Can personal and small brands rank on Google and its Generative AI Search in 2025? (and how to optimise your website for Google SGE & ChatGPT)

What is Generative AI Search? (Google SGE & ChatGPT Explained)

Generative AI search refers to search engines or assistants that use large language models to generate answers, rather than just showing a list of links.

Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), for example, is an experimental search format that uses generative AI to provide more comprehensive answers right on the results page (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024).

Instead of only displaying 10 links, SGE can produce a summarized answer or “snapshot” for your query, often pulling information from multiple web sources.

For instance, if a user searches for “how to make a paper airplane,” SGE might generate a step-by-step guide with images in addition to the usual link results (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024).

Similarly, if someone asks a complex question, SGE can present different perspectives (e.g. answers from various experts or sources) synthesized into one response (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024).

ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots operate on a related principle. They can answer questions in a conversational manner, drawing on information in their training data or retrieved from the web.

Tools like Bing Chat (built on GPT-4) actually retrieve live web content and then generate an answer with citations. In practice, a user might ask ChatGPT (via a plugin or Bing) something like “What are the top qualities of a good leadership coach?” – the AI will search for relevant content on the web and formulate a consolidated answer, often citing the websites it used.

In both SGE and ChatGPT’s cases, your website’s content could be directly quoted or referenced in the AI’s answer, but the user may get the information without clicking through to your site.

Example of Google’s generative AI search result (SGE) for a “how to” query. The AI-generated snapshot provides an instant answer with references, appearing above the traditional search results.

Generative AI search is still new (Google calls SGE “experimental”), but it’s rapidly improving.

Google has stated that the goal is to help users get quick answers while still highlighting and driving attention to content on the web (Reid, Elizabeth. Supercharging Search with generative AI, 2023).

In other words, Google wants to continue sending traffic to content creators even as it serves up AI summaries.

However, the reality is that these rich AI answers change user behavior – many people might find what they need from the AI snippet alone.

For personal brands, this means you need to secure a spot in that AI-generated answer or otherwise remain visible, since fewer users may scroll down to the regular results.

Generative AI Search vs. Traditional SEO: What’s the Difference?

Generative AI search represents a major shift from traditional search engine results, and it has big implications for SEO strategy.

Here are some key differences and what they mean:

• • Answer-Focused vs. Link-Focused: Traditional Google search results show a list of links, and the user clicks through to websites for answers. In contrast, SGE’s AI “snapshot” appears at the top of the page and often answers the query directly (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025). Google is essentially evolving from a “search engine” into an “answer engine” (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025). This means simply ranking on page 1 may no longer guarantee visibility – if your content isn’t included or cited in the AI answer, it might be overlooked.
  • Content Synthesis: Generative AI pulls bits of information from multiple sources and synthesizes a single answer (Aggarwal, Pranjal et al. GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, 2024). So rather than optimizing just to be the top single result, you’re now often competing (or collaborating) to be one of the sources the AI chooses to quote. In practice, SGE has been observed to pull its answer from the top few organic results (often the top 2-3) for a query (Baker, Conor. conductor.com, 2025). This means that traditional SEO ranking is still important – you likely need to rank near the top to even be considered for the AI summary – but ranking #1 alone isn’t the only goal.
  • Visibility and Click-Through Rate (CTR): Because the AI-generated answer occupies prime real estate at the top, it can significantly reduce visibility for the usual results below. Early research indicated SGE could lead to substantial drops in organic traffic, with some sites estimating a 20–60% decrease in clicks for affected queries (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025). In one analysis, the AI answer box in SGE had an average height of 1764 pixels – pushing organic listings way down the page (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025). For personal brands, this might mean fewer people clicking your homepage or blog via Google for broad questions. However, if your content is featured or cited in the AI answer, your brand still gets exposure (and possibly credibility from being cited).
  • Trust and Accuracy: Generative AI is powerful but not infallible – there have been instances of inaccurate or nonsensical answers in SGE’s early days (Miller, Kate. goinflow.com, 2024). Google is working to improve quality and cites that SGE is built on its core search ranking systems (which include trust and quality signals) (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025). For content creators, this underscores the importance of providing accurate, well-sourced information. The AI is more likely to use content that it deems trustworthy and high-quality to avoid mistakes.
  • Fewer Clicks, Different Metrics: In the past, SEO success was largely measured by clicks from search. With generative search, success might also be measured by being mentioned or referenced in the AI response. There’s a growing concept of “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)”, which is about optimizing content so that AI engines pick it up in their answers (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024). It focuses on content quality, relevance and authority over old-school tricks. As one research paper put it, “content creators have little to no control over when and how their content is displayed” in generative engines (Aggarwal, Pranjal et al. GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, 2024), making it critical to align your content with what the AI looks for.

