You can't optimize what you don't understand. Before diving into AI visibility strategies, you need to know where you actually stand.
An AI visibility audit gives you that baseline. Here's how to do one.
What you're actually auditing
A comprehensive audit looks at five things:
- Current visibility: Where do you show up in AI responses right now?
- Content readiness: Is your content structured for AI to understand and cite?
- Authority signals: Does AI have reasons to trust you?
- Technical factors: Can AI even access your content?
- Competitive position: How do you compare to others in your space?
Let's break down each one.
Phase 1: Check your current visibility
Build your prompt list
Create a list of prompts your customers would actually ask:
Purchase intent prompts:
- "Best [your category] for [your target audience]"
- "Which [product type] should I use for [use case]"
- "[Your category] recommendations"
Research prompts:
- "What is [topic in your space]"
- "How to [task you help with]"
Comparison prompts:
- "[Your brand] vs [competitor]"
- "[Competitor] alternatives"
Branded prompts:
- "Is [your brand] good?"
- "[Your brand] review"
Aim for 30-50 prompts to start.
Test across platforms
For each prompt, check:
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Claude
- Gemini
- Grok
For each response, record:
- Mentioned? (Yes/No)
- Position (1st, 2nd, etc.)
- Context (positive/neutral/negative)
- Competitors mentioned
Calculate your baseline metrics
From your data, figure out:
Mention rate: % of prompts where you appear
Platform coverage: Which platforms mention you
Competitive share: Your mentions vs competitors
Sentiment distribution: Positive vs neutral vs negative
Using Mentionable for this
You can do this manually, but it takes hours. Mentionable automates it:
- Sign up and enter your URL
- Accept or customize the suggested prompts
- Get visibility data across all platforms
- View dashboards with calculated metrics
This gives you more reliable data (multiple checks, controlled methodology) in a fraction of the time.
Phase 2: Audit your content
Inventory your key content
List the content that should support AI visibility:
- Homepage
- Product/service pages
- Key blog posts
- Resource pages
- About page
Evaluate each piece
For each piece of content, assess:
Comprehensiveness
- Does it fully cover the topic?
- Would someone get all their questions answered?
- Is it more thorough than what competitors have?
Structure
- Clear, descriptive headings?
- Bulleted lists where they make sense?
- FAQ sections?
- Easy to scan and extract information from?
Direct answers
- Does it actually answer questions?
- Are answers prominent (not buried)?
- Could AI cite specific answers from this?
Currency
- When was it last updated?
- Is the information still accurate?
- Are statistics current?
Map content to prompts
For each target prompt:
- Do you have content that addresses it?
- Is that content comprehensive enough?
- Is it optimized for AI extraction?
Identify gaps where you need new content or need to improve what exists.
Phase 3: Audit your authority
Check third-party presence
Where are you mentioned online outside your own site?
- Industry publications
- Review sites (G2, Capterra, etc.)
- News coverage
- Industry directories
- Social media presence
Evaluate your backlink profile
What sites link to you?
- Number of referring domains
- Quality of linking sites
- Relevance of linking sites
Use tools like Ahrefs or Moz for detailed analysis.
Check brand consistency
Search for your brand across the web:
- Is information consistent?
- Are there outdated profiles?
- Do all sources describe you the same way?
Inconsistency confuses AI about what you actually are.
Phase 4: Audit technical factors
Check AI bot access
Review your robots.txt for AI bot directives:
# Check for these user-agents
GPTBot
PerplexityBot
ClaudeBot
Google-Extended
Are any blocked? Should they be?
Test content accessibility
- Can pages load without JavaScript?
- Is content behind login walls?
- Do pages load quickly?
Review structured data
Check for:
- Organization schema
- Product/service schema
- FAQ schema
- Article schema
Structured data helps AI understand your content.
Phase 5: Analyze competitors
Identify your competitors
List 3-5 main competitors for your target prompts.
Compare visibility
For your target prompts:
- How often do competitors appear?
- What position do they get?
- How are they described?
Study their content
For prompts where competitors win:
- What content do they have?
- How is it structured?
- What authority signals do they have?
Find competitive gaps
Where can you beat them?
- Topics they don't cover
- Depth they don't achieve
- Authority they don't have
Phase 6: Synthesize and prioritize
Compile your findings
Create a summary:
Current state:
- Overall mention rate: X%
- Platform coverage: X/5
- Competitive position: ranked X of Y competitors
Key gaps:
- Content gaps (topics not covered)
- Structure gaps (content not AI-optimized)
- Authority gaps (insufficient trust signals)
- Technical gaps (access issues)
Prioritize opportunities
Rank opportunities by:
- Business impact: How valuable is visibility on this prompt?
- Feasibility: How hard is it to achieve?
- Current gap: How far are you from competitors?
High impact + high feasibility + large gap = top priority.
What you should have when you're done
A complete audit produces:
Visibility baseline: Documented current state across platforms
Gap analysis: Where you should be visible but aren't
Content roadmap: What to create or improve
Authority plan: How to build trust signals
Technical fixes: What to address immediately
How often to audit
Full audit: Annually, or after major website/strategy changes
Mini audit: Quarterly check on key metrics
Continuous monitoring: Ongoing tracking with Mentionable
Start here
- Start with a visibility assessment (use Mentionable's 7-day free trial)
- Audit content for your top 10 target prompts
- Check technical factors (robots.txt, accessibility)
- Document baseline metrics
- Create a prioritized improvement plan
The audit gives you the map. Strategy and execution come next.