How to Rank on ChatGPT and AI Search Engines in 2026

How do you rank on ChatGPT? It’s a question more businesses are asking as AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Perplexity change how people find information.

Instead of ten blue links, users now get a single, conversational answer, often with cited sources, directly from an AI. This shift means your content must become the answer to stay visible.

In this article, we’ll explain how AI search engines present results, why more users are turning to them, and how to optimise your SEO strategy (think structured data, semantic SEO, E-E-A-T and topical authority) so your brand gets cited by these systems. We’ll also highlight where traditional Google SEO overlaps with AI-focused SEO and where it differs, using the most recent citation studies rather than guesswork.

The Rise of AI Search Engines (and Why It Matters)

More people are asking AI assistants for advice before, or instead of, searching Google. McKinsey reported in October 2025 that half of consumers already use AI-powered search.

ChatGPT’s popularity is hard to ignore. It is now the fifth most visited website in the world, with around 5.4 billion visits a month according to Semrush data from January 2026, collected in Exposure Ninja’s AI search statistics roundup. Across all AI platforms, referral traffic is growing fast: Similarweb measured 1.13 billion AI referral visits to the world’s top 1,000 websites in June 2025, a 357% jump on the year before, and Ahrefs data puts ChatGPT at around half of all AI referral traffic.

Why should businesses care? Because these visitors tend to arrive with more intent. One widely cited analysis in the same roundup put the conversion rate of AI search traffic at 14.2%, against 2.8% for Google organic. That is a single study rather than a settled benchmark, but it points the same way as the behaviour: fewer visits, from people further along in their decision.

In other words, visitors coming via an AI-generated answer are often deep in the funnel and trust the answer they see. If your brand is featured in that answer, you gain credibility by association. If you’re absent, you lose out on both visibility and potential sales.

Ranking on Google on its own is no longer the whole job. To stay visible, you need to appear in the answers themselves, not just in the list of links underneath them.

How Do ChatGPT and AI Search Engines Present Results?

AI search engines aim to deliver direct answers in a conversational format, rather than a list of websites. This fundamentally changes how your content reaches audiences:

• ChatGPT (OpenAI): ChatGPT answers from its training data and, increasingly, from live web search, when it cites the pages it used alongside the answer. Either way, the user gets a complete answer in text form rather than a ranked list. There is no visible “position 3”. Your content is either woven into the answer and cited, or it isn’t there at all.
• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: AI Overviews, which replaced Google’s earlier Search Generative Experience experiment, place an AI summary at the top of the results for many queries. The summary synthesises several sources and links to them, but users often don’t need to click. Semrush found that 43% of searches showing an AI Overview end without a click.
  
  AI Mode goes further, rebuilding the whole results page around a conversational answer. Semrush measured a 93% zero-click rate there, meaning almost everyone took the AI answer and moved on.
• Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity: These tools retrieve information from the web in real time and display citations. Copilot, built into Bing and Edge, answers your question with footnotes linking to its sources. Perplexity works in a similar way, giving a conversational answer with numbered source references you can expand.
  
  How closely do they follow Google? Ahrefs tested 15,000 queries and found only 12% of AI-cited URLs ranked in Google’s top 10 for the same query. Perplexity was the outlier at 28.6%. ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot all sat around 8%. So ranking well on Google gives you a reasonable chance with Perplexity, but far less certainty elsewhere. The key takeaway? Being number one on Google doesn’t guarantee an AI will pick you. You need to demonstrate the qualities these systems value.

Bottom line: AI search engines present answers, not a buffet of links. The user’s attention goes to whichever sources the AI chose to draw from. Your goal is to make sure your brand, content or data is among the sources the AI trusts and presents. In the sections below, we’ll cover exactly how to do that.

SEO Strategies to Get Cited by ChatGPT (and Other AI Systems)

Optimising for AI search engines is often called AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) or GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation). Essentially, it is SEO for a world of AI answers. The good news is that many SEO fundamentals still apply.

The largest study so far, SE Ranking’s analysis of 129,000 domains and 216,524 pages, concluded that “solid SEO fundamentals still align with higher ChatGPT visibility”. In other words, if you’re already following best practice for Google (high-quality content, a good site experience, authoritative backlinks), you’re on the right track. Succeeding in AI search does also require some tactics beyond traditional SEO. Let’s go through them.

