AI Search Optimization Guide and Checklist
Use this checklist to optimize your website for AI-powered search engines including Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc. Bookmark this checklist and come back to it when you want to work on AIO!
Audit Your AI Visibility
Before optimizing, we need to know where you stand. This section helps you assess your current visibility across AI-powered search engines Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and others.
We can find out your AI traffic sources, top pages receiving AI referrals, and prompt queries in AI Mode and grounding queries in Bing Webmaster Tools.
This data is your starting point for AI optimization.
Your content can get cited as source links within AI platforms. These are clickable links from the chat responses that people can click to visit the website.
AI tools can send hundreds, and even thousands of visitors to your website each year. It's a traffic source we shouldn't ignore!
Use Google Analytics to find the AI sources (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc.) that are sending referral traffic and leads to your website.
GA4 › Traffic Acquisition Report
By default, the report shows the Session default channel grouping.
Click on the drop down menu and select Session source / medium.
Type 'referral' in the Table's search bar. You'll see all the AI platforms sending traffic to your website.
In the same Traffic Acquisition Report, click on the + icon.
Search for 'Landing page + query string'.
You'll see which landing pages have received AI traffic.
Test some prompts and questions your audience types into AI engines to find your product or services. Assess where your site and brand appear (or don't appear) in the answers. Check for mentions, links, and sentiment.
For example, if you're a coach, your main keyword would be "SEO coach". You can ask ChatGPT a question-based prompt the way your audience would ask an AI tool.
For example:
- "Recommend me an SEO coach for business owners"
- "I'm looking for a wedding photographer in Seattle. Recommend me someone who has good reviews and has experience at the Corson House."
- "Find me a career coach for lawyers in the UK who is also a lawyer."
Check if your website appears in the AI response.
"I'm looking for [KEYWORD] in [CITY]. Recommend me someone who has good reviews and has experience with [THIS THING] or [VENUE] or [SPECIALTY]"
Many people are using Google AI Mode to search for information, ask follow-up questions and get the solutions that they need. As of May 2026, Google's AI Mode has reached 1 billion monthly users and search activity has only increased. This means people are using Google's AI to find products and services to book. The best part we can find out exactly what people are asking in Google's AI Mode, directly in your GSC data!
- Open the Search results report.
- Add filter › Query.
- Choose Custom (regex).
- Paste this exact formula: (\b\w+\b\s){10,}
- Apply, then review the longer searches.
For a detailed step-by-step, follow this tutorial »
Microsoft added this new functionality to its Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report, which lets us quickly see which pages a grounding query cites, and which grounding queries send citations to a given page.
Here's how to find your website's grounding query page mapping data in Bing's AI report:
- Go to Bing's Webmaster Tools › AI Performance
- Scroll to the List by table below
- You can filter the data by Grounding Queries or Pages
To see which grounding queries are driving citations to a specific page:
- Click on a specific page, and it'll take you to all the grounding queries that sent citations to a given page
Instead of guessing which content pages on your website drive AI visibility, you can now see exactly which grounding queries triggered citations to a page and optimize further.
✦ Want us to set this up for you? We'll audit your current AI visibility and get you started on AI search optimization. Learn more about our SEO + AI Search Services »
AI Crawlability & Indexability
If you want your website to appear in AI-generated answers (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews), your site must be accessible to AI crawlers.
Your robots.txt file is not enough many websites unknowingly block AI crawlers at the infrastructure level (CDN-level, firewall rules, security systems, etc). Here are some quick ways to check AI bot accessibility.
- ChatGPT-User / OAI-SearchBot OpenAI / ChatGPT
- Googlebot & Google-Extended Google AI Overviews & AI Mode
- Perplexity-User / PerplexityBot Perplexity AI
- Claude-User / Claude-SearchBot Anthropic / Claude
Go to your browser and type: https://yourwebsite.com/robots.txt
- Look for lines that mention AI bots like GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), or PerplexityBot.
- If you see Disallow: / under an AI bot name, that specific bot is blocked.
- If you see Allow: / or do not see the bot listed at all, the bot is allowed.
Even if your robots.txt allows bots, your website's backend security system might be blocking them by default.
Siteground and WP Engine block heavy training bots by default.
You can login to your web hosting dashboard and search for AI bots in your logs to see if they are getting a 200 OK success message or a 403 Forbidden block message.
