0-Click SEO. How to win the visibility battle on Google.

 

Recently, I gave a talk at We Make Future, a fantastic conference held in Bologna, Italy, about implementing a 0-click SEO strategy and using Google Visibility as a branding tool.

Afterwards, I thought it could be helpful to record this video and share the ideas I presented, especially given the current state of SEO.

I believe this conversation is timely because of what we’re witnessing in Search today: a major shift in how we must approach Google, not just as a traffic source, but as a medium for brand awareness and attention.

The decline of clicks (and why it matters)

Since the rollout of AI Overviews, we’ve seen a sharp and measurable drop in organic clicks.

It’s a pattern echoed across LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter), where many SEOs are sharing similar stories.

Barry Schwartz called it “The Great Decoupling”, aka the moment when impressions and clicks began to drift apart.

But let’s be clear, this isn’t entirely new.

The reduction of clicks from Google Search has a name. We’ve known it for years as 0-click search.

AI Overviews have simply amplified and accelerated this behaviour.

Take a look at this slide from June 2019, when Rand Fishkin first defined the phenomenon.

 

And this was the situation just last year, before AI Overviews were officially launched (then called SGE).

In Europe, nearly 60% of searches were already 0-click. The US was only slightly better.

We’ve been here before

This isn’t even new for digital marketing as a whole.

Ask any social media manager what happened in 2014 when Facebook began suppressing organic post reach, especially for posts with links.

Organic visibility tanked, and referral traffic nearly vanished overnight.

Now, in Search, we’re facing a similar perfect storm, as Michael Bonfils recently put it during a conversation we had for The Search Session.

1. CTR is down.
2. Search volume is down.
3. And in Paid Search, CPC is skyrocketing.

So, what should SEOs optimise for now?

If traffic is no longer the primary value Google provides, because it’s shrinking, then what should we be optimising for?

The answer is: visibility.

But not visibility for its own sake. That’s just noise.

As Duane Forrester said in another Search Session, we now live in the Attention Economy.

Visibility → Awareness → Attention → Memorability

So if we optimise for visibility, it must lead to something more:

1. Visibility fuels awareness.
2. Awareness earns attention.
3. Attention builds memorability.

And memorability is the true end goal, because when we are memorable:

• People search for us directly.
• We generate branded queries.
• We get typed-in traffic.
• We own our homepage traffic.

This leads to something even more powerful:

We become part of the user’s search history, or more precisely, part of their Chrome history.

That’s essential for being resurfaced by Google in the age of hyper-personalised search.

From SEO to Search Everywhere Optimisation

Today, we’re surrounded by acronyms: GEO, AIO, LLMO, and more keep popping up.

But one of the most meaningful definitions emerging recently is Search Everywhere Optimisation.

It is an old redefinition of SEO that has been resurfaced by Rand Fishkin

This concept goes beyond traditional Search Engine Optimisation.

Because let’s face it, we’re no longer optimising for search engines, if we ever really were.

We’re optimising for visibility wherever search happens, across all platforms, not just Google.

The core principles of Search Everywhere Optimisation

Rankings don’t equal traffic

Ranking #1 doesn’t guarantee clicks, especially in AI Overviews, where everyone shows up at #1.

So the goal is no longer just to rank, but to influence behaviour.

It’s not about position. It’s about memorability.

And if memorability is our key metric, then what truly matters is:

• How much visual and semantic space do we occupy on the SERP?
• How can we shape perception and decisions through the elements Google displays?

Be where your audience pays attention

This means going where your users are:

• Reddit.
• Niche forums.
• YouTube.
• Social Media platforms.
•  And yes, still Google.

But here’s the mistake: some brands forget that Google itself is still part of the attention ecosystem.

So we need a strong, visible, branded presence on Google, even if that presence doesn’t always convert directly into traffic.

How to build Visibility: start with architecture

I’ve discussed this for years, and while I won’t rehash every step here, I recommend revisiting this older post of mine.

Although a bit dated, its core concepts are still entirely relevant.

The Key Idea is to optimise your site’s architecture first.

That means working with ontologies and taxonomies, not just flat content lists or ecommerce filters.

Why?

Because your users don’t think in catalogue categories.

