SEO, SEM & GEO Optimization

AI-powered martech is dazzling and versatile.
To make it succeed, put a premium on training your team members — both human and digital.

The current promise of AI is to do more, quickly. At last week’s Pros & Content summit, stories underlining that were everywhere. Marketers are turbo-charging ideation and fast-tracking complex, agent-driven performance analysis. At Content Solutions, a humans-plus-AI approach gives us scale and speed that would have been unimaginable just five years ago.

But there’s something more around the corner. Generative AI brings a whole new approach to your marketing tech stack. Engaging with data just turned into talking with a friend. That has big implications for our work, touching our go-to-market strategies, deliverables and how we run our marketing teams.

Make way for the agents

One of the major coming trends is agentic AI — tools that can take on complex tasks by themselves, acting as “agents” for marketing teams. Knotch, the presenters of the Summit, rolled out their newest tool, Agent-C, which can string together their current agents into a kind of super-agent.

That kind of autonomy will take a big leap of trust — and its output may be a lot for human teams to oversee. But, it’s a must. Karthik Rau, Chief Executive Officer at Contentful, wonders if this calls for a new approach to our martech, one that’s less about setting dials and more about ongoing interaction. “I wonder if the way to think about [using AI] is not necessarily in terms of tools, but almost like instructing people,” he says.

Brian O’Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Scope3, agreed. “You need to ‘onboard’ your agents,” he said.“ They know where the databases are…. But they also need to know the philosophy and what your business does. You have to share your values your principles.” In other words, it’s like hiring an employee. You don’t just give them a task — you teach them your in-house way of doing things. “Any human or AI is going to need that to be effective.”

Bring your human team along

Not every flesh-and-blood marketer is equally prepared for the AI rollout — or new digital team members. This can present team leaders with unique challenges. When you’re onboarding tech that has all the hallmarks of a junior colleague, some feathers are bound to get ruffled.

“People immediately feel threatened and defensive, And that’s natural” says Jamie Roô, Head of Wealth Management Digital Content at Morgan Stanley. In the short term, she found that the answer was “a lot of sympathy and empathy.” But by including skeptical team members at the forefront of the conversation, “they became the subject matter experts” she says.

Of course confidence can go too far. Joe Lazer, former VP of Marketing at Contently says that some team members stretch the abilities of the tech. “Everyone thinks they’re a copywriter now. Everyone thinks they’re a creative director. And when that happens, you can start to lose certain things to the brand.” 

Rau sees this as a more holistic challenge. “I think there are a lot of analogies with how we manage teams that we have to start bringing into this concept of managing agents,” he says. Patience, education and defining limits will add up to “a different way of working.”

When the audience is AI, too

Marketers are still working for the person on the other end of the screen — the customer with a need to fill. But it’s important to recognize that, in the very near future, some of those customers (or their proxies) will be AIs themselves.

Take the case of the new “answer engines” — platforms like ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity. They’re eating away at traditional search, which means that to get in front of customers, you’ll need to convince them to include you. “If you’re not in their answer, you’re not in the conversation,” says Scott Gardner, Founder of New Media Advisors. 

The science of placing on answer engine results is evolving quickly, with plenty of black hat tactics winning in the short term. But at heart, the mission for content creators remains the same. “The fundamental things you do from an SEO perspective haven’t changed,” says Cooper Nelson, Senior Director of Content Strategy at the University of Phoenix. Deliver solid, useful answers — and don’t be stingy about the contributions of your brand.

At the moment, the challenges of balancing SEO and “GEO” (generative engine optimization) are tricky — and so are reporting results. Nelson recommends that you “set realistic goals to show incremental results. SEO isn’t what it used to be, so it’s about getting leadership to understand what success looks like now,” he says.

All of those players — the AI agents you bring online, the human staff that works with them and the broader AI landscape — will present new ways to engage. Brace for new kinds of conversation, and a new definition of success. Core to that will be bringing in a fourth kind of player: outside expertise. 

“There are these incredible technologies available to us that can really deliver in incredible ways,” said O’Kelly. “But we have to control them. We have to give them context, and we have to know how to instrument them and operationalize them.” That will require people, teams and products already at the far limits of this new frontier, to help brands understand the technology can bring their mission forward.

