How to Capture AI Search Traffic in 2025: 10 Experts Reveal What Works

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Discover the top strategies to win AI search traffic in 2025. Ten experts share proven visibility tactics, from embeddings to glossaries, to help your content rank in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

• Stop writing to rank; write to answer (Chris Kirksey) 
• Clarity and structured content are the new SEO (Will Melton)
• Make your content human and machine-readable (Brian Clark)
• Make your content conversational and modular (Hone John Tito)
• Distribute where the AI roams (Eric Bai)
• Build the signals AI looks for (Sasha Berson)
• Build your own Wikipedia (Sal Mohammed)
• Use short expert answers + schema (Mircea Dima)
• Adopt Question-based language (Kinjal Mehta & Jamilyn Trainor)

Traditional SEO isn’t cutting it anymore. If you’re still optimising for blue links and meta tags, you’re missing where the real attention is going.

In 2025, AI search is the main game. People are skipping search engines and asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini instead. That means if your brand isn’t showing up in those answers, you’re invisible.

How do you actually get found in this new world?

We asked ten AI experts who are already winning in AI search to break down what’s working right now. From glossary hacks to vector embeds, here are the tactics that get you cited, surfaced, and remembered by both humans and machines.

The New Rules of Visibility in AI Search

AI search doesn’t reward the same things Google’s old algorithms did. Instead of focusing solely on backlinks or keyword density, visibility in AI comes from being structured, retrievable, and trusted.

Chris Kirksey, CEO of Direction.com, a healthcare SEO agency, has seen this shift happen in real time.

We’re now seeing 30% of inbound traffic coming from AI-generated summaries, mostly through ChatGPT and Perplexity. This shift happened when we stopped writing to rank and started writing to answer.

That shift involved moving away from robotic blog posts and toward patient-centred language, literally pulled from real intake calls, chats, and voicemails. His team rebuilt content around natural questions, like:

Why does my tooth hurt when I drink cold water?

After restructuring a Florida-based dental client’s service pages around this Q&A-style format, they jumped from 300 to 1,800 monthly visits in just six weeks. Now, those same pages are cited by AI tools in chats across multiple cities because they answer real questions in local, conversational ways.

But Kirksey’s team doesn’t stop at publishing.

We don’t just publish and hope. We monitor how often our content shows up in AI responses using prompt testing and GA4 traffic analysis.

When Perplexity featured one of their articles, they launched a dedicated answer hub, which brought in 220 calls in just three weeks.

Their strategy goes beyond on-site optimisation. It includes:

• Conversational Q&A stacks
• Nested schema for retrievability
• Seeding high-quality answers into forums like Reddit and Quora

While others chase backlinks, we focus on feeding the sources AI models trust. If your content doesn’t answer a real question someone would ask a doctor or a friend, it won’t get found by search engines or AI.

So what does visibility look like in this world?

• You get mentioned in AI answers even without being the top-ranking site.
• Your definitions, frameworks, or checklists get cited in zero-click responses.
• You become a trusted node in the AI’s knowledge graph.

To get there, you need to adapt your content strategy for how AI sees, retrieves, and trusts content. So we spoke to 11 experts to share their experience on what works in 2025.

So, let’s begin.

Expert Strategies to Capture AI Search Traffic

Here are what works in 2025:

1. Clarity and Structured Content Is the New SEO

In the AI era, content that isn’t structured simply doesn’t get seen. Large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity rely on clean markup, semantic clarity, and modular formatting to find and surface answers.

Will Melton, CEO of Xponent21, a digital marketing and SEO agency, reworked his entire content stack around this idea, and the numbers speak for themselves: “We’ve built a proprietary AI SEO framework and recently applied it to our own business with measurable, outsized results.”

That included a 4,162% increase in organic traffic, impressions growing from 1,000 to 168,000, and 5% of all traffic now coming directly from AI tools.

Zero inbound leads in August 2024 → now dozens per week, many highly qualified and fueling a multimillion-dollar sales pipeline.

Melton says this success came from shifting their content strategy to focus on LLM retrievability, prompt alignment, and citation. The message is clear. If your content can’t be interpreted, it won’t be included. Structure is no longer just a best practice; it’s a requirement.

