I'm always keeping a close eye on what's working in the world of AI SEO.
And this week I stumbled on a small observation that could help your directory get cited by chatGPT, Google AI overviews and other LLMs.
Someone in SYD Pro created this directory around Laundromats (shout-out to Jerry).
It's a small directory getting about 1,000/monthly visitors.
Lately I've been playing around with SEMrush's AI SEO Toolkit so I popped Jerry's directory, laundromatsnearme.org, into their AI visibility tracker to see if its being referenced by any LLMs.
And I found that he's ranking for 3 topics, including a few chatGPT prompts!
Topics that this directory is ranking in LLMs
Two prompts where this directory is referenced
Then I dug a little deeper to check what exact pages were being referenced by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.
Nice! It looks like 50 pages are being cited.
What’s interesting is that almost every one of these pages is a listing page.
This caught my attention because directories usually have a slight disadvantage when it comes to AI SEO.
When someone types “haircuts near me” into ChatGPT, the results typically lean toward individual local businesses and their Google Business profiles, which pretty much mirroring Google’s results.
But clearly something is working on these listing page that's getting it cited by LLMs.
Before you ask, no these listing pages aren't ranking on the first page of Google for keywords like "Laundromat in Iowell MA" or similar keywords.
In fact, Jerry's Iowell MA page is not even indexed according to Google!
So then, why does ChatGPT insist on citing these listing pages?
The best explanation that I've come to is that chatGPT really loves pages structured in a Q&A format.
If you think about AEO, or answer-engine optimization, the practice is literally in its name.
Now, look at how Jerry structured his listing pages.
It doesn't get more Q&A than this.
To Jerry, if you're reading this, I don't know if you intended on structuring your listings like this experiment with AEO practices, but nice job either way.
Here's the point: page structure matters for LLM SEO.
If you're looking for more traffic from LLMs and you've created a directory where you've done the data enrichment already, try structuring your listing pages in a Q&A format to see what happens.
Later this week, I'm posting a video where I show you how you can check if chatGPT (and other LLMs) are sending you traffic.
I also go deeper into AI SEO where I audit a couple small directories to uncover more insights.
A Small Gift: 14-Day Free Trial for SEMRush's SEO Pro Toolkit
Recently, SEMrush reached out to me to review their AI SEO Toolkit and I said I'd do it on one condition.
My request was for them to create an exclusive 14-day free trial to their SEO Pro Toolkit that I can share with you (they typically only offer a 7-day free trial).
It's their OG tool for keyword research & backlink research.
I'm not moving off of ahrefs anytime soon, but it's truly a bummer that they don't have a free trial.
So if you're looking for an equivalent, SEMrush is the only other tool I'd comfortably recommend because it's been going toe-to-toe with ahrefs for over 10 years.
Fun fact: I actually started with SEMRush before I ever purchased ahrefs 3 years ago!
Anyways, both these tools are great but pretty cost prohibitive for the early directory builder.
Hope this can help some of you find & vet your directory ideas!
Disclaimer: This newsletter contains affiliate links to SEMrush. If you sign up through my link, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
