SEO vs AIO: What Should I Focus On Right Now?

If you are looking for a way to grow your organic website traffic, you’ve probably been bombarded with acronyms. SEO. AIO. CRO. CTR. ROI and many others. AI-generated content is officially part of the digital landscape, and this means that things are changing.

Additionally, we can spot a change in user behaviour, where people, instead of searching on Google for an answer, choose to ask AI chatbots like ChatGPT to get straightforward answers. The good news for website owners is that AI chatbots also cite web sources from which they get the information, which results in organic traffic.

Yes, AI might have killed many websites, but right now it also comes with an opportunity to increase your traffic. For the last couple of years, search engine optimization was a total nightmare. There were many unexplainable core updates that shifted the results, and even websites that had done nothing wrong were penalized.

This is why so many website owners turn to AIO instead of traditional SEO. The question is, which is better?

Let’s find out.

First, Let’s Define the Players

SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization has been the primary source of organic traffic for most website owners. It is a strategy that helps search engines identify content and serve it to the right people on Google, Bing, or whatever engine the cool kids are using now.

Search Engine Optimization is making little (and sometimes big) tweaks to your website, saying, “Hey Bing, I’m relevant, trustworthy, and exactly what people are looking for.”

But with so many core updates, the SEO landscape has shifted. No,w most top results in the SERPs are picked with domain authority as the main measurement, which means that it is really hard for small and new websites to make it to the top.

But what’s SEO exactly? Well, website owners dive into keyword research and placement, optimizing their websites for fast loading times, getting quality backlinks, Meta descriptions, alt tags, headers, and creating human-first, valuable content.

In other words, SEO is creating content that is going to be recognized by search engines and making their job as easy as possible.

SEO is how people find you. It’s how your blog post ends up on page 1 instead of page 17. The only issue is that it cannot be controlled, and you don’t know whether you are doing a good job or not for months.

AIO

AIO, or AI Optimization, is the newer strategy that website owners use to get free organic traffic. But what is this? Well, instead of making your website content recognizable by search engines, they are optimizing their content for AI chatbots like ChatGPT.

The idea here is to ensure that ChatGPT crawls the website and serves your information to other users.

AIO aims to make content more easily understood and synthesized by AI, thereby increasing its chances of being included in AI-generated responses and snippets. With so many people using AI for research, the world of organic traffic is changing, and you’ll be surprised at how much traffic you can get from AI chatbots like ChatGPT.

However, AI systems don’t analyze keywords in the same way as traditional SEO. Instead, they analyze the meaning and context of the content to determine whether the information is relevant. Also, they check domain authority and website relevance.

AIO strategies include structuring content with clear headings, bullet points, summaries, and answering questions directly, just to make it easily digestible for AI. Remember, AI chatbots are optimized to preserve their resources, so finding the answer to the question as easily as possible is the best way for your website to be featured in an AI-generated response.

So… Should I Be Focusing on SEO or AIO?

I would say a bit of both. Search Engine Optimization is still not dead, no matter what people say. So, you can develop a system that will make your content both easily detectable by AI chatbots and, at the same time, be optimized for Search engines.

Let’s say that you run a horse racing blog, which is a competitive niche. You are probably highlighting the latest results from races, industry news, and even offering betting tips. But other, more reputable sites like TwinSpires offer betting calculators, expert picks, and have a better domain authority.

In that case, you should focus on both SEO and AIO. That’s the best way to get as many people as possible organically.

1. If You’re Just Starting Out with a New Website…

Focus on SEO first, with AIO as your assistant. You need the basics locked in:

• A clean site structure
• Fast loading speed
• Proper on-page optimization
• Understanding what your audience is even searching for

Despite the numerous changes primarily driven by Google, SEO remains crucial for generating organic traffic.

2. If You’re Trying to Compete in a Crowded Niche…

Use both SEO and AIO. That way, you’ll gain an advantage over your competitors. On top of that, AIO is much simpler than SEO; you just have to change your writing style and article structure a bit and aim for more straightforward answers.

How SEO and AIO Actually Work Together

Here’s the truth bomb: you don’t have to choose one or the other.

In fact, SEO and AIO complement each other beautifully.

• Good SEO helps your site get indexed and trusted by Google.
• Good AIO makes your content more conversational, credible, and structured, making it useful to AI tools and LLMs.

Let’s say you write an article like, “Best Horse Racing Games to Play in 2025.”

• SEO makes sure it ranks on Google.
• AIO makes sure it answers the question directly, sounds human, and gets picked up by AI tools that are crawling the web for helpful info.

So, learn more about AIO, and never say no to free organic traffic, especially if it requires only small tweaks to your website.

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