Optimizing Content for AI Search in 2026: What We Know so Far

As an AI SEO agency founder, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the ongoing debates about how to optimize content for AI search.

Some experts insist on GEO-specific tactics like content chunking. Others say you just need to “create good content” and everything else will follow.

But what does the data actually tell us?

On-Page Content Optimization Tactics That Work (Backed by Data)

Early studies and experiments (including Otterly’s own AI citation report) have given us a glimpse of what it takes to get mentioned and cited by answer engines.

A lot of these are classic SEO best practices. But there are also emerging tactics that work specifically well for GEO.

Here’s what we know so far:

1. Make Your Content Accessible to AI Bots

Googlebot and LLM crawlers scan the internet to either feed their training data or power their web search functionality.

If these bots can’t access your content, then it won’t be indexed. As simple as that.

Action points

• Use plain HTML: 46% of ChatGPT bot visits begin in reading mode, a plain HTML version of a webpage with no images, CSS, and JavaScript. If your key content requires JS to load, AI won’t see it.
• Optimize for page speed: Response time is a strong visibility factor in AI search. Faster-loading pages are more likely to be included in LLM answers.
• Fix any technical issues: HTTP errors (4XX/5XX), 301s pointing to unexpected URLs, loading issues, CAPTCHAs, CDN blocking, and incorrect robots.txt rules are all common reasons AI crawlers bounce.
• Use internal links to guide crawlers: Strong internal linking helps bots discover deeper pages and understand topical relationships. Link related content together to increase crawl depth and surface area.

Example
Decentriq, one of Position Digital’s clients, was experiencing some technical issues on their site, including:

• Redirect chains
• Poor URL structure
• Poor Core Web Vitals
• Missing structured data
• Unoptimized metadata
• Broken links and orphaned pages

These problems prevented search engines and AI systems from accessing and understanding their content properly, which negatively impacted rankings and visibility.

Luckily, after we conducted a site audit and fixed those issues, their performance started to improve. In 6 months, AI citations went up by 221% and organic traffic saw a 63.6% increase.

2. Structure Your Content for Easy AI Parsing

LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini don’t read content the way humans do. They break pages into smaller pieces called “chunks” and evaluate each one independently.

That means your content needs to be structured in a way that’s easy for AI systems to parse, understand, and quote.

A small experiment by Chris Green found that Q&A is the best format for GEO, as it provides the highest semantic relevance to user queries.

Structured content (headings, lists, tables) also works great for non-question queries, while dense prose (paragraphs with no structure) performs the worst.

Action points

• Structure your content with a clear heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3)
• Use question-based headings based on real user queries
• Answer each heading directly and concisely
• Add key takeaways and FAQ sections
• Use bullet points and tables whenever possible

Example
Here’s a good example of a well-structured article from Ahrefs.

Image source: Ahrefs

3. Aim for Readability and Clarity

Flesh Score or readability is one of the top three factors determining whether your content gets cited or ignored by AI, according to a Kevin Indig’s study.

Image source: Growth Memo

Put simply: can AI bots find the information they need quickly and effortlessly? If not, they’ll move on to the next page.

So don’t hide key information behind fluff, jargon, or long, winding sentences. AI engines don’t reward clever phrasing; they reward clarity.

Action points

• Focus on one idea per heading: Don’t cram multiple topics into one heading, as it can be confusing for AI systems.
• Give direct answers: Start each section with the key summary before providing more details.
• Use plain language: Replace complex phrasing and jargon with simple, literal descriptions.
• Break long paragraphs into smaller ones: Keep paragraphs ideally between 2–4 lines. This improves scannability, reduces cognitive load, and makes it easier for models to identify the core idea in each section.
• Use descriptive alt text for images: AI crawlers rely on alt text to understand what an image is about. If you have hundreds of images, you can use alt text generators like AltBrew.ai to speed things up.

Example
❌ Don’t beat around the bush:

What is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content is becoming increasingly important in the digital landscape. Many brands today are looking for new ways to connect with their audiences, and UGC has emerged as one of the most effective strategies. With more consumers turning to authentic content…

✅ Instead, provide a direct answer immediately:

What is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content (UGC) is any content—such as photos, videos, reviews, or posts—created by customers rather than the brand itself.

