When you have limited resources and little to no SEO authority, the easiest first stop is to be present in UGC-led content, where your brand name can start spreading organically.

Welcome to chapter 7 of our ultimate guide on mastering AISEO, from understanding how AISEO works, to keyword research for AI chat platforms, and to finally learning strategies to build AI platform friendly citations. 

It is well established that the top third-party sources LLMs usually cite to give B2B product recommendations are: 

• Listicles 
• UGC (Reddit, Quora, G2/Capterra reviews, YouTube)
• Other bottom-funnel content (comparison guides, review guides)
• In some cases, Wikipedia and LinkedIn.

Besides creating your own content via listicles, the easiest way to start building a digital footprint is through UGC on high-DA platforms like Reddit or Quora. 

Without further ado, let’s dive right in!

How to get recommended by AI Platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity without SEO Authority?

Here’s what we do at our agency besides building our own content library:

We Start With Reddit 

Reddit is the fastest and easiest way to get AI platform friendly citations that will get your brand recommended by Chatgpt, Claude, and other major AI chat platforms. 

The first step is to find relevant threads or subreddits that are most likely to get cited by LLMs for any keywords and queries in your domain. 

Focus on threads actively asking for product recommendations. Then move to threads where people are looking for solutions to specific problems and where you can provide helpful guidance. (Read in details on how to identify these questions in Chapter 6). 

You can also contribute to:

• Threads looking for alternatives to your competitor’s tools
• Review-based threads of your competitors 
• “Vs” or comparison threads involving competitors

Some ways to find relevant threads on Reddit

Here are some ways you can find relevant threads:

1. The fastest way to find a bunch of relevant threads is to ask Reddit’s AI search here → Reddit Answers.

Ask questions on Reddit Answers and it will pull a bunch of relevant threads along with summarised context. The great thing about it is that it provides exact citations, and you get to learn more about your customer voice.

2. Another easy way to find relevant threads is to use ChatGPT in Agent Mode (we tried this for a few clients in the past and it worked amazingly. Let us know if you need the prompt).

Share the list of product-relevant queries (Problem category labels, 2-3 word problem statements, feature lists, wins your product helps the audience get in 2-3 words), and ask ChatGPT to find the Reddit threads that are ranking on the first few pages of Google and Bing for each query. 

Once it shares a table of relevant threads for all the queries, copy-paste it into an Excel or Google Sheet. 

Then do a manual pass to validate and top-up the list with additional threads you may have missed.

3. Do direct SERP analysis on Google or Bing

You can also search for your keyword or query on Google. ChatGPT pretty much gives the same results, so if you wanna skip using AI for this, this is a very easy manual way to do it. 

This is how you search: site:reddit.com “keyword 1”, “keyword 2″…

Filter results to recent months to find the most relevant threads. These same threads that appear on Google or other search engines are often cited by AI platforms as well for the given query. 

Note: When LLMs “cite” Reddit, they usually reference threads they discovered via search engines. If you are present in these threads, there’s a higher chance you’ll be mentioned by AI platforms as well.

Once you’ve identified relevant threads and subreddits, make a list on Excel and start contributing.

How to contribute on Reddit the right way?

You can’t just jump in and promote your brand. Before posting, keep these principles in mind:

• Give genuinely helpful answers, not answers written just for visibility.
  If your comment truly adds value to the discussion, people are more likely to notice it and upvote; as a result, LLMs are more likely to pick up on it.
• Anonymity drives Reddit, but since your goal is to promote your brand, the better approach is to be transparent about who you are. People tend to respect that more, and it also signals credibility (and may not get you banned immediately).
  
  A great example of this approach is Carbide 3D, a CNC machine manufacturer. One of their team members, Will Adams, is active on the company’s subreddit as well as other relevant subreddits.