Quick start with Semly

This guide will help you quickly get started with Semly and understand how to analyze your brand’s visibility in AI answers.

Semly shows whether your brand appears in the answers of AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, or Google AI. This way you can check for which questions you’re visible, how you compare to the competition, which sources AI models use, and what actions are worth taking to increase your chances of being recommended.

Quick start consists of 4 steps:

1. Fill in your brand data

2. Check prompts and competitors

3. Analyze the visibility report

4. Implement the recommendations prepared by Semly

Step 1: Fill in your brand data

First, make sure Semly has the correct information about your brand, website, and offer.

Project data is the foundation for later analysis. Thanks to it, Semly can better recognize your brand in AI answers, link it to the right domain, analyze your offer, and prepare more accurate recommendations.

Fill in brand data

Go to the Brand section and check if the most important information is correct.

First of all, check, fix or fill in:

• brand name

• logo URL

• URL of the sitemap, i.e. sitemap.xml

• industry

• product or service category

• target group

• scope of activity

• price level

• detailed company description

• business model

• sales channels

• delivery and returns policy

• payment methods

The more precisely you describe the brand, the easier it will be to analyze its visibility and compare it with the competition.

Good practice: don’t describe the brand too broadly. Instead of writing “we sell home products”, write what products you offer, for whom, in which market, and what makes your offer stand out from the competition.

Example:

Add products (online sellers only)

If you run an online store, go to the Products section and add a product file in the

Google Shopping XML format or use ready-made integrations available in the menu in the TOOLS section under the Integrations tab.

The product feed lets Semly analyze not only the brand as a whole, but also specific products, categories, descriptions, prices, availability, and offer links.

To add products from an XML file:

1. Paste the link to the Google Shopping XML file

2. Set credentials if the file requires a login or password

3. Check the automatic update schedule

4. Click the button: Import products

Product data is updated automatically every 24 hours.

Good practice: make sure the file contains up-to-date names, descriptions, prices, categories, availability and product URLs. Poor or outdated data can make later analysis and generating recommendations harder.

Use an integration

If your platform is available in the Integrations section, you can connect it directly to Semly. Available integrations can include, among others, RedCart, WooCommerce, Shopify and Shoptet.

If you don’t see your platform, you can still use Semly via a Google Shopping XML file.

Step 2: Check prompts and competition

After filling in the project, check for which customer questions your brand should be monitored and who it will be compared with.

In Semly, prompts are key — they’re questions similar to the ones users ask AI models.

Check the prompts

Go to the Prompts section and see the list of monitored questions.

In this section you can check, among other things:

• prompt content

• average position of your brand

• visibility

• sentiment

• assigned topic

• prompt activity status

Data in the Prompts tab includes results from the last 30 days.

A prompt shouldn’t look like a classic SEO phrase. A prompt is a question or a command from the user to AI that contains intent and context. Instead of a short slogan:

it’s better to use a natural question:

Good prompts answer real customer questions and show their purchase intent.

Good practice: ask yourself: “For which customer questions should my brand be recommended by AI?” That’s the best starting point for working with prompts.

Organize prompts into topics

If you’re monitoring many prompts, you can group them into topics (prompt groups). This makes it easier to analyze brand visibility in specific areas, e.g. product categories, types of services, stages of the purchase decision, or customer segments.

Add or check competitors

Go to the Competition section and check which brands are being compared with yours.

In this view you can check data for a selected period:

• the number of mentions of your brand

• the number of mentions of a competitor

• shared mentions

• prompts where you both appear together

• prompts where only your brand appears

• prompts where only the competitor appears

This way you’ll quickly see with which questions the competition is beating your brand.

Good practice: don’t just analyze the biggest competitors on the market. Also pay attention to brands that often show up in AI answers, even if they weren’t an obvious competitor to you before.

In every plan you can monitor up to 10 closest competitors.

Step 3: Analyze the visibility report

When the project, prompts and competition are ready, go to the Visibility report section.

This is the main place where you’ll check how your brand performs in AI answers in the time range you chose.

