Optimizing SEO With AI Insights

Forget outdated SEO tricks. They won’t help in an AI-first world. AI-powered search is reshaping how websites get discovered. It understands context. It prioritizes relevance. It rewards user-focused content. Here’s 10 ways to optimize your website for AI-driven search engines: 1/ Semantic Content: Speak the Language of AI → AI search engines prioritize meaning over keywords. → Craft content with clear intent, structured for natural language processing. 💡Pro Tip: Use tools like schema markup to help AI understand your content’s context. 2/ User Intent: Solve Problems, Don’t Just Sell → AI evaluates how well your content matches user needs. → Focus on answering queries with depth and clarity. 💡Pro Tip: Analyze search trends to align content with what users are asking. 3/ Structured Data: Make Your Site AI-Readable → Schema and metadata help AI parse your site’s structure. → Clear data formats boost your visibility in rich results. 💡Pro Tip: Implement JSON-LD schema to enhance AI comprehension. 4/ Content Depth: Go Beyond Surface-Level → AI favors comprehensive, authoritative content. → Long-form guides and detailed answers outperform thin pages. 💡Pro Tip: Use AI content tools to identify gaps in your topics. 5/ Mobile Optimization: Prioritize Seamless Experiences → AI search engines weigh mobile usability heavily. → Fast load times and responsive design are non-negotiable. 💡Pro Tip: Run AI-driven site audits to ensure mobile performance. 6/ Voice Search: Optimize for Conversational Queries → AI powers voice assistants, which demand natural, question-based content. → Users ask full questions, not fragmented keywords. 💡Pro Tip: Create FAQ sections targeting phrases like “How do I…” or “What is…”. 7/ Visual Search: Leverage Images for Discovery → AI can interpret images to deliver search results. → Optimized visuals with descriptive metadata drive traffic. 💡Pro Tip: Use AI image recognition tools to tag and describe visuals. 8/ E-A-T Signals: Build Expertise, Authority, Trust → AI evaluates your site’s credibility through content quality and backlinks. → Showcase expertise with author bios and verified sources. 💡Pro Tip: Monitor your site’s trust signals and address weak areas. 9/ Real-Time Relevance: Stay Updated → AI prioritizes current, relevant content. → Outdated pages lose ranking power fast. 💡Pro Tip: Set up content refresh alerts to keep key pages up to date. 10/ User Experience: Reduce Friction, Boost Engagement → AI tracks dwell time, bounce rates, and navigation patterns. → A seamless UX keeps users on your site longer. 💡Pro Tip: Map user journeys and optimize for smoother interactions. AI-powered search is redefining discoverability by prioritizing meaning, user experience, and trust. Start leveraging these strategies to make your website a magnet for AI-driven traffic and engagement. ♻️ Repost if your network needs to see this. Follow Carolyn Healey for more AI insights.

SEO Reminder: Your log files can tell you how ChatGPT and Claude are engaging with your site on behalf of users. The screenshot below highlights how during a 30 day window, the ChatGPT-User agent hit this site 48,000+ times across nearly 7,000 unique URLs. Claude showed up too, but at a smaller scale. Why does this matter? Because these aren’t traditional search clicks that show up in Google Analytics. These are AI agents actively retrieving your content to answer someone’s question inside an LLM conversation. A user, having a conversation with ChatGPT, asked questions that led ChatGPT to look up information on our site and provide answers based on our content and messaging. When you dig into log files, you start to see: 1 - Which pages ChatGPT is pulling into conversations (insurance cost pages, health content, state-specific breakdowns, etc.). 2 - Whether AI is pulling from top-of-funnel educational content or mid-to-bottom funnel service/product pages that actually convert. 3 - How your buyer’s journey looks through the lens of AI retrieval, not just organic search. Analytics often won’t show this traffic since it’s non-JavaScript hits. Log files will. That means you can start connecting conversation-to-conversion metrics and measure whether your marketing efforts are influencing real revenue in this AI-driven landscape. Where to get log files: - From your hosting provider (e.g., WP Engine exposes these in your WordPress dashboard, and you can push them to LargeFS for longer-term analysis). - From services like Cloudflare. - Directly from your own server configuration. How to start today: 1 - Pull your server logs for the last 30–60 days. 2 - Filter for the ChatGPT-User agent (OpenAI’s identifier) or other user agents you want to analyze. 3 - Review which URLs are hit most. 4 - Map those URLs to buyer journey stages. 5 - Prioritize optimization of mid-to-bottom funnel pages to turn AI visibility into revenue. AI is already part of your traffic mix. The question is: are the right pages being pulled into those conversations?