They think, for instance, in an ecommerce specialised in Star Wars: Legion and similar tabletop games, in terms of:

• Factions (Rebels, Empire, Mercenaries).
• Scenarios (“Which minis do I need to recreate the Battle of Scarif?”).
• Use cases (“Best paints for weathering Legion minis”).

You won’t find those terms in your product feed, but they exist in the search behaviour.

And they’re visible if you watch the SERP closely.

Let Google teach you

Much of this intel comes directly from Google itself.

Today, also AI Overviews are a goldmine for discovering user mental models.

Look at the SERP elements:

• Blue links = traditional results.
• Grey links = query expansion triggers.

Grey links are not links to websites; they’re links to new SERPs, sometimes even to secondary AI Overviews.

For example, clicking a grey link might open a search like: “Vallejo paints for Star Wars: Legion troopers”.

That’s a user journey you should be targeting.

It’s a signal to cluster your architecture around how people explore topics, across entity, intent, and format.

Content Hubs are not just for blogs

A common misconception: “Content Hubs = Informational Articles.”

Yes, hubs often include blog posts, but that’s not the full picture.

A true Content Hub:

• Reflects your full knowledge about a topic.
• It is supported by your site architecture.
• Includes ecommerce pages, visual assets, FAQs, guides, and community touchpoints.
• Aligns with the search journey across exploration, consideration, and decision.

And when done right, it gives you visibility across search surfaces, including AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, PAA, Merchant features, and more.

In short:

• Stop thinking of SEO as a content checklist.
• Start thinking of Search Everywhere Optimisation as an ecosystem design challenge.
• Build taxonomies based on how people search, where they search, and why they search.

Visibility starts with structure. And structure leads to systems and not just scattered content.

If people is spending his time on Google moving from search to search and to another search and maybe going to ChatGPT and then returning to Google to then ending his search journey – you know, the classic Messy Middle – then, in this case what we should do is to create a Content Hub that is targeting all the phases of the Messy Middle: Exploration and Evaluation.

Given how Google’s SERPs are now structured, where each type of SERP feature is designed to match a specific kind of search intent, it’s clear that Google aims to be helpful by showing the right feature for the right query.

So, we need to understand that if users are in the Exploration phase of the Messy Middle, the content types most likely to appear (and be effective) will be educational posts and videos, and visual guides.

If users are in the Evaluation phase of their journey, we might consider being present on platforms like Reddit or other user-generated content (UGC) sites where reviews and discussions happen.

Then, when the user is about to move from the Exploration and Evaluation loop into the decision phase, we need to focus on content like product pages, merchant features, and similar elements that support conversion.

Creating content just for the sake of it – or trying to individually target every People Also Ask question or every Query fan-out – is not an effective way to win visibility across the user journey.

Instead, you need a structured approach. You must build a system.

However, with the introduction of AI Overviews, and we can also think of AI Mode in the future and embedded inside the classic search, architecture surely is important – a foundational task – but it’s not enough anymore.

Why?

If visibility is now the main goal for being present in the SERPs, and we’re shifting from aiming for clicks to aiming to make our brand memorable, then we need to start thinking about other things that must be addressed.

We need to take care of everything from the very first moment a potential user sees us in the SERPs.

That’s why I believe the classic E-E-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) are still very relevant.

Because in a single SERP, we must present ourselves as experienced, credible, and trustworthy, especially if we want to capture the attention of users looking at features like AI Overviews.

 And all of this, of course, should guide users toward our goal of hyper-personalisation.

The big mistake that has often been made with E-E-A-T is treating it as a concept made up of specific actions that are assumed to be direct ranking factors.

On the contrary, we should think of E-E-A-T as a semiotic framework.

E-E-A-T represents a broad set of signs that indicate what quality content looks like, specifically in how it conveys meaning, builds trust, and signals relevance.

Because when we talk about language, it’s not just about semantics.

Language shapes meaning. The queries people use don’t just reveal their search intent; they also reveal the emotion behind the search, and the personal context of the person performing it.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

These two queries – “best Rebel units for beginners” and “how to paint Rebel unit camo” – might seem similar, but in reality, they’re very different.

