7 Ways to Get Cited by AI

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Hey, Savvy Nation!

Quick question: When someone asks AI for a recommendation in your space, does your brand show up?

Most marketers obsess over Google rankings. I get it. I do, too. But buyers have shifted. They're asking Perplexity which tool to buy or ChatGPT for recommendations before they ever visit your site.

Google ranks you. AI recommends you.

And right now, most brands are invisible in AI results.

I run SEO and GEO across 6 businesses. Here are 7 ways to use Semrush One to make sure AI mentions your brand:

1. Answer the exact questions buyers ask AI

Write it for the questions your buyers are already typing into ChatGPT. And get to the point fast.

Use clear H2s that mirror those questions, lead with your answer in the first 100 words, and back it up with specific data or a concrete example. AI pulls from content that gets to the point fast.

2. Get on "best of" lists in your niche

AI pulls heavily from roundup and comparison posts. If you're not on those lists, you're not in the consideration set.

Make a list of the top "best X for Y" articles in your space and pitch yourself to be included. Write your own "best of" lists as well.

3. Show up across sources AI trusts

AI looks for patterns. Brands that show up consistently across multiple trusted sources.

Guest posts, podcast appearances, digital PR placements, and partnerships all feed this. Think of it as building a citation footprint, not just a backlink profile.

4. Add structured FAQs to key pages

AI crawlers parse FAQ sections faster than long-form paragraphs.

So if your service pages and blog posts don't have FAQ sections, add them. Answer 3 to 5 of the most common questions buyers have at each stage of the funnel. Then add FAQ schema markup so AI can extract your answers cleanly and attribute them to your brand.

5. Publish original research and data

LLMs like ChatGPT prioritize content with unique stats, frameworks, and insights that can't be found anywhere else.

Run a survey. Publish a case study. Document what you're seeing across your clients. Give AI something worth citing that only you have.

6. Refresh your top pages quarterly

If your content is outdated, AI will skip it. AI models favor content that reflects the current state of a topic.

Go back to your top-performing pages every 90 days. Update the stats, add new examples, and make sure the information still holds up. A simple refresh can re-activate content that's losing traction.

7. Track your AI visibility every month

Most brands do the work but never measure whether it's landing.

You need to know which prompts your brand is showing up for, where your competitors are getting cited but you're not, and how your visibility is trending over time.

SEO today is about being trusted, retrieved, and cited by AI.

I use Semrush One to track AI mentions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and AI Overviews alongside traditional SEO. All in one dashboard.

It shows me exactly which prompts my brands appear in, where competitors are outranking me in AI results, and what content gaps I need to close.

It's become essential to how I run competitive analysis in 2026.

Brands are starting to catch on. Don’t fall behind.

See you next week,

Connor

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Connor Gillivan has been building six, seven, and eight-figure businesses for the past 10 years with SEO. It’s my personal mission to create a community and services that help you grow your business by finding more people who would benefit from what you. When I started out, I wanted to make the community an inclusive, welcoming table where everyone can come to get help using high-end SEO strategies to take their businesses to the next level. After several years, and over 3000 combined followers across Facebook and LinkedIn, I will always aim to get better at what I do every single day. In addition, my primary focus is on my relationship with you. This way every time you interact with me, you end up getting ideas that take your project to the next level. I particularly appreciate when my following provides feedback via testimonials, reviews, and comments left on my site or social media accounts. Because with that feedback, I can use it to make your next experience even better than the last. Since I put so much effort into my relationship with you, I hope that any investment in me is exactly the way you hoped it would be. Because by choosing to utilize my services, it’s my promise that I will provide an experience that you will love over and over again. Now, as much as I care about making the world a better and more efficient place for businesses like yours, I also care about your privacy. I’m committed to the right to your privacy and strive to provide a safe and secure user experience. My Privacy Policy, to which you can find a link at the bottom of my website homepage, explains how I collect, store and use personal information, provided by you on my website. It also explains important information that ensures I won’t abuse the information that you provide to me in good faith. By accessing and using my website, you can trust that what you want to be kept private, will be kept private. If at any time you would like to read the Privacy Policy and get a better understanding of your rights and liabilities under the law, feel free to visit my site, find the privacy policy in the footer, and read it. If there is something you are concerned about or wish to get more clarity on, please let me know by replying to this email. The Privacy Policy also informs you of how to notify me to stop using your personal information. If you wish to view my official policies, please visit my official website.

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