Search Engine Optimization
Building Visibility Across Search Engines and AI for a B2B SaaS Company
A B2B SaaS company partnered with Marcel Digital to evolve its existing SEO strategy as AI-powered search became a larger part of the B2B buying journey. Building on an already successful organic search program, we expanded the strategy to increase visibility across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and other AI-powered search experiences, while continuing to drive growth through traditional organic search.
The Challenge
The company had built a strong foundation through its ongoing SEO program, but buyer behavior was evolving. Prospects were increasingly turning to AI platforms and AI-powered search results to research vendors, compare AP automation solutions, and build shortlists before ever engaging with sales.
To remain visible throughout this changing buying journey, they needed to:
Increase visibility in Google AI Overviews for high-value, commercial and transactional searches.
Improve discoverability and category ownership across AI-powered search experiences like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Better align content with evolving buyer research behavior.
Measure how AI search influenced leads, opportunities, and revenue by connecting SEO performance, AI Overview visibility, prompt visibility, AI referral traffic, and MQL/lead attribution into one unified search growth story.
The Analysis
Understanding AI Search Behavior
Marcel Digital treated AI search as an extension of the organization's existing SEO strategy, evaluating how that strategy could support the way buyers were increasingly discovering information. We analyzed content performance, buyer intent, and visibility across both traditional search and emerging AI search experiences to identify where opportunities existed.
Prioritizing Content Opportunities
Using traditional SEO analysis alongside insights from Marcel Digital's proprietary Predictive Content Model (PCM), we used AI-generated buyer conversations to identify how prospects research, compare, and evaluate AP automation solutions, often before those needs show up in traditional keyword data. These insights helped prioritize content around high-value topics throughout the buyer journey, including category-level research, vendor comparisons, alternatives, integrations, and more complex buyer questions.
Benchmarking Competitive Visibility
Before building out the AEO strategy, Marcel established a baseline for how often the organization appeared in AI-generated answers compared to its competitors. Against a tracked set of category-ownership prompts, the company started at 33% AI visibility and ranked last among 7 tracked competitors, giving the team a clear starting point and a concrete target to close the gap.
The Solution
Optimizing Existing Content
We enhanced high-value pages to better answer buyer questions, strengthen topical depth, and improve content structure. These updates made it easier for both search engines and AI platforms to understand, reference, and surface the organization's content.
Expanding Topical Authority
Where the analysis uncovered gaps, we developed new content focused on the questions and topics buyers were researching throughout the purchasing journey. This strengthened the company's authority across key subject areas and created additional opportunities to appear in Google AI Overviews and AI-generated search results.
Building an AI Visibility Measurement Program
Marcel launched a dedicated AEO prompt visibility program focused on high-value, category-level prompts buyers use when researching and comparing solutions. We tracked how often the brand appeared in AI-generated answers and paired that insight with expanded reporting that went beyond traditional SEO metrics. This included AI Overview visibility, prompt visibility, AI referral traffic, AI-attributed leads, and MQL performance. Together, these metrics provided a more complete view of organic search performance and helped connect growing visibility in AI-powered search to measurable business results.
The Results
By building on an already successful SEO program and expanding it for AI-powered search, the company increased its visibility across both traditional and emerging search experiences while continuing to drive measurable business results. Since June 2025:
Commercial and transactional Google AI Overview rankings grew 350%, while total AI Overview rankings grew 144%.
Top 3 organic rankings grew 93%, showing that the program expanded AI visibility while continuing to strengthen traditional SEO fundamentals.
AI prompt visibility increased from 33% to 73% across a tracked set of category-ownership prompts, moving the company from the least visible of 7 tracked competitors to a position ahead of 3 of them.
AI platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini drove 16,462 visits and 290 lead form submissions, with AI traffic up 161% year over year and AI-driven form submissions up 240% year over year.
Organic search drove 1,367 MQLs, a 16% year-over-year increase in organic MQL contribution.
Marcel's SEO and paid search teams worked together to protect the organization from rising competitor conquesting on branded terms. Increased paid brand investment shifted some historical organic brand demand into paid search, but the coordinated program still protected overall demand and drove a combined 24% increase in MQLs across paid and organic search.
As AI continues to influence how B2B buyers research and evaluate software solutions, the company now has an organic search strategy that supports visibility across both traditional search engines and AI-powered search experiences, while continuing to drive qualified pipeline and business growth.
