SEO in 2026
Majestic.com
SEO is continuing to change at an alarming pace. And yet, in some sense, the principles of good SEO remain the same.
Hello, and welcome to SEO in 2026 – a significant repository of current thinking from many of the world’s leading SEOs.
We're pleased to be able to welcome you to the fifth book and fifth series in this podcast, now well and truly an annual tradition, brought to you by Majestic.
“How people search has seen a bigger shift in the last 12 months than the last 12 years, and this makes SEOin2026 a must-read for anyone working in the industry. Majestic has brought together 117 of the SEO industry's brightest minds to share their insights into what matters, and what doesn't, to continue to drive growth with organic search during a period of massive uncertainty, and the book should be seen as a valuable reference point to keep your strategy on the right track.”
JAMES BROCKBANK
Managing Director and Founder, Digitaloft
“I highly recommend that every SEO professional set aside a couple of days for SEOin2026. You'll thank me for helping you plan your year effectively. I'm extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside some of the world's leading SEO champions.”
NITIN MANCHANDA
Founder & Chief SEO Consultant, Botpresso
“This collection of wisdom from many of the best minds in SEO today is a great line in the sand of where we as an industry are, what problems we face, and how we tackle them. Anyone in SEO or marketing should be dipping into this on a regular basis.”
SIMON COX
Technical SEO Consultant, Cox and Co. Creative
“This series continues to be the industry’s leading source of the most timely advice a marketer could ever want. The most forward-thinking SEO experts in the world come together once a year to create this invaluable collection of new knowledge that should never be passed up on!”
PAM AUNGST CRONIN
President and Founder, Pam Ann Marketing and Stealth Search and Analytics
“2025 has been a sprint for the SEO industry, with AI reshaping how we understand visibility, relevance, and authority. SEOin2026 is not just another trends book; it’s a roadmap for what’s actually coming. I loved being part of it and seeing how experts around the world approach the same challenges from different angles.”
RAMONA JOITA
SEO Consultant and Founder
“David is good at drawing out the substance of a conversation. He will explore the topic and challenge assumptions, steer the conversation into an unexpected direction, and build on your ideas – making you think a bit deeper and sharper. Our recent conversation flew by as always, and as always – I’ve come out energised about the topic with more to think about.”
SUKHJINDER SINGH
Freelance SEO Consultant
Hello, and welcome to SEO in 2026 – a significant repository of current thinking from many of the world’s leading SEOs.
We're pleased to be able to welcome you to the fifth book and fifth series in this podcast, now well and truly an annual tradition, brought to you by Majestic.
“How people search has seen a bigger shift in the last 12 months than the last 12 years, and this makes SEOin2026 a must-read for anyone working in the industry. Majestic has brought together 117 of the SEO industry's brightest minds to share their insights into what matters, and what doesn't, to continue to drive growth with organic search during a period of massive uncertainty, and the book should be seen as a valuable reference point to keep your strategy on the right track.”
JAMES BROCKBANK
Managing Director and Founder, Digitaloft
“I highly recommend that every SEO professional set aside a couple of days for SEOin2026. You'll thank me for helping you plan your year effectively. I'm extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work alongside some of the world's leading SEO champions.”
NITIN MANCHANDA
Founder & Chief SEO Consultant, Botpresso
“This collection of wisdom from many of the best minds in SEO today is a great line in the sand of where we as an industry are, what problems we face, and how we tackle them. Anyone in SEO or marketing should be dipping into this on a regular basis.”
SIMON COX
Technical SEO Consultant, Cox and Co. Creative
“This series continues to be the industry’s leading source of the most timely advice a marketer could ever want. The most forward-thinking SEO experts in the world come together once a year to create this invaluable collection of new knowledge that should never be passed up on!”
PAM AUNGST CRONIN
President and Founder, Pam Ann Marketing and Stealth Search and Analytics
“2025 has been a sprint for the SEO industry, with AI reshaping how we understand visibility, relevance, and authority. SEOin2026 is not just another trends book; it’s a roadmap for what’s actually coming. I loved being part of it and seeing how experts around the world approach the same challenges from different angles.”
RAMONA JOITA
SEO Consultant and Founder
“David is good at drawing out the substance of a conversation. He will explore the topic and challenge assumptions, steer the conversation into an unexpected direction, and build on your ideas – making you think a bit deeper and sharper. Our recent conversation flew by as always, and as always – I’ve come out energised about the topic with more to think about.”
SUKHJINDER SINGH
Freelance SEO Consultant
Episodes
Mentioned books
Jan 8, 2026 • 15min
Create your own knowledge graphs to improve your online presence – with Olesia Korobka
Part of the data layer that you provide for AI should include well-structured knowledge graphs, shares Olesia Korobka.Olesia says: “Prepare small knowledge graphs and use them for your SEO efforts – and also to optimize your content for LLMs and AI output.”What do you mean by small knowledge graphs, and how do AI search engines use knowledge graphs?“We know that Google uses knowledge graphs for their AI overviews and for some answers in AI Mode because knowledge graphs are facts. They are entities that provide factual information, so Google does use them intensively.Also, search within knowledge graphs is much faster than any other search, and the information you get is much easier to use for generating anything that you want.We used to talk about databases previously, and a knowledge graph is a fancy name for a relational database. That's about it. When you build them, it helps you to get much fewer inaccuracies, get more original information, and ensure that the information is factually correct.By small knowledge graphs, I mean that you focus only on what you are doing for your own business or for yourself. You can optimize your own name, your company's name, or the products or services that you want people to find in search.”
