AI SEO Best Practices

For three decades, SEO has been the cornerstone of digital visibility, but that’s changed with the growth of AI platforms and especially Google’s new AI-driven search results. 

As AI search continues to grow in popularity, traditional SEO strategies must be updated to improve visibility within the emerging AI platforms themselves, as well as the different types of search results Google develops to support AI search, including their AI Overviews, AI Mode, etc.

While there is substantial overlap between traditional SEO approaches and the more modern AI SEO or Generative Search Optimization (GEO) best practices, it’s important to understand the differences and to embrace new strategies, tactics, and tools to maximize your AI visibility. 

This guide explains why it’s so important to start optimizing for AI systems now, how to measure AI visibility, and how to improve it via AI SEO best practices.

What Is AI SEO?

AI SEO, sometimes referred to as “Generative Engine Optimization” or “GEO”, is an approach designed to make sure your content is understood, selected, and cited by large language models (LLMs) like Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT. 

Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on rankings within Google’s organic search results, AI SEO is needed to help your brand appear within AI’s synthesized answers and the links (called “Citations”) shown beneath those answers.

What Makes AI Visibility So Important?

The future of search is increasingly likely to be AI-driven, and businesses that fail to optimize for these platforms risk being left behind. Unlike traditional SEO, where ranking outside of the very top search results still provides some visibility and traffic, AI platforms typically synthesize information from only the most relevant and authoritative sources. This creates a winner-take-all dynamic where being second-best could mean being completely invisible.

As a result, search behavior has fundamentally shifted. Nearly 60% of Google searches now end without a click, as users get answers directly from Google’s AI Overviews. This phenomenon, known as "the rise of zero-click search," represents the most significant change in search behavior and SEO results over the last twenty years.

Data tells the story quite clearly; according to Search Engine Journal, AI-powered summaries appear in more than 13% of queries, while AI Overviews show up in over 1 in 10 Google searches. 74% of Google’s problem-solving searches now surface AI-generated responses via the AI Overviews, allowing users to get their answers without having to click through to any other website.

For users, zero-click search is faster and far more convenient. For brands, it means fewer chances for visitors to arrive on your site, even when you've earned top rankings and achieved maximum visibility. Even when you rank at the top of Google’s AI-driven results, those rankings may no longer translate into measurable organic traffic. Users may absorb your information or recognize your expertise, but that may not necessarily be reflected in your traditional analytics.

The implications are stark: if you only utilize traditional SEO strategies, your brand may lose visibility in the AI-driven answer layer where trust and purchasing decisions are increasingly formed.

How to Conduct an AI SEO Audit

To find out whether or not your brand is prepared to succeed in the new era of AI-driven search, we suggest conducting an AI SEO Audit. Follow these simple steps to determine what you need to update, and whether or not you may need outside assistance from professional AI SEO experts.

1. Measure the Right Metrics

Retain your traditional SEO-based traffic and conversion goals, but expand them to consider new objectives based on AI search needs and possibilities. Consider adding the following KPIs to your traditional SEO metrics:

• Organic Impressions (via Google Search Console)
• AI Overview Rankings
• AI Platform Brand Mentions (“Citations” on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, etc.)
• Referral Traffic from LLMs
• Branded Search Volume
• Engagement on Unowned Channels (Conversations and shares on Social Media platforms, Forums, etc.)

2. Audit Your Existing Content

Review your core pages and content to score them against key traditional SEO requirements, while also considering more modern AI SEO requirements. During your audit, we suggest reviewing the following content and tags:

• Optimized URLs
• Title Tags
• Meta Description Tags
• Header Tags
• Internal Links
• Keyword Insertions
• Recency of Content (last updated date)
• Canonical Tags

3. Score Your Content for Citability

Review each of your high-value pages to evaluate "citable signals", meaning elements that make your copy likely to be used and shown in AI systems. Look for the following:

• Direct answer summaries provided at the top of the page
• Evidence including proprietary data, expert quotes, methods, and credible source links
• FAQ blocks that mirror natural language searches
• Proper schema markup (FAQ, HowTo, Product, Organization/Author with dates, etc.)

4. Identify Content Gaps and Consolidate Duplicates

Review your existing content against updated keyword research, including full-sentence questions likely to be searched by AI users. Look for:

• Content gaps on your own domain, where you know (or think) there is search volume for a particular topic, but you haven’t already covered it with a unique URL
• Off-domain content gaps, when your brand is missing from "Best of" lists, comparison sites, review platforms, and relevant forum discussions where AI models are likely to gather context
• Duplicate articles where you’ve got multiple pages covering the same topics, or topics that are simply too similar to require their own pages
• Missing bottom-of-funnel pages, especially questions about pricing/costs, comparisons between competitor products, coupons/sales/deals, etc.

