SEO has been given different names in the past couple of years, usually based on whatever it’s trying to optimize for at the time: LEO (LLM engine optimization), AEO, GEO, and so on. That is, before Google came out with new AI search guidance and said the quiet part out loud: It’s all still just SEO . With all of these acronyms, one thing that still seems to escape our goals is, as usual, the user behind it all. One thing people often miss is that we should be optimizing for attention, not just for labels and new three-letter terms. It’s often said that attention is the primary commodity in marketing. While I have reservations about this (trust is the ultimate mover, and without it, it’s hard to get a transaction), attention is the first gateway to our content being considered at all, and a key part of the customer journey, particularly in a world that is saturated with results that are all potentially relevant.…