Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
Be the Answer - Emarketed's AEO Show
"The Citation Audit: How to Measure (and Improve) Your AI Visibility"
Host: Alex | Duration: 19:05
[Intro Music]
[0:08] HOOK: Why Citation Visibility Is the New SEO KPI Hey, welcome to Be the Answer, the AEO show from Emarketed. I'm Alex, and today we're getting into something that I think every founder and marketer needs to hear right now. Here's the question: do you know if ChatGPT is recommending your brand? When someone asks Perplexity for the best tools in your category, are you showing up? When Google's AI Overview summarizes an answer, is your content being cited?
If you can't answer those questions with data, you've got a blind spot. And that blind spot is costing you traffic, credibility, and revenue. Because here's the reality in 2025 and into 2026: the way people find answers has changed. Nearly sixty percent of Google search results now include an AI Overview. Perplexity is growing fast. ChatGPT has hundreds of millions of users asking it questions every single day. These AI engines don't just link to pages - they synthesize answers. And when they do, they cite sources. Those citations? That's the new front page.
Citation visibility is the new SEO KPI. Not rankings. Not impressions. Citations. Whether or not an AI engine trusts your content enough to reference it when answering a real question from a real person.
And that's exactly what today's episode is about. We're going to break down what a citation audit is, the five metrics you need to track, how to run one in about sixty minutes, the mistakes to avoid, and some quick wins you can implement in the next thirty days.
[0:55] What Is a Citation Audit? So, let's start with the basics. What is a citation audit? A citation audit is a structured process where you measure how often, and how favorably, your brand, your content, and your domain appear as cited sources in AI-generated responses. Think of it as an SEO audit, but for the AI layer.
Here's what it is not. It's not just Googling yourself. It's not checking if your website ranks on page one. It's not monitoring social mentions. Those are all fine things to do, but a citation audit is specifically about AI engines. It's about asking: when a large language model generates an answer in my space, does it reference me?
The distinction matters because AI engines pull from a different set of signals than traditional search. They favor structured content, recency, authority, and specificity. Your page might rank number one on Google's organic results and still get zero citations in the AI Overview sitting right above it. A citation audit closes that gap. It gives you visibility into a channel that most of your competitors aren't even tracking yet.
[2:30] The 5 Metrics to Track Alright, now that we know what a citation audit is, let's talk about how to measure it. There are five core metrics I recommend every team start tracking. I'll walk through each one.
Metric number one: Citation Frequency. This is the most fundamental metric. It answers the question: what percentage of relevant queries result in my brand being cited? You pick a set of queries - say, twenty to thirty prompts that your ideal customer might type into ChatGPT or Perplexity - and you measure how often your brand shows up. If you're appearing in ten out of thirty queries, your citation frequency is about thirty-three percent. Track this weekly. It's your baseline.
Metric number two: Share of Voice. This is citation frequency, but relative to your competitors. If there are five brands that get cited across your target queries, and you account for twelve out of forty total citations, your share of voice is thirty percent. This tells you not just how visible you are, but how visible you are compared to the alternatives. It's a competitive metric, and it's incredibly useful for positioning.
Metric number three: Citation Position. Not all citations are created equal. If an AI response lists four sources, being the first one cited is significantly more valuable than being the fourth. Citation position tracks where in the response your brand appears. First position gets the most attention, the most clicks, and the most trust. Track this by query and look for patterns. Are you consistently first in certain topic areas and absent in others? That tells you where your content authority is strong and where it's weak.
Metric number four: Link Presence. Here's something that catches people off guard - not every citation includes a clickable link. Sometimes an AI engine will mention your brand or reference your data without linking back to your site. That's still valuable for brand awareness, but it doesn't drive traffic. Link presence measures the percentage of your citations that include an actual clickable link. This matters a lot for Perplexity, which tends to include prominent source links, and for Google AI Overviews, where the link behavior varies.
