Prompt Performance
Understand which prompts have the greatest impact on your visibility.
Prompts: The new keywords
In traditional SEO, keywords are the starting point of every optimization effort. In the world of AI search, prompts take on this role. A prompt is a specific question or instruction that users submit to an AI model — for example, “Which marketing agencies in Cologne specialize in SEO?”
The Prompt Performance metric shows you which of these prompts your brand is mentioned in and how often. This reveals which topics and questions are most critical to your AI visibility.
While a keyword like “SEO agency Cologne” is a static search query, prompts are more dynamic and context-rich. One and the same user intent can be expressed through many different prompt variations.
Reading the bar chart
The Prompt Performance panel displays a bar chart that ranks the top prompts by mention frequency. Each bar represents a prompt and shows how often your brand (and optionally competitors) was mentioned there.
- Longer bars = more frequent mentions for this prompt
- Color coding = different brands are distinguished by color
- Sorting = prompts with the most mentions appear at the top
Focus on top prompts
Start by focusing on the top 10-15 prompts. These generate the bulk of your visibility. Optimizations here will have the greatest effect on your overall SOV.
Why does prompt tracking matter?
Monitoring your Prompt Performance is critical for several reasons:
- Set topic priorities: Not every prompt is equally valuable. Prompt Performance shows you where to allocate your content resources most effectively.
- Spot competitive advantages: Prompts where you are strong and competitors are weak represent your differentiation topics — protect them actively.
- Discover opportunities: Highly relevant prompts where you are barely mentioned reveal untapped potential.
- Measure progress: After content changes, Prompt Performance shows whether optimizations are making an impact on the right prompts.
How to use this metric
1. Identify top performers
Which prompts bring you the most mentions? List your top 5 and check which content on your website supports that visibility. Make sure this content stays up to date and optimized.
2. Reclaim lost prompts
Compare different time periods: Are there prompts where you used to be highly visible but no longer are? Analyze what changed — competitors may have published better content.
3. Discover new prompts
Use the Prompt Research tool to find new relevant prompts for your topic area. This expands your tracking and uncovers potential visibility gaps.
4. Create content strategically
For prompts where you rank poorly: create or optimize content that directly answers the question the prompt asks. Structure your content so that AI models can easily use it as a source.
Related pages
Deepen your understanding with these pages: