AI tools like ChatGPT are becoming more important for discovery – when people use them to search for information on products and services, external sources such as blogs and websites show up. We regularly analyse our own website and social analytics (as we do for our clients) and recently found that the RED website had been gaining additional traffic from ChatGPT.
So, we decided to uncover some tips on boosting the traffic you get through ChatGPT and how to position your brand to maximise referrals.
1. Publish thought-leadership content
ChatGPT is a large language model (LLM) that analyses written and spoken materials all over the web. This includes blogs, articles, web pages and books that it uses to train itself to give answers to people’s questions.
If you have thought-leadership content on your website that is useful to LLMs, there is a higher chance of getting spotted by AI and used to form answers to people’s questions.
2. Use long-tail queries
Identify the questions your customers are asking and answer them in depth on your website. Use sources and statistics where possible and clear headings to help AI spot relevant text.
When creating content, consider asking longer questions in a natural tone. For example, the title of this blog: “How can I boost ChatGPT referrals to my website?” is intended to mimic the kind of question our clients (or potential clients) might ask. LLMs have been trained to align with users’ queries.
A good source of inspiration for this includes tools such as answerthepublic.com (which we referenced in another blog earlier this year – “Top 5 free and low-cost digital marketing tools for businesses”).
3. Ensure your content is accessible
Even though LLMs don’t “crawl” like a search engine does, the training data tends to incorporate data from across the web. Accessible, indexable content is more likely to be included, so make sure yours is easy to find with the following tips.
- Don’t hide your site content behind log-ins.
- Use clear HTML text rather than embedding everything in images.
- Include text transcripts for video/audio.
- Make sure your website has a sitemap.
4. Build authority
The more frequently your content appears in high-visibility places, the more authority you build. Therefore, the more likely your content is to be included in training data.
Consistently posting thought-leadership posts will boost your chances of being cited in online trade publications, for example. Regularly posting content on social media channels and writing guest blogs will also increase visibility.
5. Ask ChatGPT
Lastly… the best place to find out if your content is optimised for LLMs? Ask them! While you’re there, ask for any pointers to make your content stand out.