Ann Smarty

Checking our clients' digital PR campaigns we did 6+ months ago, I am seeing them become the top cited sources for LLMs, even for pretty huge sites. There's, of course, a lot into that (apart from the fact that LLMs do love citing stats): ✅ Solid organic findability (direct correlation with citability. PR projects that didn't end up ranking well in Google are not cited that well) ✅ Strategic (and ethical) seeding on Reddit I've seen many studies that LLMs seem to "trust" sources that regularly publish authority-driving content (original research, whitepapers, etc). Whether it is because they are like people (original research makes people believe a site is kind of a big deal) or because of all other signals (mainly, organic search visibility), but it surely works! Bottom line: If you want to get cited by LLMs, invest in original research in your niche!

Here are my weekly SEO+GEO articles and trends to keep an eye on: 👉 @davidiwanow interviewed @JohnMu on how soon AI systems will catch up with spammy tactics.... John thinks it is inevitable. Publishers should build a solid foundation that search engines and AI systems will want to surface over the long term, not just take shortcuts (I've been saying this for months now): 🔗 youtube.com/watch?v=-ZA5SNV4… 👉 Is GEO/AEO Just a Fake Money-Making Bubble and Should We All Be Doing "Just SEO"? This is my reaction to the "GEO is a distraction" article from last week... Here I share how I prioritize SEO vs GEO and why: 🔗 annsmarty.com/p/is-geoaeo-ju… 👉 How is GEO changing SEO? This is a thread inside our subreddit (JOIN!): 🔗 reddit.com/r/SEO_for_AI/comm… In other news: 👉 Bing Webmaster Tools launched "AI query gap" analysis, suggesting opportunity queries you may want to optimize for to get cited/mentioned. Check it out! 👉 Copilot seems to block AI tracking, as Semrush announces it will drop Copilot tracking for that reason (the future of AI tracking is questionable) 👉 Google's Philipp Schindler shared that AI mode was yielding lower monetization than traditional search... "Each AI Mode query currently makes less than a traditional search, and he coupled that with the claim that monetization will improve over time." (We already knew this). Over at my sub, we are making bets on when AI Mode becomes the default Google's interface. I think it won't happen until it is reliably monetized (which is what Google is actively working on, expanding AI Mode ads to more countries... What stood out for you this week?

Weekly quick SEO/GEO tip! Last week, we did a quick check to see if ChatGPT can "read" our page. Today's tool by @vanessafox reports whether known AI robots can access your site by checking what robots.txt says and *what the server actually does when each crawler asks for the page*, using the user-agent string each company documents. The tool sends up to 21 small requests to the page from this server: one as an ordinary browser, one under a made-up crawler name, one for robots.txt, and one for each of the 18 crawlers whose user-agent string is documented. Free and easy! Go run your check! vanessafox.com/tools/

Is GEO/AEO Just a Fake Money-Making Bubble and Should We All Be Doing "Just SEO"? teapawt.org/i/broadcasts/1yxBePXze…

Here's my reaction to @Marie_Haynes article and many other articles that were written after hers (you all should definitely check out reactions by @randfish and @iPullRank because they seem polarized while saying the same thing :)). To be sure, I agree with all of them 🤭 : Those that call "GEO a distraction" and those that say that GEO is becoming a huge channel, so businesses cannot ignore it. So is GEO a scam, and should we all be doing just SEO? YES AND KNOW! Here's how I build strategies around both 👇 linkedin.com/pulse/geoaeo-ju…

Bing Webmaster Tools launched the "Topic Portfolio" feature, listing "Opportunity queries" you may want to seek visibility for. 👆 As a reminder, Bing Webmaster Tools only reports on Copilot (and its integrations) visibility, which is still good enough because I am surprised to see Copilot as the #2 AI traffic driver for some of my clients, right after ChatGPT (screenshot #1) 💡 The new section can be filtered by category, and it gives you ideas on queries you currently drive visibility from, as well as some "gaps" you may want to optimize for. A cute little report that I will use for content and product category ideas, for sure. It is interesting to see the competitor-driven queries there. I'd definitely note these as competitors to investigate further. When brand or product names appear in fanouts, that's definitely a top signal that these companies are doing something right! Have you played with it yet?

