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James Dooley and Andy Chadwick explain how businesses can increase their AI visibility in 2026 using advanced Answer Engine Optimisation, persona-led prompt tracking and off-site brand presence.
This video explains which digital marketing strategies businesses focused on AI visibility should focus on in 2026 to improve LLM citations, brand mentions across search and social, and conversion from AI-driven enquiries. James Dooley and Andy Chadwick start with KPI tracking because persona-led prompt tracking reveals where each LLM is pulling answers from and exposes gaps in your visibility. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.
The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for businesses focused on AI visibility.
PromoSEO lead generation for businesses focused on AI visibility recently received recognition as the "Best AI Visibility Lead Generation Agency."
Advanced AEO Strategies to Increase AI Visibility (with Andy Chadwick) is available on:
AI SEO and Business Automation Podcast is founded by James Dooley because he teaches business owners how artificial intelligence accelerates growth. The show explains AI models, agents, and automation systems because practical guidance helps companies scale with less effort.
James Dooley: Increasing AI visibility using advanced AEO strategies. Today I'm joined with Andy Chadwick. And Andy, you and your business partner do a lot when it comes to AI SEO or GEO or AEO and stuff like that. You've also been a very advanced search engine optimisation specialist as well over the years. So I want to first start and say, do you differentiate AEO and SEO as being two different services and, if so, why?
Andy Chadwick: Yeah, I mean, we do, um, and there's two... There's two reasons why we do. Uh, the first is, is a, is a technical one that there is, despite what we see online, um, there is a Venn diagram overlap. AEO, GEO, whatever, and SEO have a lot of the same stuff, but there are some nuances and there's some differences that you have to go down with AI SEO. I, I would say AI SEO is like all... It's all everything SEO, but then there's a bit added on to it. Um, so there is differences. So that's the one, that's the one reason we class them as different things. And the second one is, is just a, a brand positioning one. It's if you're an agency and you are selling, uh, and a client asks for AI SEO and they specifically want that and you tell them it's the same as SEO, but we can do that, and then another client is saying, "Oh, no. We specifically do that." You're going to lose the contract and the money. So, yeah, both from a technical perspective and, and a branding perspective, we absolutely would class them as two different things.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. On the Venn diagram, not that it really matters, but how much of an overlap would you say you think AEO and SEO is? Like 70%, 80%, 90%? Like, what would you say on there the overlap is?
Andy Chadwick: I actually think of... I said Venn diagram. I think maybe that's the wrong tool because the Venn diagram suggests there's certain things in SEO that don't apply to AI SEO, and I think... I think that's incorrect as I'm sort of working out in my head. Everything we would do to rank in LLM would be SEO as well, but then more added on. So I'd almost say... I'd almost say a Venn diagram is the wrong chart. Um, but if it was a Venn diagram, I would say maybe about 80%.
James Dooley: Yeah. I, I normally say around 80%. See, there is certain nuances with AEO that we do that we wouldn't do for SEO. Like, prime example, with SEO, we normally with our clients would say go and get as many reviews on Google Business Profile as possible, right? However, now knowing with the query fan-out terms that sometimes they might be looking at specific website like Clutch or DesignRush, or they could be looking at G2 or Capterra, or if they're a local contractor, like Yelp, we might then specifically say you need to go and get more reviews on Yelp. And I never used to do that as an SEO, but knowing now that Yelp is being... The API is being called upon, we're now saying, okay, you now need to go and get... And I don't think it increases rankings within Google Search, but it definitely helps with more LLM visibility. Is there anything like that for reviews, or are you trying to get them to echo what they say on their own site off-site more when you're looking at doing, like, an Answer Engine Optimisation?
