How to Earn Digital Mentions and Build Trust with AI Search

The way customers discover brands is changing. With the rise of AI-powered search like Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity, getting found is no longer just about ranking #1. It’s about being included and cited in the synthesized answers that AI models generate. For many businesses, this new landscape is a challenge, but for those who optimize, it's a significant opportunity.

To win in this new era, you need to build trust directly with AI models. This requires sending the right signals that your brand is a credible and authoritative source of information. At Searchify, we call these signals the '4 Pillars of AI Trust': Expert Authorship, Technical Health, Comprehensive Content, and Digital Mentions. This guide focuses on that fourth pillar, which is often the hardest for new businesses to build.

Why Digital Mentions Matter for AI Visibility

Digital mentions are any instance where your brand, products, or experts are referenced on a third-party website. These aren't just backlinks; they are powerful trust signals. AI models use a method called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), where they pull information from multiple web sources to construct a single, coherent answer [1]. When an AI sees your brand mentioned positively and contextually across various reputable sites, it learns that you are a trustworthy entity in your niche.

These third-party validations make your content 'citation-worthy.' AI models are designed to prioritize information that is perceived as factually accurate and authoritative [2]. Without these external signals, even the best content on your own site may be overlooked. This creates a core problem for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs): How can you earn these crucial mentions when you don't have established case studies, a large PR budget, or years of social proof? The answer lies in being strategic, targeted, and value-driven. Here are four practical, low-cost tactics you can use to start earning digital mentions today.

Tactic 1: Become a Source with Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a service that connects journalists, bloggers, and content creators with expert sources for their stories. For SMBs, it's a direct line to earning high-quality mentions in online publications without needing a publicist. By providing your expertise, you can get your name, company, and insights featured in articles, building your digital footprint one quote at a time.

Here’s a simple guide to getting started:

1. Sign Up and Configure: Create a free account on the HARO website (now part of Connectively). During setup, select the industries and topics that align with your expertise. This ensures you only receive relevant media queries in your daily emails.
2. Monitor Queries: Scan the HARO emails for requests where you can provide a genuinely expert answer. Look for queries from publications that are relevant to your industry and audience.
3. Craft a Compelling Pitch: Your response is key. According to guides on the platform, a successful pitch is fast, valuable, and easy for the journalist to use.

Even a single sentence quoted in an article from a reputable site is a powerful signal. It's a third-party endorsement that AI models can easily parse as a vote of confidence in your brand's authority.

Tactic 2: Engage in Niche Online Communities

Your target customers are already gathered online discussing their problems, asking questions, and sharing solutions. Participating in these niche communities—like industry-specific subreddits, Slack groups, LinkedIn groups, or specialized forums—is a powerful way to build authority from the ground up.

The strategy here is not self-promotion; it's authentic engagement. As experts note, communities like Reddit have a strong aversion to overt marketing and can quickly turn on brands that are not genuine. Instead, focus on providing consistent value over time.

• Listen First: Spend time understanding the community's culture, rules, and common topics.
• Answer Questions: Use your expertise to provide helpful, detailed answers to user questions.
• Share Insights: Participate in discussions by offering a unique perspective or valuable information.

For example, imagine the founder of a B2B SaaS tool for project managers consistently providing thoughtful advice in the r/projectmanagement subreddit. Over months, they become a recognized and trusted voice. When other users ask for tool recommendations, that founder's product is more likely to be mentioned organically by the community because they have built genuine credibility. These user-generated mentions and the positive sentiment surrounding them are valuable data points for AI models assessing your brand's reputation.

Tactic 3: Write Strategic Guest Posts

Guest posting is a classic marketing tactic that has renewed importance for AI visibility. It's not just about acquiring a backlink; it's about placing your brand and your experts on reputable platforms within your industry. This directly contributes to your E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) profile, a framework Google uses to evaluate content quality [3].

By publishing a high-quality article on a respected industry blog, you are borrowing their authority and signaling to AI that you are an expert on that topic. Here’s how to approach it:

1. Find Opportunities: Use targeted Google searches like "your industry" + "write for us" or "your industry" + "guest post guidelines". You can also analyze where your competitors have been published to identify potential sites.
2. Craft a Personalized Pitch: Generic pitches are easily ignored. Your outreach should show you understand the publication's audience and content. Propose 2-3 specific article topics that would provide immense value to their readers and explain why you are the right person to write them.
3. Focus on Quality: Write the best article you possibly can. Your goal is to establish your authority, not just secure a link. A well-researched, insightful guest post enhances the reputation of both you and the host site, making it a win-win that strengthens your E-E-A-T signals [4].

Tactic 4: Create Valuable 'Linkable Assets'

A 'linkable asset' is a piece of content or a tool on your website that is so useful, others naturally want to link to and share it [5]. For new companies without an established brand, this is perhaps the most powerful strategy. It bypasses the need for brand recognition by leading with pure, undeniable value.

Linkable assets can include:

• Free, easy-to-use tools or calculators
• Original research, surveys, or data reports
• Comprehensive, ultimate guides on a specific topic
• Free templates or checklists

At Searchify, our own free AI Visibility One-Pager is a prime example of a linkable asset. It's a tool built to solve a real, urgent problem for our target audience. A user simply enters their website URL, and our platform generates a free, data-driven report analyzing how their brand is perceived by AI models across key customer segments. It identifies content gaps, technical issues, and competitive threats.

This tool is an effective linkable asset for several reasons:

• It's Free and Instantly Valuable: It provides immediate, personalized insights without a paywall or sales call.
• It's Actionable: The report doesn't just present data; it gives users a clear picture of their standing and opportunities, as seen in this detailed example analysis for Patagonia.
• It Provides Unique Data: The analysis is specific and not easily found elsewhere, making it a valuable resource for marketers, agencies, and industry bloggers to reference.

By creating a high-value asset, you give other websites a compelling reason to mention you. You are no longer asking for a mention; you are providing a resource that improves their content.

From Mentions to AI Trust: Tying It All Together

Each of these tactics—becoming a source through HARO, engaging in communities, writing guest posts, and creating linkable assets—works toward the same goal: generating a diverse portfolio of third-party digital mentions. These mentions are the raw material AI models use to build an understanding of your brand's authority.

This process directly feeds into improving your E-E-A-T profile. When an expert from your company is quoted (Experience), when you publish an insightful guest post (Expertise), and when reputable sites link to your content (Authoritativeness), you are building a web of signals that prove your brand is a credible source (Trustworthiness). This is a core part of a holistic AI visibility strategy for SMBs.

Building a strong presence in AI search is an ongoing process. It requires a foundation of excellent on-site content and technical health, amplified by the third-party validation earned through digital mentions.

Start Building Your AI Visibility Today

You don't need a massive marketing budget or a decade of brand history to start building authority for AI search. What you need is a smart, value-driven strategy focused on earning trust, one mention at a time. The tactics outlined above are accessible to any business willing to invest the effort in sharing its expertise.

The first step in any improvement plan is to understand your baseline. If you're not sure how AI models see your brand right now, you can't effectively measure your progress.

Curious how AI models see your brand right now? Get your free AI Visibility One-Pager to analyze your current standing and identify your biggest opportunities to get mentioned.