AI-Driven SEO: Building Trust and Visibility in 2026

GEO, AI Search, and the New Rules of Visibility

Jeff Payne hosts podcast #2, unpacking notes from SEO voice Malte Landwehr from BrightonSEO (April 2026) to explain how SEO, AI, and business growth are converging. 

Malte highlights a four-pillar framework (technical SEO, content/PR, social amplification, and generative engine optimization/GEO), likening GEO to “water cooler” word-of-mouth where widespread mentions increase AI recommendations.

Key takeaways include aligning shared KPIs across SEO and PR, using a demand-to-sentiment diagnostic before tactics, and treating GEO like poker amid uncertainty while observing AI “query fan-outs.” He cites examples and stats: 

1. intent-driven pages delivered an 841% uplift
2. AI visitors can be 4.4x more valuable
3. AI overviews cut clicks ~36%
4. Most journeys touch LLMs and search. 

Malte closes that trust and brand consistency drive growth and AI-era perception.

00:00 Welcome and Setup
01:24 Four Pillars and GEO
02:29 Water Cooler Visibility
03:18 Shared KPIs and Strategy
04:52 GEO Like Poker
06:43 Intent Driven Content
08:04 How LLMs Read Content
10:31 Key Stats to Watch
12:10 What AI Cites
13:25 Brand Trust and Wrap Up

Transcript

Introduction to the Jeff Payne Show

0:29

Welcome to my podcast. This is Jeff Payne. You're listening to podcast number two. Today I wanna talk to you about something that stopped me in my tracks this week. I came across a LinkedIn post by multi land wear. He's a serious voice in the SEO world, and he published his notes from Brighton, SE. Which is one of the biggest SEO conferences on the planet, which was held this past April of 2026. These notes are dense, they're packed, and the reason I wanted to build an entire episode around them is because what multi captured isn't just SEO theory is a direct signal of where AI and business growth are all colliding. Right now, so let me walk you through the most important ideas, add my own perspective and give you something actionable you can walk away with today. Let's get into it.

Four Pillars and GEO

1:24

The four pillar framework, multi opens with a framework that I think is worth writing down. Four pillars, technical, SEO, which is the foundation. Content and public relations are the catalyst social media. Is the amplifier, generative engine optimization, or I like to refer to as GEO is your growing real estate. Now, if GEO is a new term for you, it's essentially the practice of optimizing your content and brand so that AI systems like Chat, GPT, Google AI overviews and perplexity actually find you. Cite you and recommend you think of it. As SEO, but instead of ranking on a search results page, you're showing up inside an AI generated answer. And as more people shift to asking AI instead of Googling, that real estate becomes incredibly valuable.

Water Cooler Visibility

2:29

In fact, I wrote about this on my website. I called it the water Cooler Effect. The idea is this AI engines work like office. Word of mouth. Imagine a doctor asking colleagues for a recommendation. If one person mentions your brand, that's a signal. But if everyone around the water cooler mentions you, dentist, surgeon, specialist, the likelihood of that doctor looking you up skyrockets. AI engines work the same way. The more your brand appears across multiple trusted sources and relation to a question, the higher the probability AI will recommend you. It's not about gaming one algorithm. It's about being everywhere that matters. And that leads me directly to Malta's advice.

Shared KPIs and Strategy

3:18

Have shared KPIs and a shared forecast across your organic channels. Stop siloing the stuff. If your s sa SEO team and your PR team aren't talking, you are leaving real visibility on the table. That's the first big takeaway. The second one is the strategic questions. Before you execute on anything, multi gives a diagnostic framework a series of questions you have to be able to answer yes to Before moving to the next one, start here. Is there demand? If yes, is the space winnable for you? If yes, are you indexable? Then are you visible? Then are you differentiated? Then do you have social proof? And finally, do you have positive brand sentiment? Only then do you measure and optimize. What I love about this. Is it stops people from jumping straight to tactics. So many businesses are obsessed with content calendars and backlink campaigns when they haven't even answered whether there's demand for what they're creating or whether they could realistically compete in that space. This is strategy before execution, and that discipline alone, if you built it into your process, would save you months of wasted effort Next.

GEO is Like Poker

4:52

Treat GEO like poker. Here's one of the most memorable lines from maltis notes. Treat generative engine optimization like poker. Nobody knows all the cards, but you know some cards, and then he adds. Not playing is a risk. Never playing means you lose. Good players don't need a perfect hand to win. I think this is the most honest framing of AI search optimization I've heard, because right now everyone wants certainty. They want the definitive playbook for how to rank in chat BT A GPT, or how to get cited in AI overviews. And the truth is that playbook doesn't fully exist yet. The game is still being dealt, but here's what you can see, the searches that AI is actually doing, these are called query fan outs. When you submit a prompt to an ai, it fires off a series of sub searches behind the scenes that gather, inform. You can observe those. You can see the language AI is using, the questions it's asking, and use that to inform the content you create. That is a real actionable edge right now. And here's something I've tracked and written about myself. The average visitor who arrives from an AI engine like check GPT or perplexity is worth 4.4 times more. Than a traditional organic search visitor. They arrive more informed, more qualified, closer to a decision. So even if AI sends fewer people to your site, the people it sends are worth more. That changes the math entirely.

