Workflows

Overview

Obsurfable isn't a bag of disconnected tools — it's a workflow for improving how AI answer engines find, cite, and recommend your brand.

Every feature lives in one of four phases:

These map directly to the sections on your Dashboard and to deeper documentation sections (Setup, Monitor, Act, Discover) in this docs site.

Think of it as a loop: Setup → Monitor → Act → Discover → Monitor again.

Who it's for

Workflows help any Obsurfable user build a repeatable AI visibility program:

• Solo marketers who need a clear weekly rhythm.
• Cross-functional teams where Setup is owned by product marketing, Monitor by SEO, Act by content, and Discover by research.
• Agencies running the same playbook across client accounts.

Prerequisites

A signed-in Obsurfable account. For full workflow coverage (especially Act and advanced Monitor), a Pro plan is recommended. Free users can complete Setup and limited Monitor (prompt retrieve).

The four workflows in detail

Setup — brand context

Goal: Give Obsurfable accurate, rich context so prompts, insights, and generated content reflect your real positioning.

When to use it: At onboarding, after a rebrand, when entering a new market, or whenever AI answers drift from reality.

Key features:

• Company — Name, URL, overview, goals, and audience.
• Competitors — Alternatives AI might recommend instead of you.
• Sitemaps — URL inventory for retrieval readiness checks.

Outcome: Higher setup health score, better auto-generated prompts, and more accurate retrieval results.

Typical cadence: Review monthly or after major positioning changes.

Monitor — observe and measure

Goal: See how AI answers questions in your category today — and get alerted when perception shifts.

When to use it: Weekly or on a schedule (Pro automations). Check Incidents after each run.

Key features:

• Visibility score — Roll-up of mentions, citations, and competitive gaps.
• AI incidents (Pro) — Alerts when mentions, citations, or narratives change between runs.
• Entity perception (Pro) — Entity ownership, drift, and co-mention pathways.
• Prompt explorer — Discover buyer prompts from corpus; Free unlocks after 10 company prompts (10 views/month), Pro unlimited.
• Prompts — Run buyer questions through ChatGPT and Gemini retrieval; check mentions and citations per prompt and platform.
• Retrieval readiness (Pro) — Crawl sitemap URLs; report on structure, gaps, and brand alignment.
• Settings / Automations (Pro) — Schedule prompt re-runs, incident email alerts, and network contribution.

Outcome: A prioritized list of gaps — missing citations, weak coverage, structural issues — feeding Act and Discover.

Typical cadence: Weekly visibility check; monthly deep dive with Site analysis on Pro.

Act — improve visibility

Goal: Turn monitoring insights into published artifacts that shift how AI retrieves and cites you.

When to use it: After Monitor surfaces specific gaps — missing comparison page, thin FAQ cluster, inaccurate entity description.

Key features:

• Insights (Pro) — AEO/GEO recommendations from prompt runs: meta, content, page, comparison, messaging, and more.
• Content (Pro) — Generate blog posts from insights; export Markdown/HTML or publish on your subdomain.

Outcome: New or improved pages and posts that answer buyer questions in an AI-retrievable format.

Typical cadence: Sprint-based — batch content after a Monitor review; publish, then re-run prompts to measure lift.

Discover — external context

Goal: Save sources and research from the open web that inform your AEO strategy.

When to use it: When Monitor shows competitor citations from third-party sites, or when you find useful references while browsing.

Key features:

• Scrapbook — Save URLs and notes from anywhere on the web.

Outcome: A research library — competitor pages, forum threads, and citation sources worth studying or referencing in content.

Typical cadence: Ongoing research; spike activity when launching new positioning or competitive campaigns.

Step-by-step: run the full workflow loop

Week 1 — Setup and baseline

1. Sign up free and complete onboarding.
2. Fill Setup: company profile, competitors, and sitemap.
3. Run all company prompts once (Free) to establish baseline visibility.

Week 2 — Monitor and prioritize

1. Review visibility score and citation gaps on the dashboard.
2. Upgrade to Pro if you need insights or re-runs.
3. Run site analysis to find structural issues.

Weeks 3–4 — Act

1. Open Insights from your best prompt runs.
2. Generate content for top granular recommendations.
3. Publish on your site or Obsurfable subdomain blog.

Ongoing — Discover and re-measure

1. Save useful sources to Scrapbook as you find them.
2. Re-run prompts (Pro) after each meaningful publish.
3. Track visibility score trend month over month.

How workflows connect

flowchart LR
  Setup --> Monitor
  Monitor --> Act
  Monitor --> Discover
  Act --> Monitor
  Discover --> Act

• Setup feeds Monitor — without company context and competitors, prompts miss the mark.
• Monitor feeds Act — insights and gaps become content tasks.
• Monitor feeds Discover — competitor citations point to external sources worth studying.
• Discover feeds Act — saved research informs content angles.
• Act feeds Monitor — new pages change retrieval results on the next run.

Tips

• Don't skip Setup after onboarding — A current sitemap dramatically improves Site analysis.
• Monitor before you Act — Publishing without a gap list wastes effort; let prompts and insights prioritize.
• One workflow per session — Monday Monitor, Wednesday Act, Friday Discover beats context-switching across all four.
• Close the loop — Every Act sprint should end with a prompt re-run on Pro.

FAQ

Do I have to follow all four workflows?

No — but each phase addresses a different failure mode. Setup-only gives accurate context but no measurement. Monitor-only shows gaps but doesn't fix them. Most successful teams run the full loop at least monthly.

Which workflow should I start with?

Always Setup, then Monitor with your first prompt retrieval. See Quick start.

Is the Visibility Director agent part of a workflow?

The Visibility Director agent (Pro) orchestrates across workflows — monitoring, gap analysis, content drafting, and publishing in one conversation. It's documented in the Agent section of these docs and complements the four manual workflows.

Where do Insights fit — Monitor or Act?

Insights are generated from Monitor data (prompt runs) but exist to drive Act. You'll often bounce between Monitor results and Insight recommendations in the same working session.