Will Melton
Latest posts by Will Melton (see all)
Screenshot from Advanced Web Ranking showing that Google AI Overviews appear in 60.32% of U.S. search results as of November 10, 2025. A line chart shows steady growth in both personalized and non-personalized AI Overview results, while a pie chart shows 60.32% of queries returning an AI Overview and 39.68% returning no AI Overview across an 8,000-keyword dataset

Google AI Overviews Clear 60% as New Data Suggests ChatGPT Will Surpass Google Search Traffic by 2027

November 16, 2025
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Will Melton
Google quietly crossed a new line in the evolution of search this week. According to the latest dataset from Advanced Web Ranking, Google AI Overviews now appear in 60.32% of U.S. queries. It’s the first time the feature has cleared the 60% mark, doubling its presence since August 2024 and solidifying its place as the dominant experience in Google’s interface.…
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Leading B2B companies are turning to AI search optimization strategies to win in the era of AI discovery. Symantec content clusters developed at scale can deliver a major first-mover advantage.

AI SEO for B2B Companies: How to Compete in an AI-Driven Search Landscape

November 16, 2025
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Will Melton
We’re a B2B company too — and for years, organic traffic didn’t move the needle for us. That changed when we shifted our SEO strategy to align with how AI systems evaluate, summarize, and recommend content. Today, we generate organic leads every day, and our website traffic has grown more than 4,000%. This didn’t happen because we chased trends or…
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Screenshot of Open AI's Atlas Browser and ChatGPT. AI is changing how people search.

AI Search Visibility: Quantifying the Brand Exposure Advantage

November 2, 2025
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Will Melton
For most of the internet era, visibility in search has been a simple equation: higher rank, more attention. Users typically viewed only a handful of links, and the majority of clicks went to the first two or three results. The remaining pages, however valuable, were rarely seen. This pattern defined what we now call organic search visibility. Today, AI search…
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We Build A-Teams—and We Only Work With Them.

October 28, 2025
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Will Melton
On one particularly frustrating day a few years ago, Courtney Turrin, our Chief Work Officer, turned to me and said, “I feel like I’m on the B-team, and I’m not a B-team player.” What she said hit me like a ton of bricks. She was right. We needed to change things. Like everyone who came before us, we didn’t always…
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Xponent21 Announces DiscoverAIO, a Global Platform Built to Define the Future of AI SEO

October 14, 2025
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Will Melton
Richmond, VA — October 14, 2025 — Xponent21, a global leader in AI search optimization strategy, today announced DiscoverAIO, a new platform built to educate, empower, and connect professionals shaping the future of AI SEO. Launching in early access this fall and officially debuting on January 1, 2026, DiscoverAIO will serve as the central hub for marketers, agencies, and business…
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AI SEO Guide: How to Build a Content Library that Wins AI Search-min

AI SEO Guide: How to Build an Unrivaled Content Library That Wins at AI Search

September 4, 2025
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Will Melton
AI-driven search is rewriting the rules of content marketing. Gone are the days when simply ranking on page one for a few high-volume keywords was enough. Today, generative AI search engines like Google’s SGE and ChatGPT are answering users’ questions directly – and citing the sources they trust. If your brand isn’t the one being quoted, you might as well…
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traditional SEO vs GEO or AI SEO

Don’t Throw Out the Baby With the Bathwater — Why SEO Still Matters in the Age of AI SEO and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

September 3, 2025
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Will Melton
The “Baby With the Bathwater” Moment “SEO is dead! Long live AI!” If you’ve heard this lately, you’re not alone. There’s a rush of hype suggesting we should toss out everything we know about SEO just because generative AI is shaking up search. It’s a classic “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater” situation – people are ready to…
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ai seo, geo, aeo marketing soup

The Alphabet Soup of SEO: What AEO, AIO, GEO, and AISEO Mean for Your Strategy

August 23, 2025
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Will Melton
What’s up with digital marketing experts and all of their acronyms? If you’ve been in the SEO game for a while, you know the constant scramble to label and redefine what we’re already doing: optimizing content so people (and now, AI-driven platforms) can actually find it. Sure, the tools and technologies have evolved—ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI summaries on Google—but the core…
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Graphic depicting a brand being recommended by generative AI.

What It’s Like When Your Business Ranks at the Top of AI Search Results

August 17, 2025
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Will Melton
A year ago, we weren’t generating organic leads from our website. Today, most days bring at least one—often several—inquiries from companies that already see us as the experts. They don’t need convincing. They’ve seen our name cited in AI answers, recommended as the authority, and when they arrive on our site, they’re ready to buy. That’s what it’s like when…
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AI SEO Case Study - Explosive Growth in Under 12 Months

Xponent21’s AI SEO Case Study — Engineering the Top Spot in AI Search

August 9, 2025
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Will Melton
In mid-2024, our agency Xponent21 faced a surprising kind of identity crisis. We had pulled off something big – launching Richmond Water, a sustainable hydration brand that became a local sensation. The project got press coverage and community buzz; Richmond Water was a growing brand on social media, at events, and with partners throughout the community. Yet the team behind…
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Recent Posts
Rethinking AI Adoption: The Bottom-Up Method Modern Leaders Need
November 22, 2025
Google AI Overviews Clear 60% as New Data Suggests ChatGPT Will Surpass Google Search Traffic by 2027
November 16, 2025
AI SEO for B2B Companies: How to Compete in an AI-Driven Search Landscape
November 16, 2025
Video vs. Text: Which Drives More Conversions in B2B?
November 10, 2025
AI SEO Services: How Agencies Help Brands Appear in Large Language Models
November 5, 2025
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