With the rise of AI, it is tempting to use ChatGPT for really anything and everything. When it comes to digital marketing, of course, AI is fantastic… The strategies, the planning, the funnel systems and assistance - it really has its uses.
However, when it comes to Search Engine Optimized (SEO) content there is really only one single rule that we have consistently put into practice and it has consistently proven time and time again, to be the only way to achieve online authority.
This answer is simple, common sense even. So if you have been on the long treacherous search for the key to decoding SEO, and you've tried all of the hacks and tricks and tips, and now you find yourself here, finally you can breathe a sigh of relief.
However, unfortunately, what you're about to embark on in this lesson is not a fast-track method - but it does work!
The one single-track road to being found on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode is high-quality, human-written content that audiences actually want to read.
In this lesson, I will teach you why this method will always stand the test of time. Beyond SEO, this is GEO and AI Digital Marketing. Welcome to our single-blog lesson, that is the one-stop place to gain all of the information you need to "hack" the AI Google Algorithm, in the only way possible.
Here's What We Know
Do-Follow Backlinks & Backlink Farms
We had this experience with backlinks, and not knowing how Google would penalise websites that had clearly used backlink farms to gain do-follow backlinks in order to boost their Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR).
It seemed like a great idea at the time. Extremely high ranking DA websites that would offer you a do-follow backlink for a relatively small fee - or even better, a package price across multiple affiliated websites! We should have known… The exchange would be done via email, and within 24 hours you would receive a seemingly-authorative backlink directing to your website. Over time, these links would accumulate, improving your Domain Rating, boosting how you ranked in search engines. Amazing!
However, it was far from amazing. This was a short lived tactic that fired back on anyone that did it.
Guestblog Mentions
If you were suspicious of backlink farms at the time, you may have opted instead for guest blog mentions as a SEO tactic. With their much more expensive publishing fees and higher relevance with real audiences on their website, this seemed like a legitimate way of gaining reputable backlinks to your website.
However, we forget that humans are greedy, and those lovely blog owners were wanting to cash in on the backlink craze too. This meant that a lot of guest blogs ended up inadvertently becoming backlink farms just by sheer content creation and sales.
The Great Decline
Although it may have seemed like this was boosting their SEO for some time, Google then went through its periodic algorithm updates. Every time Google does this, they incorporate new rules against websites that are trying to hack the SEO rules, penalising this behavior.
With these backlink farms, blog owners selling guest blog mentions and buyers of both clearly buying and selling links, they saw a sudden and major drop in their website's Domain Ratings or Domain Authority, which led to them no longer ranking on the first page of Google, as their websites were just no longer trusted by search engines.
So How Can You Gain Authentic Backlinks?
The truth is, when it comes to any aspect of SEO, authentic, human-written content will never be penalised. The idea here is to gain authority authentically by creating well-written, high-quality, informative content that is made for the reader. If your writing resonates with a real human audience, that human audience will share it to be read by others. Shareable content opens up a world of backlink possibilities.
What About Backend SEO Hacks?
If you've ever used an overpriced SEO expert that would guarantee fast return for boosting your website on Google's search engine ranking, on the premise that they 'know how to hack the algorithm', this will resonate with you.
You know the deal - excessive backlinks, implementing obscure synonyms and keyword stuffing in enormous pieces of text. It's the complex language and impossible to understand verbiage, with the main goal of simply ticking off all of the suggested keyword phrases that the client would want to be found for.
All of this effort did technically tick off all the SEO boxes, so it - temporarily - worked. Websites that incorporated these Search Engine Optimization tactics saw a surge in their DR, suddenly appearing on the first page of Google. Dream!
However - as it always goes, when you try to hack Google's algorithm, to be seen in a fast-track way, Google will always eventually catch on.
How To Manage Your Own SEO Today
Today, of course, it can be helpful to hire an SEO expert to complete the backend SEO work that is really required as a bare minimum on any website. However, it's best to have some knowledge of what this is, so that you can verify for yourself that the work is being done.
It's also worth noting that, although time consuming and mundane, you really could do this preliminary SEO work yourself. I actually recommend it, because you know your business best and there is power in taking charge of your brand's SEO.
So What Is Basic SEO That Every Website Should Have?
You can search this - or better yet, get AI to give you the list - but for the love of human creativity and successful results longevity, write the content yourself.
You need to create unique titles that are relevant for what you're trying to sell and what you want to be found for. You need to do the same for your meta descriptions, creating something that is click-worthy as this is what is shown about the page when people actually search and find you on Google. Keep your heading tags in hierarchical order, H1, H2, H3 with 'snippet' information and better yet, if you put it into question form, you'll be directly targeting AI searches.
Optimize your images by compressing them, use descriptive file names and add your alt texts. This is especially important for EU accessibility compliance laws as of 2025.
Make sure your website is mobile responsive, improve the page speed, use descriptive URLS and - the big one, keep your content original, interesting, high-quality and above all, human written.
Why These Rules Apply To AI
When AI first came out, we saw a huge surge of AI-written content, as everyone was excited about it and saw the ability to increase their blog content online by tenfold with zero budget required. Amazing!... Not amazing.
