In October 2024, ChatGPT announced that they would be releasing “ChatGPT Search” – an official search engine integration into the LLM model. This new functionality pulls in from the Bing search results. What’s interesting is that instead of utilizing ChatGPT’s internal training data, they utilize search results from the Web.
We decided to experiment with these results, to see if it was possible to adjust the output. After testing, we found that IT IS POSSIBLE to influence the ChatGPT Search results for your brand.
We’ve been doing some monitoring around how ChatGPT Search talks about Go Fish Digital, especially for certain queries that we know are important to the business. One of the queries that performs well for us is “digital PR agency”. Historically, we’ve performed well in Google for this query and have recently seen incoming business referencing ChatGPT as well. This was a query worth monitoring for us.
When looking at how ChatGPT Search listed our company compared to competitors, we found that there was a gap in how ChatGPT was producing results for us compared to competitors. For each competitor, ChatGPT Search would list a few “Notable Clients”, generally larger companies they’ve done digital PR work for. However, they weren’t listing this information for us.
This was a missed opportunity to build trust signals through ChatGPT Search.
Fortunately, we have an listicle article on our site that ChatGPT Search was frequently utilizing as a citation. We knew it would scrape content from this article, so we wanted to test if adjusting our content would influence the output.
We went to the article and added “Notable Clients” to the article. We utilized a bullet list to better structure this as key value pairs that an search engine/LLM would be more likely to view as a data source.
After waiting a week, we saw that ChatGPT Search started finally pulling in “Notable Clients” when listing Go Fish Digital in the output! This was a huge win and something that now helps enrich our own listing within ChatGPT Search.
So the takeaway here, is that when ChatGPT uses the Search function, right now you CAN have the ability to influence the output. The first thing you need is an article/piece of content that can feed into the citations. If you’re able to get that, you can start adjusting the content to better control the output of how ChatGPT Search talks about your brand.
What The Industry Says About This Post
Original post can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7269699840027025408/
1. Content Strategies and Optimization for ChatGPT Search
- Many comments highlight the potential of optimizing content for ChatGPT by structuring information for easy citation, including notable clients, awards, and testimonials.
- There’s an emphasis on “training” ChatGPT by strategically including relevant details to increase visibility in search results.
2. Evolving SEO Practices
- Commenters note that SEO is shifting towards influencing AI-driven systems like ChatGPT, marking a move beyond traditional search engines.
- The term “GenAI Optimizer” (GEO) was humorously suggested as the future of SEO.
3. Technical and Strategic Insights
- Some technical comments suggest understanding tokenization and foundational datasets for better influencing AI responses (e.g., Barry Hurd).
- Testing for other influencing factors, such as bullets vs. sentences, was proposed to refine optimization methods.
4. Case Study Validation
- Multiple commenters found the case study insightful and expressed interest in replicating or testing similar strategies for their brands.
- Others shared related experiments and findings, including traffic from ChatGPT and the impact of structured content.
5. Broader Implications
- Discussions touched on the future of ChatGPT as it potentially integrates advertising and monetization strategies.
- Questions were raised about whether such strategies influence visibility or only enhance the presentation of results once included.
6. Community Engagement
- Commenters appreciated the shared insights, tagging peers and suggesting collaborations to explore similar optimization tactics.
- Many acknowledged the relevance of the findings for brands adapting to AI-driven search platforms.
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About Chris Long
Chris Long is the VP of Marketing at Go Fish Digital. With 10+ years of SEO experience, Chris works unique problems and advanced search situations to help clients improve organic traffic through a deep understanding of Google's algorithm and web technology. Chris has advised on the search strategies for clients such as GEICO, Adobe & The New York Times. He is a contributor for Moz, Search Engine Land, and Search Engine Journal. He is also a speaker at industry conferences such as MozCon, SMX East, BrightonSEO and more.Join thousands of marketers to get the best search news in under 5 minutes. Get resources, tips and more with The Splash newsletter:
