Best Practices to optimize your content for AI search results
Updated
This guide will show some proven strategies to help your content stay visible and rank in the AI search results instead of traditional SEO.
1. Content Depth (as the New King)
Consider high-value information rather than surface-level keyword optimization.
How to prepare:
Create comprehensive content that dives deep into topics and covers user intent holistically.
For example, if you are writing informational content give information.
2. Acquire Mentions and Reviews
Positive brand mentions, and high ratings increase the likelihood of being recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT.Based on some research, the factors that affect ChatGPT recommending a Product, Service or Brand are:
- Brand Mentions,
- Reviews,
- Relevancy,
- Age Recommendations and
- Authority.
3. Incorporate Relevant Keywords
Keyword still matters. Why?
1. Help search engines understand your content.
2. Allow you to target audiences effectively
3. Guide Content Creation
4. Focus on Long-tail Keywords
- Note that people are starting to search for longer, more conversational phrases because of AI.
- Longer keyword phrases are easier to RANK for.
Long-tail keywords have very specific intent and very often that intent is revenue-driving.
Example of a long-tail keyword: “Payroll management solutions for B2B firms”
Make sure you are optimizing for long-tail keywords and understanding the intent of the user when they are searching those long-tail keywords. And you can create your content to those exact needs, you are building that trust with that user because you are looking exactly at what they are looking to solve. And that will contribute to the EEAT concept we are talking about below.
5. Focus on EEAT - Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness
AI content can rank well if it follows E.E.A.T guidelines. If you are using AI to generate your content, please make sure that the content is useful, helpful, original, and satisfies aspects of E.E.A.T, then it can rank well.
Also note that Google doesn’t penalize content that are produced by AI.
Feed Google what it wants to EEAT. Specifically, Expertise and Experience:
Expertise
- Citing reputable sources and studies
- Author credentials, experience, and achievements
- Lead leadership & in-depth analysis
Experience
- First-hand accounts & anecdotes (e.g. eyewitness testimonies, etc)
- Subject Matter Expert (SME) reviews & analysis
- Quotes & interviews with experts and product specialists
6. Create High-Quality Content
For example :
- Industry studies and reports,
- In-depth guide on topics relevant to your industry
- Case Studies showcasing success stories
- Video Content – showcasing your product
- Infographics, etc
7. Keep Content Up to date
What are the strategies:
- Regular content audits
- Update existing content (update an existing blog with the latest industry trends data, etc)
- Ensure your meta titles and meta descriptions are up to date including relevant keywords
- Regularly review and update your internal links
- Add new sections to Evergreen content
For instance, if you have a comprehensive guide on a topic, add a new section covering recent advancements or changes in the industry. This keeps the content fresh and valuable. - Identify content gaps (by monitoring competitor content)
8. Top 3 strategies identified that help in appearing in AI search results:
- Including citations from reliable sources in the website content
- Incorporating credible quotes from reliable sources
- Adding relevant statistics – Modifies content to include quantitative statistics instead of qualitative discussion, wherever possible.
All of these will improve visibility in Generative Engines (GE) responses, enhancing both the credibility and richness of the content.
9. Using Fluency Optimization and Easy-to Understand content
Interestingly, stylistic changes such as improving fluency and readability of the source text (Fluency Optimization and Easy-to-Understand) also resulted in a significant visibility boost of 15-30%.
This suggests that Generative Engines value not only content but also information presentation.
10. Metadata and Semantics matter more
- Clear titles, descriptions, dates, and schema.org markup help AI systems quickly understand your content.
- Basic SEO tag should be on the page like Title tag, Meta Desc.
- Proper heading structure should on the page as well: H1-H6.
