Stop Optimizing for Keywords. Start Answering Questions: How to Help your Team Understand AI Search Optimisation
We ran a team exercise to better understand how to optimize content for AI search.
Last week, I convinced a client of mine to go all in on optimizing for AI search (GEO). I was training the team on how to create blog content that would show up in AI-driven results like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews—and I hit a wall I didn’t expect.
We started with what I thought would be a simple team exercise. I asked the team to take a blog title we were planning to write. For example: “What is AI Search?” (That’s not the real title—just an example to protect my client’s privacy.) Then I asked them to outline the article.
Right away, the responses came back focused on keywords. “We need to mention ‘keyword, keyword, keyword,’ and so on. I stopped them.
“No. Just answer the question.”
So I asked again: What is AI Search?
One of them responded: “AI Search is the ability for generative AI tools—like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity—to retrieve and synthesize information from multiple sources to generate a direct, conversational answer to a user’s question.”
Exactly. That was the start of the blog post.
So we repeated the exercise: I gave the team more titles—“How does AI change SEO?”, “What should I do to appear in ChatGPT?”—and each time, we skipped the usual brainstorming and instead began by simply answering the question as clearly and helpfully as possible. This includes providing references to each piece of data. Explaining the answer simply and then expanding as you would in a conversation or research paper.
AI search requires a complete mindset shift.
Generative AI agents are summarizers. They ingest your content, chunk it into meaning, and determine whether your blog post or site answers the user’s question directly, clearly, and credibly.
So, here’s the big shift: You don’t optimize for keywords. You optimize for answers.
AI agents are increasingly acting as front doors to the web. A user asks:
“What’s the best way to introduce AI into my small business?”
“How does AI search work compared to Google search?”
“What’s a good content strategy for AI search?”
And instead of sifting through 10 blue links, the agent just tells them.
Now ask yourself: Is your content the one giving the answer?
Doubt me? Just check out the impressions we’ve been getting—after only a few days of posting AI search-optimized blog content. Looks promising right!
If you are interested in working with us. Head to Callm Intelligence, or message me here!
