Brands are competing across more organic landscapes than ever.
The organic landscape is larger than ever before. Where Google once dominated over 90% of the search market, it has slowly begun losing market share to LLM platforms that operate through conversational search methods.
By no stretch of the imagination does this mean that Google’s dominance is coming to an end. However, with rapidly growing traffic volumes across LLM platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and more, early adopters will be rewarded with a new pathway to highly relevant traffic with commercial intent.
What does the rise of GEO and AEO mean for brand visibility?
There has been a sharp rise in talk around generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation over the past year. They have become the go to buzz words for SEO’s and business owners when discussing the future of the industry. But what are the actual implications for brand visibility with the growing search volume and adoption of these strategies within a wider organic strategy?
How does your brand show in AI systems?
Two main considerations within the AI search landscape are AI overviews within Google and Bing SERPs, alongside conversational search within LLM platforms.
Both offer benefits for increased brand awareness but have fundamentally changed the game of how brands are seen and discovered as providers across industries. Each offers a unique result served
What are AI Overviews?
AI overviews insert a summarised answer section at the top of SERPs generated through LLM functionality. Typically, between 5 and 28 sources are cited across responses served, dynamically changing depending on the length of the answer served. You will have noticed these sections across searches since their launch in May 2024 and their increased usage over the following months. Now being served on over 21% of all searches, and likelihood of inclusion increasing further for informational search queries.
Example of an AI overview for a search of SEO:
AI overviews follow a traditional approach to ranking, largely assessing for web pages that have useful and helpful content related to the search query. A well rounded SEO strategy, considering off-page, on-page and technical factors, can achieve inclusion in AI overviews. Gaining citations in the right hand panel and improving organic visibility.
What is LLM visibility?
One main difference between LLM agents and AI overviews is how they are served to users. Where AI overviews are inserted into a regular search where appropriate, LLMs operate as a separate search experience with more conversational queries searched. Providing the platform with additional context and therefore a greater understanding of the user’s intent.
Searches on LLMs are increasing, with 52% of surveyed adults in a recent survey answering that they have used an LLM. Whilst they are not poised to overtake traditional search yet, they are now a core aspect of the organic landscape brands must consider.
With all results within an LLM chatbot, such as ChatGPT, following the style of an AI overview over traditional links to websites, even searches with commercial intent are provided in the same fashion. While a search for SEO agencies on Google does not trigger an AI overview due to the search engine’s understanding of its intent, the interface of the chatbot does not follow this restriction.
What does ChatGPT include for a search of ‘SEO Agencies Manchester’?
ChatGPT follows a similar layout to Google’s AI overview, but with a search with commercial intent, the output is vastly different. Below is the output served for a user searching for SEO agencies in Manchester.
Top SEO Agencies in Manchester
Broken down by categories with brands suggested and linked.
- Established and well known SEO agencies
- High rated specialist SEO agencies
- Boutique and growth focused SEO agencies
Typical SEO Agency costs in Manchester
Highlighting the typical costs for SEO services in the area for different business needs.
- Small local business
- Growing SME
- Competitive industries
How to pick the right Manchester SEO Agency
Tailored advice for the type of business that is exploring SEO services with brands linked that specialise in those business types.
- Local leads
- Ecommerce
- Startups / SaaS
- Aggressive Growth / National Rankings
Avoid agencies that
Common pitfalls to be avoided when selecting an agency partner.
- Promise #1 rankings
- Use long term contracts without KPI’s
- Don’t show case studies or real traffic data
Request for more information
Prompting the user to provide additional information so that the search query can be refined for the individual user.
- What type of business are you hiring SEO for?
- Monthly budget range?
Map with Google Business Profiles highlighted
Finally, the platform includes a map of locations and review data pulled from Google Map,s highlighting its suggested providers.
What LLMs consider in their citations:
LLMs don’t limit their information search to what they know about a business from their website alone. They crawl multiple sources to understand the full picture of the industry and business across a wider scale.
Sources considered include:
Guides
Mentions within reputable industry guides are considered a strong authority marker and can capture mentions of your brand or individuals within the business.
Example: Doyle’s guide for leading child law solicitors in Manchester
Social platforms
UGC within social platforms, such as Reddit, is also considered within platforms such as ChatGPT, considered more reliable markers of trust and authority compared to information published by businesses themselves.
Brand mentions
Backlinks are less of a consideration for LLM visibility over traditional SEO; however, brand mentions across authoritative and relevant websites are essential to properly conveying brand expertise and authority. Even unlinked mentions across highly relevant articles can have a large scale impact on visibility across such platforms. Moving away completely from the outdated tactic of securing high authority links regardless of domain and topic relevancy to a more context led understanding of topics and how they are related to each other.
