Large Language Models (LLMs) are designed to perform better analysis of your data. In the subcontinent, there’s often a mindset where we don’t readily update things. However, when new opportunities arise, they bring benefits. Currently, almost 80% of people are leveraging AI tools while doing SEO. LLMs and search engines strive to understand the context of your content. If one tool gets the job done, why complicate it with ten?
Let’s begin by discussing AI SEO. AI SEO is primarily perceived in two ways:
- How we can leverage AI in existing SEO practices.
- How to get our websites to rank (or appear as a reference) on platforms like LLMs, ChatGPT, and Gemini.
Today, we’ll delve into these two aspects.
Leveraging AI in SEO
When we’re doing tasks like keyword research, tools such as ChatGPT it can be incredibly helpful. Similarly, AI can be leveraged effectively for content coverage.
Consider how much article writing has transformed in just the last two years. A common question is whether AI-generated content is truly effective. Based on my personal experience, I’ll demystify some of these myths regarding how to best utilize AI content. We’ll explore why some might discourage it, and if it does work, how to set it up and create it effectively. Following that, a site audit remains, as we all know, very important.
Appearing on LLMs for Relevant Queries and Prompts
The second point is getting your website to appear in LLMs for relevant queries and prompts. This is crucial, especially in Pakistan and the subcontinent. After much deliberation, we’ve observed that in the subcontinent, there’s a reluctance to update things. We often stick with the same methods for years. Embracing change is sometimes seen as undesirable, unlike in Western countries where updates are considered essential for every product and feature.
Look at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—their interfaces, features, and even fonts have evolved over time. The same is happening with SEO.
The Rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
With the emergence of platforms like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, and Proplexity, many people, who used to rely on Google for various queries, now turn to ChatGPT. Fair enough.
Does this mean SEO is dead? This question frequently comes to mind. Will traditional SEO, which we use to rank on Google, disappear? A common belief is that since Google’s traffic and searches are decreasing, it’s no longer viable to put effort into ranking there. This is a common myth, often propagated by those not involved in SEO.
This perception leads to a form of laziness, where we prematurely declare something “useless” to avoid doing the work. After all, we need excuses not to work, right? We tell ourselves we’re not lazy, it’s the fault of SEO, or the market, or Google. But there’s no fault there.
After the emergence of LLMs, a new term was coined: AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Previously, it was SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for platforms like Google and Yahoo. Now, with answer engines like ChatGPT, Proplexity, Grok, and DeepSeek, things have changed.
Why AEO Matters
Before diving into technical details, let’s understand why AEO is important. When a new market emerges, existing systems and companies are disrupted. With the advancement of AI, you’ll see a global competition. Freelancers, for example, have noticed that clients are asking for AI integration, even if they don’t fully understand its impact. Why? Because there’s a race, and they want to win it.
Consider an example: A school uses a school management system, or a shop uses an inventory management system or POS system. Similarly, traffic signals currently operate on fixed timings. But what if all these existing systems integrated AI?
In Dubai, some traffic signals are now AI-powered. They don’t turn red unnecessarily. If only six cars are approaching, there’s no reason to stop them, especially if no cars are coming from the other side. Our old system would still turn red because of fixed timings. Now, with AI and sensors, they can detect traffic volume and only stop traffic when necessary. This increases efficiency.
Similarly, an AI-powered school management system would automate many analyses, such as a student’s attendance pattern. If a student consistently arrives a few minutes late, the AI can detect this pattern. LLMs analyze data better and make better decisions based on that analysis, helping with overall optimization.
The same applies to an inventory management system. AI can automatically analyze inventory levels, consumption rates, predict when an item will run out, or when demand will increase. All this predictive analysis is done by AI, significantly increasing efficiency and productivity because decisions are based on data analysis.
The Shift to AEO for Businesses
Now, back to AI SEO and Answer Engine Optimization. Just as a school owner might feel the need to shift to an AI-powered school management system, businesses spending money on advertising will also adapt.
