November 8, 2023
We're experiencing one of the biggest shifts in digital marketing I've seen in two decades. That might sound dramatic, but what I'm about to share affects every single business with an online presence.
Back in 2004, when I started my web design agency, the game was simple: build a website, optimise it for Google, and watch the inquiries roll in. If your site appeared on page one of Google, especially for local searches, you'd win business. It was the Wild West back then.
Fast forward twenty years, and everything has changed. The internet became crowded. Almost everyone has a website now, making Google exponentially more competitive. But something fundamentally shifted over the past 12 months that changes everything we thought we knew about digital marketing.
AI has arrived, and it's completely disrupting how people find information online.
Google once dominated search so thoroughly that people stopped saying "search for it" and started saying "Google it." Yahoo, Bing, and other giants couldn't compete. Google created a monopoly that seemed unbreakable.
Until now.
Today, people are increasingly turning to AI tools instead of traditional search engines:
These platforms are becoming the new way people discover brands and find answers to their questions. And the data backs this up: we've seen approximately a 30% drop in organic traffic from Google over the past year, with that traffic shifting wholesale into AI search.
This isn't just a trend, it's a fundamental transformation in how people access information.
Here's the reality: if your brand isn't showing up in AI search results right now, you're already behind. You'll be forced to rely heavily on time-consuming, expensive methods like:
But here's the incredible opportunity: if you can get your brand cited in AI search, it's essentially free traffic, just like organic search used to be in the early days of Google.
Even better, because AI search is spread across multiple platforms rather than monopolised by one company, you now have more opportunities to be discovered. If your content doesn't rank well on one AI platform, it might perform brilliantly on another.
While there are many AI tools emerging, focus your efforts on these key platforms:
ChatGPT: The most well-known and widely used AI assistant
Perplexity: Gaining significant traction as a research tool with excellent traffic
Claude: Built on Anthropic's powerful language model with exceptional natural language understanding
Gemini: Google's own AI tool, integrated into their ecosystem
Google AI Mode: Google's AI-enhanced search experience (probably the easiest to break into if you're already ranking in traditional Google search)
If your website already appears in Google's organic search results, you're ahead of the game. Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to understand what AI tools are looking for when they crawl your site.
Let me walk you through five actionable strategies you can implement today to improve your AI search visibility. These don't require a massive budget, just strategic thinking and consistent execution.
Remember when backlinks were the holy grail of SEO? AI search has shifted the paradigm.
Instead of hundreds of backlinks, AI platforms value brand mentions across multiple websites. The more your brand is mentioned across the web, the more trust and authority you build in the eyes of AI.
Large language models are incredibly sophisticated at recognising brand mentions and connecting the dots between different sources. This means:
That last point is crucial and often overlooked. Don't upload images with generic names like "IMG_1739A.jpg", rename them to something like "YourBrandName-business-coaching.jpg" to create additional brand signals for AI tools to pick up.
AI search is experiencing a massive surge in question-based queries:
People are literally asking AI tools questions in natural language, and AI is looking for content that provides direct answers.
Don't just add FAQs at the bottom of your page, that's the old way. Instead, integrate frequently asked questions throughout your content naturally. This signals to AI that your content is designed to answer real questions from real people.
Now we're getting into the technical territory, but stay with me because this is important.
Schema markup is structured data in code form that essentially creates a summary of your content that AI can easily understand and index. Think of it as giving AI tools a cheat sheet about what's on your page.
For FAQs specifically, you need to create FAQ schema markup. This allows AI to:
FAQ schema markup is just one type. Others include breadcrumb schema markup, which is also being featured heavily in Google Search Console right now.
If you're not technical, don't worry, there are tools that can help (more on that later). But if you have someone managing your website, make sure they understand schema markup and can implement it across your key pages.
Here's something fascinating: when we analysed behaviour on our blog using heatmaps, we discovered that people rarely scroll through long articles all the way to the bottom.
So we created a "Key Takeaways" section at the very top of each article, essentially a summary of the entire page. The results were immediate and dramatic.
Our average dwell time increased by approximately 35 seconds per page. That might not sound like much, but in web analytics terms, that's enormous. The old rule was that if you couldn't capture someone's attention within 7 seconds, they'd bounce. We're now getting 5x that baseline just by adding key takeaways.
Why does this matter for AI search? Because:
Key takeaways are one of the fastest ways to improve your AI search visibility, and they benefit human readers too. Win-win.
Rich snippets are structured pieces of content formatted in ways that AI can easily grab and display. The most common examples are:
Here's a powerful technique: create lists where the first part of each item is formatted in bold (ideally as a question or key statement), followed by a brief explanation.
