In today’s digital landscape, creating online content demands more than just engaging writing for human interaction; it must also align with the complex algorithms that power AI-driven search insights that have started taking over many browser searches. With advancements in AI, such as Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI search bots, understanding user intent, context, and model nuances is essential for maximizing content visibility and engagement for AI search bots. In this article, we will provide recommendations to consider when creating content with the goal of increasing engagement by effectively optimizing content for AI search visibility. Essentially, how to develop content focused on improving AI SEO to increase ranks on AI-driven search results.
Insight Into This Content Series
Organizations have and will continue to see decreased digital traffic in their analytics platforms. Specifically, traffic attributed to organic or paid channels has likely taken the biggest hit, but these decreases have likely been minimal up to this point, especially for specific industries. A main contributor to traffic decreasing is AI. So, why should you be concerned about AI if the impact has been minimal through 2024? It is because AI is only expected to continue to impact an organization’s digital traffic as AI continues to evolve to be hyper-personalized to the user and not only used to synthesize content or create summaries. Instead of just leveraging AI for these functions, users will start to leverage AI to provide recommendations on fashion trends, products users might like based on historical preferences, and so much more. Whether it is AI search overviews becoming more popular in search engines or AI platforms being leveraged as users’ first stop for information, content, or perhaps shopping, the reality is AI is here to stay and the amount of traffic it will influence will only continue to grow. Organizations that figure out how to leverage AI and influence the LLMs (Large Language Models), will gain a competitive advantage over the rest of the organizations in their industry.
For this reason, InfoTrust will be publishing a content series we are calling, “Mastering AI for Marketing”. In this series, we will be diving into various topics related to AI for marketing, some of which we can help your organization execute on, and others for which we have partners we recommend leveraging. These topics include both organic and paid AI search visibility, analyzing AI-driven traffic, leveraging AI for advanced analytics capabilities, and more. The goal of this series is to enable organizations to continue to prepare for the ever-evolving marketing landscape.
InfoTrust’s mission is to unlock the power of data to enhance marketing performance and drive growth. To do that, we must ensure that organizations are prepared for the future of AI for marketing by providing substantive, research-backed insights and recommendations to questions many organizations are asking. These strategic insights are gathered by working through unique use cases we encounter through our work or by asking “what if” questions and testing our hypothesis. When we question, test, and understand adjacent marketing topics, it enables improved privacy-centric media enablement and data collection recommendations that are more comprehensive to the change AI is bringing to marketing and advertising.
As mentioned in the introduction, this article is focused on AI search visibility or how to best optimize content to increase AI SEO rankings. Historically, SEO has been a main focus of many organizations focused on driving organic traffic, but in 2024 many search engines introduced AI overview, which dramatically reduced the need to click into sites to get meaningful information. While SEO and AI SEO are not services InfoTrust provides, we do partner with Seer Interactive, an industry-leading organization with regard to not only SEO, but also AI SEO. The Seer Interactive team doesn’t only focus on being experts in SEO and AI SEO, but they’re also focused on giving back to their community. So, if you are looking to partner with a great industry-leading organization in respects to SEO and AI SEO content optimization, Seer Interactive is a great option.
Understanding User Intent
A crucial factor in effective AI search overview visibility is understanding user intent, which refers to the goal that a searcher aims to achieve when entering a query into a search engine. Understanding user intent goes beyond simply focusing on keywords; it allows creators to tailor content that meets real user needs, ultimately improving satisfaction and search rankings. For example, if a searcher is searching for, “How to determine if my brakes need to be replaced on a Honda Accord?”, the keyword(s) that stick out are “Honda Accord” and “brakes”. However, the intent of the user is seemingly what steps or instructions can be used to determine when brakes are bad and need to be replaced. Determining user intent is difficult, but it is important to consider intent when creating and developing content as AI will be able to better interpret user intent than the basic search engines can.
To determine user intent effectively, it is beneficial to start by analyzing search queries. Tools like Google Trends can help identify trending topics within specific niches, while platforms such as AnswerThePublic can visualize common questions about a particular topic/search categories. This insight can guide the creation of targeted content that resonates with readers and searchers.