Metric number five: Sentiment and Context. This is the qualitative layer. When your brand is cited, how is it framed? Are you mentioned as a top recommendation? A cautionary example? A neutral data point? Sentiment tells you whether citations are helping or hurting your brand. Context tells you in which types of queries you're showing up. Problem-solution queries? Comparison queries? Best-of lists? Understanding the context helps you shape your content strategy to show up in the right conversations.
Those are the five: citation frequency, share of voice, citation position, link presence, and sentiment and context. Together, they give you a complete picture of your AI visibility.
[5:09] Metrics in Action: Real-World SaaS Example Now let me give you some real-world context on how these metrics play out, because the numbers start to mean a lot more when you see them in action.
Let's say you run a project management SaaS. You build your query set around things like best project management software for remote teams, how to improve team productivity with project tools, and top alternatives to Asana. You run those across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
On citation frequency, you might find that you show up in eight out of twenty-five queries on Perplexity, but only two out of twenty-five on ChatGPT. That gap is telling you something. Perplexity is probably indexing your blog content because you publish frequently and have detailed comparison guides. But ChatGPT is pulling from broader authority sources - maybe Gartner reports, G2 reviews, and Wikipedia - where your brand isn't yet well-represented.
On share of voice, you might see that in your twenty-five queries, there are a total of sixty citations across all responses. Your brand shows up ten times. Your closest competitor shows up eighteen times. That's a clear signal that they're winning the AI visibility game in your category, and you can start investigating why. Maybe they have more structured content. Maybe they publish original research that gets cited. Maybe they're just better represented on review platforms.
Citation position is where things get really interesting. You might show up in a response, but you're always the third or fourth source mentioned. Meanwhile, your competitor is consistently first. That position gap matters because users tend to trust and click the first source cited, just like they do with organic search results. First position in an AI citation is the new position one in search.
For link presence, here's a scenario I see often: a brand gets mentioned by name in a ChatGPT response - great for awareness - but there's no clickable link. The user sees your name, but they can't easily get to your site. Then on Perplexity, the same brand gets a full citation with a prominent link in the sources panel. That difference means Perplexity is driving actual traffic while ChatGPT is only driving brand recognition. Both matter, but you need to understand the distinction.
And on sentiment, imagine you're cited in a comparison query but the AI says something like, this tool is a good option for small teams but lacks enterprise features. That's a neutral-to-negative citation. You're being mentioned, but the framing might be pushing potential customers away. Knowing this lets you address it - maybe by publishing content that showcases your enterprise capabilities, case studies from large organizations, or updated feature comparisons.
[7:29] How to Run a 60-Minute Audit (Step-by-Step) Now let's get practical. Here's how to run a basic citation audit in about sixty minutes. No fancy tools required for this first pass - just a browser, a spreadsheet, and some focus.
Step one: define your query set. Spend about ten minutes brainstorming fifteen to twenty-five queries that your target customer would realistically type into an AI engine. Think buyer-intent questions like what's the best tool for, how do I solve, top platforms for. Mix in comparison queries, problem-solution queries, and category queries. Write them all down in a spreadsheet.
Step two: run each query across three platforms. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google - specifically look at the AI Overview if one appears. This is the most time-intensive part. For each query, note whether your brand is cited, what position you're in, whether there's a link, and how you're described. Also note which competitors show up. Budget about thirty minutes for this step if you have twenty queries.
Step three: score and tabulate. For each query, record your five metrics. Is your brand present? Yes or no - that feeds citation frequency. Who else appeared - that feeds share of voice. Where did you appear in the response - that's citation position. Was there a link - that's link presence. And how were you described - that's sentiment and context. This should take about ten minutes.
Step four: identify patterns. With your data tabulated, spend the last ten minutes looking for patterns. Which platforms cite you most? Which query types are you missing from? Where do competitors consistently beat you? Are there queries where you show up on one platform but not another? These patterns are gold. They tell you exactly where to focus your optimization efforts.
And that's it. Sixty minutes, and you have a baseline citation audit. I recommend running this at least monthly, and weekly if you're in a competitive category. Over time, you can layer in tools like Otterly, Profound, or Siftly to automate the monitoring, but this manual approach works perfectly to get started.
