The 20-point checklist to get your website into AI answers

When someone asks ChatGPT or Google's AI who to hire, the answer is built from pages the AI could read, understand and trust. This is the checklist we run on every client site to make sure theirs is one of them. We ran it on our own site first.

One honest note before the list: Google says optimising for its AI features is still SEO. There is no secret trick. What works is being easy to crawl, clear to read and backed up by other sources.

Let the AI in

1. Allow AI crawlers in robots.txt. OAI-SearchBot decides ChatGPT search, Claude-SearchBot decides Claude search, PerplexityBot decides Perplexity, and Googlebot covers AI Overviews. Blocking them by accident is more common than you'd think.
2. Publish an XML sitemap and point robots.txt at it, so crawlers find every page you care about.
3. Put the important text in the HTML. Many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, so content that only appears after scripts load can be invisible to them.
4. Fix indexing errors. Check Google Search Console for pages that are blocked, redirected in loops or returning errors.

Make every page easy to read

1. Use semantic HTML: real headings, lists, tables and links, not text inside images.
2. Write clear page titles that say what the page is and who it is for.
3. Write a meta description for every page, in plain words.
4. Add canonical tags so each page has one official address.
5. Use descriptive headings, phrased the way buyers ask questions.
6. Add structured data (schema.org JSON-LD) for your organisation, services, people, articles and FAQs.

Answer the questions buyers ask

1. Answer common questions directly, in the first lines of each section.
2. Add an FAQ section with short answers that make sense on their own.
3. Cite credible sources. Link claims to primary sources such as Google, official bodies or your own data.
4. Create original research. Your own numbers and observations are the one thing an AI cannot find anywhere else.

Show who is behind it

1. Add author information: a real name, role and profile on every article and service page.
2. Show publication and updated dates, on the page and in the markup.
3. Update outdated content when prices, facts or screenshots change.
4. Link your pages to each other, so crawlers understand which topics you cover in depth.

Then check it worked

1. Check search visibility: set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, submit the sitemap, and watch impressions.
2. Ask the AI yourself. Type the questions your buyers ask into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, and note who gets named. Repeat monthly.

What we would skip

An llms.txt file is fine to have, and we publish one, but Google says it is not needed for its AI features. Chunking your text into tiny pieces or rewriting everything "for AI" is not needed either. Clear writing for people is what the machines reward.

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