The first query signals that the user is in the exploration phase of the Messy Middle. They’re likely a new player who wants to educate themselves to play Star Wars: Legion more effectively.

In contrast, “how to paint Rebel unit camo” suggests the user already has some knowledge and is looking for something practical and hands-on; this places them in a more advanced, executional stage of their journey.

So, these two queries don’t just require different content formats; they also reflect different types of users we’re addressing when we create that content.

An even better example is the keyword ‘Painting Stormtroopers.’

This can be seen as a seed keyword for two very different queries: ‘Painting Stormtroopers for fun’ and ‘Painting Stormtroopers scheme for tournament.’

While the core topic is the same, the context completely changes the meaning.

One query is casual and hobby-oriented, the other is competitive and goal-driven.

That’s why we need to consider not just the keyword, but the context in which it’s used.

And this becomes even more important when we think about how AI Mode and query fan-out work, aka how large language models like Gemini (which powers AI Mode), ChatGPT, and others interpret and expand queries to cover different intents and angles.

People often move from short, synthetic queries to longer, more conversational ones.

That’s why it’s impossible for a large language model (like in AI Mode) to identify the most relevant sources unless it breaks down, or explodes, the original query into all the smaller, implied questions hidden within it.

For example, if I search something like: ‘I’m painting Star Wars: Legion Pathfinders for display and I’m unsure if I should use acrylics, oils, or both’, that kind of query is very typical in AI Mode or ChatGPT.

And even though it’s just one question, it implies many other sub-questions.

So, we should use the original question and its query fan-out to check whether our site architecture includes content that properly addresses all the expanded sub-questions, or if there are content gaps we need to fill.

It’s not just about creating one super-long-form piece of content.

The real goal is to understand how to optimise our content so that individual chunks can be visible and useful for all the sub-questions implied by a conversational search.

As I mentioned earlier, this starts with analysing the entities, aka what people are searching for about the products, services, or topics we cover.

But within the Messy Middle, we also need to consider two additional layers:

1. The emotional drivers behind the search.
2. The tone people use when they express their needs.

This helps us create content that not only ranks but grabs attention from the very first glance in the SERPs, boosting memorability and increasing the chance of being included in hyper-personalised search results.

So, truly succeeding in search today means learning to read between the lines of a query, aka not just responding to it directly with another generic piece of content.

However, if the SERPs are becoming a place where visibility is the most important objective, then, within the broader context of Search Everywhere Optimisation, as defined by Rand Fishkin, the SERPs themselves can act as a trigger.

They can initiate a search journey that we can strategically target with our content and website.

The trigger: what is it?

The trigger is the moment before the exploration and evaluation loop begins. It’s where the search journey starts.

When I spoke about emotional drivers, this is where they matter most: at the trigger phase of the Messy Middle.

We don’t always search because we need a specific piece of information. Often, a search begins because of an emotion.

For example, when I was watching the TV series Andor, it reignited my passion for Star Wars, for painting miniatures, and for the Star Wars: Legion game.

Emotions like nostalgia, aspiration, or the desire for a challenge kicked in. That emotional spark made me want to start painting mini soldiers again.

So I began searching things like: “How to play Star Wars: Legion Pathfinders.”

It wasn’t because I was already painting them at that moment—it was because an emotion triggered the desire to explore.

And this kind of trigger can happen directly on the SERPs.

Search features themselves can act as emotional or curiosity-based triggers:

• a video thumbnail.
• a discussion thread.
•  a “People Also Ask” question.
• a striking image.

For instance, I might click on a video right from the SERPs, without even going to YouTube. While watching, I may not care much about how to play with Rebel Pathfinders.

What triggers my search journey is noticing how the miniatures are painted in the video, and wanting to learn how to replicate that paint scheme.

How can we reverse-engineer search triggers?

As I mentioned earlier, especially during the Exploration phase, we know that informational content, often in various formats, is what dominates the search features.

One of the most common formats is video, which is why platforms like YouTube are so valuable.

So, how do we reverse-engineer what triggers a search?

YouTube Comment Mining

Find the most relevant YouTube videos on your target topic.

Then extract and analyse the comments to identify:

• What excites people?
• What confuses them?
• What inspires them?

