Yes, we have moved on from SEO to writing for LLMs. What is even more interesting is that you can ask AI to check over your work or suggest improvements.
I have a good idea of how to write for LLMs but I am taking my own path. I am betting on document structure, content sectioning elements and much else that is in the HTML5 specification but blithely ignored by Google's heuristics (Google doesn't care if your HTML is entirely made of divs and class identifiers). I scope a heading to the text that follows with 'section', 'aside', 'header', 'details' or other meaningful element.
My hunch is that the novice SEO crew won't be doing this. Not because it is a complete waste of time, but because SEO has barely crawled out of keyword stuffing, writing for robots and doing whatever else that has nothing to do with writing really well for humans. Most SEO people didn't get this, it would be someone else's job to write engaging copy that people would actually enjoy reading.
The novice SEO people behaved a bit like a cult, with gurus at conferences to learn their hacks from. Because the Google algorithm is not public, it is always their way or the highway. It should be clear that engaging content means people find the information they want, giving the algorithm all the information it needs to know the content is good. But the novice SEO crew won't accept that, as it goes against the gospel given to them by their chosen SEO gurus. And you can't point them towards the Google guide on how to do SEO properly, because that would involve reading.
Note my use of the word 'novice', I am not tarring every SEO person with the same brush, just something like ninety percent of them! However, I fully expect SEO for LLMs to follow the same pattern, with gurus claiming they know how it all works and SEO people that might as well be keyword stuffing. Time will tell, however, I am genuinely interested in optimising for LLMs, and whether full strength HTML5 makes any difference whatsoever.
