The B2B SEO Strategy Playbook: Preparing B2B SEO and AI search for 2027
Claims about the longevity or relevance of SEO differ wildly, with many claiming it's dead and AI has taken its crown. None of this helps prepare your B2B SEO strategy for the next 12 months. Our 2027 SEO playbook brings together data from expert sources to provide a clear set of actions for your SEO strategy.
What's inside the SEO Playbook?
We've curated research from a wide range of leading experts and added easy-to-follow practical steps to help define your SEO strategy. The playbook covers:
- The trends between AI overviews, LLMs and traditional search
- Google's advice on SEO in the next twelve months, including how to prepare your content for overviews and rankings
- The updates to SEO algorithms in 2026 and how they impact your content marketing strategies
- How AI overviews and LLMs such as ChatGPT and Claude work to find and return content in response to prompts
- What is EEAT and why is this more important than ever?
- Practical checks you can run on your own content in one hour
This is a practical playbook, designed to help you and your teams create content that drives qualified marketing traffic and engagement.
Download the B2B SEO Strategy Playbook here
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Why the right SEO strategy is more important than ever
The way potential customers search is changing. LLMs such as ChatGPT and Claude present a new level of convenience for time-pressured teams, and there is a lot of noise in the media about the growth of AI in everyday life. The impact on search techniques is more nuanced than the noise suggests. For instance, only 1.9% of desktop time is spent using an LLM or searching with AI. And the overall volume of searches made by B2B purchasers is increasing too; AI isn't cannibalising search, it's growing as part of it. Google reported one of its highest years for search volume in 2026, and they show no sign of decline, yet.
AI-generated content and SEO ranking performance
Content created by AI also plays a role in the way you define your SEO strategy. While Google has explicitly said it doesn't care about how content is created, as long as it's of value, the anecdotal evidence shows that content created mostly by humans still outranks AI-generated content nearly every time. People still buy best from other people, and your SEO needs to rank AND engage with prospects and customers. Google also announced that they see GEO as SEO, because the way LLMs return results is very similar to the way Google does. If your SEO is on fire, your content will work across all digital channels.
Our playbook provides the data and insights you need to build a strategy that ranks for SEO and AI and engages prospects.
Who is the B2B SEO Strategy Playbook for?
This playbook has been created to help senior marketing leaders, marketing managers and SEO specialists drill through the noise and PR about AI search and find the insights they need for strategy building. Any marketer who is involved in driving organic traffic to their website will benefit from the 2027 SEO Playbook.
What insights are available from the playbook?
This guide will look at the way search has fragmented and how many potential new customers are using AI or LLMs in their day-to-day searches. It also includes ranking performance data for AI-generated content vs traditional SEO content, to allow you to make informed decisions about how to create content that has impact over the next 12 months.
If you're confused about how search techniques and algorithms differ per search type, then our playbook contains the rundown on how search works, whether that's through Google or on Claude or another LLM. You can then tailor your content structures to ensure your marketing is visible wherever your target segments are searching.
B2B SEO Strategy Playbook: Frequently Asked Questions
The playbook contains the latest insights and data that shows SEO is growing, not dying! The nature of our searching has changed and our intent is different when we land on a our website, but we search more than ever. Google and LLMs also use very similar methods to find content, which means if your SEO is great then every organic search channel will benefit.
Our SEO playbook has been designed to cover all methods of organic search, whether that's LLMs such as ChatGPT or Claude, AI Overviews or AI search engines such as Perplexity. We look at how they work, how to create content that's visible to them and how to ensure your content creation provides value to prospects and customers.
Yes, the Arboreal Marketing SEO Playbook is free to download. However when completing a download be aware that you are also consenting to receive a follow up email for feedback on the playbook and SEO services that may be relevant to your organisation.