Andy Chadwick: Yeah. And that's, that's a big part of it. So that's, that's what I'm saying. It's like all the bits with SEO with this bit added on. So you still need your site technically optimised. It needs to be in some ways more technically optimised because LLMs, largely speaking, won't execute JavaScript. So, if you've got a whole site doing that, then you're screwed. Uh, so you still need the technical side. Um, for some LLMs, and also, this is a really interesting point, there's a difference between each LLM. And actually, there's an audience for each one as well. And so, sorry, I'm going off about five tangents here, but a good example is Gemini and Google will often pull from top-ranking sites. So, your authority is still a big thing. So, link building is still a big thing. ChatGPT, less so. Uh, but then we come to the, the review sites that I'm just about to answer your question on. So actually there's also a difference between each LLM and you got to know where your audience is to optimise for the right one. So, yeah, all those SEO things, uh, we're still doing link building to get the authority for those and, and... But then, yeah, the, the big part you mentioned is, is this, this off-site stuff, uh, this ORM side of it. And it's, it's being in the room that that particular LLM is going to. I'm actually writing a blog post right, right now about it. I was doing it just before we started this, uh, because I ran a test with 200 queries, um, and, and saw where they were pulling from. And they range from, like, banking queries to financial ones, and depending on the industry there's a certain room it goes to. So I'm looking at a lot of finance ones are going to MoneySuperMarket, um, or money... Not MoneySuperMarket. What's that money for? There's a money forum one. Can't remember the name. Um, there's a few on... Yeah, there's a few in the UK. Yeah. So, it's going to all of them. So, we need to be there. Um, all of the... We're expecting our first child in November. So, I put a load of, a load of questions on that in there. All of those are going to Mumsnet. So, you need to be on Mumsnet and talking about your product there. Um, Reddit, despite what everyone's saying, is still a big channel, uh, in different ways. It maybe isn't getting cited, but it's certainly going to Reddit, as my business partner Saganthan's latest paper just showed. It's certainly going to Reddit to, to qualify information, if not cite it. It's looking at that for reviews. And not only is it going to Reddit in general, it's going to a specific subreddit. So, if you talk about, um, Pokémon and you sell Pokémon cards, it is going to the Pokémon subreddit. It's not going to Reddit as a whole, it's going to that. So, you need to be in that room. Then you've got all your reviews. Yeah. We're seeing it pull from, uh, one of the clients we work with at the moment. They're, um, they're like a cloud security, uh, like a consultancy. So if, you know, if you're building on Amazon and you want everything to be secure, you, you get them to come in and audit it. Uh, we're finding that ChatGPT is going a lot to, uh... Is it... Is Clutch or Clutch, is G2? Yeah. And there's, there's a few others. So we need to be around there a lot. So it's, it's knowing where they're going and pulling from and, and operating there, as you said, rather than just your own site, but then making sure it echoes your own site and backs that story up.
James Dooley: Yeah. And then with regards to echoing that information, is there any specific techniques of what you're doing? So obviously with backlinks, everyone used to be back in the day obsessed with, let's say, digital PR, guest post, and niche edits. They seem to be the biggest three things that people used to do for power and passing PageRank. But what now would you be trying to do? Are you still using those? Are you trying to do more? Is it more guest posts? Is it more press releases? Like, what, what stuff are you doing off-line to try and echo what's being seen on your website?
