I’ve been saying for years that SEO isn’t dead. That generative engine optimization (GEO) / answer engine optimization (AEO) / whatever you want to call it requires the same core principles as “traditional search engine optimization.”
Sure, we have to adjust measures of success regarding how people engage with our website—clicks go down when people use AI to search—but if you want to be seen in AI search results, if you want to build that brand awareness…you just need good solid SEO. No hacks, no tricks, nothing wildly new and different.
Nor can you fully rely on generative AI for executing your SEO and digital marketing efforts, as I discussed in my SEO vs. GEO webinar.
And Anthropic, the company that makes Claude, just proved my point.
Anthropic needs a human for SEO
A little less than a month after Google announced that AI SEO isn’t anything special, Anthropic further proved this point by announcing they’re seeking to hire an SEO Lead.
And the really interesting part of this job description is that the SEO Lead at Anthropic won’t be manipulating FAQ schema (structured data), trying to write like an AI, adding LLM summaries to the top of every page, or doing any of the other “GEO rules” that so many random so-called SEO experts have been talking about the past couple of years.
Nope. The Anthropic SEO Lead will:
- Implement canonical page tags, correct redirects, accurate schema markup, sitemaps, and robots.txt files for Anthropic’s sites
- Make sure that pages have good load speeds and work well on different devices
- Analyze how well Google is crawling the Anthropic website and indexing it to appear in search results
- Set up SEO tracking reports and alerts that will notify the Anthropic team if something goes wrong with the site in a way that will hurt SEO
- Develop a plan for creating SEO content that meets the needs of different local audiences
- Build and own an SEO content plan that focuses on SEO best practices and encourages Google to cite Anthropic content in AI overviews
- Further optimize the documentation side of the Anthropic site so developers and other technical folks can find the resources they need
- Conduct technical audits using tools like Screaming Frog, Semrush, and Google Search Console
- Run webpage tests to help improve conversion rates
- Partner with Anthropic’s content team to build out the best information architecture and messaging (aka real people working on content at Anthropic)
- Report on SEO efforts and results
After working in the SEO field for the better part of 16 years, I can assure you: this is core, foundational, regular SEO stuff. Nothing new, nothing weird. Even the process of getting citations in AI Overviews isn’t that different from optimizing your content strategy to improve “regular” organic traffic.
You just have to know what you’re doing, and do it correctly.
And guess what? According to Anthropic, that knowledge is valuable. The company is offering between $225,000 and $320,000 for this role.
Let that sink in:
The company owned by a man who says his large language models can replace human knowledge labor needs a real human being to make their SEO work and they’re going to pay around three hundred thousand United States Dollars to get that person.
Your SEO isn’t that different from Anthropic’s SEO
Anthropic’s SEO isn’t all that special, either. Even though the company is large, and their site has far more pages than the average service provider or SaaS company website might, the core needs and processes are the same.
Let’s look at how the Anthropic SEO Lead is going to need to tackle each of the listed requirements based on Anthropic’s emphasis about best practices:
Implement canonical tags, redirects, internal links, sitemap, and robots.txt files
This means keeping a close eye on how internal pages link together and are structured using an analysis tool like Screaming Frog. It also entails making sure that files about the site (the sitemap and robots.txt) files are correct. Notice that Anthropic does not mention llms.txt files here.
I use Screaming Frog on every one of my Stress-Free SEO Strategy reports, no matter how large or small the website I’m auditing may be.
Improve website load speed
To do this, Anthropic’s SEO Lead will need to check Core Web Vitals reports to assess how quickly pages load, and how soon a user can interact with those pages as they load. Making elements on a page smaller or changing placement can improve these times.
There are many times that I’ve been been able to have my clients adjust the size of an image or file and see improvements in the Core Web Vitals right away.
Analyze Google crawls
This entails using Google Search Console—a free tool that I highly recommend all website owners use—to make sure that Google can find and show a website in both regular and AI search results.
I always emphasize Google access in my SEO audits, too. This is because tools like Claude simply run web searches in the background when you ask them to look something up online for you. An LLM isn’t its own search engine; it’s a proxy that accesses existing search engines on your behalf.
Set up SEO tracking reports
The SEO Lead is going to need to use available tools like Semrush and Ahrefs, and most likely plugins on the Anthropic site, that monitor for technical changes. This is how you identify when a page goes down, a link breaks, or a webpage’s vitals slow down suddenly without notice.
I set up these reports by default to share information with my clients when I perform their Stress-Free audit and strategy, and my consulting clients can opt for ongoing reporting, too.
Develop a plan for creating SEO content that meets the needs of local audiences
This involves keyword research, attention to high-quality content, and local SEO principles along with accurate language translation.
My clients typically operate in one or two countries, not the entire Western hemisphere like Anthropic. However, I always structure my clients’ strategy around the needs and real queries of their audience(s) based on target locations.
Create an SEO plan focused on best practices, get in AI Overviews
Content needs to have good E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) and meet real human search and user intent, according to Google. Anthropic’s focused on getting Google search engine result page (SERP) indexing right, so this will be a critical part of the SEO Lead’s job.
And again, getting in the AI Overview doesn’t take a bunch of technical tricks. It requires E-E-A-T and strong foundational technical SEO. I and my clients show up in AI Overviews and other LLM responses (as mentions and citations) on the regular, and I’ve never manipulated their page code in questionable ways to make that happen.
If you want to learn more about this technique and how to improve it on your own site, check out my free E-E-A-T guide.
Further optimize documentation for search
This part of the Anthropic job post is really just about content SEO again; they’re being specific about different parts of their website.
Conduct technical SEO audits
Technical SEO audits are the core process through which the Anthropic SEO Lead will get the info they need to make all of the optimizations above. I’ve always used Screaming Frog, an SEO tool (currently Semrush), and Google Search Console to do this—exactly the tools Anthropic is asking their Lead to use. These are reliable SEO platforms that provide real, non-hallucinated data.
Personally, I choose to go one step further and use a tool called Waikay (which stands for “What AI Knows About You”) to gather further data around LLM crawls and how generative AI search tools understand my clients’ sites.
Run webpage tests to improve conversion rates
This means that the SEO Lead will need to create two versions of the same webpage and see which one does best in search / at encouraging searchers to buy a Claude product.
I typically don’t do conversion testing for my clients but I know people who do and loop them in if needed; it’s more necessary for some clients than others.
Partner with Anthropic’s content team to build out the best information architecture and messaging
This is a HUGE part of every SEO content strategy project. It’s core to my own Stress-Free SEO Strategy service, and Anthropic’s wording indicates that the lead will be working with other human teams on this process.
Report on SEO efforts and results
This means Anthropic wants their SEO Lead to:
- Track and measure the impact of zero-click search
- Identify which kinds of SEO content work best (listicle, original research report, case study, etc.)
- Monitor brand mentions, citations, and placement in Google featured snippets
- Work with digital PR folks to get better backlinks and track the results
- Monitor traffic changes and conversion rates
The reporting process looks different for each of my clients, but the above bullets are all very common goals that most companies need to focus on and track.
In short, this person is going to do the same kind of core foundational SEO work that people like myself have been doing for years. Except now it supports the search everywhere mentality: creating a site that can be found on Google, via Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, social etc. Anthropic knows that true SEO still works and is essential—regardless of what their CEO says to leverage fear for product adoption.
That said, I’m not working in-house at one company. I’m not charging $320,000 for an SEO plan. But, for a much more affordable rate, I deliver similar information, guidance, and insights. Using the same tools.
If you admire companies like Anthropic and want to improve your search results, too, you don’t need their LLM. You need a person. So let’s chat.