 

Author Bio

Jason leads the editorial team serving Content Solutions’ health and wellness content — overseeing both B2C and B2B content development. His teams have won awards both within the content marketing sphere — including Best Editorial, Best White Paper and Best Content Program in Healthcare from the Content Marketing Institute — as well as mainstream awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. As a journalist, Jason was written for The Atlantic, WIRED, the Washington Post, Nautilus and many other publications. Jason also heads up AI partnerships and development at Content Solutions.

I’ve been following football — yes, I’m calling it that, despite the potential for confusion, because I’m English — since I was eight years old. That was the year my dad took me to see Liverpool play, and I’ve supported them ever since. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to watch them compete in several finals, and I can say with confidence: There’s no more electric, emotional experience than watching your team in a football final. The passion of the fans is unlike anything I’ve encountered in U.S. sports.

In footballing terms, the pinnacle of achievement for most players is arguably winning the World Cup. And for those of us living in the U.S., we’ll have the rare opportunity to experience that spectacle up close next year.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the largest sporting event ever hosted in North America. With 16 cities across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico set to welcome millions of fans, it will be a moment of unprecedented scale — and complexity.

For brands stepping in as sponsors, the exposure is certainly valuable. But in a U.S. market where soccer is still growing into the mainstream, sponsorship alone won’t be enough. To resonate with American audiences and unlock long-term brand equity, strategic activation is essential.

We can help brands do more than show up. We craft custom, multi-platform programs that translate global moments into local relevance, centered around bespoke content designed for clients’ owned channels and print extensions that could also leverage the power of People Inc.’s trusted media brands.

Why activation matters in the U.S.

Soccer is the world’s game, but in the U.S., the professional game is still gaining traction. While youth participation is strong, many American fans are new to global tournament formats, the significance of international rivalries, or the cultural nuance behind each fixture.

This unfamiliarity presents an opportunity: Brands can play a vital role in educating, engaging, and connecting. But that won’t happen through a logo placement or generic media buy. It takes editorialized storytelling — which is strategic, localized, and audience-specific.

Our activation strategy: Brand-integrated, audience-focused

Our approach is built around pairing sponsor objectives with powerful, credible content environments. That means combining:

1. Custom content built for a brand’s own website, social platforms, apps, and CRM
2. Print experiences designed for distribution in key FIFA World Cup host cities
3. Opportunities for expansion across People Inc., the largest print and digital in North America

Client-owned channel content

We create brand-integrated content that lives on your digital and owned platforms — delivered in your voice, optimized for engagement, and built for scale. Examples include:

• Interactive digital hubs
• Custom video interviews or educational series
• CRM-integrated content series for customers and prospects
• Mobile app integrations aligned with World Cup themes (e.g., “Find Your Team,” financial prep, travel rewards, etc.)

Custom print that makes a local impact

In an event like the World Cup — where the experience is both physical and communal — print still can play a really powerful role. We, for example, can design and produce custom standalone print pieces (magazines, guides, booklets) tailored to the fan experience, the sponsor’s voice, and the city’s character.

These are ideal for:

• Distribution at local events or fan zones
• In-room placement at partner hotels
• Welcome kits and VIP experiences
• Handouts in retail or branch locations near stadiums

Print is tactile, portable, and deeply immersive — and when distributed strategically in host cities, it can amplify presence and brand storytelling in a uniquely memorable way. It can also serve as a long-lived keepsake when associated with a major event.

Extending reach with paid media

Additionally  because we are part of People Inc., we can also help to expand reach by partnering with our brands. This could include activations that coordinate with brands like: People, Travel & Leisure, Investopedia, Parents and Southern Living, to name a few.

Turning sponsorship into strategy

We don’t just tell great stories — we help brands own the narrative and thereby truly benefit from the sponsorship. A custom program can be built to educate new fans, elevate sponsor messaging, and generate real-world engagement in the places that matter most.

Whether it’s through your own digital ecosystem, custom print in the hands of fans, or integrations within our high-impact media network, we help transform World Cup sponsorship into something bigger: a brand-defining moment.

