How to measure your LLM visibility: a beginner's guide

Why measurement matters

You cannot improve what you do not measure. Many businesses are flying blind on AI visibility — they know AI search is growing, they suspect competitors might be appearing in AI responses, but they have no systematic way to measure their position.

The core metrics

Mention rate is the percentage of relevant queries where your brand appears in the AI response. If you run 20 queries your target customers might ask and appear in 6 of them, your mention rate is 30%. This is your headline metric.

Average position tracks where you appear when AI responses list multiple businesses. Appearing first is significantly more valuable than appearing fifth.

Share of voice measures your mentions relative to your competitors. This relative measure is often more useful than absolute mention rate because it puts your performance in context.

Sentiment tracks whether AI mentions your brand in positive, neutral, or negative language. A mention that damns with faint praise is far less valuable than a positive recommendation.

Platform spread measures whether you appear on all major AI platforms or only some. A broad presence is more resilient than one concentrated on a single platform.

Building your query set

Identify your customer natural language queries — the questions they actually ask, not your marketing language. Include category queries, problem queries, and comparison queries. Include competitor-adjacent queries for benchmarking. Aim for 20 to 30 queries.

Manual measurement process

Open each AI platform in a private or incognito window. Run each query and record the response. Note whether your brand appears, in what position, and with what sentiment. Repeat across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. Compile results in a spreadsheet.

Run this at the start of any GEO programme and at regular intervals — monthly or quarterly — to track progress.

Using Lensora for automated measurement

Lensora automates the entire measurement process. You set up your query set once, and the platform runs queries automatically across all major AI platforms, tracking your mention rate, position, and sentiment over time.

Setting benchmarks and goals

If you are currently appearing in 10% of queries, a realistic 3-month goal might be 25%. Review goals quarterly. GEO is a long game — expect measurable progress from consistent effort, not overnight results.