How to rank #1 on ChatGPT?
Leapd showed up as the #1 recommendation for the high-intent query:
“Best tool to build a business in 2026.”
And that did not happen by coincidence.
At Leapd, we built a custom AI visibility agent called Alex. It takes any website and systematically helps it rank across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and other AI search engines.
Here is the exact process Alex follows—and one you can apply directly to your own business:
1. Make your website discoverable by AI engines
Audit your website and make sure AI search engines can properly crawl and understand it.
That means checking your:
- Schema
- Sitemap
- Robots.txt
- Page structure
- Internal links
- Crawlability
Your website cannot be recommended if AI engines cannot properly access and understand it.
2. Build your website authority
Your website needs strong authority to compete for valuable prompts.
One of the best ways to build that authority is through relevant editorial backlinks from high-authority websites.
Identify publishers already covering your industry, find content where your business would add value, and reach out with a strong reason for them to reference your website.
The more trusted websites that mention your brand, the more signals AI engines have that your business is credible.
3. Publish fresh, highly relevant content
Your content must be fresh, relevant, and optimized so AI engines can easily digest, summarize, and cite it.
It should also follow traditional SEO fundamentals:
- Clear keyword targeting
- Strong headings
- Direct answers
- Structured sections
- Relevant internal links
- Credible external sources
Publishing generic content is not enough. You need content built around the exact questions your customers are asking.
4. Get cited by the sources already ranking your competitors
Monitor the high-intent prompts that matter to your business every day.
Identify:
- Which competitors appear
- Which sources are being cited
- Which articles influence the answers
- Which Reddit threads keep showing up
- Which directories and publishers AI engines trust
Then create better content around those topics or work to get your brand included in the sources already influencing the answers.
Reddit threads, editorial articles, comparison pages, directories, and industry reports can all become powerful citation sources.
5. Repeat the process continuously
AI rankings are not permanent.
Competitors publish new content. Sources change. Models update. New conversations appear.
To stay visible, you need to repeat all four steps consistently:
- Keep your website technically optimized
- Keep building authority
- Keep publishing relevant content
- Keep monitoring the sources shaping AI answers
At Leapd, Alex automates this entire process.
You give Alex your website, and it:
- Audits and fixes your AI visibility foundation
- Monitors your rankings across AI engines
- Identifies the prompts your customers are asking
- Finds publishers and backlink opportunities
- Publishes AEO-optimized articles
- Tracks competitors and citation gaps
- Gives you a strategy to outrank them
We also analyzed millions of citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity and published a detailed report showing which sources each engine relies on most.
For example, Wikipedia was the top citation source for ChatGPT, while Reddit ranked first for Google AI Overviews and Perplexity.
Full report:
Overall, whether you are starting with just an idea or already have a business and want to build and grow it on autopilot, Leapd has an agent for you.
Get a free AI visibility audit:
Used to spend weeks reaching out to publishers for backlinks . If your AI solves that, it's a game changer.
Exactly @Shophia22 - we all have experienced the pain. In 2026, manually reaching out to journalists to get citations is the worst thing to do to your business, and that is why Alex exists...
The schema + crawlability piece is underrated - most people jump straight to backlinks and skip step 1 entirely. One thing I have noticed running a tools site: AI engines seem to cite pages that answer one specific question cleanly far more than long "ultimate guide" pages, even when the guide has more authority behind it. Direct-answer blocks and clear question-style H2s get pulled into ChatGPT/Perplexity summaries much more often for me. Have you seen structured data like FAQ or HowTo schema actually move citations, or is it mostly the content structure doing the work?
exactly @Korelyy, crawlability is the foundation- there is no point in optimizing the rest when the AI agents can't see anything. Regarding FAQ, yes, they can make a significant impact if done properly. We often see significant citations on listicle articles with FAQs that have high-intent questions in them
the Reddit signal is the one most people underestimate. when we looked at where ChatGPT was pulling from for AI-related queries while building aisa.to, community threads and niche discussion posts showed up way more than traditional blog content. schema and structured data help with crawlability, but being genuinely cited in conversations where people are already asking questions is what actually moves rankings.
It's interesting to see how your platform helps for AI visibility search. gonna try it!
It's interesting to see some much of the fundamentals between SEO and AEO is the same. I like the breakdown in the report . Although some parts are quite different that what I expected.
getting blog mention for my business was a huge pain, if your AI finds publishers and reach out to get backlinks that is a huge win .. let me try the free visibility
thanks for sharing - I wonder how long it takes to get similar results
@emrasmith tbh it highly depends on where you are and if you have foundations in place to build on - if you are starting from dr near 0, it is a few months of focused effort to get you to dr 30+ and maintain it
I like the breakdown and the structure make sense, but how the backlink works, like your AI agents find publishers that would give my business a backlink or there is a directory we pick from?
@ejones we support blog discoverya nd outreach to get the backlink; however, we also have a business directory that you can submit your business on Leapd for a dofollow backlink, DR 30+ for just $29, but that is an open submission different from Alex's backlink builder- you can check out the directory at https://directory.leapd.ai/
I think the biggest advantage of this system is the backlink building and fresh content - website audit is foundational so if someone doest do that thy probably not even selling anything ...
def love the itemized plan - it was under the impression wikipedia is not a reliable source , I am SURPRISED to see it is the top source for chatgpt!!!! how many prompts did you analysis for this?
thanks @pictest we analyzed over 600 million citations across all our customers - that spans major AI search engines like chatgpt, Perplexity, gemini, google ai overview, claude and meta /llama models. please see the report for more details and get your free visibility audit
This comment was deleted 9 hours ago.