AI-Driven SEO: How to Audit Your Visibility & Stop Stressing About ChatGPT

Trigger Warning: I use em dashes, always have, always will!

This article is inspired by and thanks to Lily Grozeva who shared her AI Search Auditing process with us in our latest Sitebulb webinar.

We all know the SEO world has been buzzing about generative AI lately. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, Gemini—the list goes on, and the anxiety levels about adapting our SEO strategies are understandably high.

But all that panic around losing traffic to ChatGPT and similar LLMs is probably a bit premature. And I’m here to tell you to calm down, put the kettle on, and ground yourself in a much more sensible approach to the evolution of search: an audit.

So let’s get stuck in.

The reality of AI search today

Despite some of the scaremongering you might have seen, traffic driven by LLMs like ChatGPT is still pretty minimal. Sure, it's innovative, shiny, and exciting, but from a practical standpoint, it's far from the biggest player impacting your site's visibility.

Lily Grozeva, head of SEO at VertoDigital, nailed it when she said:

“LLM traffic is really low and from what I read, the expectations are that it'll be three years until the ChatGPT and LLM traffic... will meet Google in terms of traffic levels, if it happens at all, we don't know, obviously.”

Lily Grozeva   Head of SEO, VertoDigital

In other words, if you're stressing over LLM traffic right now, you might be focused on a red herring.

Why Google AI Overviews matter more right now

Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), on the other hand, are a big deal—and they're happening right now. Lily points out:

“Most of the AI search action is not happening on the LLM side... AI Overviews are here already. I think it’s 25 or 30% of all the traffic, all the search demand share, which is a huge number.”

Lily Grozeva   Head of SEO, VertoDigital

So instead of worrying about future scenarios involving ChatGPT dominating search, the real strategic move today is optimising your visibility for Google's AI Overview results.

And as an agency SEO, your first job is to educate any clients that are getting caught up in the LLM hype:

Auditing your AIO visibility: Step-by-step guide

Before anyone decides to throw their current SEO strategy out the window in favour of some “silver bullet solution” they saw touted on LinkedIn, let’s do an audit.

Here’s a simplified step-by-step breakdown of Lily’s process:

Step 1: Topical coverage and prompt alignment

Identify the core topics and prompts your brand wants to target. Map these clearly against your current website content to see what matches and what's missing.

Step 2: Content structure and citation readiness

Use tools like Rankscale or Waikay to assess individual pages for AI search readiness. These tools provide insights into content relevance, authority, and trustworthiness—key factors that influence your visibility in AI Overviews.

Step 3: LLM and AI Overview visibility reporting

Review your visibility using platforms like Semrush or Rankscale. Specifically, look for opportunities in Google’s AI Overviews by identifying prompts where you're visible but not yet featured prominently.

Step 4: NLP and entity analysis

Conduct an NLP and entity analysis to ensure your website content aligns with the entities and topics Google favours. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can help identify content gaps and opportunities.

Step 5: Technical readiness check

Confirm your website is technically accessible to AI bots. Check for things like AI bot accessibility and consider creating files like llms.txt or updating schema.org markup to ensure maximum visibility.

Step 6: Citation presence and training data inclusion

Analyse citations to understand how your content is being referenced and cited in AI-driven search results. Tools like Peec can reveal insights about your competitors' citation visibility as well.

Step 7: Competitor benchmarking

Finally, benchmark your visibility against competitors regularly. Tools that track visibility and mentions across your industry can help you understand your position and adapt strategically.

Recommended tool stack for AI search auditing

Lily’s recommended tool stack for effective AI search auditing includes:

• Sitebulb for initial content extraction through website crawling, particularly for mapping core topics against existing content.

• Rankscale and Peec for detailed page-level analysis and visibility insights.

• Semrush for visibility reporting, especially for identifying AI Overview opportunities.

• ChatGPT and Gemini for thorough NLP and entity analysis to pinpoint content gaps.

• Knowatoa helps ensure technical readiness by confirming AI bot accessibility.

• Writesonic for generating llms.txt files.

Wrap-up

Yes, AI-driven search is evolving fast, but panicking about LLM traffic today is likely misplaced energy. Instead, invest your efforts in auditing and understanding site visibility in Google’s AI Overviews.

I highly recommend you revisit Lily’s webinar recording and slides, so you can really get to grips with the process.

Conduct a clear, strategic audit, optimise your content through entity analysis, and keep a sharp eye on your competitors. Do that, and you'll be ahead of the curve, not scrambling to catch up later. Good advice, thanks Lily!