It always starts the same way.
A user types:
“What’s the best multivitamin for women in their 30s?”
“Healthiest soda alternative?”
“Best travel insurance for a family trip to Italy?”
But they don’t click a search result. They don’t scroll through 10 blue links. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini, and they get a confident, summarized answer.
If your brand isn’t mentioned in that response, you don’t exist in that moment.
And here’s the kicker: if your website isn’t built for LLMs, your analytics team is tracking the wrong funnel.
The Funnel Is Changing — But Our Metrics Aren’t
Most websites—and their analytics frameworks—are still stuck in an old paradigm:
- Show an ad
- Drive the click
- Land the user on a homepage
- Navigate them through content
- Convert
This model assumes a human is your first touchpoint. But that’s no longer true.
LLMs don’t click. They read. They crawl. They extract.
They summarize your content—sometimes better than your own site explains it.
And if your content isn’t structured clearly and contextually, it won’t make the cut in those machine-generated answers.
A Real-World Pattern: Looks Great, Says Nothing
Take, for example, a health and wellness brand that recently launched a visually impressive website. It had everything — animations, bold taglines, lifestyle imagery.
But when someone asked ChatGPT,
“What’s the best probiotic for women over 40?”
The brand didn’t appear in the response.
Digging deeper, the product information was embedded in images, key benefits were vague, and there were no structured FAQs or direct answers. The homepage looked great but didn’t clearly state what the product did, who it was for, or how it stood out.
From a traditional analytics standpoint, traffic looked healthy, but bounce rates were high and conversion rates underwhelming.
The problem wasn’t just UX — it was machine unreadability. The site wasn’t designed to be understood and cited by an LLM. So it got skipped entirely.
Your Funnel Looks Great—But Not to an LLM
🧱 1. Structure Matters More Than Ever
Use clear headers (<h1>, <h2>), clean HTML, and schema markup.
LLMs rely on structure to understand your content—if your product info is buried in sliders, hidden in images, or scattered across tabs, it might not get picked up at all.
Structure isn’t just for SEO anymore.
It’s the foundation that helps machines interpret your site and confidently include it in answers.
Think of it as making your site easier to read, not just to look at.
✍️ 2. Make Metadata Matter Again
Your meta descriptions, alt text, and OpenGraph tags might seem minor. But they’re often the first text LLMs grab.
Treat these like your site’s elevator pitch to an algorithm.
❓ 3. Build for Questions, Not Just Pages
Rather than generic pages like “About Us” or “Our Story,” consider content that answers:
- “Is this product vegan?”
- “Can I use this with a gluten allergy?”
- “Does it work for postpartum women?”
If people are asking, LLMs are too.
From Click Paths to Machine Confidence
Traditionally, your analytics dashboard tells you:
- Pageviews
- Bounce rate
- Time on site
But in an LLM world, that’s only half the picture.
Now you should be asking:
- Did this page answer a real question?
- Could a language model confidently summarize our offering?
- Are we showing up in responses from ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini?
Some brands are already starting to track these LLM citations. And soon, “Are we quoted?” will matter just as much as “Are we ranked?”
Rebuilding the Funnel Around LLMs
LLMs are reshaping the entire journey:
🎯 Upper Funnel (Awareness)
LLMs summarize and recommend. If your content isn’t clearly written and structured, it won’t get surfaced.
🔍 Mid-Funnel (Consideration)
Users ask for comparisons, side effects, ingredients, or reviews. LLMs want to cite trustworthy, well-laid-out answers.
💳 Lower Funnel (Conversion)
Some LLMs may eventually link directly to products. If your landing page isn’t clear, fast, and complete—it won’t make the cut.
What Should Analytics Teams Do Now?
If you’re leading analytics or measurement at a brand, here’s your new checklist:
- ✅ Review how your product and landing pages are structured
- ✅ Audit for schema, metadata, and semantic clarity
- ✅ Track whether your brand appears in LLM answers
- ✅ Collaborate with SEO and content teams for machine readability
- ✅ Update reporting to include LLM visibility and citation metrics
Final Thought: Build for Clicks. Build for Quotes.
In 2025, your website has two front doors:
- The human visitor
- The LLM query
If your site only welcomes one, you’re leaving opportunity—and revenue—on the table.
The brands that thrive will be those that educate both people and machines, and measure not just who clicks, but who quotes.
👀 Try This
Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity:
“What’s the best [category] for [audience]?”
If your brand doesn’t make the list, it might be time for a site refresh—not just another campaign.