Host: Sean Barber - https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanrbarber/ - He & Him

In this episode of Chat With Sean, I’m joined by Dave Cousin, a high-end SEO and organic search consultant with over 20 years of experience. Dave specialises in technical SEO, migrations and helping agencies and in-house teams solve complex search challenges.

In this conversation, we discuss how websites need to evolve for AI search, why AI accessibility is becoming increasingly important, and how technical SEO fundamentals remain critical as search engines and AI systems change.

Dave explains the difference between visible, hidden and non-visible content, how LLMs access websites, why server-side rendering matters, and how businesses can audit whether AI systems can properly access and understand their content.

We also discuss future-proofing website migrations, AI agents interacting with websites, WebMCP, crawling challenges, log file analysis, and why SEOs need to understand how these systems actually work rather than simply follow tactics.

Finally, we discuss green SEO, website efficiency and the role SEOs can play in helping organisations reduce the environmental impact of their digital presence.

Dave discusses:

- What AI accessibility means for websites

- How LLMs, ChatGPT and other AI systems access content

- Visible text vs hidden content and why it matters

- Why server-side rendering is becoming increasingly important

- How to future-proof SEO migrations

- Preparing websites for AI agents and new protocols

- Why technical SEO fundamentals still matter

- How SEOs should approach new AI recommendations

- The role of green SEO and sustainable websites

Topics covered:

- Hidden content, visible content and AI accessibility

- How LLMs read HTML source code compared with search engines

- Rendering, DOMs and JavaScript challenges

- Testing pages using Screaming Frog and Sitebulb

- Google’s AI SEO guidance and what it really means

- GEO, AEO and whether they are still just SEO

- Why unique content and perspectives matter more in AI search

- Future-proofing migrations for AI requirements

- Choosing flexible CMS platforms and website architecture

- APIs, endpoints and preparing websites for AI agents

- Agentic commerce and the future of e-commerce websites

- OAuth, authentication and AI accessing user accounts

- AI accessibility audits

- Checking whether AI bots are blocked by firewalls or robots.txt

- Using log files to analyse AI crawler behaviour

- ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity web fetching

- Browser-based AI agents and website usability

- WebMCP and the future of AI interactions

- Green SEO, sustainable hosting and website efficiency

- Avoiding quick SEO tactics and understanding why things work

Connect With Dave - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davecousin/

Related Links - https://algorythmic.co/llm-content-visibility-scanner/ - https://brightonseo.com/training

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