You can use AI tools or sentiment analysis models to process this data and identify emotional patterns tied to the topic.

Reddit & Forum Mining

Reddit is another goldmine. It helps you identify:

• Which subreddits are relevant to your topic.
• Which thread titles receive the most upvotes (and therefore attention).
• What kinds of doubts, emotions, and repeated themes appear.

Once you gather this data, perform sentiment analysis on top threads and discussions to understand the emotional tone they convey.

That tone is the emotional trigger you want to reflect in your content, whether it’s a SERP snippet, a featured snippet, a video preview, or a chunk used in AI Overviews.

Use People Also Ask (PAA)

PAA is also a valuable signal. It reveals the early-stage exploratory questions people ask, the ones that often start a journey.

Each question is a clue to what could trigger a deeper search path.

Key action: create trigger-oriented content

Once you’ve mapped the triggers:

• Create shorts and videos designed to emotionally engage and spark action.
• Be active on Reddit or at least adopt Reddit-style blog titles that mimic how real communities ask questions.
• Tailor your language and emotional tone to match what users already respond to on platforms like Reddit and YouTube.

Especially for visibility in AI Overviews or AI Mode, you want your content to match the tone and structure of the sources LLMs like Gemini tend to pull from.

Go beyond semantics and think about emotion and tone

Don’t just generate semantic embeddings for your content and queries; classify each one by tone and emotion.

This will help ensure your content resonates not just logically, but emotionally, increasing its chances of being surfaced, noticed, and remembered.

In short: to win visibility today, especially in AI-driven search, you must reverse-engineer what emotionally triggers users to begin a search, then build content that mirrors those emotional cues, tones, and real community language.

Once we have done our analysis, we proceed with clustering and, finally, conduct a manual review for the uncertain cases.

The results are substantially these:

As you can see, a query like “how to paint Han Solo for display” isn’t just a technical question.

Yes, we should provide a step-by-step guide, but the intent behind the query goes beyond gameplay: it’s artistic.

The users asking this question likely wants to showcase their painting skills.

So, we need to nudge our content to reflect the artistic nature of this query.

With experience and by analysing how certain emotions map to specific SERP features, we can begin to understand which formats work best for different emotional triggers.

For example:

• A strong emotional trigger, like nostalgia, is often best served through videos or image carousels.
• A more casual curiosity or practical interest may align better with discussion forums or instructional videos.

If we’re competing for attention, we need to trigger that attention right from the start, based on how we appear in the SERPs.

That’s why smart brands design content that’s not just useful or aligned with search intent, but also capable of sparking a search journey that leads to lasting brand memorability.

Targeting micro-moments

The trigger is only the first phase of the Messy Middle.

After that, users enter the loop of Exploration and Evaluation.

This is where we should apply the concept of micro-moments, a framework Google introduced nearly a decade ago.

The classic four micro-moments are:

1. I want to know
2. I want to go
3. I want to do
4. I want to buy

But how can we accurately determine which micro-moment a query targets?

Most SEO tools give us some idea of search intent, but they tend to be overly generic.

However, if we combine the query with the search features shown in its SERP, we can often pinpoint the exact micro-moment.

That insight only comes from actually looking at the SERP and using tools correctly, not just relying on automated intent tags.

Each micro-moment tends to align with specific SERP features.

“I want to know” can refer to:

• Fresh information (e.g., news boxes, trending topics)
• Theoretical information (e.g., definitions, explanations)
• Practical information (e.g., tutorials, “People Also Ask”)

“I want to do” SERPs often shift tone and structure, showing how-to videos, guides, visual step-by-steps, etc.

“I want to go” can be:

• Physical, hence Google Maps, local listings.
• Virtual, hence Product listing pages (PLPs), AI Overviews recommending sites.

In ecommerce, the “I want to go” moment might involve features “Where to buy online” or  “Where to buy in store.

The “I want to buy”, finally, breaks into two sub-phases:

• Pre-purchase decision phase, when the user wants to buy but still needs guidance. This is a critical moment for ecommerce brands to influence decisions with reviews, comparisons, buying guides, etc.
• The transactional phase, when the user already knows what they want and is ready to buy. This is when features like popular products, price comparisons, or direct product listings dominate the SERP.

