SEO in 2026

In this episode, Nikolas Monti-Potsolakis shares that SEO will be more about people, building relationships and getting to show empathy. Being in someone’s shoes. Understanding. And ultimately caring for their clients' business. For the person. Not just the numbers. Going above and beyond their needs and egos.

Discussion points include:

How can you measure the ROI of people?

What good does building relationships and showing empathy do for SEO?

How do you care for a client’s business and what good does that do?

How do you get to understand and care for a client’s business?

You say, don’t just focus on the numbers - what numbers should you focus on?

How do you build the areas around the numbers into a strategy?

How do you justify the value of relationships to your boss?

How will this approach continue to evolve in the future?

Amit Raj discusses the importance of relevance and depth when it comes to content and link building with David Bain.

Discussion points include:

What is relevance? Available vs retainable market / KD score

Links - context - what content attracts best links? Most relevant links - content pitching publications

What do you mean by depth?

What does this mean when it comes to content?

What does this mean when it comes to link building?

How do you measure relevance and depth?

Where does this fit into an overall SEO strategy?

Desmond Boateng shares the importance of not forgetting the human touch, hosted by David Bain.

Discussion points include:

How do you know when to use the human touch and when to rely on AI and automation?

When does the use of AI go too far?

You say that Google is smart enough to recognize your AI content - surely if you’re subtle with your use of AI content then this won’t be obvious to Google?

How do you go about demonstrating the human touch?

How does incorporating the human touch make a positive difference to Google?

Are there other search engines that you focus on too, or primarily Google?

In this episode, Julia Carolin-Zeng discusses the return to human written content, how the flood of AI content has caused a decrease in quality

and seeing a return to content written by humans with a human voice.

Talking points include:

How do you measure this decrease in quality?

Is AI not getting better and better?

How can human writers possibly compete with the speed of AI?

What does “with a human voice mean”?

What aspects of human writing can compete with AI?

Are search engines not ambivalent nowadays if something has been written by AI - is it not just all about user experience?

What is your process for creating an article?

Arnout Hellemans shares that SEO in 2025 is a lot about task completion and query satisfaction. This means that UX and CRO will start to play an even bigger part in the ordering of documents.

Discussion points include:

What do you mean that SEO in 2025 is a lot about task completion and query satisfaction?

How do you optimize for task completion and query satisfaction?

What role will UX and CRO play in SEO

What metrics will Google look at specifically?

What are some examples of UX and CRO improvements that a site can make?

How do you measure the impact of the improvements for UX and CRO that you make?

How does UX and CRO impact the overall content strategy?

How should an SEO with in-house UX and CRO teams?

Where does brand fit in?

Jade Pruett shares the importance of focusing on creating original, expert-driven content with real stories and insights - and that Google rewards value over keyword stuffing.

Discussion points include:

What does the best original content look like at the moment?

What do you mean by expert-driven content?

Can you use internal and external experts?

What kind of real stories and insights do Google prefer?

What is your preferred way of producing this type of content?

Should we try to produce vide, audio and written content at the same time?

How do you structure your content for maximum impact? (Visual content and coding)

Do you advise creating social posts from this content?

How does expert-driven content fit into a marketing strategy?

In this episode, Fabio Embalo shares that in 2025, SEO strategies will prioritise user experience, leverage AI-driven content and branding synergy, and emphasise mobile-first indexing, as search engines evolve to deeply understand user intent and content relevance.

Discussion points include:

How do we use AI and Machine Learning to analyse search trends?

And what about content strategies - how do we use AI and Machine Learning to refine that?

Can we use it to better understand user intent?

How is search changing through the more prominent use of visual and voice search?

And how is mobile use evolving and how is that impacting SEO?

How do you optimise for user experience?

Is quality always better than quantity?

Where does branding fit into this?

According to Heike Knip's conversation with David Bain, accessibility will be a ranking factor in 2025.

Topics discussed include:

Why will Accessibility be a ranking factor?

How important will it be?

What does Accessibility seem more important now than it used to be?

How will it impact rankings?

What legislation is going to enforce this?

What will SEOs and UX professionals have to do to comply with the law?

How will they know that their accessibility has improved?

What software can they use to monitor their site accessibility performance?

What software can they use to find new accessibility issues?

Read the full transcript of Heike's interview at https://majestic.com/seo-in-2025/heike-knip

Sara Fernández Carmona shares the importance of optimizing for both search engines and users. Hosted by David Bain.

Discussion points include:

How would you define accessibility?

In 2025, the European Union will enforce the European Accessibility Act - how would you summarise that and what does that mean for SEOs?

What are the areas that providing good accessibility offers beyond visual impairments?

-Cognitive disabilities: clear and straightforward content benefits those with cognitive challenges.

-Auditory disabilities: transcripts and captions make audio content accessible.

-Motor disabilities: ensuring keyboard navigability helps users who cannot use a mouse.

-Temporary disabilities and situational impairments: accessibility also addresses temporary disabilities and situational impairments: for example, a person with a broken arm might find it difficult to use a mouse but can navigate via keyboard, and a parent holding a baby might need to use voice commands instead of touch gestures.

And does inclusive language form part of this?

What are the business benefits?

What are some practical steps to get started with better accessibility today?

Billie Geena Hyde shares that Accessibility is sexy again (with the changes to the European Accessibility Act). Hosted by David Bain.

Discussion points include:

What changes have we seen to the European Accessibility Act?

How does this affect SEOs?

What are examples of the real data and facts around accessibility?

How do we measure the value of improving accessibility?

What are some big opportunities for SEOs?

Can we use AI to assist with this?

How does this fit into a digital strategy?