3 min read
The 10-minute AI visibility test
Before you buy any "AI visibility" tool, spend ten minutes finding out where you stand.
There's a new category of tools promising to get your products into ChatGPT. Some are useful. But you can learn most of what you need for free, with an AI assistant and a notepad.
No tools needed. Just an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, and a notepad.
Pick 5 products that matter
2 minBestsellers, high-margin items, or products with lots of competitors. Five is enough to see a pattern without taking all afternoon.
Write 3 shopper questions for each
3 minOne "fits my…" question, one "something for…" question, and one with a constraint like size, price or material. Write them the way a shopper would type them. Don't include your brand name.
- "hiking boots for wide feet"
- "waterproof boots for muddy trails"
- "wide-fit walking boots under $150"
Ask an AI assistant
3 minUse a new chat. Ask each question as if you were shopping. Answers change between runs, so ask each one twice.
Write down what comes back
1 minWas your product recommended? If not, which product was? Keep it simple.
Check the misses
1 minFor each miss, open your product page. Does it state the detail the question depends on, as a field rather than only in the description? If not, that's your gap — and it's the same gap your site search and filters run into.
Record what comes back
Keep it simple. For each question, note whether your product appeared and — if not — which product did and what detail it had that yours didn't.
| Question | Recommended? | Recommended instead | Missing detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| hiking boots for wide feet | No | [Competitor product] | Width fitting |
Read the misses, not the hits
For every miss, open your product page. Does it state the detail the question depends on, like width fitting or a waterproof rating? Is it a field, or only a sentence in the description?
If the detail isn't there as a field, an assistant has little to match on. That's your gap, and it's the same gap your site search and filters run into.
What your score means
Count the questions, out of 15, where your product was recommended at least once. The number matters less than the pattern in the misses. If the same detail keeps coming up, fix that detail across every product that needs it — not just these five.
Go deeper with the free audit
The manual test covers five products. The audit checks every product in your catalog and shows you which attributes are missing, by category.