4. Demonstrate E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is a ranking factor in traditional Google search. And according to Google leadership, those same signals now influence AI Overviews.

Liz Reid, VP of Google Search, made this explicit on the WSJ podcast:

“People still want to hear from other people. They’re not ready to delegate all their fashion advice just to a (AI) model. And it’s not just the accuracy of the data; it’s sort of what makes us human, that this is special to hear from somebody you connect to, that you relate to, their unique take on something.”

When asked about what content will appear in AI Overviews, Liz explained that Google will continue fighting low-quality content that doesn’t add much, and promote content from people with actual experience and expertise:

“We’ve worked for years on this question about how do you get rid of spam? And we really want to make an effort to not surface low-value content—content that doesn’t add very much, kinda tells you what everybody else knows—and actually try to upweight more content specifically from someone who really went in and brought their perspective or expertise—put real time and craft into the work.”

Instead of repeating what’s already said a million times by others, make sure to add unique information in your content.

Action points

• Share what you actually did, tested, or learned
• Include first-party data from your own clients or research
• Add insights from reputable experts and industry practitioners

Example
In my article on SaaS copywriting tips, I included quotes from seasoned SaaS copywriters and content marketers.

Image source: Position Digital

5. Keep Your Content Fresh

Countless AI SEO studies have shown that AI models have a strong recency bias. In other words, these systems are more likely to cite fresh content.

According to Ahrefs, the average age of cited pages in AI search is 25.7% fresher than URLs in organic search.

Seer Interactive also did a similar study and found that AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity mostly cite sources published within the last two years.

Image source: Seer Interactive

I’m not saying you should update every piece of content on your site; that’ll be a waste of time and effort.

Instead, focus on your most important pages:

• Pages that are currently ranking high and driving most of the traffic
• Pages that used to perform well but have slipped in rankings due to outdated information

Action points

• Audit your entire site to find content worth updating
• Make sure your content matches the current search intent
• Replace old facts, stats, screenshots, and examples
• Expand thin sections and remove outdated advice
• Add a “Last Updated” timestamp

Check out my comprehensive guide on how to refresh content effectively here.

Example
One of my clients was dealing with decaying blog posts, content bloat, and a handful of on-page technical problems that were dragging their performance down.

But with a targeted content refresh, we were able to turn things around. We ran a site-wide audit to find outdated content pieces and updated them with new insights, fresh data, and improved structure.

In just one year, the site saw a 36.7% uplift in organic traffic and a massive 169% increase in conversions.

6. Focus on Context, not Keywords

Old SEO was about optimizing content around specific keywords. Well, that era is officially over.

Here’s the truth: nearly 86% of AI Overviews did not even include the exact query phrase from the user. AI engines don’t look for keyword matches; they look for meaning and context.

When a user enters a query, LLMs perform query fan-out: they expand the question into a network of related intents, entities, and sub-topics, then choose the sources that best match those sub-queries.

If you want to be cited, you need to own the whole topic, not optimize for individual keywords.

Action points

• Gather real user queries: Pull questions from forums, People Also Ask boxes, Google Autocomplete, Reddit threads, social comments, and customer feedback.
• Address those queries in your content: You can either create a single, comprehensive guide that covers all related questions, or break the topic into a cluster of interconnected articles.
• Use FAQs to fill semantic gaps: Add an FAQ section that answers secondary or long-tail questions uncovered during research.
• Optimize for entities: Use schema markup to clearly define key entities: your brand, product names, people, competitors, locations, and categories. This helps AI engines interpret and reference your brand information accurately.

Example
One of my client’s blog posts managed to get featured in AI Overviews for 17 keywords.

Image source: Position Digital

What we did was simple: covered the topic more thoroughly. We started by identifying the questions people were asking, including queries pulled from People Also Ask, Reddit threads, and expat forums.

We then expanded the content with relevant new sections and FAQs to answer those questions directly.