Andy Chadwick: Yeah, so it's, um, it's basically we've got a link-building department and then we've got a department that works with, I call it social influencers, uh, and they sort of retrained a little bit. So the link builders are now... They're still building links, but we're not... So we still like the link, but we'd like... We're going after these... Whatever anyone says, these listicle-type things still work. And so going after these, these lists, these, um, top 10 whatever. So getting featured on them, even without a link, getting your brand mentioned is a big thing that they're sort of doing. And it's sort of educating the clients that the link doesn't matter as much if this is our goal. Uh, it's more about the brand being mentioned. It's, it's then press releases, as you said. It's, um, making sure... You know how in the days of SEO we had the, the NAP, the name, address and phone number, and making sure it's consistent across the web? It's the same with whatever the story is or the service you want to sell it. So, making sure that that is on these top 10 listicles, making sure that you're being mentioned on Reddit. So, our social influencers work with big Reddit brand... Or big Reddit accounts to organically engage in that conversation and get them mentioned across there. Um, making sure... Making a concerted effort that our client is getting clients to review them on all the necessary sites. And not just because it's good for brand rep anymore, but because it's pulling from there and you need it to be there. Um, what else is there? Yeah. And getting those same sort of, I guess, profiles to talk about on Mumsnet. We need to drop in, uh, our brand there. Yeah. I think... Yeah. YouTube's another big one. So YouTube gets cited a lot. So if video strategy wasn't part of what you used to do, it needs to be a big part of what you do now. And so it's educating them and we're writing the scripts for them. It's like making sure these words are said in, in these points, but also making the video engaging. So it's got to have a hook. It's got to have, uh, like closed loops every few paragraphs to keep the, uh, the watcher interested. So, there's a lot more of that we're doing.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Video, video is huge. Um, I said people are saying, "Oh, Reddit's not being cited as much." Like, Reddit's still an absolute powerhouse. Um, all social media, like even Facebook groups and stuff like that now have started to... Facebook, um, Instagram's good, LinkedIn posts. Um, not only LinkedIn articles, but LinkedIn, just like a status, tweets as well can index. There's so many things now that can influence and actually manipulate or influence LLMs. Um, it's, it's amazing times. What, um... What would you say if someone's started out now, they're ranking in position number one in Google? So, they've done well with their SEO, but now they're struggling to get into Google AI Overview, Google AI Mode or ChatGPT, but they're ranking in position number one in Google Search. What would you say, like, someone who's listening to this, what would you tell them that they need to start doing now as part of their AEO? Because that's the biggest one for me. The diff... The biggest differentiating factor is there's so many people that say, "Well, I'm already number one from an SEO, but my SEO agency can't increase my AI visibility." And that's why a lot of them now are going, "I need an, an AI expert to get me cited." But what's the main things you would say from SEO strategies, if they're ranking position number one, that they probably need to just start doing to get themselves more AI citations?
Andy Chadwick: So the problem with the, the, the biggest problem I'm seeing is, um... So you need to work back from what, what they're not, to your quote, ranking for in the LLM. And so this is the big problem I see with how people are treating... They're treating LLM and ranking in LLM is the same as SEO, and it's not. So let's say you are, um, a boutique trainer company. You've, you've, you've made this, uh, incredible trainer which is specific for running marathons because it's got, you know, a carbon plate and it's really light, but it... You can only use it once. That's, that's what you sell. What... You rank number one for marathon training shoe, uh, on Google, and you're wondering why you're not getting cited in ChatGPT. So, let's, let's set that up as the, um, the example here. The first problem they're doing is they're probably typing in ChatGPT that very literal question. What is a, a good marathon training shoe? What trainer should I run the marathon in? Um, or they're using Peec AI or an LLM prompt tracking software and they've got that query and a lo... Along with a load of others that they, you know, sell. So that's the first problem. Um, if I was to go and... I, I ran this experiment. I've written a post about it. If I was to type in... So I do, I do a lot of CrossFit and so my ChatGPT has a lot of context on that because I'm asking about how to recover from CrossFit and this and that. Uh, my friend does a lot of rock climbing and he talks to ChatGPT a lot about rock climbing. I ran this experiment. I asked ChatGPT, uh... I'm running the marathon... Well, I'm running a half marathon actually next week. So I asked it to give me a trainer recommendation and it gave me one. I asked him to ask the same question and it gave him a very different, uh, a very different example. I fed both of this back into ChatGPT and said, "Why did you tell him that and me this?" Uh, and it was because the injuries and the strain that we both have doing our respective sports are very different. And so it recommended a different trainer based on the strain my Achilles has based on, uh, compared to the one that the balls of his feet have because of the whatever. Now, ChatGPT has all that context. And any other query. I could type in... I don't know. I mean, you, you seem like a really healthy guy, so maybe not you, but, like, I could type in restaurants in London and it would give me a load of healthy ones, and I've got a gamer friend and he'd get a load of pizzas. It's got all that context and that memory. And that's a, the problem when you type in that query is it's, it's basing a recommendation off of the context of everything