AI Search Optimization: How to Create Content That Ranks in AI-Powered Results
I was asked in a job interview recently, “Is SEO dead?” It’s a fair question. With AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews reshaping how we search, everything is changing.
The short answer: SEO isn’t dead, but traditional tactics aren’t enough.
To stay visible, you need to optimize your content for AI search—a strategy known as AI Search Optimization. This means structuring your content in ways that help AI tools cite it, summarize it, and surface it in zero-click search results.
According to Forbes, roughly 60% of searches now end without a single click. That means ranking first on Google is just one part of the equation. When AI tools pull content to answer a question, you need your content to be that answer. Even if it doesn’t result in a click, it builds brand awareness and trust. And when a click does occur, it will most likely be to your site.
Over the past 14 years, I’ve helped websites grow organic traffic through every major algorithm shift—including recently during the rise of AI. This guide pulls together what I’ve learned through hands-on testing, industry conversations, and asking the AI models themselves about their process for citing content.
What is AI search optimization (and why does it matter)?
AI search optimization (AISO) is the process of structuring content in a way that maximizes its chances of being found, understood, and cited by AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and others. Like traditional SEO, AISO follows best practices to improve visibility. But instead of focusing on rankings in search engines, the goal is to increase the chances your content is summarized, quoted, or linked to in AI-generated responses.
The fact is, AI is changing how people find information. Most users want fast, clear answers, and AI delivers exactly that. But that doesn’t mean your 3,000-word article on how to plan a trip to Portugal doesn’t have any value. If optimized correctly, your article could be cited in countless AI answers. That exposure builds authority—so when users are ready for a deeper dive, your site is the one they’ll choose.
82% of people find AI search more helpful, but only 22% of brands are tracking their visibility in LLMs. That’s a massive opportunity to get ahead of the competition while they’re still trying to figure out this new search landscape.
Related terms: AEO and GEO
You may also hear the terms answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) thrown around alongside AISO. Here’s what you need to know:
AEO focuses on optimizing content to appear in direct answers from search engines (like Google’s featured snippets or AI Overviews).
GEO is about structuring content to be summarized or cited by generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Both concepts fall under the broader strategy of AI search optimization—helping your content show up, get quoted, and build trust in AI search results.
How do AI search engines decide what content to show (and Cite)?
Let’s take a look behind the scenes to determine how AI models decide which articles to pull their information from. There’s a lot of information out there on this topic, and I have my own opinions based on my experience. But I think the best place to start is to go straight to the source. So, I asked the AI models to tell me how they decide what content to show.
Here’s what they said:
ChatGPT
“When browsing is enabled, I search using Bing and prioritize high-ranking pages that clearly answer the question. I look for content that is recent, well-structured (with headings, lists, or FAQs), and comes from credible sources. Content that ranks highly is more likely to be cited because it's easier to discover and verify.”
Gemini
“I select articles based on relevance, authority (often indicated by high search engine rankings), comprehensiveness, and freshness. Higher-ranking content is frequently prioritized because it signals strong E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), making it a reliable source for generating accurate and helpful responses. I also consider content structure and readability to ensure the information is easily digestible.”
Perplexity
“When selecting articles or content to cite, I prioritize authority, factual accuracy, and relevance to the query. I review sources starting from the top of search results, so higher-ranked articles are more likely to be evaluated and cited—provided they also meet standards for trustworthiness and clarity. While search ranking increases an article’s visibility, I do not rely on ranking alone; content quality and reliability remain essential factors.”
As we can see, each AI model uses a pretty similar process for finding articles to cite. But let’s dive a little deeper. What makes content more likely to be featured in AI answers?
It ranks high in search results
It turns out that AI finds answers the same way we do—by searching the internet. You see, when an AI is trained on information, it’s usually trained on high-ranking articles found on search engines (Google, Bing, etc.). And when it actively searches the internet for information it wasn’t trained on, it uses those same search engines. Either way, if you want to show up in AI searches, traditional SEO best practices still apply.
So, which search engine is best? Turns out it’s still Google. AI Overviews and Gemini are Google products, so they obviously pull results from there. And while ChatGPT uses Bing when actively browsing the internet, the vast majority of web pages it was trained on were either ranked highly on Google or optimized for it. Other models might use a combination of search engines but for now, Google is still king.