[9:16] Audit Pro Tips: Prompt Banks, Competitors & Screenshots Before we move on from the audit process, I want to share a few pro tips that will make your audits much more effective over time.
First, create a prompt bank. Don't just brainstorm queries once and call it done. Build a living document of fifty to a hundred queries organized by category. Have sections for buyer-intent queries, comparison queries, problem-solution queries, and informational queries. Update this bank every month as you learn what your customers are actually asking. Talk to your sales team, your support team, and check what people are searching for on your own site. The better your prompt bank, the more accurate your audit becomes.
Second, track competitor movement, not just your own. Every time you run an audit, document not just where you show up but where your top three to five competitors show up. Over time, you'll see patterns. Maybe a competitor suddenly starts showing up in queries they weren't in before - that could mean they published a new piece of content, got a major press mention, or updated their schema markup. This competitive intelligence is incredibly valuable.
Third, test different query phrasings. AI engines are sensitive to how questions are worded. The query best CRM for startups might give you completely different citations than top CRM tools for early-stage companies. Run variations of your key queries to understand how robust your visibility really is. If you only show up for one phrasing but disappear for synonyms, your content might need broader keyword coverage.
Fourth, use incognito mode and logged-out sessions. Some AI platforms personalize responses based on your history. If you've been visiting your own site a lot, the AI might surface you more than it would for a neutral user. Always run audits in a clean browser session to get an unbiased picture.
And fifth, document everything with screenshots. This might sound tedious, but AI responses change constantly. A citation that exists today might be gone tomorrow. Taking screenshots creates a historical record that you can reference when measuring progress and when making the case for continued investment in AEO to your team or stakeholders.
Now, I mentioned earlier that you can start with a manual process and graduate to tools. Let me be a bit more specific about when to make that transition. If you're running audits monthly on twenty-five queries, manual is fine. But once you want to scale to a hundred-plus queries, track weekly, or monitor across five or more platforms, you'll want to bring in a dedicated tool. Platforms like Otterly and Profound can automate the query-running, track changes over time, and give you dashboards that make the data actually actionable. The manual audit is your foundation - tools are how you scale it.
[11:49] 5 Common Pitfalls to Avoid Alright, let's talk about the mistakes I see teams make when they start paying attention to AI visibility. There are five common pitfalls.
Pitfall number one: treating all AI platforms the same. This is probably the biggest mistake. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews each have different citation behaviors. ChatGPT leans heavily on broad authority - think Wikipedia, major publications, established directories. Perplexity loves in-depth, frequently updated content and community sources like Reddit. Google AI Overviews pull from a mix but favor its own ecosystem - YouTube, Google Business Profile, and so on. If you optimize for one platform, you might be invisible on the others. You need a multi-platform strategy.
Pitfall number two: ignoring content structure. AI engines parse your content differently than humans do. If your pages are walls of text with vague headings, AI models struggle to extract clear, citable answers. You need descriptive headings that match query patterns, answer-first paragraph structure, and scannable sections with bullets and lists. Structured content is three times more likely to be cited. Three times.
Pitfall number three: letting content go stale. Freshness is a major citation signal. Studies show that over seventy-five percent of top-cited pages are less than a year old. If your cornerstone content hasn't been updated in six months, it's losing citation ground to competitors who refresh their material regularly. Set a calendar reminder. Update key pages at least quarterly, and monthly for high-competition topics.
Pitfall number four: blocking AI crawlers. This one seems obvious, but it happens more than you'd think. Some teams inadvertently block AI crawlers in their robots dot text file or through server configurations. If an AI engine can't crawl your content, it can't cite you. Check your robots dot text file and make sure you're not blocking GPTBot, PerplexityBot, or Google's extended crawlers.
And pitfall number five: writing for promotion instead of information. AI engines are built to answer questions, not to serve ads. If your content reads like a sales pitch, it's going to get passed over in favor of more objective, informational content. The brands that get cited the most are the ones producing genuinely useful, well-sourced, educational material. Save the selling for your landing pages. Let your thought leadership content be truly informative.
