Category
A category is the kind of product or service people put your brand in, like coffee subscriptions or oak furniture.
A category is the kind of product or service your brand belongs to, in the words your customers use. Coffee subscriptions. Office furniture. Accounting software for small businesses. It's the answer to "what are you?" before anyone asks who you are.
AI platforms rely on categories. When someone asks for the best coffee subscription, the platform looks for brands it files under coffee subscriptions. If it files you somewhere else, you're left out of every question about the category you actually compete in.
When you're in the wrong one
Brands get filed in the wrong category for a few reasons. They changed what they sell. They describe themselves in clever words nobody searches for. Or most pages about them were written for a different side of the business.
For example, Fernhill Coffee started as a café and now sells most of its coffee by subscription. Most reviews and directory listings still describe it as a café. Ask an AI platform for the best coffee subscriptions, and Fernhill rarely comes up. Ask for cafés in its part of London, and it does.
How to claim your category
Say what you are, plainly, in the places the platforms read: your homepage, your About page, your profiles on directories and review sites. Use the words your customers use, and use them the same way everywhere. Then get onto the lists and comparisons for that category, so other sources file you there too.
Category vs topic
A category describes your brand as a whole. A topic is a subject you track prompts for. One category usually needs several topics, like gifts, office coffee and decaf for a coffee subscription brand.
In AnswerOrbit
Perception compares you with the other brands the platforms name in your industry, which we take from your profile. If it's wrong, you can change it from the … menu. In Topics, you group your prompts by the subjects your customers ask about.