Hey folks, Elliot here.
Today, I want to talk about getting your brand to appear on LLMs.
As you might have experienced already, figuring out the ‘best practices’ for LLM visibility can be frustrating.
There’s a lot of speculation, contradiction, and jargon. You can quickly end up with paralysis by analysis, asking yourself, “Where do I even begin?”
That’s what I’ll aim to help you with today. I’m going to share the most effective approaches we’ve found so far for improving AI visibility.
A disclaimer: No one knows precisely how to influence how content appears in LLMs, including me. Be wary of any source claiming to have figured out ‘the answer’...because it doesn’t exist yet. These tips are based on the strongest evidence we’ve seen and what’s worked best for us so far.
1. Track LLM leads using self-attribution, so you know what’s working
First things first: you need to be able to tell if you’re getting leads in through LLMs.
Chances are you’ve already seen an increase in direct leads and have no idea where they’re coming from. These are likely coming from LLMs.
Analytics platforms can’t reliably identify LLM-driven traffic yet, because most AI tools don’t send referral data, so those visits get lumped in as “direct.” Also, few people actually click on links within an AI search tool; they’ll often just type your brand into Google / or the search bar.
The simplest solution to this is to add a self-attribution box to your lead gen forms. It might look something like this:
Make it mandatory, and track your LLM leads month on month. This way, you’ll know if your strategy is working: if you’re suddenly getting more AI leads after investing resources into improving LLM visibility, it’s a solid sign that something is working.
(When this started getting tracked properly, some of our clients suddenly saw that 10 - 30% of their inbound website leads were coming from LLMs!)
2. Add FAQs to your existing content
FAQs work well because they give LLMs bite-sized, ready-to-lift snippets that map perfectly to how people phrase prompts. In my own tests, I’ve seen an FAQ added to an existing blog start appearing in LLM responses within 40 minutes of publishing.
To start with, adding a handful of targeted FAQs to your highest-value pages and refreshing them periodically can give you a fast visibility boost without investing too much into writing new content.
Similarly, it’s also worth creating a separate FAQ page. It doesn’t need to be highly designed or heavily branded. Just list some common and specific questions your prospects ask and answer them clearly in a Q&A format. This gives LLMs a concentrated source of high-confidence answers to pull from.
Here’s an example on an FAQ for embedded payments.
3. Focus on creating bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content
With LLMs, users get their information right within the AI tool interface. Which means they no longer need to click to your website to read your content. That little bit of influence you could have with a pageview, is gone.
But there is a point where the user will need to head to your website: when they're ready to buy.
And that's when it's most crucial for your brand to turn up. Those bottom of the funnel queries like:
- Best payment provider for X
- Quickbooks vs Xero
- Cheaper alternatives to Amex
If your brand doesn't turn up, your website won't get clicked on. And that's why it's more important than ever to invest in BOFU content to ensure your brand appears for those queries.
They are also the type of content that LLMs love. Profound found that 32% of LLM citations reference comparison posts, versus just 9% for generic blogs.
We’ve seen the same in our own work. When we post an industry listicle or comparison page, we've often seen these posts start appearing in LLM answers within days of publishing.
Not sure how to create a comparison post? We wrote a guide on exactly how to do this here: Why You Should Write About Your Competitors as a Fintech Company
4. Keep high-value content fresh and up-to-date
LLMs have a fast decay rate: that means that answers that appear today can drop out of results within weeks or even days if fresher content becomes available. LLMs update their sources a lot faster than Google.
Ironically, it means that LLMs work in a way almost opposite to Google. Whereas Google rewards older, high authority pages, LLMs (at the moment) reward new, recent content.
If you have pages you want LLMs to surface, you can’t just publish and forget them. Review them regularly, update stats, refresh examples, and make small tweaks to keep them relevant. It’s also worth updating your publishing date periodically to signal to LLMs that your content is up-to-date.
As well as refreshing older content, we’re also publishing new pieces specifically for LLM visibility for our clients. So far, these seem to get picked up almost as often as existing high-performing pages.
5. Get your brand mentioned in high-authority sources
LLMs don’t just surface your own content. They also pull from other people’s lists, guides, and roundups. If you can get mentioned in reputable third-party articles, those mentions can show up in AI answers.
That’s where PR comes in. Target industry blogs, publications, and “best of” lists that align with your niche. Pitch them useful insights, offer expert commentary, or suggest your product for inclusion. The more credible, high-authority sources that mention you, the more entry points LLMs have to surface your brand in relevant queries.
Tom Davies, VP Marketing at Yonder, took this approach and managed to grow visibility from 11% to 21% in three months.
Think of it as casting a wider net: your own site is one hook, but each earned mention elsewhere is another chance to be pulled into an LLM answer.
So... is it possible to influence LLMs?
Kind of. We are seeing some that some of our activities do improve visibility and number of citations.
The rules of engagement aren’t clear yet, but we’ll only figure those out by experimenting.
What works for improving LLM visibility one month might fade the next.
But I’m confident that the brands that will come out on top will be the ones constantly testing, tracking, and adapting.
At Mint, we’re constantly experimenting to see what actually moves the needle on LLMs. We’ll make sure to keep you in the loop with what’s working: keep an eye on your inbox!
Thanks for reading!
Elliot
Mint Studios Recommended Resources
- What Does AI Mode Mean For Your Marketing (And What Can You Do To Adapt?)
- What Evidence Do Language Models Find Convincing?
- Content Decay in LLM Query Results: Why Your Old Content is Disappearing
- PR for AI Search Visibility: Why It Matters & How to Do It Right
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