While it’s true that the internet (and along with it digital marketing) is changing at an ever-increasing pace, some things remain the same.
Brands of all sizes still see the value in rising to the top of search rankings, and in doing so, positioning their products and services as the answer to common queries.
But something has changed in the way we interact online.
The rapid growth of AI search engines and content generators is impossible to ignore, as are their impacts on the way we use the internet. Though traditional search engines, habits and content strategies remain the most dominant forces online, the meteoric rise of AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity have forced the world to ask some big questions, like:
Do we even need Google anymore?
We do by the way (and we’ll get into that), but with so many people wondering how to rank on ChatGPT, we thought we’d put together a handy guide. While there are some new things to learn, we’re not throwing out the rulebook, just listing some additional SEO strategies your business should be investing in.
Ready to learn how to rank your website on ChatGPT? Here’s how to enhance your website’s SEO for AI search.
The rise of AI-powered search engines
To understand why so many business owners, content creators and marketers seem so interested in AI search results, we need to look at the rising popularity of AI search engines.
Let’s look at some stats for the most popular AI tool, ChatGPT:
- Is (as of January 2025) the 100th most-visited website in the world.
- Receives 69 million monthly visitors via organic search.
- Saw its search traffic rise by 950% between 2022 – 2023.
- Has over 200 million weekly active users.
And that’s just ChatGPT, only one of many AI-powered tools that’s released a search feature in the last 4 – 5 years.
The remarkable thing here isn’t just the number of visits AI search engines are receiving, but the speed at which their user-bases are growing, consisting mainly of younger demographics who perform the bulk of online searches.
Who uses AI the most?
The most active users of generative AI are aged 18 – 24, followed closely by millennials and teenagers – the demographics who are the most likely to seek out products and services online. With this in mind, the potential value in hitting the top of AI search results is clear.
Rand Fishkin of SparkToro recently shared a great example of ChatGPT’s growing significance in online search habits, revealing that ChatGPT alone currently holds a 4.3% market share of all online searches.
Yes, Google is still the dominant force with a share of over 83%, but ChatGPT in its relative infancy has already risen above Bing and eclipsed Facebook, Reddit and Twitter combined.
So, why is any of this relevant to business owners and marketers? Simple, as AI platforms don’t seek out content for recommendation in the same way as traditional search engines, many brands could be missing out on significant search traffic.
What can be done? Learn to adapt your website and SEO for AI search.
How AI search works
This is where things can get a little complicated, at least in that opinions on what AI search engines are looking for can vary depending on who you ask. The easiest way to view things is to define what AI tools look for in relevant content, then see how that differs from Google.
What is ChatGPT search doing?
In his 2023 post “What Is ChatGPT Doing? . . . And Why Does It Work?” Stephen Wolfram does a great job of explaining this by describing ChatGPT’s “reasonable continuation” process. Basically, when a user inputs text, the AI is constantly looking to predict the next word based on the most common ‘next words’ in all the content it’s been trained on.
So, when you type ‘the best vacuum cleaner is’, ChatGPT combs through all its training data to find the most common words that follow that input phrase in content on the internet.
AI search is all about brand mentions
For AI search engines, “reasonable continuation” means search results will be based on the commonality of certain words and phrases online. Simply put, tools like ChatGPT are almost entirely focused on ‘mentions’, or how frequently other people, websites and brands mention specific products and services.
This is a bit different to the way Google works, where content is ranked based on things like:
- Backlinks.
- Content relevancy.
- Keyword placements.
- Indexing data.
For lack of a more sophisticated metaphor, if Google is a job interview, AI search is a popularity contest.
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it
SEO for AI search also needs to account for the conversational and direct way users talk to AI tools, with efforts focused more on context and search intent than traditional keyword use.
This is especially true for AI platforms with voice search functionality, as the way we type and speak can vary dramatically, but we’ll get into that a bit later.
Does this mean tried-and-tested search engine optimisation strategies are about to become useless? Not at all, Google is still by far the most-used search engine on the planet (and will be for the foreseeable future), so traditional SEO strategies are still just as important as ever.
