Is AI Search Sending You Traffic? Here's How to Check

Do you wonder if ChatGPT is citing your website and sending you traffic? If so, you're not alone. Most small business owners have heard that some people are getting leads from ChatGPT, and they want to know how so that it can happen for their business too. I help my students and clients with this every week and figured you might want to have a little insight into how it works and how you figure out if you're getting traffic from AI search too.

Why AI Search Matters to Your Small Business

AI search is changing how people find businesses. You no longer have to rank #1 on Google to show up when someone's ideal customer is searching for help. AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews are sharing information about businesses right in chat sessions with their users or in the AI overview at the top of Google's search results. People no longer have to visit your website to learn about your business. Some will still come to your site to learn more or engage with your content, but others will get the information they need without visiting, and that's OK. We want to focus on the people who want to learn more about you or your business and decide to visit your site to learn more.

Step 1: Check Your Analytics

Before you do anything else, look at your traffic data in your analytics account. This tells you where you're starting from. Are you getting traffic from AI-based search, Google, and other sites or not?

If you use Clicky, this is easy. Clicky has a dedicated AI Search category that shows you exactly how many visits came from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, no digging or filtering required like in Google Analytics. If you're not familiar with Clicky Analytics yet, it's my preferred analytics tool for small business owners because it's so simple and easy to use. You can check it out and learn more here. This is an affiliate link so if you sign up, I might get a little something from them. https://clicky.com/101491343

If you use Google Analytics, this same data exists, but it's harder to find. You have to know where and how to filter the reports to find the data. I stopped teaching students and clients to use Google Analytics when they rolled out GA-4 and moved to this format. It used to be much easier to find the information you need in GA than it is today. I don't recommend it for small business owners anymore because of the changes they've made to the platform.

• If you check and you're already getting visits from AI search, that's great news. You have some visibility and can build upon that.
• If you check and you see nothing, that's helpful too. It likely means your content isn't structured or visible enough yet for AI tools to find and cite it, which comes back to needing to do SEO on your site so that Google and now the AI search engines can find and understand your website and content so they know who to share it with.

Step 2: Understand What Content AI Search Is Finding

Once you know if you're getting traffic from AI search, it's time to find out which blog posts or pages are being shared by the AI tools so you can start to figure out what to do to help increase the number of pages or posts they share with people.

AI search tools provide answers to questions that people are asking, not just websites that are optimized for the keywords they're searching for. So you need to make sure you're answering the questions your ideal customer is asking when they're searching in order to show up in the results. This allows people to learn about your business from the AI-based search tools.

In your analytics program, if you can find AI traffic, you should be able to see which pages they visited on your website when they came from an AI search tool. This will help you start to understand what content AI likes on your site.

When you're creating new content for AI search, think about the following questions:

• What would they ask before they even know a business like yours exists?
• What would they ask while comparing you to other options?
• What hesitation or doubt would show up as a question?
• If you're a local business, what would they ask to figure out if you even serve their area?

There are tools that give you the exact questions people are searching for in AI-based tools. I personally like Answer The Public for this information. If you have access to it, you can use it to help do your research. If not, brainstorm the questions they might be asking using the guide listed above. I teach students about these tools, how to use them, and how to do SEO on their websites for both Google and AI-based search in Simple SEO Content. If you're ready to work on this together, you can join here.

How AI Search Tools Send Your Website Traffic

Here's what this looks like when it's working for your business.

For the search, how can a small business owner learn SEO on their own? Google's AI Overview cites my post Can I Do SEO on My Own? Yes, and here's how to start as one of its sources. It does this because the blog post goes into how a small business owner can learn SEO on their own and what to work on first. This post directly answers a question my ideal customer asks and provides value to the reader. It also helps me grow my business because I have opt-ins in that post that tie to my programs and help the ideal customer learn more about SEO or AI SEO.

How to Do This for Your Small Business

If your analytics show you're already getting AI search traffic, keep doing what's working: keep creating clear, well-structured content that answers real questions your customers are asking, and keep it up consistently. I recommend creating a new blog post each week, if possible. If you can't create a weekly post, it's OK to do one or two a month if that's what you're able to do consistently.

If your analytics show that you're not yet getting traffic from AI search, then you want to start with doing traditional SEO on your website and then create content that answers the questions your ideal customer is asking AI-based search. If you want help with what to do, I have a couple of guides that will help show you how to get started.

Get the free Beginner's Guide to SEO here — this will help you with what to do for Google SEO.

Get the free Beginner's Guide to AI SEO here — this will help you with what to do for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and more.

Do You Want Help Showing Up in AI Search?

I work with my students and clients on this every week. I'd love to guide you through the process and help you build your AI visibility so that your business can start showing up more and generating leads from AI-based search. Join me for the free class and then sign up for Simple SEO Content and work on this with me. You can also work with me one-on-one. Learn more about it here.

FAQ: AI Search Traffic

What counts as AI search traffic? Visits coming from tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews, as opposed to traditional organic Google search results pages.

Why don't I see AI search traffic in Google Analytics? It's there, but it's grouped in with your general referral traffic and takes some filtering to isolate, which is why many small business owners can't find it. It's also possible that you might not be getting AI search traffic yet if you haven't done SEO on your site and created content that answers your ideal customers' questions.

Do I need to rank #1 on Google to show up in AI search? No. AI tools regularly cite and name businesses that don't rank on the first page of Google at all, as long as the content clearly and directly answers the question being asked. You don't have to be at the top of Google to be visible in AI-based search. You do have to do SEO and create the right content in order to be found, though.

Can I do this myself? Yes, the thinking-through-your-customers'-questions part is something every business owner can do right now. If you want to learn how to do it the right way, which tools to use, and how to use them, join me in Simple SEO Content, and I'll guide you through the process step-by-step. I'd love to help you with this for your business.

Final Thoughts on AI Search Traffic for Your Small Business

Start by checking your analytics, if possible, to find out if you're getting traffic from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or other tools. You may be able to find out if you have traffic coming in now and which pages those visitors are finding. This will help you to start to understand what content on your site AI search understands and wants to share with people. This can help you figure out what to create more of. You want to keep creating great, helpful content that answers your ideal customers' questions, and then optimize that content for both Google and AI-based search.

If you're not yet getting traffic from AI-based search, start with traditional SEO on your site and then create content that answers the questions your ideal customers are asking. Doing this can help you start to increase your visibility online.