AI Experiment: How We Influenced AI to Rank Us as a Top Digital PR Agency

AI is reshaping search as we know it. 

As a search marketing agency obsessed with the online visibility of the brands that we’re working with, and one known for our forward-thinking experiments, we have been looking closely at recent trends in how searchers are digesting digital information, and where. 

We have remarked two things: 

• Google’s AI Overviews are answering more user queries before they ever click a website.

• There’s more variation in where searchers are initiating their queries - with ChatGPT taking up an increasing amount of searches.

These trends bring serious implications for marketers and brands alike. Our Search Director Oliver Sissons touched on this, alongside how marketers can off-set some of the negative impact on organic visibility associated with these trends, in a recent LinkedIn post:

“We're going to see sites getting fewer clicks from top-of-the-funnel (TOF) searches. The thing is, for many websites, these search terms will make up the bulk of their SEO visibility.

So, knowing that Google is going to continue trying to answer more of them without sending searchers to other websites, as SEOs we need to (once again) evolve our strategies to ensure long-term success.

One way to do this is by focusing more than ever before on driving rankings for bottom-of-the-funnel (BOF), commercial intent keywords.”

So, we know that AI-generated responses are going to take up an increasing amount of attention in Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs), and even steal searches away from Google entirely via products like ChatGPT.

We also know that focusing more time, resources and attention on your brand's visibility across bottom of the funnel keywords (on all platforms) will be one way to protect your brand's organic visibility as search continues to evolve.

However, even for those bottom of the funnel keywords, we are seeing AI Overviews returned on Google, and many searchers are already asking ChatGPT instead of Google for recommendations on trusted companies that they can partner with in various industries.

So, the question remains - how do we influence AI to recommend our brand in its responses?

In traditional Reboot fashion, we devised an experiment to start piecing together an answer to this exact question.

We put one AIO tactic to the test and, in just a few weeks, we got our agency site being recommended in both Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT. More details on our methodology and the results can be found below, but first let’s quickly highlight why this is so important.

Why does this matter?

Being able to successfully influence AI to recommend our desired brands will mean that, even as Google and ChatGPT continue to offer answers for an increasing number of bottom of the funnel keywords, the brands we work with will remain visible and front of mind for new customers looking for solutions and service providers in their industry (no matter how they are searching for that information).

Our Hypothesis

When analysing AI generated responses, across both Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, we noticed a trend in the kinds of sources that were being used to answer bottom of the funnel searches (e.g. our test keyword/prompt - ‘best digital PR agencies’).

AI favours list-style articles to determine which brands should be recommended for keywords/prompts like the one mentioned above. When asked who the best brands in a given space are, AI models will frequently return such articles as the sources informing their response.

In seeing this we formed our working hypothesis, that if we can get our brand featured in even a few high authority list-style articles relevant to our target keyword/prompt, we should see our brand recommended by popular AI models as a result.

Hypothesis Summary

The Experiment and Methodology

So, we wanted to get Reboot Online recommended as one of the best digital PR agencies when searchers ask Google or ChatGPT keywords/prompts surrounding this topic.

We strongly suspected that if we could get our brand featured top in a list-style article reviewing the best digital PR agencies, published on a high authority website, that the popular AI models would use that page as a source and (therefore) recommend Reboot in its response to relevant keywords/prompts.

Once discovered, our list-style article would be used in the AI’s training data, and the mention of our brand would influence the AI’s response for target keywords/prompts.

Initially, we took screenshots of the SERP on Google and ChatGPT’s response to our target keyword/prompt before starting this project.

ChatGPT response pre-experiment 

Note that, before our experiment, Reboot Online was not mentioned in ChatGPT’s response to the prompt ‘what are the top 10 best digital PR agencies’.

Google’s AI Overview before the experiment:

Our brand was also not mentioned in the Google AI Overview feature generated for the keyword ‘best digital PR agencies’.

Creating the Content

Next, we researched and built a page about the topic we were trying to influence the AI on (the best digital PR agencies), published on an authoritative website (we used our own website, and also published similar pieces across a couple of other authority websites that we own) so we could be confident that it would be quickly discovered and added to the AI’s training data.

As you would when optimising any content for organic/SEO performance, we made sure:

• We were answering the search query

• We were adding more value than responses already ranking/sources already being used by the AI

• We provided good user experience

• We wrote from a position of authority

• We internally linked to the page to help ensure it could be discovered and indexed/added to the AI’s training data quickly.

Below is the page we published:

In true Reboot style, we spent time methodically comparing digital PR services across a number of agencies to ensure we could answer the query not just with opinions, but based on data.

We then engaged our graphic design team to make sure the page looked good and worked well from a user experience perspective. 

Then we waited.

We waited for the page to be discovered by both Google and ChatGPT, and for our list-style article to be used as a source by the AI models when generating their responses to our target keyword/prompt.

The Results

Not even a few weeks after publishing our new list-style article, our hypothesis was proved correct. 

Relatively soon after being published, we found our list-style articles being used as sources to inform both AI Overview and ChatGPT responses.

We did manage to get our brand recommended by the popular AI models.

ChatGPT’s response after the experiment:

Not even a few weeks after our list-style articles went live, we found Reboot making the list of recommended agencies generated by ChatGPT.

Google SERP after the experiment:

On Google we also started seeing Reboot Online being recommended in AI Overviews, outranking standard organic results and taking prime position in the SERP.

What does this prove? 

This experiment proved that AI can be influenced—if you know what it’s looking for. 

By reverse engineering the type of queries we want to be featured for, we can influence AI’s output by promoting our brand favourably on webpages that the AI models are likely to use as sources when generating their responses. 

However, there is still some work required to make sure that AI models can discover and take the sources promoting your brand into account. As a result, our Search Director, Oliver Sissons, has given 5 tips for ensuring you have the best chance at ranking, both for AI and traditional search:

1. Perfect your technical SEO - make it easy for search engines and AI to discover and consume your content (and/or the content your brand is promoted in) and understand your business

2. Become the best result to satisfy the searcher intent behind your target BOF keywords (this will mean you are frequently recommended by others in your industry)

3. Offer an amazing user experience that keeps people coming back to and engaged with your site (and again can result in your brand being recommended by others, and by AI models)

4. Establish real industry authority - build your site’s authority in all areas, especially via getting featured in list-style articles that look at the best companies in your industry (a healthy mix of authority and relevancy is key here, you should be securing links from places like industry directories/trade bodies AND national/regional news)

5. Offer the best product or service in your industry (this has knock-on effects across things like brand searches, UX signals, organic link pick up etc.)

While it may seem like there are only 5 things you need to do to get ranking, the work required to fully develop each one of them will be a huge undertaking.

The above list is all about making sure that both on-site and off-site the AI models are able to understand who you are, why you’re one of the best brands in your industry, and discover a list of sources that reinforce you as a go-to brand.

Luckily, if you’re short on time or need an experienced marketing partner to help you enhance your AI visibility, we have just launched our AI Optimisation service. 

 Get in touch today to find out more 

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