By Mark William Lewis, Founder & CEO of Netalico Commerce
What if the next customer finds you not through Google, but because ChatGPT or Perplexity recommended your product? It’s happening. Shoppers and info seekers are skipping Google and going straight to AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity for answers. Instead of ten blue links, they get one conversational answer. And if your ecommerce site isn’t part of that answer, you’re basically invisible.
Welcome to the era of Large Language Model SEO. Think of it as optimizing your content so these AI engines love it. As someone who’s helped dozens of Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce merchants, I’m here to share how you can charm the AI overlords into including your store in their answers. Friendly overlords, I promise.
The New Search: From Blue Links to Blunt Answers
Traditional search engines list results. LLM driven platforms give results. Instead of making you scroll through pages, chatbots deliver a single, compiled answer drawn from multiple sources. It’s like having a well read sales associate who already studied every product manual and customer review, and can answer on the spot.
This shift is big. AI chat platforms provide direct answers, often cutting out the need for clicks. For example, Perplexity cites sources in the answer. That means only the cited sites get visibility. If you’re not authoritative or clear enough to be one of those sources, you get nothing from that interaction. And with generative search growing fast, ecommerce brands can’t ignore it.
Key difference. In classic SEO you fought for rank number one. In LLM SEO you fight to be mentioned. You want the AI to think, “This site has the perfect answer. Let me quote it.”
Why AI Likes Good Content and How to Feed It
LLMs are trained on tons of text, but when producing answers they favor information that is clear, well structured, and credible. Align your content strategy with how an AI reads.
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Publish FAQ pages and Q and A content. Many shoppers ask chatbots very specific questions. If your site has a FAQ like “What’s the difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar” and someone asks that same question, your content is primed to be picked up. Pages with explicit FAQs are often lifted into AI answers. Use FAQ sections on product pages and a central FAQ hub.
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Create how to guides and “how to choose” articles. Write educational content tied to your catalog. Running a BigCommerce store selling espresso machines. Publish “How to choose the right espresso machine for your home.” These guides and X vs Y comparisons position your site as the helpful explainer. If your content directly answers how to do something or how to choose something, it is more likely to be pulled into a conversational answer.
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Tighten product descriptions. Make them detailed and clear about features and uses. If someone asks, “What material is the Acme Eco Friendly Yoga Mat made of,” a well written product description could feed that answer. Include a short bulleted list of specs or unique benefits. AI loves bite sized facts it can quote.
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Refresh and expand topic coverage. Build topical authority with clusters of content and keep them updated. If you sell artisanal coffee, cover brewing methods, bean varieties, roast levels, storage, and water ratios, with internal links. Over time, an AI may treat your site as a go to source on that subject.
Make it easy for AI to lift your content. Use conversational headings that match real questions, then answer them clearly right below. Write in a natural tone. Bonus. Humans like it too.
Technical SEO Tweaks to Invite the Bots In
Great content won’t help if the AI can’t get to it. Technical work is the welcome mat.
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Check robots.txt and crawl access. Make sure you’re not blocking important sections. I’ve seen merchants hide a blog or FAQ with a simple disallow. On Shopify and BigCommerce this is mostly handled, but verify apps and customizations. Magento gives more control, so use it carefully.
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Keep navigation simple and logical. Link to guides, FAQs, and key categories from menus and footers. A clear path helps both crawlers and shoppers. Do not bury your educational content.
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Speed and accessibility. A fast site gets crawled more efficiently. Keep critical content in plain HTML so bots can read it without heavy scripts. Good performance also boosts user behavior signals that search engines like.
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Show real humans behind the content. Author bios, real customer reviews, and first hand experience signals help trust. They also make your brand more quotable.
Schema Markup: Your Secret Weapon
Structured data is machine readable labeling. It tells an AI and a search engine what each piece of your page means.
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FAQPage schema. If you have an FAQ section, mark it up. This can yield rich snippets on Google and it makes it more likely your Q and A gets quoted by an AI, with your brand as the source.
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Product schema. Shopify and BigCommerce themes usually include price, availability, and reviews. Magento often uses extensions. Ensure accuracy. While an AI might not recite a SKU, it can use details like materials and dimensions if your copy states them clearly.
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HowTo and Article schema. Use HowTo for tutorials and Article for blog posts. Schema highlights the parts of your content that matter. Clear structure plus schema makes your pages easier for models to reuse.
Quick myth buster. Some say LLMs do not read schema. Pure models may not, but search engines do, and many AI answers are built on indexed content. Schema helps you speak machine language to Google and Bing so your important info is understood and retrieved. It is low effort and high value. Shopify and BigCommerce can output solid schema with the right theme or app. Magento gives you full control.
LLM Search vs Old School Search: Why Store Owners Should Care
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Queries are full questions. Users now ask complete questions or describe a scenario. An AI returns a tailored answer. Anticipate these natural language questions and create pages that match them. Q and A style helps.
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Citations and mentions are the new clicks. On Perplexity or Bing’s AI chat, the user may not need to click. If your brand is cited, that is exposure and trust. Many still click the source. Being cited is the new page one.
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Authority and trust matter more. AI models gravitate toward clear, credible sites with breadth. Build reputation with quality content, press mentions, and consistent brand details across the web.
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Different AI platforms have different tastes. Chat tools vary. Some lean toward structured, editorial sources. Others favor community Q and A. Mix styles. Publish well structured explainers on your site and engage in communities where your buyers hang out.
LLM driven search is not replacing traditional search. It is a new channel where you can be the answer, not just an option.
Example: How Your Store Could Get Featured by an AI
You run a Magento store selling gourmet hot sauces. You publish recipes, a spicy gift guide, and a FAQ. A user asks Perplexity, “What is a good gift for a friend who loves extremely spicy food, and how should I choose one”
The AI replies with advice to pick a curated set with a range of heat and flavor, to check Scoville ratings, to start with small amounts, and to look for all natural options. It cites your gift guide and FAQ as sources. Your brand gets visibility and the click. A competitor with only product pages and no educational content gets ignored.
Multiply that across thousands of questions. That is the opportunity.
Wrap Up and Next Steps
Optimizing for LLMs is really about doing the right things with a few smart twists. Create clear answers to real questions. Structure your content. Mark it up. Keep the doors open for crawlers. Build authority across your topic.
If you want your Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce site to be the one ChatGPT name drops next, we can help. At Netalico, we live and breathe this stuff and we make it painless for busy teams.
Ready to talk it through with a fellow human. Reach out to Netalico and let’s make your site the teacher’s pet of the AI world.
