How to Select the Right Prompts for LLM Tracking

Keywords are dead. Prompts are what matters now.

In traditional SEO, you pick keywords. You track rankings. You watch them go up or down. Simple.

In Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the game is completely different. People don't type "best CRM software" into ChatGPT. They ask: "I run a 50-person B2B company and need a CRM that integrates with Google Workspace. What should I use?"

That's not a keyword. That's a prompt. And if you're not tracking the right prompts, you're flying blind on your AI visibility.

Why prompt selection is harder than keyword selection

With keywords, you have Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs. Decades of tooling built around search volume, competition, and intent classification.

With prompts, you're starting from scratch. There's no "prompt volume" metric (yet). AI platforms don't publish query logs. And the same question can be asked in hundreds of different ways, all producing different answers.

That's what makes prompt selection both harder and more important. Pick the wrong prompts to track, and you'll think you're visible when you're not. Or worse, you'll optimize for prompts nobody actually asks.

The golden prompt framework

We call the prompts worth tracking "golden prompts." These are high-value, intent-rich queries that represent real moments when potential customers are making decisions. Here's how to find them.

Step 1: Start with your sales conversations

Your sales team hears the same questions over and over. "How does your product compare to X?" "Can your platform handle Y?" "What's the best solution for Z?"

Those questions, asked to a salesperson, are the exact same questions people now ask AI. Start there.

Pull the last 50 sales calls or support tickets. Extract the questions. You'll find 10 to 15 recurring themes. Those are your first golden prompts.

Step 2: Map keyword intent to prompt format

Take your existing keyword list and transform each keyword into 3 to 5 natural language prompts. Here's how:

Keyword: "best project management tool" Prompts:

• •"What's the best project management tool for a remote team of 30 people?"
• •"Compare Asana, Monday, and ClickUp for a marketing agency"
• •"I need a project management tool that works with Slack and has good Gantt charts. What should I use?"

The key is adding context: company size, industry, specific use case, integration requirements, budget constraints. That's how real people ask AI for recommendations.

Step 3: Include comparison and "versus" prompts

AI platforms handle comparison queries differently from recommendation queries. When someone asks "Salesforce vs HubSpot for a mid-market company," the AI constructs a balanced analysis and often cites different sources than a simple "best CRM" query.

Track both types:

• •Recommendation prompts: "What's the best X for Y?"
• •Comparison prompts: "X vs Y for Z use case"
• •Problem-solution prompts: "How do I solve [specific problem]?"

Each type reveals different aspects of your AI visibility.

Step 4: Test across multiple AI platforms

A prompt that gets you cited in Perplexity might completely ignore you in ChatGPT. Each platform has different retrieval patterns, different source preferences, and different ways of constructing answers.

At minimum, test your golden prompts across:

• •ChatGPT (largest user base, fastest citation turnover at 3.4 weeks)
• •Perplexity (most transparent about sources, longest citation retention at 5.8 weeks)
• •Gemini/Google AI (integrated with Google's search index)
• •Claude (growing user base, tends to cite different source types)

Step 5: Prioritize by decision proximity

Not all prompts are equal. A prompt like "What is project management?" is informational. A prompt like "Which project management tool should a 50-person SaaS company buy?" is transactional. The second one is worth 10x more.

Score your prompts on decision proximity:

| Level | Type | Example | Priority | |-------|------|---------|----------| | 1 | Awareness | "What is GEO?" | Low | | 2 | Consideration | "How does GEO compare to SEO?" | Medium | | 3 | Decision | "Which GEO agency should I hire?" | High | | 4 | Transaction | "Is [your brand] worth the investment?" | Critical |

Focus your tracking budget on Level 3 and 4 prompts first.

How many prompts should you track?

The answer depends on your category complexity, but here's a practical starting point from Scrunch's research on right-sizing your AI search tracking:

Start with 20 to 50 golden prompts. That's enough to cover your core categories without drowning in data. Break them down roughly as:

• •10 to 15 recommendation prompts (your core product/service categories)
• •5 to 10 comparison prompts (you vs. key competitors)
• •5 to 10 problem-solution prompts (the pain points you solve)
• •5 to 10 brand-specific prompts (your company name, product names)

Scale up once you have baseline data and know which prompt categories yield the most actionable insights.

Common mistakes in prompt selection

Tracking too many generic prompts. "Best software 2026" tells you nothing useful. Be specific about audience, use case, and constraints.

Ignoring negative prompts. Track prompts where you SHOULD appear but don't. Those gaps are your biggest opportunities. Peec AI calls this "brand mention gap analysis," and it's one of the highest-value exercises in GEO.

Only tracking your own brand. Half your golden prompts should include competitor names or generic category queries where you want to appear. If you only track "[your brand] reviews," you're missing the bigger picture.

Not refreshing your prompt list. Prompts drift just like citations do. What people ask AI changes with trends, seasons, product launches, and competitive shifts. Review and update your golden prompts monthly.

Testing only in English. Peec AI's research showed that ChatGPT searches in English even when users ask in other languages. But the AI's answer still varies by language. If you serve international markets, track prompts in your key languages.

Turning tracking into action

Selecting the right prompts is step one. Here's what you do with the data:

Map your citation landscape. For each golden prompt, document which sources AI cites, which competitors get mentioned, and where you show up (or don't).

Identify your "zero mention" prompts. These are decision-stage prompts in your category where AI doesn't mention you at all. These represent the biggest ROI opportunities for content creation and optimization.

Track citation velocity. Are you gaining or losing mentions over time? Given the 4.5-week citation half-life, you need continuous monitoring, not quarterly checks.

Feed insights back into content. When you find a high-value prompt where you're invisible, create content specifically designed to earn that citation. Structure it with clear answer blocks (40 to 60 word passages that directly address the prompt), cite authoritative sources, and provide specific data.

The tools landscape

Several platforms now support prompt-level AI visibility tracking:

• •Scrunch offers prompt tracking with citation analysis across AI platforms
• •Peec AI provides brand mention tracking with citation rate benchmarks
• •Profound focuses on competitive intelligence across LLM responses

These are tools, not substitutes for strategy. The tools tell you what's happening. Knowing which prompts to feed into them, and what to do with the results, is where the real value lives.

Start with five prompts today

If this feels overwhelming, start small. Pick the five prompts that matter most to your business right now:

1. •Your most common sales question, phrased as an AI prompt
2. •Your primary product category + your ideal customer profile
3. •Your brand name + "reviews" or "worth it"
4. •Your top competitor vs. your brand
5. •The biggest problem you solve, phrased as a question

Run those five prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Document what you find. You'll have a clearer picture of your AI visibility in 30 minutes than most companies get in months of guessing.

That's the starting point for any serious GEO or AEO strategy. Not a keyword list. Not a content calendar. A prompt list rooted in how real people actually ask AI for answers.