Prompt research is the equivalent of keyword analysis for the generative search environment. Instead of short phrases with a search volume, it maps whole questions the way people type them into a chat – long, contextual, often stating the situation, budget, or constraints. The key difference is that the conversation doesn't end with the first question: a single topic comes with a chain of follow-up questions, and it is these that decide whether you remain in the answer at the second and third step as well. Data is gathered differently than in classic SEO – from real questions asked by the sales and support team, from internal site search, from discussions and communities, from your website's chatbot logs, and from directly testing models. The output is not a list of phrases but a map of questions and follow-up questions assigned to pages.
See also: Query fan-out, Share of voice in AI responses, Content chunking.
