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Direct answers to the questions people ask most about SEO, written to be cited by Google and AI engines.
Raechal AI research team, updated June 2026
Ask Raechal in chatSearch engine optimisation (SEO) is the practice of improving a website so it ranks higher in search results and gets found by the right people. It spans three areas: technical SEO (how easily engines crawl and index your site), on-page SEO (content and keywords), and off-page SEO (links and authority). The goal is more qualified organic traffic without paying for ads.
Read the full guideThere are four core types of SEO: technical SEO (crawlability, speed, indexation), on-page SEO (content, titles, internal links), off-page SEO (backlinks and brand mentions), and GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation), which optimises content to be cited by AI answer engines. Local SEO is a fifth specialisation for businesses targeting a specific geographic area.
The SEO techniques that work in 2026 are: publish genuinely helpful, well-structured content that satisfies a clear search intent; fix the technical basics (fast Core Web Vitals, clean indexation, valid schema); earn links and brand mentions from trusted sites; and structure pages so AI engines can extract and cite them. Keyword stuffing and thin pages no longer work and can trigger penalties.
Read the full guideTo learn SEO from scratch, start with how search engines crawl, index, and rank pages. Then practise on a real site: connect Google Search Console, fix technical issues, write content around questions people actually search, and measure what moves rankings. SEO is learned by doing and measuring, not by memorising tactics.
Read the full guideTechnical SEO is the work that makes your site easy for search engines and AI crawlers to access, render, and index. It covers site speed and Core Web Vitals, crawlability (robots.txt, sitemaps), indexation, mobile-friendliness, structured data, and HTTPS. If technical SEO is broken, even excellent content cannot rank, because engines never properly see or trust it.
Read the full guideE-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is the framework Google's quality raters and AI systems use to judge whether content is reliable enough to rank or cite. You strengthen it with named, credentialed authors, first-hand experience, accurate sourcing, and a trustworthy site. For AI search especially, clear authorship and factual accuracy decide whether a model quotes you.
Read the full guideGenerative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of structuring your content and data so AI answer engines, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, can extract, trust, and cite it. Where classic SEO targets blue links, GEO targets being the answer the AI gives. It relies on answer-first writing, self-contained factual passages, schema markup, and recognised entity authority.
Read the full guideTo rank in ChatGPT and Perplexity, make your content easy to retrieve and quote: lead each section with a direct answer, keep passages self-contained and factual, add FAQ and Article schema, and build topical depth so models treat you as an authority. These engines cite sources they can extract cleanly and verify, not the pages with the most keywords.
Read the full guideTo get cited by AI search engines, write answer-first content a model can lift verbatim: a clear question, a direct 40 to 60 word answer, then supporting detail. Back claims with specific facts and sources, mark content up with schema, and allow AI crawlers like GPTBot and PerplexityBot in robots.txt. Citations go to the clearest, most verifiable source, not the longest article.
Read the full guideAI search engines pick sources in three steps: retrieval (finding passages whose meaning matches the query), authority scoring (is this entity recognised and trustworthy), and extractability (can the answer be quoted cleanly). Pages that state facts plainly, use clear structure, and come from a recognised brand or author get cited most. Ambiguous or unverifiable content gets skipped.
Read the full guideTraditional SEO optimises for Google's ranked links using keywords, backlinks, and technical health. AI SEO (or GEO) optimises for being cited inside AI-generated answers, which rewards answer-first structure, factual density, schema, and entity authority. They overlap, clean technical SEO helps both, but AI search adds a new bar: your content must be easy to extract and safe for a model to quote.
Read the full guideTo appear in Google AI Overviews, rank in the top results for the query, answer the question directly in the first sentence, and structure content with clear headings, lists, and schema so Google can extract a passage. Overviews pull from pages that already show strong E-E-A-T and match intent precisely. Concise, factual, well-formatted answers are far likelier to be surfaced.
Read the full guideThe best AI SEO audit tool depends on your goal. For combined SEO plus GEO readiness in one pass, Raechal.ai audits technical health, content quality, and whether AI engines can cite you. Semrush and Ahrefs lead on deep technical crawls and backlink data at scale. The right pick is the one whose prioritised fixes you will actually act on, not the longest issue list.
Read the full guideYes. For a store with hundreds or thousands of product pages, an AI SEO audit tool is close to essential, because manual review cannot keep up with faceted navigation, duplicate product descriptions, and constant inventory changes. A good audit crawls at scale, flags duplicate and thin pages, validates Product and Review schema, and checks Core Web Vitals on image-heavy pages.
Read the full guideAn SEO audit checks four areas: technical health (crawlability, indexation, speed, schema), on-page content (titles, meta descriptions, intent match, thin or duplicate pages), off-page signals (backlink profile), and AI visibility (whether engines can cite you). Many tools, including Raechal.ai, offer a free first audit that returns a prioritised fix list rather than a raw dump of issues.
Read the full guideThe best keyword research tools surface real search demand, intent, and difficulty so you target terms you can actually rank for. Google Keyword Planner and Search Console give first-party data; Semrush and Ahrefs offer large keyword databases. For AI search, pair volume with intent and topic clustering, since AI engines reward topical depth over exact-match keywords.
To improve local SEO, claim and fully complete your Google Business Profile, keep your name, address, and phone consistent across the web, earn genuine reviews, and add LocalBusiness schema. AI assistants increasingly answer 'near me' questions directly, so structured, consistent, trustworthy business data is what gets you recommended in both Google Maps and AI answers.
Read the full guideThe most damaging mistakes with AI SEO tools are: publishing raw AI output without editing, treating every flagged issue as equally important, ignoring search intent, scaling thin pages, and writing about topics you cannot back with real expertise. The tools surface data and priorities well, but the judgement calls, what to fix first and what is actually true, still need a human.
Read the full guideQuestion set sourced from public Google autocomplete data
Run a free audit and see exactly how Google and AI engines read your pages, plus a prioritized list of what to fix.