A guide for the AI search era

For years, website marketing meant search visibility: ranking for the right queries and earning the click.

The way people search has changed. They still use Google, but they also ask AI tools for direct answers. These tools draw on training data and the sources they retrieve to decide which brands are credible enough to surface or cite. 

That shifts the goal from visibility to credibility: proof that your brand is trustworthy enough to be recommended.

The techniques are largely the same. What they’re accomplishing is different.

In this guide, we’ll cover 12 website marketing techniques that now build credibility across search, AI tools, and the channels your audience uses.

What is website marketing?

Website marketing is the process of promoting your website so people who need your product, service, or expertise can find your business, learn from your content, and become customers.

Today, that also means managing how your brand appears across the channels and sources people and AI tools use to evaluate it.

The four layers of website marketing

A strategic website marketing plan is what moves your brand from competing for attention to earning a position as a trusted destination.

It builds the signals that determine where your brand shows up, how AI tools understand it, and whether they recommend it. Those signals work across four layers, each a prerequisite for the next:

• Discoverability: Can AI tools find you? Your content needs to be easy for search engines and AI tools to find and access. This is the foundation everything else builds on.
• Clarity: Can AI tools understand you? Once found, AI needs to understand what your brand does and who it serves. The messaging across your site and external sources like reviews and directories needs to be consistent, so AI shows you to the people most likely to need what you offer.
• Authority: Do credible sources validate you? Your brand needs evidence that it is a credible entity in its category. Coverage from reputable publications and third-party mentions both strengthen authority.

• Trust: Would AI tools recommend you? Your brand needs signals that it delivers on what it claims. Positive reviews and confirmation from independent sources are what give buyers and AI tools the confidence to act.

Why website marketing is more critical now than ever

Our research suggests AI search will start driving more visitors to websites than traditional search by 2028. And the average AI search visitor is worth 4.4 times more than a traditional organic visitor, from a conversion standpoint, which makes AI visibility a revenue issue, not just a traffic one.

Every 100 visitors your brand earns from AI search carries the conversion value of 440 traditional organic visitors.

Roughly 60% of searches on traditional search engines now end without a click, so ranking alone no longer guarantees a visit.

12 techniques to use in your website marketing strategy

In keyword-based search, each marketing tactic had a clear role: rank, reach, convert, or retain. 

In AI search, those roles overlap. A review builds trust, a comparison page shapes an AI answer, a guest post strengthens authority, and a social profile confirms your brand is active and relevant. 

The 12 techniques below show how familiar tactics work together when credibility is the goal.

1. Search engine optimization: Build the discoverability layer search engines and AI tools depend on

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website so it can appear in search results when people look for what you offer.

In an AI search environment, SEO is still the foundation. It makes your important pages easier for search engines to find, read, rank, and connect to relevant queries.

Start with the pages that matter most to your business. These are usually your homepage, product or service pages, and pages that already bring traffic or leads.

Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to check the search volume, difficulty, and intent for a few terms related to the page. Then pick the term that best matches what people search for and what the page actually offers. For example, an accounting software page might target “accounting software for small businesses” or “best accounting software.”

If your site is new, start with your homepage and core product or service pages. Make sure each page clearly explains what you offer, who it is for, and what action visitors should take next.

If your site already gets search traffic, Semrush’s Organic Rankings tool can show which keywords you already rank for. 

Next, use Google Search Console’s (GSC) free Page Indexing report to check whether your important pages are indexed. This shows which pages Google can find and include in search results.

Then improve each page: 

• Match the page to the search term: A page targeting “best accounting software” should compare the options and explain which type of business each one suits
• Cover the on-page basics: a clear SEO title, proper heading structure (H1, then H2s and H3s), internal links from related pages, and fast, mobile-friendly loading. Our guide to promoting your website walks through each. 
• Check progress: Use Semrush’s Position Tracking to monitor rankings across Google and AI tools, and revisit the title, headings, and content match if a page stalls.

