Hey AI, Do You See Me? How to Make Sure LLMs Notice Your Content

Before I joined Zmist & Copy, I used to work as an English teacher, translator, and even a rewriter. I know, sounds weird, but hear me out 🙂

Here is how it looked. I’d got a blog article titled something like “top 10 bla bla bla in 2018” that was half in English and half in Ukrainian. My job was to translate the Ukrainian bits, rewrite the English paragraphs to sound “original,” and then stuff the entire piece with a mountain of keywords, like there’s no tomorrow. 

It was SEO-first, quantity-driven content: fast, cheap, and designed to flood Google with blog posts. And it worked. Traffic rolled in. Rankings climbed. Services were sold.

Today, SEO is no longer king. But people still Google. The real problem is that companies are still clinging to outdated SEO tactics that don’t work in the age of AI. More and more people use tools like ChatGPT for answers. It’s faster, easier, and often better.

Yet, content isn’t dead. We still need it. Not for ranking keywords, but for learning something new, showing expertise, and building trust with our brand. Today’s content should be helpful, not SEO-dependent.

Further, I’ll break down what you need to rethink (unless you’re already ahead of the curve) to keep your strategy sharp and effective in the age of ChatGPT and other LLMs.

I think I’ve seen this before. How content looked before LLMs were born

Before LLMs, SEO-friendly article formats like “how to,” “what is,” or “X ways to do Y” were go-to tactics for grabbing attention at the awareness stage. These Top-of-Funnel (TOFU) traffic magnets often recycled the same basic information, rewritten in different ways.

To test this out, I typed “how to build a software development team” into Google and filtered the results to show only the articles from 2019 to 2021.

I clicked through a few at random to see what kind of content people were publishing back then. And yep, most of them were saying pretty much the same thing. 

The titles were reworded, the sections rearranged, but the core advice was basically identical. Some pieces did offer a unique angle or a completely different section here and there, but overall, it felt like the same ideas bouncing around the Internet in different outfits.

The strategy was simple: when someone Googled a “how-to” question, your blog post could become their first touchpoint with your brand. The more of these articles you publish across different topics, the higher the chances you have to pull readers into your content ecosystem and convert through newsletters, lead magnets, or product pages. 

‍

Google’s not your audience anymore. LLMs are 

‍

Let’s look at how that strategy plays out today. If you search for something like “how to build a software development team,” the first thing you’ll see is Google’s AI Overview, a new feature that delivers instant answers right on the results page. Users get what they need without even clicking through. Below that, you’ll find the usual list of search results, but they’re no longer the first stop for many users.

The rules have changed. Today, generic articles have the right to exist, but mass-producing them makes no sense. Instead of wading through five ads and SEO-cluttered blog posts, people now turn to ChatGPT or Gemini for faster, cleaner responses. 

That’s why content writers and marketers need to rethink their strategy. If you want your content to show up in AI responses, you’ve got to create something worth referencing.

Now, how to create content that AI can’t ignore?

‍

Okay, you take the shift. You stop publishing dozens of SEO blog posts stuffed with keywords and focus on quality instead. But then a new question comes up.

How do you make sure your high-quality content shows up in LLM responses?

The answer is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Think of it as SEO for generative engines. It’s still early days, but the idea is simple: make your content easy for LLMs to find, understand, and trust. In our recent article, we’ve described in detail various techniques to optimize your content for LLMs, so if you need more, you are welcome to dig deeper.

In short, to make your content visible to LLMs, you need to understand how they work. And remember, they don’t think, they predict.

‍

How LLMs pick content

‍

When someone asks a question, the LLM scans a bunch of trusted sources. Usually around 8 to 10 of them. Then it pulls out the key insights and gives the user a quick answer. If your content is another generic, keyword-stuffed blog post, the LLM is going to ignore it. LLMs are looking for real value from sources it considers authoritative. 

Jumping ahead for a second, this shift is bad news for content farms. Sites that churn out thousands of low-effort posts with zero originality won’t survive in the age of AI. No one needs basic advice reworded for the hundredth time when a chatbot can sum it up in one click and has this info already pre-collected.

Ryan Law shared, the Google-driven era of SEO content is ending. Generic blogs no longer work. Future content must be focused, product-relevant, and genuinely useful. In other words, quality over quantity.

It might sound obvious, but it all comes down to quality over quantity. Forget chasing clicks. Focus on building trust. 

Create content that teaches, challenges the reader’s thinking, or shares real expertise. Use original data, frameworks, or firsthand experience your audience can’t find anywhere else. That’s what LLMs are trained to pick up on. And that’s how your content gets quoted.

It’s not theory, it’s already happening. For example, our client Flyaps got 109 visits from LLMs in just one month. All because they didn’t copycat anyone – they have their own story to share.

‍

Let’s looks at Google. We’ve created some original articles for our client Kultprosvet, and now their article shows up in the AI Overview when you search “dedicated team model.”

‍

The same with Perplexity AI.

‍

You think LLMs think? Think again

‍

Our examples might lead you to think that AIs have become as smart as humans and can separate apples from oranges. But the key thing you should know about LLMs is that they don’t think. They predict the next word based on patterns in massive training datasets. So if your brand keeps showing up near relevant keywords, like “Notion” next to “productivity tool,” it becomes part of the pattern.

But it’s not only about volume, it’s about where those mentions appear. The more your brand is cited across high-authority sites, the more likely it is to make it into the training data. We are no longer optimizing for keywords. We’re optimizing for association.

Tim Soulo, CMO at Ahrefs, shared an explanation of how ChatGPT (or similar LLMs) can massively boost user acquisition. In their case study, they managed to get 20,000+ registrations for their freemium product driven by traffic and engagement coming directly from ChatGPT-generated recommendations and content.

‍

LLMs changed the search, but strong positioning still wins

‍

Except for shifting from Google to any LLM out there, other parts of your content strategy haven’t changed much. You still need a clear roadmap of what you want and how you plan to get there. And no, “I want more leads” doesn’t work. Your goals need to be specific, like “I want to attract 100 qualified leads from mid-size SaaS companies in Q3 through expert-led content and case studies.” That level of clarity guides what you write, where you publish it, and how you measure results.

But before you write a single word, you need to define your positioning. What makes your brand different and who is it for? It shapes your tone, your messaging, and the topics you cover.

Are you the fastest solution on the market? The most secure? The most affordable? Or the most flexible? Do you speak to startups or mature enterprises?

If you can’t answer that clearly, your content won’t cut through the noise. It won’t earn trust, drive engagement, or generate results. Because without clear positioning, even the best-written copy gets ignored.

But we won’t let that happen.

We’ll work with you to define exactly where you belong in the market. From there, we’ll shape a compelling value proposition that speaks directly to your ideal customer, not just any reader.

Then we’ll help you deliver high-impact messaging, the kind that earns attention and builds authority. And we won’t just publish and hope. We’ll help you distribute your content strategically across the channels where your audience spends time.

👉 Let’s talk about how to make your content work harder and smarter for your business.

‍