What does this mean for content strategy?

Understanding these micro-moments, and their SERP signals, allows us to:

• Map queries more precisely.
• Design content that targets users at the right stage.
• Use SERP features as indicators for query rewriting or prompt engineering.
• Build clusters that align with different moments of the journey.

To win in the Messy Middle, we must stop thinking of intent in broad categories and start mapping queries to micro-moments, as revealed by the SERPs themselves.

Each moment demands specific content types, tones, and features to capture attention and drive action.

For example, take the prompt you will see here in a few lines.

It’s a simple one. Normally, my prompts are much longer and more complex, and I cannot but recommend you feed your AI system of reference with a rich, well-defined context, ideally based on documents you upload.

But for the sake of this article, this shorter version works.

Setting the context

In the first part of the prompt (which example you can see above), we define the context:

We’re an ecommerce brand specialising in mini soldiers for tabletop gaming, one of which is Star Wars: Legion.

We also operate physical retail shops, so there’s a local component (“I want to go” micro-moment), and we sell:

• Star Wars: Legion products.
• Brushes.
• Paints.
• Hobby accessories.

But we don’t just run an ecommerce store; we also provide:

• Guides on miniature painting.
• A blog that explores different aspects of the painting hobby.

The Task

We then explain the task, as if speaking to a junior SEO assistant.

In this case, we want to improve the semantic relevance of our website around the topic “Star Wars: The Battle of Scarif”.

So, the goal is to create a topical content hub that covers all the micro-moments defined by Google and, in our approach, also includes micro-moments specifically within the exploration and consideration phases.

Architecture awareness

As noted in the task part of the prompt shown before, the content hub should consider the website’s existing architecture (and yes, if you upload a spreadsheet of your site’s architecture, the AI can work even better).

However, we’ll likely need to create new content or optimise existing architecture to properly support the hub.

The result 

What we now have is a structured content hub, centred around a classic pillar page:

“Why the Battle of Scarif Matters” targeting the “I want to know” micro-moment.

From this pillar, we branch out into supporting content clusters, each targeting a specific aspect of “Star Wars: The Battle of Scarif”.

Why this battle, you may ask.

Because, especially after Andor and the renewed interest in Rogue One, Scarif has become one of the most recreated battles by Star Wars: Legion fans.

Aligning content with micro-moments

As you can see from the content map above, every piece of content:

• Is mapped to a specific micro-moment.
• Targets a specific phase in the Messy Middle.
• Is matched to relevant SERP features.
• Uses the best format for that user’s needs.

Example:

“Find Scarif miniatures and terrain near you” targets an “I want to go (physical)” moment.

If we have physical shops, the ideal format here might be an embedded map module included directly on the pillar page.

Internal linking = the real hub

Because we’ve defined both the site’s context and its architecture, we can optimise internal linking right from the start.

And this is crucial because internal links are what truly build a content hub.

By connecting semantically related pages across different sections of the website, internal links associate intent, reinforce relevance, and guide both users and crawlers through a meaningful journey.

The Messy Middle is not chaotic: it’s layered, and when we shift our strategy from targeting keywords to targeting micro-moments, we stop guessing and start aligning with:

• Real user psychology.
• Modern search dynamics.
• And the simulation behaviour of AI-driven systems like Google’s AI Overviews or AI Mode.

In short, the combination of entity context, emotional tone, search features, and a structured content + linking strategy gives us a system designed for visibility, memorability, and influence across the entire journey, not just the potential of a click.

Think strategically. Act asymmetrically

If Google is the Galactic Empire, and big brands have a built-in advantage (they’re more “protected” in the SERPs), then we, as smaller players, need to think like the Star Wars Rebel Alliance: we must act asymmetrically and strategically.

This means:

1. Stop competing head-to-head where big brands dominate.
2. Instead, look for gaps in the information that big brands overlook—topics and questions that real users are searching for but aren’t well covered by major competitors.
3. Then strike with precision content that fills those gaps—content designed to be noticed, trusted, and featured.

