Which prompts should you track? How to choose the right questions

More and more customers no longer ask Google, but ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Whether your business appears in those answers decides whether you are found. But you cannot improve what you do not measure. So the first step is knowing which questions to follow. Track the wrong prompts and you measure noise. Track the right ones and you see exactly where your opportunities are.

In this article: which kinds of prompts matter, how many you need, and how to choose them.

Why you track prompts, not keywords

In traditional SEO you follow keywords. In AI visibility you follow prompts: full questions in natural language, often with context. Nobody types “crm software” into ChatGPT; they ask “which CRM is handy for a small consulting firm that works mostly by email?”. The answer names a handful of brands. If you are not among them, you do not exist for that customer.

That is why you replace thinking in loose keywords with thinking in question clusters: groups of related questions around one intent. That is the core of Generative Engine Optimization.

The five kinds of prompts to track

A good set of prompts covers the whole customer journey. These five categories together give a complete picture.

1. Brand prompts

Questions that name your brand explicitly: “what do people think of [brand]”, “is [brand] reliable”, “[brand] reviews”. These measure whether AI talks about you correctly and positively, and whether hallucinations about your brand appear.

2. Category prompts

Questions without a brand name, aimed at your category: “what is the best [product] for [audience]”. This is where most new customers have to discover you. If you are not mentioned here, you miss inquiries without noticing.

3. Competitor prompts

Questions that include competitors or alternatives: “alternatives to [competitor]”, “[competitor] vs [other brand]”. These show whether you ride along on competitors’ fame, and where you can overtake them.

4. Problem and solution prompts

Questions describing the problem you solve: “how do I reduce [problem]”, “what can I do about [situation]”. These catch customers early in their research, often before they know a category or brand.

5. Transactional and local prompts

Questions with buying or location intent: “where can I buy [product] in [city]”, “best [service] near me”. For local businesses and online stores this is often the most valuable category.

How many prompts do you need?

For most small businesses, 20 to 50 well-chosen prompts are enough. Spread them over the five categories, with the emphasis on category and problem prompts, because that is where most new demand is. Quality beats quantity: 30 prompts that hit your customers’ intents say more than 300 loose variations.

How do you choose the right prompts?

A practical approach:

• Start with the questions customers already ask in sales, support and your FAQ.
• Look at your existing keywords and turn them into full questions.
• Add the most important competitors in comparison prompts.
• Think in your customer’s language, not your own jargon.
• Keep the set current: add new questions as your market changes.

Prefer not to build a set yourself? There are ready-made example sets in prompts to track by industry, for healthcare, online stores, SaaS, restaurants, real estate, home services, law firms and accountants.

How do you measure it?

Once you have your prompts, have them tested every day in the most important AI platforms. A prompt tracker runs your prompts automatically in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and shows whether you are mentioned, in which position, and how that compares with competitors. That turns AI visibility from a feeling into a number you can steer.