For example, a car rental service in Dubai with a significant budget that was spending heavily on Google Ads is now splitting its budget. Why? Because a large portion of traffic is now coming from LLMs like ChatGPT. So, they allocate budget to ensure their website appears as a reference when someone searches for “car rental in Dubai” through ChatGPT. This creates a new opportunity.
When SEO began, many friends I meet today say I was lucky to start at a good time because now competition is higher. I tell them, “Was there as much traffic, as many internet users, as many search engine users back then as there are today?” Was there as much awareness among companies to allocate a specific budget for SEO? This really took off after COVID. Before, companies didn’t take SEO seriously; they preferred Google Ads. But once they realized the value of free, high-quality and high intent traffic from SEO, it was a game-changer.
I know people in Dubai who worked jobs, for instance, in desert safari businesses. They realized the immense potential in SEO. One young man, who was earning 3,000 dirhams a month, quit his job, launched his own website, found an investor, and invested 10-15,000 dirhams in guest posts and link building. Today, during peak season, he’s doing business worth at least 2-3 lakh dirhams per month. This awareness came after people saw results through testing.
Now is the time when a new thing is emerging: AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Big companies are starting to invest in it. Do you think big companies like Toyota do SEO? Yes, even Google itself has hired SEO professionals.
Consider video editing apps like Filmora. Their parent company, Wondershare, invests heavily in SEO. They realize that investing in SEO is worthwhile. All those companies that now understand the importance of SEO are moving towards AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).
They have allocated a digital marketing budget, splitting it among Google Ads, Meta Ads, SEO, and now, Answer Engine Optimization. So, their existing SEO continues, and a new element, AEO, is added.
Always remember: the person who stays updated in the market is the one who remains relevant. If you insist on not updating yourself, you’ll eventually complain that “SEO is dead.” We use these excuses to comfort ourselves, saying we’re not incompetent, it’s SEO’s fault, or the market’s, or Google’s. But that’s not true.
Tips for Answer Engine Optimization
You likely already know what to keep in mind for Answer Engine Optimization. It’s not strange or complex. First, let me quickly cover leveraging AI tools. Almost 80% of people now use AI tools for SEO, maybe even more. For example, in many of mySEO projects, i also use ChatGPT. Why? Because ChatGPT makes things easier for us. We have no reason not to use it. You should use ChatGPT for almost every task.
The challenge is that very few people know how to effectively use ChatGPT. This is the biggest problem You can’t just give ChatGPT one word and expect it to solve your problem. It won’t solve things with a single word. You need to explain things thoroughly.
Premium Tip for Effective ChatGPT Use
Here’s a premium tip: For your big problems like content structure, paragraph headings, content quality, and entity integration, remember these steps:
Step 1: Identify Strong Competitors
Step 2: Check for a Genuine Author:
Look for a genuine author on their content. Not just someone who writes “Written by Michael Jordan” or someone else behind the scenes. You need to see if a genuine author exists. If they do, collect their writings. Do they only write for that website, or others too?
To verify the author’s authenticity, do some reverse engineering:
- Check their social media handles.
- See if they genuinely participate, write blogs, post, or if their photos are available, or if someone just created a fake persona for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
- This reverse engineering will give you an idea.
So, Step 2 is to find an author among your competitors and collect all their writings. If they’re ranking number one for keywords or a niche you’re targeting, or if your niche isn’t serious, you can look for a serious example within that niche.
Step 3: Train ChatGPT with Collected Data:
Collect all the author’s writings. Now, feed all those writings to ChatGPT, either by uploading files or by manually giving it each article. Tell ChatGPT: “Look, this is my website, this is my main keyword I want to rank for. I’ve designed my website, and I want you to do the copywriting for my homepage.
You need to tell me what my hero section should look like, my testimonial section, my product section, pricing, everything.
