Want a quick way to (potentially) pay for gifts? Take our survey!
We're looking for responses to our 2026 trends report to fully capture the state of the market.
Two responders will be selected for a $500 Amazon gift card. Survey only takes ~3 minutes: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
If your content hasn't been touched in the last 90 days, you're probably not beating NerdWallet.
NerdWallet is updating key money pages every 115 days. Most of page one waits a year.
We analyzed 1,000 of the most popular ChatGPT prompts using data from Profound.
Here are most common prompt "types" in LLM usage:
Are LLM source URLs the new topic opportunity?
If we look at most commonly referenced URLs for the bottom funnel prompts we want to influence, we may learn:
• What topics are surfacing most
• What strategies are surfacing most
• The types of pages that are surfacing most
ChatGPT's new Atlas browser could be bullish for SEO.
The agent experience doesn't click ads.
“I avoid clicking on ads. I focus on organic results and official sources for reliability and safety.”
If more users use this over default search, all transactions attribute to organic activity.
Should you create "best X" articles to influence LLMs?
The short answer: it's complicated.
There has been some negative takes on this approach as of late, so I wanted to have @nickleroy.com on to respectfully debate when and how it might make sense to do.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=frbO...
Engagement with trends content is on the rise.
We analyzed over 12.2k unique blog URLs across 15 categories to see what has been changing over the past two years.
It showed that AI is driving interest in trends, and the subsequent product announcements incorporating it.
ChatGPT referrals are down for the second month in a row -- but Google's growth trend remains intact.
If ChatGPT traffic doesn’t soon show meaningful month-over-month growth, the idea it could overtake Google in the near future is officially moot.
The value in looking at rankings 20-40:
Topical authority audit: if you’re in the 30-40 range, that’s often a good new page, as it’s saying you’re authoritative for that term even if it doesn’t map to the current page.
Refreshes: Rankings 20-30 can still bump to page one.
The value in looking at rankings 20-40:
Topical authority audit: if you’re in the 30-40 range, that’s often a good new page, as it’s saying you’re authoritative for that term even if it doesn’t map to the current page.
Refreshes: Rankings 20-30 can still bump to page one.
LinkedIn posts are seeing a surge in SEO traffic.
This is a trend to watch closely.
It feels like it could be the start of a Reddit, Quora-type social acceleration trend -- and a reason to invest in organic social.
View our full post comparing ChatGPT engagement rate with Google's below.
We also took a look at how engagement rate is changing across other channels.
Blog engagement is actually up 15%!
www.siegemedia.com/research/ga4...
Google is sending higher quality traffic than ChatGPT in the last 60 days.
In the past 18 months, ChatGPT's quality is 2% better, but that continues to decline.
The narrative that ChatGPT is better in a generalized view is becoming less true than ever.
ChatGPT is hiring an SEO-focused content strategist paying almost $400k/year!
Interestingly, there’s no talk of any LLM-facing optimization acronym besides SEO.
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...
AI citation volume by URL is the new keyword volume.
In Ahrefs’ URL view, they calculate a total number of AI citations for each URL from their prompt database.
This isn’t prompt volume, but it’s a holistic estimate of total topic interest around that concept.
Yeah there’s definite seasonality. Hard to say if it’s on par with last year.
School being out is likely a major factor, but a decline being possible at all is a significant event.
Full study here: www.siegemedia.com/strategy/cha...
ChatGPT referral traffic was down 3.8% in July. Is the bubble about to pop?
After a wave of graphs (including ours) predicting growth that would intersect Google’s in '27-28, metrics went negative.
On the other side of the coin, Google traffic was up 15.9% across 193 sites.
Join @rosshudgens.bsky.social and me tomorrow for a conversation about "future proofing e-commerce SEO".
I love Ross's take on how your 3 week vision is your new 3 year vision:
I don't trust Google results" has been a common refrain.
Yet, many people are now using LLM results 98% powered by Bing and taking them as fact.
It feels like the net trust quotient has actually increased given this, improving conversion rate.
SEO anchor text in the top nav is rarely the right idea in 2025.
Engagement rate is far more important.
As the importance of brand continues to grow, suggesting primarily SEO-focused anchor text in our top navigation is the wrong direction.
Two months ago, I sat at an SEO breakfast and two enterprise retail SEOs independently brought up how amazing the tool has been for their company.
I knew we had to invest!
Learn more here: www.optiversal.com
We’re excited to announce that Siege Media has joined Optiversal’s Series A round as a strategic investor!
Optiversal is an AI-powered landing page platform that helps the world’s top e-commerce companies harness generative AI at scale to drive more traffic and revenue.
You probably don’t need thought leadership.
You need product-focused content that drives clicks and conversions. Thought leadership feels bigger and harder than it needs to be, lowering executive buy-in.
Here’s how we think about the difference:
HubSpot’s LLM visibility skyrocketed without relying on backlinks.
Kieran Flanagan shifted to co-citations and brand mentions to win in AI-driven search.
Full episode: www.siegemedia.com/conversation...
Content isn’t valuable just because it converts.
The best content brings sticky, high-LTV customers.
Semrush CMO Andrew Warden explains why: www.siegemedia.com/conversation...
New data from a 50-site study: Homepage traffic is up 10.7% from AI Overviews and LLMs!
Traffic may be down, but there is an increase in high-intent homepage visitors.
This may mean a net overall conversion lift for companies with >20% homepage traffic.
Organic traffic is now strongly linked to brand sentiment – and we have data to support it.
We recently reviewed two client cases where a negative PR event occurred followed by a sharp drop.
In good news, it hopefully shows how positive brand investment can drive the opposite.