Intent Driven Content

6:43

The next is the intent driven content shift. Let me give you a stat that is one of the most powerful examples of what modern SEO can do. One brand cited at Brighton, SEO switched from traditional category pages like quote jeans to intent driven category pages like airport. Outfits the result, an 841% uplift, and every single item featured on those intent driven pages sold out. That is not a typo. 841%. This is what I think about when I, when people ask me whether SEO still matters, it absolutely matters. But the SEO that moves the needle is built around human intent. Not keyword density. It's built around your customer's actual situation, what they're trying to do, whether where they're going. What problem are they trying to solve? Malti says it simply quote, most marketing is over-Engineered marketing is about human intent. Your KPI should not hide that. That sentence is going on a wall somewhere for me.

How LLMs Read Content

8:04

And next, how AI actually works and what that means. For you. Let's talk about LLMs, which is large language models. Actually. These LLMs interact with your content because it changes everything about how you should write. First. LLMs, do not read your whole page. They read individual pages, or excuse me, passages. So optimize for passages, not pages. Each paragraph should cleanly answer one specific question. Second, the LLM is a judge. Your sources are witnesses that influence the verdict. You are the lawyer who has to prepare and influence those witnesses. That framing is brilliant. You're not writing for a ranking algorithm anymore. You're writing to be cited as a credible, neutral, factual source, and an AI generated answer and multi is clear. LLMs prefer objective and neutral sources with high expertise and authority, written in clear and factual language. Even if you're marketing a product, writing in nat neutral tones makes you more credible, not less. I've broken this down in my own Work into three moves. One, be the source, create content. AI wants to cite. Guides, case studies. FAQ sections do original research. Number two, be included in the sources. Show up on the platform's AI already trust, like Reddit, LinkedIn, Trustpilot, apple, podcast industry publications, and replace. And number three, replace the source if the current citation on a topic isn't strong. Create something much better and become the definitive answer. That is the playbook, be the source, be included. Replace what isn't good enough, and remember, your chances of influencing AI retrieval are much higher than your chances of influencing model training data. So don't try to game the training data. Focus on the query fan outs, on the prompts that trigger web searches, and I'm being the source that gets cited when AI goes looking for answers.

Key Stats to Watch

10:31

And then the numbers you need to know. Let me drop some stats that every business owner and marketer should have on their radar. 80% of conversion journeys. Now touch an LLM 90% involve a search. This is not the future. This is happening right now. 40% of customers, or excuse me, consumers use LLMs for shopping. 75% of them trust LLMs for product comparisons, and 79% say an LLM influenced their purchasing. Decision next, AI overviews reduce clicks by roughly 36%. The direction is clear. AI is answering more questions without sending people to your site. 60% of AI search clicks go to the homepage compared to less than 20%. With traditional search, AI does the research then sends user users directly to your brand. And here's one from my own research. AI search visitors will likely surpass traditional search visitors by 2028. That's not far away. The window to get positioned now before your competitors FI figure this out is closing and it's closing quickly. The bottom line, people who are using AI to research products are ready to buy. Get in front of them with clear, factual, specific content and you'll see the return.

What AI Cites

12:10

Next, what actually gets cited by ai. So what kind of content does AI actually pick up and cite? Malti gives a clear checklist. Use a title that matches one of the fan out queries. AI is running. Write a bluff, BLUF. That's the bottom line up front. State your main point definitively in the first sentence. Writing declarative sentences. Be specific. Have high entity density, meaning pack your content. With real names, real places, real products, and real data for e-commerce. Specifically precise product titles, complete technical specifications, real time availability, structured shipping and return terms, and GTIN and MPN identifiers and add q and as to your product detail pages. Have a declarative self-contained 50 word paragraph on every product detail page that an LLM can simply lift and quote. This is the new content strategy. It's not just about ranking. It's about being citable.

Brand Trust and Wrap-Up

13:25

Next brand is the long game. I wanna close on something multi says near the end of his notes because I think it's the thread that ties all of this together. I was on a call recently with a client who was sharing some deep business struggles, real hardships, real uncertainty, and what kept coming back to me as I was listened was this, people don't ultimately do business with brands that rank. They do business with brands they trust. Trust is built through experiences. Real ones, repeated ones, multi puts it. Simply treat your brand as your company's most valuable asset. It regularly makes up 33% of a company's value. A differentiated brand drives growth. Consistency is key, and here's the part that makes the urgent. Right now. AI search is already a top five touchpoint for brand perception. What AI says about you, or whether it mentions you at all is shaping how people feel about your business before. They even visit your website, build authority, build trust, build brand. That's not old school advice. That is more relevant right now than it has ever been. If people don't recommend you, no model will either. Matt land weer notes from Brighton, SEO are a gift. They're honest, specific, and they reflect where search actually is in 2026, not where we wished it would stay. If I had to leave you with three things from today, number one, stop thinking about your website and start thinking about your customer's problem. AI rewards content and answers real questions from real people. Only then can you have a website that wins if you don't know that you're just building a brochure. Number two, your next customer may never Google you. They'll ask an AI. Make sure your business shows up in that conversation because that is where buying decisions are being made right now. And number three, your brand is your most durable competitive advantage. Technology changes, algorithms, change, platforms change, but a brand that people trust will win in every version of search that comes next. Thank you for listening and bye. Thank you for listening to the Jeff Payne show. Find the complete archives of all episodes@jeffpayne.net or subscribe for free at Apple Podcasts and never miss an episode. This program is copyrighted by Jeff Payne, incorporated. All rights reserved. Each week we bring you a message of inspiration and hope. Remembering that true hope is available to all through Jesus Christ.