5. Understand How to Navigate the Zero-Click Environment

The rise of zero-click searches presents both challenges and opportunities. Here's how to adapt:

• Consider running search and display ads for informational queries that typically result in zero clicks
• Build awareness campaigns around topics where you already have organic presence
• Use paid advertising as an amplifier for your organic authority, not a substitute

How to Measure SEO Performance in an Increasingly AI-Driven World

Nearly every brand has seen organic traffic disruptions thanks to the growth of AI platforms and Google’s insistence on promoting the AI Overviews ahead of their traditional organic results, but those that deal in information are seeing the largest traffic declines.

In the AI-driven era, you’ll need to adjust your reporting processes to get a better idea about how well your brand is truly performing. Instead of only looking at keyword rankings, organic traffic, and organic conversions, you’ll need to consider additional metrics, including:

1. Organic Impressions

Many traditional SEO campaigns have tracked organic impressions for some time, but it’s become more important than ever to watch impressions and they can easily be found within Google Search Console.

Impressions tracking can help you identify new queries worth targeting via SEO-driven content.

2. AI Overview Rankings

Without tracking visibility within the AI Overviews, you’ll miss the most important part of the modern SEO story. While traditional organic rankings still matter, they’re not the end-all, be-all they used to be.

Due to the rise of Zero-Click Search, many users aren’t even making it to the actual organic results, as they’re finding answers and making decisions based off the information displayed within the AI Overviews.

To understand your brand’s AI SEO success, you’ll need to monitor visibility within the AI Overviews. Pick a set of queries you want to monitor, then use a platform like STAT to determine whether or not your brand’s content is featured against those searches.

3. AI Platform Brand Mentions (“Citations”)

Now that a significant percentage of “Search” is happening completely outside of the Search Engines themselves, it’s critical to monitor your presence within these new ecosystems.

There are a variety of tools that can help you understand whether or not your brand’s content is being selected and shown within the results on AI Platforms, and you’ll need to leverage a tool like Scrunch to monitor your mentions, citations, and sentiment. 

4. Referral Traffic from LLMs 

Because AI Platforms were designed to provide answers rather than links, they don’t tend to send large volumes of visitors to websites, but they do produce referral traffic.

To find out how much traffic you’re receiving from the LLMs, create a custom Exploration report in Google Analytics that allows you to match against referrals from the largest AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, etc.

5. Branded Search Volume 

If you’re generating enough visibility within the LLM results, helping consumers find answers to their questions, and earning their trust, then you may be able to see a bump in branded search volumes via a tool like Google Trends, Google’s Keyword Planner, or SEMRush’s Keyword Magic tool.

Many things can influence branded search volume, but as AI search continues to grow, it’s likely that capturing top results within these platforms will have an even bigger impact on branded demand.

6. Citations & Engagement on Unowned Channels 

Most of the AI platforms monitor engagement on Social Media platforms, Forums (like Reddit, Quora), and niche-specific sites, to measure authority and determine which brands are the true experts on particular topics.

Use a Social Media listening platform to monitor these conversations, count brand mentions, track sentiment, and identify opportunities to participate in relevant conversations or answer well-targeted questions.

Now that you know how to measure the results of your AI SEO efforts, let’s talk about how to improve your visibility in AI systems.

How to Achieve Better Visibility Through AI SEO Best Practices

Optimizing for AI platforms requires a comprehensive approach that builds upon traditional SEO principles while addressing the new and unique requirements of AI search engines. Success depends on three core principles:

1. Prioritize E-E-A-T Signals

AI platforms heavily weight authority and trustworthiness signals, aligning quite closely with Google's Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-E-A-T) framework, but requiring even greater emphasis on participating in conversations off your own domain. 

Experience - Demonstrate ongoing engagement with your subject matter through regular content updates and detailed, long-form content that proves direct knowledge. Platform-specific participation is crucial: share content on Reddit for Google visibility, maintain Wikipedia presence for ChatGPT, and actively participate on X for Grok.

Expertise - Establish clear authorship with visible qualifications and professional credentials. Include author bylines with expertise, real-world examples, roles, or case insights. Implement Author schema markup to prove human authorship and provide authoritative sources to strengthen content validity. Create original research reports and comprehensive guides that position you as the definitive source.

Authority - Build credibility through high-authority backlinks and citations from recognized publications and research institutions. Participate visibly in industry events, conferences, and webinars to enhance your expert reputation. Ensure transparent sourcing of statistics and references.

Trust - Maintain transparency through clear contact information, professional website design, and comprehensive security policies. Display genuine customer reviews and testimonials while ensuring content accuracy and building a positive online reputation. LLMs reward factual accuracy, consistency, and transparency across all touchpoints.

