Strengthen your brand

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.”

What is omnichannel SEO, and how can it improve your brand success?

“I have been advocating for omnichannel SEO for a while. Omnichannel SEO means being present on the platforms where people are searching for your brand.

We know that people are using so many platforms nowadays. Focussing only on ranking number one in Google is not enough, and it will not be enough in the long run. We have to start building integrated strategies across social media platforms and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Mode.

We have to start building strategies for YouTube or TikTok because this is where people are spending time. This is where people are looking for information. This is where people are buying our products and the services that we are selling.”

Does focussing on these platforms positively impact how your brand is perceived on traditional search engines?

“Focussing on these platforms will not only increase your brand awareness, but at the same time, it will increase your visibility.

If, for example, you are optimizing a YouTube video, the chances of that YouTube video ranking in Google are higher. At the same time, if you’re optimizing TikTok reels or YouTube reels, the chances of them ranking in Google are higher.

It's basically about creating an ecosystem where you have consistency across all these platforms that, in the end, will bring you more brand authority and more traffic, and all of this will lead to more leads.”

How do you know which platforms are likely to have the biggest impact in terms of brand SEO?

“That's a really good question, and it's a question that I'm asked frequently, especially by people who are just starting because their budget is usually limited and they don't know where to start.

Start with one or two platforms, depending on the budget that you have, and then try and test others as well. I don't think that you have to be on all platforms. You have to identify the ones where your potential leads are spending more time.

How do you identify that? By testing and measuring, of course. That's the only way to go. You can do that by tracking brand mentions, for example. You have to identify the KPIs for each platform. On LLMs, you have to track the mentions and not the rankings.

Identify one or two KPIs for each platform, start tracking them, and see what impact they have on your business. If the impact is a positive one that brings a good return on investment, then you should go with that platform. If not, stick to one or two. You don't have to be everywhere.”

How do you persuade stakeholders in your business that brand mentions are just as important as visitors to your website?

“That's tricky, and it's something that we have been facing as specialists. It's clear that people are using LLMs nowadays, and they will start using them more often. It's just a matter of time before the traffic coming through from LLMs, and the importance of being mentioned in them, will grow even higher than it is right now.

We also have research explaining that people search for products, companies, and even people in LLMs. It's crucial to be there.

I have clients coming to me saying, ‘We read about you on ChatGPT, so we thought that we had to start working with you.’ Not showing up there is a significant loss – even for big brands or companies in industries or niches where classic referrals count more. Those referrals are not the future. That is how things went in the past, but in the future, this will change.”

You also talk about shifting beyond keywords. What does that mean in practice?

“In practice, it means adapting the content to how people search for the services or products that you are promoting.

I talked about YouTube. If we have a look at how people search on YouTube, we might find that it's a bit different from how people search on Google. People might look for videos explaining how to do things or making comparisons between two products. You need to do your research on that platform and adapt the videos that you publish according to how people are searching for what you are selling.

At the same time, if we are talking about LLMs and the way people are searching there, it's more conversational. As people start using more LLMs, they will get used to having a conversation with the AI, and it will become like a virtual shopping assistant for them.

We need to start integrating all these things in our strategy and not only optimizing articles for how people search on Google.”

What are one or two things that you've done to successfully optimize content for LLMs?

“I'm just in the early stages of testing things, as are many other people in the industry. What I have done so far is adjust and structure the content in a way that's easier for LLMs to understand.

I will have shorter paragraphs and use bullet points in there. I've started adding a summary at the beginning of the article, which is something that we didn't do in the past because we wanted to keep people on our pages for longer. We used to add the summary or conclusion at the end of the article.

Now, I write a summary at the beginning, or just a few bullet points with the conclusions from the article that I am writing.”

How many lines or words does that need to be?

“I haven't tested it to know exactly how many lines or words it needs to be, but I try to keep it short – no more than 30 words. I think that makes it easier for the LLMs to understand. Aleyda Solis mentioned that LLMs pick up answers from featured snippets, and featured snippets used to pick up answers from these short phrases, so that is one tip that you could try.”

Do you research what type of content LLMs are likely to feature, or do you just format your content so that it’s easier for LLMs to consume?

“I think it's important to do research, and I also try to research how people search on LLMs.

We have some tools now, where we can find some potential prompts. Even though they are in their early stages, you can use those.

For example, we have Profound, and we have Writesonic. Those are just a couple where you can potentially see how people might search for your services. It's still early to take that as a 100% ready-to-go strategy, because the technology behind tracking how people are searching in LLMs is quite expensive. This is just the beginning.”

How do you write unique content that LLMs are more likely to want to consume and feature?

“I promote people aiming for digital PR, and I think it will increase even more now, with people focussing on reputation and branding in LLMs, and with reputation and branding being increasingly important.

From what I have been testing so far, I try to combine information that's available online with internal information, and come up with insights, white papers, or guides that are unique. This way, you are increasing the chances of those articles or white papers being mentioned in an LLM.

I'm still testing. It's still early. One of the fun parts of everything that’s happening (if I can say that) is that I feel like we are going back to the basics. In the early days, we were trying to understand how Google crawlers worked in order to come up with strategies to rank higher in Google. Now, we try to understand how LLMs work and the ways that search behaviour is changing in order to come up with strategies tailored for LLMs and be where people are spending time online.”

Ramona, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Work on building a strong brand. You cannot go wrong with that.

It's a winning strategy, in the long term.”

Ramona Joita is an SEO Consultant and Founder. Find out more over at Marketez.ro.