Example: https://ratingcaptain.com/blog/seo-agencies-in-manchester-top-10
Brand sites
Whilst these platforms prioritise third-party information for its impartiality and reliability, information published across their brand’s websites is still a key contributor. Ensuring there is information related to the specific product or service that is being researched is essential to visibility.
Example: https://embryo.com/seo/
Developing your brand narrative for AI visibility
After having a clear understanding of what is considered by various AI search platforms, we can define what brands can do to gain visibility across such platforms. Elements of traditional SEO are still relevan,t but some aspects have gained greater importance in the developing search landscape.
Digital PR
Brand mentions have gained even greater significance with the rise of AI search. Building brand visibility across multiple high quality sources that are strongly related to the brand’s industry and niche is essential to maintain organic visibility.
Digital PR can have a tendency to fall down the priority order for brands seeking to grow their organic presence, pushing emphasis onto content optimisation and technical enhancements. Backlinks have always been essential to rank for the most competitive terms, but wider brand visibility is now more important than ever.
Capturing brand mentions within industry guides, niche specific publications, and highly authoritative domains publishing articles around your service or product is a core pillar to building a brand narrative for AI search.
Content built for AI
Alongside building brand awareness through DPR, it is also crucial to craft website content that is crafted with these platforms in mind. Answering common search queries in clear, concise sections, a focus on value provided over volume of keywords included, and following a semantic approach to content creation are all essential to a successful content strategy.
For a more in depth guide to content creation, check out our article on 30 quick tips for better content writing
Wider considerations by AI platforms increase the impact of an organic social presence across the organic search landscape. An organic social presence not only enhances how trusted your brand is to search engines and LLM platforms but also builds brand awareness directly to users.
Having the most information about your brand available to crawl agents across various sources increases the likelihood of AI search inclusions and potential to direct traffic through to your site.
Forum activity
As discussed above, LLMs utilise user generated content on forum platforms such as Reddit to inform the brands they recommend within their platforms. Building a presence across such sites can have a profound impact on brand visibility across AI search.
A key aspect of this driver of brand visibility is an increased reliance on brand conversations that do not include the brand’s input directly. It is increasingly important to stimulate conversations by users themselves to convey authority and trust.
Focus on providing value to users by relating content to subreddit topics and introducing engaging subjects through posts. A typical rule of thumb is to follow the 80/20 ratio, with 80% of content being useful and valuable without a commercial focus, and 20% being centred around a branded commercial focus.
Local search optimisation
ChatGPT includes a map function for searches with a locational term, mirroring the local pack served within Google search results. This results directly pulls location and review information from Google Business Profiles, further increasing their importance for businesses targeting specific locations.
Diversify review platforms utilised by your brand, ensuring a presence across high authority sources like ‘Trustpilot’, industry niche review platforms such as ‘Review Solicitors’, and the brand’s Google Business Profile for local optimisation. Each platform holds benefits for differing audiences, but the higher volume of sources with positive reviews builds a narrative of the brand being a trusted and experienced provider for both users and search platforms.
Clearly evidence positive outcomes
Finally, it is essential for building brand citations within AI search to clearly evidence positive performance and outcomes for clients, particularly for service businesses. Case studies are a strong method of conveying trust within AI search, building confidence in the brand’s ability to deliver its offering effectively with high quality outcomes.
Evidencing these results increases the likelihood of not only being cited within AI platforms but also shapes the narrative of context added to your brand being recommended. This difference can be crucial to how users perceive the brand.
Additional considerations
Whilst all of the above actions can have a profound effect on building a brand narrative for the AI search landscape, there are key considerations for how AI search differs from traditional organic search.
Volatility of results in LLM platforms
Unlike traditional search rankings, LLM platforms deliver vastly different results to users each time of asking, even if it is an identical query. Where a brand can rank first for a specific search term across multiple users, this is extremely unlikely to happen consistently in an LLM platform.
One study identified that AI recommendation lists have been found to repeat less than 1% of the time. Highlighting that the goal for building a brand narrative for AI visibility should be a greater rate of inclusion in recommendations over the traditional focus of capturing the top spot.
Changing the customer journey within AI search
Another aspect that differs from traditional search is how LLM platforms act as a proxy version of EWOM and take on a crucial role in advocating for a brand in a manner that traditional SERPs don’t.
Users consider traditional SERPs as a collection of pages competing for their attention. In comparison, conversational search facilitated by LLM platforms can span the wider customer journey. Beginning with the awareness stage of users searching top of the funnel queries and maintaining the user within the platform as they progress through consideration and comparing brands, to finally directing the user to a brand’s site once they are ready to commit to a provider.
Ready to build your brand’s visibility across AI search?
Get in touch to discuss how Embryo can work with you to establish your brand as a contender in the AI search landscape.