It clearly and directly answers the question
AI doesn’t like content that takes a long time to make its point. It wants to help users answer their questions as quickly as possible. As such, it favours content that clearly and succinctly answers the question early on.
Not only does this provide a better experience for readers, but it also makes your answer more likely to be quoted. If one article has a long, meandering, and overly technical answer to a question, while another clearly answers the question in one or two sentences, which do you think is more likely to be cited? The second one.
It’s easily scannable
Most people aren’t going to read your article from start to finish—they’ll scan it to find the information they’re looking for. AI is the same way. They scan elements like headers, bullet points, and FAQs to quickly locate the most relevant information.
Sure, AI can read your entire article in a matter of seconds, but every millisecond counts. Finding relevant information quicker allows it to save computing power and serve up a correct answer faster. Well-structured content also makes important information easier to find and cite. For example, if your H2 is a question and the following paragraph provides a direct, factual answer, that’s a format AI tools are more likely to quote word-for-word.
It’s authoritative and trustworthy
As impressive as AI has shown itself to be, it's still known to give some wrong answers from time to time. One of the ways AI models try to avoid this is to provide answers from authoritative and trusted sources. So, how does it determine which sources are trustworthy?
You may have heard of E-E-A-T, an acronym that Google came up with to evaluate the reliability of a piece of content and its author. While originally developed for traditional search results, it's also incredibly important for AI search results.
Here’s what it means:
Experience: First-hand experience with the subject matter is demonstrated through personal examples, original insights, and unique details that generic content lacks.
Expertise: The author shows they have a deep knowledge of the subject, both through the accuracy of their answers and their professional credentials.
Authoritativeness: The site or author is recognized as a trusted source, proven by backlinks, mentions from reputable sites, or a strong presence within the niche.
Trustworthiness: The content is honest, transparent, cites sources, is hosted on a secure site, has clear authorship, is up-to-date, and provides verifiable information.
Any content that follows these principles greatly improves its chances of showing up in AI search results.
How to optimize your content for AI search
Okay, we’ve gone over what AI search optimization is and how AI models decide which articles they’re going to cite. Now it’s time to answer the most pressing question: What can you do to give your content a better chance of showing up in AI searches?
Here are seven actionable tips:
Make your content crawlable
We already talked about how high-ranking articles are more likely to be cited in AI answers. Well, that’s not going to happen if search engines and AI bots can’t crawl your content.
For every piece of content you publish, make sure:
It’s not blocked by robots.txt. This file controls what search engines can access, so if your content is disallowed, it won’t be crawled, indexed, or cited by AI tools.
It has a clean, SEO-friendly URL.
It’s not marked as “noindex” in the page’s meta tags.
It loads quickly and is mobile-friendly.
It’s linked to from other pages on your site (internal linking).
It isn’t buried behind login walls or gated forms.
JavaScript isn’t hiding or delaying key content.
There’s only one canonical version of the page (avoid duplicate URLs).
It returns a 200 HTTP status code (not 404 or 500).
You’ve submitted the URL to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Create AI answer blocks
Instead of hiding answers in your text, create “AI answer blocks.” Start by thinking of important questions people might ask related to the topic of your article. Then, create clearly formatted sections of your content that answer those questions and are designed to be easily quoted or summarized by AI tools.
These blocks typically include:
A question-based heading (e.g., “What is AI search optimization?”).
A concise, direct answer (1–3 sentences) immediately following the heading.
Optional: bullet points or a definition-style layout for clarity.
Structure your content for scannability
Make it easy for both humans and AI bots to find the information they’re looking for. This means:
Lots of H2s and H3s that clearly state what the sections are about.
Short and concise paragraphs that create lots of white space.
Bulleted and numbered lists that sum up key talking points.
FAQs that provide answers to important questions.
Think of some key questions related to your article and see how quickly you can find the information. If anything important is buried, find a way to make it more findable.
Demonstrate E-E-A-T
Even if you haven’t built up a lot of authority in your niche, there are still plenty of ways to include E-E-A-T in your articles. This includes adding relevant personal experiences, citing trustworthy sources within your content, and posting the date it was published (and regularly updating the content to keep it fresh).
It’s also a good idea to create an author bio for yourself and linking to it from all your articles. Include your credentials, experience, social media handles, and any other relevant information that readers should know. As you publish more content and build a reputation for yourself, attaching that bio to your content will start to add authority to the piece.