If you need help translating any kind of sponsorship, please hit me up. I’d love to talk strategy and execution!

 

Author Bio

Robin Riddle is the Chief Strategy Officer at Content Solutions. He works across B2B as well as B2C and specializes in financial services, insurance and healthcare. Prior to his time here, he led content marketing businesses at both The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. A passionate advocate for the value of content marketing, Riddle is also heavily involved in industry issues and speaks at many events on the topics of content marketing and native advertising.

When organic search volume fades, how do you reach an audience?

The AI device ‘Play’ signals a new era for direct access — and a warning for content marketers.

 

Since the switch to digital from print back in the early 2000’s, content marketers have relied on organic search as the main driver of their audience. But that foundation is eroding fast. As Google increasingly delivers answers directly on the search results page — often powered by its Gemini AI model — the traditional path from user query to branded content is fading. Zero-click search isn’t theoretical; it’s already here.

This shift has left brands scrambling to answer a critical question: If users aren’t visiting your site, how do you reach them?

OpenAI may have just offered one potential answer.

From Generative Models to Generative Access

OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s hardware startup, io, raised eyebrows across tech and media circles. The partnership aims to develop a new category of AI-native device—designed to foster more seamless, direct interaction with ChatGPT and potentially other AI tools.

But this move isn’t just about Ive’s design aesthetics or manufacturing capability. The real story here is about distribution—getting closer to the consumer without relying on third-party platforms. Cutting out the middle as it’s often referred to.

Like every brand, publisher, and platform, OpenAI is facing the growing challenge of reach. And today, that challenge is steep. Mobile access is largely controlled by Apple and Google, who both extract significant tolls and dictate experience standards. Meanwhile, the open web—once a relatively democratic space—is shrinking under the weight of AI-generated summaries, platform-native content, and closed ecosystems.

OpenAI’s response? Build your own lane.

Content’s Distribution Crisis

What’s happening to OpenAI is happening to every content creator. Creating great content is no longer enough. You need control over how, where, and when your audience engages with it. That’s becoming increasingly difficult:

• Organic search traffic is declining, replaced by AI-generated answers and summaries.
• Social referral traffic is fragmented, with algorithms favoring native posts, short-form formats and metering brands organic reach.
• Apps and OS-level controls create friction, limiting direct relationships and increasing costs.

The result? Brands are being pushed further from their audiences — forced to rent visibility from platform gatekeepers.

A New Path to the Consumer

OpenAI’s hardware ambitions represent a strategic attempt to bypass those gatekeepers. By building a device where the AI is the core interface—not just an app inside someone else’s ecosystem—they’re taking control of the distribution channel.

This shift could unlock major advantages:

• Direct user interaction, without intermediaries.
• Richer behavioral insights, enabling better personalization.
• Lower cost of access, by sidestepping platform fees and limitations.

For content marketers, the takeaway is urgent: it’s time to rethink distribution.

That doesn’t mean building your own device. But it does mean doubling down on every viable channel — email, chat, voice, SMS, YouTube, embedded media, AI integrations and even (in some cases) print. Without a billion-dollar acquisition which most of us don’t have access to, there’s no magic bullet — but ignoring the problem of organic search going away isn’t an option.

Final Thought

OpenAI’s acquisition of io isn’t just a hardware play—it’s a strategic play and a bet (albeit a very large one). As organic search fades and the open web becomes less, well “open”, every brand will face the same question: How do we reach people in a world where discovery is increasingly controlled?

The solution won’t come from SEO alone. It will come from designing smarter experiences, owning more of your delivery infrastructure, and staying relentlessly focused on where your audience is actually spending time.

 

Author Bio

Robin Riddle is the Chief Strategy Officer at Content Solutions. He works across B2B as well as B2C and specializes in financial services, insurance and healthcare. Prior to his time here, he led content marketing businesses at both The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. A passionate advocate for the value of content marketing, Riddle is also heavily involved in industry issues and speaks at many events on the topics of content marketing and native advertising.

Health exchanges need more than awareness — they need clarity.

Learn how smart content strategy drives understanding, trust and sign-ups. 