In short, traditional SEO best practices (technical soundness, keyword relevance, backlinks, etc.) are still necessary – your site must be crawlable and authoritative – but they are not sufficient. You also need to optimize for how AI systems understand and select content. Let’s explore how to do that.

Why Personal Brands Need to Adapt

If you’re a coach, consultant, speaker, or other personal brand entrepreneur, you might wonder how this impacts you specifically. Consider how potential clients find and evaluate you online. They might search for things like “best leadership coaches in 2025” or ask questions that relate to your expertise (“how to improve team productivity”).

With generative AI search, the answer to those queries might be given directly by the AI, pulling from various expert websites.

Will your name or content be part of that answer? Adapting to this new reality can mean the difference between being invisible and being featured when someone asks their AI assistant about your topic.

Personal brand websites often thrive on demonstrating authority – through thought leadership blog posts, FAQs, testimonials, and bio pages.

Generative AI can either amplify your authority (if it cites your insights as part of an answer) or diminish it (if it consistently pulls answers only from others).

The good news is that many of the strategies to optimize for AI search are extensions of what you might already be doing for good SEO and content marketing.

It’s about fine-tuning those strategies with an eye towards how AI “reads” your site.

In the next section, we’ll cover practical optimization techniques tailored for personal brands to boost your visibility and credibility in generative AI search results.

Strategies to Optimize Your Website for AI-Driven Search

To stay visible in Google SGE, ChatGPT, and other generative AI platforms, focus on strategies that establish your expertise, structure your content for AI consumption, and enhance trust signals. Here are actionable steps to take:

1. Emphasize E-E-A-T: Showcase Experience, Expertise, Authority & Trust

Generative AI systems rely on signals of content quality and credibility. Google’s AI overview, for instance, is “rooted” in its core ranking systems, including the Helpful Content system which uses E-E-A-T criteria (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness – factors Google evaluators consider when assessing content quality. Ensuring your site exudes E-E-A-T can increase the likelihood that an AI deems your content worthy of inclusion.

How to do this:

• • Demonstrate real expertise and experience in your writing. Share personal anecdotes or case studies (for coaches/consultants, this could be client success stories or lessons from your own career). This adds a layer of “experience” that pure AI-generated content can’t mimic easily.
  • Cite reputable sources and data in your content. If you state a fact or make a bold claim, back it up with a link or reference. This not only boosts your human credibility, but the AI sees that your content is evidence-backed. In fact, SEO experts advise that citing reliable sources can validate your claims and improve content credibility (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024). For example, if you mention that a certain coaching technique improves team productivity by 20%, link to the study or source.
  • Keep your content accurate and updated. Review older blog posts and update any outdated statistics or recommendations. An AI answer might pull from content written years ago if it’s deemed relevant – you don’t want it quoting stale info under your name.
  • Highlight your credentials and bio on your site. Make sure you have an “About” page or author bio section that lists your qualifications, years of experience, awards, publications, etc. This feeds the “Authority” and “Trust” aspect. Generative AI and knowledge graphs often draw on these details. One 2025 SEO analysis recommends ensuring “authorship transparency with expert bios and credentials.” (Kumar, Dinesh. linkedin.com, 2025) Don’t be shy about showcasing what makes you an expert. For instance, you might add a brief bio blurb at the end of each blog post: “Jane Doe is a certified executive coach with 15 years of experience…”. This could be marked up with structured data (more on that shortly).
  • Use trust signals on your site. Include testimonials from real clients (perhaps marked up with review schema), logos of organizations you’ve worked with, and privacy policies/terms. These elements might indirectly boost trustworthiness.

