Orkkid
Back to glossary

AI Engines

Prompt Engineering

Prompt engineering is the skill of writing inputs to AI models in a way that produces accurate, useful outputs. It matters for SEO because the prompts you test against AI engines determine what you can measure and improve.

What it means

Prompt engineering is the practice of carefully crafting the text input you send to an AI model so the model produces the response you want. The same question phrased two different ways often produces meaningfully different answers, so the wording matters.

A prompt can include instructions, context, examples, and constraints. Skilled prompt engineering combines all four to push the model toward useful, accurate, citation-rich outputs.

Why it matters

For Answer Engine Optimization, prompt engineering matters in two specific ways:

  • Citation tracking - the prompts you run against ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini determine which queries you measure your business against. A poorly designed prompt panel produces noisy, useless data.
  • Customer simulation - to optimise for AI search, you need to know what customers actually ask AI engines about your category. That requires careful query design that mirrors real search behaviour.

How it's used

For citation tracking, a good prompt panel includes:

  • Branded prompts - "What does Orkkid do?" - test brand recognition
  • Category prompts - "Best AEO agency in Australia" - test competitive position
  • Long-tail problem prompts - "How do I get cited by ChatGPT?" - test content depth

Run the same panel monthly to build trend data. For the full method, see How to Track ChatGPT Citations for Your Business in 2026.

Related terms

Large Language Model

A Large Language Model (LLM) is an AI system trained on huge volumes of text to predict and generate human-like language. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity are all built on top of LLMs.

Answer Engine Optimization

Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring your website, content, and brand signals so that AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews cite your business by name when they answer user questions.

Citation Share

Citation share is the percentage of relevant AI prompts in which your business is cited by name. It is the AEO equivalent of share of voice in traditional marketing, and the leading indicator of whether your AI optimization work is paying off.

AI Hallucination

An AI hallucination is when an AI engine produces a confident answer that is factually wrong. For businesses, hallucinations can mean inaccurate descriptions, wrong pricing, or invented features showing up in AI search results.

Read deeper

Want help applying this to your business?

Book a free AI citation audit. We run thirty prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews and send a personalised report within 72 hours.

Get a free citation audit
Back to full glossary