Tactical approach

To do this, we need to ask:

• What SERP features appear for our target query? (AI Overviews, Reviews, Videos, People Also Ask, Carousels, etc.)
• Who currently owns those features? Are they controlled by publishers? Forums? Ecommerce sites? Reddit? YouTube?
• Which SERP features does Google favour in our vertical? (This tells us where to prioritise our formats; maybe Google loves videos in our niche, or UGC, or FAQs.)

Strategic visibility

We should also monitor:

• Format dominance: Which formats own the SERP (e.g., AI Overviews, forums, PAA, video)?
• Interaction design: How do features reshape the journey (e.g., filters, grey links, carousels)?
• Who owns the zero-click real estate? What entities are shown even when users don’t click?
• How AI Overviews reinterpret intent: like with topic filters, follow-ups, or “People also search” links, AIO can shift the user’s journey to new SERPs, and we need to anticipate that.

Stop thinking linearly. Outmanoeuvre big brands by identifying where they’re absent, claim those gaps with tailored content, and design your presence around the SERP features that shape modern user journeys, especially in AI-driven search.

Think like a rebel. Win with precision.

For instance, let’s look at this SERP for “Best paints for Star Wars: Legion Rebel Troopers” (see image below).

The feature dominating the SERP space is AI Overviews, but the format that is winning with 0-click is the forums and videos.

 So if we want to be ostensibly visible on this type of SERP,  what we should do is work on video content and on engaging with the community or creating content that can engage and nurture the community and be seen on Reddit.

The rebel arsenal of weapons

A good Rebel, of course, needs a strong arsenal, and in our case, that means the right tools.

Here are the ones I recommend for winning visibility in today’s SERP and AI-driven landscape:

Keyword Insights

Even though clustering can be done manually with strong prompts, Keyword Insights makes it faster and more efficient.

It automatically creates topical clusters, and it factors in search intent.

Keyword Insights helps streamline planning for content hubs that are structurally sound and semantically relevant.

Reddit Insights

Since we’ve seen how important Reddit is for:

• Understanding emotions around a topic.
• Surfacing insights from the community.
• Learning the real-world jargon people use when talking about our niche.

…Reddit Insights is a powerful tool for mining these layers.

Bonus: Reddit now has its own Trends tool, which is also worth exploring.

Alsoasked.com

Still, the best tool for analysing the People Also Ask SERP feature:

• It shows how questions relate to each other.
• It reveals the structure of exploratory queries.
• It helps you design content that mirrors the logic of user journeys.

SEO Minion

Great for scaling SERP analysis:

• Pull SERP features at scale.
• Useful when researching many keywords quickly.
• Handy for seeing what features dominate in your niche (e.g., AIOs, videos, PAA).

Waikay (by Inlinks)

Waikay is great for understanding:

• Whether your site is targeting a specific topic effectively.
• How visible your site is across LLMs like Gemini (AI Mode, AI Overviews), ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.
• It even provides actionable reports to help improve visibility for each topic.

Keytrends

Search evolves daily with new:

• Questions.
• Pain points.
• Angles of curiosity.

Keytrends identifies emerging trends across Google, Reddit, Pinterest, and more.

It even connects those trends to your Google Search Console data, so you know exactly where to act.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude

As shown earlier in the presentation, I use all these models for different stages of strategy.

Query fan-out discovery tools

When it comes to retrieving or simulating query fan-out, I suggest:

• Qforia (by iPullRank).
• Query Fan-out Simulator by WordLift.

Prompt discovery (and competitive analysis)

If your budget allows it, Similarweb is a very powerful addition.

It helps you discover:

• The most popular prompts that drive traffic to your site via LLMs like ChatGPT.
• And even more importantly, which prompts make your competitors visible, but not your.

That kind of insight is gold for refining your prompt-level and topic-level strategy.

Ahrefs Brand Radar & Advanced Web Ranking

Both of these platforms are evolving to provide:

• Visibility insights within LLM environments.
• Early signals of brand presence across search and generative platforms.

In other words, to play the Rebel role effectively in modern SEO, you need more than good content; you need precision tools for understanding gaps, predicting trends, analysing emotions, and optimising for both SERPs and LLMs.

This toolset gives you the tactical advantage.