1. Ensure AI Can Crawl and Read Your Content

Before anything else, remove any technical roadblocks that might prevent AI systems from seeing your site. Large language models are trained on vast datasets that include content crawled from the open web, and several now search the live web as well. If your site isn’t accessible to those crawlers, it won’t be part of the answer.

• Check your robots.txt: Make sure you’re not inadvertently blocking common AI crawlers (such as OpenAI’s GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot) in your robots.txt file or through your CDN and security settings. Some sites have blocked these bots by accident and made their pages invisible to ChatGPT.
• Allow search engine indexing: Because Copilot, ChatGPT search and Google’s AI Overviews all draw on live search indexes, you want to be properly indexed in both Bing and Google. Basic steps like submitting sitemaps and avoiding noindex on important pages remain crucial.
• Provide clean, structured content: Use proper HTML and semantic markup so content is easily parsed. Avoid putting key text only in images or inaccessible formats. AI models digest plain text, so the easier you make it to extract your information, the better.

By ensuring the doors are open to AI crawlers, you set the foundation for the next steps.

2. Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Structured data isn’t only for Google’s benefit. Schema markup (usually JSON-LD) tells machines explicitly what your content means, for example “this text is a product name, this is a review rating, this is an FAQ answer”.

There is a clear correlation between schema and AI citations. AirOps analysed more than 12,000 URLs and found rich schema on 61% of pages ChatGPT cited, against 25% of Google results. Correlation isn’t cause, though. When Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added schema between August 2025 and March 2026, citations barely moved on any platform. The honest reading is that the pages AI cites tend to be well built, and well built pages tend to have schema.

Schema still earns its place, because it helps machines read a page accurately. It just won’t make a weak page worth citing. For example, marking up a how-to article with HowTo schema or an FAQ with FAQPage schema makes it clear what question is being answered. A few tips:

• Implement common types like Article, FAQ, HowTo, Product, Review or Organization markup where appropriate. These clarify the who, what and where of your content.
• Use FAQ schema for Q&A sections, but make sure the Q&A content is useful. In SE Ranking’s study, pages with FAQ sections averaged 3.8 citations against 4.1 for pages without, so an FAQ is not a shortcut. Add one where it helps the reader.
• Validate your schema with Google’s Rich Results Test to avoid errors.

By structuring your data, you make your content easier for AI to read. At Rococo Digital, our SEO services include full schema implementation to help search engines and AI understand your content.

3. Create In-Depth, Semantic Content (Answer the Questions!)

In the age of AI search, depth and relevance beat shallow, keyword-stuffed content every time. ChatGPT and its peers choose content that thoroughly answers the user’s question and covers the topic with authority. Here’s how to do that:

• Cover topics comprehensively: Longer, well-structured content tends to perform better. In SE Ranking’s study, pages under 800 words averaged 3.2 citations, against 5.1 for pages over 2,900 words. Aim to be the one-stop resource on your topic. If the AI finds all the detail it needs in your article, it’s more likely to use it as a source.
• Use semantic SEO (natural language and context): Identify the actual questions and phrasing your audience uses. For example, if the target keyword is “how to rank on ChatGPT”, make sure your content answers that question in plain language. Include related subtopics and synonyms that provide context, and write in a way that mirrors the way people ask questions.
  
  Keep the headings themselves plain, though. The same study found plain, descriptive headings averaged 4.3 citations against 3.4 for question-style headings, probably because the AI prefers content that reads as informative rather than click-bait.
• Provide facts, stats and expert insight: Generative AI loves concrete information it can quote. Pages containing 19 or more statistical data points averaged 5.4 citations, against 2.8 for pages with little data. Source your figures, too. An unsourced number is exactly the kind of claim an AI has no reason to trust.
  
  Keep those facts current. Content updated within the last three months averaged around 6 citations, against 3.6 for outdated pages.
• Demonstrate Experience and Expertise (E-E-A-T): Don’t shy away from showing first-hand experience or credentials. If you’re writing about medical or financial topics, mention your qualifications. If you review products, include notes from your own testing. Google’s quality guidelines treat experience and expertise as signals of trustworthy content, and trust sits at the centre of E-E-A-T. While an AI model might not read your author bio every time, content that reads as authoritative and well sourced is more likely to be selected.
  
  Add an author byline with credentials and make sure your site has an informative About page. These signals can feed indirectly into how AI systems judge your site’s authority.

In short, write for people and for depth, not for cheap clicks. If a user would find your article useful and comprehensive, an AI likely will too. Our approach to AI content strategy at Rococo is built on the same principle: every piece is written to answer a real need, not just to rank for a string of keywords.

