How many Americans are moving to where they really dream of living? How many wish they lived abroad?
And more importantly, do your neighbors think that your moving and real estate company provides the most trustworthy answers?
Thousands of inquiries bounce across AI tools, but few companies stake a claim to niches about which they can speak authoritatively, and become known for. And that’s a shame, because getting cited undergirds their authority in high-buying-intent searches, creates trust at checkout, and rewards companies with lower customer acquisition costs.
AI visibility case study at a glance
In short: Green Flag Digital measured which queries a moving aggregator was already winning in AI answers, then shaped new digital PR studies around them. The client is now mentioned about 214 times a day by LLMs and holds an average 22.5% voice share. This is the core of our digital PR for AI search work.
| Client | A moving aggregator company |
| Goals | A larger backlink profile, stronger brand authority, and more LLM mentions and citations |
| What we did | Ongoing digital PR data studies, re-engineered around the queries already winning in answer engines |
| LLM mentions | ~214 per day, 39,521 over the past 6 months |
| Citations vs. closest competitor | Almost 2X the daily citations, and more than 3X the pages ranking as cited domains |
| AI voice share | 22.5% average across LLMs, per HubSpot’s AEO Grader |
| Organic traffic | Up 19,955 over 6 months, a 34% increase |
The Problem: AI visibility is a black box
Our client, a moving aggregator company, wanted to:
- Expand their backlink profile to support SEO across assets
- Build brand authority
- Grow LLM mentions and citations
But when AI is a “black box,” it can be hard to see how you’re winning (or how to improve).
The Approach: find the queries already winning in AI answers, then build on them
We’d been consistently creating digital PR studies for the moving aggregator.
So we devised a way to quantify which queries were winning in AEO and re-engineered future study ideas to build on the authority we already had, allowing downfunnel content pillars to rank higher.
The Results: ~214 LLM mentions a day and 22.5% voice share
Today, the move aggregator is mentioned ~214 times daily by LLMs, totaling 39,521 mentions over the past 6 months, all from 202K impressions (mentions weighted by Google Search Volume).
Its daily citations are almost twice those of the closest competitor, with more than 3X the number of pages ranking as cited domains.
According to HubSpot’s AEO Grader, across LLMs, the client commands an average of 22.5% of voice share compared to competitors. It all adds up to quality SEO support. Organic traffic is up 19,955 over the past 6 months (a 34% increase overall), and in 10 spot checks on ChatGPT, the client owns citations for 4 niche areas where other statistics are scarce, based on our aggregator, which spearheaded surveys that yielded real know-how.
Putting it All Together
According to Ahrefs, branded web mentions are the #1 factor in predicting whether a company is surfaced in an LLM inquiry, with branded anchors close behind, and domain authority, driven by backlinks and their quality, coming in 4th.
This mosaic is the foundation of digital PR, as evidenced by the surveys and media backlinks we handled for this client. The bottom line: If you want to own the bottom of the funnel, aim for brand authority across content assets and develop owned expertise of statistics in your niche.
Frequently asked questions
AEO stands for answer engine optimization. It is the work of earning mentions and citations for your brand inside AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, alongside traditional search rankings.
In this engagement, the driver was digital PR: original surveys and data studies that earned media coverage and backlinks in the client’s niche. Ahrefs research cited on this page found that branded web mentions are the strongest predictor of whether a brand appears in AI answers, which matches what we saw.
For this client we tracked daily LLM mentions, citations compared with the closest competitor, the number of pages ranking as cited domains, voice share in HubSpot’s AEO Grader, and manual spot checks in ChatGPT for niche queries.
The client is mentioned about 214 times a day by LLMs, or 39,521 mentions over 6 months. Daily citations are almost twice those of the closest competitor, average voice share is 22.5%, and organic traffic rose by 19,955 visits over the same 6 months, a 34% increase.
It did here. The same surveys and media backlinks that support SEO also produced the branded mentions and authority that answer engines draw on. In 10 ChatGPT spot checks, the client owned citations in 4 niche areas where other statistics were scarce.
Interested in Owning Your Own Niche Conversation?
We help challenger brands build high-authority backlinks and trust through earned media mentions in the form of highly-shareable data stories. Want to explore what brand stories can do for your visibility? Chat with us today.
More case studies
Case study · Digital PR
3,740
new referring domains for moveBuddha
Five years of data-led campaigns took them from 582 referring domains to 4,322, and from 3rd to 1st in their space.
Case study · Digital PR
15 days
from study launch to The New York Times
A 100-city index and an interactive map became a Times Calculator column.