James Dooley: Best SEO strategies in 2026.

Today I'm joined with Charles Floate.

Pleasure to have you.

Charles Floate: Thank you for having me.

James Dooley: With regards to search engine optimisation, there is a lot of change happening, especially with AI overviews and AI mode. People are using ChatGPT a lot more now.

From an SEO standpoint, what is working in today’s algorithms?

Charles Floate: From a purely SEO standpoint, we are really moving since the March core update into an algorithm state that is no longer meant to power the ten blue links. It is meant to power the AI overviews on top of them.

We are moving away from an algorithm that was supposed to promote authorship, expertise and trustworthiness, and moving more towards an algorithm that pushes content matching consensus, verifiable information, factual information and corroboration.

It is going more towards trustworthy consensus-based content than simply relying on the authority signals behind it.

I also see, especially with the latest algorithm update, user engagement signals mattering less and the underlying content mattering more.

The links underneath still power the ability to rank in the first place though. You still need the root authority, backlinks and topical strength, especially in YMYL niches.

Once you are inside the top 10,000 results and Google starts deciding who gets pushed into the top 100 and top 10, that is where information gain, consensus and content quality really matter.

James Dooley: So you are saying E-E-A-T and user signals still matter, but indirectly because Google and Bing are using that information as part of their systems.

What are you focusing on most right now? Some people focus on topical authority, some on schema markup, some on technical SEO or page speed.

You mentioned consensus, so I presume you mean not just your own website, but third-party corroboration as well. Repeating who you are, what you do and why you are brilliant across the web.

Can you explain that further? I know what you are doing and I think it is brilliant because you are not just ranking in Google. You are building multiple properties ranking together and feeding ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity through consensus.

Charles Floate: Consensus is basically what Google understands a topic to be and what it understands the user intent behind the search to be.

If someone searches “buy hats”, that is a very clear intent.

But if somebody searches for information on a historical figure, Google needs to decide whether the user wants information about a battle, a period of history or general background information.

Consensus is about what users want and what the internet collectively says about that topic.

Google builds a map of that consensus and pushes pages matching it.

That can actually become a problem in some scientific spaces because old consensus can outweigh new research until enough supporting content exists.

I genuinely believe Google is making moves more for AI overviews than traditional search results now.

In terms of what I am doing, I build a detailed, consensus-based article on the main site first.

Then we create supporting pieces on third-party websites, parasite pages and corroborative sources that reinforce the same ideas and information.

If you are trying to rank for something like “best CRM tools”, and every website says HubSpot is number one, but you want your own CRM tool to rank number one, then you need to force supporting pages into the index supporting your version of the consensus.

James Dooley: With regards to the best SEO strategies specifically for websites, how important is schema?

Charles Floate: If it matches consensus, then add it.

I have always followed the idea that if five out of the top ten competitors use the same schema, then you should too.

If none of your competitors use schema, you probably do not want to be the odd one out.

I do not think schema itself is a stronger ranking signal than the body content.

Schema is just structured data. Google has to interpret body content, but schema directly tells Google what the data means.

It is easier for Google to process and apply, but it is not inherently more powerful than the body content itself.

James Dooley: What about topical authority, semantic SEO and internal linking? Do you map out semantic content networks before launching a website?

Charles Floate: One hundred percent.

Whenever we build a new website, we map out the core pages from day one.

If the main topic is link building, then we want pages covering things like what link building is, who invented it, why it matters and all the surrounding concepts.

We want those pages live immediately so Google can process and understand the website’s site focus score.

That is an actual Google concept from the algorithm.

The faster you establish that site focus score, the easier it becomes for future pages to rank.

James Dooley: So you want to avoid topic dilution and stay highly focused.

Let’s move on to off-page SEO and backlinks.

How important is powering up backlinks? For example, you get a guest post on a high authority website, but the page itself has little strength. How important are tier-two links?

Charles Floate: If the page itself is weak, then building tier-two signals activates its full potential.

Google is often neutralising backlinks now.

Even if a link sits on a massive authority domain, if the page itself is orphaned and unsupported, Google can still treat it as neutral.

Sometimes just building one backlink to that guest post can massively increase the effectiveness of the link.

Going from zero supporting signals to ten supporting signals is a huge increase.

Tier-two boosting does not just mean backlinks either.

You can use social signals, traffic, indexing signals and user engagement to strengthen those pages.

James Dooley: What about virality and traffic manipulation?

Some people are boosting posts on LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter using small budgets. Others are using pop-under ads and redirects to create sudden traffic spikes.

How important do you think those user engagement strategies are long term?

Charles Floate: A lot of people ignore the browser and device side of this.

If you are generating traffic, especially for a new website, it needs to happen inside Chrome because Google is pulling Chrome user engagement data.

The traffic also needs to be relevant and engaged.

If users click and bounce after two seconds, that could actually become a negative signal.

When done properly, especially for new websites, it can absolutely act as a growth hack.

But user engagement signals are temporary by nature. Virality is temporary. Nothing stays viral forever.

James Dooley: Anyone watching this, I hope you enjoyed the episode on best SEO strategies in 2026.

I go much deeper with Charles Floate on topics around LLM rankings, ChatGPT optimisation and ranking specifically in Bing search.

Make sure you check out the links in the description.