James Dooley Podcast

James Dooley
Hi, today I’m joined with Luis Salazar Jurado and today’s topic is how to rank better for AI query fan out queries.

Luis Salazar Jurado
Hi everybody. Thanks James for having me. Let’s jump straight in.

James Dooley
So let’s jump straight into it. How do you rank better for AI query fan out?

Luis Salazar Jurado
Firstly, you have to define the entity you want to rank for. An entity can be an organisation, a person, a thing, anything on the internet. Then you have to find the right attributes for that entity, because ranking only for keywords no longer works very well. Google ranks entities. You then structure your content to answer questions related to that entity.

Luis Salazar Jurado
For example, let’s take James Dooley. If someone asks Google a question about James Dooley, Google gathers all the information it has across the internet and returns an answer. That answer could appear as a snippet or an AI Overview. It depends on how the user triggers the query and the interface they use, such as voice, text, or AI mode. The information that is best structured to answer the question will usually surface first.

Luis Salazar Jurado
To rank better for query fan out in AI, you trigger multiple questions in Google, analyse the SERPs, study how the data is structured, and identify which content serves those answers. You then create better structured content that covers more attributes and answers more questions about the entity than your competitors.

James Dooley
With query fan out, is there a way of knowing which attributes you need to cover? For example, when I searched one of my businesses, FatRank, I noticed fan out terms like reviews, testimonials, and legitimacy. How do you identify those attributes? Do you prompt AI, analyse People Also Ask, or look at related searches?

Luis Salazar Jurado
First, define the entity, in this case FatRank. Then analyse search results across as many interfaces as possible, standard Google search, AI Mode, and AI platforms like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Look at the extracted information, the top results, and the related searches. Each related term opens up more data. It becomes a process of exploration, like solving a puzzle. As you gather data, you build a strategy that maps the entity and its attributes.

Luis Salazar Jurado
You define attributes such as reviews, testimonials, and legitimacy. Once you identify them, you expand and augment queries related to that entity. That process gives you both insight and a clear SEO strategy.

James Dooley
Let me throw a curveball. What if it’s a brand new company with no existing search demand? How do you think about fan out queries when there is no existing data?

Luis Salazar Jurado
If Google has no data about a new brand, you start by defining the brand semantically. Break the name into its component terms and analyse whether Google already has associations for those terms. When you launch, you must provide accurate, structured information on your website. That content feeds the bots and creates relationships between the brand name, its meaning, and the surrounding content.

Luis Salazar Jurado
When users begin searching, Google connects queries, users, and documents. Queries are what users type, users are the people searching, and documents are any form of content such as pages, images, or videos. When Google detects interest, it crawls your site, extracts information, and builds a map linking the brand, the query, and the documents.

James Dooley
How important is third party corroboration compared to just publishing content on your own site?

Luis Salazar Jurado
Third party validation is essential. Without it, you are an isolated entity. If nobody mentions you, links to you, or talks about you, your importance is limited. External validation such as reviews, press mentions, citations, and social signals act as glue that connects your entity to the wider web. These signals only work properly when they are part of a well planned brand strategy.

James Dooley
I used to focus purely on backlinks. Now I think more in terms of corroboration and semantic reinforcement. Is that the right way to think about it?

Luis Salazar Jurado
Yes. Backlinks alone are not enough. External content should expand and reinforce who you are and what you do. That semantic reinforcement helps AI systems and search engines understand your entity more clearly and rank you across fan out queries.

James Dooley
If someone wants to learn more about query fan out and semantic SEO, where should they follow you?

Luis Salazar Jurado
They can visit seotenico.com, find my work on LinkedIn, or subscribe to dailysemanticseo.com. I write an email every day about semantic SEO.

James Dooley
It’s been a pleasure having you, Luis. This has been a great breakdown of how to rank for AI query fan out and why entity thinking matters more than ever.