I keep hearing that Google is changing the way they handle optimization and site ranking…and AEO and GEO are the future, which embraces AI. I know Elements has meta-tags and alternative tags, etc…available. Will Elements keep up with the new trend?

@dan @ben Feel free to edit this or update if there is better instruction or tuts available. There are no secret tricks. The truth is if you are good and knowledgeable at what you do the playing field is more fair than ever. But the search giants and the AI-LLMs will be hard to win unless you establish your site as an authority. That means having on your website a lot of relevant data that is well researched, cited, and organized. The following is an AI generated summary from my personal notes on the subject. Gemini Summary: Elements gives you the control and freedom to do the work, but it will not do the thinking for you. If you know exactly how to assemble those four pillars, you can build a site that is perfectly optimized for the AI era. To optimize for AI search (AEO/GEO), a webmaster using Elements cannot just drop text on a page. You must manually manage semantic HTML hierarchy, inject proper metadata, manually connect a tight web of internal links, and write or generate the hidden JSON-LD schema code yourself. The Four Pillars Explained To successfully prepare an Elements site for modern AI and search engines, these four elements must be handled with intent: 1. Semantic Markup Elements provides an inspector panel that lets you change generic containers (like ) into semantic tags like , , and . It also lets you explicitly assign heading ranks ( , , ). What you must do: You have to intentionally group your essays into these tags. AI scrapers read this layout to understand the difference between the actual article body, a sidebar, and a footer. Without your manual assignment, it’s just a flat wall of text to the machine. 2. Meta Data Elements includes a dedicated inspector panel for browser titles, page descriptions, and Open Graph tags (the data used when a link is shared on social platforms). What you must do: You have to write unique, compelling descriptions for every single page. AI and search engines use this metadata as a quick summary to judge whether your page matches a searcher’s intent before they even crawl the rest of your text. 3. Logically Structured Internal Link Data Because Elements creates flat, static pages rather than dynamically relating them in a single database grid, it doesn’t automatically understand how your articles relate to one another. How Google and AI Methods Work Now Modern search engines rely heavily on two core mechanics to determine what content gets served to users: Website Intent vs. Searcher Intent: AI models use semantic search, which looks at the meaning behind words, not just literal keywords. When a user types a prompt, they have a specific intent (e.g., they want an exhaustive tutorial, a quick fact, or a deep philosophical essay). The AI reads your webpage to analyze your “Website Intent.” If your content layout is chaotic or fails to state its purpose early, the AI flags it as an “intent mismatch” and moves on. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Because AI models synthesize answers, they are terrified of quoting fake or low-quality information. They look for deep, interconnected “topic clusters” on a site to prove you are a genuine expert. They also look for hidden JSON-LD Schema code blocks—standardized, machine-readable notes embedded in a webpage that explicitly tell the AI: “This text is an Article, written by an expert Author, published on this exact Date.” What you must do: You must manually link your essays together using descriptive anchor text (e.g., linking a chapter on Character to a supportive essay on Delegation). This builds “topic clusters.” When an AI crawler sees an orderly web of internal links, it recognizes that your site has deep, organized authority on the broader subject. 4. JSON-LD Schema This is the hidden machine language that explicitly tells an AI search bot exactly what your content represents (e.g., that it is an independent article with a specific author and publish date). Elements does not generate this automatically for your text layouts. What you must do: You must use an external tool to write or generate the JSON-LD script, copy it, and manually paste it into the custom header or code panels within Elements for that specific page. See the minimum requirements below assuming at least on image on a page: { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BlogPosting", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://yourwebsite.com/blog/your-post-url" }, "headline": "The Exact Title of Your Blog Post", "description": "A short, one-to-two sentence summary of what the article is about.", "image": "https://yourwebsite.com/images/featured-image.jpg", "datePublished": "2026-06-08T08:00:00+02:00", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Your Name", "url": "https://yourwebsite.com/about" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Your Publication Name", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://yourwebsite.com/images/logo.png" } } } The Bottom Line Elements is a professional design canvas. It won’t hold your hand or automate the data engineering in the background, but it leaves the doors wide open so that an educated webmaster can build a flawless, lightning-fast foundation for the future of search. To see a practical demonstration of how the application layout handles site assets, global configurations, and template structures under the hood, this RapidWeaver Elements Project and App Overview walks through the workspace environment where you manage these specific custom code panels.

Thank you…I knew there’d be a ton to digest. It just seems that the SEO playing field is taking dramatic left and right turns via AI. I see good and bad in these changes…where as before websites relied on meta-info to tell search algorithms what was worth looking at and relaying…which was exactly what any particular site was conveying in the first place. I appreciate the info…I’ll get reading!

[image] Flash: JSON-LD Schema Thank you for sharing this insight!

[image] Flash: You must use an external tool to write or generate the JSON-LD script, Any name or links to these tools?

Does #4 need to be done for every page? If yes - for me - that’s 100+ custom html components - a little much… @dan Should this new computer code naming json be embedded into elements? Just a thought - if this is the new way forward…

[image] Schema Markup Generator (JSON-LD) | TechnicalSEO.com A Schema.org structured data generator that supports the creation of JSON-LD markups. Including all of the required item properties and more.