Think of this process like a supercharged version of traditional SEO-driven content marketing and link building campaigns, where your brand creates an established presence and builds authority by sharing content on your own site and across a network of third-party websites. 

Don’t just chase “links” or “citations”, but build an active presence on these third party domains by creating local business listings, actively responding to reviews and questions, and demonstrating your experience and expertise by posting content regularly, sharing articles, “How To” Guides, basic comments, videos and/or audio material wherever your potential customers congregate online.

We suggest prioritizing the following types of sites:

• Local business listing sites (Google Maps/Google Business Profiles, Facebook Local, Apple Maps, Bing Local, Local Chambers of Commerce, etc.)
• Social media platforms and profiles (Reddit, Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
• Review sites (Google Reviews, Yelp, Trustpilot, Better Business Bureau, TripAdvisor, industry-specific sites, etc.)
• Content aggregators (Wikipedia, Quora, Medium, YouTube, etc.)

By actively generating a presence across these sites, you can signal that your brand is a true thought leader, an authority within your vertical, and the source that AI platforms should refer to when users ask questions about your products and services.

2. Update Your Content Strategy to Maximize Citations

AI platforms prioritize content that provides clear, relevant, and easily extractable information. Your content must be comprehensive, intent-driven, and structured for both human and machine readability.

Provide Direct Answers - Front-load answers with clear, concise summaries under 120 words that directly address the main question. Use clear, repeated terminology and eliminate unnecessary fluff. Include specific examples, data points, and evidence while focusing on unique insights not commonly found elsewhere.

Be Comprehensive & Intent-Driven - LLMs favor complete answers that cover the main query, related terms, variations, and natural follow-ups. Anticipate adjacent questions users might have and address them within your content to increase the likelihood of being surfaced as the "best available answer."

Use Keyword-Level Matching - AI systems favor exact terminology over synonyms or clever phrasing. Use the same language your audience uses in queries, aligning your content structure with how people naturally ask questions.

Utilize Structured Formats - Create clear, descriptive headlines and subheadings that work as extraction cues. Implement consistent formatting patterns with logical content progression. Include FAQ sections that mirror prompt syntax (e.g., "best X for Y," "X vs Y," "pricing," "implementation time") with FAQ schema markup.

Build Topical Authority - Develop comprehensive content hubs around core topics with clear internal linking structures. Maintain consistent publishing patterns in your expertise areas and create detailed pillar content supported by related articles.

Provide Multiple Formats - Create content in text, video, and audio formats when possible. Provide transcripts for multimedia content and use descriptive filenames with proper markup for different content types.

3. Pursue Technical SEO Perfection

Technical optimization for AI platforms builds upon traditional SEO technical requirements, but places even greater emphasis on the need for structured data and requires adding new elements, like LLM Text Files.

Structured Data - Schema.org markup is critical for helping AI platforms understand content relationships and meaning. Deploy specialized schema types including FAQPage, HowTo, Product, and Organization markup using JSON-LD format.

LLM Text Files - Create "llms.txt" files to provide AI systems with concise, structured information about your website's purpose, structure, and key information, similar to how we use robots.txt files for traditional search engines.

Semantic HTML Structure - Use proper header tag hierarchy and semantic HTML5 elements (article, section, nav) to provide contextual clues. Implement table structures with proper headers and list elements for sequential information.

Site Speed and Performance - AI platforms prioritize fast-loading content. Optimize your site to pass Google's Core Web Vitals metrics (LCP, FID, CLS) and run regular tests using Google's PageSpeed Insights to identify and address performance issues.

Enhanced XML Sitemaps - Create XML sitemaps with additional AI-favored attributes, including priority indicators, content-type specifications, and freshness indicators.

How to Perform AI SEO For Each Individual LLM

While general optimization principles apply across all AI platforms, each AI system has distinct preferences and ranking factors that may require a tailored approach.

Google's AI Overviews

Google's AI Overviews appear prominently in search results and require a multi-faceted web presence for optimal visibility.

Target Diverse Content Types - Focus on high-quality blogs, news outlets, relevant forums like Reddit and Quora, and Q&A sites. Don't neglect deep, content-rich pages on your own site, especially well-structured guides and list-driven articles.

Create Unmistakably Human Content - Include video content, focus on topics requiring unique perspectives, address subjects where users may not trust AI, and prominently feature writers with their credentials.

Optimize for Natural Language Questions - Structure content to directly answer common questions with dedicated FAQ sections and question-based headings. Implement FAQ schema markup for enhanced visibility.

Focus on E-E-A-T Signals - Enhance author bios with credentials, link to authoritative sources, include first-person perspectives, and maintain consistent publishing in your area of expertise.

Structure for Extractability - Use clear hierarchical heading structures, implement bullet points and numbered lists, create concise paragraphs, and include properly marked-up data tables.

