- GEO & AEO — ZETWERK
From 267 to 6,187 AI sessions in nine months.
How a strategic AI Engine Optimization program made Zetwerk visible across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews — turning an emerging blind spot into the 4th-largest traffic source.
Client
Zetwerk
Industry
B2B Manufacturing
Timeline
Jan – Oct 2025 (9 mo)
Channel
GEO + AEO
2,217%
Growth in AI referral traffic over 9 months
8.2%
Of total traffic now from AI platforms (from 0.5%)
1,200
Keywords now appearing in AI Overviews
+41.3%
Overall traffic growth (53.4K → 75.4K sessions)
- The Client
Zetwerk connects enterprise buyers with a global manufacturing network.
Zetwerk is a manufacturing unicorn with GMV crossing $2 billion, operating a global B2B manufacturing network. The company wanted to expand its presence among enterprise buyers in the US and Europe — specifically CXO, CXO-1 and CXO-2 procurement and supply-chain leaders.
Industry
B2B Manufacturing
Website
zetwerk.com ↗
Target Audiences
CXO & CXO-1/2 · Procurement · Supply Chain Leaders
Target Geography
United States & Europe
Starting Position
267 AI sessions/mo · 0.5% AI share · Authority Score 37
Primary Goals
Increase AI visibility · Build AI citations · Generate qualified enterprise traffic
- The Challenge
Invisible to AI. Missing a new generation of buyers.
Despite being a market leader with solid SEO fundamentals, Zetwerk was practically absent from the AI search ecosystem — while enterprise procurement professionals increasingly asked ChatGPT and Perplexity questions Zetwerk simply wasn’t the answer to.
Plateaued Organic Visibility
Solid fundamentals (Authority Score 37) but organic traffic had flatlined at ~37.4K monthly visits with no growth trajectory — heavily dependent on a single Google channel.
37.4K
monthly organic visits, plateaued
Minimal AI-Driven Traffic
Only 267 monthly sessions — 0.5% of traffic — came from AI platforms, a missed opportunity as enterprise decision-makers moved their research to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude.
267
AI sessions per month (0.5% share)
Early-Mover Competitive Gap
Analysis revealed competitors were already appearing in 3–5× more AI responses, capturing early-mover advantage while Zetwerk was cited as an authority in just 6 AI answers.
3–5×
more AI citations held by competitors
Emerging AI Search Blind Spot
With rapid adoption of AI Overviews and standalone AI platforms, Zetwerk risked becoming invisible to buyers bypassing traditional search entirely — despite 50K+ monthly search volumes on core terms.
6
AI responses citing Zetwerk at baseline
The baseline, in the client's own dashboards
Semrush & Google Analytics · January 2025
Semrush — zetwerk.com, Jan 2025: Authority Score 37 · 37.4K organic · 8.9K backlinks · 25% traffic share.
Google Analytics, Jan 2025: chatgpt.com 160 · perplexity.ai 80 · claude.ai 27 — just 267 AI sessions (0.5%).
- The Strategy
Four workstreams.
One AI-visibility flywheel.
We aligned technical infrastructure, on-site content and off-site authority with how Large Language Models discover, interpret and cite sources — across a phased 9-month build.
Phase 01
Technical Foundation
Jan – Mar 2025
- Whitelisted GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot & Google-Extended in robots.txt
- Content-freshness signals: last-modified headers & auto-updating XML sitemaps
- Converted image text & screenshot tables into crawlable HTML
- Comprehensive JSON-LD schema: Article, FAQPage, HowTo, Product, Breadcrumb
- Server-log monitoring to verify successful AI-crawler access
- Descriptive, keyword-rich alt text across critical pages
Phase 02
Content Restructuring
Mar – Jun 2025
- Rewrote 50+ key pages using the "Answer-First" framework
- Built a central FAQ hub with FAQPage schema & quote-ready answers
- Replaced vague claims with quantifiable specifics (e.g. 99.2% on-time)
- Created 15 new intent-specific pages mapped to real buyer queries
- "Key Takeaway" boxes & scannable bullet highlights for AI extraction
- Unified brand messaging & consistent technical definitions site-wide
Phase 03
Citation Building
Jun – Oct 2025
- Reverse-engineered where ChatGPT & Perplexity source manufacturing answers
- Earned mentions in industry publications, G2/Capterra, Crunchbase & more
- Citation-first mindset: prioritized being quoted, not just backlinked
- Identified 50+ AI-cited sources & built a citation-frequency outreach list
- Guest articles, expert quotes & podcast/webinar participation
- Speaking engagements with published, AI-indexable proceedings
Phase 04
AI Overview Optimisation
Ongoing · Jun – Oct 2025
- Clarity + Reasoning formula: structure, explain, then show evidence
- Factual, verifiable claims with proper attribution for stats
- Data-driven insight pieces tuned to varied AI use cases
- Self-contained, quote-ready statements extractable without context
- Multi-format content: comparison tables, process guides, decision frameworks
- Continuous refinement based on live AI-response analysis
- The Results
Numbers that
speak for themselves.
