SEOs always discover a tactic that works and massively jump into it until it becomes a problem, even for those who are trying to do it right.

Listicles are just one of many examples of this happening, over and over again.

We know they work for LLMs, as the list format is very easy to pull entities from. And the rise of self-serving and commercial listicles has been insane to watch.

Brands were forced into sponsoring their mentions in listicles, and lots of publications were switching to the “Top lists” format to monetise their existence… until Google noticed.

Poorly researched and self-serving listicles are losing organic search visibility now. One of the popular examples is ClickUp, which went aggressive with listicles to lose about 7M in estimated organic traffic over the past 6 months.

This has been well-expected. There has been so much talk about listicles that Google was bound to listen.

The real problem is that shortcuts are not right or wrong as long as you are making a well-informed decision.

Let’s zoom out just a little bit here… I know “GEO” sells, but so far, there are no actual signs that LLMs are driving real, massive visibility.

• Our own study indicates that consumers are not embracing AI as fast as it may seem inside our little tech bubble.

• But ours is not the only study that proves that. Ahrefs tracks online traffic trends and reports that LLM traffic is about 0.26% of the overall inbound traffic digital brands generate.

So why are we so obsessed with LLM optimization?

We are discussing this topic this week. Join us!

• On LinkedIn, we will discuss the topic and answer your question (no registration required! Just come over! Sam Page, an SEO expert and old friend (and the former Global Head of SEO at Amazon Business and Director of SEO at Slack), will co-host the event to share his insights!

• On Reddit, Sam Page is also hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on anything related to SEO and GEO! Ask your questions! This is a great opportunity to

I am not saying you should ignore where AI is going, to be sure…

I am the one talking about SEO for AI all the time. I even started a dedicated subreddit to curate findings and studies around “GEO”.

But let’s all face it: LLM visibility is not something to lose visibility in other channels for. At least not for now.

Even if something seems to work, on a grand scale of things, among all the tactics you can invest in, LLM optimization shortcuts will likely bring you some minimal results, even if successful.

“GEO” visibility is long-term. It is NOT about shortcuts.

It is about building a relevant, clear brand that is associated with what it does (and problems it solves). It is, first of all, building relevant visibility elsewhere where LLMs are pulling from (Google, Reddit, Youtube, maps, etc.)

It is about being known for what you do.

Shortcuts may work for a few months, but they may cost you fundamental visibility, which will be hard to rebuild.

Get real and build something that will sustain any Google reviews or LLM model changes. And if you need help, ask me how.

One topic that the article failed to give more attention to is the so-called “ungrounded” citations that make evaluating AI Overview accuracy challenging.

“Ungrounded citations” are citations that, basically, have nothing to do with the AI answer itself. This is when an AI answers links “to websites that [do] not completely support the information they provide”.

I found it surprising that the whole concept of citing sources that are not, in essence, actual sources didn’t seemingly surprise reporters who are taught to provide trusted sources for their claims.

Before I explain why this concept of ungrounded answers is actually a huge deal for SEO, here are two exciting opportunities for you to join:

• >>> JOIN US to discuss LIVE on LinkedIn and ask your questions (and/or get featured!)

• The one and only Lily Ray is hosting an AMA on Wednesday, and this is your chance to ask her anything you’ve been trying to figure out! Ask away before it expires!

Source: X

Let’s take a deeper dive into this AI phenomenon because it is not discussed enough, while providing a huge insight into LLM visibility (GEO) as a whole:

What are “ungrounded” citations, and why do I call them “reverse” citations?

An ungrounded citation is a link that an LLM finds after the answer is written.

In other words, the process is reversed here. Instead of using additional infor from URLs it finds, an AI bot will first write an answer based on what it knows and then find URLs that seem to support the answer.

Reverse citations are nothing new.

Back when ChatGPT was just launched, it gave no citations whatsoever. And we demanded. So it started providing URLs that had nothing to do with the answer because the process was reversed:

1. It writes an answer from the training data

2. It gives URLs on the topic (seemingly without “reading” those pages).

Since then, LLMs started searching much more. And they seem to sync answers from those URLs in most cases, but the question has always been there:

What comes first? An answer or the citations?

What influences what?

The NY Times article seems to shed some light.

Roughly 50% of Gemini answers are ungrounded

That is, it pulls answers from within its training data. And THEN finds what to cite.

We know (from leaked Claude docs) when LLMs have to search for answers, i.e., when the answer requires more recent knowledge than the training data realistically can have.

In about half of use cases, LLMs are likely to tell you what they already know.

And that is happening for at least two reasons (in my opinion):

• Training data gives more unbiased, more correct answers because citations can be manipulated (we are well aware of that)

• It is less resourceful than syncing answers from new searches.

Aaron Haynes has an excellent prediction here:

…the part that’s going to get worse: Gemini 3 got more accurate AND more ungrounded at the same time. Those aren’t contradictory - they’re happening at different layers. accuracy is improving in training (the model just knows more). Grounding is degrading in retrieval (the model needs sources less, so it cares about citation fidelity less).

And yet, training data doesn’t store URLs that LLMs once learned answers from. So, to provide you with sources, they need to search for citations that seem to support their answers. And at that point, citations don’t influence answers, nor your brand’s visibility in them.

Why do SEOs need to know this?

Quite clearly, this directly influences the optimization strategy.

If you are only optimizing for “retrieval” (which most SEO / GEO experts seem to talk about, you are very, very far behind.

Product positioning and awareness inside training data are fundamental and crucial for AI visibility. It is also a much more difficult process than simply optimizing for retrieval, and it takes a lot of marketing channels to align with your value proposition.

Digital PR, Reddit marketing, on- and off-site content alignment and visibility - everything should be adding clear, consistent context around your brand, for months and years, loudly enough for LLMs to notice.

If you need help with that strategy, reach out!

In reality, SEO expertise is the foundation of GEO for two main reasons:

• Organic search visibility is fundamental to AI visibility because LLMs primarily use search to research a topic and discover brands or products. Without SEO, your URLs will likely be unfindable for LLMs.

• Most traditional SEO tactics are key to LLM discoverability in one way or another.

Here are those SEO tactics that remain fundamental to AI visibility optimization:

>>>> JOIN US to discuss this topic LIVE on Linkedin!

Keyword research

The conversational nature of generative AI search prompted many SEO/GEO professionals to announce keyword research as “useless” or “dead”.

I consider these claims fundamentally wrong.

First of all, there’s no replacement to the query data. We don’t have any access to the reliable prompt data. Essentially, we cannot know what users are typing as AI prompts to discover brands or products.

Keyword research is still the only source of insights as to how consumers arrive at certain buying decisions. Keywords can be organized by intent, giving you clues on how to structure your site to help your target customers at every step of their research.

Keyword (content) gaps help you identify what your site may be missing and where it is failing to be helpful to customers.

All of that is as useful for organic visibility as for LLM visibility because LLMs mimic people’s buying journeys and mostly take the same steps when helping their users to choose a product to buy.