Why it matters: A recent study on AI search engines confirmed that improving a page’s authority and trustworthiness can dramatically boost its rank in AI-generated results (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

In one example, adding authoritative signals to content improved its AI ranking by 89%, and adding trust elements improved it by 134% (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

In short, the more you look like a reliable expert, the better your chances the AI will choose your content to answer user queries.

2. Structure Your Content in a Q&A (Question-and-Answer) Format

One of the best ways to get featured in AI-generated answers is to anticipate the questions users are asking – and answer them clearly on your site. Many generative searches are triggered by question-based queries (“how to…”, “what is…”, “best way to…”, etc.).

If your content is already structured to answer those questions, you make the AI’s job easier. Google SGE and AI summaries love content that is concise and well-structured for specific queries.

How to do this:

• • Incorporate an FAQ section on key pages. Identify the common questions in your niche (tools like AlsoAsked.com or Google’s People Also Ask can help find these). For example, a nutrition coach might have FAQs like “What’s the difference between a nutritionist and a dietitian?” or “How long does it take to see results from a new diet plan?”. Provide brief, clear answers. Marking up FAQs with FAQPage schema can also be beneficial – it signals to Google the exact question-answer pairs, which can be used in SGE snapshots or even traditional rich results.
  • Use headings that are questions or contain question keywords. For blog posts, consider phrasing some subheadings as questions (H2/H3 tags). For instance, a consultant might write a blog titled “Effective Remote Work Strategies,” and have a section “How can teams stay collaborative when working remotely?” – then answer it. This makes it more likely that your content will be picked up for a user query phrased similarly.
  • Provide direct, succinct answers near the top of your content. This is similar to optimizing for featured snippets. After posing a question or stating the topic, give a concise answer or definition in 1-3 sentences (you can elaborate further afterwards). That snippet might be exactly what the AI uses. Think of it as writing a mini “summary” or TL;DR that the AI could quote.
  • Leverage the “People Also Ask” (PAA) questions in Google Search as inspiration. These are common questions related to your topic that users search. If you address those on your site, you not only help human readers but also increase the chance the AI will see your site as a comprehensive resource.

Remember, an AI like ChatGPT is essentially trying to simulate an expert answering a question. By structuring your content like an interview or Q&A, you align with the AI’s goal. A LinkedIn SEO expert advises: “Optimize for AI summaries by structuring content in a Q&A format.” (Kumar, Dinesh. linkedin.com, 2025).

For a personal brand, this might even include creating content like “Ask the Coach: [Your Name] Answers Common [Topic] Questions” which directly mimics a Q&A style.

3. Implement Structured Data (Schema Markup) for Your Personal Brand

Structured data is essentially a way to give search engines extra context about your content in a format they understand (usually JSON-LD code on your pages).

In the era of generative AI search, schema markup is becoming even more important. It helps the AI quickly identify who you are, what your content is about, and key details it might use in an answer.

Google’s SGE is known to draw on structured data – for example, product schemas feed into its shopping graph for AI-generated product overviews (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

For personal brands, using the right schema can boost your presence in AI results.

How to do this:

