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Guide

AI Search Optimisation Checklist: How to Get Cited by AI Engines

Key takeaways
  • AEO makes your content easy for AI engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews — to find, trust and quote.
  • The biggest wins are structural: answer-first writing, question-shaped headings, schema, and server-rendered HTML crawlers can read.
  • Citations compound with authority — third-party distribution and topical depth make engines more likely to name you.
  • Measure by citation share-of-voice, not rankings alone.

An AI search optimisation checklist is a sequence of content, technical and authority steps that make your pages eligible to be cited inside AI answers. Work through the eleven steps below in order.

Content

  1. 01
    Answer the question first. Put a direct, complete answer in the first 1–3 sentences under every heading. AI engines lift self-contained answers; buried ones get skipped.
  2. 02
    Write question-shaped headings. Use the exact questions buyers ask (What, How, Which, How much) as your H2s and H3s. Each heading becomes a retrieval target.
  3. 03
    Make content extractable. Short paragraphs, ordered lists, comparison tables and a key-takeaways block. Structured chunks are far easier to quote than dense prose.
  4. 04
    Be specific and sourced. Use real figures, dates and named sources. Engines favour concrete, attributable claims over vague assertions.

Technical

  1. 05
    Add structured data. Mark up pages with Article, FAQPage, HowTo and Organization schema — and ensure the schema mirrors what is visible on the page.
  2. 06
    Establish entity clarity. Use a consistent Organization/Person/WebSite @graph with shared IDs and sameAs links, so engines read your pages as one connected entity.
  3. 07
    Server-render your content. Ship real HTML, not client-only JavaScript. If content appears only after JS runs, most AI crawlers see an empty page — use static/SSG, not a SPA.
  4. 08
    Allow AI crawlers. In robots.txt, permit GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, and link your sitemap.

Authority

  1. 09
    Earn third-party citations. Get your content and brand referenced on high-authority sites — national press, established publications, reputable directories. Engines weight what others say about you.
  2. 10
    Build topical depth. Cluster related pages and link them with descriptive anchors. Depth on a topic raises the odds you are cited as the authority on it.

Measurement

  1. 11
    Track citation share-of-voice. Ask the engines your buyers questions and record how often you are named versus competitors. Re-run monthly — this is the metric that proves AEO is working.

FAQ

What is an AI search optimisation checklist?

A practical, ordered list of the content, technical and authority steps that make your pages eligible to be cited inside AI-generated answers — covering answer-first structure, schema, server-rendered HTML, distribution and measurement.

How is AEO different from an SEO checklist?

An SEO checklist targets rankings in search results; an AEO checklist targets being quoted inside AI answers. They overlap, but AEO leans harder on schema, answer-first structure, entity clarity and third-party citations.

Do I really need schema for AEO?

Yes — it is one of the cheapest, highest-leverage steps. Structured data tells engines exactly what each page is and how your content connects, making you easier to cite accurately.

How often should I run this checklist?

Apply it to every new page, and review the whole site quarterly — engines, citation patterns and your buyers priority questions all shift over time.

Want the expanded version? Download the full checklist as a printable PDF with a scoring template.

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