There’s no way to optimize for prompts because they are likely to be all different and unpredictable. Keyword optimization is all we need to create content and pages that solve your customers’ problems and cater to their needs.

Content optimization

On-site content SEO hasn’t fundamentally changed due to LLMs. Like 5 years ago, we still need optimized content to:

• Help customers when they are still researching their problems (and may not be ready to buy).

• Put your products in a relevant, problem-solving context.

Optimized content may not generate the same amount of traffic these days that it did 3-5 years ago; yet it doesn’t mean you should stop publishing it and focus on “bottom-of-the-funnel” / high-intent queries that generate sales (this is a popular recommendation many “GEO experts” make).

LLMs can take your content, summarize it, and give it to your customers in the form of a comprehensive answer, so they never have to click to your website. But it will likely still influence your customers’ buying decisions because your brand will end up being part of that content, and LLMs will likely recommend them as a solution.

Nowadays, we optimize for buying journeys, but we still use keyword research to understand those buying journeys, and we keyword-optimize content for both search and LLM bots to be more likely to find it, and “understand” that it is relevant to the users’ needs.

Site architecture and navigation

In traditional SEO, flatter site architecture (which ensures no pages are dug too deep into the site) and better internal linking strategy ensure better crawlability and more long-tail keyword ranking opportunities.

In LLMs, clear site architecture ensures that LLMs understand your business better and place your products correctly in the training data.

In both cases, your site navigation should be:

• Well-structured for customers (or LLM bots) to be able to quickly find what they need

• Usable without JavaScript enabled (for it to be usable regardless of the browser (or absence of one) it is being accessed through)

• Clear and focused to reflect your site’s purpose and value proposition.

Link building

Whether any of the LLMs use any authority signals like backlinks, we don’t know. The only hint of Gemini / AI Mode using PageRanks was almost a year ago. So whether backlinks directly influence LLM citability is unknown.

However, backlinks (specifically, linked or unlinked brand mentions) are important for other aspects of LLM visibility:

• Higher organic rankings, which (again) drive LLM findability

• Entity associations (being mentioned/linked to alongside your well-known competitors)

• Authority: Regular and consistent brand mentions and links on authoritative publications make your business more trustworthy (which helps frequent answer inclusion)

All of these indirect LLM visibility signals are achieved by a high-quality link-building strategy (like data-driven digital PR).

Of course, there’s more to GEO than SEO best practices, at least for one crucial reason: GEO relies on different success metrics than SEO. But without knowing and implementing traditional SEO, your chances of being found by LLMs are almost 0.

Many of our leads and clients look at impressions and clicks, which are both solid metrics you want to see growing.

But if we are talking about Reddit in the context of LLM visibility, we consider the following metrics a success:

• More control over branded organic rankings

• More positive brand mentions (especially on Reddit)

• More organic reviews inside the official subreddit

• LLM citability

>>>> JOIN us to discuss this topic LIVE and bring your questions!

Let’s look at each of these in more detail:

More control over branded organic rankings (and more branded searches)

This one is pretty obvious: We cannot control all the sentiment for branded organic search but we do want to balance it with official sources.

Ultimately, we want the subreddit to rank for queries like [brand name], [brand name reviews], and [brand name reddit].

This doesn’t happen overnight and it takes a strategic effort but it does happen. Here is an example of a Reddit pack that includes our client after 5 months of work:

Overall, we want to see:

• More branded searches (growth in impressions and diversity)

• More of the official subreddit ranking for those in top 5

More positive brand mentions on Reddit

We start tracking the brand and competitive mentions right away to better understand gaps in the product positioning and the pain points that are being repeatedly discussed.

As we consistently build our own official narrative, we start seeing the sentiment shifting to neutral and more positive.

You can track the shift through Reddit’s own “Trends” dashboard (especially for bigger brands), and/or you can feed the recent threads into your favorite LLMs and let it analyze what’s changing and what needs to be addressed.

Start tracking your brand name in Reddit’s native dashboard to monitor shifts in brand perspective and product positioning

There will always be negative comments on Reddit (it’s the nature of the community), but balancing them with an authoritative voice and positive reviews works to change the overall context.

More organic reviews inside the official subreddit

Speaking of bad reviews, as I said, they will keep coming, but the goal is for them to start mostly coming into your subreddit, where you can manage them properly (reply, DM, etc. to fix the relationship with the client) as well as balance them with positive ones.

Negative comments coming to your subreddit are A GOOD THING because they will not blow up with more negativity from other users. They will be managed in a timely manner.

We report on the increased customer engagement with the subreddit, and call a growing number of both negative and positive reviews posted there a success.

LLM citability

All of the above progress we focus on contributes to a shift in LLM perception of your brand and the likelihood of your products being included in the AI answer.

The branded subreddit being cited by LLMs is a direct, easy-to-understand metric that clients are always excited about. So we report on those two. We use Peec to track those:

Do you need help building a Reddit marketing strategy focusing on the right metrics? Let’s hop on a quick free call.

[And yep, most businesses and marketers approach this WRONG!]

Let’s get to the bottom of this:

>>>> JOIN US to discuss this topic LIVE! Bring your questions! [No registration required]

+++ Also, check out us discussing Reddit marketing in the recent podcast episode

1. First and Foremost: HOW exactly ChatGPT (and other LLMs) uses Reddit to answer prompts

In fact, there are two ways, working independently here:

1.1. Reddit is part of training data.

We all know that OpenAI partners with Reddit on this. Two VERY important things to remember here:

1. Training data doesn’t store URLs! Whatever LLMs learned from Reddit and store for training is not linked (and consequently not cited). What you see cited in AI answers is NOT necessarily what LLMs were trained from.

2. Training data may take months to get updated (for ChatGPT, usually it updates with each new model launch which doesn’t happen that often!). If you spammed marketed on Reddit for the past two weeks, it is not going to be part of the training data too soon.

1.2. Grounding (AI bots searching, finding threads, analyzing them, syncing them in the answer, citing them)

The more visible the threads are in organic search (mostly Google), the higher the chances that they will be cited and/or influence the answer.

Let’s not forget that higher-ranking threads are often 3-5 years old, archived, and impossible to answer.

Another interesting (and VERY important) note here is that ChatGPT routinely uses the SITE:reddit.com operator to dig deeper into the brand sentiment on the platform.

Why do we need to clearly understand all of this?

Based on the above:

• It takes a lot of time for Reddit to start influencing the training data (which is fundamental to AI answers and product positioning)

• Organic visibility of Reddit threads is key to those threads being cited

• (Spam) comments here and there won’t influence your visibility. It’s about consistent, strong voice that can move the needle.

In other words, it takes a more strategic, more holistic approach for Reddit marketing to make any impact on LLM findability.

Is Reddit enough for AI Visibility?

This is my favorite question and the answer is a big NO!!!

Reddit is not used for “discovery”. Which brands make ito the answer is determined by:

• Organic visibility

• Brand awareness (through strategic PR)

• Clear product positioning

• Co-occurrence with other relevant solutions

Reddit is mostly used at the claim verification stage, meaning that ChatGPT wants to make sure all the found options are worthy and trusted enough.