Most AI SEO advice is fluff. You should try my "surgical" approach: CONTEXT: I was a Product Manager on Google Search focusing on data inquisition and ingestion from third party providers before I left to start AthenaHQ to help marketers win on AI search. Here's what I learned analyzing citation patterns at Google and now at Athena. AI models pull from 20 to 40 sources per query. VS Humans only check the top 3 Google results, maybe more of page 1 if you're lucky. This creates a massive opportunity for your brand. Why? When someone asks ChatGPT about cybersecurity software, it might cite a security forum that ranks # 34 on Google but has deep technical discussions. That forum carries more weight in the model than a generic tech news site at position # 5. My surgical approach works like this: Take your top 20 customer questions. Run them through multiple AI models. Map every single citation. You'll discover industry specific publications that consistently get referenced but rank between positions 20 to 40 on Google. (You can do this first step in Athena btw) THESE sites are the new arbitrage opportunity. A Forbes placement will cost you $$$ and three months of Digital PR / relationship building. Compare that to these industry sites which cost between $500 to 2,000 per sponsored placement or guest post. Plus? They're way more likely to respond to your emails within 48 hours. They're hungry for expert content. Still not convinced? Forrester data shows that 90% of B2B SaaS procurement now uses AI somewhere in the evaluation process. Whether it's generating RFPs, evaluating vendor responses, or validating tools. Your prospects ARE asking AI models questions about your category before they ever hit your website. If you're not cited in those responses, you don't exist in their research phase. -- P.S. I'm Andrew Yan (ex Google search), Co-founder of AthenaHQ (YC 2025), a GEO monitoring solution and action center empowering brands like Ollie, Checkr, Motion, and OneSignal to lead the conversation in AI search results. Do you want to run this playbook? Shoot me a DM. 

When I worked with a B2B SaaS prospect last month, their SEO director hit me with a question: "Should we optimize content for Google or for AI? Are they two different strategies?" My answer surprised him. You can (and should) do both at the same time. Let me tell you why. The rise of AI-driven search is transforming how we find and consume info. With ChatGPT's 180.5 million monthly active users and Perplexity AI's search volume jumping 858%, we gotta adapt our content game. New research shows simple tweaks to your content can boost visibility in AI-generated results by up to 40%. These same principles make your content awesome for humans too and help improve traditional search performance too. I'm breaking this down into two parts: 1. What the data says works for AI visibility 2. How to write so humans and machines both love it 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 1: 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 👀 ✅ Add legit citations - AI digs content that cites credible sources ✅ Drop expert quotes - they add depth AI respects ✅ Support claims with data - relevant stats make you stand out 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 2: 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻-𝗔𝗜 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 1️⃣ Keep related concepts close (semantic distance matters) 2️⃣ Get specific first, nuance later 3️⃣ Structure deliberately with clear headers and lists 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝘁? Fluffy language, buried main points, heavy jargon, keyword cramming, too much complex writing. ❌ These optimizations work wonders for page one content not quite hitting #1. One study saw a 115% visibility boost for position five content just by adding citations. We tested this on a client's blog. The result? More featured snippets and AI-generated callouts, especially AIOs. 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁? 𝗧𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀: - Weave in credible citations & expert quotes - Frontload specific data points - Revamp structure with skimmable headings - Reposition related concepts to be neighbors - Prune fluffy or jargon-heavy parts Shoot me a message and let me know how it goes! Noticed any shifts in how AI platforms surface your content lately? I go into topics like this way more in depth in my weekly newsletter - drop a comment if you want in