For industries where precision matters, AI search is changing how content needs to be written.

Marcus Denning, senior lawyer at MK Law, a criminal law defence firm in Melbourne, has seen this shift firsthand, especially in criminal law, where potential clients are often looking for fast, clear answers to urgent questions.

The rise of AI has reshaped how I create legal content, especially in criminal law, where clients seek direct, plain-language answers.

Instead of publishing long essays, Denning’s team restructured their content to mirror how people actually ask legal questions on AI platforms. Each article now uses scenario-based examples, bullet lists, jurisdiction-specific labels, and clear timelines.

I redesigned articles to match how people ask questions on AI platforms (e.g., ‘What are the effects of drug possession in Victoria?’), focusing on clear, structured responses.

This AI-aligned structure has already paid off. After updating around 50 key pages:

• AI-driven referral traffic rose 38%
• Direct inquiry calls increased 22%
• The result: roughly $48,000 in new retainers with zero ad spend

The shift to concise, segmented content proved more effective than traditional long-form essays, showing that AI favors clarity and structure, which also benefits client engagement and conversions.

For legal professionals and technical industries alike, the takeaway is simple: content that’s easier for machines to parse is also more useful to the humans reading it.

To do it right:

• Add JSON-LD schema markup to key pages (FAQ, HowTo, Article, etc.)
• Label authors, org details, reviews, and media using semantic properties
• Use clean, semantic HTML that AI can parse easily
• Include Q&A blocks and bullet summaries within content
• Group related concepts into defined sections or accordions
• Link glossary terms to definitions with DefinedTerm schema
• Avoid content buried in tabs, PDFs, or unstructured embeds

2. Make your content human and machine-readable

AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini increasingly rely on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which means they fetch and reuse content based on vector similarity, not just keywords.

For Brian Clark, founder of United Medical Education, an online ACLS certification service, this shift changed everything.

I set out to make CPR, ACLS, and PALS certification simple, fast, and reliable for busy professionals. That same philosophy shaped how we optimized our website for AI search.

As more users started skipping Google and asking AI directly, Clark’s team stripped away fluff, rewrote key answers in natural language, and focused every page on one clear, retrievable idea. 

The result? They saw a 43% jump in traffic and a 28% increase in sign-ups in just six months.

We stopped relying on keyword tricks and focused on writing the way people naturally ask questions. As a result, our content is now frequently cited by AI tools.

To do it right:

• Generate vector embeddings for high-value content (use HuggingFace or similar tools)
• Store them in a vector database like Weaviate or Pinecone
• Ensure each document answers one question or topic clearly
• Build APIs or plugins to expose your embedded content to AI tools
• Track what’s getting retrieved and optimise based on those patterns
• Use embedding search simulations to test performance
• Prioritise long-form, factual formats like guides, KBs, and FAQs

3. Make Your Content Conversational and Modular

One of the most exciting shifts in how businesses attract traffic and customers is the rise of AI-based search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. These platforms reward content that is clear, modular, and aligned with how users naturally ask questions.

Hone John Tito, co-founder of Game Host Bros, a gaming hosting platform, shared how their team adapted to this shift:

At our company, we experimented with optimising content for AI search, and the results have been outstanding.

According to him, they moved away from traditional keyword-based strategies and restructured their content to be easier for large language models to read and retrieve. This meant simplifying their gaming server configuration content into how-to instructions, best practices, and product comparisons.

This format made it more likely for our content to be included in AI-generated answers when users asked about gaming setups or server hosting.

The shift paid off. In just six months, they saw a 40%  increase in organic traffic from AI-driven platforms and an 18 percent boost in sales. 

This success came from focusing on helpful, actionable content that is easy for both humans and AI to understand.

Key Takeaway: Structuring content around how AI interprets meaning helped them gain visibility that traditional SEO alone would not have delivered.