In other words, if you didn’t make it to the list at the discovery stage, your Reddit presence is not going to help!

On the other hand,

If your brand was discovered by Reddit, but you have a suspicious footprint there, you won’t be recommended either

This is the bottom of the LLM-driven funnel. You built a visible brand, but you won’t get recommended until you earn trust. Reddit is one place (of many) to determine your ultimate visibility at this point.

You need:

• High-quality authority-driven presence on Reddit

• Consistent, highly-focused, highly-relevant context for your brand (best achieved through your own subreddit)

• Engaged community / your loyal customers (that will eventually help fix and balance negativity and share authentic product recommendations).

LLMs are getting increasingly good at claiming loud claims and identifying fake reviews. If you want Reddit to help your brand get recommended, you need to do it right. Otherwise, it is a waste of money, which can also ruin your reputation.

If you need help creating an effective, long-term Reddit marketing strategy, get in touch!

For years, customers would routinely research a brand on Google to see if it is trustworthy enough. Hardly ever did they use long tails or look beyond page #1 of Google. So the traditional reputation management task was to “clean up” page one for the major branded searches.

With LLMs searching on your customers’ behalf, this has drastically changed, and we don’t talk about that enough.

>>> JOIN US to discuss LLM reputation management LIVE!

1. They know how to research

While LLMs, just like human beings, may search Google (or other search engines) to identify initial information, they will most likely check many more sources. For example, here’s what ChatGPT checked when simply asked for company information listed on a website:

What I found (and didn’t find)

There is no major website or company profile (Crunchbase, LinkedIn, OpenCorporates, etc.) clearly tied to a brand called “XXX”

No consistent domain (like howtonow.com) surfaced as an established business with identifiable ownership, leadership, or filings.

Right now, “XXX” does NOT appear to be a recognizable company entity—at least not one with:

• registered public filings

• media presence

• or structured company data

This would be classified as:

• Low transparency

• Low operational footprint

• Likely monetized via ads / SEO traffic

And mind you, I didn’t even ask for that investigation. I simply asked to find a company name on the website itself.

2. They fan out to “reviews”, “complaints”, etc., so that humans don’t have to

LLMs decide which queries to use to be helpful. They will use their fundamental knowledge about a product or a brand to research pros and cons thoroughly. If customers have doubts, be sure ChatGPT will confirm them. Here’s what it responded when I asked if Ryze coffee is actually helpful:

What were its sources (beyond its training data):

• Reddit (mainly)

• Mayoclinic as well as health-related publications

• Ryze review at Vice and other publications.

It actually grabbed and summarized reviews from Reddit, calling it “hit or miss”:

For product research, they will likely check known UGC, review, and/or comparison platforms like Reddit, G2, etc. It has been noticed that ChatGPT often uses SITE: command to search inside those platforms:

And be sure, if your customer has a specific question, like “What’s the upfront charge,” LLMs will likely find an answer, however hard you were trying to hide it.

What does it mean for businesses?

Top organic results for your branded search are no longer your only goal. You need to get serious and real about your reputation and own the context:

• Publish real, well-researched, well-referenced studies on your site (I have just shared solid benefits of those)

• Create your own real, well-maintained subreddit to address the common pain points and give your customers a space to share their experience (good or bad, so that it’s not just all bad)

• Keep an eye on ALL the platforms where your customers are sharing their experiences

• Build connections with editors in your niche to keep them updated on your product updates, new studies, etc.

• Keep an eye on your digital footprint consistency and make sure everything is up-to-date

• Work on your site and About page.

• Talk to your customer and sales teams to ensure you are all aware of the most common questions and concerns, and how to address those.

It’s a multi-level, well-integrated strategy these days, vs a linear approach focusing on 10 blue links a few years ago.

I create custom and actionable reputation roadmaps that make this whole process doable. Schedule a free call with me to find out how!

The only official AI visibility optimization guide was published by Microsoft but it didn’t provide any insights beyond common-sense SEO advice.

So we have to rely on independent studies for citation optimization strategies.

>>> Join us to discuss this topic LIVE (and bring your questions!)

The two most recent studies offering some actionable LLM optimization takeaways were:

• An analysis of 8,012 verified ChatGPT citations by Kevin Indig, former Head of SEO for G2

• An analysis of 520 queries and 42,971 citations in AI Mode and Gemini by Daniel Shashko. This study analyzed cited URLs with embedded #:~:text= fragments. In Gemini and AI Mode, when clicked, these citations take you exactly to the sentence that was cited in the AI answer (and that sentence is highlighted). This way, the study analyzed sentences that were used by LLMs to create an answer and cite the sources.

For example, here’s the sentence AI Mode highlights as a partial answer for the prompt “best running shoes for this spring”:

Here are a few practical tips these two studies offer for AI citation optimization:

1. The closer to the top, the better

Both studies align with each other on the most important part: LLMs don’t really like to read. They mostly cite pages that give them answers in the first third of the page.

According to Kevin’s study, 44.2% of all citations came from the top third of the page. The probability of citation dropped significantly after this initial section:

Daniel’s study was very much aligned. Three quarters of all cited sentences were in the first 50% of the page, with the 50% of all sentences appearing in the first third of the page. An interesting note from this study is that LLMs seem to like the very first paragraphs less than the fursth 40% of the page:

The obvious takeaway here: make sure to answer the most important underlying question in the first third of your page. Get right to the point.

Those FAQs you include at the bottom of your 2000-word article may not be that impactful.

2. Write in “Atomic Facts”

Another interesting concept Daniel’s study has introduced is called “atomic facts”. Daniel has found that LLMs prefer short sentences that carry a lot of meaning:

• In his study, 6–20 words covered ~92% of everything that got cited

• LLMs tend to cite full sentences

According to Daniel,

In RAG systems, an atomic fact is a self-contained, single-claim sentence that makes sense on its own. The 6–17 word sweet spot maps directly to this.

For copywriting, this means using a few words to express as much meaning as possible. No long introductions, no unclear and long definitions, no creating descriptions of your products. Get right to the point and get as clear and factual as possible.

Here’s a new free tool that allows you to analyze your copy to see how many “atomic facts” it contains.

3. Make use of lists

This is not the first study showing that LLMs love bullet-point and numbered lists. But it is a good reminder: Use those lists!

4. Am I guaranteed to get cited if I use all those tips?

No.

Danie’s study (as well as a few previous studies) has found very little overlap between citations in AI Mode and Gemini. This means that, while the two LLMs seem to follow the same patterns to pick sources, the outcome remains quite unpredictable.

You can increase your page’s chances of getting cited by using the tactics below, but it is not going to be as predictable as organic rankings.

Also, ranking well in Google gives you much bigger chances to get cited than anything else.

5. Citations vs Answer Visibility

Another important note to make here is that these two studies are looking specifically at LLM citations. While citations may influence an AI answer, making sure your brand is positioned well in the training data is fundamental (and more important) for consistent visibility.

