AI Has Changed SEO—Here’s How Vexing Media Is Helping Clients Win

The last decade of digital marketing and online search ranking was a massive race to publish more. “Shipping” out content as frequently as possible was how to win the game. For quite some time, it was what put you top-of-mind, top-of-social-feeds, and at the top of internet search rankings. Now we’re here to tell you that all of that has shifted. This is because of rapidly changing technologies, content saturation, and evolving human behavior. The next decade is calling us to dial down our frequency, and instead focus on publishing what matters. 

At Vexing Media, we’re guiding our clients through an SEO landscape where generative AI is answering questions right on the results page, where thinly sliced social posts fade into an overcrowded environment filled with background noise,all of which is making helpful, well‑structured content the star.

Keep reading to find out how search is changing, what is still working, and the SEO and marketing playbook we’re working off of to stay on top of it all for our clients at Vexing Media.

What Changed in Search

1. Google’s AI Overviews are here. Since May 2024, Google has been rolling AI-generated summaries into their search results for hundreds of millions of users in the U.S. These overviews contain links with the option for users to click to learn more, but the data is showing that often fewer clicks to websites are resulting for basic queries.

2. Zero‑click searches are rising. Independent analyses using Similarweb data show a growing share of searches end without a click. In 2025, Search Engine Land reported U.S. organic clicks down year-over-year and zero‑click up; SparkToro’s 2024 study underscored the same macro trend. And it makes sense. Why dive deeper into the content if you’ve already received the answer you needed? In short, this means that if you want people to come over to your website you have to earn the click with content people can’t get from a one‑paragraph AI summary.

3. Google cracked down on low‑quality, scaled content. The March 2024 core update and spam policy refresh targeted “scaled content abuse,” expired domain abuse, and “site reputation abuse.” This means that mass‑produced, derivative pages (AI‑generated or not) would lose ranking and original, helpful work should win. Policy language was tightened again later in 2024.

Bottom line: Search is becoming more answer‑oriented, less click‑happy, and far less forgiving of fluffy filler content.

What Still Works

Google’s own guidance hasn’t changed: create helpful, reliable, people‑first content that demonstrates E‑E‑A‑T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust). This means content from first-hand perspectives with clear sourcing and author credentials, along with content that truly solves problems.

Speed and UX still matter. Google replaced FID with INP as a Core Web Vital in March 2024, emphasizing real‑world responsiveness to clicks/taps. Fast, responsive pages are table stakes for ranking and for getting users to stick around. 

The 2025 rater guidelines again center on E‑E‑A‑T and Needs Met. Human raters use these to evaluate if results are actually serving the searcher. Basically, it’s all about providing the information that you promise you are going to provide in your Meta snippets.

Why Thin Daily Posts Aren’t Cutting It

The web is saturated. Flooding feeds with micro‑posts or chasing every minor keyword isn’t a strategy; it’s a treadmill that no longer takes your organization where you want it to go. AI Overviews surface short answers, which means it’s now your job is to offer the deeper, uniquely valuable answer. Provide original data, share real, lived experiences, process walkthroughs, and provide locally sourced knowledge. These are what earns citations, shares, and website visits. 

Consistency still matters, especially for nonprofits building trust with donors and stakeholders.it just a little different these days. We coach steady, predictable publishing with a sustainable cadence around meaty, useful topics that visitors are likely to reference or return to. Think impact stories, in-depth how‑to guides, event recaps with follow-up resources, and evergreen hubs you update over time.

Your 2025 SEO Checklist

1. Publish for people, prove it to machines
   
   • Start with the user’s question; answer directly, then go deeper with additional insights that back up your answer while offering more resources.
     
   • Add first‑hand experience (photos, quotes, lessons learned), clear bylines, and references. This aligns with E‑E‑A‑T’s people‑first guidance.
     
2. Build topical authority
   
   • Create pillar pages, such as comprehensive guides, and support them with focused sub‑articles.
     
   • Internally link them so users (and web crawlers) can navigate the topic logically.
     
3. Design for AI Overviews & answer engines
   
   • Use scannable HI/H2/H3s, Q&A sections, succinct definitions, and plain‑language summaries.
     
   • Surface unique insight. It’s the thing an AI can’t synthesize without you. Industry analyses suggest structure + clarity improves inclusion/attribution in AI‑enhanced result layouts.
     
4. Strengthen your entity footprint with structured data
   
   • Implement Organization schema with name, logo, address, and contact when setting up local profiles with google, bing, and other search engines.
     
   • Use supported schema types (Article, Event, Product, FAQ where appropriate) from Google’s search gallery. These help search understand and visually feature your content.
     
5. Own your brand demand
   
   • Grow direct relationships: use email marketing, community outreach, and PR. Taking a storytelling‑first approach earns branded searches and direct visits that AI summaries can’t disintermediate.
     
6. Optimize UX and performance
   
   • Optimize scripts and keep interactions snappy. Fast sites convert better and rank more consistently.
     
7. Governance beats guesswork
   
   • Publish on a predictable cadence, update winners quarterly, and combine overlapping posts.
     
   • Track Search Console queries and CTR to iterate deliberately.
     

How Vexing Media keeps clients ahead

At Vexing, we start with people. Before briefs or keywords, we ask: Whose problem are we solving? Then we pair that empathy with disciplined execution. We use AI to research, cluster questions, and outline options. It’s never used to mass‑produce generic posts. Editors and subject‑matter experts craft the voice, verify facts, and add the lived experience machines can’t. This aligns with Google’s stance: it’s not about how content is made; it’s about whether it’s helpful.

Our web development team ships Core Web Vitals‑friendly builds, schema structured correctly, and clean information architecture, so humans and crawlers find what they need quickly.We also implement and maintain Organization markup so your brand is understood across the knowledge graph by using the structured data Google is currently supporting.

Finally, we plan beyond the SERP: newsletter growth, PR placements, and content designed to be cited, shared, and bookmarked. For nonprofits, we pair depth with dependability. Our experience has demonstrated that consistency builds trust while quality earns amplification.

AI didn’t kill SEO; it raised the bar. The winners will be the organizations who tell the truest stories, structure their knowledge clearly, and respect their users’ time. Luckily for us, that’s the work we love to do.

Want an audit or a sprint plan tailored to your site? Let’s talk.