What Does It Mean to Know How to Rank in ChatGPT?
I’ve had a number of people asking me lately how to rank in ChatGPT and other AI tools. I was a little confused when I first started hearing that because I never really thought of ChatGPT as having a “ranking” with its results.
When you search on Google, ranking makes sense. Your website might show up first, fifth, tenth, or on page three. There is a list of search results, and your website has a pretty clear position in that list.
ChatGPT doesn’t normally work that way. You ask it a question, and it gives you an answer.
The question you should be asking is: When people ask AI tools questions related to what we offer, is our business getting mentioned, recommended, or used as a source?
That changes the framing of the idea of ranking in ChatGPT.
It isn’t only about trying to get the number one position. That number one position is imaginary, not real. The focus is making sure ChatGPT and other search and answer tools can understand who your business is, what you do, and what you know.
And in a lot of ways, that brings us right back to something we have been talking about in SEO for years: create great content that people can trust and that clearly answers the questions they are asking.
The places people search may be changing. The way those answers are shown is changing too. But having useful information on your website is becoming more important, not less.
Knowing what your customers are searching for is the first step. At Full Scope Creative, we use keyword research, SEO, and content writing to find those questions and turn them into useful website pages and blog posts that help more people find your business.
So What Does It Actually Mean to Rank in ChatGPT?
There usually is not a traditional number one, two, or three ranking in ChatGPT. There is no fifth page or 80th page of results either.
Someone asks a question. ChatGPT gives an answer.
Visibility can mean a few different things. Some examples are:
- ChatGPT might mention your company by name.
- It might recommend your business for a certain service.
- It could cite your website and give the user a link.
- It may also use information from your site as part of the answer it gives.
OpenAI says ChatGPT Search ranks sources using several factors meant to find information that is relevant and reliable. It also says placement is not guaranteed.
Someone might ask the same question in five different ways. With SEO we research a keyword and know its search volume. We need to keep a broader focus with AI search.
What Questions Could Lead Someone to Your Business?
The questions people type into ChatGPT are likely the same questions you’re already being asked.
Think about what questions your customers have. Does your website have a clear, useful answer to those questions?
A website designer might hear, “Should I hire someone to build my website or use Wix?”
A restaurant owner might ask, “How much should professional menu design cost?”
A real estate agent might wonder if they need their own website when their brokerage already provides one.
A construction company might want to know what pages should be on its website.
A landscaping company could ask how often website photos should be updated.
A patient may ask whether they can use telehealth psychiatry from anywhere in Wisconsin.
The wording will change. The question behind it usually does not.
How to Rank in ChatGPT With Blog Content
Enter blogging.
AI visibility in no way makes blogging less important. It actually makes a strong blog library even more valuable.
Your service page can only answer so much. There are going to be questions about that service that do not belong on the main service page or simply cannot all fit there.
Enter blogs.
A blog gives you room to answer those questions one by one. And remember, there is really no limit to what you can blog about so long as it is kind of sort of almost in a way maybe half way related to your industry or something that is several ballparks at least in reach of your industry.
At Full Scope Creative, we have a main website design service page. We also have dozens of blog posts covering website cost, domain ownership, hosting, updates, SEO, page builders, website photos, security, and a whole lot more.
Those are all related to what we do, but they are also things people actually ask about.
Articles like “Do You Pay Google for SEO?”, “Can I Permanently Own a Domain Name?”, and “How Much Does It Cost for a Graphic Designer to Design a Menu?” are built around real questions.
Every article then gives Google, ChatGPT, and other answer engines another page to find, understand, and use.
The more good questions you answer, the better you answer those questions, the more likley your business will show up.
How Do You Know What Questions People Are Asking in ChatGPT?
This is one of the trickier parts.
We don’t have a SEMRush-like took to tell us what people have typed into ChatGPT while trying to find a business like yours.
ChatGPT does add utm_source=chatgpt.com to referral links from its results. This makes it so that Google Analytics can show that a user came to your site from ChatGPT. It does not tell the actual question they asked.
The traffic still gives us a clue.
If a page is getting visitors from ChatGPT, some piece of content on that page is useful for AI-driven search. Read through the page and think about the questions it was designed to answer.
Once you know those questions, you can keep refining that content and making it clearer and clearer.
We are not going to simply guess at blog topics.
The tools we use for SEO still help us find questions. All of these tools (some free) point us in the direction:
- Google People Also Ask
- Search Console
- SEMrush
- Google autocomplete
- client emails
- sales calls
- support questions
- industry discussions
We don’t know the exact sentence someone will type into ChatGPT, but if clients keep asking the same questions, it is a safe bet that other potential clients have those questions as well.
Does Traditional SEO Still Matter for ChatGPT?
Absolutely.
Traditional SEO and AI Optimization, or AIO, are not exactly the same thing. But I would argue there is probably more overlap than there is difference.
The approach is still very similar.
You need clear page topics. You need useful content. Your headings must make sense.
Pages need to link to one another. Page titles need to describe what the page is about.
And most of all, you need great quality information.
SEO is by no means becoming obsolete because people are using ChatGPT.
SEO basics like keyword research, landing pages, and great quality content are not going anywhere. They are just being tasked with doing more now.
We are not backing away from keyword research at all. If anything, we lean into it even more. Keyword research shows what customers care about.
What Should a Small Business Do Right Now?
Review your main service pages and make sure they answer things like:
- What you offer
- Who it is for
- Why someone should choose your business
Write down the questions customers ask during sales calls. Save questions that show up in emails. A question you’ve only been asked one time may be one other people are wondering but never asked.
Use tools like Google and SEMrush to find related questions. Turn the ones that fit your business into blog posts.
Then keep going.
Do not need to sprint to 500 articles. Publish useful and great quality content at a pace you can maintain. That pace could be weekly or a couple of times each month.
Ranking in ChatGPT Still Comes Back to Being Helpful
I am still not sure “ranking” is the best word for what is happening in ChatGPT.
The real goal is simpler.
When someone asks a question related to your business, you want your website to be one of the useful sources available to help answer it.
That means good content. Real questions. Clear answers. Trust.
Those things matter just as much when learning how to rank in ChatGPT as they have in SEO for years.
If you are not sure what potential customers are searching for, the questions they are asking search tools, or what great quality content your website should have, reach out to Full Scope Creative.
Our SEO and content writing starts with keyword research and turns those into pages and blogs all built to help you and your site find more clients and customers.