What it does mean is that brands have an extra opportunity to gain even more visibility by factoring AI into their SEO strategies. Basically, SEO for AI search is a new tool for your kit.
6 steps to rank your website on ChatGPT
First things first, it’s important to note that optimising your website primarily for Google search is still essential, after all, it’s still by far the most frequently-used search engine.
Traditional link building is just as important as ever, what we’re saying is that the methods you currently use can be spruced up to account for new tools by adding a few extra steps.
The goal is to enhance your link building strategy by exploring a more PR-oriented approach. We want to get your brand mentioned more frequently, authentically and authoritatively in highly-visible and popular online content.
That’s the basics, but let’s actually tell you how to do it, here’s how to rank your website on ChatGPT.
Read More: How to Do Link Building: A Full Guide with Examples
Read More: Outsourcing Link Building: Benefits & Considerations
1. Make sure you’re talked about in listicles and best-of posts
To rank well in AI results, you need to increase the number of ‘mentions’ your brand receives online. Let’s build on an example we discussed earlier to explain this.
Picture ChatGPT’s “reasonable continuation” model trying to complete this sentence: ‘The best vacuum cleaner in the U.K is. . .’. If the word ‘Dyson’ shows up more times than the word ‘Shark’ in all its training data, the AI will be more likely to recommend ‘Dyson’.
This doesn’t necessarily mean ‘Dyson’ is the better brand, just that it’s talked about more in relevant online spaces. In the example below, ‘Dyson Gen5 Detect Absolute’ appears more frequently near words like ‘best’, ‘vacuum cleaner’ and ‘U.K.’, so the AI picks it as its answer.
Looking at the listed sources, you can see the AI has used high-ranking listicles and reviews to work this out. So, getting your brand featured in more of this type of content is an effective way to boost SEO for AI search.
This isn’t just a one-off, we regularly see success in this type of digital PR strategy for our clients. Just take a look at the example below and get in touch if you’d like to learn more.
2. Get branded mentions on powerful websites
While the big picture of SEO for AI search is to get your brand talked about more often, it’s important to make sure those ‘mentions’ are in the right places.
When a program like ChatGPT search tries to answer a search query, its algorithm looks through specific areas of training data to generate a relevant response. So, to rank well, you need to make sure you’re mentioned on powerful websites that the AI is likely to look at.
While getting mentioned on well-known websites is the best way to do this, it isn’t your only option. For smaller brands, a smarter use of resources would be to target specific queries with high search volumes, then find out where AIs look to answer them.
Say you own a restaurant in Manchester, a good option would be to target the query ‘What’s the best restaurant in Manchester’. Inputting this into ChatGPT will show you the spots that are currently ranking well, then you can do some reverse-engineering to find out where the AI’s algorithm gets its responses from.
Look for high-traffic sites, blogs, forums and social media pages that discuss your type of business among your target audience, then prioritise securing ‘mentions’ in these places through outreach or enlisting the help of a link building agency.
Remember, ChatGPT is known to factor social media sites like Reddit into its training data, so you’re not restricted to only targeting established publications. You can also ask ChatGPT where it gets its training data from for added help!
3. Create structured content that answers direct questions
Similarly to traditional SEO, SEO for AI search benefits greatly from high-quality, structured content that answers direct questions.
Just like targeting low-difficulty, high-volume keywords, getting your brand mentioned as an answer to trending questions can help you rank above your competitors.
To do this effectively, it’s important to think about how people use AI tools. Namely what types of language are used to ask what types of questions.
This is why we mentioned location-based content earlier, as users often ask tools like ChatGPT to recommend local businesses, but it’s also important to consider that users often talk to AIs using conversational language.
Putting all this together, great SEO content for AI search will:
- Be easily-scannable with clear headings and bullet points.
- Contain questions and answers written in NLP format.
- Include FAQs that answer trending location-based queries.
This type of content is easy for LLMs to understand, so it’s more likely to be recommended in search results.
Does this work? It has for us! Here’s an example of our client using these tips to gain a top search ranking for an industry-specific, location-based query.