4. Demonstrate Topical Authority

Topical authority means being the go-to source in your niche. AI systems are more inclined to trust and cite sites that have a proven track record on a subject. How do you build this?

• Cluster your content by topic: Rather than one-off posts on random topics, create a hub of content around your main subject areas. For example, if you’re a finance company, publish a set of articles on budgeting, investing and financial planning, and link them together. This signals to search engines and AI that you have depth in that domain. Link related articles with descriptive anchor text to reinforce the connections.
• Consistent quality and updates: Maintain a high standard across every piece in the cluster, and update older articles with fresh information periodically. As the figures above show, freshness counts. A pattern of authoritative content over time makes your whole domain look more trustworthy.
• Earn topical backlinks: If other websites in your industry cite or reference your content, that boosts your perceived authority on the topic. It’s not just the raw number of links but their relevance. A link from a respected site in your niche is worth far more than a pile of unrelated ones.

Brands that establish themselves as subject experts tend to be favoured by AI, because they are seen as trusted sources. ChatGPT might be more likely to cite BBC Good Food for a cooking question, or the NHS website for a health question, because those sites are authoritative in their space.

Aim to make your site that authority in your industry. Over time, topical authority will support both your Google rankings and your AI visibility.

5. Build a Strong Brand Presence and Reputation

In the world of AI search, brand signals are important. A conversational AI doesn’t pull from one official website. It synthesises from many sources. If your brand is mentioned frequently and positively across the web, the AI is more likely to include or recommend it. A few ways to strengthen your brand footprint:

• Digital PR and backlinks: Backlinks are a core Google ranking factor, and they correlate with AI citations too. SE Ranking’s study of 129,000 domains found the number of referring domains was the single strongest predictor of ChatGPT citations.
  
  In short, websites with diverse, quality backlinks tend to be cited more often. So keep investing in ethical link building and PR: contributed articles, features in industry publications and newsworthy announcements. Each mention of your brand on a reputable site is a vote of confidence that AI can pick up on.
• Community mentions (Reddit, Quora and forums): Be part of the conversation. Generative AI often learns from, or actively retrieves, information from forums and Q&A sites. In SE Ranking’s data, domains with a heavy Quora presence averaged 7 citations, against 1.7 for domains with almost none, and the pattern was similar for Reddit.
  
  That could mean answering questions on Quora related to your expertise (with helpful answers, not self-promotion) or taking part in relevant subreddit discussions. Even smaller brands can build authority this way. As SE Ranking put it, “for smaller, less-established websites, engaging on Quora and Reddit offers a way to build authority and earn trust from ChatGPT, similar to what larger domains achieve through backlinks and high traffic.”
• Reviews and ratings: Positive reviews aren’t only for persuading human customers. They appear to influence AI as well. Make sure you have a strong presence on the review sites relevant to your business: Google reviews, Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, TripAdvisor or industry-specific sites.
  
  Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews. If an AI sees consistently high ratings and detailed reviews, it has reason to treat your brand as trusted. Neil Patel’s research into ChatGPT recommendations found that the number of reviews and the rating both mattered.
• Social and authority signals: The direct effect of social media on AI citations isn’t fully clear, but a large social following and mentions on social platforms feed the general awareness of your brand, which may be reflected in training data. Make sure your site projects credibility too: list credentials, awards, partnerships and media mentions.
  
  These trust signals reinforce your reputation. The same Neil Patel analysis listed authority among the factors behind ChatGPT’s recommendations, looking at a company’s social following, its domain authority and the type of sites talking about it. If authoritative sources are talking about your brand, AI takes note.

To sum up, think of your brand as an entity that needs a footprint across the web. The more high-quality mentions and links you earn, the more context AI models have to recognise you as a reputable source. This is where SEO overlaps with PR and content marketing, and it takes all three working together.

(Need help strengthening your brand’s presence? Our link building and digital PR team can build a strategy to get your name on the right sites and in front of the right audiences.)

