When I started to rebrand as Linksandmaria, I would on a regular basis go into ChatGPT and check how it described me. For quite a while, “Linskandmaria” was a school in London which I always thought was quite amusing. 

As time went on and I sent clearer signals about who I am and what I am about, most AI search engines now have a pretty good idea of who I am. 

With AI search, you want your brand to be selected (first by AI search and later by humans), rather than obsessing over rankings and identical keyword matches.

So the question to ask yourself now is “How do I get selected?”.

Selected not only by AI Search or by Google. 

But in the end, to be the selected one by a potential customer.

ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity etc rely on many factors to determine who is “eligible” to show up in an answer and who is viewed as a source, a trusted leader.

You don’t just want your brand to show up in AI Search – you want a person to feel that your brand is the right fit.

AI search has made search more dynamic in general, as you get the result directly in the search view, with summaries, pitches and information being provided for you, where you only click through to the website when you feel like it.

To show up in both AI search and Google, you really need to have a good grasp of who you are, as in wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-i-do-an-elevator-pitch level of clarity.

I worked in sales for 10- years and I’d always ask prospects who wanted to collaborate how they had found us. I wanted to understand their customer journey, from realizing they had a problem, to looking for a possible solution, to finally  landing on the idea that I could help them.

You want to understan what your unique ecosystem looks like because people discover brands in various ways.

Your goal is not to be everywhere (I get it, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed these days). The goal, instead, is to have a visibility that is meaningful to you and your business – and your audience.

1. Where is your audience paying attention?
2. Who has already their trust? (and why is that/look for patterns)
3. What conversations are you and your brand absent from?

This is to get a good understanding of your audience’s behaviour.

Going back to the “Linksandmaria” example – today most AI Search Engines know what I am about. 

How did that come about?

Many factors, here are a few things:

1. Having a clear picture what I am all about 
2. Active on socials. Showing my face and who I am and sharing my journey and tips
3. Collaborating with female communities.
4. Building highly relevant backlinks with authoritative websites.
5. Writing about entrepreneurship and starting a business.
6. Guesting podcasts about marketing/business/human-perspective.
7. Getting the foundations right in terms of site-structure/internal linking etc

It happened because I repeatedly showed up in relevant places, talking about relevant topics, over a long period of time.

What I’m trying to say here is this: You are your relationships. And this has always been true but it’s become even more important today. 

There are many moving factors that impact who shows up in the search results, but backlinks remain one of the strongest forms of external validation and natural link building is still one of the best ways to earn them, because AI search still leans heavily on what already ranks well in Google.

Ultimately AI search cites and recommends brands because they’ve sent clear trust signals over and over again

Right now, could AI search answer the following questions

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Who do you serve?
4. What topics are you known for?

Start with the basics – who are you and what do you want to be known for? What are you currently known for? Involve sales department and customer services and encourage people who currently visit the website to share what their journey looked like.

Identify your most profitable products and services and investigate whether there’s a logical match between what your customers want and what you offer. Always prioritize the human perspective and this is especially important if you meet customers offline.

At this stage, I’d also identify micro-influencers across social media that your audience uses and start following these and get active in the conversation.

Besides prompts and keywords: also analyze the fan-out queries (the sub-queries that run in the background after someone makes a search in AI search). You can read more in-depth how it works in this great guide. 

Results will vary depending on the platform, but you’ll want to collect and sort the datasets (which is going to be pretty big). 

I’d start with Qforia, which is for Google specifically (you’ll need a Gemini API Key). It’s a tool where you can upload multiple queries into the search bar and let it find sub-questions (and you can also switch between AI Mode and AI Overview).

The goal is to look for patterns. 

Then: make a list of the most important topics and start optimizing pages or creating new landing pages based on what you found. Start with the low hanging fruit (buyer-intent topics).

In this step, I’d also set up Google Business Profile, continuously ask customers for reviews (on other platforms as well) and  update service offerings, pictures etc.

Audit current status of website. Check title tags/site-structure, possible redirect-loops, indexing and clear heading hierarchy. Focus on demonstrating E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness).

Focus on real, lived experiences, observations (ideally involving other parts of the company too), and share these in a “thought leadership” way with bios and links to Linkedin/Instagram profiles.

Also include and feature industry experts to borrow some of their authority.

Go deeper and look at all content that is currently live on the website. Minimize the amount of top-funnel informational content

Use the insights from step 1 and 2 to either create new pages or add to existing content in the “thought leadership” section. I’d also create linkable assets that the target audience would find valuable. 

“Valuable” can mean a lot of things such as insightful, funny, unique data. Create a big swipe file and add anything related to the niche/audience/how you want to be perceived. Look at current world trends, sports events or whatever’s considered “hot” or interesting and try to create an interesting crossover.

Depending on the asset – use this asset to get in front of the right people. The right people can be micro-influencers, communities, industry expert websites, relevant crossover niche websites and establish a relationship that makes sense for the both of us. If there is no way the asset makes sense, I’d ask  “how can I be useful” and try to build an honest, real conversation instead.

The focus being to make the other person feel like I genuinely know what they are about. i.e. create a real human connection. I’d do a mix of presenting the asset and just sending hi/connecting emails/DM:s.

I’d divide all the prospects into clear groups and tailor the outreach based on what’s happening in that specific niche.

At the same time, I’d participate in community discussions where relevant conversations are happening around this topic, and think about adjacent communities too, especially in more competitive niches.

I’d also focus on guesting on podcasts, leaving reviews on relevant ones and making sure the topic I want to “own” both are talked about in the episode and  reflected in the podcast’s description.

Share my experience, my company’s experience – the audience experience. Take the answer to the “what do I want to be known for” and spread that message across all channels that are relevant to my audience and me.

I’d focus on demonstrating what I’m doing in real time – not just claiming expertise but showing the work and also the learning curve and mistakes that happen.

The shift from being a school in London to actually being recognized as a real human being took some time. And since AI search is constantly gathering data and collecting what other people are saying about you, the “being selected”- process never really stops.

Being selected isn’t about getting your pitch perfect or even being the best. It’s about showing up in an authentic way, forming real relationships and sounding (and acting!) like a real human being with a soul, all while building your foundations on solid data. Backlinks, entities, knowledge graphs, fan-out queries – all of that matter, but for it all to turn into trust, you need those human aspects.

And just to be clear. Yes I am still checking in on how AI search describes me.  🙂