The 30-Day AEO Action Plan: How to Fix "Not Mentioned" in AI Results

You ran your buyer prompts through ChatGPT. Your competitors showed up. You didn't.

That's not a branding problem. It's not a product problem. It's a visibility problem — and it's fixable. This is the exact 30-day plan WaySky uses to move B2B SaaS vendors from invisible to recommended in AI search results.

No vague advice. No "create more content." A specific, sequenced action plan with clear deliverables for every week.

Before You Start: Establish Your Baseline

You can't measure progress without a starting point. Before executing anything, spend one hour documenting exactly where you stand.

Run each of your top 10 buyer prompts through ChatGPT and Perplexity. For each prompt record: are you mentioned or not, which competitors are named, what rank position you appear in if mentioned, and which sources are cited at the bottom of the response.

This becomes your Week 0 baseline. Every action in the next 30 days is designed to move these numbers.

WaySky's free portal automates this entirely — daily tracking across all your prompts with trend data and competitor benchmarking built in. If you haven't set it up, do it before you start the plan.

Week 1: Diagnose the Root Cause

Not all "not mentioned" problems have the same fix. Executing the wrong solution wastes 30 days. Week 1 is about understanding exactly why you're not being recommended before touching a single piece of content.

Day 1-2: Identify what AI says about you unprompted

Ask ChatGPT directly: "What do you know about [your company]?" and "What does [your company] do?" Record the response verbatim. If the model has weak, outdated, or incorrect information about your product, that's a training data gap — the model simply doesn't know enough about you to recommend you confidently.

Day 3-4: Map the competitor gap

For each prompt where a competitor shows up and you don't, ask ChatGPT why it recommended that competitor. Look for patterns. Are competitors being recommended because of specific integrations you also have but haven't documented? Because they appear on comparison sites you're not on? Because they have case studies in specific use cases you serve?

Day 5-7: Audit your public proof footprint

Check your presence on G2, Capterra, and Trustradius — are your profiles complete, current, and populated with reviews? Search for "[your company] vs [competitor]" — does any comparison content exist that includes you? Search for "[your category] alternatives" — are you on any of those lists?

This audit tells you which gaps to prioritize in weeks 2-4.

Week 2: Build Your On-Site Foundation

Week 2 is production week. You're building the content assets that give AI something concrete to cite — and give buyers something credible to land on.

Priority 1: The competitor comparison page

Build a "[Your Product] vs [Top Competitor]" page. Structure it with clear headers, a comparison table, and honest positioning. Don't write a puff piece — write the page a skeptical buyer would find useful. AI cites content that answers questions directly, not content that reads like a sales brochure.

The page should cover: key feature differences, pricing comparison if possible, ideal customer profile for each product, and a clear "who should choose what" conclusion.

Priority 2: The alternatives page

Build a "[Top Competitor] alternatives" page that includes your product alongside 3-4 other legitimate alternatives. Yes, this means mentioning competitors on your own site. Do it anyway. These pages are among the most cited content types in AI responses because they match exactly how buyers frame their questions.

Priority 3: Integration documentation

If you integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, or any other widely-used platform, you need a dedicated page for each integration. Not a one-liner in your features list — a full page explaining what the integration does, how it works, and who it's for. These pages are strong AI citation signals because they establish clear use-case association.

Priority 4: FAQ blocks with schema markup

Add FAQ sections to your homepage and key product pages. Write each question the way a buyer would actually ask it — "How does [your product] compare to [competitor]?" "What integrations does [your product] support?" "How long does [your product] take to implement?" Use FAQ schema markup so AI can parse and cite your answers directly.

Week 3: Get Into the Sources AI Is Already Citing

On-site content alone is not enough. The brands consistently recommended by ChatGPT have one thing in common: they appear repeatedly in the third-party sources the model trusts. Week 3 is about getting into those sources.

Day 15-16: Optimize your review platform profiles

If your G2, Capterra, and Trustradius profiles are incomplete or outdated, fix them now. Make sure your category tags are accurate, your product description uses the language buyers use in their queries, and you have recent reviews. These platforms are cited constantly across virtually every B2B SaaS category.

Day 17-19: Identify which sources ChatGPT is citing in your category

Go back to your baseline prompt results. Look at the sources listed at the bottom of ChatGPT's responses. Those are your targets. Every publication, blog, or analyst site that ChatGPT is already citing for your category is a venue where a mention of your product carries direct AI visibility weight.

Approach each one. Some will have guest contribution opportunities. Some will update existing comparison articles. Some will publish new content that includes your product given sufficient context and positioning.

This is the highest-leverage work in the entire 30-day plan — and the hardest to do without an existing network. WaySky's Source Sprint is built specifically for this step, with an existing network of sources already vetted and engaged across B2B SaaS categories.

