How to build AI Visibility and why it’s so important to combine GEO with traditional PR programmes to extend the reach and impact of your content.
Much of the content for this piece is from a conversation between me, Miles Clayton, the Founder of Agility PR, and Laurence Knopf, the founder of Search Engine Marketing agency and partner, Optimistics.
I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to AI Visibility or GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) specialist agencies over the last couple of months. Many of these agencies are doing extremely well selling GEO services on retainers worth over £1,000 per month, even for baseline AI Visibility packages.
I’ve decided to dig into the actual deliverables that these packages offer and often found them confusing and surprisingly untransparent. I decided to run my concerns past the founder of a highly respected UK Search Engine Marketing (SEM) agency partner to Agility PR, Optimistics. Laurence Knopf, the founder there, confirmed that I was onto something with many of these services. So let’s dig a little deeper.
Foundational Content often missing
What Laurence made clear was that many, many businesses simply don’t have the ‘foundational content’ published or ready to publish for AI Visibility. Many other firms might have strong content but their websites are not technically performing in a way which renders their content easily discoverable by the LLMs.
Laurence Knopf clarifies:
“We often start GEO activity with a discovery audit which assesses the clients’ status quo before we make recommendations for content, SEO and GEO-linked changes and additions. Technical changes to their website for AI Visibility and Content Library footprint enhancements are all laid out for them.
“For example, if they have a really well built ‘Our Team’ page with their key leadership and other staff profiles showing, all with sufficient details, then that’s great for AI Visibility. However, if they don’t have that showing, this work goes straight into Optimistics’ foundational content build recommendations as it’s critical for AI Visibility. The same goes for ‘About Us’, ‘Awards’ and ‘History’ pages, for example.”
Laurence Knopf, Optimistics
Tier 1 – Foundational Content
This is interesting because AI Visibility demands that this ‘foundational content’ creation needs to be done ahead of, or at the same time as, the creation and publishing of the sort of ‘deeper’ content which Agility PR tends to be creating for its clients e.g. thought leadership articles, case studies, webinars, white papers, vlogs, and market reports.
Tier 2 – ‘How To’/educational content & FAQs
Optimistics often recommends a tiered approach to content where your first tier is that foundational content, a second tier is more ‘How To’ type content including FAQs, articles and product demo videos.
Tier 3 – Thought Leadership and other Premium Content
In Tier 3 content you get into Thought Leadership content and campaigns. So, this might extend to a white paper, or perhaps a market report written for senior decision makers in your target market. Laurence makes it clear that this sort of content should be attributed to one or other of a client’s experts or leadership team whenever possible. The LLMs like to attribute content to actual people whose profiles they can also read on your website (back to Tier 1 there).
Authority Building is where it’s at for the LLMs
The LLMs like to know that actual people are in the loop and to quantify the expertise of the entire team if possible. ‘AI slop’ won’t cut it. The company that makes their expertise abundantly clear and clearly links this expertise to specific people in your organisation, are the ones that are currently winning the AI recommendation.
The most popular GenAI platforms in the end will not only be the ones that assemble more information linked to a specific enquiry more efficiently that the competitor platform, but the platforms that weed out the vapourware selling ‘fakers’ that just spun up a website and automated creation of a full content library overnight.
The great thing about working alongside Optimistics is that we can say to clients that the content we are planning to write or shoot for them has a dual purpose. It should assure top quality trade media coverage that increases your brand presence AND it should also move the needle in terms of your AI Visibility.
AI Visibility competitor analysis can verify that your content is hitting the mark. Optimistics will be able to tell the client that this or that type of planned content will definitely contribute to a relevant AI answer, thereby to your AI Visibility. Optimistics will then be able to advise on optimisation of that new content so they’ll recommend linking from one related piece to another and to a dedicated services page on your website, for example. They might need to be technically indexable and highlighted within some LLM’s .txt file for improved AI Visibility as well.
So, what Laurence illustrates is the value of marrying content and PR campaign planning with SEO and GEO work. It even provides a content prioritisation schedule for firms starting from a low base content-wise.
There is no doubt that the demand for PR campaigns that naturally generate content which helps companies gain visibility in the key LLMs is only going one way. However, it is also true that many GEO agencies are offering to create the necessary content at the same time as doing the GEO work. I’ve seen GEO specialists which have promised up to 25 articles per month in support of AI Visibility packages, for example.
However, how are these 25 articles being created? How are the briefs taken from the client? How are they crafted to meet the deeper needs of that client to build its brand and differentiate itself from its competitors? How do they serve their prospects? Often there is a silence around the ‘how’ as it becomes clear that much of this content creation is being left to AI agents.
So, right now AI Visibility appears to represent both an opportunity and a threat to content-focused PR agencies like Agility PR. While the GenAI market remains relatively immature, it seems that human PR people and content creators generally can be disintermediated by the new tech – ‘automated out’ if you will. In addition, GEO-savvy agencies can seamlessly move into content planning and creation with a view to increasing their clients’ AI Visibility – taking content budgets away from PR agencies which traditionally did this work.
Double Bubble
Alternatively, PR agencies can work alongside these digital optimisers to make sure that the campaigns and content they are rolling out are not only appearing in a relevant top tier trade publications, the CEO’s LinkedIn page and on their website. No. By working with their GEO and SEO partner agencies, they can ensure this same content is being referenced in response to the most relevant queries being typed into key prospects’ favourite LLMs. Double bubble!
After all, B2B tech firms needs to be seen everywhere, but most of all they need to be positioned as THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE for their specialist knowledge and expertise when their prospects go online with a query which implies they place a value on access to that same tech expertise and/or domain knowledge your company has. In this way, authority is naturally and authentically built during online searches and in the media, consistently and powerfully.
For more details and to claim your free AI Visibility Discovery Audit, please go here.