Before AI came into existence, there were only two questions asked in the seo industry: how many links a website has earned and how strong the linkable assets were. Now, with AI, there is a new question on the block: would my website earn AI citations? Thus, link building for AI citations is the need of the hour if you want your website to appear in LLMs
Your marketing report is never the same
Take a look at what your marketing report looks like now and your report from years ago. Earlier, your marketing report looked something like this :
- 15 referring domains
- 40 new backlinks
- Links from relevant niche
When you showed this to the client, they were happy, but now they are asking a new question: Will this kind of work make me appear before AI? This has created a new challenge for seo professionals, because earning quality backlinks is not the end goal; having a backlink with a brand mention is, and that’s how the majority of people are making their website appear before LLMs.
Take a look at this study from USERP, it openly states that they have done 116 SEO professionals who have more 10+ years of seo experience. They were asked a simple question: “How does a backlink move a website, and how does it impact AI citations?”
The answers differed. 79.3 % made AI citations a KPI; 21.6% made sure to track AI citations as a core API. 51% tracked them informally, and 16.4 % don’t track them at all. In short, SEO professionals are now taking an active interest in knowing whether their backlinking efforts are generating AI-based answers.
Link building for AI citations: Relevance and traditional tactics
AI search tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT always provide citations to websites that have genuinely solved the user’s problem. The pages that are discovered in LLMs are the ones that have genuinely high-quality content that involves original insights and data. But please make sure that your page is indexed before it comes in the AI overview.
Let’s say that there are two websites: website A and website B. Website A has a domain authority of 75 and publishes topics on SEO, but the pages and the information are outdated. On the other side, there is website B with a domain authority of 30 that consistently publishes posts based on relevance. Tell us which website would get more attention? The answer would be B, since users would relate to current industry trends in SEO rather than outdated trends.
Is traditional link building dying
Well, based on the survey, 70 percent of the respondents say that link-building tactics that worked 2 years earlier are now dying. These are guest posts, buying placements, paid links, and PBNs. Note that these findings are personal opinions, not a universal standard that link-building tactics are dead. For instance, guest posting on relevant platforms still works rather than acquiring backlinks from random websites just to increase backlink numbers.
Is AI the problem
Yes, it can be, as the survey indicated a staggering issue. A team gave AI to audit 25 referring domains; out of those, 20 were genuine, and the rest were low-quality, spammy links. But AI detected something unusual; it said 10 were genuine links and the rest were spam. Imagine reporting the false report to the client, and then when the client finds out the issue, it will be a major problem for your website and reputation.
The main takeaway: Traditional link building is not dead if the foundation is genuine, and giving complete control to AI can be regarded as foolishness, as it can hamper your reputation and style.
Six steps for link building citations
According to our knowledge, here are a few ways you can do link building citations, and they are listed as follows :
Step 1: Getting a baseline
Having a baseline means making sure that you know your mentions and backlinks across the web. For instance, if there are 20 websites that mention your brand, only 15 have a clickable link. Then that means there are 20 websites that can earn you a potential link back. To track mentions, make sure that you use Ahref Brand Radar to identify the mentions that are talking about you
Step 2: Brand name anchors
When you start to earn backlinks, then make sure that you use natural text anchors instead of generic text like “ click here” or “ check us out.” Your anchor text should clearly describe the page and will help the readers to land on a destination that has no manipulation tactics involved. If you want to learn, you can browse our anchor text ratio guide.
Step 3: Reclaim unlinked brand mentions
When you have a website mention your brand, then 80 percent of the work is done by the brand; all you need to do is contact the publisher and thank them for their contribution, and then politely ask them whether they would be kind enough to link back to you. This is explained in more detail in our link building strategies guide.
Step 4: Video presence
Ahrefs study found out that brand video mentions can contribute to AI visibility. For instance, if a top seo practitioner mentions our company Fastlinky in their video title and description, then there are high chances of AI citations.
Step 5: Fundamentals should always be in place
The Google fundamentals were always clear. To get AI citations, all you need to do is make sure that your page is indexed and has useful content that is link-worthy. There are no extra requirements that you need to follow to make it appear in AI citations.
Things to avoid
You must, at all costs, stay true to the game. This means avoid any tactics for link manipulation that would trigger Google penalties and make your website redundant. If you go for quick seo winds like buying low-quality, spammy links and taking the help of a PBN, then it can make your site’s reputation go down, and the recovery would take a lot of time, and there is no guarantee that you would be fully resurrected.
In addition, during your backlink audit, make sure to use a toxic backlink checker to see which websites are pointing back at you that you don’t really need. Use manual review to check if the link is harmful rather than blindly following AI authority
In closure
At the end of the tunnel, it boils down to one thing: link building for AI citations is making your brand reach globally across the web. This can be done by the five strategies that we have mentioned in your digital copy. Please don’t make the mistake of judging a website based on the number of backlinks. Follow Google’s basic fundamental policy of making sure that you create link-worthy content that is generally value-driven to the readers and maintain a well-structured website.