@Pegasus added a tool below, or as it falls in this thread, just above. :smiley: [image] AEO & GEO Optimization high_voltageElements

[image] MichaelDroste: Does #4 need to be done for every page? I guess that depends on the results you want. Is your content something you want in search results and AI referrals? If so the short answer is yes. If your website is a brochure site, the search engines aren’t going to use your info for anything other than “near me” for the most part.

What Are You Using Elements For? A simple list of website types and how search and AI traffic works in 2026 Most search advice online is written for one kind of website. The author rarely says which kind. A forum member reads a guide about topic clusters or keyword maps, applies it to a site that needs none of it, and loses weeks of work for nothing. So the first job of any webmaster is to know which kind of site you are building. That one choice decides whether search and AI traffic matter to you at all. Ask this about your site. Can a machine give your visitor what they came for without the visitor ever arriving? If the answer is yes, your site is exposed. AI answers on the results page are taking your clicks. Pew Research found that when an AI Overview shows up, only about 8 in 100 searches lead to a click on any site. Without the AI Overview, that number is 15 in 100. If the answer is no — if your value needs the person to show up, buy, book, hire, or belong — your site is safe. Search and AI are doorways to you. They cannot stand in for you. Three buckets follow from that question. Bucket 1 — The answer is the product These sites hand over information that a machine can read and repeat: Quick-fact and definition pages Generic how-to articles and listicles Recipe pages with no brand or following behind them Commodity news and aggregation What changed. The click is going away. Semrush reported that food and recipe sites have seen traffic drops of 50 to 70 percent as full recipes now show inside AI answers. A page that only states a fact gives that fact to the AI for free. What still works for these sites: First-hand experience and original data a machine cannot copy from somewhere else Real depth on a narrow subject, so you become the source the AI quotes An email list and a brand, so people come back by choice and by name The goal here has moved. Chasing the click is a losing game now. Earn the citation. Own the relationship. Bucket 2 — The visit or transaction is the product A machine can describe these sites. It cannot do them for the visitor: Local businesses: restaurants, salons, trades, clinics, shops with a front door Online stores and product pages Booking, appointment, and quote pages Web apps, tools, and software Membership sites, forums, and communities Why they hold up. An AI can tell someone about your pizza place. It cannot seat them, cook for them, or take the order. Several 2026 studies put real estate and e-commerce among the safest site types for organic clicks, because Google still needs the product page and the live transaction to answer the search. What drives traffic here: For local sites, your Google Business Profile is the largest lever you control. It carries roughly a third of local ranking weight, and your main business category is the top match signal. Reviews do double duty — they rank you and they sell you. A one-star rating increase has been tied to a 5 to 9 percent revenue gain, and restaurants at 4.4 stars and up see far higher weekly sales than those below 3 stars. For stores, clear product pages, honest reviews, accurate stock counts, and a clean path to checkout. For apps and communities, word of mouth and brand searches carry most of the load. Search is a side door, and that is fine. Bucket 3 — The site is a calling card Their audience already knows the name. People arrive by referral, a business card, a link in a bio, or by typing the address: Portfolios and brochure sites Freelancer, consultant, and studio sites Artist, musician, and author pages Church, club, and nonprofit sites Event and campaign one-pagers These sites were never built to win “best [thing]” searches. They do not need that traffic to do their job. Their whole purpose is to greet someone who already heard about you and turn that visit into a call, a booking, or a follow. What matters for them: Show up cleanly when someone searches your name Load fast on a phone Make the contact, the booking, or the next step plain and quick to find Keep your name, address, and details the same everywhere Spending weeks on keyword research for a calling-card site is wasted effort. The work is to be clear, fast, and easy to act on. The shared toolkit, for when you do want traffic Some pieces help any site that wants to be found. These are the ones worth your time: Semantic structure. Mark your page so a machine can tell the article from the sidebar from the footer. Metadata. Write a plain, honest page title and description for every page. Schema (JSON-LD). The hidden code that tells an AI what a page is, who wrote it, and when. A Carnegie Mellon study placed schema among the top signals tied to whether an AI quotes a page. Internal links. Connect related pages with clear link text, so a machine sees an organized body of work. Speed on a phone. A slow page loses rank and loses people. Most search now happens on mobile. Author identity. A real name, a real bio, a real About page. AI leans on who stands behind the words. It’s become a huge mindset shift in 2026 The click is no longer the prize. Across the major studies, AI Overviews have cut clicks to outside sites by somewhere between 38 and 61 percent on the searches where they appear. Two things gain value in its place: Being the source an AI names. Cited brands earn more of the clicks that remain. Owning your audience. An email list, a following, and people who search your name on purpose. That traffic cannot be taken from you on a results page. Where Elements fits Elements is a design canvas. It hands you direct control of every piece in the shared toolkit — the semantic tags, the meta panel, the code panel for your schema. It builds fast, clean, static pages, which is the exact technical floor that helps every site above. It will not do the thinking for you. It will not pick your bucket, write your reviews, or set your strategy. It gives you sharp tools and a clean workbench. The plan is yours. Summary: Start with defining your intent and need.

Looks complicated and time consuming …?

AEO & GEO Optimization

RapidWeaver Elements

Pegasus (Pegasus) June 9, 2026, 12:12pm 7