The "Forgotten Asset" You Need to Win in the Age of AI Search
The "Forgotten Asset" You Need to Win in the Age of AI Search
Think about how people research you before doing business.
A few years ago, they would look at your website. Then, they started cross-referencing your website with your social media, like Instagram or LinkedIn, to gauge your personality and see if you were actually active.
Today? The landscape has completely shifted. Consumers and event hosts are now opening tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini and asking AI to recommend the best experts and solutions.
I know this is happening because I’ve seen it firsthand. I helped build the brand for my dad, Steve Sims. A couple of years ago we secured multiple speaking gigs paying between $30,000 and $50,000. When we asked the event hosts how they found him, they told us they literally went to ChatGPT and asked, "Who is a good keynote speaker for my event?"
ChatGPT recommended him!
If you want AI to recommend you, you have to stop neglecting the "forgotten asset" in your marketing arsenal: Your website and your blog.
The Old Way vs. The New Way
Historically, people treated websites with a "set it and forget it" mentality. They built them years ago, made them look pretty with highly produced images and videos, and let them gather dust.
The problem is that AI engines have a hard time "reading" pretty images and videos.
To survive in the age of AI search, your website must transform from a static digital brochure into a content-rich hub of text. Active blogging is essential because it constantly feeds your domain with new, easily digestible text that AI crawlers can retrieve, summarize, and use to position you as an authority.
How AI Decides Who to Recommend
AI search engines don't just pull from one place. They look for confirmation across multiple mediums to establish "trust."
According to data from Search Engine Land, the top five sources AI pulls from are Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and Forbes (citation).
Getting featured in Forbes or Wikipedia is great, but it is expensive and largely out of your control. What is in your control is your website. And according to another massive study of 75,000 AI answers, listicles, articles, and product pages drive 52% of all AI citations (citation).
4 Steps to Optimize for AI Search
If you want to future-proof your brand and start getting recommended by LLMs, here is what you need to do:
Double Down on What You Control: Publish as much content as possible on your own website. Focus specifically on writing listicles and articles.
Optimize for "Clear Text": Stop worrying about making your website look like a highly produced movie. Format your blogs with clear headings and clear paragraph structures so AI can easily summarize the information.
Nail the Technical SEO: Ensure every page has proper metadata (Title and Description). More importantly, implement Schema Markup on your site which makes it incredibly easy for AI crawlers to retrieve your specific information.
Maintain Consistency: Ensure your messaging is identical across your website, LinkedIn, and YouTube. When AI cross-references you across these platforms, the data needs to align perfectly to build trust.
The AI search revolution is already here, and it is actively driving revenue. Don't let your website gather dust.
If you are ready to engineer your identity and build a brand that AI actually wants to recommend, schedule a Brand Audit with me here: https://www.henrysims.com/brand-audit
Talk soon,
Henry Sims
