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Picture the scene. A prospective customer asks ChatGPT: “What are the best brands for [their need]?” The AI suggests three companies. Your competitor is there. But you aren’t 😬. That’s the whole point of visibility on LLMs: ensuring that your brand is understood, recognised and, where the query warrants it, mentioned or recommended in the responses from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and other generative AI engines. The problem? There’s no ‘Add my business to ChatGPT’ button. And there’s certainly no magic formula that guarantees a mention.
So, which areas should you focus on? SEO, content, authority, structured data, backlinks… which agency should you choose to maximise your chances of appearing in LLM responses?
Key takeaways:
In short, appearing in LLM responses is not down to any magic formula. An effective strategy combines relevant content, a consistent online presence, solid SEO foundations and regular performance monitoring. The aim is to boost your brand’s visibility where your prospects are looking for answers, and to turn that presence into tangible opportunities.
The first thing to understand is that an LLM doesn’t work in exactly the same way as Google Search.
Depending on the question asked and the tool used, the answer may come from what the model has learnt during its training, or from a live web search when this feature is enabled.
ChatGPT Search can, for example, carry out web searches and display citations and links to the sources used. OpenAI also states that a public website may appear in its search results if it is accessible to its dedicated web crawler.
For a brand, visibility can therefore take several forms:
| Visibility type | Example |
| 🗣️ Note | “Among the market players is X…” |
| 🔗 Quote | A page on your website appears as the source |
| ⭐ Recommendation | Your brand is one of the solutions on offer |
| 📚 Source of information | A piece of data or an analysis of your website forms the basis of the answer |
| 🌐 Referral traffic | The user clicks on the source to visit your website |
The aim is therefore no longer simply ‘to be number one on Google’, but also to become sufficiently relevant and credible to feature in the generated answers.
💡 Good to know: OpenAI states that ChatGPT automatically adds `utm_source=chatgpt.com` to the referral URLs from its search results. It is therefore possible to track some of the traffic sent by ChatGPT in your analytics tools.
The real work involves making your brand clearer, more credible and more visible when it comes to the right topics. The aim? To ensure that when a prospective customer asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity ‘which one should I choose?’, your brand has good reasons to be part of the conversation.
To stand out from the crowd, a GEO agency needs to draw on what only you can provide: proprietary data, client case studies, research, benchmarks, in-house methods, feedback from the field or insights from your experts. In short, content with substance, not just a cloud of well-targeted keywords.
Saying on your own website that you’re a ‘leader’, ‘expert’ and ‘key player’ is all well and good on LinkedIn. But a GEO strategy must also focus on building your presence elsewhere on the web: the media, specialist websites, partners, comparison sites, interviews, expert commentary…
“Have you heard of [brand name]?” isn’t exactly the prompt of the century. What we’re interested in are the questions a prospective customer asks before making their choice: “What are the best [product or service category]?”, ‘Which brands offer [type of product or service] that offers the best value for money?’, ‘What’s the best solution for [specific need]?’
This is where being featured in an LLM starts to bring real value. Your brand is no longer just recognised; it makes it onto the shortlist.
Seeing your name pop up in ChatGPT always brings a little moment of satisfaction. Screenshot. Slack. Slay. But at Ad’s up, the aim isn’t simply to collect mentions in generative AI systems like Space Invaders. Data helps us understand what works, what deserves to be reinforced and where the opportunities lie. The right strategy, therefore, is to occupy multiple touchpoints, rather than staking all your visibility on a single channel.
SEO helps your brand get noticed.
GEO is increasing its chances of being understood and referenced by AI systems.
Data enables us to manage all of this without having to rely on guesswork.
And when all three come together? Your brand doesn’t just rank – it becomes the answer.
To explore this topic further, take a look at the comparison ‘Best GEO Agency in 2026: 10 agencies specialising in AI visibility’, which takes a close look at various market approaches. On the budget front, ‘GEO Strategy: Rethinking Your Media Mix in the Age of AI Overviews’ explains how these developments are reshaping the balance between SEO, content and advertising. And to understand what’s happening in parallel at Google, the analysis of the launch of AI Overviews and AI Mode in France provides further insight.
💡 Tips from our experts:
1. Identify the search queries that really matter to your business
👉 Start by considering your customers’ needs and the questions they ask themselves before choosing a product, service or provider. Prioritise queries linked to their search intent rather than simple questions about your brand’s awareness.
2. Create content that delivers real added value
👉 Research, exclusive data, comparisons, real-life case studies and industry expertise: develop useful, reliable and distinctive content that provides precise answers to your audience’s questions.
3. Build your presence beyond your website
👉 Media mentions, customer reviews, specialist websites and comparison sites all help to build your brand’s online presence. Identify the sources relevant to your sector and boost your visibility across these different platforms.
4. Measure your AI visibility over time
👉 Monitor a selection of prompts representative of your business and regularly track mentions of your brand, citations of your content and how you compare with the competition. As LLM responses can vary, analyse trends rather than drawing conclusions from a single test.
5. Make GEO an extension of your SEO strategy
👉 GEO is not a substitute for organic search. Ensure your SEO foundations are solid and align your technical, editorial and authority-building efforts to boost your visibility both on search engines and in generative AI responses.
Minute 1: ‘Give me an example of a time when you’ve managed to get a brand to go from being unrecognised to being mentioned in an LLM.’
Minute 2: ‘How do you actually measure that?’ If the answer doesn’t mention a set of prompts, a comparison with the competition or monitoring over time, that’s a bad sign.
Minute 3: “How do you integrate GEO with my current SEO strategy?” The two approaches are complementary: a strategy for visibility in generative AI should not be developed in isolation from organic search. The aim is to strengthen your brand’s presence both on search engines and in AI-generated responses, by utilising consistent and complementary strategies.
In short, there’s nothing magical about whether or not you appear in an AI response. It’s simply an accumulation of consistent signals, patiently built up over time. This is exactly what a good AI visibility agency needs to know how to orchestrate – not a technical sleight of hand, but groundwork that links content, authority and measurement over the long term. Curious to know whether your brand already features in a conversation with ChatGPT or Perplexity? The Ad’s up team can test this out with you!
No. A reputable agency can work on your visibility, authority and presence on the right topics, but cannot guarantee that an LLM will mention you in every query.
There’s no magic timeframe. It depends on your current authority, your content, your market, your competitors and the actions you’ve put in place.
By tracking a set of strategic prompts over time and observing, in particular, your mentions, your AI Share of Voice, your competitors and the context in which your brand appears.
No. SEO remains a solid foundation, whilst GEO broadens the playing field. One focuses on your ability to be found; the other adds the challenge of being understood, cited and recommended.
