SEO · AEO · GEO

AI Visibility Best Practices

Every practice we have reviewed, scored 1–10 by evidence strength — peer-reviewed studies first, vendor claims last — and ranked live by practitioners reporting whether it worked. Vote on what you have tested; the ranking updates with the community.

1. 01

   Rank in classic search first

   10/10

   Position 1 in ChatGPT search results = 58% citation chance (AirOps/Kevin Indig); Ahrefs 1.4M prompts: ChatGPT favors its search index; Google: same ranking systems power AI Overviews/AI Mode

   How to implement →

   SEOOfficial guidance

   Worked for meDidn't work
2. 02

   YouTube: transcript quality beats production value

   9/10

   YouTube in ~16% of LLM answers (vs Reddit 10%), cited 200x more than any other video platform; AIO citations +34% in 6mo; 85% of YouTube citations in ChatGPT point to specific videos, not channels; run script through an LLM pre-recording

   How to implement →

   AEOYouTubeLarge study

   Worked for meDidn't work
3. 03

   Reddit: earn karma and standing BEFORE any brand mention; disclose affiliation

   9/10

   Bans are permanent brand damage; domains with heavy authentic Reddit/Quora mentions ~4x citation odds; give more than you take

   How to implement →

   GEORedditCommunity-tested

   Worked for meDidn't work
4. 04

   Publish original statistics and first-party data

   9/10

   Princeton GEO paper (KDD 2024): Statistics Addition +30-40% visibility; r/DigitalMarketing 200-page test: pages with 5+ stats cited ~3x more; 12%->47% avg citation rate after framework

   How to implement →

   GEOPeer-reviewed

   Worked for meDidn't work
5. 05

   Earn third-party mentions

   9/10

   85% of brand mentions in AI answers come from external sites (AirOps); McKinsey: own site in only 5-10% of citations; $30K-marketing r/DigitalMarketing case: client with forum/Zillow mentions beat agency with owned channels

   How to implement →

   GEOLarge study

   Worked for meDidn't work
6. 06

   Optimize for the fan-out: export/cluster the hidden rewritten queries into core topics, not individual keywords

   9/10

   Fan-out visible in ChatGPT DevTools (browse_rewritten_queries) and Perplexity paid; Lily Ray: cluster fan-out queries into topics for content mapping (179 likes)

   How to implement →

   SEOCommunity-tested

   Worked for meDidn't work
7. 07

   Create non-commodity content: pass the 'could anyone write exactly this?' test

   9/10

   Google's official guide: commodity content the model can generate itself never gets cited; robot-vacuum blog with real tests outranks NYT affiliate listicle in AI answers

   How to implement →

   GEOOfficial guidance

   Worked for meDidn't work
8. 08

   Verify AI crawlers can reach you

   9/10

   27% of sites block at least one major LLM crawler, usually unintentionally at CDN/WAF ('invisible 403'); check GPTBot/ClaudeBot/PerplexityBot in server logs

   How to implement →

   TechnicalLarge study

   Worked for meDidn't work
9. 09

   Lead every section with a direct, self-contained 40-60 word answer (answerability)

   9/10

   GeoSource 540 checks: answerability = +109% lift, the single strongest signal; cited pages have the answer in paragraph 1, no fluff in first 200 words

   How to implement →

   AEOLarge study

   Worked for meDidn't work
10. 10

    LinkedIn: publish thought leadership under real named experts (consume its GEO advice with heavy skepticism)

    8/10

    LinkedIn top-5 cited on ChatGPT, AI Mode (~15% of responses) and Perplexity, rising steadily; BUT our scrape of 150 GEO posts found ~90% agency self-promotion with <10 likes - great citation platform, terrible advice source

    How to implement →

    GEOLinkedInLarge study

    Worked for meDidn't work