Sessions: Total vs AI-Sourced
Monthly sessions — baseline (Jan 2025) vs endpoint (Oct 2025)
AI Traffic Share
Share of total sessions from AI platforms
Keywords in AI Overviews
Indian market · keywords surfacing in AI Overviews
Domain Metrics — January vs October 2025
Semrush domain overview
AI Visibility Metrics
AI referral, AI Overviews & SERP-feature performance
The transformation, verified in the dashboards
Semrush & Google Analytics · October 2025
Semrush — zetwerk.com, Oct 2025: Authority Score 40 · 41.3K organic (+11%) · 9.9K backlinks · 29% traffic share.
Google Analytics, Oct 2025: chatgpt.com 2,263 · perplexity.ai 1,736 · claude.ai 1,056 · gemini 830 — 6,187 AI sessions (8.2%).
Zetwerk now cited inside AI answers
Live Google AI Overviews for high-intent manufacturing queries
AI Overview — “best electronic company in india”: Zetwerk surfaced among the cited sources.
AI Overview — “contract manufacturing companies in india”: Zetwerk named in the answer text and sources.
- Why It Worked
Six factors that made it compound.
AI Engine Optimization isn’t a single lever — it’s technical access, extractable content and earned authority working together, reinforcing each other across every AI surface.
01
AI Crawler Enablement
Whitelisting GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, with server-log verification, made Zetwerk’s content readable to the engines that matter.
→ Content became fully AI-accessible, not just human-accessible
02
Answer-First Content
Restructuring for LLM readability — opening summaries, key-takeaway boxes and quote-ready statements — matched how AI systems read and extract.
→ Every page engineered to be quoted out of context
03
Structured Data at Scale
Comprehensive JSON-LD — Article, FAQPage, HowTo, Product, Breadcrumb — gave AI systems the context and relationships they need to cite confidently.
→ AI understood not just the words, but the meaning
04
Citation-First Authority
Reverse-engineering where AI sources its answers, then earning mentions from those 50+ AI-cited sources, built authority across the entire web — not just links.
→ 6 → 203+ AI responses now cite Zetwerk
05
Intent-Specific Pages
Fifteen new pages built around the exact questions procurement leaders ask AI tools — contract manufacturing, CNC machining, enterprise supply chain.
→ Zetwerk now shows up in the answers buyers ask for
06
AI Overview Optimisation
Multi-format, quote-ready content built on the Clarity + Reasoning formula earned position across Google AI Overviews and standalone AI platforms.
→ 1,200 keywords now surfacing in AI Overviews
- Behind the Work
Reverse-engineering AI
kept the strategy sharp.
Every gain came from a repeatable, data-driven loop — analysing where AI engines actually source their answers, then building the technical access, content and citations to become that source.
- Qoulomb × Zetwerk
Weekly strategy sessions
Structured, data-driven collaboration across the full 9-month build.
- Our 9-Month Cadence
Phase 1 · Foundation (Jan–Mar)
Technical infrastructure, AI-crawler enablement, structured data, content audit & planning.
Phase 2 · Content Transformation (Mar–Jun)
50+ pages rewritten for AI readability, central FAQ hub, 15 intent pages, citation outreach launched.
Phase 3 · Scale & Optimise (Jun–Oct)
Expanded library, AI-citation monitoring, messaging refined from live AI-response analysis.
2.3×
Higher engagement from AI-sourced visitors than site average — enterprise buyers arriving via AI tools spend ~40% more time on high-intent pages, driving an estimated 18–25 additional qualified leads per month.
With Zetwerk, I collaborated closely with Qoulomb, witnessing their exceptional talent in content creation and SEO strategy. Their innovative approaches consistently resonated with our audience, delivered with meticulous execution. I enthusiastically recommend Qoulomb for any SEO or Content project.
Gopal Krishna
Head of Marketing & Sales — NAB Unit, Zetwerk
- Ready to Grow?
Is your brand
invisible in AI search?
If you’re in manufacturing, B2B, or any considered-purchase industry — you’re likely where Zetwerk was nine months ago. Let’s change that.
- Audit where you appear (or don't) in AI responses
- Enable AI crawlers & AI-friendly infrastructure
- Map a content plan for maximum citation potential
- Show you exactly how we'd earn AI citations