Most SEOs know by now that being featured in authoritative listicles is one of the best ways to get cited in AI for relevant queries.
If you don’t believe me, test out some of your top queries in AI and check the sources – or read my previous article on the topic.
This does leave SEO in a funny place.
Will this tactic last long? What happens when everyone is publishing listicles? Is everyone already publishing listicles?
Are Listicles Everything When It Comes To AI Visibility?
I want to be clear that listicles are not the be-all and end-all of AI visibility.
The majority of ‘AI SEO’ is actually just doing ‘regular’ SEO properly. That is to say, if you rank well in Google, your AI visibility will very likely be good as well.
Tactics like publishing or getting featured in listicles are just ways to speedrun getting cited. This is especially useful if you are monitoring your AI performance and know there are terms for which your brand lacks citations.
So, listicles are not even close to ‘everything’ when it comes to AI visibility, but for some niches, they are very important – think SAAS or Ecommerce.
Why Listicles Work So Well
So, why do listicles work so well for AI visibility?
It’s a combination of a few things:
- Mostly, listicles tend to receive a lot of traffic – especially those that are high quality and published on authoritative websites. More traffic means more potential keywords that AI can use when pulling sources for queries and end up on the listicles.
- According to ChatGPT itself, listicles follow predictable formats that are easy to parse and extract facts from.
- High-performing listicles are often found on trusted, leading resources for a given industry. This is due to the competitive nature of ranking for these types of keywords, which leads to only the best resources competing for the top spots in the SERPs.
- It’s easy to publish multiple listicles, or get featured in multiple listicles. This means your brand can be mentioned in several authoritative articles, making it easier for AI to crawl and position you as the best solution for a problem.
Listicles, right now, are incredible for AI visibility.
How To Get Featured In Listicles
Time for the cold, hard truth.
Getting featured in listicles is usually done in one of two ways.
Payment
A lot of listicles you see published are paid for by a brand (usually the brand in the top spot).
Just like how regular guest posting works, people also pay to publish listicles targeting specific queries in order to not only get the do-follow backlink, but also to position themselves as the industry leader for a specific use case.
If you’re one of the leading brands in a space, you will naturally get featured in industry-leading listicles, but it can take some time to get to that point.
Contacts
Another way to get featured is to have relationships with journalists and editors in a given niche who publish content like this on authoritative websites.
A great way to start building these relationships is by using HARO or Qwoted, or one of the other multiple platforms that connect experts with journalists, editors, and writers.
Other Types Of Content That Work Well
While we’re on the topic of listicles, I’d also like to mention that other types of content can work well if AI citations are your KPI.
At Spyndle, we test these across many brands, and we’ve found that the following types of content are also highly effective:
- Brand reviews
- Brand comparison articles
- Informational articles targeting hyper-focused long tail queries based on in-house company sales data
I’ll go into more detail on these strategies shortly.
What Is Next?
Where does this leave the state of off-page SEO?
Well, firstly, things have changed a lot over the past 6 months already. A lot of SEOs are realising that publishing articles on third-party websites – with or without a backlink – is an effective way to get cited in AI.
Short Term
In the short term, I expect the trend of listicles to continue.
These will be both editorial (produced in-house) and paid for by third parties (guest posts). In many niches, we are seeing this happen already, and competition can be fierce.
If you’re not sure of the outlook for your niche, head to ChatGPT and search for a few of your ideal ‘best of’ terms, then check the sources.
Quality Will Matter More
Building quality relationships is going to become more and more important.
Anyone can publish a listicle on a website that openly sells guest posts, and while this tactic still works, the real winners will be the brands that foster relationships with editors, writers, and journalists and stay on top of the relevant content that they publish.
My advice here:
- Be active on journalistic platforms like Qwoted
- Actively reach out to writers who have cited your brand before and connect with them
- Build statistical/evidence-based content that cannot be easily replicated and encourages writers to use it as a source in their articles
Long term, this will pay dividends for your brand.
Long Tail Will Become The Focus
Long tail or lower volume keywords that convert well are going to become more and more important.
To give you an example of what I mean, let’s take a quick look at how we work with some of our SAAS clients. The simplified process is below:
- We look at in-house sales data to identify pain points for customers
- We use AI to process lots of sales transcripts and customer support information
- From there, we publish guest posts on relevant websites that cover these topics and suggest the client as the ideal solution
- This leads to increased referral traffic and booked demos
Guest posting – still very effective, despite the noise – is a great way to target these types of keywords.
You may be asking, ‘Why wouldn’t I just target these keywords on my own website instead?’.
Obviously, you should be doing this regardless, but publishing guest posts on similar keywords increases your brand mentions for the term and increases the likelihood of AI citing your brand.
Watch This Space
Like anything new in SEO, things are changing fast when it comes to AI visibility.
Getting your brand mentioned on other websites will continue to be pivotal in AI visibility, but the actual method of this will likely change a lot over the next 6-12 months.
We’ll keep experimenting and updating the blog with new tactics that work.