If you use Cloudflare, check the new default settings for new websites. Cloudflare now automatically blocks AI scrapers such as known AI bots like OpenAI's GPTBot and Anthropic's ClaudeBot from scanning your text and media to train large language models. You must manually opt in if you want these bots to use your content.
I like to use Max Braglia's free AI Bot Accessibility tool to quickly scan for accessibility.
As you can see, although the website's robots.txt was not blocking any AI crawlers, the website's backend unknowingly prevented accessibility. This is always worth a check!
Google's Official Guidelines for AI Optimization
The following content is taken directly from Google's official guide: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search.
Yes. The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because Google's generative AI features are rooted in core Search ranking and quality systems. These features rely on AI techniques to highlight content from the Search index, including:
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): A technique used to improve the quality, accuracy, and freshness of AI responses by relying on core Search ranking systems to retrieve relevant, up-to-date web pages. Systems then review information from those retrieved pages to generate a more reliable and helpful response, showing prominent, clickable links to relevant web pages that support the information in the response.
- Query fan-out: A set of concurrent, related queries generated by the model to request more information and fetch additional relevant search results to address the user's query. For example, if the original query is "how to fix a lawn that's full of weeds", fan-out queries might include "best herbicides for lawns", "remove weeds without chemicals", and "how to prevent weeds in lawn".
Creating content that people find unique, compelling, and useful will likely influence your website's presence in generative AI search in the long run more than any other suggestion. Content like this generally shares some common attributes:
- Providing a unique point of view: AI systems take a look at a variety of sources, so it can be helpful to have a unique viewpoint that stands out. A first-hand review provides a unique perspective based on personal experience, whereas a summary of existing content simply restates information already available elsewhere. Create the content yourself based on what you know about the topic. Don't just recycle what others on the internet have already said, or could easily be produced by a generative AI model.
- Creating non-commodity content that's helpful, reliable, and people-first: Commodity content (for example, "7 Tips for First-Time Homebuyers") is often based on common knowledge, which could originate from anyone, and typically adds little unique insight. In contrast, non-commodity content (such as "Why We Waived the Inspection & Saved Money: A Look Inside the Sewer Line") provides unique expert or experienced takes that go beyond common knowledge and the ordinary.
- Organizing content in a way that helps your readers: Write content for your human audience and make sure it is well written and easy to follow. People generally appreciate it when web pages are organized by paragraphs and sections, along with headings that provide a clear structure.
- Add high-quality images and video: Google's generative AI search features can bring in relevant images and video, which means more opportunities for your website to appear beyond web page links. When it makes sense, support your textual content with high-quality, relevant images and videos.
- Focus on what your users want, and avoid overdoing it: Creating separate content for every possible variation of how people might search primarily to manipulate rankings violates Google's scaled content abuse spam policy. A high quantity of pages doesn't make a website higher quality or more relevant to users.
- If you're using generative AI tools to assist in content creation, ensure your work meets the standards of the Search Essentials and Google's spam policies.
The way Google Search finds and processes your pages remains the core of how AI systems access your data. Technical clarity ensures your content is ready for discovery and indexing.
- Meet the Search technical requirements: To be eligible to be shown in generative AI features on Google Search, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, fulfilling the Search technical requirements.
- Follow crawling best practices: To maximize your site's visibility in generative AI search features, ensure your content is crawlable. Google Search generative AI models use publicly accessible, crawlable content to learn patterns and provide relevant, grounded responses.
- When it comes to semantic HTML, focus on human readability: While perfectly semantic HTML isn't required, it's generally a good idea to use semantic HTML when possible, as it helps screen readers and AI agents parse and navigate your web page more easily.
- If you're using JavaScript, follow JavaScript SEO best practices: Google is able to process content within JavaScript as long as it isn't blocked. That said, working on SEO with a JavaScript framework is generally more complex. Make sure to follow the usual JavaScript SEO best practices.
- Provide a good page experience for those who arrive at your site. This includes ensuring your site displays well across all devices, reducing latency, and making it easy for people to distinguish your main content from other elements on the page.
- Reduce duplicate content: Duplicate content can be a bad user experience and search engines might waste crawling resources on URLs you don't care about.
Where appropriate, generative AI responses can include product listings, product information, and information about local businesses. Using Google Merchant Center and Google Business Profiles can help your products and services be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results.
Many suggested "AEO/GEO hacks" aren't effective or supported by how Google Search actually works. Here are things you can ignore for Google Search:
- LLMS.txt files and other "special" markup: You don't need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in generative AI search.