4. Optimise your content for voice search engines
While we’re talking about SEO for AI search, it’s worth discussing how to rank well in voice searches. Why? Because voice searches are rising in popularity at a similar rate to AI, with 1 billion of them recorded per month, and both mediums benefit from similar SEO techniques.
When generating relevant responses, both AI search and voice search algorithms prioritise:
- Long-tail keywords.
- Conversational language.
- Search intent.
So, efforts to rank well in one medium can promote similar benefits in the other. As more AI search engines roll out voice search features, optimising content for both will become even more beneficial.
So, while you’re researching high-traffic queries for AI searches, look for long-tail keywords and conversational phrases geared towards voice searches. A good way to do this is to filter for questions in keyword research tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush. Or you could try:
- Analysing Google SERP features like ‘featured snippets’ and ‘people also ask’.
- Using Google Search Console to track voice search analytics.
- Using voice search apps to find trending topics.
- Searching for keywords on social media apps and forums like Facebook and Reddit.
5. Implement structured data and schema markup
Next, let’s talk about structured data and schema markup. These traditional SEO principles help search engines better-understand content as it’s indexed so it can be pushed to users who will find it useful.
This is also true in SEO for AI search. Essentially, adding structured data to web pages benefits SEO across all mediums. Data backs up this claim, with Google’s own guide to structured data revealing its addition can:
- Increase CTR between 25% – 82%.
- Boost page visits by 35%.
- Increase Time on Page metrics by 1.5x.
Structured data and schema markup help AIs accurately interpret and analyse what your content is about. The more they can work out, the easier it is to match pages with a user’s search intent.
Implementing a common structured data format like JSON-LD will benefit all your SEO efforts, but if it seems a little complex, you can always ask technical SEO specialists for help.
6. Regularly track, test and adjust your efforts
Popular platforms like ChatGPT are constantly adjusting their algorithms, so the finer details of your strategies will need to be tweaked over time.
While this is also true for traditional SEO, it’s more pronounced in SEO for AI search. This is due to the fact that AI tools aren’t directly influenced by real-time actions or SEO trends, only by the last sets of data they were trained on.
The efforts you make now may not pay off instantly, but there are ways to see how effective they’re likely to be. Here are a few useful tests you can try:
- Test queries in tools like ChatGPT to see where top-ranking results are sourced from.
- Ask AIs about your brand to see how accurate their summarisations are.
- Track online mentions of your brand using services like BuzzSumo and Mention.
Understanding how AIs collect training data, this information will give you a good idea of how effective your efforts will be when AI search engines are next updated.
What will the future of AI search look like?
While the meteoric rise of AI tools like ChatGPT has many people believing we’ve entered a new age of digital marketing, it’s important to remember these tools are still very new. That’s not to say AI search is a passing trend, just that AIs aren’t going to replace sites like Google.
The future of AI search will most likely involve a mix of traditional and AI-centric practices. For example, Google is continuing to evolve its search capabilities by incorporating powerful AI features like the Search Generative Experience (SGE) into its algorithm, enabling the site to benefit from its existing market dominance and meet the new demands of internet users.
In short, optimising your marketing strategy for Google will remain crucial for the foreseeable future, so traditional SEO practices like link building are still essential. However, to make the most of AI’s rising popularity, it’s worth adding some extra steps to boost SEO for AI search.
Final words
While the search landscape is evolving with the introduction and increasing adoption of AI-powered search engines, Google’s market share remains robust. With the vast majority of online experiences still starting on Google, the platform remains the most dominant market force, meaning brands, businesses and website owners should continue to focus their SEO efforts primarily on Google to maximise reach.
By optimising for Google, websites can ensure they remain visible to the largest possible audience and maintain an influential online presence, with this unlikely to change any time soon. That said, SEO for AI search is a growing force that if harnessed intelligently could bring in a sizable volume of extra traffic.
To keep on top of the ever-evolving world of SEO can be challenging, especially for busy business and website owners. If you think your site could benefit from a little optimisation to bring in more traffic, or you need some expert content written to boost your brand authority, get in touch with our friendly team.
