People are no longer just typing keywords into Google and clicking blue links. They’re asking questions in tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and even Google’s AI Overviews.
That creates a new question for brands.
How do you get your company mentioned inside those answers?
A mention in an AI answer can shape awareness, influence buying decisions, and increasingly drive traffic.
The good news is many of the fundamentals are familiar. The difference is that you're no longer just optimizing for search engines. You're optimizing to be understood, cited, and recommended by large language models, but the strategies are the same. Don't be sold snake oil believing it's the magic pill for AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Here’s how to improve your odds.
Old strategies work! Focus on SEO and domain authority
Tried and true strategies still dominate. Build your domain authority with organic, high-quality backlinks, index pages with clear, concise and keyword focused content.
Write useful content (like this, hopefully) and ensure it indexes in popular search engines. Engage in discussions on popular websites, get your website featured on high domain authority websites (ideally as part of good content, i.e. a blog article).
Creating strong SEO foundations will be your path to success here. AI citations are often based on web searches, so ranking highly is important. We’ll revisit this later in the article.
1. Publish content that answers real questions
AI search often pulls from content that directly answers user prompts. If people ask these questions:
- What are the best tools for AI video generation?
- What software helps monitor AI search visibility?
- How do I improve citation rates in LLMs?
- What software do you recommend to manage my boutique hotel?
...then you want to have credible content answering those questions. This does not mean pumping out generic SEO articles. It means creating genuinely useful content that covers topics like:
- Comparisons
- How-to guides
- Original research
- Industry explainers
- Opinionated takes with evidence
Well-structured content with clear headings, concise answers, and supporting facts tends to be easier for retrieval systems to use.
Google’s guidance around helpful content and experience-driven expertise still matters here.
2. Get mentioned on trusted third-party sites
AI systems will often lean heavily on trusted external sources when deciding what brands to surface. Examples of trusted third-party sites would be:
- Industry publications
- Review platforms
- Forums like Reddit
- Community discussions
- "Best tools" listicles
- Wikipedia, where relevant
- High-authority editorial coverage
If ten credible sources describe you as a leader in a category, models start seeing that pattern.
This is less about traditional backlink building and more about entity building. You want the web to reinforce associations like:
- Your brand = best tool for Y
- Your brand = alternative to competitor Z
- Your brand = known solution in category C
3. Create comparison and 'alternative' pages
A surprising amount of AI search happens around comparison queries. People ask:
- What's better than Notion for startups?
- Alternatives to Figma for social media design?
- Best competitors to [brand]?
If you have clear comparison pages, you increase your chances of being included when models answer these prompts. Done well, these pages can support both traditional SEO and AI visibility. A word of warning - avoid bashing competitors, this rarely helps and doesn't come across well.
4. Structure content so that machines can 'understand' it
You can run a free AI readiness audit on Lima to assess how readable your website is for AI crawlers. Structured content is easier to cite. Some tips:
- Use clear semantics such as H1, H2 and H3 headings. Use tags for Main, Nav, Section, Article, Footer etc.
- ALT tags on images + ensure important written content is HTML, not embedded into images
- Meta titles and descriptions
- Use a llms.txt file - AI crawlers can use this to get fuller context on your website
- Schema markup where relevant
- Write clear and understandable copy
5. Be visible on the platforms that AI uses to retrieve and train
Some AI systems rely heavily on live web retrieval, while others may combine retrieval with model knowledge.
Either way, being present in the places models frequently encounter will help with AI suggestions that rely on web search.
That includes places like:
- Reddit discussions (often surprisingly influential)
- GitHub, if you're technical
- Product Hunt
- G2 and Capterra
- Industry communities
- Public documentation
- Well-linked blog content
If nobody talks about your brand outside your own site, it'll be difficult for AI platforms to discover your brand in the first place.
6. Use an AI discovery platform like Lima to track your brand + competitor mentions
Lima helps you monitor how platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI talk about your brand, compare your visibility against competitors, and uncover opportunities to improve.
Without measurement, you have no awareness of how AI platforms are talking about your brand. You may not know when competitors are being recommended instead of you, which sources AI systems are relying on, or where your visibility is improving or slipping.
Measurement creates awareness and awareness creates opportunity.
With Lima, you can:
- See when and where AI platforms mention your brand
- Track which competitors appear more often for important prompts
- Understand which sources AI platforms cite in their responses
- Get tailored insights on what may help improve your visibility over time
- Audit your website to assess how AI may 'read' your website and interpret content
You can also test prompts that your users may enter, such as:
- Best tools for [category]
- Top alternatives to [competitor]
- Recommended platforms for [use case]
- What's the best software to run my [use case]
In summary, getting mentioned in AI search is not luck. With thoughtful SEO implementation and ongoing performance measurement, you can steadily improve visibility over time and see genuine tangible benefits to your bottom line, and if there's one thing we all love, it's a better bottom line.