Check the main metrics

In the report you’ll see among other things:

• number of mentions of your brand

• number of mentions of all brands

• number of brands detected in AI answers

• brand visibility chart over time

• sources of AI answers

• questions that customers ask in AI

• brand position

• answer sentiment

This data helps answer the most important questions:

• Does AI know my brand

• For which questions does my brand show up

• How often is it recommended

• In which position does it appear

• Does AI describe the brand positively, neutrally, or negatively

• What sources influence AI’s answers

• How does my brand compare to the competition

Good practice: don’t judge visibility based on a single number. It’s best to analyze visibility, position, sentiment, sources, and competition together over a longer period of time.

Dig into prompt details

After clicking a specific prompt, you’ll see a detailed analysis of AI’s answer for that question.

In the prompt details you can check:

• brand visibility over time

• sources of AI answers

• latest model answers

• information on whether the brand was mentioned

• brand position in the answer

• sentiment

• date of the answer

• AI model that generated the answer

This lets you see not only the numerical data, but also the actual answer a user could get.

Example: if the model lists your brand in 2nd place but describes it in a very generic way, it might mean it’s worth filling in the brand data, expanding the content or improving the product information.

Check AI answer sources

Sources show which domains, sites and materials AI models use when generating answers.

In the Sources section, you’ll see among other things:

• the total number of source occurrences

• the main source in your industry

• the biggest source gap

• the share of a source compared to the competition, i.e. SOV (Share of Voice)

• the number of responses

• the number of occurrences

• your brand’s occurrences in a given source

Sources help you understand why AI recommends certain brands and where it gets its information from.

Good practice: look for sources where your competitors appear often and your brand is missing or has a low share. These can be good places for further content, PR, or SEO activities.

Step 4: Implement the recommendations

After analyzing the report, go to the Recommendations section. This is where Semly shows specific actions that can improve your brand’s visibility in AI.

Start with the most important tasks

Recommendations can refer to, among other things:

• improving the robots.txt file

• creating an article on the suggested topic using our Content Generator

• expanding the knowledge base

• improving brand data

• adding missing product information

• boosting your presence in important sources

• preparing content for specific prompts

First, do the tasks marked as critical or high. They can have the biggest impact on further analysis and your brand’s visibility.

Example:

Check the recommendation details

When you open a specific recommendation, you’ll see why Semly suggests a given action.

In the details you can check:

• which prompt the recommendation refers to

• for which question your brand is losing visibility

• what kind of impact the recommendation may have on visibility

This way you know why a given task matters and what problem it helps solve.

Generate content if the recommendation requires it

Some of the recommendations may involve creating an article or other content that answers a specific customer question.

In that case, you can use the Content Generator.

The generator lets you:

• create articles on suggested topics

• edit the generated content

• copy the material

• prepare content for publication

• build the brand’s knowledge base

Content created in the generator should answer real customer questions and support topics where the brand has low visibility or loses to the competition.

Good practice: don’t create content only for keywords. Create it for specific questions, intents, and user problems that show up in prompts.

Set up the knowledge base

If you want to publish content in a separate space prepared for AI, you can set up a knowledge base on your own subdomain.

Example:

knowledge.twojadomena.pl

To launch it, go to Knowledge base configuration:

1. Enter the subdomain name, e.g. knowledge

2. Add an A record in the domain’s DNS panel

3. Point it to the IP address provided in Semly

4. Save the changes with your domain provider

5. Click Verify and activate

Important: don’t change the @ record if it handles the main website. Add a separate record only for the selected subdomain, e.g. knowledge.twojadomena.pl

Extra sections in the panel

After completing the basic steps, you can also check additional sections.

Integrations

In the Integrations section, you’ll find available connections with e-commerce platforms such as RedCart, Shopify, or Shoptet.

If your platform isn’t on the list, you can still use import via Google Shopping XML.

Semly Club

Semly Club includes extra offers and benefits from partners. They can support running your store, handling payments, finances, or growing your online business.

Settings

In Settings, you can check the active plan, limits, payments, invoices, platform language, and billing details.

What’s next?

After completing these 4 steps, you have the basic project setup and you can start working with Semly on a regular basis.

The best next actions:

• check if the brand data is complete

• make sure the products were imported correctly

• analyze the most important prompts

• add or approve competitors

• check the sources that support the competition

• carry out the recommendations prepared by Semly

• generate and publish the first content for an important visibility gap

Visibility in AI doesn’t change instantly. The first data shows the starting point, and steady improvement needs regular analysis, up-to-date data, good content, and implementing recommendations.