What Types of Content Perform Best in AI Search?

What Types of Content Perform Best in AI Search?

The content that performs best in AI search depends on the user's inquiry, but the pages that are cited and pulled as useful resources tend to be original research, comparison content, tutorials, and FAQs. Including these pages on your website (and formatting them to be easily understood by AI) can boost your AI search presence. Here's how they do so:

• Original Research is very valuable to AI models because it helps them respond to user inquiries when the answer isn't in their datasets.
• Comparison Content gives AI models a basis on which to build when a user asks it to recommend a product or service.
• Tutorials that give clear instructions help AI models give answers to users who are asking how to do something.
• FAQs can give quick, straightforward answers to user questions, so AI systems will frequently draw from these.

Why Does Original Research Get Cited by AI?

AI systems combine their existing knowledge with information retrieved from available online sources. The specific process depends on the platform and inquiries, but for many models, original research is very appealing.

The four keys to getting your own research cited by AI are to keep data fresh, provide novel insights, include industry-specific information, and establish your reliability.

1. Fresh Data: When AI bots search online, they are often looking for up-to-date information and/or news on current events. Don't rely on old content to get cited.
2. Novel Insights: Relatedly, if an AI bot is searching online for answers and your website is the only one that can provide them, you're more likely to be cited.
3. Industry Specific Information: This helps signal your relevance to user inquiries while also helping establish your reliability.
4. Establishing Reliability: Showing that you are a reliable authority on the topic helps AI models trust you, and correspondingly makes them more comfortable citing your data.

What's the Best Way to Write Comparison Content for AI?

Comparison content needs to be easy for AI models to understand while giving details about the different options. Additionally, it should be verifiably honest wherever possible, while giving a clear recommendation for a top choice. Here's why each of those factors matters:

Use Easily Digestible Formats

Scannable information that's clearly laid out is easiest for AI models to process. Here are some examples:

• Rankings establish several options and top picks.
• Side-by-side comparisons are easy to understand.
• Tables are quickly scannable and categorize data well.
• Pro and con articles establish reasons behind recommendations.

Explain the Differences (and Why They Matter)

It's not enough to just rank the top choices in your industry – you need to establish why. This is how to do so and why you should:

• When possible, give facts and figures that demonstrate differences.
• These data points should be verifiable and accurate.
• AI systems want to give users context to help make a decision – explaining differences helps you do that.
• This helps establish your content as trustworthy, not just promotional.

Be Consistent and Honest

Overly promotional content with unsupported evidence is unlikely to be viewed as trustworthy and can actually hurt your brand and/or website. Here's how the process often works:

• AI bots will check your page against other information sources.
• If AI finds inaccurate information on your page, it will erode trust in your brand.
• Meanwhile, being honest and consistent establishes you as a trustworthy and reliable source of information.

Have a Clear Recommendation

• Take a clear stance that tells AI what to recommend.
• Make sure your stance is based on facts and can be justified.
• You can give conditional recommendations, as long as they are clear; for example, "[Company A] is best for thrifty customers, while [Company B] provides the highest-quality products."

How Tutorials Can Get You Cited by AI

Tutorials and how-to content appeal to AI because it gives it a clear source when users ask a model how to do something. When you have a clear, detailed explanation, AI models will make good use of it.

Here are four reasons why you should consider adding tutorials to your website:

1. They give strong semantic signals. Tutorials are easy for AI to interpret, making it more likely to pull from your site.
2. They directly respond to user inquiries. If users ask AI how to do something, having a matching "how to" on your website gives the model a clear source to draw from.
3. They can easily match AI structure. Tutorials often follow a step-by-step format, which makes it easy for AI bots to pull out and reference your content as needed.
4. You can display your industry expertise. When you demonstrate that you have credible knowledge, your website will be more likely to be cited in general.

Why FAQs Matter for AI Search Optimization

FAQs can improve your website's performance in AI search because they are easy for AI models to pull from, fit AI conversational style, and give you a chance to boost the models' understanding of your site overall:

• Questions can be easily chunked – even if only one question on your page is relevant to your user inquiry, AI models can pick it out and provide your answer to users.
• FAQs have a conversational tone – this matches the language format in which users ask questions and AI systems respond.
• Answers are direct – AI models want to give users a clear, concise answer. Well-written FAQs already do this.
• You can reinforce internal site structure – By linking to another page on the topic, you give AI another, more detailed resource to pull from.
• FAQs can target very specific questions – FAQs give you an opportunity to reference long-tail keywords, which can give you targeted leads from low-competition spaces.

Bonus: FAQ content can help your site appear in a featured snippet in Google, giving you a traditional SEO boost.

Does SEO Matter for AI Search?

Yes, SEO matters for AI search. Many of the same factors matter for both: Brand authority, internal and external linking, and targeted page content can help with both SEO and AI Search Optimization (AIO). On top of that, ranking high gives you an advantage in terms of getting cited by AI.

Brand and website authority are closely related. Inbound links from external websites are a sign to search engines that your content is authoritative, while positive brand mentions across the internet help AI understand your business. Links and mentions often coexist and can be managed through an effective link building campaign.

Keyphrases are important to both SEO and AIO, though they function a bit differently. For SEO, you should structure your webpages around a keyphrase to emphasize its purpose and relevance. For AIO, providing direct responses to keyphrases (and related inquiries) helps AI bots understand and draw from your content.

These all tie in together with the correlation between pages' rankings and frequency of AI citations. While this is always evolving, historically high ranking pages have a better chance of being cited in AI responses.

Frequently Asked Questions About AI Search and Content Types

Make Your Content Work For You in AI Searches

As more and more people rely on AI models to help them learn and make decisions, it will be increasingly important to optimize your website to get into AI recommendations. If you have a successful strategy, your content will continue to support visibility and discovery over time.

To read more about AI search and content, use the links below:

• What Are the Differences Between Content That Performs in AI vs. Traditional Search?
• What Mistakes Hurt a Website's AI Search Visibility?
• Can You Change Old Content to Perform Better in AI Search?
• Can an Agency Help My Site Show Up in AI Search?

Hexxen has built winning content strategies for web marketing in a variety of industries. We position brands to succeed in AI search. Call us now at (314) 499-8253 or reach out online to tell us how we can help you.