Refocus on topical authority

Pieter says: “Don't let AI take away your focus from your bigger SEO strategy.

Stay focussed on topics and topical authority.”

Should AI be part of your overall SEO strategy?

“With a lot of companies, everything seems to revolve around AI: getting ranked in ChatGPT, getting a spot in AI overviews, etc. That seems to be the main focus point for a lot of companies.

Brands are suddenly starting to add FAQs en masse, for FAQs that aren't even relevant and are way too broad. I had a client who suddenly started ranking number one for the word ‘bread’, even though they're a B2B ingredient supplier. Adding all of these FAQs shouldn't be your main focus. You should still remember who your audience is and what your SEO strategy is, as it used to be before ChatGPT suddenly came along.

A few years ago, we were seeing much more maturity in the SEO world. People were starting to think about EEAT and topical authority. If you looked at LinkedIn two years ago, these were the topics that people were talking about. Now, it's only about AI and how to rank there.

Obviously, it is important, but you shouldn't want to rank in these tools just for the sake of ranking; you still have to remember what topics are important for your company and for your interaction with your audience.

Take a step back. Make use of ranking in AI platforms like ChatGPT if it's a relevant interaction point for you and your audience, but not just for the sake of a vanity metric. That’s what a lot of SEOs are losing themselves in.”

How does a brand become a topical authority in 2026?

“First of all, get to know which topics are important for your company. Not every company can become a topical authority on every topic; you have to know which topics and talking points your brand stands out for. What makes you unique?

Once you determine the crossroads between what topics your company can successfully be an authority for and what resonates with your clients, then you can find the topics that are important for you as a brand, start talking about them, and show your expertise.

Think about the EEAT, build knowledge there, do your own research on these topics, and share what you can share.”

How do you know that you have a chance to rank for a topic and drive traffic because of that?

“It's not an easy process. You can’t just say where you want to go.

With our clients, we book an entire day and sit down with as many relevant people as possible. We sit around the table, talking with marketing, sales, support, and other decision makers and teams, and we start with a long list of topics. We get everybody's opinion on these topics and narrow them down. In the end, you will get to a topic where you can really stand out as a company.

What’s key is that you have to stand out. You have to have something to say about it. It can't be too broad. You really need to find that angle for your company to talk about, but once you have it, it's really powerful.

It's a challenge. As an agency, we have the same challenge. We also have to find our angle and not only talk about AI search, for instance, because it's way too broad.”

Do you benchmark competitors to see what they're creating as a topical authority, and is keyword volume for that topical authority also important?

“Looking at the competition is obviously key as well. You can start being a topical authority as a smaller company, but you have to find your niche. You can't try to win them all. If you're a bigger company, and you're a market leader already, you can go to the broader topics.

Looking at the competition is obviously something you have to do because you need to ask yourself: Why should a potential client choose you instead of your competitor? That should be part of your story.

When we're talking about keyword volumes, I don't think it's always that interesting. Obviously, we still have to think about keyword volumes, but I think we have to look at it more from a topical perspective. How much search volume is there for a specific topic?

It's the same story. If, within your niche, there's not much search volume, but it's super relevant search volume, then go for it. Whereas these broad generic terms or topics that are very wide and everybody talks about them don’t always bring that much value.

For me, topical relevance is much more important than keyword volume.”

How do you respond to clients who want to target topics with zero apparent keyword volume?

“If they really think it's an important topic, then we can talk about it. We can still try to find a strategy.

However, I always warn my clients when they only talk about keyword volume. Obviously, when there's zero volume in Keyword Planner, it becomes more difficult. However, for smaller companies, just because it says zero, that doesn’t mean that it has zero search potential.

If you look at what Google sees as an entity, being found somewhere within that entity is super important, and that can even mean talking about questions that officially have zero volume in Keyword Planner. I still try to focus on relevance more than volume.

It's the same with AI now. You can think about what has volume and which questions might be relevant prompts for a client, but if you just go around inserting questions that are not relevant to topics where you stand out, why does it matter that you are mentioned in an AI overview for those questions that are not relevant to you?

Focussing on the topic should always be key in your strategy.”

How do you establish the right type, style, and length of content to produce?

“You have to look at your audience first. See what kind of content they consume the most, and look at what works best.

Obviously, don't try to put your entire audience in one box. There are differences between them. I always try to talk with my client and ask them what their audience consumes the most, what has worked best in the past, and which channels they use.

If it's a clientele that's really active on LinkedIn, you have to think about making content that's good for LinkedIn. Share your content there. Don't just make a small teaser on LinkedIn linking to your website; be prepared to share your content outside of your website.

Don't start creating video just because you read somewhere that video is the next best thing. Again, if you think your audience is interested in seeing a video summary of the content you created, do it. This should all be carefully thought out in your content and media planning.

Also, look at what worked in the past, rework it for new channels and new media. This kind of thing is also very powerful.”

Is ChatGPT a channel, and how do you measure success there?

“For me, ChatGPT is a channel, it's just one of many. If you see the traffic coming in from ChatGPT, you would think it's a pretty lousy channel. It's not interesting at all.

You can look at more than just traffic, though, because there are ways of tracking visibility in ChatGPT already. You can see how often you're being mentioned as a brand, which makes it just as interesting as being mentioned on Reddit, for me. All of these channels can be interesting if your audience is there.

Reddit is a good example. We know that ChatGPT uses Reddit as a source, and Google also gives it a lot of attention. However, where I come from in Belgium, Reddit as a platform is not that big. It's not used that often. As a company, you only need to go there if your audience is there. If it's part of their customer journey, then you should consider using Reddit.

You have to think about the customer journey, and it can be different for every topic. If you have a number of topics where you want to be an authority, it really helps to focus on the different customer journeys that your clients might have. That's another reason why this focus on topics is so important. It can help you steer clear of content that's not relevant, but it also helps you determine which channels are most important and which content should go on which channel.

If you want to be visible in ChatGPT, you can't imagine that the entire customer journey will be happening in ChatGPT yet. Maybe it will someday, but for the moment, that’s not happening. It's being used earlier in the customer journey, where people are increasingly doing their research in ChatGPT.

Don't imagine everything happening there. You still have your website, your LinkedIn, and other platforms where it's relevant to be.

The same is true for backlinks. if you look at your Majestic account, and you’re trying to find backlink opportunities, only look at the ones that are relevant to your topic. Don't go adding backlinks wildly. Focus on the topics that are important for you, and the strategy that's important for you. It will have a much greater effect than just adding them blindly.”

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

“Regain focus. Don't look blindly at the shining object that AI is. Use it as a key channel, but make sure that your audience is still number one.

Write for your audience and create content for your audience in the places where they are. The rest will follow. The visibility in AI will follow. That's the main driver of success in 2026.”

Pieter Serraris is SEO Lead at OMcollective. Find out more over at OMcollective.com.