Google’s Gemini

Google's Gemini draws from Google Search data, but emphasizes additional ranking factors for conversational AI interactions.

Optimize Knowledge Graph Presence - Ensure your Google Knowledge Graph information is complete and accurate. Structure content with clear "information units" that Gemini can easily cite and reference.

Focus on Content Depth - Create comprehensive content that addresses follow-up questions related to your main topic. Ensure factual accuracy and include timestamp information for any time-sensitive content.

Implement Extensive Schema Markup - Use schema.org markup comprehensively across all content types to help Gemini understand content relationships and context.

Grok

Grok's integration with X (formerly Twitter) and emphasis on real-time data requires specific optimization approaches, mainly participating on X itself.

Build a Strong X Presence - Establish consistent, high-quality posts on X with substantive content. Create regular content updates to capitalize on Grok's recency bias.

Balance Information and Personality - Create content with informational value and conversational style. Include appropriate humor and personality, as Grok has a distinctive "witty" communication style.

Optimize for Real-Time Relevance - Structure information to facilitate real-time updates and focus on trending topics with substantive depth. Implement proper schema markup for time-sensitive information.

Copilot

Microsoft's Bing Copilot integrates with their search infrastructure while emphasizing structured information.

Optimize for Bing Search - Build a strong foundation in Bing search visibility as the base for Copilot optimization. Focus on Microsoft's integration opportunities.

Create Structured Content - Include citations and reference links throughout your content. Create comprehensive comparison tables for product-related content and optimize images with detailed alt text.

Ensure Academic Compatibility - Optimize for compatibility with Microsoft's Academic Knowledge Graph, particularly for research and educational content.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT's reliance on training data rather than real-time web crawling requires different optimization strategies.

Build Authority in Training Sources - Focus on building presence on websites likely included in ChatGPT's training data, like Wikipedia, news sites, scientific journals, etc. Create distinctive, unique content that stands out.

Develop Reference-Quality Content - Build a strong Wikipedia presence and ensure mentions in major blogs and news reports. Focus on creating definitive, high-quality reference content rather than commercial pages.

Target Non-Commercial Sources – Develop a solid presence on platforms like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Reddit (where applicable) rather than focusing solely on commercial content.

Deepseek

Deepseek emphasizes technical and research-oriented content with specific preferences for academic and technical information.

Create Technical Depth - Develop content with clear technical depth and include code examples where relevant. Cite research papers and academic sources extensively.

Structure Information Logically - Present information in sequential, logical manner using technical terminology accurately. Include visual aids like diagrams and flowcharts to explain complex concepts.

Claude

Anthropic's Claude has distinct preferences for balanced, thoughtful content presentation.

Focus on Ethical Balance - Create content with clear reasoning patterns and balanced perspectives. Include detailed contextual information and emphasize factual accuracy.

Provide Step-by-Step Explanations - Structure content with clear hierarchical organization and detailed explanations for complex topics. Focus on helpful, user-focused content above all else.

Perplexity

Perplexity's real-time information model and emphasis on authoritative sources requires specific optimization approaches.

Cultivate Niche Authority - Build a presence on high-authority niche sites and respected review platforms relevant to your industry. Participate in discussions on relevant forums for your area of expertise.

Focus on Factual Utility - Create factual, useful content including comparisons, guides, and data-driven insights. Ensure content is easily accessible to Perplexity's web crawlers.

Emphasize Timely Updates - Focus on regularly updated information with clear attribution and citations. Include comprehensive metadata to facilitate quick information extraction.

Final Thoughts on AI SEO

AI SEO represents a structural shift in digital visibility where traditional SEO remains essential, but is no longer sufficient. Success requires developing integrated strategies that build authority across the entire search ecosystem, including both the traditional organic results, as well as emerging AI platforms. 

The stakes are high because AI platforms often operate on a winner-take-all basis, where only the most authoritative and relevant sources gain any visibility at all. However, marketers who embrace AI SEO now can defend their brand presence where AI engines consolidate attention, create future-forward strategies as search continues evolving, and maximize ROI by aligning content to achieve visibility while continuing to generate conversions.

To win in this environment, prioritize auditing your current content for AI SEO visibility, enhancing clarity and trust signals, monitoring your presence across the new AI results and platforms, and connecting your efforts to measurable business outcomes. 

Contact Us for Assistance

AI platforms are fundamentally changing how users discover, consume, and interact with information. While there's substantial overlap between traditional SEO strategies and GEO, the nuances and platform-specific requirements demand specialized expertise.

If you need assistance navigating this complex landscape, developing comprehensive AI SEO strategies, or implementing the content and technical optimizations outlined in this guide, our team is here to help. 

We specialize in both traditional SEO and AI SEO, and we’re prepared to ensure your brand maintains and grows its digital presence as search continues to evolve.