---
id: "action-provide-proof-of-expertise"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ How to increase brand awareness on LLMs"]
source_url: "https://hbr.org/2025/06/forget-what-you-know-about-seo-heres-how-to-optimize-your-brand-for-llms"
source_title: "Forget What You Know About Search. Optimize Your Brand for LLMs."
tags: ["content-strategy", "trust-signals"]
related: ["entity-the-ordinary", "entity-shein", "prereq-llm-architecture"]
action: "Embed structured trust signals like scientific studies, certifications, and detailed ingredient explanations into digital content."
outcome: "Higher perceived authority by LLMs, leading to increased surfacing in expert/advice queries."
sources: ["geo"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-geo"
originDay: 3
articleStem: "hbr-ext-10-optimize-brand-for-llms"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/06/forget-what-you-know-about-seo-heres-how-to-optimize-your-brand-for-llms"
sourceTitle: "Forget What You Know About Search. Optimize Your Brand for LLMs."
---
# Embed structured proof of expertise and trust signals

**Action:** LLMs require verification to confidently recommend a brand. Shift away from undifferentiated marketing copy and instead embed **structured data**: dermatologist-backed studies, links to PubMed, ingredient explanations, transparent science, reviews, and certifications. [[entity-the-ordinary|The Ordinary]] is the positive exemplar; [[entity-shein|Shein]]'s missing trust signals are the negative one.

**Expected outcome:** Higher perceived authority by LLMs, leading to increased surfacing in expert/advice queries.

**Enrichment:** This is 'authority-first content' — fewer pieces, more depth, more trust. Complement on-site signals with **synthetic authority**: credibility LLMs infer from multiple *independent third-party* sources citing the brand (PR, earned media, expert roundups, vertical review sites). Requires the technical literacy in [[prereq-llm-architecture]] — use schema.org markup (Product, Review, FAQ, HowTo) so models can reliably parse attributes.


## Related across articles
- [[concept-evidence-base]]
- [[action-cultivate-third-party-validation]]
- [[action-build-trust-signals]]