How to research the prompts worth tracking
The Doily team
Reviewed by the Doily team, Oct 2026 Updated 4 min read
Quick answer
Start from real customer questions, not guesses. Collect them from sales calls, support emails, reviews, and Search Console queries, rewrite each as a natural prompt, add the city or customer type, and group by buying stage. Aim for 20 to 30 prompts you will keep unchanged for months.
Why it matters
Everything you learn about AI visibility depends on the prompts you choose. A list full of questions nobody asks gives you a high mention rate and no business value. A list that only repeats your brand name tells you nothing about being found.
A prompt list is also a measuring instrument. If you change it every week, you cannot tell whether a result moved because of your work or because of your edits.
Key takeaways
- Real customer language beats keyword tools for prompt ideas, because people phrase questions to AI engines as full sentences.
- Group prompts by buying stage and by place so you can read results in slices.
- Keep brand prompts and category prompts separate. They answer different questions.
- Add new prompts as a new group instead of replacing old ones, so your trend line stays comparable.
Step by step
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Collect the questions people really ask
Pull them from sales call notes, support and contact form messages, review text, and the question-style queries in the Search Console Performance report. Ask your front desk or sales team for the 10 questions they answer most often. Paste everything into one sheet without editing yet.
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Sort them by what the person is trying to do
Use 4 groups: finding an option (best accountant for restaurants), comparing options (X vs Y for a small team), solving a problem (why is my basement damp), and checking cost or fit (how much does a roof repair cost). A fifth group, brand checks, holds prompts that name you.
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Rewrite each one as a natural prompt
Write it the way a person would type it into a chat box, with the detail they would include: city, budget, company size, or situation. Remove keyword fragments and replace them with a full question. A prompt like best plumber for a burst pipe in Meriden CT tests more than plumber Meriden.
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Test the wording before you commit
Run each important prompt in 2 phrasings on 1 or 2 engines. If the answers differ a lot, track both. If they match, keep the clearer one. Cut any prompt that returns an answer unrelated to your business.
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Prioritize by value, then cap the list
Rank prompts by how close the person is to buying and how much the sale is worth. Keep the top 20 to 30. A list you can read in one sitting gets acted on, and a list of 200 does not.
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Label every prompt and freeze the core
Tag each prompt with its group, location, and service line. Lock the core list and review it once a quarter. When you want to explore a new topic, add it as a new labeled group so old and new results stay separate.
Prompt templates to adapt
Fill in the brackets with your own services, places, and customer types. Each template maps to one of the groups above.
Finding an option
What are the best [service] providers for [customer type] in [city]?
Who should I hire for [specific job] near [neighborhood]?
Comparing options
[Option A] vs [Option B] for a [customer type] with [constraint]
What is the difference between [service type 1] and [service type 2]?
Solving a problem
How do I fix [problem] in a [situation]?
Why does [symptom] keep happening and who can help?
Cost and fit
How much does [service] cost in [city]?
Is [service] worth it for a [customer type]?
Brand checks
What is [your brand] known for?
Is [your brand] a good choice for [customer type]?Two or three phrasings per priority topic are enough. More than that mostly produces duplicates.
How Doily helps
Doily includes a prompt research batch as an AI action, and the prompt library lists starting prompts by industry. Free checks run weekly and paid plans check daily, so a stable list produces a usable trend.
Questions
How many prompts should I track?
Start with 20 to 30 that map to your real services. The Free plan covers 3 prompts weekly on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, which is enough to see how the data looks before you build a full list.
Should prompts include my brand name?
Include a few, and keep them in their own group. Brand prompts show what engines say about you. Category prompts show whether you are found by people who do not know you yet.
Is there a search volume for prompts?
Do not assume one. Rank prompts by business value and by how often customers actually ask the question, using your own conversations as the source.
Sources
Primary sources, checked Oct 11, 2026.
