Can you really stay true to your brand voice in the age of LLM search?
Every SEO agency seems to be figuring out what AEO, GEO—all the “Os”—really mean right now, and at Mad Fish, we’re diving into the next big shift: optimizing for language learning models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Gemini, Bing’s Copilot, and more. It’s becoming imperative in this new era of search. Lately, I’ve been on the hunt for an LLM analysis tool to show where clients currently stand and where they could improve.
In testing a few platforms, I ran an analysis of a site with a lighthearted brand voice. The recommendation? Strip out the humor and jargon for “better” rankings. So what do you do when AI says “be more professional,” but your brand is built on being fun?
Understanding LLM Search Recommendations
I’ve been digging into what all those LLM buzzwords really mean, like vector embeddings, cosine similarity, and the other “factors” that determine what shows up in search. Don’t worry, this isn’t that article.
All in all, LLMs score content based on clarity, conciseness, and tone, but those metrics don’t account for personality. Or humor. Or emotional resonance. All the little quirks that make your brand sound like… well, you.
In SEO, we’ve always balanced bot readability with brand connection. Yes, we create content based on E-E-A-T guidelines that advise “optimizing for the user,” but we also know keywords don’t sprinkle themselves in. I can’t even imagine what a brand like Cards Against Humanity would be without personality. Or Old Spice. Or Wendy’s. Wendy’s wasn’t truly on anyone’s radar until their Twitter personality took it viral.
The Risk of Over-Optimizing for AI
I’m in no way shape or form recommending ignoring recommendations that will help your site get more brand visibility. But it’s important to consider the pitfalls of implementing blind recommendations.
We’ve probably all had conversations with clients about, “Another agency sent over a technical site audit and said we have high-priority issues.” Almost every time, that “audit” turns out to be just a SEMrush export flagging things like “orphan pages,” which, in reality, are just pages intentionally tagged as noindex. All that to say, something as simple as the text you use to describe your shipping policy could result in losing brand differentiation in a sea of the same-sounding content all because you decide to take the ranking over the brand voice.
And to be fair, sameness isn’t new. We’ve watched unique brand logos slowly morph into the same generic design. With content creation now accessible to anyone with a computer at the snap of their fingers, brands risk alienating loyal customers who expect a certain personality.
Over-optimized AI content often ends up bland and repetitive. If over-used it can diminish brand storytelling impact. What makes a brand voice powerful is the emotional connection, memorability, and authenticity. It’s why brands that lean into personality have been able to thrive. There’s nuance in humanity that AI can miss.
The Role of a Trusted Digital Marketing Partner
As marketers, we need to be embracing AI as a tool, not a blueprint. We should be using LLM insights to spot opportunities for clarity or structure, but filter them through our clients’ brand values. It’s why it’s more important than ever to have a trusted marketing partner who can help to provide recommendations in a way that safeguards your brand, but will also set you up for success in a quickly evolving search landscape.
LLM search is still new and there’s going to be changes to how it understands and ranks content, but also how users interact with it. Brands that balance identity with adaptability will win in the long run. With that in mind, as we consider our next step in strategy, I encourage brands not to trade their personality for rankings. Use AI wisely, and protect the traits that make your brand memorable.
In search of adaptable SEO, minus copy written by the ghostwriting robot intern? Let’s create a strategy that actually works for your business and your brand. Reach out to see how we can help.
Jess Martinez is the Associate Director of SEO at Mad Fish Digital, specializing in helping brands optimize their search presence and stay ahead in an evolving digital landscape.
