Non-branded prompt

A non-branded prompt is a question to an AI platform that names no brand, such as "What's the best coffee subscription?"

A non-branded prompt is a question to an AI platform that doesn't name any brand. "What's the best coffee subscription in the UK?" and "Which beans are good for a beginner's espresso machine?" are non-branded. "Is Fernhill Coffee any good?" isn't, because it names Fernhill.

These are the questions people ask before they've picked anyone. If the platform names you here, it's putting you forward to someone who might never have heard of you.

Why most of your prompts should be non-branded

A non-branded prompt is a fair test. The platform has to decide on its own which brands to name, so the answer shows whether it ties you to your category at all.

That's also where your competitors are. Every brand in your market is trying to be named for the same few questions, and the answers usually name only a handful. Being one of them is what visibility in AI search is mostly about.

For example, say Fernhill tracks 20 non-branded prompts across two platforms for a week. That's 280 answers. If 70 of them name Fernhill and 112 name Kestrel Roasters, Fernhill's visibility is 25% and Kestrel's is 40%. That gap is the thing to work on.

How to write good ones

Write them the way a customer would ask a person, as whole questions. Cover the different moments of a purchase: learning about the category, comparing options, and getting ready to buy. Include the details real customers add, like a budget, a place or a use, because those change which brands the platform names.

Keep your branded prompts apart from these. Branded prompts name you in almost every answer, so mixing the two makes your visibility look higher than it is.