How To Improve Your Site’s Visibility in AI Results: Generative Engine Optimization Tips

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way we interact with search engines. Google’s AI Overviews provide answers directly in search results, and platforms like ChatGPT make the research process quick instead of time-consuming.

But now, the big question revolves around how to improve visibility in AI results, and the answer lies in generative engine optimization (GEO), a practice that spotlights your content for AI platforms. So, keep reading as we break down how to improve business visibility in AI results on search engines and chatbots.

• How to improve visibility in AI-powered search results
• How to improve visibility on AI answer engines & chatbots

Keep Reading: What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

How to improve visibility in AI-powered search results

AI-powered snippets on Google and Bing have simplified the online search process. But for many businesses, it’s made building a search engine presence a bit more difficult. So, how do you increase your visibility on AI-powered search results?

It all starts with understanding how major AI search tools like Google’s AI Overviews and Bing’s AI summaries operate:

• Google AI Overviews
• Bing’s AI-powered summaries
• How to rank in AI results on search engines

Google AI Overviews

Google’s AI Overviews, formerly known as Search Generative Experience, are AI-powered search results that appear above organic search results. Using generative AI, these Overviews serve as answer summaries for user search queries, with links to referenced sources for further reading.

AI Overviews use several ranking factors to generate their answer summaries:

• Large language models (LLMs), including PaLM2, MUM, and Gemini
• Google’s core ranking systems which include Helpful content, PageRank, and Spam detection
• User search intent
• Databases like Google’s Shopping Graph & Knowledge Graph
• Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics like finance, health, and government-related searches
• Structured data
• Compelling multimedia

Bing’s AI-powered summaries

Microsoft Bing leverages AI to generate summations of information about topics entered in the search bar. Like Google AI Overviews, Bing’s AI-powered summaries include links to referenced sources.

Not a lot is known about what specific ranking factors go into Bing AI results, but it’s generally assumed that Bing’s AI results use the search engine’s traditional ranking factors, which include:

• Content quality
• Keyword usage
• Click-thru rate
• User experience
• Social signals
• Domain age
• Backlinks

How to rank in AI results on search engines

Now that we understand how AI results on search engines work, let’s talk about getting them to notice you. Here are four tips for how to improve visibility in Google and Bing AI search results:

1. Clearly answer search intent
2. Optimize for E-E-A-T signals
3. Target long-tail keywords
4. Follow SEO best practices

1. Clearly answer search intent

AI-generated summaries in search results are designed to help users find the answers they need quickly. That said, one of the best ways to improve visibility in AI search results is to answer search intent quickly, clearly, and succinctly.

Doing so helps for two key reasons. First, you’re making it easier for AI models to crawl your page and find the information it needs to generate a summary. It also increases your chances of being directly quoted in an AI Overview or summary, which can increase your visibility in AI summaries.

A great way to keep search intent top of mind while creating content is to structure your content similar to:

Heading: What is [topic]?

Text: [Topic] is …

2. Optimize for E-E-A-T signals

Search engines reward pages with higher visibility and features in AI-generated snippets when they’re trustworthy and helpful. To do that, you need to boost your E-E-A-T signals. 

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust. This translates to page optimizations like:

• Including certifications, awards, years of experience, case studies, etc. to demonstrate trust and experience to audiences
• Using an authoritative tone in content
• Supporting claims and statements with quotes from trusted sources & thought leaders, studies, or timely statistics

Recent studies on generative AI and LLMs in search engines have found that enhancing E-E-A-T signals can significantly improve visibility in AI results and overall search engine optimization (SEO) rankings.

3. Target long-tail keywords

In SEO, long-tail keywords are an underrated tool that helps you rank for more detailed search queries. Long-tail keywords imitate conversational language, and, more importantly, they imitate how people pose in-depth queries to search engines.

AI-powered overviews are meant to help break down those detailed queries, so by targeting long-tail keywords in your content, you can increase your visibility in AI results because you’re better matching the verbiage and cadence of queries that generate AI summaries.

4. Follow SEO best practices

Finally, your best chance at improving your visibility in AI search results is to ensure you’re following SEO best practices. After all, both Google and Bing use search engine ranking factors when generating AI summaries.