• Organic Google search (as Reddit threads rank for just about any commercial and branded query)

• LLMs (as ChatGPT uses Reddit for training data and frequently cites Reddit threads as sources for answers).

As commonly happens in our industry, most businesses started looking for shortcuts to Reddit visibility.

Here’s what they are doing wrong and why it is inevitably going to backfire:

>>> JOIN us to discuss this LIVE!

1. Posting fake reviews, and the legality of that

Or rather illegality of that….

Here’s how most agencies approach Reddit marketing:

• They buy comments from anonymous accounts recommending a certain brand

• They sponsor new posts from fake customers describing their great experience with the product

Not many businesses realize this is not just unethical, but it is also illegal. FTC made it quite clear:

• Brands cannot post fake reviews, including AI-generated reviews.

• Businesses can’t sell or buy reviews.

• Individuals must disclose in their review if they are connected to a business.

• No selling or buying followers, likes, or views on social media.

There’s an easy form allowing consumers to report businesses that are doing any of the above. It is no joke.

Any agency trying to sell you these services essentially encourages you to break the law.

2. Reaching out to moderators requesting to remove negative threads

This is #1 request from businesses contacting us for Reddit reputation management services: How do we delete those negative threads?

Well, this is a great way to make those mods very angry.

Not only will they likely ban your account from the subreddit, but they will also make the issue public, damaging your reputation even more.

Here’s one example of a huge subreddit making sure businesses that attempt to remove negative threads or sponsor positive reviews are well-known:

After a thorough audit, I can recommend reaching out to mods carefully if both of these conditions overlap:

• The product has changed, and the thread no longer represents the current state of things. Make sure to prepare all the documentation, change log, etc., explaining how the situation has changed.

• The overall sentiment is neutral. Sometimes, some brands are so notorious inside some subreddits that whatever you say will result in the situation getting even worse.

And even in this case, I never recommend asking the mods to remove a thread. It should always be phrased something like “Is there any way to update this thread, as we took a lot of effort in fixing our products to address the listed issues?”

3. Trying the “influencer marketing” approach

Some brands attempt to “hire” well-established Redditors and mods to promote their products on Reddit. This, again, is something that can backfire and cause serious reputation management issues, even when you are open to doing it legally, i.e., allowing them to disclose the affiliation.

Reddit is not like other social media networks you are used to. The path to becoming a mod is very long. You have to be very passionate about the topic to end up a well-known user inside a popular subreddit or a mod.

These passionate people will likely treat any attempt to sponsor their reputation as an insult. And they will likely be very vocal about that.

Doing Reddit marketing right is not just more effective in the long run; it is also the only way to keep your brand safe. Establishing a transparent business entity on Reddit builds trust that no money can buy.

If you are considering marketing on Reddit, ask us how to do it properly!

And it is not just searching… It is also a weird reliance on Google’s indexation and cache.

>>>> JOIN US to discuss this LIVE on LinkedIn!

About 7 months ago, Aleyda Solis did a test to find ChatGPT citing Google’s search snippet, word-for-word.

A week ago, I did a test to see if ChatGPT reads schema and found that ChatGPT refuses to see updates on the page unless they are indexed by Google. Basically, the steps were as follows:

1. Added a fake company name to a page

2. Asked ChatGPT to find that company name on the page

   1. ChatGPT confidently responded that there was no company name mentioned on that page

3. Requested re-indexation of the page through Google’s Search Console and waited for it to be done

   1. Immediately after it was re-indexed by Google, I used the same prompt, and ChatGPT was able to see the new name right away.

Which version of the page ChatGPT is accessing is a mystery (Google’s cache?), but the reliance on Google’s indexed version is obvious at this point.

Note: When prompted to visit a page, ChatGPT uses a specific bot that is supposed to open a page (regardless of its Robots.txt directives). It is not a search bot. So why does it query Google’s index instead of visiting the page directly remains a mystery.

Another finding from last week was that ChatGPT also scrapes Google’s sponsored results, as it is sending referral traffic from UTMs used only in Google Ads:

And let’s not forget that OpenAI’s browser openly runs on Google search (well, because it is built on Google’s Open Source software:)):

So what does this all mean?

Given that ChatGPT and Gemini are direct competitors, this weird relationship is very interesting to me.

But for SEOs, this means:

• Traditional SEO (technical, content, backlinks) remains not only fundamental but also key to LLM/AI visibility.

• Google is not going anywhere. It seems they have the keys ChatGPT is struggling with.

• Google is better equipped to win this race, unfortunately, as it doesn’t have to rely on third-party indices or data.

• Bing is not good enough (OpenAI tried to use it, but there must have been a good reason why they ended up with Google).

So why don’t ChatGPT citations 100% overlap with Google’s rankings then?

This is one of the more popular arguments among those who try to declare SEO dead. Different studies suggest an average of 30% overlap between ChatGPT citations and top Google rankings (which is huge, in my opinion).

My thoughts:

• These studies don’t seem to take “fan-outs” into account. ChatGPT doesn’t search for prompts or obvious underlying queries. It fans out to what it needs more info on (and pulls the rest from the training data).

• Let’s not forget that OpenAI has lots of partnerships with publishers and may pull citations from those. I once went down a rabbit hole of tracking down unindexed pages to OpenAI partnerships and succeeded.

SEO for AI / GEO / AEO strategy is not all about optimizing for Google. I am not trying to make this point, though. But, so far, Google seems to be the fundamental part of it.

Let me know if you’d like me to talk to you about other parts of it.

I had one clear vision: Create a space for clutter-free updates on what is going on in the SEO for AI / GEO / AEO industry that will cut through the noise.

Here’s the subreddit itself: r/SEO_for_AI

To be sure, I have the whole team of Reddit experts who are much more knowledgeable than I am and manage subreddits and Reddit marketing campaigns for a variety of clients.

But I was determined to do it myself.

I strongly believe that a manager/director/founder needs to do something personally to be able to better relate to and manage a team of professionals.

>>>> Please JOIN ME to discuss this Reddit experiment LIVE on LinkedIn

Here’s what I learned from the process:

1. It damn works for capturing rankings and getting cited by LLMs

If you allow your subreddit to grow organically and naturally, you will soon notice it ranking everywhere. It doesn’t happen quickly because Reddit does have a “sandbox” for new subreddits. You need to build trust with both Reddit and Google by consistently providing true value.

After about 5 times of managing my subreddit, I started noticing it show up in Google (Reddit stacks):

In AI Overviews:

In People Also Ask boxes

2. It is hard and takes time (especially if you ban spam) + consistency

It may not take years (judging from my experiment), but it is going to take a lot of patience. In the first couple of months, you will likely be the only one talking there, earning trust.

If you remain consistent and focus on providing value, the real magic will happen when Reddit starts showing you in other people’s feeds. It is much more valuable than ranking, to be honest, because those Redditors will engage and subscribe (not just read, which is what most Google searchers are coming for).

Ranking may and will fluctuate. Reddit’s organic visibility will be consistent (as long as you remain active), driving engaged members of your community.