 

Millions of Americans visit state and federal health exchanges each year. Yet too many leave without enrolling. The problem? It’s not a lack of interest — but a lack of understanding. It’s hard to figure out how exchanges work, the costs of policies and that subsidies are available to people who qualify.

We’ve worked with healthcare organizations and public programs to help translate complexity into clarity. We’ve found that when people understand their options, they take action. That’s where content strategy becomes more than just a marketing tool — it becomes central to delivering effective messaging that can easily be understood by the audience.

Behavioral friction — not lack of interest — is the real enemy

The biggest barrier isn’t apathy, it’s confusion. Health exchanges operate at the intersection of healthcare, government and individual decision-making. That’s a lot to navigate, especially for someone unfamiliar with the process or unsure of what they might expect.

Content strategy can reduce behavioral friction by meeting users at key pain points:

• Interactive tools like eligibility quizzes or plan-finder checklists
• Smart FAQs that address top questions, such as “What if I miss the deadline?” or “How do subsidies work?”
• Step-by-step explainers that walk users through the process in plain language

Good content doesn’t just explain. It guides and empowers people to make decisions that are right for their individual circumstances.

Start with real user questions

Most consumers don’t start by visiting an exchange. They start on a search engine, asking things like:

• What are my options for health insurance without employer coverage?
• Can I get insurance if I’m self-employed?
• How much will health insurance cost me?
• Can I get financial assistance or subsidies?
• Is health insurance tax-deductible if I’m self-employed?

These questions are golden opportunities for engagement. Content designed to answer real questions builds trust, improves search visibility and starts the enrollment journey off right.

Empathetic messaging builds trust

Purchasing health coverage isn’t just a financial decision — it’s an emotional one. Content should reflect that reality. That means:

• Using language that reassures and explains, not overwhelms
• Showing faces and telling stories that reflect the diversity of your audience
• Featuring testimonials from real people who navigated the system successfully

Empathy increases comprehension. Comprehension increases conversion. If you don’t understand how it works, you won’t buy it.

Segment and personalize to increase engagement

The challenges facing a 26-year-old gig worker are different from those of a 50-year-old caring for an aging parent. To resonate, content must reflect those differences.

Messaging that is segmented by life stage, employment type, income level and language is critical. Use modular content frameworks to personalize across:

• Age groups
• Cultural backgrounds
• Language preferences
• Enrollment triggers (e.g., marriage, job loss, turning 26)

Go multilingual and multichannel

If your content isn’t accessible, it isn’t working. That means making it:

• Available in multiple languages
• Designed mobile-first
• Delivered through the channels your audience already uses — like YouTube, TikTok, WhatsApp and local community groups

Remember: The most helpful content is the content people can actually find and understand.

Think beyond open enrollment

While open enrollment is a key period, life events drive health coverage needs year-round — whether it’s losing a job, having a baby or aging off a parent’s plan.

Plan content around these trigger moments:

• “Lost your job? Here’s how to keep your coverage.”
• “Turning 26? What to know before you age out of your plan.”
• “Had a baby? You may qualify for special enrollment.”

This evergreen, SEO-optimized content keeps you top-of-mind when the moment matters most.

Partner with community messengers

Trust is often local. Religious groups, nonprofit health organizations and community clinics are often well positioned to engage underserved audiences.

You can support them with customizable, co-branded content:

• Flyers, videos or explainers they can distribute
• Simple toolkits that walk through the process
• Visual stories that feature real people from those communities

When the message comes from someone they trust, the impact increases.

Final thoughts

Enrollment isn’t just about getting attention — it’s about building confidence. And great content marketing is how you get there. Storytelling is an extremely effective way to explain complex subjects.

We help healthcare brands and institutions use content to educate, empower and activate the audiences they serve. A great example of this in action is this blog we helped Covered California launch.

If you need help building or re-visiting your existing content strategy, let’s talk.

Author Bio

Robin Riddle is the lead content marketing strategist at Content Solutions. He works across B2B as well as B2C and specializes in financial services, insurance and healthcare. Prior to his time here, he led content marketing businesses at both The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. A passionate advocate for the value of content marketing, Riddle is also heavily involved in industry issues and speaks at many events on the topics of content marketing and native advertising.