6. Optimise for Overlap with Google (Where It Still Counts)

While AI search is changing the game, don’t throw out traditional SEO. Much of it still pays off in the AI world:

• Fast, user-friendly website: Technical performance matters. SE Ranking found pages with a First Contentful Paint under 0.4 seconds averaged 6.7 citations, against 2.1 for pages slower than 1.13 seconds. A fast site also aligns with Google’s page experience signals. Keep working on Core Web Vitals and mobile usability, because they support every system that reads your site.
• Meta tags and descriptive titles: Traditional meta tags may not be seen by users in an AI answer, but they help search engines understand and rank your content, which can influence AI retrieval. Titles matter in their own right: in SE Ranking’s data, titles stuffed with the target keyword averaged 2.8 citations, against 5.9 for titles that simply described the page.
  
  So write page titles that are concise and accurately reflect the topic. Use meta descriptions to summarise pages. Even if AI doesn’t use them, they help the page get indexed and shown for the right queries.
• Keyword optimisation (done sensibly): Keyword research is still useful for knowing what your audience cares about. Focus on intent rather than keywords alone. AI queries are often more conversational or specific than a typical Google search.
  
  For example, a user might ask ChatGPT, “What’s the best budget smartphone for photography in 2026?”, a query that implies a comparison. If you have content addressing that, even if it isn’t phrased the same way, you’re in good shape. Include natural language phrases and answers that match likely AI questions. Tools like AnswerThePublic or Google’s People Also Ask can help with phrasing.
• Don’t neglect link building and on-page SEO: As we’ve covered, backlinks and on-page structure still play a major role in whether AI trusts your content. The citation research reinforces that the SEO practices you already use for Google (quality backlinks, authoritative content, fast pages, fresh updates) are largely the same factors that predict AI visibility. Good SEO is future-proof SEO. Just widen your definition of optimisation to include the newer areas above, like community engagement.

By combining traditional SEO strengths with AI-focused enhancements, you cover all bases. You’ll rank well in Google and increase your odds of being the source that AI platforms quote or recommend.

AI Search vs Google Search: What’s the Difference?

Here’s how optimising for AI search engines overlaps with, and diverges from, classic Google SEO:

• Overlap: The core principle remains create helpful, trustworthy content. Google’s algorithms and AI models both gravitate toward content with strong E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). If your content is high-quality, user-focused and authoritative, it benefits both.
  
  Many signals are shared: backlinks, page speed, mobile usability and topical relevance all contribute to your credibility with Google and with AI. People-first content, the kind that informs or helps the reader, will always have a place in any search paradigm.
• Differences: AI search is less tied to current web rankings. As the Ahrefs data above shows, ChatGPT will often cite a source that isn’t on Google’s first page if it judges that source more useful. AI also draws on a wider range of content types, including forums and Q&A sites, where Google tends to favour more formal web pages.
  
  Another difference is traffic. In Google SEO, you optimise for the click to your site. In AI SEO, you often optimise to have your content included in the answer itself. Success might be measured in brand mentions or citations within an AI response, not just click-throughs. That makes third-party mentions and reviews more important than ever. It’s not just about your site, but your brand’s presence across the web.
  
  Finally, the feedback loop is different. For most AI platforms there is still no equivalent of Google Search Console telling you which prompts your content appeared in. So you rely on proxy metrics: referral traffic from AI tools, tools that monitor mentions in AI answers, and what your customers tell you about how they found you.

In summary, traditional SEO and AI SEO are two sides of the same coin. Both require quality content and credibility. AI SEO widens where you need to establish that credibility: not just your site and links, but communities, reviews and the wider web. Think of it as an evolution of SEO. You’re still optimising for search engines, just a new kind.

Conclusion: Embrace the Future of Search

The way people search is changing, and the way we approach SEO has to change with it. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews are quickly becoming the new front door for customers looking for information.

To keep your business visible, you need to optimise not just for what people search, but how they search on these AI platforms. By putting the strategies above into practice, from structured data and in-depth content to building your brand’s presence on other sites, you can position your content as the trusted answer AI delivers.

Many of these tactics will strengthen your traditional SEO at the same time. It isn’t about choosing one or the other. It’s about building a joined-up content and SEO strategy that covers all bases. As AI continues to evolve, and as more of Google’s results become AI-generated, the line between SEO and AI optimisation will blur. What we’re really talking about is future-proofing your SEO.

Adapting to a landscape that moves this fast can be challenging, because the rules are being rewritten in real time. If you want to stay ahead and make sure your business is always the answer, wherever your customers are searching, you don’t have to do it alone.

Need to future-proof your SEO? Talk to our team. At Rococo Digital we specialise in SEO and AI content strategies that help our clients grow in this new era of search. Let’s make sure your brand is ready to be found, whether that’s on Google or in ChatGPT.