- "Chunking" content: There's no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces for AI to better understand it. Google's systems can understand the nuance of multiple topics on a page. Make pages for your audience, not just for generative AI search.
- Rewriting content just for AI systems: You don't need to write in a specific way just for generative AI search. AI systems can understand synonyms and general meanings of what someone is seeking.
- Seeking inauthentic "mentions": Our core ranking systems focus on high-quality content while other systems block spam. Seeking inauthentic mentions across the web isn't as helpful as it might seem.
- Overfocusing on structured data: Structured data isn't required for generative AI search, and there's no special schema.org markup you need to add. However, continue using it as part of your overall SEO strategy.
AI agents are autonomous systems that can perform tasks on behalf of people, such as booking a reservation or comparing product specifications. Browser agents may access your website to gather data by analyzing visual renderings, inspecting the DOM structure, and interpreting the accessibility tree.
Check out Google's guide to agent-friendly website best practices to understand how a website can generally prepare for current browser agents.
AI Optimization Strategies: Getting Started
AI Optimization is different from SEO, because AI engines don't just "rank" websites, they "extract" information from websites to build an answer.
Here are 7 things you can do today to make your content more easily extractable for AI and get started with AI visibility.
This is related to GEO strategies about making content "chunkable", and more easily AI parsable. How I see it, AI models can understand and parse content well enough, without needing any special adjustment. I'd look at this from a common sense POV.
Is this helpful to your audience who is reading it? Would Betty immediately understand what your content is trying to say? Would a layperson who is not a subject matter expert get it?
The point is to not bury your main points or use technical jargon.
Here are some tips:
- Break long articles into short, self-contained sections that focus on a single idea.
- Each section should be "extractable," meaning it makes sense even if an AI bot pulls it out of the original page. This apparently prevents cognitive overload, making it much easier for users (or AI models) to scan, read, and process information.
Use this prompt to ask AI to improve your content paragraphs:
You are an expert AI content optimizer. Review the text below and rewrite it into short, self-contained, atomic blocks. 1. Break long paragraphs into short sections. 2. Ensure each section focuses on only ONE single idea. 3. Use short paragraphs, add headings and bullet points to make it easy to scan. 4. Do not use vague pronouns like "this" or "it" when referring to main concepts; name the concept directly. Do not use phrases like "as mentioned above" or "in the next step." 5. Keep the original meaning and tone, but cut out any fluff. Here is the text to optimize: [PASTE YOUR TEXT HERE]
Use H2s and H3s phrased as questions (e.g., "How much does a web designer cost in 2025?") followed immediately by a concise 2-3 sentence direct answer.
Question as Heading: Write questions as H2s or H3s (e.g., "How does creatine affect muscle growth?" instead of just "Creatine Benefits").
Use clear sentences with the main point upfront, (e.g., "AEO is...") rather than rhetorical or ambiguous language.
Edit the text below to make it clear and easy to read. 1. Write in the active voice. 2. Keep sentences under 20 words whenever possible. 3. Use basic, everyday words and avoid technical jargon. Here is my text: [Paste your text here]
Implement Schema Markup on relevant pages. (FAQ, HowTo, and Product schema) so the AI can identify and parse the meaning of your data.
Most website platforms can support schema implementation automatically. For example, on WordPress, using Yoast, you can implement schema for specific page types with one-click.
Structure helps your content become more machine-readable. This means formatting some parts of your content with tables, lists (ordered/numbered lists), and TL;DR/Section takeaways which are short summaries at the start or end of the article.
Based on our research, we've seen AI citations and traffic to case study pages, in-depth comparison and roundup posts / listicles. These appear to be highly citable content formats with AI, and they work well to drive Google organic traffic, too.
- Original case study: Helpful content update impact: Case study from an 80K traffic website
- In-depth comparison posts: Product A vs Product B, Pros and Cons for...
- In-depth roundup post / listicle: Best 12 Semrush alternatives to consider, Best tools for...
AI tools favor unique, comprehensive content that they can reliably reference and cite in their answers.
With AI Overviews and AI Mode, ranking in the first 1-3 pages on Google increases your chances of getting cited in the AI answer.
Google's AI models primarily "scrape" the top-ranking results to synthesize their summaries. Beyond ranking in the top 10 classic blue links, getting the citation links in the AI summary box will be critical to drive clicks.
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