News
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[New Research] How Prospects Search in 2026 and What It Means for 2027
Key Insights AI search use is up 15% year over year. 39% of prospects now use AI-powered tools daily, up from 24% in 2025. Search engines still lead, but the gap is closing. 80% use traditional search engines to research programs; 54% now also use AI. Citations build real trust. …
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Senior Living SEO Expert Paula French Takes on the AI Traffic Plateau at SMASH 2026
Search Influence is a digital marketing agency specializing in AI and organic search engine optimization (SEO), digital advertising, and analytics for higher education, hospitality, and healthcare, including senior living. Paula French, Director of Sales and Marketing at Search Influence, will present Your AI Traffic Will Plateau. Then What? at the …
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Search Influence Named a 2026 CityBusiness In the Lead Honoree
For the second year running, Search Influence has earned a spot on New Orleans CityBusiness’ In the Lead: Best Women-Owned Businesses list, a recognition that puts us alongside a competitive field of women-led companies shaping the region’s economy. The honor comes as we continue to grow our national client base …
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Enterprise AI Visibility Platforms Compared: Scrunch AI vs Profound vs XFunnel
TL;DR This post compares three enterprise AI visibility platforms. Scrunch AI tracks brand presence across nine AI engines and includes an optimization layer that helps AI systems read and cite your content. Profound is the only fully independent option of the three, with daily updates across 18+ countries and an …
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[UPDATED] SEO & AI Search Workbook for Higher Education: A Free Interactive Resource
Search Influence offers a free SEO & AI Search Workbook for Higher Education Websites, now rebuilt to cover AI visibility alongside traditional SEO. Ask ChatGPT to recommend a program in your field, and there’s a real chance your institution never comes up, even if it ranks first on Google for …
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New AI SEO Tools to Watch in 2026
TL;DR The AI SEO tool market is moving fast enough that new platforms are solving problems the first wave didn’t address. These four, KIME, LLMrefs, ZeroChannel.ai, and Promptwatch, haven’t made it into our main comparison yet, but they’re each doing something meaningfully different from the established players. If you’re watching …
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Paula French Talks AI Search Branding on The Near Memo Podcast
Brand used to be the thing you built after you nailed the fundamentals. Now it might be the thing that decides whether an AI system knows you exist at all. Search Influence Director of Sales and Marketing Paula French joined a panel of local search practitioners on Episode 269 of …
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Why “AI Keeps Changing” Is the Wrong Reason to Skip AI Search Optimization
TL;DR “AI keeps changing” is true, and it’s also not a reason to skip content structure and entity work. Retrieval, semantic matching, and passage-level ranking, the mechanics that decide whether AI answers cite you, were built into production search between 2011 and 2021, a decade before ChatGPT existed. Betting on …
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Skimmers, Swimmers, and Divers: Content Chunking Strategy for Higher Ed AI Search
This post was updated by Collin Guedon on August 12th, 2026, to reflect recent trends and refreshed statistics. It was originally published on July 30th, 2021. TL;DR Higher education websites have always needed to serve three kinds of readers: skimmers who scan, swimmers who explore, and divers who read every …
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Website Readiness for AI Search: Seven Foundations Every University Needs
TL;DR: AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews answer prospective students directly, and they pull those answers from websites that are crawlable, structured, and accurate. Universities don’t need new technology to compete. They need seven specific foundations in place, and most can be checked in an afternoon. Key …
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