What's one unexpected way you've used AI to increase your brand's digital visibility? How did this approach differ from conventional SEO tactics?

Question

Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing digital visibility strategies beyond traditional SEO techniques. This article explores unexpected ways to leverage AI for enhancing online presence, drawing insights from industry experts. Discover how AI-powered tools and approaches can transform your digital marketing efforts and drive unprecedented traffic to your content.

Bowen He · Answer

One unexpected way we've used AI to boost our digital visibility has been implementing a natural language processing model that analyzes customer sentiment across social platforms, reviews, and support channels. Instead of just chasing keywords, we use these emotional insights to shape our content strategy around addressing genuine customer concerns.
For example, our AI identified rising anxiety around "ethical supply chain transparency" in conversations - a phrase with minimal search volume but significant emotional impact that traditional SEO would miss. We responded by creating an "Ethical Sourcing Journey" interactive microsite that transparently showed our entire product lifecycle.
This content wasn't optimized for search algorithms but for human concerns. The result? Organic backlinks from sustainability blogs, press coverage, and rankings for 47 long-tail variations within six months without traditional keyword targeting.
Unlike conventional SEO that prioritizes search volume metrics, our approach lets emotional data guide content investments. When content genuinely resonates with people's deeper concerns, it naturally generates its own momentum and visibility online. The key difference is creating for human needs first, not search engines.

Steve Morris · Answer

I'm Steve Morris, founder and CEO of NEWMEDIA.COM. This is my view on the rules of digital brand presence broken by AI.
We're seeing AI-driven page generation at massive scale, and brands going from 0 to 1 million monthly visitors on a custom model. The most unexpected hack with the highest ROI that I've employed to improve someone's digital presence used AI to generate thousands of pages of narrowly optimized content, which you just can't do at that scale and speed with old-school SEO muscle alone. We broke new ground for a client by building, instead of a 3D expansion of keyword-based pillar pages, a client-custom large-language-model workflow (originally based on GPT-3 but heavily modified with advanced technology) that generated over 5,000 glossary, Q&A, and explainer pages in a few weeks.
These pages increased traffic for the client beyond anything we'd previously done for them. Plus, they all had high semantic relevance and neighboring concept adjacency because they were programmatically based on a multi-dimensional cube of subqueries. Fast forward a year and there's an AI search engine that literally chains query cubes from conversational SERPs: organic traffic hits over 1 million visitors per month. That timeline for growth from new pages you manually write is pretty much impossible. Plus, you're weaving an intricate web of discovery among topics.
I'm not a fan of SEO by the book. If you're working along traditional, manual SEO lines, you're just scratching the surface of new possibilities. My advice to CMOs looking for a way to leapfrog out of the dead end of keyword page clutter: think of AI as a content factory, and see if you can build a workflow to atomize your expertise across semantic microspaces in the web.brand123.com domain. The trick is not the increase in velocity per se, but increased velocity in a multiplicity of places talking about slightly different things.

Bhavik Sarkhedi · Answer

One unexpected way I've used AI to increase our brand's digital visibility is by creating audience-specific content variations at scale. Rather than producing a single blog post and hoping it connects with everyone, we use AI to adapt core content into multiple formats: professional language for LinkedIn, conversational tone for Twitter, and SEO-optimized versions for our website. This multiplies our entry points for different audience segments while preserving our brand voice.
This approach flips conventional SEO tactics on their head. Traditional methods prioritize keywords first and audience considerations second. Our AI strategy reverses this, starting with personalization for real people, then aligning that content with search intent. This balance between human relevance and technical optimization has significantly accelerated how quickly our content ranks and improved performance across all platforms.
I've found the sweet spot isn't replacing creativity with AI but using technology to expand reach and maximize the impact of every piece of content we create.