Jan 7, 2026 • 14min
Use your server logs to perform an indexation audit at scale - with Jérôme Salomon
Jérôme Salomon shares that you can use your server logs to perform an indexation audit at scale thanks to the 130 days rule, bypassing the URL inspector tool API limits for large websites.Talking points include:What is an indexation audit?Why would you want to conduct one?What is an indexation audit at scale?What is the 130 days rule?How do you use your server logs for this?What are the url inspector tool API limits for large websites?How often should you conduct one?How does this feed into a strategy?What measurable success do you get by doing this?
Jan 6, 2026 • 16min
Develop an interconnected data layer to show up and be understood by AI – with Martha van Berkel
Martha van Berkel follows on from Pam’s tip by highlighting that it’s key to manage the information that you’re providing to AI.Martha says: “SEO is now about managing your data layer for AI.”What is your data layer for AI?“We really have to think about the data we're putting into the machine.Most people still think of schema markup as just trying to get visibility, but it's way more than that. By doing semantic schema markup, you're building a knowledge graph, which can be a contextual thing that allows machines to understand.SEOs need to think beyond doing it for search visibility and start seeing it as the input we can use to control brand and understanding for large language models.”
Jan 5, 2026 • 19min
Prepare for a world where AI is your primary audience – with Pam Aungst Cronin
How are you preparing for AI? Pam Aungst Cronin starts off not by exploring how to use AI in your day-to-day activities, but how to position what you do, with AI as your primary audience.Pam says: “Start preparing for an AI-first future, where the AIs are your primary target audience, not humans.”
Jan 2, 2026 • 15min
Strengthen your brand – with Ramona Joita
Ramona Joita recommends that strong branding in 2026 is key – and shares why research is an integral part of this. Ramona says: “Strong branding, not just keywords, will drive organic visibility in the AI-powered SEO landscape in 2026.2025 has been the busiest year ever. I have been in this business for 15 years now, and I have faced all the changes that Google has put us through. We had the mobile-first index, where we had to adjust our websites to fit the mobile version. We had RankBrain, where Google started focussing on how people react to our content and not only to the keywords that we were publishing or the backlinks pointing to our websites.However, this has been the busiest year by far, and we are still in an early stage of understanding how this is changing the game.2026 will be an even more challenging year. If there is one thing that I believe will work, it will be to start building a brand. You cannot go wrong with that; Google loves brands, and LLMs will love brands too.”
Jan 1, 2026 • 18min
Go beyond backlinks to gain authority in the new algorithm – with Joseph Kahn
Joseph Kahn expands on Christian’s tip to emphasise that building authority in 2026 is multi-faceted.Joseph says: “Look beyond the blue links and build for AI.”Are we just talking about blue links in Google?“We're talking about blue links everywhere. Most people think, ‘Backlinks, backlinks, backlinks.’ The old world of SEO was just about using backlinks to build authority, and that isn't the way to build authority anymore.Links still matter, but it's very specialised. I can beat just about anybody in the service business, and in a lot of different places in SEO, without using a single backlink strategy.”
Dec 31, 2025 • 20min
How to SEO for LLMs - with Roman Leliukh
Roman Leliukh discusses how to SEO for LLMs.Key talking points include:Which LLMs should you optimize for?Chat GPT / AI Overviews / GeminiWhy are certain LLMs best?How do you optimize for them?How do you measure success?
Dec 30, 2025 • 14min
Build brand associations – with Christian Rigg
Christian Rigg follows on from Otuto Umeji’s tip to share that, if you can form a brand association in someone’s mind, it makes many aspects of SEO a lot easier.Christian says: “2026 is all about brand associations: in people's minds, in search engines, and in LLMs.Optimizing for brand associations means building deep and meaningful connections between your brand and the topics, products, features, outcomes – all of the things that matter to people and machines.”
Dec 29, 2025 • 16min
Rank in the mind, not on the SERP – with Otuto Umeji
Otuto Umeji shares that one of the key elements to building a successful brand in 2026, from an SEO perspective, is to be the go-to, remembered brand for a particular keyword phrase.Otuto says: “Use brand positioning to move from SERP rankings to mind rankings.”What are mind rankings?“Recently, we have seen that SEO is shifting, and AI search is now summarising results. Because of this, it's no longer enough to just chase rankings. The brands that will win are brands that strongly position themselves in people’s minds, to the point where they search for them by name, regardless of where they are on the SERP rankings.For example, if I say ‘best soda’, the brand that automatically comes to mind is Coca-Cola. If I say ‘energy drink’, the brand that comes to mind is Red Bull. If I say ‘SEO audits’ and ‘keyword research’, Ahrefs and Semrush are what come to mind. If we talk about ‘link building analysis’, Majestic comes to mind. That is what brand positioning is: when your brand is the best at delivering a particular value that your customers truly care about.When they care about this, they will remember you, and they will automatically search for you by name. In 2026, what will win is when you are not just found; you are remembered.This might not sound like SEO, but it’s something that we can introduce to SEO to make your SEO processes better. You are focussing on optimizing your brand so that people search for you automatically.”
Dec 24, 2025 • 17min
In an AI search-first world, brands should move beyond "links for links’ sake" - with Charlie Clark
Charlie Clark shares that as we move towards an AI search-first world, brands should move beyond "links for links’ sake" and focus on semantically relevant brand mentions that align with key topics and entities, helping AI engines better understand, associate, and prioritise them in results.Talking points include:What’s an example of links for links’ sake?How do we focus on semantically relevant brand mentions?How do we measure the success of semantically relevant brand mentions?How do we ensure that semantically relevant brand mentions align with key topics and entities?Why does this help AI?How do we measure success?