else. But it's also the problem when you upload all those queries to LLM Pulse or Peec AI or whatever you're using. It doesn't have any context. So it's just hitting it fresh with a new API and it doesn't have anything. It can get something. So the first problem is all of your queries, if you're using a tracker, uh, which I imagine you would be, should have some sort of persona attached to it. So you need to go after your... And you might have five. So your marathon training shoe might now have five audiences you're after. So it should be, I am a CrossFitter. Recommend me a marathon training shoe. I am a rock climber. Recommend... So go after your, your key... And I know it's more expensive, but you need to do it because you might get different answers. And then, and then you work backwards from that. So then, okay, why aren't I appearing for... Maybe, so you run those five prompts and maybe you are appearing for the, the, the CrossFit guy. You're not appearing for the rock climbing guy. Why aren't I doing that? And then you look at why. What's being cited? And it's, um, it's maybe Runner's World or... And then we come back to your question. Then you need to be in those places to be talked about. So, if you're a, a CrossFit trainer, you need to be starting mentioning on the CrossFit, uh, subreddits and the CrossFit groups, the CrossFit Facebook groups. Then you want to go after the, the, the rock climbing ones, and you, you need to be mentioned on all those places. So, you need to work backwards from, from what it's citing. So, you need, you need to... You need to prompt track. You need to put it in there to see what is ranking or what's being cited and, and then work out why it's being cited. But the biggest problem is you shouldn't go after those general queries anyway. You need to attach a persona to it because LLMs have context, and so you need to give it that context. Um, and, and it's interesting because you see really cool things. We're working with a banking, uh, a banking client. They... Big American company. Well, actually no, they're a small American company, but they, they're a bank for SMBs. And they obviously are wondering why they're not... They rank really well for best business bank for small accounts or whatever, but they, they're not really visible in LLM. We looked at their prompts because they're, they're tracking literally, uh, small business bank accounts. And then what we do is we plugged in all of the small businesses that they might typically go after. You know, plumbers, electricians, whatever. And it's really interesting for a spread. They were, they were really visible for a few of them, but not visible for the others. And when we look at why, it's because A, they might not have an adequate landing page for it, and B, they're not operating in the areas they are. There was a huge, uh, like electrician... I don't know if it was a subre... No, DIY subreddit, uh, and someone was asking about they're starting up this, this small roofing company and everyone's recommended bank, and that's where it was pulling from for a roofing company. So they didn't get recommended for that. So it's, by doing that, you'll see gaps in your own strategy. So that's, that's my answer to that, is you, you need to work backwards with the prompt, but you need to make sure your prompt has a persona attached to it.
James Dooley: Andy Chadwick, I absolutely love that answer, and I'll give you an example why I love it. Um, we used to become obsessed with prompts. We used to become obsessed with, like, like most SEOs are, um, keyword ranking, um, tracking specific keywords on ranking. And we started to realise exactly what you're on about, the, the history and the persona. And then what we ended up doing is, for... We own a company called Soft Surfaces Limited in the UK and it does playground construction. And what we did is we realised that we had seven different ideal customer personas. So it could have been someone that wants it in the garden. So, like, a homeowner that wants it in the garden, a headteacher that wants it in the school, a construction, uh, company, an architect. And when we started to put in all these... Like, I am an architect and I'm looking to specify a playground surface and stuff like that. When we started putting that information in, the query fan-out terms that came back, and there was like 20 of them that came back, was all related to, like, BS EN standards, um, the material that was being used and very analytical around an architectural specification. The headteacher all came back with stuff like kids and children and safety and all that element. And a homeowner came back all about the price, how cheap it is. So not... And on the others, they didn't worry... The architect never once anything came back about cheap or premium or cost. It was all about the specification. And when we started to map out our whole customer persona of who we work with, then get every single one of the keywords, that's when we started to realise a topical authority can be different for the exact same product but for different customer personas. And at that point of view, we then started to map out, like, an external semantic content network, not just for our, on our own website, but on press releases. If there's any reviews that we can get specifically. We don't have enough reviews for headteachers of schools. Okay, we don't have enough reviews. And we would proactively go out to every single previous customer what we was lacking to try to get them to leave us, like, a five-star review. It could have been on Yelp. It could have been on Google Business Profiles. And once we started to build that up, literally you could start seeing our LLM visibility climbing for, like, school playground surfacing as opposed to just, let's say, like, wet pour surfacing, which is what the, the architect would be. And that's how we massively increased our AI visibility. I don't feel enough people talk about the customer personas and how they can influence the different types of searches that could be being done. And that's when I started to understand semantics properly and, and topical maps properly. I'm like, wow, the amount of different ways someone could be searching for the exact same outcome is pretty scary. Anyway, and go on. Sorry. Go on.