• • Use Person schema on your About page or author pages. This schema can include your name, title (e.g. “Leadership Coach”), credentials, affiliations, and links to your same identity on other platforms (LinkedIn, Wikipedia, etc.). By marking up these details, you make it easy for search engines (and AI) to know who the expert is behind the content. This could help you get recognized in knowledge panels or simply lend authority to your site content in the AI’s eyes.
  • Use Article or Blog Posting schema for your articles, with proper author, publish date, etc. Many SEO plugins or CMSs do this automatically. Ensure the schema includes the author (linked to your Person schema if possible) and a description. This way, when the AI picks content from your blog, it has structured info on who wrote it and when (which could influence trust and relevance, especially for time-sensitive info).
  • Add FAQ Page schema for FAQ sections (as mentioned in the Q&A strategy above). If you have a dedicated FAQ page or sections, marking them up can sometimes get your Q&A directly shown in search results, and it certainly helps AI parse the Q&A pairs.
  • Consider Organization schema if you operate under a brand or company name. For example, if Jane Doe runs “Acme Coaching LLC,” an Organization schema with Jane as the founder can be used. Coaches or speakers often are their brand, so Person schema might suffice, but if you have a company brand, mark that up too (with sameAs links to social profiles, logo, etc.).
  • Review and How-To schema: If relevant, use Review schema for testimonials or reviews on your site (e.g. a page of client testimonials) – this can showcase trust. Use HowTo schema if you have step-by-step guides (the AI might use your structured steps to answer a “how to” query). These specific schemas might not directly guarantee inclusion in an AI answer, but they enrich your content’s machine-readable detail, which can only help.

4. Write in Clear, Readable, and Conversational Language

Even though AI models are very advanced, providing content that is easy to read and digest benefits both human readers and AI summarizers.

In fact, research has found that “easier-to-read content ranked better in generative search engines.” (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025)

This makes sense – if your writing is clear and well-structured, the AI can interpret it more reliably and use it without misquoting or mangling the meaning.

How to do this:

• • Use short paragraphs and sentences. Aim for a straightforward, conversational tone as if you’re speaking to a client. Complex, run-on sentences or jargon-heavy text might confuse language models (and real readers too!). Tools like Hemingway Editor or Grammarly can help simplify and spot overly complex sentences.
  • Break up content with descriptive subheadings and lists. This not only helps readers scan, but it helps AI identify the structure (it might even use your headings as parts of its answer). For example, if you have “5 Tips for Better Public Speaking” as a list, an AI might choose one or two of those tips to answer someone asking “How can I overcome stage fright?”.
  • Optimize for “fluency.” In the GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) research, fluency optimization – making sure text flows well and is free of grammar errors – was one of the recommended strategies (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024). Double-check grammar and spelling. A typo or confusing phrasing might be harmless for human readers, but could throw off an AI’s understanding.
  • Include definitions for important terms (especially if you use any niche terminology). If you’re a consultant using a framework like “OKR” or “SMART goals,” define it briefly. This way if the AI finds that section, it can incorporate your clear definition in its answer to “What are OKRs?” perhaps.
  • Maintain a friendly authoritative tone. Many personal brand entrepreneurs thrive by being relatable yet authoritative. That tone actually suits AI answers well, because the AI tries to deliver answers that sound confident but not alienating. You don’t want extremely fluffy marketing speak, but you also don’t want dry academic prose if your audience is general.

Improving readability is a “quick win” according to SEO experts, and some even provide tools to gauge it (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

You can use readability scores (aim for something like a 4th-5th grade reading level for general audiences) to test your content.

Ultimately, write for humans first, AI second – if a person finds your content engaging and clear, there’s a good chance the AI will too.

5. Enrich Your Content with Multimedia and Unique Formats

Generative AI isn’t limited to just text; Google’s AI can incorporate images and other media in its answers (Google SGE is multimodal for some queries, meaning it understands images, etc. in addition to text (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

While the exact mechanisms are complex, one thing is clear: rich content stands out. By providing images, videos, or other media on your pages, you not only engage visitors but also give AI more material to potentially include or consider.

How to do this:

• • Add relevant images to your articles or pages, and include descriptive alt text. For a keynote speaker, this might be photos of you speaking on stage (demonstrating experience), or for a consultant, perhaps charts/graphs of data you’re discussing. If an AI is summarizing “top speakers on leadership”, it might even show headshots if available. At the very least, images on your page with good alt text provide context (e.g., an image alt “Jane Doe speaking at XYZ Conference 2024” ties your name to “speaking” and an event – reinforcing your authority to the AI and the user).
  • Include video or audio content (with transcripts). If you have a promo video or a recorded webinar, embed it on your site and provide a transcript or detailed description. Transcripts are essentially additional text content – which AI can read. For instance, if you have a podcast episode “Talking about mindfulness with [Your Name]”, a transcript of it on your blog could surface in an AI answer for mindfulness tips, because it’s text searchable.
  • Use high-value content formats that AI might favor. Long-form, well-structured guides (sometimes called “10x content”) can perform well because they cover a topic comprehensively (Siu, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024). For example, an ultimate guide like “The Complete Playbook for Building a Personal Brand in Tech” that you publish could become a go-to reference. Even if users don’t read all 5,000 words, the AI might pull different nuggets from it to answer various questions. Similarly, case studies or original research you publish (if applicable) can be goldmines for AI answers because they contain unique data and insights that other sites may cite.
  • Optimize images and videos for SEO as well. Use descriptive file names (e.g., jane-doe-keynote.jpg instead of IMG1234.jpg), and add schema like ImageObject or VideoObject if relevant. This helps your media appear in search results (outside the AI snapshot, e.g. in image search), which is another way to get clicks. Also, Google’s multimodal AI might use an image from your site if it’s especially relevant to a query (for instance, a generative result about cold brew coffee might pull a photo of the process【37†】).

The bottom line: don’t present the AI with just a wall of text. Make your content engaging and information-rich in various ways. Not only will this keep human visitors on your page longer (which is still a positive SEO signal), it also aligns with Google’s move toward more visual, interactive answers in SGE (Reid, Elizabeth. blog.google, 2023).

6. Build External Authority: Get Mentions and Backlinks from Reputable Sources

Off-page SEO has always been important, and it remains so in the AI era.

In fact, brand mentions and external references might influence AI recommendations heavily.

A study by NP Digital (Neil Patel’s team) analyzing factors that cause ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI to recommend a site found that “relevancy… and brand mentions… were the two big factors” in getting recommended (Sui, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024).

Simply put, if your name or site is frequently mentioned in context with certain topics, the AI will be more likely to recognize you as part of a quality answer on that topic.

How to do this:

• • Earn mentions on third-party sites. If possible, get featured in articles, lists, or directories relevant to your field. For example, being listed in a “Top 10 Marketing Speakers to Watch this Year” on a reputable industry blog could mean that when someone asks the AI “Who are notable marketing speakers?”, your name is likely to come up. Google’s AI overviews have been seen doing exactly this – aggregating names from list articles. SEO experts note that “third-party mentions provide another chance to appear in SGE-generated results” (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025) because the AI often pulls from those third-party perspectives. Outreach to industry publications or podcasts can be worth the effort.
  • Cultivate quality backlinks. Backlinks from high-authority sites remain a strong signal to Google’s algorithms, which in turn feed SGE. If your site has links from .edu or .org sites, news outlets, or well-known blogs in your niche, both traditional and AI search will view your content as more credible. You might achieve this through guest posting, being quoted in articles (consider signing up for HARO – Help A Reporter Out – to get quoted as an expert), or publishing shareable content that others link to.
  • Encourage social discussion and UGC. While direct social media content isn’t usually part of the web index, AI like Bing’s can sometimes draw from forums (Reddit, Quora) or social-like content. If your personal brand is being talked about positively on those platforms, it indirectly boosts your authority. Engaging in Q&A on places like Quora, or having a community group where people mention your techniques or frameworks, can create a trail of your expertise across the web.
  • Make your brand a synonym for your niche. This is more of a long-term branding play. You want your name to be so associated with your topic that an AI practically expects to mention you for relevant questions. Think along the lines of, “When someone asks about leadership coaching, the AI would be remiss not to include Jane Doe’s approach if it’s read about her everywhere.” This comes from consistent content output, engagement, and cross-promotion over time.

Keep in mind, AI doesn’t have intuition – it relies on data. So if your brand is sparsely mentioned on the wider web, it has little reason to include you. But if you and your content are popping up on many high-quality sites and contexts, the AI will pick up on that pattern of authority. Brand-building and traditional PR thus feed directly into AI search optimization.

7. Monitor and Adapt: Tracking Your Visibility in Generative AI

Optimizing is not a one-and-done task – especially in this fast-moving AI search space.

