Everywhere you turn, someone is talking about AI. It has already made a direct impact on many industries, including Digital Marketing, specifically in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
AI SEO refers to optimizing content so it appears in AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT or Google AI Search Summary.
Many users are now turning to Large Language Models (LLMs) to answer questions, instead of relying solely on traditional search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
So, what does this mean for traditional SEO?
It is not obsolete.
Three core principles still apply, whether we are talking about traditional SEO or AI SEO:
- Quality content is still important.
- The information architecture of your website is essential.
- Topical expertise should continue to be optimized.
In this article, we’ll explore what we currently know about AI SEO and how to position your website for success across all forms of search.
What Are We Optimizing For?
As mentioned above, you still have to curate quality content and make sure your website has strong Technical SEO.
However, the strategy has evolved.
Now, instead of focusing on a single high-performing piece of content about a specific topic or keyword, brands need a more comprehensive approach to building authority across the web.
This means developing a strategic plan that strengthens your brand presence beyond your website, like distributing content to additional platforms and formats, including short-form video, digital PR, and authoritative third-party publications or influencers.
What KPIs Are Important in AI SEO?
AI SEO has often been referred to as the “clickless search” because the AI platforms provide the answer directly in the interface, so users often don’t need to click through to a website.
So how do you measure success in this new landscape?
Below is a breakdown of traditional SEO KPIs compared to AI SEO KPIs:
| Traditional SEO | AI SEO |
| Keyword rankings | Brand answer inclusion/mentions |
| Organic traffic | Citation frequency |
| Conversions | Share of AI visibility or voice |
Let’s break down these three new KPIs and what they mean:
- Brand Mentions: how often your brand, product, or services appear in AI-generated answers, even if no link is provided.
- Citations: When an AI platform references or links to your website as a source within its response.
- Share of Visibility or Voice: How frequently your brand appears in AI answers compared to competitors within your industry.
In short, traditional SEO focuses on optimizing clicks, while AI SEO is based on optimizing answers and enhancing brand presence.
How Do I Optimize Content for AI SEO?
Optimizing for AI SEO requires a more holistic approach to content creation.
Traditional SEO focuses on optimizing for keywords and search intent. AI SEO expands that strategy by optimizing for full questions, conversational prompts, and topic depth.
Instead of targeting a single keyword, you should structure content around the types of prompts users are likely to ask.
5 Key Prompts to Focus on:
- Research – “What is…” or “How does…”
- Education – “How do I…” or “Why does…”
- Comparison – “X vs Y” or “What’s better…”
- Purchase – “Best,” “Top,” “Where to buy…”
- Support – “How to fix…” or “Troubleshooting…”
You want to identify which AI platform is most important to you and your brand. Do you want to rank in Google AI overviews or ChatGPT, etc.?
You also want to research which prompts or questions are most popular for your brand and optimize content around that.
TIP: AI models evaluate authority across the broader digital ecosystem. You don’t just want your website to appear in AI-generated responses. You want third-party publications, industry partners, influencers, and reputable brands to reference and mention your company as well.
The more consistently your brand is cited across trusted sources, the stronger your authority signals become.
How Do AI Models Crawl A Site?
AI models don’t just crawl websites the way traditional search engines do. Instead, they use web content in multiple ways. From training large language models to retrieving real-time information that supports AI-generated answers.
There are generally three types of AI-related crawlers:
- Training Crawlers: These collect publicly available content that may be used to train large language models (LLMs) on language patterns, topics, and contextual understanding.
- Index-Building Crawlers: These create structured indexes of web content that AI systems can reference when generating responses.
- Live Retrival Crawlers: These pull real-time information from external sources to ensure answers are current and relevant.
Understanding how AI systems collect and retrieve information reinforces why structured data, topical depth, and brand authority matter more than ever in an AI-driven search landscape.
AI SEO isn’t replacing traditional SEO; it’s redefining it. Today, visibility isn’t just about clicks, but about being seen, cited, and trusted in AI-generated answers and across the web. Brands that combine strong content, technical SEO, and cross-platform authority will not just survive but thrive in the AI-driven search era.
Feeling overwhelmed? Drop us a line, and we would be happy to talk about your SEO strategy.