Throughout 2025, search evolved rapidly as AI systems became a primary means for discovering information, disrupting traditional organic traffic patterns and reducing their consistency and predictability for many brands. With blue-link visibility tightening and click-through rates becoming more erratic, CMOs faced increasing pressure to justify marketing budgets while maintaining growth. This transition demands marketing leaders prioritize resilience across owned channels rather than relying solely on rankings. Brands must secure stable visibility across AI platforms, enhance coherent content operations, and maintain robust technical foundations that serve both users and AI systems. These priorities should be funded and acted upon in Q1 and the first half (H1) of 2026. **Principles for 2026 SEO Budgeting in Q1/H1** A strategic SEO budget for early 2026 should balance stability and innovation: - **Protect Core SEO Baseline:** Maintain technical health, site performance, information architecture, and ongoing content upkeep. These fundamentals support all marketing channels, and cutting them risks instability amid shifting discovery patterns. - **Allocate a Dedicated Experimental Budget for AI Discovery:** As generative AI influences brand encounters, set aside funds to test answer-led content, entity development, evolving schema, and AI measurement frameworks. Without ring-fencing, these initiatives may be neglected or compete with essential tasks. - **Invest in Measurement to Understand Real User Behavior:** Since AI visibility is still evolving unevenly, analytics must track user journeys, identify where AI mentions the brand, and determine which content drives those outcomes. This insight enables CMOs to defend and adapt budgets effectively throughout the year. **Q1 Priorities: Foundation Stabilization and Discovery Preparation** The work in Q1 sets the stage for H1 results: - **Technical Foundations:** Improve site health by enhancing performance, fixing crawl barriers, modernizing internal linking, and strengthening information architecture. Clean and consistent signals are critical for AI and large language models (LLMs), supporting all future SEO, content, GEO, and measurement efforts. - **Entity-Rich, Question-Led Content:** Address broader, complex user queries with content that clearly defines concepts, answers common questions thoroughly, and builds topical depth.

Focus on clarity, utility, and authority rather than sheer volume, aligning with real customer problems and journeys. - **Early GEO Experimentation:** Because SEO and LLM inclusion overlap—both requiring strong technical setup, clear entity signals, and understandable content—LLM discovery should be integrated with SEO rather than treated separately. Some sectors see new trends like Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), impacting AI product understanding, evaluation, and transactions. Whether termed GEO, AEO, or LLMO, brands now optimize for multiple platforms and discovery engines, each interpreting signals differently. Q1 is ideal for assessing brand presence across these systems, reviewing answer hubs, entity relations, and structured data interpretations to guide H1 budget adjustments. **H1 Outlook: Scaling Success** In H1, insights and experiments from Q1 mature into scalable programs: - **Integrate Winning Experiments into Business as Usual (BAU):** Successful LLM discovery and structured content initiatives should become routine SEO practices, facilitating consistent growth without repeated budget reviews. - **Optimize Tool Spend:** Evaluate and cut low-ROI tools, redirecting funds to personnel, content quality, and operational improvement. The AI tool market will consolidate, with only those delivering clear value prevailing. - **Adjust Budgets Based on Data:** By later H1, organizations will better understand where visibility shifts and which activities drive discovery and engagement, allowing them to maintain core SEO, expand effective content areas, and cut underperforming experiments. **Key Questions for CMOs Before Approving Budgets** CMOs should ensure budgets balance defensive tactics—preserving existing rankings, technical performance, content structures, and visibility across search and AI—and offensive tactics—creating new visibility, unlocking demand, and expanding presence on emerging discovery platforms. A balanced budget prevents fragility (lack of defense) and invisibility (lack of offense). They should evaluate: - How well does the budget balance maintaining current SEO strengths with initiatives that drive future visibility? - Does the plan clearly identify sources of movement in early 2026 and strategies to protect and build momentum through H1? - Which program elements enhance brand presence across AI platforms, GEO, and other emerging search engines? - How does the content strategy support immediate user needs and long-term category growth? - How will brand visibility be tracked across traditional search, AI-driven answers, and sector-specific discovery systems? - Are teams, processes, and first-party data sufficiently funded to sustain both movement and momentum? - What reporting improvements will enable leadership to assess defensive and offensive investment outcomes by H1’s end? **Additional Resources:** - How to Justify and Make a Business Case for SEO Budgets - How to Be Efficient With SEO Budget During Downtimes - SEO Trends 2026 This comprehensive approach ensures brands adapt confidently to emerging discovery environments while sustaining steady growth.