Then you will see spam arriving. And here you will have a tough choice: Allow it (and boost your subreddit’s engagement) or remove everything that is fake (trust me, as a mod, you will quickly learn to tell one from the other.

I chose the first option and ended up vigorously removing threads that had one purpose: To get a self-serving mention either in the post or in comments. I started banning members who repeatedly attempted to do it again.

3. It takes REAL expertise

Unless you have a deep understanding of the topic through actual experience and expertise, it won’t work. You cannot just share links or fun/filler content and hope that you will be able to succeed.

That’s why, when managing clients’ subreddits, we always insist on a dedicated person from the company who actually knows the topic well.

4. Most competitors give up before they see it work

This is good news.

I saw lots of people trying to replicate what I was doing. Most of them already gave up on trying because of how hard work it requires to yield any meaningful results.

I talk about Reddit a lot btw:

• How to Do Reddit Marketing without Making Enemies

• 5 Reasons to Create a Dedicated Subreddit

• Reddit as a Gateway to Google Search (and ChatGPT): Do’s and Don’ts

• How to Manage Your Brand’s Reputation on Reddit

• Reddit OWNS the Bottom of the Sales Funnel (And Businesses Fail to Do Anything about That)

Let me know if you need help with Reddit!

>>> JOIN US to discuss this topic LIVE on Linkedin

Meta posted an SEO lead position looking:

…To enhance our web marketing footprint globally. As SEO Strategy Lead, you will be responsible for increasing search visibility, traffic, and conversions across Meta’s B2B and B2C web properties. You will lead and manage a team of SEO specialists, collaborating with various cross-functional teams and leaders to integrate SEO practices across all Meta products and apps

Open AI posted a content strategist position:

We are seeking a full-funnel ‘growth athlete’ with deep expertise in SEO, web strategy, and CRO to help scale ChatGPT consumer and business growth initiatives

Anthropic is now also looking for an SEO lead to:

define and execute the technical SEO roadmap, drive site experimentation and conversion optimization, and make strategic recommendations that shape how we invest in organic growth [and also] define our strategy for emerging search experiences like AI Overviews and answer engines.

What does this mean?

Well, there’s one main thing right on the surface here: The three biggest corporations that drive AI technology and innovation totally recognize the importance of SEO for growth and product discoverability.

I am sure, they all know that organic discoverability is going to change, and like I said many times, SEOs are going to be the only ones figuring this change out. We’ve (SEOs) have been bridging the gap between machine thinking, sellers, and consumers for years now.

But there’s much more into this: All of these companies get it. SEO is no longer an island. It should be integrated into the organization. SEO needs to be part of conversion rate optimization, design, product development, etc.

If there’s one single factor that has driven SEO change, it was this. In most companies, an SEO department was a tight group of weird people, and no one knew what they were doing.

SEO has matured beyond that. My audit kick-off calls all start with “describe your brand’s value proposition and explain your product positioning.”

Wil Reynolds said it best:

Your job as a marketer is going to be more than ever looking for information that can help AI know who you are that your company has buried somewhere and surfacing that. Become a scavenger, find valuable info and get it published and take more ownership of your brand citations.

SEO is no longer about strings of keywords and backlinks (both are still important, but secondary). It is much more cross-channel and product-driven these days. If you are still looking for SEO “to optimize your pages for keywords”, you are just a little behind!

Ask me how SEO for AI can work for your business.

Many SEO experts are still trying to apply old, convenient metrics to AI visibility by measuring:

Traffic from LLM platforms

While it is still a useful metric to monitor, focusing on it is highly limiting because AI answers are not designed to send clicks. They give conclusive and satisfying answers that often remove the need to click anything.

>>> JOIN us to discuss AI visibility LIVE on LinkedIn

In many cases, the solutions or best options listed in AI answers are not even linked (so there’s no referral traffic possible). Or sometimes they are linked to Google search results for further research:

Traffic is no longer representative of the level of visibility. Your product can be listed as a top option (and trigger a lot of conversions) without ever generating any direct clicks from AI answers.

Rankings in AI answers

AI answers tend to list the best options as lists. Logically, the higher your product comes up in a list, the higher the probability that a consumer will choose it. So many business owners want to know and track these rankings, aiming to be listed more and higher.

While some AI visibility tools promise to track your AI rankings, it is, unfortunately, not possible. LMM answers are highly inconsistent. A study by Sparktoro (shared by Rand Fishkin) shows that LLMs are very likely to list various brands when using the same prompt again and again.

What should be tracked instead?

Here are other metrics we need to start focusing on more when tracking and measuring AI visibility:

1. “What LLMs know about me vs my competitors.”

When answering prompts, LLMs refer to what they already know about the world. Even if they search, they will likely turn to their pre-training data to decide what to search for.

The important question should be, “How much LLMs know about your business vs how much they know about your competitors”. An even more important question is, “Where LLMs get it wrong.” This is about identifying outdated, false, or missing information that needs to be addressed (on- and off-site)

You can prompt various platforms to find these gaps of knowledge in LLM training data.

AI visibility analytics platforms (like Profound or Peec AI) can help you run and monitor these prompts on a regular basis.

2. Most impactful citations

Gen AI platforms perform live searches more often these days. They may search Google, Bing, or Brave Search (so organic search visibility is still very important for AI visibility), or they may refer to sources they know (like Reddit, their current partners, etc.).

Citations that influence AI answers are likely to be very inconsistent (just like product rankings inside answers) because AI platforms fan-out to always different search queries. So, chasing every citation you come across is not doable.

However, there are “most influential” URLs you tend to come across from prompt to prompt. This is what you need to focus on to:

• Try and get included

• Fix any misinformation there (if you are already included). In most cases, incorrect training data positioning comes from misconceptions in cited URLs.

AI visibility platforms can collect these most cited sources for you and even report if your brand is included:

[Peec AI reports how many times each URL was cited across all your tracked prompts]

3. Branded search variety, volume, and clicks

There’s an interesting cycle at play here:

• Frequent brand mentions get you included in more gen AI answers. We see it all the time by running digital PR campaigns for our clients. Here’s what we do. Fresh brand mentions “remind” LLMs of your businesses and build trust. So you want to see your brand mentions consistently increase.

• If your brand is included in more LLM answers, more people will search for it (because it is often unlinked). So if you are doing something right, you will see more impressions for your branded searches. So your branded search is a success metric to track.

You can use Search Analytics to do that. Just create a new filter in the “Performance” report to see data for your branded queries.

[Clicks and impressions for branded search, reported by Search Console. The growth of both likely signals of higher AI visibility]

If you need help auditing your business AI visibility, let me know!

>>> JOIN US to discuss this topic LIVE!

It was met with a lot of criticism from organic search professionals (we will discuss why), but there are a few cool and actionable tips there that reinforce what I (and many others) have been saying for years.