2. Content marketing: Create the evidence buyers and AI systems look for

Content marketing is the practice of creating useful content, like blogs, guides, comparisons, and how-to articles, that answers questions your audience is already searching for.

Content marketing gives search engines, AI tools, and buyers something useful to evaluate.

To put this into practice:

• Find real questions your audience asks: Use Semrush’s Keyword Strategy Builder to enter one topic related to your business and add three to five related keywords. The tool groups related questions and subtopics into a content plan.
• Choose the most relevant questions: Pick two or three questions that closely relate to your product, service, or expertise.
• Find the content gap: Search each question on Google and review the top three results. Look for what is missing, outdated, too generic, or not useful enough.
• Create one focused page that fills the gap: Include specific examples, data, screenshots, customer insights, or expert input where relevant. 

Articles that compare options, show examples, and answer follow-up questions give readers enough detail to decide and give AI tools something worth citing.

Zapier is a strong example. Its guides cover side-by-side software comparisons and detailed workflow walkthroughs, making its educational resources some of its highest-traffic pages.

The same specificity that earns these pages organic traffic also makes them useful sources when AI tools summarize topics or compare options.

Semrush’s Top Pages report shows how any domain’s pages perform across organic search, AI Overviews, AI mode, and AI tools. Each page shows traffic, keyword count, referring domains, and LLM prompt volume. Run it on a competitor’s domain to find which pages appear in multiple channels and which topics are worth replicating.

According to Semrush’s AI Visibility Overview, Zapier earns roughly 69,000 mentions* and about 128,000 citations** across major AI platforms, spread across more than 47,000 different pages.

3. AI SEO: Optimize for AI recommendations, not just rankings

AI SEO (also called generative engine optimization, or GEO) is the process of improving how your brand appears in AI-generated answers.

SEO focuses on pages, rankings, and how you appear in search results. AI SEO focuses on prompts, mentions, citations, competitors, and how AI tools describe your brand.

Start by checking the questions your buyers are likely to ask AI tools. For example:

• “What is the best invoicing software for small businesses?”
• “What are the top alternatives to [competitor]?”
• “Which tools are best for automating invoices?”

Look at whether your brand appears, how it is described, which competitors appear with it, and which sources the AI tool cites.

To improve your AI visibility:

• Give AI tools brand context: Comparison pages, FAQs, and guides give AI tools the detail they need to describe your brand accurately.
• Back claims with proof: Specific examples, data, and customer stories make your claims easier to verify and trust.
• Make your brand information consistent: Keep your product description, audience, use cases, pricing, and positioning consistent across your website, profiles, reviews, and third-party mentions.
• Build outside authority: Reviews, mentions, and press coverage show AI tools that other sources vouch for your brand.
• Update pages AI tools already cite: Keep your content accurate, current, and useful so AI tools have better information to reference.

Checking a few prompts manually is a good starting point. With Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit, you can monitor these signals across major AI platforms at scale.

Use the “Narrative Drivers” dashboard to track share of voice, mentions, and competitor visibility.

The “Perception” dashboard shows how AI systems describe your brand and highlights opportunities to improve sentiment.

And the “Questions” dashboard reveals the prompts users ask AI tools, helping you identify content opportunities and refine your positioning.

Further reading: How to Rank in AI Search

4. User experience (UX): Convert the traffic your marketing earns

UX is the practice of designing your website so visitors can quickly understand what you offer, trust what they see, and know what to do next.

To improve UX:

• Make the page promise clear: The headline should answer “what is this, and who is it for?” within a few seconds. 
• Focus on your highest-impact pages first: Start with your homepage, main product or service pages, and checkout, signup, or demo page. These are usually the pages most closely tied to traffic, leads, or sales.
• Make navigation easy to follow: Keep the menu simple, visible, and consistent. If visitors regularly rely on the browser’s back button just to get around your own site, that’s a sign navigation needs fixing.
• Show the next step early: Place the main call-to-action (CTA) near the top of the page. Use short, actionable steps like “Book a demo,” “See pricing,” “Start free trial,” or “Download the guide.”
• Remove competing actions: Give the page one primary CTA tied to your main goal. Secondary links are fine as long as the primary action is the one that stands out visually.
• Add proof near the promise: Place reviews, customer logos, testimonials, case study results, or security badges close to the CTA.
• Make the page easy to scan: Use short sections, clear headings, bullets, visuals, and white space so visitors can find answers quickly. 
• Keep the design clean and consistent: Use the same fonts, colors, and styling across every page. 
• Answer common objections directly on the page: Address price, setup, timing, cancellation, support, or risk in a short line or FAQ on the page itself.
• Secure your site with SSL: Your site address should start with “https.” Ask your hosting provider for an “SSL certificate” if your site doesn’t have one. 
• Check mobile usability: Open the page on your phone. If you have to pinch to zoom or buttons are too small to tap, your website platform’s mobile settings need adjusting.
• Diagnose and fix page speed: Use a tool like PageSpeed Insights or Semrush Site Audit to check whether slow load times are causing visitors to leave, then fix whatever it flags as the biggest issue.

5. Search ads: Buy visibility while your organic authority builds

Search ads are paid placements that can appear when people search for terms related to what you sell. Many search campaigns use a pay-per-click (PPC) model, where you’re charged when someone clicks your ad.

Use paid search ads when you want to reach people who are already showing buying intent. For example, “black linen shirts for men” shows stronger intent than “is linen good for summer.” Google now places ads in and around AI Overviews. This keeps your brand visible even as the results page changes.

To run better search ads:

• Choose high-intent search terms: Start with terms people use when they’re close to buying, booking, signing up, or requesting a quote, like “buy,” “pricing,” or “near me.”
• Check cost and competition: Before setting a budget, check cost-per-click (CPC) and competitive density (how many other advertisers are bidding on the same term) in a tool like Semrush’s Keyword Overview. Start small, and increase spend once you see what’s working.

• Match the ad to the search: If someone searches “best project management tool for small business,” your ad’s headline and description should include that same phrase, not a generic line like “Try our software today.”
• Send clicks to the right page: A pricing search should go to a pricing or product page, not a general blog post.
• Track business outcomes: Set up conversion tracking in Google Ads to measure leads, signups, purchases, demo requests, or quote requests.

• Move budget toward what converts: Using what you tracked above, increase spend on terms that bring signups or purchases, and pause the ones that get clicks without any of those outcomes. 

Search ads help you capture high-intent demand now while your organic authority grows over time.

6. Organic social media: Signal brand presence across every platform AI can validate

Organic social media means publishing posts and engaging with people on social platforms to build presence and community.

Social media is one of the clearest two-way channels in marketing. Customers reply, ask questions, share opinions, and interact with each other.

Consistency across platforms also matters for credibility: it is one of the signals buyers and AI tools use to confirm a brand is active and real.

To build a stronger organic social presence:

• Start with one or two platforms: Choose platforms where your audience already talks about your topic. For B2B brands, prioritize LinkedIn, YouTube, and X. For B2C brands, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest make more sense.
• Make your profiles clear: Explain what your business does, who it serves, and where people should go next.
• Publish content people can use: Share tips, product use cases, customer stories, short videos, and answers to common questions.
• Invite people to respond: Ask questions, run polls, reply to comments, and respond to direct messages. Public replies show other people that your brand is active and listening.
• Encourage customer content: Reshare customer posts, testimonials, reviews, or product examples with permission.
• Track what resonates: Look at comments, shares, saves, clicks, profile visits, and direct messages. These signals show stronger interest than likes alone.

Duolingo is a strong example of organic social media in action. Its social presence turned the Duo mascot into a recognizable brand character, and its comments, replies, trends, and creator-style posts made the brand part of public conversations about language learning.

That public activity gives buyers more ways to discover and evaluate the brand. 

Managing brand social media means juggling several jobs at once: posting, replying, monitoring mentions, and tracking performance. 