In addition to analyzing search queries, conducting competitor analysis is equally important. Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs enable deep dives into competitors’ content strategies, assessing the keywords they target and their engagement metrics. This valuable information not only uncovers what resonates with readers, but can also reveal gaps in your organization’s content to help drive future initiatives. If the search queries are overly competitive, it might be best to look for other search queries that are not as competitive, especially if your organization is still in the brand-building phase.
Long-Tail Keywords and Natural Language
Transitioning from user intent, another pivotal element of AI Search Overview visibility is using long-tail keywords. These specific phrases tend to carry lower search volume but offer much higher conversion potential, attracting users who are often further along in their journey.
Incorporating long-tail keywords starts with thorough research. Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs can reveal relevant variations, allowing creators to adjust filters based on search volume and keyword difficulty. Google Keyword Planner is also a resource that can be used for exploring long-tail keywords with low competition, making it easier to structure content around these terms.
Understanding the intent behind these keywords enhances the effectiveness of content creation. By categorizing keywords into informational, navigational, and transactional intents, writers can tailor their articles to address specific user needs. For example, creating in-depth articles that respond to common user questions that are easily read, but include an ordered list of recommendations can significantly improve both engagement from users and visibility in AI search results.
Embracing Semantic Search
As we deepen our understanding of content optimization relating to AI, it’s essential to consider the role of semantic search, which emphasizes context and meaning over merely matching keywords. This evolution in search capabilities was significantly improved with AI and is designed to enhance the user experience by aligning search results with user expectations. This is the reason some of the content pulled in from the AI search overview may not be the top organic listings that you see in the browser, but are instead on the second and third pages.
To leverage semantic search methods, enhancing the use of sub-keywords can be highly effective and improve your site’s standing with AI search overviews. Tools like LSI Graph can identify related terms that complement primary keywords, enriching the content’s depth and relevance. Additionally, developing a hub-and-spoke model—where central content links out to related articles—helps foster a robust ecosystem of information, while reinforcing authority on specific topics. This means it is good to not have a site that targets all search queries that are related to the organization’s industry, but instead focuses on bringing expertise to a targeted identified area related to the industry.
Creating High-Quality Content
With a solid foundation laid through user intent and keyword research, the next focus should be on creating high-quality content. This is the cornerstone of effective AI search overview visibility, as content must provide real value while combining originality and detail. Engaging readers requires more than just information; it necessitates a genuine connection. The majority of AI tools have abilities to help with content creation and do a very good job when the correct prompts are utilized. However, if not utilized correctly, AI can sometimes lack genuine connection and continuity, making it difficult for users to follow along.
Utilizing tools like GPTZero to help refine and humanize these drafts is crucial to ensure a human touch is added. While models don’t necessarily care if the content was generated by AI, a human touch to add some personalization and flow to the article can help significantly. Incorporating personal anecdotes and specific examples can enhance relatability, making the content resonate more with its human audience.
To maximize impact, consider starting each article with a compelling statistic, question, or example that captures users’ attention right from the beginning. Writing in a conversational tone will improve readability and encourage engagement. Also, using tools like AI writing help can help you make the piece clear and consistent. To finish, pull a summary list of recommendations that AI can use to generate its list of recommendations. The less work AI has to do in summarizing recommendations, the more preference it will give that content.
Practical Tips for Optimization
To create a truly outstanding user experience, optimization practices come into play. Leveraging structured, clean code will increase the likelihood of AI leveraging your content. Structured code helps AI search bots search content more efficiently to ensure accuracy, which boosts visibility in the AI search overview. If we take a step back and think about the millions, if not billions of searches that happen every single day, the harder the AI search bots have to work to pull data, the more processing costs that are incurred. In today’s day-in-age, cost reductions are a major focus, so if your site code and data is difficult to follow, it will result in AI deprioritizing your site and content.
Furthermore, optimizing content for voice search has become essential. This involves phrasing information as questions and using natural language that reflects how users speak. Integrating video content is another effective strategy, as it caters to diverse learning preferences; transcribing these videos can add valuable text-based content for further indexing by search engines and AI.
Another critical aspect of optimization is page speed. A slow-loading site can drive users away to other sources, which will impact brand respectability and awareness. While page speed may not directly affect AI, brand awareness and authority is very important to all AI models, which prefer well-known and respected brands. Key optimizations may include caching solutions and image compression to enhance performance.
