5 Things Content Marketers & SEOs Should Stop Doing in 2026

Zero-click search has made five common content habits counterproductive. Building pages around keywords misses how people now query, since the average ChatGPT prompt runs 23 words. Grading content on traffic ignores that the top-ranked page loses 58% of its CTR under an AI Overview. Publishing more matters less than maintaining what exists, as 75% of AI-cited pages were updated in the past year. The last two are relying on owned channels, when 85% of AI brand mentions come from third parties, and publishing generic guides with no original data.