Key information:
- As more and more people use AI to find answers and solutions, businesses need to optimise their websites for AI search to stay visible to their audience.
- Optimising for AI is not the same as SEO strategy, though some areas of best practice overlap (such as technical performance, relevance and domain authority).
- If your website isn’t ready for AI search, now is the time to start making changes – be sure to track your progress to allow for continual optimisation over time.
Whether or not you’ve adopted the technology, your audience is using AI to find the services and products they want.
In the past, the coveted #1 spot at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) was always king. Nowadays you have to take a more holistic, universal view of the various places you want to appear in a search – including in AI results.
How are people using AI to search?
According to the 2025 auDA Digital Lives of Australians study, we’ve officially hit the point where the majority of Australians are using generative AI (56%, up from 45% last year).
The main purpose for using AI in this group is to find answers, and to solve problems. These are things people were traditionally using search engines for – so if you’re still just focusing on that SERP, you’re missing out on an increasingly important piece of the puzzle.
Why factor AI visibility into your website build?
Research from Semrush indicates that as early as 2028, AI search visitors will outstrip traditional search visitors. We’re well on track for this becoming the preferred method of searching across the board – not to mention AI Overviews now appear in more than half of all Google searches.
If you don’t jump on the bandwagon and design your website for AI visibility, you might get left in the dust as AI-based search engines prioritise other, more suitable websites.
“But isn’t AI visibility the same as SEO strategy?” No. Though many of the same ‘good practice’ principles apply to promote visibility, there’s a new layer of complexity to be considered:
How to enhance AI crawlability with good technical foundations
If AI can’t crawl your website, you won’t get indexed. That means building your website:
- Without excessive popups, spam content or broken links
- With a fast page load speed – if you’re not sure how fast your current site is running, try using the Lighthouse tool to check individual page performance
- With HTTPS to indicate a secure connection (for AI, this can make your site look more legitimate)
- Using structured data (schema markup) to indicate the hierarchy and relationships of the content on each page
How to build your content for AI readability
Once the technical stuff is out of the way, you’ll want to look at how you can populate your site to establish yourself as a legitimate source for queries.
- Using clear and direct language, and being consistent with phrasing rather than using synonyms
- Publishing unique content that is relevant and specific, with correct spelling and grammar
- Putting key insights at the top of articles (a short list summarising the article’s main points – see top)
Optimising for natural queries
It’s not just the platforms that are changing; the way users ask questions is getting more conversational, and so LLMs (ChatGPT for example) prefer content that reads like how people would speak.
- Consider long-tail keywords that mimic how people talk to AI search platforms.
- Phrase headings like genuine questions, e.g. “Is AI visibility important to my digital strategy?” rather than “The importance of AI visibility”.
- Add Q&A sections or FAQs to help AI pull answers from your content (and remember to structure these correctly)
- Use conversational language where possible
You can also see a great example of AI search visibility in our Keogh Consulting case study.
Establishing authority signals
Your domain reputation is an indicator to AI of your trustworthiness as a source. You can build your domain’s authority score by:
- Featuring your customer reviews or testimonials prominently
- Adding trust marks, like certifications or proven experience
- Using case studies or whitepapers to indicate topical authority
- Including author bios and/or credentials to articles or blogs
- Backing up any claims with credible sources
- While backlinks can help build domain authority, remember to avoid linkfarms (for both AI and traditional search optimisation)
Tracking your progress so you can continue to optimise
Stay across how you’re showing up by searching your brand on AI channels like ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot.
- See how your site is being described
- Try searching long-tail terms your audience might use, like “where can I get my car serviced on a Saturday in Mandurah?” – and see if your business pops up as an answer. You should also check out the competitors who are referenced, to see if they have something in common.
- Keep across your site’s technical performance in case you need to fix something else.
Is your website built for AI search?
AI search compresses the marketing funnel we’re used to with traditional search engines. It provides the information up front. Your task is to make sure your website is technically sound, has good authority, and offers clear, specific information AI can use to answer queries. That’s how you get a link (and hopefully, click-through from the AIO or LLM if the user wants to see more).
While AI summaries get less clicks than traditional search placement, the leads from AI are often pre-qualified – people aren’t stumbling across your content, they’re being led there from a highly relevant search.
If your site isn’t optimised for AI visibility, you’re missing out on getting in front of your audience when they’re actively searching. And like any organic search, it can take time for this to happen – so you should start making changes sooner rather than later.
Not sure where to start or how to do it? We can help with that. Why not get in touch today to book a free, no-obligation chat.
