hey ! I’m not some AI or brand fanatic
First of all, I want to make it clear that building a brand is nothing new to me, and it has nothing to do with the current AI hype or anything like that. I clearly remember a conversation and if I’m not mistaken, it’s even recorded with Luis M. Villanueva, where I talked about what I used to call Brand Building. I made it clear that it wasn’t a concept I came up with, and that for many years in the U.S. there’s been talk about the importance of branding and the people behind it to ensure that search engines (AI or not) consider us relevant.
Shift from individual Google rankings to multichannel strategies
By now, you’re probably tired of seeing posts on social media saying that SEO is no longer just about keywords, links, and technical content. And it’s true we’re at a point where the real driver of rankings is brand. Yes, your brand. Not because I say so, but because Google, TikTok, YouTube, chatbots, and AI are pushing businesses to stop thinking in terms of rankings and links, and start thinking about recognition, authority, and trust. The game has changed. Today, ranking means showing up where your audience is getting informed, having conversations, or simply hanging out. And that means a lot more than the classic SEO of titles and descriptions.
Strategic insights
There’s something that hasn’t changed in SEO: if others speak well of you, Google will too. But links alone are no longer enough. Today, what matters beyond the mathematical authority that links bring are brand mentions in relevant media.
Do you appear in Forbes, Expansión, or Marketing4eCommerce with a message that influences potential clients? Perfect, not just because of the link, but because it strengthens your topical authority. That’s digital PR. It’s not just visibility, it’s reputation that scores points with users and with those nerdy algorithms.
The question we should all be asking now when deciding whether to collaborate with a publication is: would this be perceived as important even if Google, GPT or whatever didn’t exist?
If you tell someone at an event: “Hey, we were featured in Forbes as the top agency in Spain,” chances are they’ll think: “Damn, that’s impressive.” That’s the key. It’s no longer about link building for the sake of the link, or for DR, or for traffic graphs. It’s about using real judgment: how will your audience perceive that visibility?
Will it boost your brand perception? Awesome, go all in.
Is it just going to be a random link in some article about the best hotel sheets on a no-name blog? Ouch, hard pass.
By now you’re probably tired of seeing posts on social media saying that SEO is no longer just about keywords, links, and technical content. And it’s true. We’re at a point where the real engine behind rankings is brand. Yes, your brand. Not because I say so, but because Google, TikTok, YouTube, chatbots, and AI are pushing businesses to stop thinking about rankings and links and start thinking about recognition, authority, and trust.
The game has changed. Today, ranking means showing up wherever your audience is getting informed, having conversations, or just spending time. And that means a lot more than the classic SEO of titles and descriptions.
The people behind the brands
Some time ago, it was enough for the company blog to say “we’re experts in…”. Now you need your CEO sharing thoughts on LinkedIn, your team writing on industry blogs, and your partners speaking well of you at events.
Spreading your brand’s voice makes you omnipresent. Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, forums… every channel is a chance to build authority from different angles. Someone said recently that we’re entering an era where CEOs will have to become influencers.
KPIs to measure brand success
Si antes ya lo teníamos dificil para medir un área concreta como la del link building (te dejo un artículo sobre métricas de Link building). Ahora se complica bastante. Sabemos que medir es fundamental, pero hay que mirar donde importa. No basta con saber tu posición en una keyword . Ahora tendrás que medir cuánto ha crecido el volumen de búsquedas de tu marca, en cuántas plataformas relevantes apareces, cuál es tu autoridad temática en los clusters clave o cualquier otra métrica que te indique si estás siendo percibido como una marca fuerte. A mi me gusta mucho buscar la alineación de lo que se dice en Google, respecto a tu mensaje de marca y hemos añadido a esa monitorización, lo que se dice en GPT o cualquier otro LLM respecto a lo que tu quieres que se perciba. Ya no es tanto un tema de ver si el quinto puesto en Google es una opinión negativa sino de si la percepción general está alineada o no. Tenemos que trabajar para que así lo sea.
Tendencias en SEO con IA
Aunque parezca que ahora te debería contar algo de 2025, te voy a decir lo que llevo diciendo muchos años.
- Prioriza tu SEO para las diferentes intenciones de busqueda de los usuarios. Esto ya teiene años. Recuerda BERT, MUM y anteriores
- Centrate en trasmitir confianza y reconocimiento. Te suena al EEAT ? OJO que el EEAT es de 2014.
- Apoya tus contenidos expertos reales sobre todo si publicas contenido sensible (YMYL) como salud, economía, educación y otros. Si no tienes expertos dentro de tu proyecto, puedes buscar colaboradores. En Expertomy, puedes hacerlo totalmente gratis.
- Creo que fue Cesar Aparicio quien dijo un día que las menciones eran los nuevos enlaces. Pues eso que te he estado diciendo todo el rato, dejate ya de DR y consigue relevancia real apareciendo en medios afines a tu negocio y plataformas tipo Reddit que empujan tu reputación y percepción en los buscadores con IA generativa.
Conclusión
No es cuestión de echarse a correr como pollo sin cabeza. Pero adaptarse ya no es una opción. Si quieres tener visibilidad sostenida y hacer SEO con impacto real, necesitas que el SEO forme parte de construir la marca (brand building jeje) . Eso significa alinear tu contenido, tu PR y tu presencia multicanal con un mensaje coherente, experto, veraz y diferencial. Y hacerlo con paciencia, especialización y una buena dosis de estrategia. Porque hoy, construir marca es hacer SEO y hacer SEO debe ser contruir marca