Chris Raulf · Answer

The most unexpected way I've used AI to increase our digital visibility was when I got scammed by Avis rental car - and turned my frustration into our biggest SEO lesson. When Avis tried to charge me thousands for pre-existing damage I had reported, I was furious. Instead of just complaining to friends or filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau like most people would, I decided to weaponize my SEO knowledge in an unconventional way.
Here's what happened:I went to LinkedIn and used AI to help me draft a detailed exposé about the entire scam. I documented everything - photos of the damage, email exchanges, timeline of events - and published it as a LinkedIn newsletter post.
The key difference from conventional SEO was that I wasn't trying to rank my website; I was leveraging LinkedIn's massive domain authority and my established profile to hijack Google's first page for a completely different purpose.
Within 12 hours, if you searched "Avis damage scam" on Google, my LinkedIn post was ranking #1, above all the corporate websites, forums, and news articles.
This approach differed dramatically from conventional SEO tactics because instead of optimizing my own website with keywords and backlinks over months, I was piggybacking on LinkedIn's existing authority to achieve instant rankings.
Most SEO strategies focus on building up your own domain's credibility, but this was about strategically choosing the right platform where Google already trusts the content to rank quickly.
The AI helped me structure the post for maximum impact - creating compelling headlines, organizing the evidence logically, and even suggesting emotional triggers that would encourage engagement.
The unexpected result wasn't just personal satisfaction - it became a masterclass for our clients.
We now regularly use this "platform-piggybacking" strategy for reputation management, competitive intelligence, and rapid-response marketing. Instead of waiting months for our clients' websites to rank for important keywords, we strategically publish content on high-authority platforms like LinkedIn, About.me, and industry-specific forums where rankings happen in days, not months.

Aly Johnson · Answer

I've found ChatGPT to be incredibly valuable for increasing our brand visibility by reverse-engineering successful headlines and content structures from top-performing sites. Unlike traditional SEO that focuses primarily on keywords and backlinks, we use AI to analyze content patterns that resonate with readers and build frameworks based on those insights. This approach lets us create content that satisfies both search algorithms and actual user intent simultaneously. We always validate the AI suggestions against our performance metrics to ensure we're not just following theoretical best practices. The combination of AI-powered content strategy with human writing and design has significantly improved our traffic and conversion rates.

Josiah Roche · Answer

I used AI to build FAQ sections from real search terms and customer conversations. After they went live, organic clicks went up around 20 percent in a couple of months, and conversions from search grew too. People stayed on the site longer because the answers matched what they were looking for, so bounce rates dropped.  
This felt different from the usual SEO routine where I would spend hours in keyword tools and checking competitor pages. Instead, I pulled ad search terms and support questions into AI and got clear drafts in minutes. Editing them down was faster than doing everything by hand, and it gave me room to cover long tail questions that I would normally skip because of the time cost.  
The biggest difference was the speed. SEO normally takes a while to show results, but here it worked in weeks because it matched intent so closely. I also saw a boost in paid search. Keywords that used to cost money started sending organic traffic too, so ad spend went down and both channels worked better together.  
- Josiah Roche  Fractional CMO, JRR Marketing  https://josiahroche.co/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahroche

Brandon Leibowitz · Answer

One unexpected way we've leveraged AI to boost our brand's digital visibility is by implementing an internal AI skills development program focused specifically on automating SEO tasks. We asked our team members to use AI tools to automate keyword research and trend forecasting, which substantially reduced the time spent on these traditionally manual processes. What made our approach different from conventional SEO tactics was our peer-to-peer learning model, where team members who mastered specific AI-driven SEO tools would lead workshops to teach others. This created a multiplier effect where AI expertise spread organically throughout our marketing department, rather than being siloed with a few specialists or external consultants. The results were impressive - not just in terms of improved SEO performance, but also in building a culture where our team continuously identifies new opportunities to apply AI to our digital visibility challenges.

Fredo Tan · Answer

One unexpected way we've grown visibility is by treating ChatGPT and Perplexity as distribution channels. We run the same prompts our buyers would, then study which answers get cited. The insight is consistent: AI favors content with clean structures, direct definitions, and embedded context. We rebuilt our posts around that concept with scannable subheads, concise answers, and Supademo demos that explain workflows instantly.
Conventional SEO measures clicks. This approach earns citations and brand mentions even without traffic. Competing for page one is no longer enough; you have to compete to be the answer AI defaults to. Since shifting to this mindset, we've seen our content referenced in AI outputs where competitors don't appear at all.

Sahil Kakkar · Answer

We used AI to track micro-moments in audience behavior, such as sudden spikes in interest around a specific trend. Instead of focusing only on evergreen keywords, we leaned into these short-lived opportunities. AI gave us the ability to react in real-time, while conventional SEO would have taken longer to identify stable patterns. This allowed us to gain a first-mover advantage and capture attention at the exact moment when audiences were most curious. The result was a noticeable lift in our visibility and stronger engagement from people who valued timely insights.
What set this approach apart was the shift from stability to agility. Conventional SEO rewards patience and consistency, while this strategy required speed and precision. AI reminded us that visibility today is not only about building long-term rankings but also about recognizing and responding to digital sparks as they happen. It reshaped how we think about timing in brand growth.

