One of the most fun aspects of my work as an SEO consultant is trying out all the different tools that help uncover ways to improve my clients’ search visibility. As a seasoned SEO who remembers the early days of Google, I have tried countless tools over the years, from industry big guns like Moz, Ahrefs, SEMRush, Screaming Frog and Wordtracker, to more niche but pioneering services such as LinkResearchTools and BrightLocal.
As the famous saying goes, “a worker is only as good as their tools”, and without the groundbreaking work from companies such as the aforementioned, I would be unable to audit and optimise my clients’ websites to a high standard.
With the advent of the AI search era, a raft of new tools has emerged to help businesses assess how well-positioned they are to earn brand mentions and citations on AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot. An excellent and very helpful tool in this field is Otterly AI.
The following is an honest assessment of the software (no payment or exchange of any sort for this review!)
What is Otterly AI?
Before I dive in and show you the mechanics, it is worth setting out what the software is designed to do and why you might find it useful.
Otterly AI is a search visibility and monitoring platform built specifically for the age of AI-generated answers. Unlike traditional SEO tools, which focus on rankings, backlinks, and organic traffic, Otterly AI is concerned with how brands appear within the responses produced by large language models.
In practical terms, the platform allows you to define a set of natural language prompts that reflect how users might ask questions about your industry, products, or services. These prompts are then run across a range of AI search tools, with Otterly AI analysing the results to identify brand mentions, citations, linked sources, and overall presence. This provides a clear view of whether your brand is being referenced, how frequently it appears, and how it compares with competitors in similar responses.
Setting up brand reports
One of the great features of the software is the ease of setting up brand reports for your business or your clients. Simply add your brand name and all the variations that people might use when searching for your company, add natural language prompts that people might use to discover information connected to your business, and add in your competitors.
Then sit back for a few days and wait for the data to start rolling in. The longer the wait, the more useful the data becomes, as you start to build a picture of longer-term trends.
View your brand coverage over time
The overview screen of your brand coverage report includes useful data, such as how often your brand is mentioned in the prompts you are tracking compared to your competitors.
View your brand ranking
The brand ranking section shows you your total mentions, share of the voice, and brand coverage percentage. This gives you a really strong idea of how established your company or brand is within your space.
Understand which prompts result in brand mentions
This is important as it helps you understand what AI systems associate your business with, and where your content and messaging are resonating. This insight can be used to reinforce successful themes, identify gaps in coverage, and prioritise content and optimisation efforts.
Determine your conversion potential
Otterly’s Brand Visibility Index shows you how your brand coverage might translate into enquiries and sales.
Find out how often your website is cited
Brand mentions are important, but citations within AI-generated results, enabling users of AI systems to click through to your website, are key to more conversions. These are helpful reports for me as they tell me which areas of the business are getting cited and which areas need more work.
Running GEO audits
Another very useful feature of the software is its audit functions, including its recently updated Crawlability Checker and Content Checker.
With the Crawlability Checker, you can be sure that your server allows access to all the necessary bots
You can also check if there are any issues with your site’s robots.txt file.
One of the best features of Otterly AI is the Content Checker. This provides extremely useful page-specific guidance for informing your optimisation efforts, with clear scoring guiding you on the key areas.
I love the detailed suggestions output by their system around areas such as semantic repetition, modular content enhancements, and section integrity.
The Structured Data Analysis section shows where any improvements can be made to your web page’s heading hierarchy, semantic HTML elements, lists & structured content, and more.
Overall verdict
It’s not often a new tool comes along and transforms the way you work, but Otterly AI is one of those. As an avid Ahrefs.com and Screaming Frog user, Otterly has joined the ranks of the software that I use daily to monitor the performance and health of my clients’ websites. For any business or agency wanting to step into the new frontier of AI search, Otterly is a great starting point.
Do I need Otterly?
Whether you need it depends on how important organic visibility is to your business now, and how seriously you are taking the future of search. If your business currently relies on organic traffic for leads, sales, or brand awareness, Otterly AI is a sensible investment in futureproofing that visibility as AI-generated answers become more prominent.
Investing in AI search visibility also supports traditional SEO efforts, as there is significant crossover in content quality, authority, and brand signals that influence both classic search results and AI-driven responses. From a cost perspective, Otterly AI is relatively inexpensive to get started, with plans beginning at $29, although costs do increase as you scale usage and track more prompts and competitors.
Need assistance with your AI search plan?
If you are looking to partner with a consultant to help boost your traditional and AI search visibility, I’d be happy to talk with you to see if we might be a good fit to work together. You can arrange a consultation with me here.
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