In the first phase, we collected all the author’s data. Now, we move to the homepage. Take the content of all your competitors’ homepages and give it to ChatGPT. Better yet, take a full-page screenshot of your competitor’s website (there’s a Chrome app for that).
Tell ChatGPT: “Learn its structure, its copywriting, its visual elements, its design elements, everything. You need to learn this as an expert.” Give it an instruction: “Don’t take any action; just tell me ‘Okay’ when you’re done.” Once it’s read it, it will ask what to do next. Now, do the same with the second, third, fourth, and fifth competitor. Give ChatGPT at least five to ten competitors’ designs and content.
Now, tell ChatGPT two things:
- “You act as a copywriting expert.”
- Also specify your niche. For example, if you’re writing a blog about “how to fix a kitchen pipe,” tell it: “Act as a copywriting expert and a plumbing expert.” This is crucial: whatever you want it to do, you need to make it become that expert. We don’t need a general content writing expert; we’re also content writing experts. Google and LLMs say that authority rests with those who actually do the work.
This is why, when affiliate marketing saw a bit of a downfall, we said it was over. But it wasn’t. Google is saying, “You’re sitting in your comfortable home, getting a haircut from a roadside barber, and you’re explaining to New Yorkers what the best massage chair is? That’s not fair. You’ve never even seen a massage chair, let alone used one, and you’re telling them they should use it.” So, Google cracked down, and we, as usual, cried that affiliate marketing was finished. It’s not; we’re the ones who haven’t adapted.
When you give content for copywriting, tell it to “learn the patterns of all these competitors. Now, tell me what they were thinking when they wrote their hero section, what they were thinking when they wrote their headings below.” It will explain everything.
Now, tell it something else: “I’m giving you a section-by-section screenshot of my website. Based on what you’ve learned from these competitors, you need to provide me with content that is unique, exceptional, and written as an expert.” And finally, tell it: “No AI words should be used.“
Try this out; you’ll be amazed at how perfectly ChatGPT can generate content. I’m talking about service sites and copywriting here. Once it generates the content, go back to your website, take a screenshot of your hero section, and give it to ChatGPT. Tell it: “Now, keeping everything you’ve learned above in mind, provide me with copywriting for this section.”
ChatGPT might try to rephrase your existing content, but you need to push it. Tell it: “Don’t just improve my copywriting; provide me with new copywriting based on what you learned from their patterns.” There might be issues, for instance, the heading length for your hero section might increase. You need to continuously tweak it. We use ChatGPT, but we don’t explain to it what we want. It’s a blank slate. We need to tell it what to do. It’s like an intelligent robot, but we have to guide it.
Remember the movie Robot? The coconut scene, and the police officer saying “cut” (meaning “pay money”), and the robot literally picks up a knife and cuts things? AI will do what we tell it to. So, make some tweaks. You can tell it the desired length, even the pixel limit for your heading, or how many characters it should be.
Integrating SEO into AI Content
Now, add another SEO instruction: “Keep it SEO optimized and write it in a way that it should help appear in LLMs.” Also, add this: “Do an NLP (Natural Language Processing) analysis of my competitor’s content. Extract entities, and my content should be entity-rich.” Try these five to ten things today, and you’ll be amazed by the results. This is just a small tip.
So, when you’re working as a copywriter, or doing SEO for a client (whether it’s a Western, European, or Gulf client), you can approach things this way.
I forgot to mention, why did we take screenshots? We could have just given it plain text, right? We gave it screenshots so ChatGPT could analyze our UI (User Interface). UI is incredibly important nowadays. If all other factors are constant, a better UI will rank better. So, after giving it your competitors’ designs, give it your own design and tell it: “Make my design better, modern, pixel-perfect.” You can specify colors and add as much detail as you like; the more detail you provide, the more refined the output will be.
Once you provide all this to ChatGPT, you can even ask it to create a mockup of your design, showing where each element should be. You’ll love it! Do try this.
