I’ve been doing SEO for websites for years, so normally I use tools like:

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• Ubersuggest
• Google Keyword Planner

These tools are great for Google search volume.

But now traffic is slowly shifting toward AI tools like:

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT
• Google’s Gemini
• Anthropic’s Claude
• Perplexity AI

So now I’m trying to understand:

How do we actually do keyword research for AI chatbots?

For example:

• What are people asking inside ChatGPT?
• Which prompts/topics are trending?
• Which industries are getting more AI searches?
• What type of content do AI models prefer to cite?
• Is there any “AI search volume” tool like Google keyword volume?

I found some people talking about:

• “LLM SEO”
• “GEO SEO”
• “AI visibility optimization”

But most articles feel very generic.

What I really want is:
A tool or method that shows:

• AI prompt trends
• Questions people ask AI bots
• Topic demand inside LLMs
• AI search volume data
• Prompt popularity

Something similar to Google Trends, but for AI searches.

Right now I’m checking:

• Reddit discussions
• People also ask
• Perplexity suggestions
• ChatGPT auto suggestions
• Exploding Topics

But it still feels like guessing.

Are there any real tools available for this yet?

Or are you guys manually finding trends somehow?

Would love to know what’s actually working in 2026 for AI-focused keyword research.

Everyone talks about links.

But I’m curious about the unexpected stuff that moved rankings without link building.

Maybe:

• better internal linking
• rewriting intros
• removing content
• improving UX
• changing page structure
• adding tools/calculators
• fixing crawl issues

What gave you the biggest “wait… THAT worked?” moment?

Serious question.

Would you still:

• build backlinks?
• write blogs?
• focus on keywords?
• care about topical authority?

Or would everything shift toward:

• brand mentions
• communities
• Reddit
• YouTube
• citations
• entity SEO?

Curious what experienced SEOs think the next 2–3 years will actually look like.

I’ve been seeing a lot of people talking about AEO lately, but most explanations are either too generic or confusing. So here’s a simple breakdown based on what’s actually working right now.

What is AEO?

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is about optimizing your content so that AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, and Bing Copilot can directly pick your answer and show it to users.

Unlike traditional SEO, where the goal is to rank on Google, AEO focuses on becoming the direct answer.

SEO vs AEO (Simple Difference)

• SEO → Rank your page
• AEO → Get your content picked as the answer

What actually works for AEO?

From testing on multiple sites, these things matter most:

1. Direct answer blocks (40–60 words) under clear questions
2. FAQ sections with schema markup
3. Clear headings like “What is…”, “How to…”
4. Topical authority (multiple blogs on one topic)
5. Simple, conversational language (not robotic)

What doesn’t matter as much as people say

• llms.txt files
• Overcomplicated schema setups
• Stuffing keywords

Real takeaway

If your page clearly answers a question better than others, AI will pick it — even if your site is not #1 yet.

I’ve personally seen pages getting picked in AI results just by adding:

• A clean answer section
• Proper FAQ
• Internal linking

Curious to know —
Has anyone here actually seen traffic or leads from AI search yet?