Not since the advent of the internet has the marketing industry been forced to reevaluate their offerings on such a large scale.

If that sounds dramatic, consider this: nearly 7 billion searches are going to AI platforms each month, representing a 1200% monthly traffic increase in AI search. What’s more, sixty percent of consumers say they’ve used AI to help them make a purchase, according to the University of Virginia.

As a result, marketers are experimenting with what feels like a million different search platforms (remember when it was just Google?!) and answering tough questions from leadership (where’s the traffic?).

But this presents an opportunity for those laser-focused on the future and open to change. “Clients want clear, informed guidance through a landscape that’s still taking shape,” says Sarah McNaughton, the founder of McNaughton Digital Media, a content strategy and SEO consulting agency.

This gives SEOs a seat at the strategy table like never before. “SEO will remain relevant as long as people use search engines,” says Constance Chen, director of search marketing at Moving Traffic Media, an internet marketing agency. And despite all this change, “marketing is still about understanding intent, identifying who your audience is, where they are, what they care about, and delivering what they’re looking for.”

With that in mind, here’s how agencies can navigate this time of rapid change, straight from marketers who are embracing generative engine optimization.

01. Don’t throw SEO out the window 

“Right now, when looking at absolute numbers, LLM traffic is likely a small fraction of a website's total traffic,” says David Ly Khim, co-founder and CEO of Omniscient Digital, an organic growth agency specializing in B2B software companies. “That doesn't mean ‘don't pay attention,’ but it also doesn't mean ‘stop everything and focus on this.’” 

That’s why Khim says to continue investing in proven channels, but allocate some budget or percentage of time to understanding new ones.

“Agencies that adapt by navigating the noise, running experiments to learn what works, and helping clients get distribution through GEO will get ahead,” Khim says.

02. Understand your audience

“The most effective agencies will prioritize ongoing learning and transparency over reactive trend-chasing,” says McNaughton.

This is why it's crucial to understand your clients' audience. “Not every industry needs to double down on LLMs,” says Jairo Guerrero, organic strategist at Organic Hackers, noting the mental health space as an example. “LLMs will explicitly exclude commercial interests, meaning that the results will be purely based on scientific and medical standards, excluding any commercial party (conflict of interest),” he says. “The clients I have on that vertical are not even close to being mentioned by LLMs, so we aren't focusing on that yet.”

To make the most of your time, see if your target audience is using AI search in the first place and what they’re using it for. 

03.  Experiment aggressively but wisely

From there, you can conduct worthwhile experiments. “Every marketing team should have a budget for experimentation,” says Garrett Sussman, director of marketing at iPullRank. “If the proposed pilot program is successful, you can quickly ramp up investment.”

Khim adds that because experimentation doesn’t always lead to an immediate success, it’s important to select clients who not only know the risks, but believe that there’s value in taking them, regardless of their outcome.

“Those clients understand that to be on the leading edge requires some risk of ‘wasting’ resources in terms of time and budget that may not result in immediate ROI,” he says. “They also understand the tradeoff of waiting to follow suit after the new channel has been proven by someone else.”

04. Approach risk-averse clients with proof of concept

Of course, not every client or potential client is cool with this kind of uncertainty. “If it's a new engagement or still closing the deal, then case studies that match the pain point and the client persona are the best way to demonstrate that you understand the issue and are capable of executing on your proposal,” Sussman says. “For an existing client, earn trust through short-term wins and over the course of the engagement.” 

05. Step out of your silo

LLMs cull information from a range of reputable sources, which makes marketing agencies more valuable than ever. But it also requires a more holistic approach.

“You’re maneuvering from human synthesis (users clicking blue links and forming their own opinions) to AI synthesis where models understand consumer preferences from the collective consciousness of the web and 'reason' their way to mentioning brands,” says Simon Schnieders, founder of Blue Array, an SEO-centric agency and consultancy. “It's a very different approach than keywords and URLs in traditional SEO.”

Sussman notes that landing mentions in listicles, trade publications, and on discussion-based sites like Reddit and Quora signal to the search engines and LLMs that the brand is not only relevant, but worthy. “They’re basically a vote of confidence,” he says.

This puts search marketers in a new, highly cross-functional position: If visibility in LLMs is all about “the collective consciousness of the web,” it’s more important than ever to get buy-in across departments.

Luckily, the excitement around AI and LLMs makes this easy, says Alisa Scharf, VP of SEO and AI at digital marketing agency Seer Interactive. Executives, board members, and venture capitalists who may have never been personally invested in attending marketing meetings or staying in the loop about PR strategy suddenly want to know where they stand compared to their competition and their plans to keep up with AI developments.

Take advantage: “When it comes to getting all the teams aligned, we’ve been most successful starting at the top,” says Scharf. From there, Seer forms one-on-one connections with primary contacts from each relevant team (social, video, and so on). 

06. Redefine “growth” 

Loss of traffic alone doesn’t always translate to a loss of business.

“For a lot of brands we work with, a decrease in clicks doesn't necessarily mean fewer purchases,” Scharf says. “But it means people are engaging with brands differently.” 

For example, traffic from LLMs is often higher quality in the sense that people are doing more research in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, then going to the site with the intent to purchase.

As a result, you'll want to rethink your KPIs in the age of AI search. See the SEO's guide to AI search visibility KPIs to learn how.

07. Be the expert

Many companies want to show that they’re on the cutting edge of AI–and no one is more poised to deliver on this goal than forward-thinking marketing agencies who stay up to date on the latest LLM research and LLM optimization strategies. 

The key: Be transparent about the need for ongoing experimentation and position yourself as the trusted source of new tactics and opportunities. “Make it clear that you’re closely following developments and will share what you learn as soon as you learn it,” says McNaughton. Then, do exactly that.