The Power of Expert Data and Personal Experience
We discussed using authors’ data, remember? It’s like giving ChatGPT all the ghazals of Jagjit Sinh or Mirza Ghalib. Tell it: “Learn their patterns—Ghalib’s tone, wording, weight, the meaning behind his verses, and the psychology.” Then tell it: “Write a couplet like Ghalib.” It will write one! Try it. It will write perfectly in English; in Hindi or Urdu, it might be slightly less polished because it hasn’t learned Urdu as extensively yet, but it’s still very much improved, even better than some Google Translate results.
A question often comes up: once it writes something, there might be some AI elements. We check for AI detection with tools like Originality.AI. The point isn’t whether AI is present; there’s nothing wrong or shameful about AI. The issue isn’t using AI; it’s about value addition, flow, and avoiding a robotic voice.
Answer engines prefer content from someone who has written it themselves, someone with their own expertise. A plumber writing about how to fix a kitchen pipe deserves to rank better because they’ll know explicit details related to the job that a content writer, or even ChatGPT, might not know. The expert adds their own value. When you don’t add value, the content remains robotic, and Google says, “I have plenty of robotic content; what will I do with yours?” Google has no problem with AI; it has a problem with a lack of value.
What’s your experience, your expertise, your authority on the subject? This is the core concept of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). If you have these, Google has no problem. If not, the content remains general, and Google already has an abundance of general data, as does ChatGPT. Add your own value, add your unique perspective—that makes any content valuable and will be loved by search engines, LLMs, everyone.
Addressing Competition and Improving UI
Another question: “I’ve started a website, but my competitors are doing better in terms of content and design. I want to be much better. What should I do?”
If your direct competitors aren’t very strong, find a parent niche or a more serious niche related to yours. For example, if you’re writing about flowerpots, the parent niche would be gardening. Analyze their data, feed it to ChatGPT, and tell it: “Learn from them. Now, suggest content, structure, and keyword clusters for my niche, including entities and heading styles, similar to theirs.”
Memorize these four words; they will make your content and even your personality perfect: stats, facts, and real-world case studies or examples. Make these four words a part of your professional life. Whatever you do, it should be based on these four things. This will subtly shift your data from generalized to personalized.
The era of “I have many friends, but Ali is my best friend” is over. Now, you need to explain why Ali is your best friend. The difference lies in the creativity you add. The more creative you are, the better you’ll rank.
Even experienced experts and students who are doing well financially sometimes give ChatGPT short, four-word prompts. You’re using it like a search engine. What’s the benefit? You’re not using it for in-depth research. Unless you thoroughly explore it and push it to reveal its true potential, it won’t. Someone even told me their breakup story, and ChatGPT told them, “Run away, this is dangerous!” He listened, broke up, and now can’t win her back. That was generic advice, not personalized.
You mentioned authors, but you also said people use fake ones. If you can’t find a genuine author to analyze, look at their website. If it’s ranking, there’s a reason. Our concept is to learn from their patterns. If an author exists and has a lot of content, it will be easier to train ChatGPT. If we just give it one article, it won’t be as well-trained. It might still work, but more data is needed for better training to learn patterns.
UI as a Ranking Factor
“My direct competitors are weak, but they’re still getting traffic. I want to improve my design and content.”
I understand. Even if you’re already better, there’s always room for improvement. Is UI a direct ranking signal? Not directly, but it heavily impacts user experience. If you have two articles with the same content, but one is poorly formatted and the other is well-presented with good line spacing, headings, and overall design, which one would you prefer to read? The better-formatted one. The idea is that the better you present things, the more users will engage with your content.
Adapt or Be Left Behind: AI Evolution Is Inevitable
Budgets are shifting. Teams are pivoting. Businesses are now allocating specific funds for AEO and Google Search AI Mode optimization.
This is your opportunity:
- Embrace AI-enhanced strategies
- Deliver real value through expertise-based content
- Optimize for search engines and answer engines
To stay ahead, brands must combine SEO, AEO, and AI-powered content strategies effectively and intentionally.