SEO vs GEO vs AEO

This is the first official guide implementing some new acronyms. While it is a good move, the guide did not do a good job distinguishing between the new ones, or explaining why we need those. According to Microsoft:

• SEO = Keyword optimization

• AEO = Answer Engine Optimization (easy answer retrieval)

• GEO = Making your brand and content trusted by LLMs

That’s a lot of acronyms for something we have been doing as “SEO” for years:

• AEO is pretty much featured snippet optimization (we have been calling Google an answer engine since about 2014, and I have yet to see a clear explanation of how LLMs made those tactics any different, except for a new term - chunking - which also isn’t bringing anything essential new, simply calling the old good “make everything short, clear and factual” a new name)

• GEO is pretty much EEAT optimization, as many of us already saw it.

Regardless, these definitions can be interpreted as follows:

• AEO = on-page optimization

• GEO = brand positioning.

This does not align with my earlier attempts to make sense of all the various acronyms, but I am ok with adjusting, if needed. We don’t evolve unless we change our opinions :)

An actionable checklist to be more visible

Healthy criticism aside (which I think is good for productive evolution), there are quite a few useful things in the guide, none of them being new:

• You need to be more descriptive and intent-driven when optimizing your product pages (both on-page and in your product feeds). Keywords are no longer enough. You need to consider use cases and unique product/brand differentiators, i.e., “best for”.

• Clear, bold claims work only if you can prove them. If you claim your product to be the best in a particular category, make sure to add why you are entitled to say so. “Best for XXX, according to XYZ”. LLMs are easy to be convinced if you state things clearly, but there’s an added layer of trustworthiness there.

  • Avoid exaggerated or unverifiable claims unless you can prove them by social proof or experts’ statements. “AI systems penalize low-trust language”. To be fair, I haven’t seen this in practice, but it might be something LLMs will be doing in the future.

• Add text where you can - that includes detailed alt text for images and transcripts for videos.

• Use Q&As or FAQs where they help provide more context and easier answer retrieval.

None of that is actually new to SEO, but LLMs are a little less mature and a little more human.

In short, make it as clear and convincing as you can. The way I explain it to clients: “LLMs are just like kids: They are easy to convince, but they follow the path of the least resistance. They won’t recommend you to your users unless your value proposition is very easy to understand and unless it is backed up by experts or social proof.”

There’s a repeated mention of schema, which states that structured markup helps without explaining how. My opinion about schema remains the same here: Use it, use it a lot.

When it comes to AI visibility, we don’t know how exactly LLMs may use schema, but it won’t hurt! And since LLMs turn to traditional search engines a lot, it will help because search engines use structured markup and may convince AI agents to click a rich result.

You can read the full guide here (it is not a lot).

It is funny (and sad) that we are excited to see any official guidelines at this point, even quite minimalistic. But so far, it is the most actionable we have!

Let’s talk if you need more than that.

The answer that usually comes up: Digital PR (if you do it right).

At Smarty.Marketing, we have been marketing our clients through digital PR for more than 14 years. And the strategy is as relevant as it was 14 years ago:

• Create something linkworthy (trends, seasonality, audience research… Oftentimes all of that combined!)

• Position it well on Reddit

• Reach out to journalists who are likely to be interested

The solid combination of the three tactics above is what you need.

>>> JOIN us to discuss how to do it right on LinkedIn!

How most companies are doing digital PR wrong:

• Publicising stories that are too brand-centric (it is not about you! It is about problems your audience is trying to solve!)

• Using automated PR distribution

What this approach fails to achieve:

• Organic reach to the people genuinely interested in a topic

• Organic spread from journalists who also need a bigger reach (looking to reach more readers)

• Relevant, problem-solution context for your brand, elevating your brand’s visibility in search and LLMs.

• Organic product positioning your brand as a trusted, authoritative source (which is key to any other algorithm, be it organic search or generative AI).

I have already shared a case study on how a solid digital PR strategy can elevate your brand long-term, without you chasing every outbound opportunity: You are in control. That case study achieved success over time, driving links through being discoverable through many organic sources (Google, Google Images, Reddit, etc.). And at the time when everyone was losing organic search traffic, our client was slowly but surely gaining visibility. Here’s its domain organic traffic report:

I was also interviewed on this case study here:

Today’s case study is different: It shows how you can achieve success due to seasonality. But it doesn’t mean it can double or triple its success next season (if updated and marketed again).

This is our test campaign we meant to turn into a case study, and it did so well that there are more lessons to learn than we expected.

Summary:

• Here’s the video summarising its initial coverage.

• Since then, the backlinks have nearly DOUBLED to 240 with 113 TV/radio broadcasts (including CNN)!

• The brand name (which had 0 mentioned before) started showing up in Google Trends

So what are the lessons to learn?

• Seasonality can work wonders even for topics that were very well covered before

• Timing doesn’t mean temporal success (this study kept attracting new coverage for two months after its initial success)

• If a topic resonates (in this case, there’s a huge emotional aspect of people feeling nostalgic about their favorite movies), it doesn’t even take too much to promote it BUT….

• “Build it, and they will come” won’t work even for the best ideas and big brands: You need to seed it well. Reddit is a great place to do it if you know how to do it right.

It is still early to talk about long-term organic visibility (this will be addressed later in 2026 when seasonality starts picking up again, so we will follow up!), but the overall power of the power of seasonality + strategic marketing is already obvious.

Plan your marketing around seasonality because it does work! Let me know if you need help brainstorming!

And yet, most businesses have no idea how to navigate this challenging channel to be able to influence the (mostly negative) narrative that exists on Reddit.

>>> JOIN US to discuss Reddit live on Linkedin!

The answer is straightforward, yet not too easy: You need your own channel (pretty much like you do on any influential channel, only here there is no better answer).

Getting a subreddit off the ground is hard work but it comes with so many benefits, it’s a great investment, if you do it right:

1. Control the context

One of the biggest challenges of Reddit is that you cannot just respond to a comment without fear that it will go dangerously wrong. Your account can be banned from an important subreddit, suspended from the whole Reddit, attacked by negative comments, etc. It is very hard to engage with relevant and important discussions on Reddit as a business entity.

If you have a well-established subreddit, you can:

• Invite your customers and brand ambassadors to participate and help

• Curate detailed reviews that are helpful and tell a well-balanced story

• Announce new features and milestones

• Showcase your trustworthiness by featuring your partners, sharing your awards, etc.

• Feature employees, etc.

It’s your space inside Reddit where you can (and should) be real while being able to balance the sentiment.

2. Make your own rules

All the subreddits have their own rules that you can clearly see in the sidebar.

And yet, once you start participating, you quickly find out there are more rules that are not immediately obvious. They may hate certain brands or certain terms. They may allow cross-posts or video posts, but posting either may get you penalized.

Some behaviors are acceptable on some subreddits and hated on others.

Navigating this is time-consuming, stressful, and risky (because you always risk losing your business account).

Creating your own subreddit means creating your own rules, not just official rules. You can be encouraging to newbies and helpful to anyone. You can ban hate speech or attacking other members. You can create a community around your brand that represents your brand’s style and voice.

3. Direct all the reviews to your own space

Here’s a big problem just about any brand experiences when trying to reply to negative or positive reviews on Reddit: It is next to impossible.