Andy Chadwick: Oh, I was going to say, it's funny, is, um, I feel like LLMs have just made it... It's made it what marketing should have always been about, is understanding the customer. Exactly. And then creating that.
James Dooley: But yeah, sorry, James.
Andy Chadwick: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I was actually going to end up by saying it, it pretty much exactly what you said. LLMs now and AI visibility has just made SEOs better marketers in general, better holistic marketers in understanding the whole suite of digital marketing. The amount of people now that talk about social media and talk about, um, being seen and trying to get more reviews and more awards, and it's like a lot of these traditional marketers says this was just marketing 15 years ago. You're just now not just trying to rank for by doing PageRank distribution and trying to get power and specific query string matching on keywords. Now you're going down the whole holistic marketing suite. But go on. I've got one more good example for you as well, actually, where I think things have taken... Sorry, I know this is running over properly.
James Dooley: No, no, it's fine. It's fine. There's, uh, one thing I have also now changed what we do is we used to talk a lot about optimising images because image search was massive in, in SEO. Well, sorry, a lot of people search for images, but I never really... And I did it, you know, I added the alt text and I, I made it... It was a nice picture. But I never really saw... We... I guess we didn't work with the right brands. I guess if you were, um, a brand that sold something nice and residential, you might actually get a lot of ROI from that. But I didn't see it with the brands that we work with because of the sort of products that we sold. But now AI is a thing and people are using Google Lens and taking pictures on ChatGPT and asking things a lot more. There's a bigger... There's a bigger reason for me to do it. And, like, we work with, um, one of these parts wholesalers. Like, they sell... They sell dishwasher parts and Hoover parts and, like, if, if you need a repair. And so you're optimising around the part names, the traditional Google stuff. But what's happening now is, um, if your dishwasher part breaks, you just pull it out and you take a picture of it and you ask what it is, and it will go off and find it. So, like, it's almost the better images now. Obviously no stock images. But it's better, like, taking... Rather than an image of that part on a nice white background, is if you're, like, a parts wholesaler, it's like optimising to what someone's actually going to be searching for on Google Lens. So it's taking a picture of it maybe a bit grubby in situ on the dishwasher with a bit of the muck on it that's there, because that is the thing that will get picked up straight away, matches it, and then your client site does it. So image optimisation has changed a lot for... Since AI has become a thing as well, which I find really interesting.
Andy Chadwick: Yeah, it's huge. Like, the amount of traffic we get, not just from the AI visibility, but from places like Pinterest now, especially on, like, certain terms. Like, on, in the example of the playground one, playground designs or playground ideas, the amount of people that searching that and straight away right at the top is the image carousel. But like you're talking about there with regards to, um, almost like error codes or, or products that need fixing. So, we do it a little bit on the surfacing with regards to, uh, repairs where it's damaged, and then, and then not only got the picture of the damage on the actual image, we're saying what the next steps are. And as the next steps there, they're picking within Google Lens, they're picking up the content as well, which, which works incredible. It's, um, yeah, it's crazy how, how we're now looking at video, image, social media, not just your own website, um, backlinks and stuff. Like, it's, um, it has made us all-round better marketers, um, in general.
James Dooley: Yeah. But anyway, Andy Chadwick, it's been an absolute pleasure. Anyone who's watching this, we hope you like the episode on increasing AI visibility using advanced AEO strategies. Check out the link in the description where we're also talking about on another episode about using AI, like Claude Code, um, to build websites out and how we're using autonomous agents and doing agentic SEO and how AI is supercharging our SEO efforts. Andy Chadwick, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having...
Andy Chadwick: Cheers, James. Thanks for having me.