LLM Seeding: What it is, how to do it and why it should never be approached in a silo!

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In the world of brand visibility, the rules are changing (fast). With AI tools becoming a primary route to discovery, 79% Brits now trust AI tools to deliver reliable results. The priority isn’t to get your brand ranking in search results, but to get your brand included in the answer. To do this, you need to look at LLM seeding (but also realise that this is only part of the story). 

Here, we’ll take a brief look at:

• What LLM seeding really means (and how it’s different to SEO)
  
• What you can practically do to start the process of LLM seeding
  
• Why we strongly believe that LLM seeing can’t be treated as a tactic on its own and HAS to sit alongside your wider Earned Visibility strategy 

What is LLM Seeding?

Neil Patel uses the following definition: “LLM seeding involves publishing content in formats and locations that AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can access, understand and cite.”

Where traditional SEO focuses on rankings, LLM seeding looks at what you need to do to be read, remembered and referenced by AI tools so that you’re ultimately included in the answer.

Backlinko’s 2025 analysis found that around 90% of the URLs cited by ChatGPT appear beyond page one of Google. Proof that LLMs value relevance so much more than rankings. 

How to do LLM seeding (a practical framework). 

Combining insights from what we’ve actually seen work for clients, alongside the latest thinking and research from industry experts, here’s what we recommend:

1. Be the consumer (and the AI)

Get on Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and others and start asking the questions that you’d like to appear in the answer for. Take note of whether you do actually appear in the answer and who does. Then check out the referenced content – this will help you see what’s working. Look closely at where that content lives (e.g Reddit, Quora, Medium, trade blogs, or review sites), as these are all regular sources for LLMs.

2. Answer specific questions

The average AI search query is up to seven times as long as a traditional search term. This means that your content needs to be talking to these specific questions. LLM seeding isn’t about producing a load of generic advice; instead, focus on REALLY answering specific questions.

3. Structure your content clearly

You want your content written in such a way that AI can easily read it. The good news is that this is pretty much the same as writing content in a way that humans can understand. Think clear bullet points, tables, good headings and structure, and clear logic. You want your content ‘chunked’ so that AI can read it. Adding schema markup (especially FAQ or HowTo schema), semantic headings, and descriptive alt text helps models read your content and information much more accurately.

4. Be consistent

It’s not enough to appear once. AI tools learn from repetition, context, and where your brand is consistently associated with the topic. 

5. Learn, optimise, rinse and repeat

We cannot emphasise enough how much this is NOT a ‘one and done’. Unlike SEO, LLM seeding can lead to rapid changes in who is appearing in the answer. Benchmark to start with, then commit to a plan, then benchmark again and see how you’re doing. Optimise from there.

Why LLM seeding should never be approached on its own (and should always form part of a wider Earned Visibility strategy)

If you treat LLM seeding as a standalone tactic (typically by having just one team or person look at this), you’re risking three big issues:

1. Fragmentation of brand signals. If your LLM content lives separately from your PR or social, then AI tools (and, crucially, humans) aren’t able to form a consistent understanding of your brand and what you do.
   
2. It’s about so much more than content. Focussing on just LLM seeding, and not a wider EV strategy, risks ignoring a whole host of factors that are essential to AI and to humans. For example, LLM seeding might focus on just your content, and where this is featured, but we know that PR citations are a major factor in Earned Visibility (and are influencing AI mentions).
   
3. No brand / narrative coherence. Related to the above, machines don’t just pick up content; they pick up consistency. If you are saying different things in different places – so your LLM content doesn’t align with your PR content or your social – then you are likely to be ignored. 

The YS view – How to approach LLM seeding as part of a wider Earned Visibility Strategy 

AI tools and LLMs don’t “see” marketing channels in isolation. They recognise patterns of authority across every signal they can read. Your PR coverage, your site structure, your reviews, and your FAQs are all important. That’s why we see LLM seeding as one part of a wider Earned Visibility ecosystem. 

We look at Earned Visibility as a holistic approach to ensure that your brand is discoverable to consumers AND to AI, and this is broken down across four key areas:

• Consistency. If your brand voice, topics, and proof points don’t line up across PR, web, social, and owned content, AI can’t form a coherent concept of who you are. Consistency across channels (and over time) is what trains both people and machines to recognise your brand.
  
• Citations. PR has always had a role to play in marketing. This is now more important than ever. Mentions from credible third parties act as critical validation signals. AI is much more likely to include a brand in an answer if it’s seen as credible and features in key news titles. 
  
• Technical. Even the most insightful content doesn’t move the dial if your site is difficult to read and navigate. Site performance, maps, schema, and clarity of structure all influence how well AI tools can read your content. 
  
• Personalisation. LLMs are ultimately looking to answer real customers’ real questions. The closer your content aligns with these questions (and the language used), the more likely it is to appear when those questions are asked.

When all four come together, LLM seeding stops being a content play and becomes a brand visibility strategy. 

Short on time?

Just want the good bits? No worries, we’ve got you covered:

• LLM seeding is about getting your brand included in the AI answer, not just ranking in Google.
  
• It requires content that’s specific to your customers’ questions, structured well and delivered consistently. 
  
• But it won’t work in isolation – your Earned Visibility foundations (citations, technical factors, personalisation and consistency) are what make you memorable to both humans and machines.
  
• Start by auditing your current visibility (especially against competitors) and testing prompts.
  
• Then move towards optimising content for both AI and audience clarity.
  
• And finally, measure, refine, repeat.

Ready to find out how visible your brand really is in the AI era?  Get your Earned Visibility Score