SEO Isn’t Dead – It’s Everywhere: Part 5

Given all we’ve discussed, I advocate a mindset shift: focus on “content penetration” across all discovery channels, rather than just traditional SEO rankings. I use the term content penetration to mean how deeply and widely your content has permeated the platforms and tools through which consumers find answers. It’s a holistic measure of visibility. 

Ask yourself: 

• Is my content visible on Google search results (both organic listings & new AI-powered snippets)? 
• Is it present on Bing & associated AI outputs? 
• Does it show up in voice assistant answers? 
• Is it referenced in community forums or Q&A sites relevant to my niche? 
• If someone asks a question on a generative AI platform (say, Perplexity or Bard), would my content be part of the response? 

If the answer to any of these is “no” or “not sure,” that’s a gap in penetration. The solution isn’t to abandon SEO, it’s to expand SEO to cover those bases. For example, if your brand has zero presence on YouTube or TikTok but those platforms are where people look for answers in your category, you might consider optimizing some video content (since even AI engines might cite or draw from transcripts of popular videos). If your competitors are consistently getting cited by AI and you aren’t, analyze what they’re doing – perhaps they run a highly informative blog that has attracted a lot of backlinks and thus authority. 

One thing I’ve learned working with big retailers and publishers: the more you “cover the field” with quality content, the more shots on goal you get in these new discovery mechanisms. It’s no longer just about “rank #1 for X keyword.” It’s about being the one providing value wherever the user might find it. Sometimes that’s your website ranking; sometimes it’s your content featured in a snippet; sometimes it’s your CEO’s quote being cited by an AI; sometimes it’s your product info being pulled into a shopping result or a visual search. SEO in 2025 is a team sport across platforms. 

This broader view also helps move the needle on something that often gets lost in pure SEO discussions: brand credibility. When your content is seen everywhere – when people keep bumping into your brand no matter how they search – that has a cumulative effect. They start recognizing you as the authority. I’ve had clients come to us at Altezza saying, “People mention that when they search for [topic], our articles come up everywhere. How do we do more of that?” That is content penetration at work. It wasn’t by accident, it was by design – executing a strategy that blended classic SEO with content marketing, PR, and now AI optimization.