Rethinking the concept of clustering

We can no longer cluster content only by intent.
We must also cluster by:

• Emotion.
• Format.
   

This approach allows us to fully address the spectrum of search behaviors, adapting to the nature of the search and the underlying motivations.
By doing so, we support the key phases of visibility optimization:

• Awareness.
• Attention.
• Memorability
   

An actionable content strategy checklist

1. Map content to cognitive and emotional stages.
2. Cluster by format to maximize impact and visibility.
3. Cluster by emotional motivation: why the user cares about this topic.
    

Example: Painting Content Hub

Let’s say we want to build a multi-dimensional cluster around the general topic of painting miniatures.

By User Knowledge Level (Tone & Stage)

Classify users by their level of expertise:

• Beginner → Needs basic how-to guides, simple explanations.
• Intermediate → Seeks technique comparisons, deeper tutorials.
• Advanced/Pro → Looks for artistic mastery, niche techniques, community recognition. 

Each group needs a different tone, structure, and language.

By Format

For each topic or subtopic, determine the best content format:

• Video tutorials.
• Visual step-by-step guides (repurposable on platforms like Pinterest).
• Listicles.
• Downloadable cheat sheets.
• Interactive formats (e.g., painting quizzes or tool selectors).
   

This is a second layer of content mapping—taking the same core content idea and clustering it by delivery format to suit different surfaces and SERP features.

By Emotion

If a query expresses emotional tones like:

• Pride.
• Faction identity.
• Nostalgia.
   

then adjust your approach to reflect that.

For example:

A dry title like “Step-by-Step Rebel Pathfinder Painting Guide” could become: “Make Your Rebel Pathfinders Stand Out on the Tabletop: Camo Techniques That Impress” 

This kind of emotional tuning makes content more click-worthy, memorable, and shareable.

This isn’t just about SEO, it’s about precision audience targeting.

By clustering content across intent, emotion, format, and user knowledge level, we can create deeply resonant, high-impact hubs that drive visibility in SERPs, AI Overviews, and across the broader discovery ecosystem.

We’re not just answering queries, we’re mapping human behavior.

Even though we and Google (and ChatGPT) are targeting the same audience, there’s now a middleman: AI.

That middleman, whether it’s AI Overviews, AI Mode, or any LLM’s model, is what interprets, summarizes, and presents our content to users.

So… How do we optimize content for AI?

Think in chunks

Large Language Models (LLMs) don’t read web pages like humans.

They think in chunks, small, self-contained passages that explain a topic clearly.

It’s not identical to featured snippets, but it’s close enough to help frame your thinking.

As Andrea Volpini (WordLift) says: “Chunks shouldn’t be thought of as blocks of words, but as blocks of tokens.”

This means:

• Each chunk should be semantically clear.
• Short paragraphs, each focused on a single idea.
• Strong structure, using semantic HTML and heading tags correctly.

Start with the Answer

Use the inverted pyramid method: start with the most important information first.

LLMs prefer content that leads with clarity.

And when you’re writing:

• Use a conversational but confident tone.
• Express expertise, experience, authority, and trust naturally.
• This helps AI recognize the value and credibility of your content.

Use Monosemantic Language

Be precise. Avoid ambiguity.

For example:

Instead of: “Learn more about the Battle of Scarif”, use: “Explore the strategic tactics used by the Rebel Alliance during the Battle of Scarif in Star Wars: Legion.”

Why?

Because this version:

• Anchors the context (game, faction, battle).
• Helps AI understand which Scarif you’re referring to.
• Connects to user intent in your niche.

Boost Entity Salience

Make sure the main entity you want to rank for is:

• Clearly mentioned.
• Framed within the right context.
• Not diluted by unrelated topics.

The clearer the entity and its context, the easier it is for LLMs and search engines to associate your content with it.

Use Internal linking intelligently

Internal links help build semantic relationships. But:

• Use descriptive, semantically rich anchor text.
• Ensure the surrounding text supports the link’s meaning.

Done right, this strengthens your content’s topical authority and helps AI models understand connections between pages.

Leverage FAQs as chunk sources

FAQs are perfect chunk generators.

