If you’re feeling uncertain about the current state of SEO, you’re not alone. The rise of AI-powered search experiences has fundamentally changed how people find information online, from ChatGPT and Perplexity to Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode. For marketing leaders, this shift raises an important question: Is our SEO strategy ready for what’s next?
This isn’t about grilling your SEO team or questioning their expertise. It’s about opening up meaningful conversations that help you understand what’s changing, what actions you should take, and how to navigate this transition with confidence.
We’ve broken our questions list down into four sections:
- Foundational questions for every industry
- Questions for tourism and destination marketing organizations
- Questions for B2B and technology companies
- Questions for consumer, healthcare and local services
Bring these questions to your next SEO meeting and focus on what matters most to your business. Now let’s dig in.
Foundational questions for every industry
These questions apply regardless of your vertical. They address how AI is fundamentally changing consumer search behavior and the search experience itself, helping you understand how your SEO program is keeping pace.
Measurement & performance in the age of AI search
As AI reshapes how information is delivered, traditional metrics like rankings and clicks will only reveal part of the story. This section helps you rethink measurement in the context of zero-click results and AI overviews, ensuring your performance data reflects your visibility.
- How do we measure the success of SEO in the age of the zero-click search experience?
- How has AI impacted how we measure the success of our SEO program?
- What’s our current visibility across different AI platforms, and how does it vary?
- What metrics should we be tracking now that we might not have prioritized a year ago?
Traditional SEO metrics no longer tell the full story of organic performance. Explore our blog to learn which SEO KPIs you should be tracking in today’s AI-first search landscape.
Strategy & AI optimization
These questions help you explore how AI-driven search systems interpret and prioritize content, how to align with best practices, and how to create content strategies that straddle human creativity and AI efficiencies.
- Are SEO best practices the same as AI Optimization best practices?
- What AI platforms are most commonly used by our customers, and how do we appear in them?
- Why is Google E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) so important, and how do we ensure we meet these standards?
- What is query fan-out, and how do we adjust our content strategies to this new concept?
- How do we find efficiencies with AI content generation while avoiding penalties from Google?
Learn the key tactics to evolve your SEO strategy for AI Overviews and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in our recent blog post.
Staying competitive & future-ready
Remaining visible online means being adaptable. These questions help you gauge if your approach is keeping pace with changes to algorithms, platforms, and user behavior.
- How are we staying ahead of algorithm updates and industry changes?
- What’s our strategy for building and maintaining quality backlinks in 2025?
- How does our technical SEO foundation support our content and AI optimization efforts?
- Are we prepared for further changes in how AI systems surface and cite content?
- What competitive intelligence are we gathering about how others in our space are adapting to AI search?
Tourism and destination marketing
Travel and tourism face unique challenges as search behavior shifts toward immediate, location-based needs and AI-powered travel planning. If you’re in this vertical, add these questions to your list:
- How do we best optimize for “near me” searches during peak and non-peak travel seasons?
- How can we best leverage user-generated content or reviews to improve our organic presence?
- Are we optimizing for mobile-first travel research and booking?
- How are we appearing in AI-powered travel planning tools and itinerary generators?
- What’s our strategy for seasonal content, and how do we maintain relevance year-round?
- How do we optimize for different stages of the travel decision journey (inspiration, planning, booking, on-site)?
- Are we capturing the visual search opportunities that are especially important in travel?
- How are we optimizing for multi-location and trip-planning queries?
Tech & B2B
B2B and tech companies face longer sales cycles, more complex products, and buyers who rely heavily on research and peer validation. These questions address your specific challenges:
- What are the best ways to optimize for competitor comparison searches?
- Do you think of your B2B SEO strategy as significantly different from your B2C strategies?
- How can we optimize our more technical content, including documentation and support articles, to ensure it ranks well for pertinent queries?
- How are we optimizing for bottom-of-funnel, high-intent searches?
- What’s our thought leadership and content strategy for building topical authority?
- How do we ensure our product pages and feature descriptions are discoverable for specific use case searches?
- Are we capturing traffic for industry trends and emerging topics relevant to our space?
- How are we addressing the multiple stakeholders involved in B2B purchase decisions through our SEO strategy?
- What’s our approach to optimizing gated vs. ungated content for search visibility?
Consumer, healthcare & local services
For businesses serving local markets or health-related needs, trust, accuracy, and proximity dominate search behavior. These questions will help you understand how you’re showing up locally:
- How does AI impact local search for users trying to find our local offerings?
- What is YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), and why is it important for our SEO strategies and efforts?
- With voice searches on the rise for local searches, how are we optimizing for these kinds of searches?
- How are we optimizing our Google Business Profile and local citations?
- What’s our review generation and management strategy?
- How do we optimize for service-area searches beyond our immediate location?
- For healthcare providers: How are we ensuring content accuracy and demonstrating medical expertise?
- How are appointment booking and conversion paths optimized for search traffic?
- Are we monitoring and responding to questions that appear in local search features?
- What’s our strategy for appearing in local pack results and map searches?
From questions to action: Building an AI-ready SEO strategy
These questions aren’t meant to create anxiety—they’re meant to open productive dialogues with your SEO partner. The goal is understanding, alignment, and confidence in your path forward.
As you work through these conversations:
- Don’t expect perfect answers immediately. Some of these questions involve rapidly evolving best practices. What matters initially is confirming that it’s on your SEO team’s radar.
- Focus on progress, not perfection. The AI search landscape is still taking shape. When implementing new approaches, an iterative, test-and-learn approach beats waiting for definitive answers.
- Prioritize based on your specific situation. Not every question will be equally important for your business. Work with your team to identify which areas matter most for your goals.
- Schedule regular check-ins. Don’t make this a one-time conversation. As the landscape evolves, revisit these questions quarterly with your SEO team to ensure your strategy stays current.
The marketing leaders who will thrive in this new era are those who embrace change, ask the right questions, and partner closely with their SEO teams to navigate uncertainty together.
Ready to start the conversation? Pick 3-5 questions from this list that resonate most with your current concerns and bring them to your next SEO meeting. You might be surprised by how much clarity comes from simply asking.
Need a strategic partner to navigate these changes? Book time with our SEO experts for a deep-dive session tailored to your industry and goals. We’ll help you build a future-ready search strategy that keeps pace with the AI evolution.
