How to adapt your backlinks and digital PR for AEO and SearchGPT

SEO is an evolving discipline, and as we enter what very much feels like the next stage of search (and decide on what new acronym to use to summarise it!) It’s important to reflect on what is working well but also what may be needed to futureproof your strategy. That’s important across various disciplines, but especially in SEO.

Here we take a look at backlinks, brand mentions, and off-page SEO within the context of AEO optimisation for platforms like SearchGPT. Expect to learn how the citations used by SearchGPT differs from Google, why you need to optimise for your brand name in addition to your content and pages, and how to start getting coverage in the right areas for your business.

What backlinks are being used by SearchGPT?

When looking at the kind of backlinks it is important to think about the context. Looking at an example for Varn, we conducted a search on the ‘best off-page SEO agencies’ and it returned the below result. Content pulls through from Varn’s Off-page SEO page but the sources section at the bottom is what we are really interested in.

Examining the content we can see that whilst some commercial pages are shown including Varn’s there is a high number of long-form content pages listing out SEO agencies. These kinds of lists are becoming more common across the web and appear to be what SearchGPT is prioritising when it comes to citations. If your website is mentioned in this kind of content, you are more likely to appear in SearchGPT for relevant results. Varn for example are featured in the Social Shepherd article but not in similar referral style pages from Omnius or Designrush.

These represent golden opportunities to reach out and ask for a placement. In addition to this we are also seeing more reddit results be leveraged within the content, whether this will stay or not is difficult to determine, but for this thread around the best SEO agencies in the UK, getting Varn featured is also a bonus. The question is, will not having a backlink in this kind of content have an impact?

Are brand mentions becoming more important?

Brand mentions have been a part of SEO for over a decade but their potential importance has often been debated. In the early days pre-2012, their importance was minimal, with a pure focus on backlinks. Following the Penguin and Hummingbird updates, the algorithm developed in terms of context and entity recognition, and this coincided with the Google patent on ‘implied links’ , a hint that unlinked brand mentions could be a ranking signal.

From 2015-1018, brand mentions became more important and started to play a significant role in signalling authority if they were placed on authoritative sites. This trend has continued up to 2024, with the added dimension of LLMs now clearly leveraging brand mentions in the answers they surface to users. The areas of the mentions may also play a part, as Neil Patel discusses:

“The more mentions, the more likely AI models are to consider your content high quality.

That could be things like user-generated content reviews, comments, and forum posts. These are the types of information large language models are likely to use, so use social listening tools to discover these comments.”

What does SearchGPT say?

Our question: Do you use brand mentions on forums, social posts and wider non-traditional SEO sources in your algorithm when serving answers on brands to users?

SearchGPT: I don’t have my own algorithm for ranking brands, but I can analyze and synthesize information based on a mix of sources, including brand mentions on forums, social media, news articles, and other online discussions. However, my responses prioritize authoritative sources like official websites, structured SEO-optimized content, and well-cited information.

Are unlinked mentions still a tactic worth pursuing? Google’s grip on search has not vanished just yet, but with their dip below 90% of the market share for the first time since 2015, ensuring your time is spent on the most valuable tactics will be crucial.

How to start earning citations to support AEO

So we’ve discussed the kind of citations that SearchGPT uses for content around ‘best X service providers’ and we have explored the added importance of brand mentions on these types of pages and wider sources on the web. How do you actually go about driving these for your business?

Contribute to industry blogs: Write insightful articles for reputable industry blogs and publications. This not only showcases your expertise but also increases the chances of your brand being mentioned and linked. This was great for links, and it’s still great for building brands.
Media outreach: Build relationships with journalists and influencers to feature your brand in articles, interviews, or reviews.
Create shareable content: Develop engaging content tailored for platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Encourage sharing by crafting content that resonates with your audience. This will help drive visibility and also increase the chances of content getting picked up on blogs and news sites.
Earn citation placements: Reach out to the websites that reference your competitors and appear as citations within SearchGPT and other LLMs, this is the content that these tools are already using when serving content, so getting placements will be highly valuable.

Key takeaways

Brand mentions and off-page SEO is here to stay with the new AEO paradigm, if you want to continue to earn visibility remember to:

Monitor and research the kind of citations LLMs deem valued in your industry
Be conscious of brand mentions on the web and develop a strategy to drive more
Work with an agency that prioritises future-proof outreach to drive visibility

If you would like to discuss how LLMs serve content to users and how you can get featured in commercially valuable searches no matter the platform, get in touch with Varn today.