AEOGEOSEOReading Is Fundamental2026

Getting found in AI answers

Parents and teachers increasingly ask ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google's AI tools for reading help instead of searching. I set up RIF's AI visibility tracking, rewrote content around the questions people ask, and pushed structured data onto the site. In one quarter, RIF's AI visibility score rose 11 points and ChatGPT became a real source of traffic.

20 → 31

RIF.org AI visibility score, out of 100, in one quarter

15 → 23

Skybrary AI visibility score over the same period

2,049

visits to RIF's teaching resources from ChatGPT in one quarter

The challenge

Reading Is Fundamental publishes free reading resources for educators and families across RIF.org, Literacy Central, and the Skybrary reading app. For years, search engines sent people to those resources through a list of links.

AI tools work differently. They answer the question directly and cite only a few sources. If RIF wasn't one of them, a parent asking "what are free reading apps for kids?" might never hear of Skybrary. Nobody at RIF was measuring how often that happened.

The approach

Measure it, then answer the question

Started measuring AI visibility
- Set up Semrush AI visibility tracking for RIF.org and Skybrary, covering ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews
- Tracked which AI tools cited each site, and on which topics
- Set up ChatGPT as its own traffic source in GA4, so AI referrals stopped hiding inside "other"
Wrote for how people ask AI
- Mapped search intent across RIF.org and Skybrary, from informational to transactional
- Shifted the blog program to question-led posts with direct, quotable answers to real parent and educator questions
- Used the Ask Karly video series to answer the same questions on camera, like "Do audiobooks count as reading?"
Made the content machine-readable
- Identified schema markup as the clearest single lever, since it helps both AI tools and traditional search
- Implemented it first on the Rally to Read site, with RIF.org and Skybrary next

The result

Both sites climbed in one quarter

Semrush AI visibility score, out of 100, from the Q3 report to September 2026.

The traffic followed. ChatGPT sent 2,049 visits to Literacy Central's teaching resources in a single quarter, enough to report as its own source. Over the same quarter, sessions on RIF's blog grew 57%, and Google became the blog's top source of visitors.

What we learned

Different AI tools favor different sites

Share of each site's AI mentions, by tool, September 2026. ChatGPT cites RIF.org most; Skybrary shows up mostly in Google's AI tools and Gemini. That tells us where each property should focus.

A through-line

Answer the question people are already asking, clearly and directly.

It's the same approach behind the most-visited FAQ pages at the Copyright Alliance and the research pages that grew ILR's organic traffic 9,000%. AI search rewards it even more.

My role

I led RIF's AI search work: setting up the tracking, choosing what to measure, reshaping the content program around questions, and making the case for schema markup with the product team. I report AI visibility to leadership every quarter alongside traditional search.

What it shows

AI search is new, but the work isn't mysterious. Measure where you show up, answer real questions plainly, and make your content easy for machines to read. The organizations that start now will be the ones AI tools cite later.