Some of what Ranksmile measures needs time to become meaningful. A single AI visibility scan is a sample, not a measurement, and a position with no history behind it tells you nothing about direction. So the order matters more than the speed.
This is the sequence that leaves you with something worth reading at the end of the week, rather than five modules all started on day six.
Create the space and connect Search Console
Create a Brand Space for the domain, then connect its Search Console property.
Do this first, before anything else. Performance data has history behind it, and the sooner it is pulled in, the more context every other number has.
Run a site audit
Start the crawl. It takes a while on a large site, so start it and go do the next step.
When it finishes, open AI Search Health before you look at anything else in the result. If an answer engine's crawler is blocked, that single fact explains more about your AI visibility than the rest of the week's data will.
Set up ten AI prompts
This is the step people leave until Thursday and then cannot read.
Write ten questions a buyer would ask before they know your name. New prompts are scanned right away, so you see where you stand the same day. After that they refresh on your plan's schedule: weekly on Growth and daily on Scale and Agency. A trial gets that first scan; the weekly refresh starts once the plan is paid. Add them on day one and you have the week to read the baseline and compare it with what you learn elsewhere. Add them on day four and you've spent half the trial without it.
Skip your brand name. An engine will mention you when asked about you, and that teaches you nothing.
See choosing prompts for what separates a useful prompt from a flattering one.
Track your real keywords
Add the terms you actually compete for to keyword tracking. Positions refresh daily, so the same logic applies: earlier means more trend by the end of the week.
Check who the engines name instead of you
Once the first scans land, open Competitors. The brand at the top of that list is the fastest honest answer to who owns the topics you want, and it usually contradicts at least one thing everybody on the team believed.
Score your three most important pages
Run content score on the three pages that matter commercially. The breakdown tells you why they are or are not competing, term by term.
Schedule the first articles
Open Automations and put the first articles on the calendar. Its content ideas draw on your site scan and your Search Console queries, so it's most useful last, once the week has given it something to suggest.
On the trial
The Growth trial runs seven days, which is exactly the length of this list. That is deliberate, and it is why steps one to three belong on day one. See plans and limits.
What a good first week looks like
You should end it able to answer four questions: whether anything technical is blocking you, which competitor owns the terms you want, whether assistants mention you for your core topics, and which of your pages are not competing and why.
If you can answer those, the tool is set up. Everything after that is doing the work it found.
Need help?
Write to us and a person answers. See the frequently asked questions first if your question is a common one, or get in touch for anything else.