As a writer it's very easy to tell which copywriting has been generated by AI. There are dead giveaways. The most obvious being that long dash that we all know and recognize now. Instantly, within a second of scanning text, it is the most painful piece of punctuation to see, especially as a passionate writer.
You have to think of it like this - with it being easy enough to recognize, as a human, what has been AI-written, imagine how recognizable AI content is to AI detectors. AI has made it so it can clearly tell what has been created by it.
Does Google Penalise AI-Generated Content?
As of October 2025, Google doesn't yet penalise AI-generated content, but it does penalise unoriginal, repetitive, poor-quality content that has no value to the reader.
So yes, of course, AI is fantastic for being an assistant to the mundane medial tasks. It's great for coming up with ideas to help you with what you want to achieve, organizing strategies and plans and funnel systems, giving direction and helping you get inspired, or repurposing content to save you time without the need to do it all manually.
However, when it comes to copywriting and even the SEO of websites, it is imperative that we lean on human-written content.
How Do You Get Your Business To Appear In AI Answers?
With AI SEO still being such a new concept, the terms to refer to it vary hugely, so you may already know it as AIO (AI Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), or LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) - all of which mean the same thing.
The number one factor of understanding how you get your business to appear in AI answers, is by looking at the content that is currently ranking there, whether that's on ChatGPT, AI Insights or Google AI Mode. It is clear that this content is high-quality, genuinely interesting work that has been made to hold the attention of humans - similar to how SEO works.
So How Do You Rank On AI?
AI answers are being pulled by content that the algorithm trusts. This isn't SEO, this is about training AI to recognize your brand as a source. This is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). It's about owning visibility while building brand authority.
So first, let's understand what AI means to the landscape of Google and how it impacts how SEO currently works. Google's AI features are not shrinking traffic to kill SEO, instead, it's that Google is becoming more like ChatGPT - and there are actually more searches than ever, so the opportunities to be found have hugely increased. Daily Google searches have jumped from 8.5 billion to 13.7 billion. That's over 5 trillion searches a year and climbing.
We've also seen a big change in how people are searching. AI has already impacted this because of the likes of ChatGPT being chat based, which invites people to ask questions instead of how we used to search before on Google - with keyword phrases. This change has led to us now typing in question based searches even on Google, with an increase from 38% to 87% in the space of just 8 months.
What Does Google's Shift To Including AI Features Mean For Your Business?
With more searches now than ever before, there are more chances for your brand to be seen, if you know how to show up in the new format.
According to Neil Patel, of the entirety of Google's searches, 50% are informational. AI recommendations show up 49% of the time for these, so this is the biggest category with the most opportunity to be shown in those AI answers. This means that if you are in any industry and want to be found by more consumers and clients, your best bet is to create informational content that is authentically interesting and genuinely useful to human readers.
What is Google AI Mode?
Google AI Mode is a new search experience. It replaces the original search page with an AI conversation, similar to ChatGPT.
It answers multipart questions instantly, pulling from sources you might not be able to see because it will be doing 20 or 30 searches to give you one all-encompassing, complete answer. You can think of it more like a research assistant than a search engine.
What Type Of Content Ranks On AI SEO?
It is rich, multi-layered content that keeps human audiences engaged. It is interesting, impactful and useful information that human beings are actually searching for. That's the reality of it. What Google measures is how long people stay on websites. So, what we're seeing with AI is that the content that it trusts to filter through to its AI answers, is content that holds the attention of human beings, not content that abides by all of the SEO algorithm hacks, and certainly not content that has been AI-written.
Why Multimedia Content Matters To AI
When it comes to appearing in AI answers, you need to shift your focus to what human beings want to see. Multimedia content is a necessity because AI knows that this is what keeps human readers engaged. People want to look at photos and videos. They want to have the full array of visual intake in one place. If you can collect all of that onto one page, Google's AI will pick up that this is useful because it holds the reader on the page, so it will choose that to show as their answer.
Does Traditional SEO Still Matter?
Yes. SEO can still be considered a brand discovery channel, with 19% of people finding brands through Google. However, only 5% buy, according to Neil Patel. So you can think of modern SEO like a billboard. This is how people see you and remember you, and when the time is right, they buy from you.
How Can I Get My Business Cited In AI Results?
How to get your business cited in AI answers is just like SEO, and about understanding what you are wanting to be found for, and how people search to try to find you. Once you know that, you can reverse engineer who AI is already pulling from. Look at how they have succeeded in showing up in AI, see their most visited pages and understand their keywords which drive the most traffic.
If you can learn where competitors are getting traffic from, and focus on these subtopics while incorporating multimedia rich content, you will show AI that your information is more valuable, and you will thus be cited.
Google's AI rewards clarity, completeness and credibility. Not volume. So if you're wanting to start making waves, you need to start thinking in terms of what holds human attention. It's time to start creating unique, high-quality, informative, interesting multi-format, multi-layered content. Use videos, images, infographics because visual content serves humans faster - and AI wants to deliver what we prefer.