Sarah Berry is a Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX. With more than 10,000 hours of experience, she offers practical insights and strategies you can use to grow your digital revenue. When she isn’t polishing her Time Magazine Person of the Year Award, she’s spending time with her flock of ducks.
When it comes to Google’s AI Mode, you have three options:
Get cited
Get mentioned
Get locked-out
And you don’t have to choose just one.
Discover how to get cited and mentioned in AI Mode (and avoid being locked-out of this AI search experience completely) with this mini-guide on how to rank in Google AI Mode.
P.S. For the latest AI search optimizations, join our newsletter, Revenue Weekly!
How to rank in Google AI Mode
Start optimizing (and ranking) in Google AI Mode with these optimizations:
1. Allow Google’s crawlers
First, ensure Google’s crawlers can crawl, index, and serve your site in traditional search results. If you practice search engine optimization (SEO), you likely already have an optimized robots.txt file and XML sitemap.
Expert insights from
Google Search Central
“You don’t need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these [AI Overviews and/or AI Mode] features.”
While there is some popularity behind creating an llms.txt file (which is a proposed standard for LLM crawlers like Google-Extended) for AI SEO, an llms.txt file is not needed or recommended for appearing in AI Mode.
2. Deliver a great page experience
Google has pushed on webmasters for years to deliver a great page experience through several algorithm updates, including Core Web Vitals. Now, those changes come into play even more with AI Mode.
When looking at page experience, consider the following questions:
Does a URL display well across devices, like mobile vs. desktop?
How long do users need to wait before being able to interact with a URL?
Can users tell the difference between an ad vs. your content on a URL?
Delivering a better page experience requires collaboration between specialties, from marketing to development to sales. The value is immense, though, because besides increasing your chances of appearing in AI Mode, these changes can also improve conversion rates.
Content is one of the most important optimizations businesses can make when it comes to ranking in Google AI Mode. In a time when there is more content than ever, there is a greater need for people-first content.
Expert insights from
Google Search Central
“Focus on making unique, non-commodity content…Then you’re on the right path for success with our AI search experiences, where users are asking longer and more specific questions — as well as follow-up questions to dig even deeper.”
What is people-first content? People-first content:
Gets specific with its recommendations, like “In the first week, do 15-20 reps”
Shares first-hand insights, whether through case studies, quotes, or stories
Speaks to its specific vs. general audience, like HVAC vs. accounting marketers
Organizes content using headings, lists, and tables to improve readability
Demonstrates E-E-A-T, like through awards, certifications, or history
Helps people solve their problem through well-written, easy-to-read content
With this level of content, it’s easier for businesses to get mentioned or cited in AI Mode because the content is specific to the user and their search intent, which is one reason users are so attracted to AI search experiences.
In AI Mode, Google uses a query fan-out technique, which is exactly what it sounds like. Google takes the user’s initial query and “fans it out” into related queries, which are then searched simultaneously to generate a response.
Optimize your people-first content for the query fan-out technique by:
Including the most relevant phrases in your title tag and headings
Incorporating other related and relevant phrases throughout the body copy
Enhancing content with details that address fan-out queries
This optimization aligns with best practices for keyword integration, which Google includes as one of its foundational SEO best practices, which are mentioned as being relevant to AI Mode appearances.
5. Enhance content with visuals
Search is becoming multimodal, meaning users can search via:
Text
Image
Voice
Video
You can see an example below:
Producing text-based, people-first content isn’t enough. Companies need to expand their content’s usefulness to users with multimedia, from video walkthroughs to concept graphics.
Some examples of how businesses can do this include the following:
Create 360° product views, unboxing videos, and image-based sizing guides
Generate audio summaries for guides or longform blog posts
Build interactive or static timelines or data visualizations
Produce tools or templates to help users complete a task
With AI Mode’s shopping experience, which allow users to try on clothes and purchase products, it’s vital for ecommerce stores to consider — and optimize for — a multimodal shopping experience.