Ankit Prajapati · Answer

I once used AI not just for SEO writing, but to create short social snippets from long blog posts. It's like breaking big content into bite-sized pieces. It worked better than I expected.
How I Did It
1. I took a blog post that was already on my site.2. I fed it into AI and asked for short quotes, stats, or one-liners.3. I posted those lines on LinkedIn, Twitter, and even on Reddit with links back to the original post.
People started sharing these small chunks more than the full blog itself. This gave me extra visibility in places where I wasn't previously active.
How It's Different From Normal SEO
Normal SEO is all about keywords, backlinks, and meta tags. That's valuable, but it takes time. With this AI approach, I skipped waiting for rankings. Content was seen quickly on social feeds, and traffic came in through those shares.
Why It Worked for Me
1. People online prefer quick content. They don't always read 1,500-word articles.2. AI made it simple to extract highlights I hadn't even noticed myself.3. Sharing small bits across many platforms gave the brand a wider reach.
"Interestingly, I thought AI would only help with blog writing, but it actually gave me more visibility outside search engines. Sometimes thinking smaller gets you bigger results."
So, AI gave me traffic in a different way. Not by beating Google, but by turning content into small, shareable pieces that people wanted to pass around.

Raj Baruah · Answer

AI-powered content gap analysis for competitor blind spots dramatically increased our digital visibility by identifying high-value topics that established competitors consistently ignored despite significant search demand and clear commercial intent.
The Unconventional Approach:
Instead of competing directly for popular keywords, we used AI to analyze competitor content libraries against comprehensive keyword databases, revealing specific subtopics with strong search volume but minimal quality competition. This identified white space opportunities rather than following traditional competitive research.
Implementation Strategy:
AI processed thousands of competitor articles to map their topical coverage, then cross-referenced this against search demand data to identify gaps where user intent existed but authoritative content didn't. We prioritized these overlooked topics for comprehensive content development.
Specific Discovery Example:
Analysis revealed that while competitors created extensive "best practices" content, they consistently missed "troubleshooting" and "implementation problem-solving" topics that showed 2,000-4,000 monthly searches with minimal competition. These represented urgent user needs with clear commercial intent.
How This Differed from Traditional SEO:
Conventional Approach: Target popular keywords competitors rank for, create "better" content, hope to outrank established authority.
AI-Driven Method: Identify valuable topics competitors missed entirely, create definitive resources for underserved search demand, achieve rankings through lack of competition rather than superior authority.
Visibility Results:
Within 8 months, we ranked 1-3 for 34 implementation-focused keywords with virtually no competition. These pages generated 340% more organic traffic than our previous competitive content while achieving 67% higher conversion rates because they addressed urgent, specific problems.
Strategic Advantage:
Market Positioning: We became the go-to resource for specific problem-solving rather than generic industry advice, creating differentiated authority that competitors couldn't easily replicate.
Content ROI: Higher rankings with less authority-building effort meant better resource allocation and faster visibility gains compared to traditional competitive SEO approaches.

Illustrious Espiritu · Answer

For a long time, our SEO strategy focused primarily on keywords and backlinks. However, with the rise of AI-powered search, we realized this approach would no longer suffice. Our customers aren't just searching for keywords; they're asking complex questions. Our old content was getting lost in the vast sea of information.
The unexpected way we used AI to increase our brand's digital visibility was by utilizing it to identify gaps in our competitors' content. This approach differed from conventional SEO tactics because we weren't simply trying to outperform them at their own game. Instead, we were seeking to create a new game altogether. We employed a simple AI tool to analyze our competitors' top-performing content. The AI's task wasn't to replicate it but to uncover the questions that their content failed to address.
The most valuable insight came when our AI flagged a recurring question in the comments of a competitor's blog post that their article had completely overlooked. The content we created served as a direct solution to that problem.
This strategy has led to a significant increase in our brand's credibility and visibility. Our content is now being surfaced by AI because it provides direct solutions to customers' problems. My advice is to stop merely examining your competitors' top-performing content. You must find a way to gain a genuine, honest look into what their customers are asking for. The best way to get noticed is to be a company that is truly there to help.

Deepak Ranjan · Answer

One unexpected way I've used AI to increase my brand's digital visibility was by reverse-engineering SERPs through LLM-driven analysis rather than relying solely on conventional keyword research. Traditional SEO usually stops at search volume and competition, but I wanted to see how Google itself was interpreting intent.
By running SERP snapshots through LLMs, I could break down patterns in ranking content, topical gaps, and contextual signals. Then, using vector embeddings, I mapped my content against those high-performing pages to identify semantic blind spots. I also applied query fan-out, where one root query gets expanded into dozens of related search intents, giving me clarity on how users phrase questions beyond the obvious head terms.
The real differentiator was relevance engineering. Instead of stuffing keywords, I aligned content around the relationships between concepts that Google already surfaces. This approach felt less like chasing rankings and more like training my content to speak Google's "semantic language."
It worked because AI gave me a granular view of search intent and entity relationships that conventional SEO tools often miss, allowing me to position my brand in front of audiences earlier in their discovery journey.

