More and more people are using AI search to answer their questions. The earlier you start tracking the prompts they use, the sooner you can tap into this shift.
There’s no doubt AI search has disrupted the search engine optimization (SEO) landscape. The conversational nature of prompt-based searching gives customers greater freedom over how they research products and services, explore topics, and compare options.
Learning how to choose and track prompts that your audiences use helps you serve them on answer engines by aligning your research strategies with the questions they’re asking.
In this article, we’ll explore tips for identifying and monitoring the questions your target audience asks in AI search engines. You’ll learn what makes a prompt worth tracking, how to make a prompt list, and which tools can help you improve your visibility in AI answers.
What makes a prompt worth tracking?
Prompts that are worth tracking are ones that fit naturally into a relevant use case that could lead a user to your brand. In short, AI prompt tracking requires you to put yourself in potential customers' shoes.
People using LLM-based search tools tend to go through more steps than their search engine user counterparts (3.8 versus 1.6, according to IAB). They don’t always immediately enter “what’s the best [insert your product here]?” Instead, they start with a problem they need an answer to, and gradually move toward a solution via a more conversational search. The prompts you choose to track must account for this decision-making behavior by addressing the intents that funnel someone from one step of the customer journey to the next.
For example, let’s say you’re a B2B SaaS tool that specializes in A/B testing. Your potential customer might ask ChatGPT “How do I improve conversions on my ecommerce website?”, which yields tips on improving product pages, adding social proof, and A/B testing. If you want to take the next step on that last topic, you might ask “How do I do A/B testing?”, then “What’s the best A/B testing tool?” To maximize your AI search visibility, you need to track each type of question.
The prompts worth focusing on usually share three characteristics:
- Open-ended: Strong AI prompts don’t have yes-or-no answers. They’re representative questions that capture common use cases.
- Action-oriented: Track prompts like “how to do X,” so you can position your product or service as the answer.
- Repeatable: Pay attention to the prompts searchers often use at the start of their journeys; ones used repeatedly, but with several potential next steps, like “Examples of X” or “How to fix Y.”
How to build a prompt list for AI visibility: 4 steps
Building a prompt list isn’t just about analyzing your traffic from AI tools. It’s also about tracking questions to learn where your current gaps are, so you can fill those gaps with content AI tools will regularly cite.
Here’s a four-step framework for choosing prompts that improve your overall AI visibility.
1. Define your prompt taxonomy and gather seed queries
Start by categorizing the types of prompts you’ll track, based on your goals and niche. Here are a few suggestions:
- Intent: Prompts with different intents. For example, a specific, action-oriented intent, such as “How do I do ____?” and “Where can I learn about ____?”
- Funnel stage: Prompts searchers might use at different stages in the sales funnel. For example, prompts at the bottom of the funnel might include “How much does ____ cost?” and “What do users say about ____?”
- Comparisons: Prompts that suggest the user is looking for a certain type of solution, like “Which ___ should I buy?” and “What’s the best ____?”
2. Expand prompts using customer and search insights
To gather your seed queries, look at the data you already have. Review support tickets, sales conversations, and user reviews to find questions your customers ask. You can also source seed queries from sites like Reddit, StackOverflow, and Quora — places users go to ask the kinds of questions you want to answer.
Once you have an extensive list of basic customer questions, expand on them so they’re more open-ended, action-oriented, and repeatable. Consider how each question might fit a broader use case, and rewrite it to be conversational.
For instance, if you start with a seed prompt like “What’s the best email marketing platform?”, you might open it up and make it sound more natural by adjusting to “What kind of features do I need for great email marketing?” You can also use Webflow AEO to generate more prompts to try.
Enter these edited prompts into AI platforms to see what comes up and whether it’s relevant to your goal and audience. Consider how each prompt might lead someone toward your website, and identify the specific pages and content you hope they’ll land on.
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3. Identify relevant prompts
Now, narrow your list down to priority prompts by picking the ones that fit these criteria:
- Business opportunity: Pick prompts related to your core business proposition. If your product is a CRM, for example, you might focus on seed prompts like “How do I keep customer data organized securely?” and “What’s the best enterprise CRM?”
- Audience relevance: Prioritize prompts that fit your target user personas. For example, a cost-conscious consumer might use phrases like “How do I save money on ___?” while someone after a premium experience is more likely to ask “What’s the best-rated ___?”.
- Conversion potential: The most important prompts are the ones that appear in customer journeys that end in conversion. Look at the click-through data to determine which have the highest conversion rates.
This is another step where a tool like Webflow AEO can be useful, by helping you find topic coverage gaps so you can decide which prompts to target next.
4. Tag and segment prompts for tracking
Adding tags helps you further segment your prompts into groups for more detailed performance analysis.
Here are a few recommendations for tags to add:
- Branded and non-branded: Pay attention to whether prompts do or don’t include your brand name. Comparing these results will give you an idea of your overall visibility in your niche.
- Product or feature clusters: Label prompts with the specific features and products they relate to, so you can more easily detect which ones underperform.
- Funnel stage: Categorize prompts by the sales funnel stage they indicate the searcher is in. Grouping them this way helps you identify similarities in phrasing and keywords.
Tools for tracking AI visibility and identifying prompts
To make the above process more straightforward, these tools can generate suggestions while letting you monitor and organize your prompts:
- Webflow AEO helps brands position themselves to show up in AI answers, not just general search results. This framework generates a personalized report that shows you how AI sees your site and where you have opportunities for improvement. Webflow AEO can generate suggestions for prompts to track, organize the ones you choose to focus on, and gather important data on everything from AI traffic to conversion rates.
- Profound helps you check prompt volumes and automate your content marketing strategy. This platform gathers data on millions of AI queries and uses the results to generate reports on citations and competition. You can also generate new content that addresses gaps and improves your brand visibility.
- Semrush helps you organize your prompt list, compare that list with what competitors are likely tracking, and close any gaps. This platform is useful for looking at AI answers and Google search traffic together, so you can find the best prompts and keywords to place your content in front of more people.
- OtterlyAI is a research tool that shows how your brand stacks up against competitors in AI answers. You can view the overall volume of AI answers for a given prompt, along with your brand’s presence or absence in those answers. OtterlyAI will also audit your content to provide high-level suggestions about how to improve elements like structured data and AI readiness.
Build AI-search-ready content with Webflow
Improving your visibility in AI answers starts with tracking the right data. When you know how to choose prompts to track, you can design a content strategy that addresses your audience’s specific questions. This helps you create more targeted, action-oriented content for tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to pick up.
Webflow supports your AEO marketing by generating a list of prompts designed to yield consistent results, while surfacing the insights you need to fine-tune your approach. It’s just one of many tools integrated into Webflow’s agentic web marketing platform.
When you’re ready to level up your visibility across the web, sign up for a free assessment from Webflow AEO.
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