For best results, follow Google’s core ranking systems to ensure you’re creating and optimizing your content to perform well on search engines and stand out to LLMs generating AI results. To start, optimize your site for systems like:

• PageRank
• RankBrain
• BERT
• Content freshness
• Original content
• High-quality content

How to improve visibility on AI answer engines & chatbots

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is your all-encompassing solution to increasing your visibility on AI platforms like Meta AI, ChatGPT, Gemini, and more. AEO involves optimizing your site content to appear in AI-generated responses to user queries. Much like SEO, AEO includes a variety of optimization tactics, including:

• Improve your site’s crawlability
• Build your authority
• Ensure your content is relevant
• Generate recommendations and reviews
• Keep content fresh

Read on to learn more about how to improve your visibility on AI answer engines with AEO strategies.

Improve your site’s crawlability

When trying to rank on ChatGPT, crawlability is key. Crawlability refers to how easily web crawlers, also known as spiders, can comb through your site to understand and index it. In other words, it’s how search engines inventory the millions of pages on the Internet.

The more crawlable and indexable your site is, the better your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). In turn, higher rankings can potentially give you increased visibility in AI platforms and chatbots.

To ensure your site is crawlable for search engines and can show up in AI results, try these optimization tips:

• Break up your content into clear, understandable sections
• Make your website easy to navigate
• Check your meta tags
• Practice good web design tactics
• Provide value to readers with your content

You can learn more about tracking your AI search visibility with our How to Track AI Search Rankings Guide.

Build your authority

Authority is crucial when increasing visibility in AI results. Brands and businesses that are recognized as authoritative voices in their industry tend to see higher rankings in AI responses like Copilot because they’re more trustworthy.

Building brand authority means generating awareness around your site, like earning mentions on other authoritative sites.

For example, if your product is mentioned in articles that rank similar products, you’re likely to see increased visibility on Copilot, especially if you’re mentioned by authoritative publications like The New York Times.

Ensure your content is relevant

AI answer engines and chatbots are built to help people, and that means offering helpful, relevant information when prompted. Ensuring your content is relevant increases your chances of appearing in answers to prompts people use to find information related to your business.

For instance, if you’re a business that sells travel luggage and you want to increase your visibility in Gemini results, you’re going to create content that’s relevant to travel and luggage topics.

One of Gemini’s top recommendations is a checked trunk set from July. Looking at their product page, it’s easy to see they’ve made themselves highly relevant to the search, targeting keywords related to packing.

Generate recommendations and reviews

To improve your AI rankings, you’ll also need to generate reviews and recommendations for your business. For one thing, customer reviews indicate your business is legitimate, making them a key element in people’s decision-making process. AI platforms like Claude see this, and in turn, reward those pages with better visibility in their results.

Reviews, recommendations, and other testimonials on your site (or third-party sites) boost your credibility and demonstrate your authority in your industry. The higher your satisfaction rates, the more you improve visibility in AI results.

Keep content fresh

When shopping for produce, you’re not going to buy the old, almost rotten apples, are you? Of course not! Instead, you go for the freshest ones in the bunch. The same logic applies to ranking in AI results.

When generating answers to user queries, AI answer engines prioritize recently published or updated content that includes current information. Outdated information isn’t helpful for anyone, so regularly re-optimizing content ensures it stays fresh and relevant, and increases your visibility on AI platforms.

Bonus tip: Get GEO services from WebFX!

Now that you’ve learned how to improve your visibility in generative AI results, you’re probably thinking, “Wow, there are a lot of moving parts to AEO.” Don’t let that scare you! Optimizing your content for AI answer engines is a walk in the park when you’re partnered with an agency like WebFX for GEO services.

Gain a competitive advantage with GEO services from WebFX, where you’ll have a dedicated project manager on hand to help you:

• Maximize visibility in AI-powered search results
• Capture traffic from emerging AI chatbots
• Leverage top AI models for your business
• Accelerate your revenue generation
• And more!

Ready to get started? Contact us online or give us a call at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist and begin increasing your AI visibility with GEO services!