What's in store for this edition:
How to Optimize Content for AI Bots and Web Crawlers in 2025
Missing in AI? How to Help the Bots Find You
Why is this important? Consider these stats:
58% of Google searches result in zero clicks, because they are answered directly by AI. (Pew Research)
78% of US businesses utilize AI for at least one function and 71% are incorporating generative AI. (Exploding Topics Data)
83% of respondents prefer AI search over traditional methods. (IWAI Survey)
2028 AI search will surpass traditional search (most likely sooner) (Semrush Study)
What does this all mean? If you are not optimizing for AI searches now, it will soon be too late to get listed when there are queries for your space.
Invisibility — it’s never a good look.
It is estimated that by 2026 companies will begin to see 25-70% organic traffic loss because they didn’t adjust and plan for AI searches.
In this article, we’ll use the term GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) to describe the process of making your content so that it’s easily selected, summarized, and cited by AI-powered tools like Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT.
SEO, which focuses on ranking in search engine results, GEO is all about making your content visible and trustworthy enough to be referenced in AI-generated responses.
How do AI searches Work?
AI engines don’t just pull content from high-ranking web pages based on keywords. Instead, they generate answers by pulling information from a wide range of sources. To be included in that mix, your content needs to be:
Trustworthy
Current, and up-to-date
Well-structured (such as using FAQs, clear Q&A formats, and cited facts)
AI models often blend different perspectives and draw from reliable websites, news sources, and structured data to form their responses. This is why earned media is so important. It’s a reputable source vouching for you, which builds your credibility. AI searches want to see that.
How to Be Visible with AI Search
Make Your Content Easy to Find
To increase the chances of your content being picked up by AI tools:
Publish on authoritative platforms, including your own site and credible third-party outlets (once again earned media is key).
Use structured data, or schema markup, to highlight important elements such as names, organizations, and factual information.
Write content for humans, but structure it for AI bots. Write clear, concise titles, summaries, and headlines to help your content stand out and be easily identified by AI. The bots loves clear structure. Use Headings 2, Heading 3, FAQ’s and a concise (TL;DR) summary at the top.
Avoid placing valuable content behind logins or paywalls—most AI engines can’t access gated material.
Clear Credit Counts
In a world where AI combines content from multiple sources, proper credit, or attribution is a must:
Always include clear author bylines, publication dates, and citations for quotes, statistics, or key facts.
When referencing expert opinions, make sure their credentials and affiliations are clearly stated—AI tools often look for signs of expertise.
If you’re contributing to third-party platforms (e.g., guest posts or press releases), request an author bio and a backlink to your original site.
Accuracy Is Everything
AI engines place a high value on factual accuracy and reliability. To improve your content’s credibility:
Back up all claims with cited sources, especially for statistics or bold statements.
Avoid using outdated information, speculation, or vague language.
Stick to clear, evidence-based writing—AI prefers straightforward, fact-driven content over exaggerated or overly promotional language.
GEO Checklist: 4 Steps You Can Do Right Now to Prepare Content for AI Bots
The easiest, most important step: Does your website allow for crawlers? Many do not. For example, if you use Cloudflare, it automatically disallows crawlers access to your website. Give permission to access your site. Otherwise you will never be listed, because it’s blocked.
Make sure all of your messaging and branding appears consistently, everywhere. Make a document that contains all of your finalized messaging, like elevator pitch, boilerplate, and value proposition. Check your digital footprint; website, LinkedIn, biography, pitch decks, etc. and ensure consistency. If it’s not consistent, fix it.
Check your top 5-10 content pages and make sure they are written with AI-Friendly data structure, or markup schema. Update and republish if they aren’t.
This is a complex ever-changing field, so I’ve been doing my best to keep up and have been successful in getting my clients listed in AI searches. If you haven’t started, there’s no better time than now!
Distinguish yourself by making the human element of your content shine. Humans are authentic, are real, and have class - machines do not. If your content is discovered by the AI bots, but it is clearly written by a bot, then it will be passed up by humans, because it’s inauthentic. But we can’t ignore the bots, so with a little effort, you can be sure you’ll also be winning over the AI Bots for search visibility.
“Write content for humans, but structure it for AI bots.”
Want to learn more? For a simple explanation, PR and the Future of Search, summed it up well. For a complex, detailed breakdown I recommend reading Decoding LLMs: How to be visible in generative AI search results. Other PR pros agree: We are not optimizing for search anymore. We are optimizing for answers.
Do this now: Search for your brand, organization, or name on Perplexity, Gemini, and Grok.
Note the responses.
How is the brand represented?
Are your press releases, news stories, or quotes being cited?
What kind of sources and content do these engines pull in their answers?
Use this information to make a plan for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Term to Learn
Schema Markup is a special type of code you add to your website's HTML. This helps search engines like Google understand and interpret the content on your pages. Think of it as a standardized "vocabulary" that labels elements such as products, events, reviews, or recipes, making it easier for search engines to categorize and display that information in more useful ways. For example, if you're running an online store, schema markup can highlight details like prices, ratings, or availability directly in search results, turning a plain link into an eye-catching "rich snippet" with stars or images.
FAQ
Q: If our organization is invisible to the bots, what is the recovery time?
A: Right now, depending on your sector, it can be “from weeks to months”. In the future there may be no recovery available. That’s why it’s so important to start now in order to rank higher with Generative Search.
Get PR techniques from recent news.
Newsworthy
Good Jeans 👖 or Good Genes 🧬
American Eagle’s controversial ad where Sydney Sweeney says “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue” has since been taken down.
A week later AE addressed the ad campaign with an Instagram post stating about the ad “is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story.” It also said “Great jeans look good on everyone”.
By the time AE made a statement about the ad (over a week) there was criticism from both sides.
“If you don’t tell your own story, everyone else will tell it for you” is an old saying in PR.
💫 Pro Tip: If you put out something controversial, it stays out forever. Have a plan to address the topic immediately if it’s misunderstood. Be in-control of your narrative.
Useful PR Resources.
🧰 TOOLKIT
Source of Sources (SOS) Media Queries
One tool that gives you a short list of journalists that are looking for sources, or experts like you, to share their knowledge try subscribing to SOS - Source of Sources.
You’ll get a few emails daily with the requirements the journalist has. This can be helpful for scouting out a story that could fit for your brand, business, or organization.
Important note from the owner: “ONLY REPLY IF YOU ACTUALLY HAVE SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE TO ADD. If you pitch a reporter off-topic even once, and it gets back to me, you’re gone. No exceptions, no appeals.”
Reality check: So, please, please, please ALWAYS follow the directions and requirements from reporters. Do not ever twist the story idea, or stretch it just to make it fit your ideas, otherwise you will get blocked.
Attention Seeker of the Week
This furr-baby got the attention of Grok this week.
A heartwarming display of pure affection, this post captures a kitten's exuberant joy upon seeing its favorite human. You caught our attention this week baby!
It’s always fun and challenging to learn more about this complex subject of Generative Engine Optimization. I hope I broke it down for you to understand easily and get to implementing a GEO plan now!
Until next week, keep your shades on and stay cool.
Your fellow Seeker,
Keren
🕶️
