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Head of Marketing - Earned Media
Marketing | SEO
LLM SEO is about getting your content referenced by AI...
By Narender Singh
Jan 27, 2026 | 5 Minutes | 
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Google isn't the only game in town anymore. People are ditching traditional search for ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity when they need quick answers. Ask your marketing team where their traffic coming from lately. You might be surprised.
This shift creates a problem most businesses haven't figured out yet: how do you show up when someone asks an AI chatbot a question instead of typing it into a search bar? That where LLM SEO comes in and honestly, it making a lot of SEO professionals rethink everything they learned over the past decade.
LLM SEO is about getting your content in front of large language models so they'll reference you when answering questions. Simple concept. Harder execution.
Here the thing: you're not fighting for position one on a search results page anymore. You're trying to be the source an AI thinks is worth mentioning when someone asks it a question. When a potential customer asks ChatGPT about solving their problem, you want your solution in that response.
The numbers tell the story. Close to 40% of Gen Z would rather ask an AI chatbot than Google something. And that not staying contained to younger users. Everyone catching on because it faster and feels more natural than scrolling through ten blue links hoping one of them has the answer.
Traditional SEO? That about algorithms, backlinks, keyword placement. You knew the rules even if Google kept changing them.
LLM SEO throws most of that out the window.
These AI models don't crawl your site every day like Googlebot. They're trained on massive chunks of the internet (plus books, articles, you name it) and then they pull from that knowledge when someone asks a question. Some of them fetch real time web results too, but that secondary to their training data.
What this means: your content has to be memorable. Not just findable. An AI needs to "learn" from your content during training or find it compelling enough to cite when doing a web search. You're competing to be authoritative enough that a machine learning model thinks you're the best source to reference.
That a completely different challenge than ranking for "best pizza near me."
Surface level content is dead. Those 500 word blog posts that regurgitate the same information everyone else published? AI models skip right over them. You need depth. Real expertise. The kind of content that makes someone think, "oh, these people actually understand this topic."
Go deep on subjects you know well. Answer the follow up questions. Provide context that only comes from experience. That what gets referenced.
Remember when everyone wrote for search engines instead of humans? Stuffing keywords into sentences until they barely made sense? LLM SEO flips that entirely. Write the way people actually talk. Use natural language. Ask and answer questions the way a real person would.
These models understand context now. They get nuance. They're trained on human writing, so when you sound human, you're already ahead of most of your competition still writing like robots.
Break your content into clear sections with descriptive headings. Not for readers (though they'll appreciate it too), but because AI models parse structured content way better than long blocks of text. They can pull out the relevant bits faster when you've organized information hierarchically.
Think about how you'd explain something to a colleague. You'd break it down into logical chunks, right? Same principle here.
AI models are trained to spot authoritative sources. Author bios matter now. Citing your research matters. Linking to reputable sources matters. Demonstrating that you've actually done the work or have the credentials or can back up what you're saying all of that factors into whether an AI model trusts your content enough to reference it.
Frankly, this is how it should've been all along. Quality over tricks.
You know those featured snippets Google shows at the top of search results? That format works brilliantly for LLM SEO too. Create FAQ sections. Use question based headings. Give clear, direct answers without making people hunt for the information.
This matches how people interact with AI chatbots. They ask questions. They expect answers. Make your content easy to extract and cite.
Content quality matters most, but there technical groundwork that helps AI models understand what you're offering.
Structured data markup (Schema.org) tells machines what your content is about. Product schema, article schema, FAQ schema these help AI models categorize and contextualize your information. Not every site bothers with this. They should.
Keep your XML sitemap updated. Make sure your site easy to crawl. Yeah, LLMs don't crawl your site daily, but many AI tools pull real time web results when they need current information. When they do, you want your content accessible.
Site speed still counts. So does mobile optimization. AI tools are everywhere now integrated into phones, voice assistants, browser extensions. Your content needs to load fast and look good everywhere.
The old metrics don't tell the whole story anymore. You can't just watch keyword rankings and call it a day.
Start testing your brand in AI chatbots. Type your company name into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity. See if you show up. Ask questions your customers would ask and see if the AI mentions you. It manual, sure, but it the most direct way to know if you're being referenced.
Watch for traffic spikes that don't come from traditional search. Users are asking chatbots for recommendations, getting your name and then visiting your site directly. That traffic might be labeled as direct or referral, not organic search. Don't overlook it.
Look at your analytics for question formatted queries. Long tail searches phrased as full questions are increasing because that how people talk to AI. These queries tell you what questions people are asking about your industry or product.
Most businesses are still figuring out LLM SEO while trying to keep their traditional SEO game strong. That a lot to juggle, especially when the rules are still being written in real time.
DWAO gets what happening right now with search. They've been watching how AI is changing where people find information and they're helping businesses adapt without abandoning what already works. Their approach covers both worlds keeping your Google rankings solid while making sure you're positioned for AI powered search.
What sets them apart is practical experience with how content performs across different platforms. They're not guessing about what might work. They're testing, tracking what gets referenced by AI models and adjusting strategies based on real results. Whether you're just learning about LLM SEO or you've been experimenting with it for months, having someone who dealt with this transition across multiple industries makes a difference.
They handle the technical optimization, develop content that AI models actually want to cite and monitor how you're showing up across both traditional and AI powered search platforms. The goal is simple: keep your business visible no matter where your customers are looking.
LLM SEO isn't going anywhere. If anything, it about to become table stakes as more people default to AI for answers instead of traditional search engines.
The good news? Most of what makes content perform well for LLM SEO is just... good content. Answer real questions. Show your expertise. Organize information clearly. These aren't tricks. They're fundamentals that should've always mattered more than gaming algorithms.
Start looking at your existing content. Does it demonstrate real knowledge or does it skim the surface? Is it written for humans or for search bots? Is it structured in a way that makes information easy to extract? Fix those things and you're already ahead of most competitors who are still pretending AI search isn't a thing.
The shift is happening whether businesses are ready or not. The ones who adapt their content strategy now won't be scrambling to catch up when AI powered search dominates. And based on how fast this is moving, that not some distant future it already starting.