You don’t need to always write a full new article, just create:

• A clear, direct question.
• A concise, well-written answer.
• A tone that reflects your brand’s voice.

Guide AI attention with context

AI uses attention mechanisms to determine which parts of your content matter most.

So:

• Be intentional with how you structure context.
• Use introductory sentences to “set up” lists or examples.

Fix Your Bullet Lists

Pointed (bulleted) lists with no context = bad for AI.

Example:

• Rebel Troopers.
• Cassian Andor.
• Pathfinders.

This tells AI nothing about why these items matter.

But full paragraph chunks can hurt readability.

A better practice is to use a short intro sentence to give context, followed by a clear list.

Example:

Key units in a Scarif-themed Star Wars: Legion squad include:

• Cassian Andor. A versatile Rebel commander ideal for skirmish play.
• Rebel Troopers. Core units with flexibility.
• Pathfinders. Specialists for jungle warfare tactics.

This format is great for both humans and LLMs.

Invent your own terminology (Prop Words)

Want to stand out and own a concept?

Invent your own proprietary phrasing: “prop words.”

Example:

For a unique acrylic shading technique, call it “The Fiorelli shade.”

Use it consistently in context with standard terms, and over time, you’ll start to own that term in both AI and user perception.

Optimize images for chunk use

Images can become part of the AI’s “chunk” if you optimize them properly:

• Use descriptive alt text.
• Add meaningful captions.

This helps both search engines and LLMs extract value from your visuals.

Use signature phrasing

Especially in FAQs and short content blocks, write in a way that reflects your brand.

If LLMs pull your content into an AI Overview or ChatGPT answer, your brand tone and name should be there.

Example:

“According to Fiorelli’s Miniatures Academy, Rebel Pathfinders are best painted using…”

This way, even in zero-click results, your brand earns visibility and memorability.

We’re not just writing for people anymore; we’re writing for people through AI.

That means structure, clarity, emotional tone, and semantic precision are now the core of visibility.

The new SEO is not anymore Search Engine Optimization,

It’s Search Entity Optimization + Search Emotion Optimization + Search Experience Optimization (and Search Everywhere Optimization).

Metrics: from clicks to visibility

If we’re shifting our strategy from click-based SEO to visibility-first SEO, then we must also rethink the metrics we use to measure success.

• Stop obsessing over clicks.
• Start tracking presence and influence on the SERP.

Key visibility metrics to track

• Impressions: how often are our assets being shown, even if not clicked?
• Pixel Real Estate: how much space are we occupying on the SERP? (Think: the total height and width of visual presence, images, featured snippets, merchant cards, etc.)
• 0-Click Feature Coverage. are we present in:
  • AI Overviews.
  • People Also Ask (PAA).
  • Featured snippets.
  • Videos.
  • Carousels
  • Knowledge panels et al
• Merchant Feature Inclusion. Are our products and brand consistently appearing in Merchant Center SERP features?
• Citations in AI Search. How often is our content used or referenced in:
  • AI Overviews.
  • AI Mode.
  • ChatGPT.
  • Perplexity.
  • Claude.
  • Bing Copilot.
• Direct traffic. How much is increasing the direct traffic in correlation with a stronger visibility?
• Branded search. Is the number of branded searches increasing?
• Brand name traffic from search. Is the traffic for our brand name(s) increasing?

SEO is no longer just about ranking and getting clicks.

It’s about being seen, being trusted, and being remembered—even when no one clicks at all.

Track what truly reflects your brand’s influence across the entire search journey.

Think strategically. Act like a rebel

To win in today’s search environment:

• Think like a strategist. Build systems, not random content.
• Act like a rebel. Find the gaps others ignore and strike with precision.
• Think in signs and meanings, not just search volume.
• Design for visibility and SERP share, not just rankings.
• Treat AI and Google interfaces as platforms to influence, not obstacles to fight against.

Don’t just create content, engineer presence.

Don’t just chase rankings, build a brand that shows up where it matters.

1. Think like a semiotician.
2. Publish like a brand.
3. Design like a strategist.

We’re not in the old world of search anymore, and that’s a good thing.

This new era isn’t something to fear.

It’s something to embrace.

Because, after all: Rebellions are built on hope.