthiness. In past articles I’ve explained how your content marketing strategies need to be tweaked for the AI answer bots. Furthermore, I’ve shown you where to share your content so the search bots will find you and cite you.

This doesn’t mean that traditional search engine optimization (SEO) is dead. It’s just enhanced. It’s gone from search engines to answer engines. You must re-strategize your content marketing to focus on FAQs (frequently asked questions).

In other words, SEO is going “keywordless.” In the same article that coined that word, “Google’s Old Search Era Is Over – Here’s What 2026 SEO Will Really Look Like” on Search Engine Journal, the author wrote, “SEO isn’t dying; it’s finally maturing.”

For decades, marketers have been convinced that SEO keyword optimization was the only route to take. Enter answer engine optimization (AEO). Forget keywords. Think FAQs. Answer FAQs Given that, you need to get back to the basics.

• Know your target audience. Know their age, pain points, and geographic area. Will it be B2B, B2C, or a combination of both?
• Define why they may need to store something. Are they storing for good or bad reasons? Empathize with them and/or celebrate with them. Put yourself in their shoes. For example, were they just displaced by fire? Or are they selling their home and need to stage it?
• Set SMART goals. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
• Develop both strategic and tactical marketing plans. The strategy is how you’re going to reach your goals; the tactical plan is how you’re going to implement the strategy.
• Optimize everything for search. That means your Google Business Profile (GBP), your website, and social media profiles. Your branding should be consistent throughout.
• Create and publish content. Decide what you’re going to be able to publish with regularity. Something should go out daily.
• Monitor and measure your efforts. Analyze your data and insights monthly. Then, adjust your goals and strategic and tactical plans accordingly.

It helps to see these tools demonstrated. I recommend Matt Wolfe’s YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@mreflow). The link is at the end. He’s funny, and he demos and tries all these tools as they come out.

You will find that from all the AI tools to choose from, you’re going to like one over another. Moreover, you’ll discover that one tool is better for writing, while another is better for analyzing.

After watching Matt Wolfe’s demo on Comet, which was so cool, I had to try it. A client of mine, a local brick-and-mortar health and wellness clinic, has struggled to rank in traditional search. She and her husband have been obsessed with keywords. “Make sure all our services are listed!” Yes, that’s important—in your GBP.

Now, with AI search, I had to restrategize everything and tweak her website so the AI answer bots would grab her content and cite their resident experts.

Since we had over 1,000 search terms, I asked Perplexity to condense the top 20 into categories and give me three questions for each topic. I had them in seconds.

These are top search queries for {business name}, a {type of business} in {location}. What are the top questions people in the {greater geo area} are asking regarding these terms? Please give me three questions for each category row.

I chose “thinking” rather than “fast” so I’d get a more thorough answer. I had my list of FAQs in less than a minute.

The Google results varied from the Perplexity ones because Perplexity was using the keywords from the Google Search Console. Using those same keywords, Google presented what people are currently asking in the geographic area. This information is invaluable!

It then asked me, “Would you like me to cluster these into themes?” I was curious, so I said yes.

It organized the topics thoughtfully, as people would ask. It then gave me “insights for campaigns.” There you have your marketing plan for 2026. You can say to it, “Yes, please give me a month-to-month content calendar with blog posts, social media posts, and videos to run on {social media networks}.”

It wants to keep helping you. The trick is to be as specific as possible. It will only do what you tell it to. It’s patient, too!

To stand out, you need to add your own EEAT (experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness). Add quotes, examples, testimonials, etc.—anything that AI cannot write because AI does not have wisdom, feelings, or common sense.

What’s the optimal length of a blog post? It depends. A friend asked me that recently. He had asked Claude (https://claude.ai), another AI tool that’s great for writing content, to write an article; it gave him a 2,500-word document.

You need to give it a word count. The rule of thumb is that the article should be as long as it needs to be to explain what you need to explain.

I’ve had the experience where the AI-written article had repeated or redundant sentences and paragraphs. You must proofread it yourself. Additionally, use H2, H3, H4, etc. headers and bullet points.

• Be concise and direct. The answer should be as brief as possible, quickly addressing the question without fluff. Visitors to an FAQ page are typically looking for quick, scannable solutions, and so are the AI search bots.
• Aim for one to three sentences. The answer should be contained within one to three focused sentences. This length is highly scannable and aligns with what Google often uses for AI Overviews (the summaries at the top of search results).
• Use formatting. If the answer requires more detail, use bulleted lists to break up the text and improve readability.
• Avoid complexity. If an answer requires several paragraphs of explanation, it is generally not suitable for an FAQ page. In this case, the best practice is to:
  1. Provide the concise, one-sentence or two-sentence answer.
  2. Include a link to a separate, in-depth blog post or article where a user can dig deeper.

In short, your goal is to provide a complete answer with the fewest words possible.

All in all, AI tools will save you time and money. See the link below for AI prompts to help you analyze data and plan your marketing for this year.