Day 20-21: Submit to directories and listicles

Beyond the major review platforms, there are dozens of software directories and category listicles that AI cites regularly. Research which ones appear in your category's AI responses and submit your product to any where you're absent.

Week 4: Measure, Iterate, and Build the Monitoring Habit

Week 4 is not the end — it's the beginning of the ongoing process that keeps you recommended as AI models evolve.

Day 22-25: Re-run your baseline prompts

Run the same 10 prompts you documented in Week 0. Compare the results. Are you mentioned in more prompts? Has your rank position improved? Are new sources citing you? Document every change — positive and negative.

Don't be discouraged if movement is modest after 30 days. Some changes take longer to propagate through AI models. What matters is directional progress and whether the right assets are now in place.

Day 26-28: Identify the next round of gaps

The 30-day plan addresses the most impactful gaps first. By Week 4 you'll have a clearer picture of what's still missing. What prompts are you still losing? What competitors are still consistently beating you? What sources are still citing them and not you?

Document these as your Month 2 priorities.

Day 29-30: Set up ongoing monitoring

AEO is not a one-time project. AI recommendations shift continuously. The brands that stay recommended are the ones actively monitoring their visibility and responding to changes before they lose ground.

Set a weekly cadence for reviewing your prompt tracking data. If you're using WaySky's portal, configure alerts for mention status changes so you know immediately when your visibility shifts.

How to Monitor AI Citations and Sentiment vs Competitors

Ongoing monitoring requires tracking three things consistently:

Share-of-voice — Across your tracked buyer prompts, what percentage include a mention of your brand? How does that compare to your top 2-3 competitors? This is your primary KPI.

Mention sentiment — When you are mentioned, how is your product described? Is it recommended as a top choice or mentioned as a secondary option? Is the language positive, neutral, or hedged? AI doesn't just mention brands — it contextualizes them.

Source citations — Which third-party sources is AI citing alongside your mentions? Are those the same sources citing competitors? New sources appearing in AI responses are new placement opportunities.

WaySky's portal tracks all three automatically — daily prompt runs, mention status, competitor benchmarking, and source mapping in one dashboard. Your team sees exactly where you stand every morning without running prompts manually.

What to Expect: Realistic Timelines

Days 1-14: On-site content assets built and indexed. No significant change in AI recommendations yet — models need time to process new content.

Days 15-30: Third-party source placements going live. Early movement in some prompts as AI begins associating your brand with new sources. Review platform optimization showing early impact.

Days 30-60: Meaningful shift in share-of-voice across tracked prompts. Source placements fully indexed and influencing recommendations. Clear picture of remaining gaps.

Days 60-90: Compounding effect as multiple signals reinforce each other. Consistent recommendation in prompts where you've built strong source coverage.

The Shortcut

If 30 days of self-directed execution sounds like more than your team can absorb alongside existing priorities, WaySky's Fix Pack delivers every deliverable in this plan — done for you, in 30 days, by specialists who do this every day.

The comparison pages, the integration documentation, the FAQ blocks, the source placements — all of it shipped without your team having to figure out what to prioritize or how to approach the sources that matter.

[Start with a free visibility audit — sign up for WaySky's portal →]

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if AI is recommending my competitors more than me? Run your top buyer prompts through ChatGPT and Perplexity and document who gets named in each response. Track this weekly. WaySky's free portal automates this tracking daily across up to 10 prompts, with competitor benchmarking built in.

How long does it take to fix "not mentioned" in AI results? With a focused execution plan, early movement typically appears in 2-4 weeks as source placements go live. Meaningful share-of-voice improvement across most tracked prompts typically takes 30-60 days. Some prompts move faster than others depending on competition level and how quickly new content gets indexed.

What content does AI trust for software recommendations? AI consistently cites review platforms like G2 and Capterra, comparison and alternatives articles, integration documentation, analyst and editorial coverage, and structured FAQ content on vendor websites. These are the highest-leverage content types to prioritize.

How do I track AI citations over time? Manual tracking — running prompts weekly in a spreadsheet — works for early-stage monitoring. Automated daily tracking with trend data and competitor benchmarking requires dedicated tooling. WaySky's free portal provides this out of the box.

What's the difference between monitoring AI visibility and actually improving it? Monitoring tells you where you stand. Improving it requires building the content assets, securing the source placements, and fixing the positioning gaps that are keeping you out of AI recommendations. Most tools only offer monitoring. WaySky offers both.

WaySky helps B2B SaaS vendors get recommended by AI and stay recommended — through continuous visibility tracking, expert diagnosis, and done-for-you execution. We work with a maximum of 5 vendors per category.