6. Use structured data
Google doesn’t just recommend structured data for appearing in AI Mode — it recommends businesses ensure their structured data matches their on-page content, signaling a common (and often unintentional) issue.
Expert insights from
Google Search Central
“Structured data is useful for sharing information about your content in a machine-readable way that our systems consider…If you’re using structured data, be sure to follow our guidelines, such as making sure that all the content in your markup is also visible on your web page”
When it comes to structured data, there are plenty of options, including:
Organization
Service
Product
LocalBusiness
FAQ
And more
A website plugin like Yoast SEO can make generating and implementing certain schema markups seamless. For others, there are free tools — like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper and even ChatGPT — for generating schema.
In either case, test the markup using Google’s Rich Results Test. You can also check Google Search Console’s Enhancements reports for structured data issues, though this report won’t flag when the on-page content doesn’t match the structured data.
7. Maintain an up-to-date Google Business Profile
Across AI Mode experiences, the platform will mention and link to brands using their Google Business Profile — as well as use that data to generate its answer.
That’s why it’s critical to maintain your Google Business Profile’s:
Address
Hours
Contact information
Products or Services
Amenities
Photos and/or videos
Social media links
If you haven’t already, start by claiming (or creating) your Google Business Profile.
8. Maintain up-to-date Google Merchant Center listings
When it comes to its AI search experiences, from AI Mode to AI Overviews, Google relies on its Shopping Graph to generate responses. That’s why it’s vital for ecommerce businesses to:
Join Google Merchant Center
Maintain listing accuracy, from pricing to inventory
With more than 50 billion product listings, AI Mode has a vast catalog to choose from when recommending products to users. Don’t let your products get overlooked by failing to update your listings.
Most AI Mode optimizations focus on elements within your control, from content quality to page experience, but Google’s AI search experiences are rooted in its core ranking algorithms, which makes off-page optimizations non-negotiable.
Expert insights from
Google
“AI Mode is rooted in our core Search ranking and safety systems and anti-spam protections…It also adheres to our overall content policies for Search”
Whether linked or unlinked, the following mentions can improve your chances of appearing in AI Mode responses:
Best of list, like “best [your product] for enterprises”
Forum response, like as a “buy it for life” product recommendation
Interviewee and/or quoted person
Social media, like through an influencer
You can build these mentions naturally, like by:
Providing an exceptional product and service
Producing elite, people-first content and multimedia
Outreach is another common option, too, like by partnering with a micro-influencer or connecting with a journalist at an industry-specific media site.
10. Expand search channels
What else can businesses do to optimize for AI Mode? Expand.
Search is changing. Even though generative AI traffic is less than 1% of the total traffic websites receive, it’s growing 165X faster than other channels, signaling a new opportunity for those that move the fastest.
Don’t ignore Google (or AI Mode), but don’t ignore new search channels like:
ChatGPT
Meta AI
Perplexity
Instead, expand, and capture the eyes of your target market across generative AI search experiences, from AI Overviews and AI Mode to ChatGPT and Perplexity, with OmniSEO™.
While Google Search Console tracks AI Mode interactions, it doesn’t provide segmented views for businesses, which means you can’t measure the impressions, clicks, or queries attributed to AI Mode — similar to AI Overviews.
There is a paid alternative, though, for tracking your AI Mode visibility.
OmniSEO tracks AI visibility across generative engines, from AI Overviews to ChatGPT to Gemini, as well as offers professional support for improving AI visibility.
Bonus: You can track your competitor’s performance, too.
Get discovered in AI Mode
You’ve learned how to get discovered in AI Mode. Now, make it happen.
Or, get some help. With an award-winning team behind hundreds of AI visibility optimization campaigns, we’re a trusted partner for brands looking to get mentioned and cited across AI search experiences.
Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Sarah Berry is a Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX. With more than 10,000 hours of experience, she offers practical insights and strategies you can use to grow your digital revenue. When she isn’t polishing her Time Magazine Person of the Year Award, she’s spending time with her flock of ducks.
