If you’re already sick of hearing about AI, brace yourself because it’s only going to get bigger in the days ahead. People are using it for everything from planning vacations to finding a doctor and the trend is going to continue to grow. We’re estimating that about 25% of Google searches will be replaced by AI (ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, etc.) by the end of next year. A whopping 70% of Genz Z and Millennials use AI tolls weekly for search or decision-making already. Even in traditional engines like Google and Bing, AI results dominate the top of the page in many cases.
The time has come to lean into the reality that people you do business with are growing more comfortable with AI and the fact that you need to be found.
So how do you do it? First, understand that these platforms are consistently changing, and will likely require your strategy to grow over time just like hit has with SEO and Google Search. But there are a handful of core principles that will likely serve you well not only now, but over the course of time.
Tactics You Should Implement now for AI Result Citation
- Structure your content to be easily read by machines – This includes implementing schema markup to help LLM’s (Language Learning Models) understand context, using clear headings and bullets, and making sure your site is clearly crawlable/indexable. Businesses with structured content are 3x more likely to be cited in AI-generated responses.
- Be the source of new information – Create original content. If your content looks the same as all other content, it’s not likely to get cited. Stand out, have a voice, be unique.
- Use descriptive (but not rambling) content to help make relationships clear – If you mention your product, talk about what it does. Be consistent with naming, and avoid jargon and random acronyms where possible.
- Utilize FAQ pages – These can be easily citable for AI/LLM results (and are valuable for the user).
- Earn mentions from credible sources – Podcast, interviews, publications, and other sources showing expertise help to gain credibility and make it more likely to be found.
- Be present in a variety of relevant sources – Do some test queries in ChatGPT and look where content is getting sourced from for prompts in your niche. Are there common sources for information, like Reddit, Yelp, or popular publications? Get your name out there as organically as possible in the right places. (We also recommend making sure you’re on entities Mapbox, which has appeared to be where ChatGPT is sourcing a bit of business info from…)
These are going to be the low hanging fruit that most companies can implement to get a quick start. If you’re interested in some help, just contact us and we’ll help you with a plan to move forward.
Remember How LLMs Work
Remember that LLMs aren’t just an index like we’ve been trained to use on the internet for decades. These are models that synthesize and interpret data to provide more comprehensive results. As you’re creating content, think to yourself “Is this content that is worth utilizing?” LLMs are looking for content that is intelligible, valuable, and easily accessible in order to be cited.
We recommend using “answerable” units (what can AI easily extract?), avoiding ambiguity (very clear, direct answers using consistent terms and names), and including context cues (AI isn’t truly “intelligent” – they’re still Language Learning Models synthesizing data).
You don’t want to write directly for a machine – humans will always be first – but you do want to consider how the information is formatted to be best utilized by machines.
Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
We are at the very beginning stages of what AI will look like, especially as it relates to prompts and queries. This is like the late 90s of SEO. There will be an incredible amount of evolution, and in 10 years we’ll be looking back and chuckling a little at what we used to call “AI.” You need to stay on top of AI, continue to create, look for changes, and adapt as needed.
But we also predict that the companies that start early – they’re going to be the ones with the continual edge over time.