It’s important to monitor how (and if) your content is appearing in generative AI results and adapt accordingly.

While we don’t yet have a “Generative Search Console” from Google, there are ways to keep an eye on things:

• • Use Google Search Console for clues. In Search Console’s performance report, filter your queries to question phrases (e.g., filter queries containing “what”, “how”, “best”, “why”). If you find certain question queries where you have high impressions but very low click-through rate, that could be a sign that an AI overview is answering the query without clicks (Chugh, Chhavi. linkedin.com, 2025). You can then manually check those queries in SGE to see if your site is referenced in the snapshot.
  • Manually test in SGE (or Bing Chat). If you have access to Google SGE (through Search Labs or as it rolls out), try incognito searches for questions relevant to your content (Chugh, Chhavi. linkedin.com, 2025). See who is getting cited in the AI answers. Are competitors showing up where you aren’t? What content of theirs is being used? This can inform your content strategy (maybe there’s a topic angle you haven’t covered yet that you should).
  • Leverage AI tracking tools: A new crop of SEO tools are emerging to track AI search visibility. For example, SGE.dev is a community tool that checks if your domain is cited in Google’s AI overviews (Chugh, Chhavi. linkedin.com, 2025). Other tools like KeywordsInAI.com monitor your rankings in AI-generated results over time (Chugh, Chhavi. linkedin.com, 2025). Some established SEO platforms (Surfer SEO, seoClarity, etc.) are also adding features to flag if a query triggers an AI result and whether your site was included (Chugh, Chhavi. linkedin.com, 2025). These tools can save you time by programmatically checking many queries.
  • Stay updated on AI search developments. Follow SEO news on SGE and generative search (sites like Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, etc.). Google and other AI providers may introduce new features – for example, if Google starts indicating in Search Console how your content was used in AI answers, you’d want to know. Also, keep an eye on Google’s guidelines and documentation; as AI search becomes mainstream, Google might provide more best practices (similar to how they gave guidance for featured snippets or voice search in the past).

Finally, be ready to adapt. If you notice your traffic for certain topics dropping due to AI answers, consider pivoting your content to areas or query types where AI is less active (e.g., the goinflow study suggested focusing on more specific long-tail queries that might not trigger SGE (Miller, Kate. goinflow.com, 2024). Conversely, if you see the AI frequently citing a certain article of yours, double down: keep that article updated and consider building more content around that topic to become the undeniable authority.

Conclusion: Is it still worth it for personal brands and small brands?

Generative AI search is not a passing fad – it’s a fundamental change in how people find information online.

For personal brand entrepreneurs like coaches, consultants, and speakers, it presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that the rules of the SEO game are shifting; the opportunity is that quality, authoritative content can shine even more when AI is summarizing answers.

By understanding how tools like Google SGE and ChatGPT retrieve and display info, and by implementing the strategies outlined – from bolstering your E-E-A-T to structuring content in Q&A format and adding schema – you position yourself to be the trusted voice these AI assistants call upon.

In many ways, success in this new landscape comes back to an age-old principle: provide genuine value. Generative AI, with all its complexity, is ultimately trying to provide users with helpful, accurate, and comprehensive answers.

If you consistently create content that does just that, and optimize it so machines can appreciate it, you’ll be on the path to maintaining and even growing your visibility.

Remember to keep monitoring the trends and be adaptable.

The AI search systems will continue to evolve (Google’s algorithms and AI models will get better, and competitors will emerge).

But with a solid foundation of authoritative content and a finger on the pulse of SEO developments, you can ensure your personal brand remains highly visible.

Sources:

Supporting insights and data were gathered from recent research and expert analyses on SGE and AI-driven SEO, including:

• • Studies on Generative Engine Optimization (Sui, Eric. singlegrain.com, 2024)
  • Google’s own announcements (Reid, Elizabeth. blog.google, 2023)
  • Recommendations from SEO thought leaders (Denish, Kumar. linkedin.com, 2025) and (Berry, Sarah. seo.com, 2025).

These references are cited throughout the article to provide more detail and credibility to the strategies discussed.