To do it right:

• Break long-form content into FAQ-style chunks with headers
• Use bullets, numbered steps, and answer-first paragraphs
• Title sections with common user prompts (e.g., “How do I…”)
• Write in a clear, natural, conversational tone
• Repeat the question in the answer for LLM alignment
• Create snippet-ready summaries at the top of the page
• Add internal linking to glossary, guides, and related concepts

4. Distribute Where the AI Roams

AI engines don’t just index your website; they scan the open web, including community platforms, forums, and trusted third-party content hubs.

Eric Bai, the CEO and Founder of Alpharithm, the brand behind AI Work, a suite of purpose-built AI work models, urges brands to publish across public channels.

Our thought leadership now lives on Reddit, Medium, LinkedIn, and even StackOverflow. These are the places AIs crawl. Your best tip might not be seen on your blog, but it might become an answer if it’s on a forum.

To do it right:

• Republish or adapt your blog content on Medium, LinkedIn, and Reddit
• Answer questions on Quora and StackOverflow with branded insights
• Use structured markup on guest posts when possible
• Encourage employee content distribution on social and community forums
• Share content in public Notion docs or GitHub gists (for dev brands)
• Submit your articles to content aggregators or AI crawlers like Perplexity
• Track citations and mentions via AI tool queries and backlink analysis

5. Build the Signals AI Looks For

AI doesn’t just reward popularity; it rewards credibility, structure, and footprint. If your brand isn’t recognised by large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, you won’t be cited, surfaced, or recommended.

These systems rely on authority signals, think schema markup, knowledge graph presence, mentions on trusted domains, and content structured in a way that directly answers user prompts.

Sasha Berson, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Executive at Grow Law, a law firm marketing agency, has seen this transformation in action across 60+ legal websites.

We’ve helped law firms boost visibility in AI-generated search results on platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. By shifting from keyword-based SEO to structured, prompt-relevant content, AI citations increased significantly.

One personal injury firm saw a 47% jump in organic traffic and 31% more qualified leads after restructuring their content with question-based headings, direct answers, bullet points, and schema markup.

Berson adds:

Ongoing testing of how AI platforms surface content informs our refinements to both on-page and off-page strategies, improving retrievability and performance in AI-driven search.

To do it right:

• Build and maintain a rich Google Knowledge Panel
• List your company in Wikidata, Crunchbase, and other public data sets
• Publish original research, surveys, or proprietary insights
• Earn mentions in media, rankings, or third-party review platforms
• Use structured data to highlight awards, partners, and credentials
• Create a press/media hub optimised for LLM crawling
• Regularly prompt ChatGPT or Perplexity to test how your brand shows up and fill the gaps

6. Build Your Own Wikipedia

One of the most overlooked strategies is building a glossary, which Sal Mohammed, founder of LangSync AI, an LLMO agency based in London, calls “your mini-Wikipedia.”

Glossaries don’t just define terms, they build trust. Each entry becomes a retrievable chunk in the AI’s memory graph, ready to be cited when someone asks a related question.

AI answer engines love definitions. Users often ask “what is X?” or “define Y.” Glossaries improve chunking, co-reference resolution, and retrievability, all essential for LLMs to understand and cite your brand.

To do it right:

• Create one page per term
• Use DefinedTerm schema
• Link terms within articles using semantic anchors
• Add internal search and semantic relationships (e.g., “related terms”)

7. Use Short Expert Answers + Schema

To appear in AI search results, your content must be clear, concise, and genuinely useful. Forget keyword stuffing; focus on breaking things down so they’re easy to understand.

Use different formats to bring it to life, such as simple explanations, real examples, and perhaps even a visual or two. And whatever you do, make sure it all ties together and tells a clear, consistent story.

Once that’s in place, layer on schema markup to help AI platforms actually understand what your content is about. It’s a small step that makes a big difference in getting picked up and recommended by tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity.

Mircea Dima, Founder & CEO/CTO of AlgoCademy, an AI-assisted coding academy, shares how they optimised for AI visibility by treating ChatGPT and Perplexity like students who needed clear, structured answers.

At AlgoCademy, we optimized content for ChatGPT and Perplexity by simplifying algorithm explanations into clear, step-by-step formats. Short expert answers to coding questions (e.g., “How does quicksort work?”) performed especially well, leading to a 37% rise in AI-driven referrals in three months.