Brand’s replies can fuel fires even more. A branded account may be banned from the subreddit in an attempt to add a reply to someone discussing their brand.

So do all you can to direct all Reddit comments (positive and negative) to the space that you can control and where you can safely reply.

Again, don’t just allow positive reviews there. You need both. Negative reviews are already floating around. In your own subreddit, you can reply to them and turn that unhappy customer into a thankful member of your Reddit community.

4. Create a community

A brand-owned community is always the best asset you can think of.

Active communities keep your brand visible through any Google updates. Managing a community means growing your own brand ambassadors who will protect your brand name in other subreddits. It’s the word of mouth in its best form because it is also on Reddit (which ranks and impacts LLMs).

If there is one advice I give most of my clients, it is to invest in creating your own community. It takes time but that’s how business will survive any loss of traffic or visibility.

5. Own your branded search and long-tails

Reddit ranks for just about anything these days. Whether it is ever going to change, now is a good time to leverage that. Your community is likely to rank, so you can generate additional visibility and control your branded search better.

It is neither easy, nor fast. But if you do it right, it’s the best investment you can make! Reach out if you need help or guidelines (free!)

Unlike popular belief, I don’t think it is some kind of evil plan to ruin more lives during festivities. I suspect Google always does big updates over the family holidays simply because fewer people use search, so if anything goes wrong, not as many people are affected.

Regardless, historically the biggest Google updates happen on Christmas, and they are devastating for many business owners who celebrate the holidays knowing they may be losing their businesses or will be forced to let many people go right after the festivities.

This recent update was pretty huge, as usual, so let’s try to explain it without making your head hurt:

Core Updates are updates to *the algorithm*, according to Google

Google keeps saying this: It is not about you, it’s about us changing how we see user intent and relevance.

So unlike spam updates, this one is supposed to be not penalizing. It is not about what you did wrong. It is supposed to be about fixing what the algorithm wasn’t doing well enough.

And yet:

Core updates are actually penalizing (Deranking sites with poor usability or with too many ads)

We’ve all discussed Navboost to death already, but we know that Google collects user engagement data and then uses it to reorganize search results.

In other words, if Google notices users are leaving your site too fast (or worse, returning to search results to click another one), its systems may assume your page is not serving them well enough.

In this case, that page will lose visibility, and it happens during Core Updates.

So what is that other than an algorithmic penalty?

The problem here: Only high-traffic pages get noticed by these systems. Unless you get enough clicks for Google to notice, you will not suffer a huge impact. That is why Core Updates may elevate spammy pages that didn’t have clicks before, as Glenn Gabe noticed in his fabulous analysis. That is also why Core Updates may be very impactful (and devastating): They hit pages they have enough data about.

Helpful Content is part of Core Updates

Let’s not forget this part: Up until this day, we don’t really know what the Helpful Content algorithm really wants from publishers. I covered it before, so if you were impacted by the Core Update, it is worth looking at your content helpfulness:

• Your Practical Guide to Creating More Helpful Content (Using Keywords)

• What Does the Helpful Content Update REALLY Mean for SEO?

• Helpful Content as Defined by Google’s Quality Guidelines

Helpful Content *is* a penalizing system. It punishes pages that are deemed unhelpful, so that is another reason to call Core Updates penalties.

The bad news is that the Helpful Content system can be sitewide (if Google finds enough “unhelpful content” on your site, it will hit the whole site). The other bad news is that this can make the analysis and recovery harder.

So, how to recover from Google’s Core Update?

If your site was impacted by the Core Update, the first things I’d look at are:

• Most impacted pages (those will be the pages that used to get the most traffic). Search Console’s “Compare” report is the first best tool to look at.

• Things you can do to improve those pages. In most cases: Restructuring the page to give the most important answers on top of it, adding structure (headings), demonetizing them, adding high-quality, real authorship (when it makes sense), etc.

If you need help, I am one free call away!

• Even Less Organic Traffic ✅

• More Challenging Attribution ✅

• More Branded Searches ✅

• SEO and Brand Authority ✅

• Site Reputation Abuse Becoming Algorithmic (❓)

• Marketing diversification ✅

Now, let’s discuss the trends that will likely be huge in 2026:

>>> JOIN us to discuss free and LIVE on LinkedIn

1. Instant checkout (0-click buying)

We all saw this coming: If people can get all the answers without searching and clicking, the future, when they can perform actions without ever going to a website, is very near.

ChatGPT already announced Instant Checkout: A feature allowing consumers to buy products right from AI Answers. Underwhelmingly poorly executed and mostly not finished, this feature is the trend of the future: Sometime soon, consumers will live inside their conversations with AI bots, never leaving, having everything that needs to happen get done by their loyal AI agents.

This is the future not many businesses are prepared for, and 2026 is going to be the year to get ready.

2. AI Answer monetization

Both Google and OpenAI are testing showing ads inside AI Answers. All of those tests are disappointing, to say the least.

AI Mode was closer: They attempted to monetize “fan-out.” This is at least somewhat innovative. Instead of showing contextual ads, AI answer ads “guess” what could be the next step in each searching journey. They suggest solutions before a user even realizes a need.

ChatGPT’s monetization tests were hilarious: No relevance, no logic, nothing. It was poor;y executed even for a test.

But what’s more important: Those tests show that it’s coming. AI platforms struggle to become sustainable without ads. So they will have to work with businesses to try and get their money.

3. ChatGPT “Search Console”

And this is why it is good news: Once LLM platforms start engaging businesses in spending money on ads, they will have to give something back, i.e., data.

We’ve already seen leaks showing ChatGPT’s version of Search Console, which is used to report to OpenAI partners. Even this limited version of reporting would be better than nothing.

Once AI Answers are monetized, we will see some synergy between LLM platforms and businesses forming. And that’s when organic visibility will become more predictable and better informed.

4. More people using ChatGPT to search

ChatGPT has been predicted to become Google’s rival for months now. I’ve always said that consumer behaviors are not that easy to break. And yet, an interesting trend we’ve seen this year: One of the fastest increasing use cases for ChatGPT has been… seeking information (i.e., that’s what we used to use search for).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not at all sure ChatGPT will remain the go-to gen AI tool. Looking at what has been happening so far, Google (Gemini) is very likely to win the race.

What matters is changing searching behaviors and expectations. And that’s something we - SEOs - need to always keep in mind!

And two bonus SEO predictions I am not so sure about:

5. ChatGPT’s Own Search Engine

We are noticing ChatGPT searching differently, using very long fan-outs that steer results into more specific directions. This is what we expected from Google when it promised finding “hidden gems”. I am pretty sure this is what ChatGPT is trying to achieve here, i.e. surfacing more hidden, more useful pages.

It is quite likely, ChatGPT will attempt to rely more on internal cache at some point (it already hints that it caches results with two of its bots, and these bots share the cache).

6. Google’s Web Guide Becoming Default

We all expected Google to work on the AI Mode to become default but it has been recently working more on testing its Web Guide, which is an “AI Organized Search”.

