SEO in 2026

Matt Kohli shares that traditional B2B clients are years behind through no fault of their own, and if you don't actively educate them, they end up making renewal and budget decisions without any real ability to judge the value you're delivering. Talking points include: The Environment Gap, Not an Intelligence Gap: Why traditional B2B sectors like manufacturing, engineering, and construction lag behind in search maturity due to relationship-driven business models rather than a lack of capability. The Danger of Outdated Expectations: How legacy views on SEO from traditional marketing specialists lead to misaligned budgets, and why the few competitors who take search seriously capture disproportionate market share. Baking Education Into the Delivery: Why proactive client education must be integrated into agency workflows to ensure stakeholders can accurately evaluate the long-term value of organic growth. Centralizing Transparency with Custom Tooling: How internal hubs like Fortitude HQ—unifying first-party performance data, transparent task tracking, and streamlined ticketing—eliminate the traditional "black box" of SEO reporting. Proactive Contextual Briefings: The power of delivering regular, bite-sized updates explaining what is changing in search and sector dynamics, translating macro-algorithmic shifts into actionable commercial meaning for clients. The Onboarding and Pitch Advantage: How embedding a dedicated search landscape session directly into client onboarding or initial sales pitches aligns expectations from day one and builds long-term trust.

Maryanna Franco shares that citation visibility is very 2025. In 2026 SEO can only move the needle by building stronger brand–category co-occurrence and contextual signals, because being part of AI's bibliography doesn't mean being part of its shortlist. Discussion points include: The Citation Fallacy: Why being cited in an AI response's bibliography is entirely different from being recommended, and how a high volume of citations can create a dangerously misleading illusion of true brand visibility. Co-Occurrence vs. Topical Authority: How establishing strong brand–category co-occurrence connects your entity directly to the exact commercial category you want to dominate, moving far beyond generic topical authority. The Content Volume Trap: Why publishing thousands of pages demonstrating expertise no longer guarantees a spot on AI's shortlist when a buyer asks for recommendations in your category. The Power of External Validation: The crucial role of third-party mentions in forging unbreakable category associations when your brand, expertise, and category consistently appear together across the wider web. Mastering Query Fan-Out: How AI search behavior deconstructs user intent into a wide web of sub-queries, requiring your brand to maintain contextual relevance across the entire conceptual tree rather than just optimizing for a single head term. Redefining Performance Metrics: Why modern SEO measurement must sharply distinguish between being referenced as a background source, being passively mentioned, and actually securing a spot among recommended market leaders.

Kseniya Dvarakouskaya says that the biggest mistake in international SEO in 2026 is treating localization as the last step — real ranking growth in new markets starts with local keyword research from scratch, not translating what already works in English. Talking points include: Why translation is not localization when it comes to SEO — and where teams lose ranking potential - What local keyword research actually looks like (native speakers, local SERPs, market-specific search intent) - Cultural differences in search behavior — examples from Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish markets - Common mistakes: word-for-word translation of English keywords, ignoring local competitors, mixing Simplified and Traditional Chinese, using LATAM Spanish for Spain - Real case: what changes when the localization team is involved from day one vs at the end of the launch - How localization teams and SEO teams should collaborate in practice

In YMYL spaces like health, misinformation isn't just an SEO problem — it's a user safety problem. Macmillan Cancer Support shares how they proactively fight misinformation while staying visible in an AI-driven, zero-click search world. Talking points include: - Why is misinformation especially dangerous in YMYL sectors like health? - How does Macmillan approach content strategy proactively rather than reactively? - Which E-E-A-T signals matter most for building trust at scale? - How do you issue corrections without undermining user confidence? - How do you stay visible in AI-summarised, zero-click results? - What tools help you catch misinformation trends early? Read the full transcript of Sean's interview at https://majestic.com/seo-in-2026/additional-insights/sean-barber

Carlos Manuel Sánchez Donate shares that sitemaps are often treated as an afterthought, but they're a direct line of communication with both search engines and LLMs about what matters on your site. Splitting and customizing them by content type can unlock better crawl visibility and sharper Search Console auditing. Talking points: - Why do you think sitemaps are so underrated in SEO today? - How exactly do sitemaps help LLMs understand a site better than llms.txt? - What's your process for splitting content into separate sitemaps? - Any real example where sitemap segmentation improved indexing or visibility? - How do segmented sitemaps make Search Console auditing easier? - What's a common sitemap mistake you see sites making? Read the full transcript of Carlos's interview at https://majestic.com/seo-in-2026/additional-insights/carlos-sanchez-donate