Is GEO/AEO Just a Fake Money-Making Bubble and Should We All Be Doing "Just SEO"? open.substack.com/pub/annsma…

As I am reading the "Zero Click Marketing. How to Build Brands and Earn Customers on a Traffic-Starved Web" book by @amandanat and @randfish, I'll be making some notes (before I am ready to put together a review). First of all, definitely recommended. I've gone through about half of it, and it is an absolute must-read, especially for executives who are still very much willing to correlate any marketing tactic to a click. Now, here's something specific I'd like to discuss today: the book discusses the 4 groups of your target audience (the first image is taken from the book): 1️⃣ Your current customers (surprisingly, often forgotten segment of your audience, albeit I'd say the most important one, not because they can buy more, but also because this group can drive the most important aspects of your brand visibility: word of mouth, community building, social proof) 2️⃣ Your potential customers 3️⃣ Your potential "amplifiers" (people who can spread your word to reach group #2) 4️⃣ Broader community (many businesses may successfully exist without this group, to be sure. So I'd personally say this is the least important segment, in most cases) ➕ 5️⃣ I think that these days, I'd also add "AI agents" as #5 here (actually, it would fall in the first column, so here comes my modified image). AI Agents may not buy yet, but they may definitely visit your site (or find your brand elsewhere) and make a buying decision on behalf of your potential customers. In my opinion, reaching this segment is not much different than reaching your potential customers (you need to be visible in places where your potential customers are), but this segment does need a little more hand-holding; they won't do impulse shopping (which is a major income driver for many business models), they may do more research than your human customers, etc. So it is becoming a new segment requiring separate tracking and optimization strategies. ➕ Another important note here, which LOTS of businesses miss: ALL these groups require a separate approach. For example, your potential amplifiers won't fall for your customer-focused messaging. They usually require broader, more original, more exciting content to be reached. In most cases, that content may not even mention your products or selling points. Reaching your amplifiers may not drive direct sales. The goal is often authority-building signals (for SEO) and brand awareness (building brand recognizability). This effort is hard to measure and hard to sell to executives (the question is usually, "ok, what's the ROI??? and there's no answer here that would satisfy them). ***And yet, this is the most important segment for building a visibility strategy that doesn't depend on algorithm/model changes.*** What would you add?

Am I the only one not seeing this conversion rate from AI traffic? “Converts 8 times better”.. different people various impressive numbers and comparisons. For my clients the conversions are just *slightly* better… yours? @Marie_Haynes I know you shared some numbers, also I think @lilyraynyc may have shared her experience. Anyone else?

*Quick SEO/GEO/AEO tip you can practice right now* If you want to make sure that ChatGPT can access and retrieve your website's content, do what SEOs have been doing for ages: 1️⃣ Take a whole sentence from anywhere on your page (here I am using one that is hidden behind a JavaScript element just to make this test more useful) 2️⃣ Prompt ChatGPT to find this exact sentence and give you the URL. If it manages to do the task, you are mostly good. No fancy "audit" tools are needed ;) Now, you can also check your log files and/or analytics to find if this visit was captured (mine was in the Real Time section, from a well-known data center in Woodbury, Minnesota). **I plan to do these every Thursday, so please connect so you don't miss any. As you may know, I am a very practical SEO person, so I'll try to focus on quick, easy, and fun tricks you can play with!

Online reputation is no longer about “making a good impression” when consumers are searching for your brand name. Online reputation defines your visibility... medium.com/@seosmarty/the-ai…

No, I don't get overbooked at all 😅

Look who is hosting a Reddit AMA this week! @patrickstox 🔥 Seldom will you find that much SEO experience in one person. From SEO at IBM to years of looking at thousands of sites when working with @Ahrefs, Patrick has definitely seen it all! Come over and ask your questions about SEO and GEO/AEO here: reddit.com/r/SEO_for_AI/comm… (And make sure to subscribe to the subreddit too!) 🙏

Does a Business Still Need a Website in 2026 and Beyond (for SEO & GEO Visibility)? teapawt.org/i/broadcasts/1mGPaZoVa…

It is sad that we are at a point where we start neglecting the fundamentals, i.e., developing marketing channels that we can fully control. The "cross-channel" concept is important, but it doesn't mean that the official site isn't the most important part of organic visibility, whether it is search or LLM visibility... linkedin.com/pulse/does-busi…

Just a kind note from my new subscriber ☺️ It is so heart-warming to receive feedback like this ❤️

Cross-channel visibility is definitely more important now than it was 2- 3 years ago, but can or should businesses survive and thrive without an official website? No! annsmarty.com/p/does-a-busin…