Google AI Mode Visibility: How to Improve It with Semrush
- Laura Indiana
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Summary This article explains how to use Semrush to analyze and improve Google's AI Mode visibility, including presence analysis, identification of key prompts, assessment of brand sentiment, and implementing strategic opportunities, with a practical focus for SMEs seeking to boost visibility across multiple channels. Key takeaways
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Google's AI Mode represents a new frontier for generated responses and online visibility. For a small or medium-sized enterprise, understanding where your brand appears in AI responses and how it stacks up against competitors is crucial for planning a multichannel content strategy. In this guide, we explore how to use Semrush to analyze, compare, and improve AI Mode visibility.
Start by analyzing your current AI Mode presence and compare it with competitors using the Visibility Overview.
1. Analyze your current AI Mode visibility
The first phase is to use Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit to identify where your brand appears in AI Mode, which pages are cited, and how you compare to major competitors. Specifically, you should look at Mentions (how many times it is cited) and Cited Pages (how many pages on your site are cited). These elements provide a useful baseline for measuring improvements over time.
Open the Visibility Overview and set the filter to AI Mode to view Mentions and Cited Pages and compare your domain with competitors.
The ability to measure prompts and citations enables you to define a content strategy tailored to users' real questions, not just generic queries.
The Topics & Sources section helps you understand where your brand appears in AI responses and where it might be lacking. In particular, pay attention to:
Your Performing Topics: topics where your brand is already mentioned.
Topic Opportunities: topics where competitors are visible but you are not.
Cited Sources: sites that AI tools cite frequently.
Source Opportunities: sites cited by competitors but not by you.
These elements provide a clear picture of the areas to target to increase AI Mode visibility.
2. Identify prompts to prioritize for your content
To identify which topics and prompts are most relevant, check the What’s Next section or open the Competitor Research report. Here you'll find a table comparing your brand's AI visibility with that of competitors across various topics and prompts.
Identify high-intent prompts to turn into targeted content and structured site updates.
Creating content aligned with users' real prompts increases the likelihood of being cited and appearing in AI Mode responses.
This analysis helps distinguish between high-visibility topics (Strong topics), shared topics (Shared topics), weak topics (Weak topics), and missing topics (Missing topics). For each group, Semrush suggests concrete actions such as improving authoritative content, citations to authoritative sources, and creating content hubs to consolidate relevance.
3. Analyze your brand sentiment in AI Mode
The sentiment described by AI Mode is a key indicator for your messaging and your online reputation. In the Perception report, look at the Competitive Perception chart to compare your brand's sentiment against competitors on Google AI Mode, and check the key sentiment drivers to understand which aspects describe your business positively or negatively.
Use sentiment drivers to reinforce positive messages and correct content that generates negative perceptions.
Understanding how AI interprets your brand allows you to optimize messaging and informational resources to improve AI citations.
Also analyze Source Opportunities and Citations to expand your brand's presence on authoritative sites and increase coverage in AI Mode responses.
4. Apply strategic opportunities for your business
Brand Performance reports include the AI Strategic Opportunities section. Here you’ll find practical suggestions for offering new services, launching campaigns, adapting messages, and boosting the brand's presence in the AI Mode context. Each opportunity comes with concrete actions and priority levels to facilitate planning.
Incorporate new targeted content pages for priority prompts and align CTAs with users' intents in AI Mode.
Strategic opportunities provide an actionable roadmap to turn insights into measurable actions, reducing the gap between content and automated responses.
Additionally, consider planning content across different channels (YouTube, social, blogs hosted on other platforms) to increase citations and brand authority, improving AI Mode coverage over time.
5. Track visibility in Google AI Mode
For those seeking ongoing measurement, Semrush offers Position Tracking: create a new project and select Google AI Mode as the search engine. Add the keywords or prompts you want to monitor and start tracking. In the dashboard you will see your brand's AI Mode visibility, mentions, and the average position of cited pages.
Regularly compare positions between your brand and competitors, adding specific domains to compare or choosing from the tool's suggested options.
Continuous monitoring allows you to see content trends and react quickly to changes in user behavior.
Beyond internal monitoring, you can evaluate competitors' KPIs to drive targeted improvements and adapt your multi-channel content strategy, including YouTube, social, and general content marketing to increase citations in AI Mode responses.
FAQ
Q: How does Google AI Mode work?
AI Mode uses Google's generation models to provide direct answers to queries, citing sources when possible and offering an automatic summary of the information.
Q: How can you improve visibility in AI Mode?
Start with a baseline using the Visibility Overview, identify key prompts via Competitor Research, optimize targeted content, and monitor your position over time with Position Tracking.
Q: Can AI Mode be used alongside other channels?
Yes. Integrate content on channels such as YouTube, social media, blogs, and reference sites to increase citations and the likelihood that AI Mode finds relevant content about your brand.