Semrush Social Toolkit centralizes the work: 

• Social Poster schedules your posts
• Social Content AI drafts ideas and captions when you need to publish regularly
• Media Monitoring finds customer content and brand mentions across social platforms, blogs, forums, and news
• Social Content Insights shows which of your posts are actually earning comments, shares, saves, clicks, and profile visits

Further reading: How social media SEO can boost your visibility

7. Social media advertising: Amplify reach across the channels your audience uses

Social media advertising means paying to promote your brand, content, or offer on social platforms like LinkedIn, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, X, or Pinterest, either through a platform’s ad system or by partnering with a creator who already has an engaged audience.

Social ads are useful when you want to build awareness, test a new angle, promote an offer, reach people who’ve already shown interest, or send targeted visitors to your website.

To run social ads well:

• Start with something worth amplifying: Choose a post that is performing well and boost it with paid amplification. Use Semrush’s Social Content Insights to see which of your existing posts are already earning engagement. 
• Choose one audience for one reason: Target new buyers by interest or demographic, or target people who’ve already shown interest, like past website visitors or video viewers.
• Match the page to the ad: Send people to the page that matches the ad’s offering. For example, if the ad’s headline promises a discount, that discount should be visible on the page without scrolling.

• Test one variable per test: Test one message, audience, format, or offer at a time. If you change all of them at once, you will not know what caused the result.
• Measure based on the campaign goal: For awareness, look at reach, video views, profile visits, or site visits. For traffic, look at clicks and landing page engagement. For leads or sales, look at signups, purchases, demo requests, and how much you’re spending for each conversion.
• Scale only after the signal is clear: Set a target cost per result before launching, for example, $50 per signup. Once your actual cost is consistently at or below that number, increase the budget. If it’s higher, change the message, audience, or page first.

If you are using creators, choose partners based on audience fit, engagement, and content quality. Ask for a genuine comparison, walkthrough, or product experience rather than a scripted ad read. Useful creator content earns more trust from the audience. 

Semrush’s Influencer Analytics lets you search creators across YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and TikTok by topic. You can also see their audience’s demographics, how well a sponsored post from them is likely to perform, and which other brands they’ve worked with before.

8. Email marketing: Own the audience no algorithm can take away

Email marketing is sending emails to people who have signed up to hear from your business. These include newsletters, product updates, offers, event invites, educational content, or abandoned cart reminders.

Your email list is one of the few marketing assets you fully own. Email marketing gives you a direct way to reach people who’ve already shown interest in your brand.

To get started:

1. Set up an email marketing platform first: Use tools like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Kit to collect email addresses, send emails to your list, and see how each email performs. 
2. Place signup forms on the pages people already visit: Your homepage or checkout page, with an offer like a discount or downloadable asset.
3. Set up a welcome email campaign: The moment someone subscribes, send an automated welcome email. 
4. Segment your audience: Group subscribers by interest, behavior, or stage, like new subscribers, free trial users, and repeat customers.
5. Create a different campaign for each segment: Give each segment its own message and a relevant call to action (CTA). A new subscriber gets an introduction to your product, while a repeat customer might get an offer to buy again.
6. A/B test your emails: Create two versions of the same email with only one thing changed, like the subject line, and use the metrics in the next step to see which one performs better.
7. Track open rate (how many people open the email) and click-through rate (how many click a link inside it), but judge real success by signups, purchases, and return visits.
8. Maintain your list: Remove inactive subscribers and incorrect email addresses. 

9. Affiliate marketing: Turn independent endorsements into authority signals

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice where creators, publishers, or industry websites recommend your product to their audience, in exchange for a commission on each sale.

When a publisher who already covers your category recommends your product, that third-party mention is a signal search engines use to confirm your brand is a credible option in that space.