Arthur Lauwers · Answer

When we started integrating AI into our SEO strategy at deplantrekkers.com, we discovered something counterintuitive. Most brands use AI to simply produce more content, but we found its true power lies in quality enhancement. Many companies mistakenly view AI content as inferior, but our experience shows the opposite. With proper prompting and guidance, AI can actually outperform average human writing in clarity and relevance.
What made our approach different from conventional SEO was shifting away from the old volume-based mindset. Instead of focusing on keyword stuffing or cranking out dozens of mediocre articles, we created streamlined automation processes that helped us produce better content that actually answers what people are searching for. This improved both our rankings and user engagement metrics.
The real game-changer came when we built our own tool, factor-6.com, after learning what worked through experimentation. Unlike traditional SEO that requires expensive software subscriptions and consultants, our AI approach gave us faster results at a fraction of the cost. We're now able to produce content that ranks well across various queries without the traditional resource drain.
I believe every brand has this opportunity right now, to use AI not just as a time-saver but as a quality multiplier. When properly implemented, it's not about replacing the human touch but amplifying it to reach audiences more effectively.

Bhoomi Ahuja · Answer

I used AI in a way most people don't expect: not for keywords, but for conversations. Instead of chasing what Google's algorithm wanted, I used AI to scan niche communities, forums, and social threads to hear how people actually talk about their problems.
What I found was eye-opening. My audience wasn't searching with polished "SEO terms"; they were describing struggles in raw, human language. By weaving that real vocabulary into my content, my brand started showing up where competitors weren't even looking.
Conventional SEO tries to impress search engines. This approach impressed people first, and the algorithms followed. That's how AI turned visibility into genuine resonance.

Farrukh Ali · Answer

We analyze user intent across hundreds of long-tail search queries to create highly targeted micro-content clusters. Unlike conventional SEO, which often focuses on optimizing existing pages for broad keywords, this approach allows us to predict trending questions, draft content at scale, and optimize it for AI-powered search results like Google's AI overviews and chat assistants. The result is a measurable boost in both organic traffic and visibility in zero-click search features.

Rashesh Shah · Answer

One unexpected way we used AI was in writing super practical, genuinely helpful blog posts that answer real questions people have—rather than just chasing SEO keywords.
For example, instead of a generic "plumbing services in [city]" post, AI helped us create something like: "How to Unblock a Pipe at Home Without Calling a Plumber (Yet)." It's content people actually want to read, share, and bookmark. The difference? It's not about keyword stuffing—it's about being useful. And guess what? Google loves it when people stick around and engage, so rankings and traffic naturally improved.

Esther Buttery · Answer

We leveraged AI-powered predictive analytics to analyze historical search data, seasonal trends, and user behavior patterns, which helped us identify and create content around emerging topics before they gained mainstream popularity. This approach differs significantly from conventional SEO tactics that typically react to existing keyword trends rather than anticipating future ones. By being early to market with relevant content on topics just beginning to gain traction, we were able to establish authority and capture search visibility before competition intensified.

Abhay Jain · Answer

We've been using AI to spot high-value Reddit threads where our expertise is relevant and then joining those conversations transparently. Unlike conventional SEO, which focuses on keywords and backlinks, this approach builds visibility by earning trust in real discussions that Google and AI systems already surface. It's a more community-driven, conversational path to digital visibility.

Matt Lasker · Answer

We leveraged generative AI to develop customized outreach templates that aligned with our brand voice while adapting to specific industry contexts and geographic considerations. This approach significantly improved our response rates and expanded our digital footprint through authentic engagement rather than traditional keyword optimization. The time savings allowed our team to focus on relationship building while maintaining consistency across all communication channels. This strategy complemented our conventional SEO efforts by generating organic mentions and connections that algorithms increasingly value in today's digital landscape.

Gert Mellak · Answer

AI is greatly helping us and our clients to process end-user information. For instance, we are quickly able to process hundreds of sales call transcripts for our clients. Additionally, we can gather and analyze the main challenges Shopify brands are facing with SEO. Previously, it was almost impossible to properly process thousands of Facebook group posts, but now it's simply a matter of how creative you are with your AI setup.