One of the final ways to optimize the site is by leveraging multiple media formats such as infographics, videos, social media posts, audio recordings, etc. The more content your site puts out, even if it is the same content just in different formats, will help increase total users interacting with your content, and impact AI search bots by increasing the amount of your content available for the AI search bot to find and utilize. Also, while audio and video content may currently not be utilized by AI search bots today, improvements to these AI models are occurring and improving, which means it is only a matter of time before those capabilities are released.
Establishing Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT)
As we wrap up, it’s crucial to focus on establishing EAT principles—Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness—which are essential for building audience and AI confidence. Regularly referencing multiple credible sources in the created content, showcasing qualifications on updated company info pages, and listing out examples of customer testimonials or brands your organization interacts with can significantly enhance credibility and improve EAT scores. Furthermore, acquiring backlinks from reputable websites significantly boosts domain authority, making it easier for search engines and AI search bots to view the content as trustworthy.
Lastly, and probably one of the easiest actionable steps to take is keeping content fresh to maintain relevance. Periodically auditing existing articles, social media posts, and videos to update outdated information ensures that the content remains current and valuable in a dynamic digital landscape. This is especially true, when there are updates that occur to statistics or features. Nothing can affect trustworthiness and authority more than conflicting or incorrect information on an organization’s site. This practice will also increase the likelihood of AI search bots scanning your site as AI search bots want to ensure it doesn’t leverage old, outdated information if possible. Thus, AI sees that the content was recently added or updated to include in the results it pulls.
For example, a simple query search on Google resulted in an AI Overview summary that pulled 80 percent of its findings from articles and social media posts that were published or modified in the last year of the search being completed. If you are curious yourself, try to generate an AI search overview and see how recent the content is that was referenced and linked.
Top 8 Recommendations for AI Search Results Optimization
- Keep Content Fresh : Regularly audit and update existing content to ensure accuracy and relevance, keeping your information current and trustworthy.
- Leverage Diverse Media Formats : Create and distribute content in multiple formats (e.g., videos, infographics, social media posts) to increase engagement and enhance discoverability by AI search bots.
- Enhance Semantic Search Practices : Improve content relevancy by incorporating sub-keywords and related terms that provide context, helping search algorithms understand the depth of your topics.
- Analyze User Intent : Start by assessing search queries to understand what users are truly seeking when they perform searches, which will inform content creation. Analyze attribution paths current users leverage and look for opportunities to improve based on findings.
- Incorporate Long-Tail Keywords : Conduct thorough research to identify and integrate long-tail keywords that match user intent, enhancing the relevancy of your content.
- Create High-Quality Content : Focus on producing unique and engaging content that genuinely connects with audiences, utilizing personal anecdotes and specific examples.
- Implement Structured Code : Review and improve website code to ensure it’s easily readable by AI search bots, which can enhance visibility and efficiency in data retrieval.
- Improve Page Speed : Optimize the loading speed of your website through methods such as caching and image compression to improve user experience and retention.
Conclusion
Optimizing content for AI search results requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses understanding user intent, effective keyword targeting, and a commitment to high-quality content creation. By implementing the strategies outlined in this guide—along with ongoing refinement based on analytics and audience feedback—visibility and engagement in search results can be elevated. As AI landscapes continue to evolve, embracing these recommendations will not only enhance search rankings but also foster audience loyalty and trust in the long run, from both AI and searchers.
Ultimately, choosing two or three of the recommendations above can prepare your organization for the future world where both AI and search will play a key role in brand awareness. Leveraging AI to help you solve some of the strategic recommendations above is also a good first step, and this Seer Interactive article walks through an AI Mega-Prompt that can be used. If you are interested in how well your brand ranks in regard to questions users are asking Generative AI platforms, check out SeerSignal and see if it is a fit for your organization’s needs.
Stay tuned for our next articles in the Mastering AI For Marketing series if you are interested in understanding what AI platforms are currently driving users to your site and how advertising on AI search results may change the game as it is related to paid traffic. If you are interested in learning more about how your organization can further prepare for AI relating to your data pipelines, check out our article on AI-Ready Data Pipelines: The Role of First-Party Data Collection in Data Confidentiality (Part 1).
