Cite Me, Vol. 2: Why Listicles Are Making a Comeback, Baby!

Welcome to Volume 2 of our Cite Me series—where we explore how brands (and marketers) can build visibility in a world where search no longer starts with a search engine. If you haven’t yet, check out Volume 1 here.

What’s a word that sounds dirty but isn’t?

Listicle.

Well, honestly, it probably ties for first with another marketing favorite: CAC. (Dare you to try to use them both in a sentence during your next All Hands.)

I remember being in a marketing meeting back in 2015, on my soapbox about what I learned at INBOUND and waxing poetic about content marketing and the power of listicles. I caught a few giggles from across the table, but, funny name aside, listicles worked.

For the few years that followed, I wrote countless listicles in the how to and top ten formats. On each editorial team across every industry I touched we did listicles. But eventually things changed and the allure faded in favor of other formats.

This jaded marketer had almost fully written listicles off as passé. It felt like we’d moved on to deeper story telling and more thought leadership which is why I was a little taken aback when I saw this recent post from Ross Simmonds featuring a trend spotlight from Profound:

AI isn’t exactly changing how people discover brands. It’s going back to what’s already worked.

First, let’s look at why listicles and comparative content work:

• Listicles = Structured clarity: LLMs (and people) love clean headers and digestible chunks

• “X vs Y” = Decision-ready content: Perfect for AI that’s trying to summarize the web and give us that immediate gratification hit we love so much.

• Comparisons = Keyword-rich: They naturally include the names, pain points, and objections buyers are typing in.

So basically, listicles make it easy to find what you’re looking for as efficiently as possible.

As mentioned above, this worked well on Google from roughly 2011-2020.

Then Google changed.
Search engine algorithms adapted to prioritize experts, advice, and answers. 

Today you can think of Google as the map. AI is the tour guide.

Thanks to tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, your next buyer might still start their search on Google—but they’re ending it with AI. Instead of sorting through 50 tabs, they’re asking an LLM who to trust.

So, here are two ways to make the listicle renaissance work for brands (B2B and B2C) and individuals:

1. Start creating listicle & comparison content that’s:

• Useful! Focused on solving specific problems your audience is actively experiencing.

• Well-structured. Clearly formatted with scannable headlines and predictable sections that AI and readers both love.

• Actually helpful. Actionable insights that make your audience think, “Wow, this brand really gets me.”
  
  
  

Think:

• “Top 5 tools for fractional CMOs”

• “Notion vs. Airtable for project tracking”

• “7 ways early-stage startups waste their marketing budget”

Except don’t use any of those because I will be…

2. Work to get featured in other people’s listicles.

This is the overlooked move. If you can’t rank #1, get cited by the person who does.

• Partner with creators who already rank. Collaborate with content creators and publishers who have existing listicles with strong SEO or GEO performance.

• Contribute expert quotes. Offer valuable insights or data-backed commentary that makes their content more credible and link-worthy.

• Get strategic with backlinks. Reach out to roundup publishers with personalized pitches, offering your solution as a relevant addition.

And of course, always optimize for the human + the machine.

If someone pastes your content into ChatGPT, can it find what it needs—fast? That’s GEO thinking.

Final Take: The AI Visibility Flywheel

1. Create content designed to be cited. Build content formats, like listicles and comparisons, that lend themselves to summaries, citations, and copy-paste sharing.

2. Get mentioned in other high-credibility roundups. Increase your authority by earning references in content already ranking or gaining traction with your target audience.

3. Appear more often in AI responses. The more structured and referenced your content is, the more likely AI tools are to pull from it.

4. Drive more discovery, traffic, and demand. Every AI citation becomes a trust-building moment that can drive new business.

5. Repeat. Keep iterating, refreshing your content, and finding new ways to be useful and visible.
   
   
   

Your next client is asking ChatGPT who to trust.
Let’s make sure she says your name.

Cite Me is now a series from Street Smarts, on marketing in the era of AI-powered search. Want help getting visibility where it counts? We’re just a click away.