For example:
What is AI search optimisation? AI search optimisation involves structuring your content so that artificial intelligence tools can easily find, understand, and surface your information when users ask relevant questions.
Why does formatting matter? AI tools prioritise structured content over unstructured walls of text because it's easier to parse and more reliable to present to users.
This formatting sends clear signals to AI about which parts of your content are most important, making it much more likely to be featured in AI search results.
We're in the equivalent of the early days of Google SEO, what I call the "Wild West" of digital marketing. There's a famous story Gary Vaynerchuk tells about how he owned the keyword "wine" on Google for six months when he was building his father's wine business online. That single advantage helped transform a $1 million business into a $30 million business.
Right now, most businesses don't understand AI search optimisation. If you implement these strategies now, you'll be so far ahead of the curve that you'll be capturing leads your competitors don't even know exist.
Because there are multiple AI platforms competing (rather than one monopolistic search engine), you have even more opportunities:
Let me share two quick case studies that demonstrate the power of AI search optimisation:
Recently, a new one-to-one coaching client started working with me. When I asked how he found me, he said "Perplexity." He'd searched for "best business coaches in the UK," and my name appeared in the top 10 results.
After reviewing my website analytics, he could see I understood SEO and digital marketing. Since he runs an SEO and Google Ads agency himself, we were a natural fit.
That client spent £10,000 with me, all from appearing in a Perplexity search result.
To test our AI search theories, I created a business directory on my Fearless.biz website. We interviewed 20 of my clients who wanted to be listed, gathered organic content directly from them, linked their social profiles and websites, and added structured data.
After letting it run for a month, we optimised one profile, a hypnotherapist based in Kent, using our AI search preparation tools.
A few days later, I received a message: "Robin, you'll never guess what. Someone just bought my top package worth £1,500. I asked them how they found me, and they said through the Fearless Business Directory."
We simply restructured Paul's content for AI search, and it generated an immediate, high-value client.
These aren't theoretical examples, this is happening right now, and we're still at the very tip of the iceberg.
I understand that 99% of business owners are exceptional at what they do but find AI search optimisation overwhelming. The technical aspects can feel like a minefield when you don't know where to start.
That's why I've been working behind the scenes on a solution.
Together with my business partner Kiki Cha, we've developed Zero Click Authority, an AI-powered tool designed to make AI search optimisation accessible to everyone.
Here's how it works:
We're also integrating brand analysis technology, which means you can tell the tool about your brand, and it will create content in your authentic voice. This is crucial because we want to ensure the content sounds naturally like you, not like generic AI-generated text that could trigger content quality concerns.
The tool helps fill content gaps, suggests rich snippets, and ensures everything aligns with your brand identity and voice.
If your website is already getting some traffic from Google or other sources, simply updating a few pages of content using these AI search principles can make a massive difference to your visibility.
Sign up for the Zero Click Authority waitlist to get early access when we launch the beta. We'll connect you with our team for a demonstration and show you how to get your content found in AI search.
The opportunity in AI search optimisation is enormous, but it won't last forever. Right now, we're in that rare window where early adopters gain a significant competitive advantage.
If you're still reading this, it means you understand the importance of staying ahead of digital marketing trends. Now it's time to take action:
Remember: Google's monopoly on search is over. AI search is here, it's growing rapidly, and it's distributed across multiple platforms. That means more opportunities for your business to be discovered by the right people at the right time.
The question isn't whether you should optimise for AI search, it's how quickly you can get started.
Want to dive deeper into AI search optimisation? Join the Zero Click Authority waitlist for early access to our tool, or reach out if you'd like to discuss how to implement these strategies for your specific business. The future of digital marketing is here, let's make sure you're part of it.
While Google remains a major player, user behaviour is changing. A significant portion of search traffic is moving to AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. If your business is not visible on these platforms, you risk becoming invisible to a growing audience and will have to rely on more expensive marketing methods.
Structuring your content is key. Start by adding a 'Key Takeaways' section at the top of your important pages and integrating frequently asked questions throughout your text. This makes your content easier for AI to parse and signals that you directly answer user queries.
No, you don't have to be a technical wizard. While schema markup is code, there are tools and plugins available that can generate it for you. For instance, the guide mentions a tool called Zero Click Authority designed to simplify this process, but many website platforms also have built-in options or plugins to help.
Backlinks are specific hyperlinks from one site to another. Brand mentions are simply instances where your brand name is written on other websites, blogs, or social media, even without a link. AI language models are sophisticated enough to connect these mentions and use them to establish your brand's authority and relevance on a topic.
Start with the major players: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google's AI Mode. If your website already performs well in traditional Google search, optimising for Google's AI Mode is a logical first step as you likely have a strong foundation to build upon.