7. Translate Your Content in English

If you run a non-English site, translating your content in English can dramatically increase your visibility in Google’s AI Overviews (AIO).

Weglot ran a study comparing Spanish sites with no English versions against sites available in both languages.

The results were eye opening: translated sites get 327% higher AIO visibility in English searches than untranslated sites.

Action points

• Translate your highest-impact pages first—the ones that consistently drive conversions and search demand
• Implement hreflang tags correctly, so Google and AI engines understand which version should appear in which context
• Don’t just translate the language; adapt relevant examples, terminology, and references for English-speaking audiences

Example
One of the sites Weglot analyzed was a Spanish book retailer. They sell English books, but their website isn’t translated into English.

The impact was immediate: the retailer failed to appear in 64% of AI Overviews and ChatGPT answers for English-language queries.

And when they did get cited, the links didn’t go to their site at all — they pointed to Google Translate’s proxy version instead.

That’s a huge missed opportunity to reach the right customers, all because the site wasn’t available in English.

8. Invest in BOFU Content

LLMs like ChatGPT are answering informational queries directly without sending links to publishers.

That’s why top funnel content (what is, how-tos, guides) saw massive traffic drops in the past two years, according to Siege Media.

BOFU content is where the opportunity lies. Case studies and pricing pages, in particular, show the highest growth rate among other content types.

Image source: Siege Media

Product reviews, listicles, and comparison articles (e.g., Slack vs. Teams) are also heavily cited by AI chatbots.

In fact, product-focused content accounts for around 70% of all AI citations. This includes pages with product specs, comparisons, “best of” lists, and vendor details — exactly the kinds of pages users need when they’re evaluating options.

Action points

• Create listicles and comparison pages for your top competitors
• Publish more case studies and customer success stories
• Build a detailed pricing page with transparent plan breakdowns, feature tables, and FAQs
• Update your product or service pages to keep information accurate and fresh

Example
ClickUp has a great example of BOFU content in action: they wrote an honest, balanced review of their competitor Slack, before introducing ClickUp as a great alternative.

And it works; the page is currently cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and several other AI engines because it genuinely helps users compare products and make a decision.

Offsite Content is Just as (If Not More) Important

Brands are 6.5x more likely to be cited through third-party sources than their own domains.

You can optimize your content all you want, but what other people say about your brand matters more than anything you publish yourself.

That’s the new reality of AI search. If you want to win, you need to start building a strong offsite presence.

Action points

• Find citation opportunities: Use tools like OtterlyAI to identify which domains and URLs are frequently cited for your target prompts or topics.
• Launch an outreach campaign: Reach out to those sites and ask them to include your brand in their content. This can be done through link-exchange partnerships or paid link placements.
• Offer to write guest posts: if they refuse, offer to write guest posts for them instead in exchange for a brand mention and backlink to your site.
• Appear in sources AI pulls data from: Claim your Wikipedia page, create a product profile on G2, be active in forums like Reddit, be a guest in YouTube podcasts — these are the sources AI systems usually cite according to Otterly’s AI search study.

Example
Otterly ran an experiment to measure the impact of digital PR on AI visibility.

They published two press releases on their site and distributed them through major outlets like Business Insider, Yahoo, and GlobeNewswire.

Within just a couple of days, those press releases were cited across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, Copilot, and Perplexity.

On the very same day, Otterly became the most mentioned brand in AI search.

The bottomline: just create great content on and off your site

A lot of content optimization tactics for AI search are actually just good user experience:

• Clear structure and good readability
• Fast loading speed and error-free experience
• Fresh and helpful information from actual experts

You might be able to win citations with short-term content hacks, like excessive chunking or entity stuffing.

But at the end of the day, if your content doesn’t provide value to users, they won’t engage, trust, or buy from your brand.

Great AI visibility starts with great content. Everything else is the multiplier.

About the author
Sean Begg Flint is the Founder and CEO of Position Digital, an AI SEO agency that helps B2B brands get recommended by answer engines and get found by the right customers. He’s helped clients track their brand visibility in AI search, conduct thorough prompt research, and put together a winning GEO strategy. Today, he’s looking to share this knowledge with the world.