Their strategy didn’t stop at formatting. Schema markup became a key lever for retrievability:

We also used schema markup to highlight key concepts and code snippets, increasing our chances of being cited in AI responses.

That strategy worked. Their binary search tree guide alone now fuels 12% of related queries on ChatGPT and contributed to a 20% increase in new sign-ups.

For Dima, the shift is clear:

The key takeaway: focus on quality, not keywords. Create content that AI models trust as authoritative. Founders and marketers should use AI to spot gaps in their niche and fill them with clear, valuable content.

To do it right:

• Rewrite technical content into step-by-step explainers
• Use code-friendly formatting (e.g., <pre> blocks, clean comments)
• Apply schema like HowTo, Code, and DefinedTerm for structure
• Break content into clear question + answer pairs (e.g., “How does X work?”)
• Use LLMs to simulate how AI might interpret or retrieve your content
• Identify and fill niche knowledge gaps your competitors aren’t covering
• Track performance by monitoring AI query referrals and retrievability

8. Adopt Question-Based Language

One of the most powerful shifts you can make for AI search visibility? Write the way people ask.

Kinjal Mehta, CEO of Shraddha Impex, an Indian-based supplier of Japanese Force Gauges and industrial tools, explains how her team reoriented their entire content strategy to prioritise AI-first formats.

We shifted our marketing to optimise content for AI search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity, not just Google. By using direct, question-based language and adapting content structure. 

This means structuring content with natural-language queries (e.g., “How does this product work?” or “What’s the difference between X and Y?”), followed by clear, concise, and schema-marked answers.

And the results speak for themselves:

We saw a 24% increase in product page traffic and a 9% boost in inbound inquiries in 2025.

Jamilyn Trainor, Founder of Müller Expo Services International, a German custom trade show display solution provider, took a similar approach and saw even bigger payoffs.

Shifting from SEO to AI-optimized content was a major turning point. By focusing on expert, prompt-style answers to real user questions, we achieved a 38% increase in AI referral traffic from platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Her team doubled down on evergreen, problem-solution content that features first-hand insights and clear attribution via expert bios. The result? Not just visibility but trust and conversion.

This approach directly led to signing three major B2B clients, proving the value of a prompt-first strategy.

To do it right:

• Rewrite sections to start with real questions, not just headers
• Use prompt-style phrasing like “What is…”, “How do I…”, “Why should I…”
• Answer concisely in 2–3 sentences before expanding
• Add FAQPage and DefinedTerm schema to increase retrievability
• Include expert bios or authorship metadata to build trust
• Structure content around problem-solution clarity
• Submit FAQs or guides to AI datasets and test retrievability with ChatGPT or Perplexity

Overlooked Tactics That Actually Work

The experts also shared tactics that fly under the radar but punch above their weight:

• Podcast Transcripts: Tito reports that AI frequently lifts answers from transcripts of podcast interviews.
• Alt Text & File Naming: Denning’s legal infographics gained visibility thanks to precise alt text and descriptive filenames.
• Synthetic Q&A Pages: Melton’s team uses GPT-generated variations of FAQs to publish “micro-funnels” that target long-tail prompts.

These small optimisations are gold in a zero-click world.

FAQs

Final Thoughts on How to Capture AI Search Traffic

Capturing AI search traffic in 2025 isn’t about tricks; it’s about transformation.

This isn’t SEO 2.0. It’s a paradigm shift. You need to treat AI search as its own channel. That means:

• Structuring every piece of content semantically
• Embedding and vectorising your most important pages
• Publishing beyond your website
• Building glossary-style knowledge bases
• Sending trust signals through schema and PR

Start with one tactic: create a Q&A version of your best-performing article. Or launch a glossary. Or track where your content is being used in AI tools.

Then scale. AI search is only growing, and the brands that optimise early will shape what the world sees tomorrow.

Need help making that shift?

LangSync AI helps growth teams turn their websites into retrievable, citation-ready sources for LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Contact us to audit your content and unlock your AI search edge.