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CircleChess

EdTech · AI-powered chess learning platform

How CircleChess turned AI Search Visibility into real leads, customers and revenue

From stagnant 600 daily SEO clicks and zero AI engine presence to #1 in Google AI Overview, #2 in Google organic, and +180 AI sessions per month — and now, content that's directly driving leads, new customers and revenue.

AI Readiness AuditAI Visibility TrackingContent AgentsGEO + AEO
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“online classroom chess programs”Live
  • Google AI Overview
    #1
  • Google organic
    #2
  • GrokGrok (India)
    #1
  • Perplexity
    #4

AI sessions / mo

+180

SEO clicks / day

750+

At a glance

#2

Google organic

online classroom chess programs

#1

AI Overview

Google AI Overviews

#4

Perplexity

online classroom chess programs

#1

Grok

online classroom chess programs in india

The Challenge

Stagnant SEO traffic — and zero strategy for AI engines.

CircleChess had built a strong product and a steady SEO foundation — but the foundation had stopped compounding. Organic traffic had flatlined at 600 daily clicks for 6–8 months. New content moved the needle for a week and then settled back to baseline.

And the bigger problem was already taking shape: buyers were shifting their early research into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews — but CircleChess wasn't showing up in any of them. There was no content strategy for AI engines, no measurement, and no clear path to becoming the cited source for the queries that mattered most.

“Six months of work, and SEO clicks haven't moved. And now our buyers are asking ChatGPT before they ever Google us — and we have no idea what it's saying.”

The Goal

Get CircleChess ranked and cited for “online classroom chess programs” on Google and every major AI engine.

One high-intent commercial term, treated as the proving ground. Win it on Google organic, in AI Overview, in Perplexity and in Grok — and prove a repeatable playbook that could be scaled across the rest of the keyword set.

How Indexly helped

A four-step playbook — audit, track, ship, measure.

  1. Step 1

    AI Readiness Audit

    We started by making CircleChess legible to AI engines. The site was structured for users but invisible to retrieval — no llms.txt, weak schema, and answer blocks that didn't extract cleanly.

    • Restructured key pages for AI extraction (entity density, answer-format blocks)
    • Added llms.txt and llms-full.txt with explicit allow rules for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended
    • Shipped FAQPage, Course and Organization schema markups across category pages

  2. Step 2

    AI Visibility Tracking

    Set up daily tracking on 25+ industry prompts spanning the full buyer journey — product discovery, competitor comparison and solution-aware queries — to see exactly where CircleChess showed up and where competitors won.

    • 25+ tracked prompts across discovery, comparison and solution-aware intent
    • Daily citation share and rank monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok and AI Overviews
    • Citation gap analysis surfaced which competitor URLs AI was leaning on instead

  3. Step 3

    Content Authority

    Built durable visibility through Indexly's Content Agents — GEO-optimized new articles for the gaps the tracking surfaced, plus AEO rewrites of existing pages that ranked on Google but weren't getting cited. Coverage expanded well beyond the original proving-ground term into the wider category CircleChess competes in.

    • GEO-optimized articles drafted, structured and shipped for high-intent prompts
    • Expanded into adjacent high-intent topics — online chess academies, USCF-affiliated programs, online chess classes and more
    • Existing SEO-ranking pages rewritten for AEO patterns — Q&A blocks, definitions, entity coverage
    • Re-published with schema and internal links pointing to the new authority pages

  4. Step 4

    Monitor Traffic

    Closed the loop with unified analytics — tracking how each shipped page moved Google rankings and AI engine citations, week over week.

    • Google Search Console clicks tracked alongside AI engine referral sessions
    • Per-page attribution: which fix moved which ranking
    • Daily diff alerts caught the AI Overview lift the day it landed

Results delivered

From flatlined to category leader — on Google and AI engines.

#2 organic · #1 AI Overview

Top of Google and AI Overview

CircleChess now ranks #2 in Google organic and #1 in Google AI Overview for “online classroom chess programs” — the highest-intent term in the category.

#4 Perplexity · #1 Grok

Cited across major AI engines

#4 cited source in Perplexity for “online classroom chess programs” and #1 in Grok for the localized “in india” variant — durable, recurring citations.

+180 AI sessions / mo

AI traffic from zero to 180 sessions/mo

Articles published by Indexly Content Agents now drive ~180 AI engine referral sessions per month — a channel that didn't exist before the engagement.

+20% SEO clicks · 750+/day

SEO traffic finally moves again

After 6–8 months stuck at 600 daily SEO clicks, the new articles and AEO rewrites lifted SEO clicks by 20% to 750+ per day.

Leads, customers & revenue

From rankings to revenue

As coverage expanded into online chess academies, USCF-affiliated programs and online chess classes, the content started converting — CircleChess is now generating real leads, new customers and revenue directly from articles shipped through Indexly.

“Six months ago we were stuck at 600 SEO clicks. Today we're #1 in AI Overview, #2 in Google, and we've added a whole new AI traffic channel that didn't exist before Indexly.”
— CircleChess team
“Once we expanded into online chess academies, USCF programs and online chess classes, the content stopped being just a ranking story. It's now bringing in real leads, new customers and revenue.”
— CircleChess team
T

Tarun M.

Senior Business Manager, CircleChess

G2 Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.comG2Jul 29, 2026
5/5

“Indexly Delivers Clear AI Search Visibility and Strong Content Performance Insights”

Indexly gives us clear insight into how ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Gemini perceive our brand, and helps us spot competitor positioning and citation gaps. It supports us in creating citation-worthy content optimized for both Google and AI search engines — contributing to a 3x increase in overall traffic — with attribution tools that track content performance and measure how effectively AI traffic converts into leads.

Current UserValidated ReviewerSource: Seller invite

Proof in the wild

Cited #1 by ChatGPT for “online classroom chess programs”

Not a dashboard metric — the live result. Ask ChatGPT for the best online classroom chess programs and CircleChess is the first brand it recommends, ahead of every competitor.

ChatGPT recommending CircleChess as the #1 result for the query 'online classroom chess programs', listed first under 'Best for Schools & Structured Classroom Programs'.
ChatGPT response to “online classroom chess programs” — CircleChess ranked #1, March 2026. Captured live; results may vary by session.

Be the brand AI recommends — and Google ranks

Run a free AI Readiness audit, map your visibility gaps across six engines, and ship the content that closes them — with Indexly.

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Want results like CircleChess's? See more case studies.