Leverage schema markup and metadata
Schema markup helps search engines and AI models understand the structure and purpose of your content. While it doesn’t guarantee a citation, it increases your chances of appearing in rich results, featured snippets, and AI-generated answers.
Here are a few types of schema worth using:
FAQPage: Helps AI tools pull direct Q&A answers from your content.
HowTo: Ideal for step-by-step guides or tutorials.
Article/BlogPosting: Adds context like headline, author, publish date, and description.
BreadcrumbList: Improves site structure visibility for search engines.
You can add or edit your schema markup manually using JSON-LD or through SEO plugins like Rank Math or Yoast, which make implementation easier for non-developers.
Don’t forget your metadata either. Every page should include:
A clear, descriptive title tag that matches natural language queries.
A meta description that summarizes the answer or takeaway.
An author tag to reinforce credibility (especially for YMYL topics).
A last-updated date to signal freshness to AI tools and users.
Schema and metadata may live behind the scenes, but they play an important role in helping AI understand (and trust) your content.
Use an llms.txt file
Think of llms.txt as the AI-era version of robots.txt. It’s a new file you can add to your site to tell large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity how they’re allowed to access and use your content.
While adoption is still evolving, adding this file gives you more control over whether your content is crawled, cited, or excluded by AI tools.
You can create an llms.txt file and place it at the root of your domain (e.g., yourdomain.com/llms.txt), then use allow/disallow directives to manage AI crawler access, similar to how you manage bots in robots.txt.
It’s not yet a ranking factor, but early adoption shows that your site is staying ahead of the curve, and signals to AI crawlers that you're aware, intentional, and ready for the next phase of search.
Search AI tools for your topic
It’s always a good idea to see what the competition is doing. Ask AI tools questions related to your article and see what comes up. What’s getting cited? Review the content and ask yourself:
Why is this content being cited?
Is there anything it’s doing that’s better than your article?
Is there anything you can do better in your article?
Want some more insights? Give the AI tools your article and simply ask them why they think the article they cited is better. They’ll likely provide you with a few tips you can apply to your article.
This sounds a lot like traditional SEO
You’re absolutely right—a lot of AISO best practices are also part of a sound SEO strategy. The truth is there’s a lot of overlap. However, there are some key differences:
SEO optimizes for keywords while AISO optimizes for natural language questions and quality answers.
SEO focuses on clicks and traffic, while AISO focuses on visibility and credibility, even when no click happens
The goal of SEO is to get the click, while the goal of AISO is to be the answer.
Essentially, you still need to apply good SEO practices to your articles (I told you SEO wasn’t dead) but also structure your content in a way that makes it easy for AI to find the answers it’s looking for.
Frequently asked questions about AI search optimization
Still have questions about AI search optimization? Here are answers to the most common questions:
Do AI tools give credit when they use my content?
It depends on the platform. Perplexity and Bing Chat typically cite their sources directly. Gemini (Google) and ChatGPT may summarize without explicit attribution, especially if the content is paraphrased.
Is AI search optimization only for blog content?
No. AISO applies to all web content, including product pages, knowledge base articles, service pages, and FAQs. Any page that answers a question or provides value should be optimized for AI discovery and citation.
Should I still care about backlinks if I'm optimizing for AI?
Yes. Backlinks remain a strong indicator of authority, which matters for both traditional SEO and AI search. AI models often prioritize sources that are widely referenced or linked to, especially in competitive spaces.
Does updating old content help with AI visibility?
Absolutely. AI models favor fresh, up-to-date information. Adding a “last updated” date, refreshing outdated examples, and improving formatting will all improve your chances of being cited by AI tools.
Can I prevent AI from using my content?
You can use tools like robots.txt or llms.txt to block AI crawlers, but this also means forfeiting visibility in AI search results. If your goal is brand exposure, opting in is usually the better move.
You need to start thinking about AI search optimization
If you haven’t already optimized your content for AI, now’s the time. AI search will only become more popular, and it won’t be long before your competitors start catching on (if they haven’t already).
Use the tips in this guide to make sure every piece of content you create is optimized for AI search. Or if you don’t have time for that, outsource the work to an expert. If you have any questions about AI search optimization, or need assistance with your content, reach out to me. I’m always happy to help.
