AUSTIN, Texas – SP Tech Solutions – July 16, 2026 – Waleed Anwar, Founder of ClickTraces, says businesses need to expand their visibility strategies beyond traditional Google rankings as AI-powered search platforms increasingly influence how customers discover brands online.
For years, ranking on Google’s first page was the primary goal of digital marketing. That remains important, but Waleed Anwar says the search landscape is shifting as more people turn to platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews for answers and recommendations. Anwar points to industry research showing a rising share of consumers now begin research on AI tools rather than traditional search engines.
There is meaningful overlap between organic search performance and AI visibility. Best SEO practices remain the right foundation. But it stops being sufficient the moment a brand needs to appear in an AI answer. A company can rank highly on Google and still be absent from answers generated by ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity.
“SEO is no longer only about ranking on Google. Brands now need to understand how they appear across AI answers, citations, and recommendation engines,” said Waleed Anwar, Founder of ClickTraces.
AI systems decide whether to surface a brand by interpreting its representation across the web. Entity optimization helps them recognize a brand as distinct and trustworthy, while relevance engineering shapes visibility based on how well content aligns with user intent, reinforced by structured topic clusters that signal depth and authority. To answer a query, these systems use query fan-out, expanding one question into several related searches, then apply Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to pull and verify information from multiple credible, up-to-date sources before generating a response.
CEO of Click-Traces urges that brands need to present themselves as trustworthy data sources, not just keyword-optimized pages. Clear messaging about what the business does, consistent information across the web, earned mentions in credible publications, and regularly updated content all factor into how AI systems perceive and cite a source.
Sentiment accuracy matters too. A brand described positively and consistently across third-party sites has a structural advantage over one whose information is fragmented or outdated.
Anwar, who works with businesses across multiple industries, views SEO, content authority, digital trust, and AI visibility as connected disciplines rather than separate marketing initiatives. His recommendation for any business starting this process is straightforward: search your own company name on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity using the questions a real customer would ask. The results offer a clear signal of where visibility work is needed.
While the long-term impact of AI-powered search is still evolving, Anwar believes that businesses that understand how they are represented across both search engines and AI platforms will be better positioned to earn visibility, trust, and customer attention in the years ahead. Read ClickTraces blog to learn more.
About Waleed Anwar
Waleed Anwar is the Founder of Click-Traces and an SEO & AI Visibility Expert focused on how businesses improve discoverability across search engines and AI-powered platforms. His work explores the intersection of SEO, digital trust, content authority, and AI search visibility.
Media Contact
Name: Waleed Anwar
Title: CEO & Founder
Email: waleed@clicktraces.com
Phone: +1 512-688-6228
Website: https://clicktraces.com
