How healthcare companies remain visible on the internet

For a long time, it was clear how visibility on the internet was created: those who ranked high in Google searches were found – and thus noticed. But this logic is currently undergoing a fundamental change. More and more people are turning directly to AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral or Perplexity to ask questions, get recommendations and make decisions.

In the healthcare sector in particular, this is leading to a profound change in communication: after all, patients are increasingly using AI-supported tools to find out about their symptoms, suitable therapies or appropriate care providers – quickly and conveniently. In the United States, for example, one in six adults already uses chatbots at least once a month for personal health advice. Doctors, clinics, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies thus run the risk of becoming invisible in the new digital landscape.

Anyone who wants to be found in the future must understand how AI-based search systems work – and how to maintain a presence in them. Another critical point is that AI tools often do not provide patients with valid and genuinely helpful health information. This makes it all the more important for competent medical sources to continue to reach patients.

AI favours structured and patient-oriented content

Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies usually have their websites designed to be search engine optimised so that they rank as high as possible in Google. Now they should also consider generative engine optimisation (GEO). GEO, an advanced form of search engine optimisation (SEO), focuses on optimising content for generative AI models and making it usable. Healthcare companies should therefore first check whether their robots.txt files allow relevant chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Otherwise, the website content will remain invisible to large language models (LLMs), as the robots.txt file determines which areas of the website search engines and AI systems are allowed to crawl and index.

In addition, it is important to prepare content on your own homepage in a comprehensive and well-structured manner so that it can be passed on directly by AI chatbots as answers or recommendations to patients. This includes, for example, formats such as question-and-answer passages, pros and cons lists, and compact, meaningful summaries. In short, those who structure content around real patient questions and needs will reap the benefits. For example, instead of organising their websites according to service categories such as rheumatology, urology or paediatrics, clinics should cluster them from the patient's perspective and according to specific complaints such as joint pain or paediatrics.

This leads to another important point: doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies should use clear, easily understandable language on their websites and explain medical content and technical terms – this is exactly what AI systems reward. Ideally, content should be prepared in such a way that it meets the EEAT criteria (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness). Up-to-date information, technical depth, expert quotes, authentic user reviews and verifiable sources also ensure that AI chatbots classify the homepage content as relevant and trustworthy.

Technical aspects also play a role – from fast loading times and correctly used heading hierarchies to structured data (e.g. according to schema.org). These also improve machine readability and increase the chance of being included in generative AI responses.

Convey professional competence to the outside world

Simply designing your own website in accordance with GEO rules will not be sufficient in the medium and long term. Since AI systems answer health questions on a large scale based on content from sources such as Wikipedia, Reddit, Quora, Yelp, Jameda or established press and specialist portals, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies should also make strategic use of external information spaces as far as possible. These can also be health forums or patient communities. Unlike the Google search engine, which indexes every new website, LLMs like to draw on a fixed database. They train with content that is publicly available, easy to find and relevant to many user and patient groups.

So what can be done? High-quality media relations work, such as expert interviews, guest articles or press releases, increases visibility in these sources for AI chatbots. In principle, every mention strengthens the authority of the content and signals to AI systems that this source is trustworthy. Reviews that patients voluntarily and authentically leave on external portals are also useful and should be maintained. This is because these do not go unnoticed by AI. What's more, when medical articles, studies and research reports appear on relevant third-party portals, this brings another advantage: AI can find, understand and process them there. This means that patients receive factual, technically sound and truly helpful health information via AI searches.

Of course, there are still various approaches and options for action coexisting. SEO still carries weight in communication at present. However, it can be assumed that AI systems will replace classic Google searches in the coming years. That is why doctors, clinic, healthcare and pharmaceutical managers should invest in GEO today so that patients continue to receive the best possible health advice in the digital world in the future.

This article was first published in
Healthcare Digital, 20.08.2025