A common misconception is that AI is its own search engine, working entirely differently than traditional search engines like Google. In reality, AI is using traditional search engines on the back end. It might run multiple queries across different sources, but at the end of the day, it's taking that data, analyzing it, and presenting it to you in a different format.
That means the work you put into traditional SEO feeds directly into how you show up in AI.
What Is Traditional SEO, and What Is AI Search Visibility?
Traditional SEO is the optimization of your website to make it show up in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. When we work on SEO, we take a holistic approach and review your whole website. Before we touch anything, we do planning and research to figure out which keywords will actually be most effective for your site. Sometimes the best keyword isn't the most popular one. Sometimes it's keyword that's not as popular, but no one else is trying for it. Your website should also load quickly, but speed on its own won't rank your website at the top of the results, you also have to have good content.
AI isn't quite a search engine, but it's a place people go to get their information, whether that's ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. AI search visibility is optimizing your website to show up there, and that can happen in two ways.
The first is showing up in the footnotes, where AI answers a question and references your website as one of the sources it pulled from. There's some value to that. The second is especially powerful for businesses: someone using AI to find a product or service asking something like, "What's the best cafe in town?" AI isn't giving them the whole list, it's giving them a couple of recommendations. Those product and service questions are what get customers through the door, because AI is showing your actual business name in the results.
Where AI Search Visibility and Traditional SEO Overlap
Around 90 to 95% of the work overlaps between AI search visibility and traditional SEO. There are some differences, but they're minor enough that you're almost splitting hairs.
A big reason for that overlap is how AI searches work. You ask a question, AI decides what type of information it wants to go find, and then it searches the web using multiple sources. It often performs several web searches in the background, looks at all that data, analyzes it, and gives you a report. It's not literally going to google.com and typing in a search but ot's using an API on the back end to pull in that data. AI does have a large dataset of its own, but when it's looking for a product or service, it's often doing a search to find more information. Because AI leans on traditional search, a lot of the key areas you cover with traditional SEO are going to help you show up in AI too.
Reviews are another place they overlap. AI is often looking for external, credible reviews and references. If someone's looking for the best product or service, AI wants to know what people are rating your company. Strong Google reviews, Yelp reviews, or other trust index reviews are going to help you show up. Traditional search uses those same signals, because both are trying to show quality content that matches the search.
Comparison pages matter for both, too. AI will often look at other people's product comparison posts, whether that's an old Reddit post or someone's product comparison website, and pull its options from there. From a traditional SEO standpoint, that's an external backlink to your website. For AI visibility, it's where AI gets its ideas for who to list and some of the information it gives the user.
Where They Differ
With traditional SEO, you set your meta tags for your title and description, and those show up in the search results. Google will sometimes change them, but for the most part, it uses what you've set. With AI, if someone's asking for a recommendation, it will often list your business by name with a description it created that's relevant to what the user asked. Instead of controlling how you show up, you're showing up however AI thinks is best. On top of that, AI platforms are rapidly changing, so you could show up on one and not another. There's not a golden ticket that will magically get you there.
That makes your business name more important. If your name isn't relevant to what you actually do, or it's pigeonholed into one of your services, someone looking at an AI recommendation may not realize you actually provide the service they're looking for.
It's also worth thinking about the full journey. Someone might start by asking ChatGPT for the best cafe in town, then copy your name and search for it in Google Maps. Now you need to be showing up well in the map pack on Google to complete that cycle before you actually get their business.
What You Can Do Right Now
Ask for reviews. If you don't already have a good amount of reviews coming in, ask your customers for them. Reviews help your AI visibility and your traditional SEO at the same time.
Run a health check on your website. Make sure your content is loading properly and quickly. If you can, use a tool that shows you your page the way AI sees it. AI doesn't analyze web pages based on what you see when you load them in your browser, and some technical issues can prevent AI from seeing your content at all. When we run SEO, we use a tool that pulls the page as AI would see it. It's not always an easy check, but it's worth it.
Get listed on other people's comparison pages. If you can get your business, product, or service listed on someone else's comparison page, and that site has good SEO, it'll help.
Most of the time, AI search visibility and traditional SEO aren't two separate projects. It's a holistic approach where you're working on both at once and improving both at once.
Looking to Connect?
If you'd like a second set of eyes on how your website shows up in search and AI, reach out to us at Stickle Creative. We'd be happy to talk it through.
