What Is SEO Visibility? (And How to Maximize Yours Across Search Experiences)

What is SEO visibility?

SEO visibility (also known as search visibility) measures a site’s visibility across search experiences, including Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and more.

Visibility — it’s what every company is looking to earn online, whether as a mention in a ChatGPT response, a citation in a Google AI Overview, or a link in Bing search results.

Discover the basics of search visibility (and how to improve it) now:

What is SEO visibility?

SEO visibility, also known as search visibility or search engine visibility, measures a brand and its website’s visibility across search experiences, whether on Google, ChatGPT, Bing, or another platform.

How has search visibility’s definition changed?

Search visibility’s definition has changed because of generative search experiences. Now, brands need to understand whether they are ranked, mentioned, or cited in search experiences, which creates new metrics to measure and dimensions to explore.

What determines your search visibility?

Search visibility depends on several factors, including:

Which metrics measure SEO visibility?

Metrics for measuring SEO visibility include:

Which dimensions measure search visibility?

Dimensions for measuring search visibility include:

How do you measure search visibility?

Businesses measure search visibility across tools, with many using a combination of traditional tools (like Google Search Console) and AI visibility tools, like OmniSEO®.

How do I improve my SEO visibility?

Learn how to improve your SEO visibility across search experiences below:

Make your site accessible to AI search crawlers

One of the biggest ways businesses can improve their SEO visibility is by making their sites accessible to AI search crawlers, which include ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini.

You can adjust these settings (if needed) in your robots.txt file.

With access to your website, AI search crawlers can cite your website in relevant responses, which can get your brand discovered in new search channels.

Create citable content

Next, prioritize citable content.

Citable content is, well, worth citing. Whether through data points, quotes, or anecdotes, it gives AI search experiences a reason to quote or cite the page while also demonstrating your brand’s expertise.

A few ideas for surfacing citable content ideas include:

• Speaking with client-facing team members (or using AI to review these calls!)
• Analyzing internal datasets
• Interviewing client-facing team members on common mistakes
• Running internal experiments where the outcome is relevant to your audience
• Browsing relevant online forums for common questions that would benefit from data-backed answers

Structure content for the web

What do search engines, large language models, and users have in common? They all prefer content structured with headings, lists, tables, and multimedia.

That’s why it’s important to structure your content for the web by:

• Using question-based headings to organize content
• Converting paragraphs into lists or tables to improve skimming
• Creating “answer capsules” at the beginning of content to answer the core question of the page
• Including visuals, like graphics, to demonstrate concepts

Note: While users can’t “see” structured data, using structured data can help crawlers better understand your content and organization, so take advantage of it.

Build a brand with character

Search visibility is more than producing citable content. It’s also building a distinguishable brand, one that knows its purpose and who it serves and why.

When businesses build that kind of brand, it becomes easier to LLMs to surface this brand in conversations because the LLM (like ChatGPT) understands both what the business does and what the user needs.

Companies can create a unique brand by:

• Establishing values — and publishing them on their website
• Creating an “About Us” page that outlines the business’s purpose
• Filming walkthroughs of how a product is made or service is delivered
• Publishing case studies that highlight the client, challenge, and solution
• Claiming and optimizing third-party listings, like Google Business Profile
• Partnering with influencers to produce user-generated content
• Taking actions that highlight the company’s commitment, like by volunteering at a local charity or supporting the community’s sports team

As Simon Sinek shared in his now-famous TED Talk: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

Maintain a trusted reputation

When it comes to improving your AI search and SEO visibility, one of the best things you can do is maintain (or build) a trusted reputation because people want to hire a vetted partner or purchase a well-reviewed product.

Grow your reputation through strategies like:

• Welcoming online reviews or client testimonials
• Responding to online reviews, both the good and the bad
• Participating in online forum discussions as a helpful guide vs. salesperson
• Maintaining transparency, like in pricing and deliverables
• Representing the company’s values in internal and client-facing interactions

When search and answer engines recognize that people trust your brand, especially when it comes to specific scenarios or buying factors, they’re more likely to recommend you to your target audience.

Optimize website code

Along with improving your site’s speed, optimizing the code powering your website can also help with SEO visibility. That’s because websites with optimized code:

• Maximize their crawl budget
• Comply with Google’s 2MB size cap for pages
• Ensure AI crawlers see the most important page information first

While most optimizations will require developer assistance, marketers can take some initial steps to improve their site’s code and speed, such as by compressing images.

How long does it take to see a difference in AI and SEO visibility?

How long it takes to see a difference in AI and SEO visibility ranges from a few weeks to a few months. Differences in AI search visibility happen faster, such as a few weeks, while SEO visibility tends to take longer.

Independent research from Clutch has named WebFX the top SEO company in the United States.

Clutch has personally interviewed more than 250 WebFX clients to discuss their experience partnering with us.

Read More Clutch Reviews

Measure (and scale) your search visibility

Grow your search visibility across Google, ChatGPT, and other search experiences with WebFX, an award-winning digital marketing agency that’s been optimizing for AI search since ChatGPT’s release.

Discover how we can help your business scale and measure its search visibility by browsing our AI search and SEO services or contacting us online to speak with a strategist one-on-one!