Sharon Thind · Answer

AI has been the talk of the digital marketing space. Since its announcement, trials, and rollout, digital marketing teams and companies have had to adapt their strategies to take a more AI-powered search engine-favorable approach. Within the digital marketing space, the importance of showing and ranking for AI features has become so prevalent that now the more traditional SERP features, although they still exist, are further down the page.
When it comes to GEO (generative engine optimization) and ranking and showing up on LLMs, there are important elements that are considered:
* Site's authority (digital outreach, site's age, brand awareness, backlinks)* Technical - site and page load speed* Content - knowledgeable content that shows that the company is experts in the field and covers content that encompasses the entirety of the subject, i.e., the goal is to build topical authority (important - can the content be rendered, otherwise LLMs can't "read" the content)
Based on the AI strategy described above, we can see that it is not too far from SEO, so instead of overhauling our strategies, we have re-prioritized what should be worked on for clients. For instance, for one of our high street luxury e-commerce brands, we partnered with their PR agency to get celebrity endorsements, which then get covered by the press, increasing the site's domain authority. In addition to this, we used software such as Google Trends to understand what core pages, informational and evergreen pages should be created in order to increase how much content is surfaced on LLMs. To measure the effectiveness of our campaign, we have created a custom report to identify how much traffic is pulled in from AI such as ChatGPT.

Bryan Sekine · Answer

We've been using AI to learn more about how AI platforms choose business websites for their responses. This has led us down an unexpected path because we started focusing more on third-party trust factors, different local directory listings than usual, and really pushing our review generation campaign.

Justin Smith · Answer

We developed Enrichify AI, our proprietary solution that generates targeted case studies for email campaigns based on location and business category. Interestingly, our data revealed that less personalized, more conversational messaging often outperforms the hyper-personalized content that conventional marketing wisdom recommends. This insight has fundamentally changed our approach to digital engagement, moving us away from the industry's fixation on maximum personalization toward more authentic communication.

Chongwei Chen · Answer

We've leveraged AI in an unexpected way that goes far beyond typical content generation approaches. Instead of using AI as a replacement for human expertise, we've developed it as an amplification tool for our deep technical knowledge in data recovery.
Here's what makes our approach different: Before generating any content, we feed our AI prompts with our proprietary data recovery expertise, technical methodologies, and years of field experience. The AI doesn't create content from a vacuum—it becomes a vessel for expressing our specialized knowledge at scale. After generation, our technical team rigorously reviews every piece to ensure accuracy and maintains our professional standards in the complex data recovery field.
This differs dramatically from conventional SEO tactics that often prioritize keyword density and search volume over authentic expertise. While traditional SEO might focus on producing high-volume content around popular search terms, our AI-enhanced approach allows us to rapidly produce authoritative, technically accurate articles that demonstrate genuine thought leadership in data recovery scenarios most companies couldn't address with confidence.
The results have been remarkable. We've established ourselves as a definitive authority in data recovery while producing content at a pace that would be impossible with purely human-written articles. The key insight is that AI's value isn't in replacing expertise—it's in rapidly translating deep domain knowledge into accessible, authoritative content that builds genuine brand credibility rather than just search rankings.
This approach has significantly elevated our brand visibility in the data recovery space, not through SEO manipulation, but through demonstrating authentic expertise at scale.

25 Unexpected Ways to Use AI for Digital Visibility Beyond Traditional SEO"

25 Unexpected Ways to Use AI for Digital Visibility Beyond Traditional SEO"

AI Analyzes Sentiment to Shape Content Strategy

Custom Language Model Generates Massive Traffic Boost

Personalize Content Across Platforms with AI

Leverage High-Authority Platforms for Instant Rankings

AI Reverse-Engineers Successful Content Patterns

Build FAQs from Real Search Terms

Implement AI-Driven SEO Skills Development Program

Optimize Content for AI Citation and Mentions

Track Micro-Moments with AI for Timely Visibility

Transform Long Posts into Shareable Social Snippets

AI Identifies Competitor Content Gaps

Analyze SERPs with LLMs for Intent Insights

Enhance Content Quality with AI Tools

AI Scans Niche Communities for Authentic Language

Create Micro-Content Clusters for AI-Powered Search

Write Practical Content People Actually Want

Use Predictive Analytics to Anticipate Search Trends

Build Visibility Through Reddit Conversations

Develop Customized AI-Powered Outreach Templates

Process User Data for Actionable SEO Insights

Prioritize AI-Friendly Content and Authority Building

Focus on Third-Party Trust Factors for AI

Generate Targeted Case Studies with AI

Amplify Technical Expertise Through AI Content

AI Enhances Data Recovery Content Authority