To find and work with affiliates:

1. Sign up for an affiliate network: Platforms like ShareASale, Impact, or Awin create your tracked referral link and pay commissions automatically.
2. Search for sites that already review your category: Search “[competitor] alternatives” or “[your category] review” and see which publications come up repeatedly. Those are your realistic candidates.
3. Check each candidate’s content: Read two or three recent posts to confirm they genuinely review products like yours and get real engagement, comments and shares.
4. Give partners real material: Provide a free account or sample, plus the problem it solves, who it’s for, and pricing, so they can write a genuine review.
5. Track who actually converts: Use your network’s dashboard to see which partners send paying customers. Offer your best performers a higher commission, or ask for a deeper piece, like a full comparison.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: Exit Five, a B2B marketing publication, featured Knak in one of their newsletters.

Since Exit Five’s audience is interested in B2B marketing, the recommendation reached people actively looking for relevant tools.

When a reader clicks the link and buys, Knak pays Exit Five a commission based on the revenue generated.

A genuine recommendation from a publication your buyers already trust builds real authority for your brand.

10. Online reviews: Build the trust signals AI and buyers both weigh

Online reviews are public feedback your customers leave about their experience, on platforms like Google, Yelp, G2, or Trustpilot.

Reviews show what customers actually think about your brand, their experience, and the quality of what you offer. That public opinion helps both people and AI tools understand your brand from a customer’s perspective. 

To strengthen your review profile:

• Ask right after a good experience: The best time to ask for a review is while it’s still recent. 
• Keep new reviews coming in steadily: Recent reviews give buyers and third-party platforms fresher reputation signals.
• Watch every platform: A bad pattern on a site you’re ignoring can damage your reputation.
• Respond to every review, good or bad: A thoughtful response shows future customers, and search engines, that you’re paying attention to your customers’ experiences with the brand.

With Semrush’s Review Management, you can handle your online brand reputation from a single dashboard:

• Send automatic SMS or email review requests right after a purchase or service
• Pull reviews from dozens of platforms into a single view
• Draft AI-generated responses to reviews, edit them, and post directly from the dashboard
• Benchmark your review count and rating directly against named competitors through Review Analytics

Further reading: How to Build and Manage Your Online Reputation

11. Guest blogging: Expand your brand’s citation footprint

Guest blogging means writing articles for credible websites, like industry blogs, trade publications, or newsletters, to reach audiences beyond your own. 

Each credible site that publishes your work becomes another place where your expertise is documented and linked back to you. That external coverage builds your brand authority.

For example, Tomoko Yokoi’s author bio on Forbes links directly to her own website and her book’s listing on Amazon, turning one guest article into two credible references back to her work.

To get started with guest posting:

1. Find sites that already write about your topic. Search for “[your topic] blog,” or check where competitors have published guest articles.
2. Check the site’s authority before pitching. Run the domain through Semrush’s free Backlink Checker tool and look at its Authority Score, a 0-100 rating of how strong the site’s backlink profile is.

3. Make sure your author bio links back to your site or work, the way Tomoko Yokoi’s bio does. A linked author bio strengthens the connection between the guest post and your brand.

12. Digital PR: Earn mentions beyond your own website

Digital PR is the process of earning online coverage for your brand through media mentions, expert quotes, interviews, data stories, reports, podcasts, newsletters, and industry publications.

When credible publications mention your brand, product, data, or expertise, they create third-party proof that buyers, search engines, and AI tools can use to understand your authority.

To get the most out of digital PR:

• Start with a real story: Pitch something worth covering: original data, a trend, expert commentary, a product launch, a case study, or a strong industry point of view.
• Choose outlets buyers and AI tools trust: Look for publications your audience already reads and outlets AI tools often cite for your topic/industry.
• Build a focused media list: Find journalists who have recently covered topics in your industry. Recent, relevant coverage is a strong sign your pitch may fit their beat.
• Build the pitch around their work: Reference their recent coverage and explain why your story fits. Give them a clear angle, a short summary, an expert quote, and any useful data.
• Track outreach and act on what it tells you: If a pitch goes unanswered after about a week, follow up once. If one story angle gets picked up, use that pattern in future pitches.

PR mentions are credible third-party references that can support your brand’s visibility across search results, AI answers, and buyer research.