[14:11] Quick Wins: Answer Capsules, Schema, FAQs, Original Research & More I want to add a few more quick wins because this is really where the rubber meets the road. These are slightly more advanced but still very doable within thirty days.
Quick win number six: create a dedicated FAQ section on your key pages. Not a generic FAQ buried in your footer - I mean a well-structured, schema-marked FAQ section directly on your product pages, service pages, and pillar content. Each question should mirror the actual queries your customers type into AI engines. Each answer should be concise - two to three sentences - and packed with specific value. AI engines love pulling from FAQ sections because they're already in question-and-answer format, which maps perfectly to how users interact with these platforms.
Quick win number seven: publish original research or proprietary data. This is one of the most powerful citation magnets available. If you can run a survey, analyze your own platform data, or compile industry statistics that nobody else has, you become a primary source. AI engines prioritize primary sources because they can't be found elsewhere. Even a simple annual report on trends in your industry - based on your own customer data - can generate citations for months.
Quick win number eight: optimize your presence on third-party platforms. Remember, AI engines don't just pull from your website. They pull from review sites like G2 and Capterra, from community platforms like Reddit, from directories, and from press coverage. Make sure your profiles on these platforms are complete, current, and well-reviewed. Encourage customers to leave detailed reviews. Participate authentically in Reddit discussions in your space. These third-party signals feed directly into how AI engines perceive your brand authority.
And quick win number nine: build topic clusters, not just individual pages. Instead of having scattered blog posts on related topics, organize your content into pillar-and-cluster structures. Have one comprehensive pillar page on a major topic, and link it to ten or fifteen detailed subtopic pages. This internal linking structure signals to AI engines that you have depth and authority on the subject. It also increases the chances that multiple pages from your site get cited across different queries in the same topic area.
The key takeaway across all of these quick wins is this: you're not trying to game the system. You're trying to be the best possible source on the topics that matter to your business. AI engines are designed to find and cite the most helpful, authoritative, and well-structured content. If you focus on genuinely being that source, the citations will follow.
[16:42] Core Quick Wins + CTA Okay, let's wrap up with some quick wins. These are things you can implement in the next thirty days to start improving your citation rate.
Quick win number one: add answer capsules to your top pages. An answer capsule is a forty to sixty word direct answer placed right at the top of a section, right under the heading. It's designed to give AI engines a clean, extractable answer. This alone can boost your visibility by thirty to forty percent.
Quick win number two: implement schema markup. If you haven't already, add JSON-LD structured data to your key pages. Article schema, FAQ schema, Organization schema, and Person schema for your thought leaders. This helps AI engines understand your content's structure, authorship, and authority. It's a one-time technical investment that pays ongoing dividends.
Quick win number three: embed statistics and citations in your content. AI engines love content that includes specific, sourced data points. Aim for a sourced statistic or expert quote every one fifty to two hundred words. This signals that your content is well-researched and trustworthy - exactly the kind of source an AI wants to cite.
Quick win number four: refresh your top ten pages. Take your ten most important pages - the ones targeting your highest-value queries - and update them. Add new data, refresh examples, update dates, and improve structure. Just making these pages current again can significantly boost their citation potential.
And quick win number five: start monitoring. Set up a simple spreadsheet and run that sixty-minute audit I just walked you through. Do it once, and then do it again next month. You can't improve what you don't measure, and most of your competitors aren't measuring this at all. That's your advantage.
Alright, that is the episode. If you want help running a full citation audit for your brand - with real data, competitive benchmarks, and a prioritized action plan - head over to emarketed dot net and book a visibility audit. We'll show you exactly where you stand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, and what to do about it.
And if you found this useful, subscribe to Be the Answer wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop regularly, and every one is designed to help you show up where AI is answering questions in your space.
Thanks for listening. I'm Alex, and I'll catch you in the next one.
[Outro Music]