It seems to make much more sense for users (it is actually quite useful) and for their monetization ROI, because it is much more click-friendly. As part of AI labs, I am already seeing the Web Guide as default behavior in Google Chrome.

What has been happening in digital marketing has been pretty surreal so far. There are, indeed, AI influencers, AI agents visiting web pages and performing actions, etc. It is moving fast, and it is still unclear where exactly it is moving.

The main question we are still solving: What we should be doing differently? So far, the fundamentals remain the same: Strong brand visibility within its niche, relevant content and context, external signals (backlinks, reviews, brand mentions).

Let’s stay together to help one another figure this out. Happy New Year!

Whether this behaviour continues or not, it is definitely a trend: LLMs search for very specific queries, which tend to be very long.

But there’s more to that: Long-tail keywords still present organic search opportunities. They are not as likely to trigger AI Overviews, and they are more likely to result in a click because the intent is higher (people searching for something specific tend to know *what exactly they need*, so they are more likely to click and convert if they find what they need).

>>> Join us to learn more and ask questions LIVE on LinkedIn

Having a diverse long-tail ranking portfolio is also more sustainable. You can lose a few clicks (to ranking decline or a new AI Overview showing), but it will not result in a huge traffic drop.

How to find your long-tail opportunities?

Keyword research tools can give you a solid insight into longer queries people tend to use. For example, Semrus allows you to filter keyword lists by the minimum number of words in queries.

[In the screenshot, the minimum number of words in a query is set to 10]

Question research tools are also helpful.

Search Console can list your current long-tail opportunities. Just use regex in Search Console to find longer queries that drive search visibility for your site. Go to the “Performance” section, click “Add filter”, choose “Query” and choose the “Custom (regex)” option

There, type:

([^” “]*\s){10,}?

This regex filters queries to those containing more than 10 words. You can change “10” to “5” or “25” to find queries longer than 5 or 25 words in them, respectively.

How to optimize for long-tail keywords?

The first step is to think on a higher level. Instead of trying to add more pages, think about how you can elevate your existing deep pages in search.

• Make product page titles more descriptive (add color, target audience (“for”), use cases (e.g. “Gift idea”), etc. We discussed some ideas when talking about Instant Checkout in ChatGPT)

• Add subcategories of products or articles to elevate more products in the site architecture.

• Consider adding UGC (product Q&As, reviews, public customer support forums, etc.). Make sure these are indexable, crawlable, and well-moderated.

• Interlink deeper pages better (“People Also Buy”, “Related articles”, “Related guides” on product pages, “Related products” on article pages, etc.

• Remove everything that’s not essential (outdated content, private pages, etc.). Most websites I am seeing have a ton of content they allow crawled and indexed that’s private, dev-only, outdated, etc.

When that’s done:

• Include your customer and sales teams in content planning: You need to address real people’s questions and problems on your site.

• Create tools and PR assets that will attract links and fresh signals on a continuous basis: You need more visibility for it to flow throughout the whole site.

Overall, “doing more” is one of the best ways to generate more (long-tail) traffic. For example:

• Participating in Reddit discussions = more ideas for specific niche problem-solving content

• Being on social = better understanding of social media trends (and elevating matching products)

• Talking to your existing customers or engaging them with your site = more UGC content (great way to boost long-tail traffic).

Trained by typing (or saying) prompts, people will soon search more conversationally too. Long-tail is the future for both organic search and AI visibility!

• It is not about press release syndication

• It is not just about backlinks

So what is digital PR that can help your brand get surfaced in search and AI answers?

>>> JOIN us to discuss this topic LIVE on LinkedIn

Let’s go back to why digital PR is deemed important (again) these days:

• LLMs need relevant context that would help them understand your brand better (and quickly associate it with relevant problems/questions)

• LLMs need brand mentions to “remember” your brand (just like humans do)

• LLMs LOVE fresh content

• LLMs will likely cite you if you rank in Google (this is where you need good backlinks)

It is more about quality than quantity. There’s a lot to achieve here:

When preparing a digital PR campaign, we spend a ton of time brainstorming topics that could:

• Be interesting and unique enough for journalists and Reddit to pick up on them

• Be relevant to the problems the client’s business is solving

• Have searchable keywords (it can rank for)

• Have visual potential (for better sharability and discoverability).

It is that combination of goals that helps our PR assets not only drive useful signals during and immediately after the active promotion, but also for months and even years afterwards.

I was inspired to write this newsletter after our client messaged me the following:

[Let’s make sure to take our last year’s studies and update those for 2026 – those are getting great traction – [one of the infographics] has over 1M impressions, and we don’t want to lose that momentum!]

>>> Read the full case study here!

I ran a quick statistics for a one-year-old campaign we did for him:

One year ago:

• ~30 strong backlinks from media outlets (Fox and Digg were among the stronger ones)

• 57 organic keyword rankings bringing about 250 clicks a month

• More than 10,000 on Reddit

Results after a year:

• ~200 backlinks (Publications that were able to discover our asset organically included Forbes, Investpedia, Moneywise, and quite a few official educational establishments)

• 1.1K organic keywords driving about 6.2K organic search clicks monthly

It is an impressive organic growth of a PR asset driving great SEO signals on autopilot for more than a year now.

Everyone loves shortcuts, but if you aim higher, you can achieve much better results on a much lower budget.

If you need help brainstorming your digital PR strategy, get in touch!

Unfortunately, most approaches to Reddit marketing focus on shortcuts.

Reddit is not a platform where shortcuts work.

>>> JOIN US to discuss LIVE on LinkedIn!

Here are a few flawed approaches to Reddit marketing that are, sadly, very well-spread:

• Buying threads and comments recommending a business from third-party accounts

• Using AI to generate content to create new posts on Reddit or reply to other users’ accounts

• Sponsoring the whole thread where the discussion (naturally) recommends the business from different accounts (this is, they say, “AEO”)

All of these methods are incredibly easy to spot, annoy Redditors, and position your brand in a terrible light.

Remember, Reddit ranks everywhere. If you annoy the platform users enough, they are very well able to bury your reputation.

You can create a legit presence on Reddit instead

Reddit supports business accounts as long as you are transparent about your associations.

It is almost always a good idea to:

• Create an official account for your business

• Create a personal account for your business’s public rep (CEO, community manager, etc.)

Use your business account to:

• Reply to threads and comments that ask a question about your brand (make those comments very constructive and avoid getting defensive).

• Reply to generic threads where you have first-hand expertise or experience

Use your official personal account to:

• Share your expertise

• Suggest your business ONLY when people are explicitly asking Reddit for recommendations

It is not about the quantity of your posts. It’s about being genuinely helpful.

Take it slow

Reddit is very quick at suspending accounts for suspicious activity.

If your account is brand new, avoid posting too much. Take your time subscribing to relevant subreddits, reading, and getting a feel of what is acceptable or discouraged there.

One of the biggest mistakes a business or marketer can make is to try to rush Reddit marketing.

Ask us how to do Reddit marketing right!