Here’s how you can use Semrush’s AI PR Toolkit to streamline your PR outreach: 

In Semrush’s AI-Cited Media tool, enter your topic, language, and country to see outlets ranked by AI Trust score, a 1-100 rating of how likely each one is to be cited when AI tools answer questions on it.

Select a handful of outlets from the “Most influential outlets” list, then check the Collective AI Media Impact panel on the right. It tells you whether your picks are an optimal mix, marked High impact.

Once you’ve picked your outlets, click “View contributing journalists” to pull writers at those exact outlets straight from the Media Database, each with their industry relevance and recent article.

Next, draft your email or press release with AI assistance, using your key points as the starting point. Send it from your authenticated domain or connected inbox.

After outreach, use Media Monitoring to track mentions of your brand, product, report, or target keywords. Add filters to keep results relevant, and set up alerts for new mentions.

You can also add website URLs to make linked mentions easier to spot later. This helps you see where your brand is being discussed, which topics are gaining coverage, and whether sentiment or mention volume is changing over time.

How to choose the right tactics for your website marketing strategy

Choose tactics based on which layer is your current bottleneck.

Discoverability gap (your brand isn’t showing up): SEO, content marketing, search ads, social ads

Clarity gap (AI tools describe your brand inaccurately or inconsistently): AI SEO, content marketing, organic social

Authority gap (credible sources aren’t referencing you): guest blogging, digital PR, affiliate marketing

Trust gap (visitors aren’t converting or buyers aren’t confident): reviews, UX, email marketing

How to measure website marketing performance

Measure website marketing performance by tracking progress across five areas: discoverability, clarity, authority, trust, and conversion.

• Discoverability shows whether people can find your brand. Track organic traffic, keyword rankings, referral traffic, and AI citations.
• Clarity shows whether AI tools and buyers understand what your brand does and who it serves. Track branded search volume, AI share of voice, and how consistently your brand is described across reviews, directories, and AI answers.
• Authority shows whether your brand is becoming a recognized source in your industry. Track backlinks, brand mentions, media coverage, guest posts, and third-party citations.
• Trust measures how people perceive your brand. Track review growth, ratings, sentiment, customer feedback, and social proof.
• Conversion shows whether your marketing is creating business results. Track leads, sales, demo requests, signups, assisted conversions, email subscribers, and purchases.

Now that AI tools are central to how people search, improving your mentions and citations inside those tools matters. Using Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit is a good place to start.

FAQ

How do I start marketing my website?

To start marketing your website, identify your biggest bottleneck. If you need traffic quickly, focus on search ads and social ads. If you need long-term discoverability, prioritize SEO and content marketing. If you need more visibility in AI search, prioritize AI SEO, reviews, and third-party mentions. If visitors aren’t converting, focus on UX, reviews, and social proof. If you want a channel that doesn’t depend on any platform, build an email list.

How do I market my website for free?

To market your website for free, create useful content, optimize your most important pages for search, post on the social platforms your audience uses, collect customer reviews, and build an email list.

These tactics take time, but they can bring traffic, trust, and repeat visits without paying for clicks or impressions.

What is the difference between website marketing and digital marketing?

The difference between website marketing and digital marketing is that website marketing focuses on attracting visitors to your website and turning them into leads, customers, subscribers, or users.

Digital marketing is broader. It includes website marketing, but it can also include mobile apps, marketplaces, social platforms, paid media, email, and other online channels.

How does website marketing work in the AI search era?

Website marketing works in the AI search era by making your brand easier for buyers, search engines, and AI tools to find, understand, trust, and reference.

People may discover your brand through Google results, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, reviews, social posts, or third-party publications. Your website, content, reviews, and brand mentions all shape how your business appears across those touchpoints.

How long does it take to see results from website marketing?

It takes a few days to see results from paid website marketing channels like search ads and social ads.

Organic tactics like SEO, content marketing, AI SEO, reviews, email marketing, and digital PR usually take several months to build momentum. Most businesses need a mix of faster traffic channels and slower authority-building tactics.

This post was updated in 2026. Excerpts from the original article by Ana Camarena may remain.