The short answer
- Retrieval systems like AI Overviews and Perplexity weigh your opening heavily: the answer belongs in the first 200 words.
- Quotable means: one paragraph that stands on its own, with a concrete fact and a clear source.
- Say something the rest do not; summarised internet does not get summarised again.
- The build underneath stays classic craft: clear headings, clean HTML, facts that hold.
The quotability test
Take the most important page of your site and tick what is true for the first 200 words.
How an AI answer comes together
Behind every AI answer sits the same pattern: the system fans your question out into sub-questions, pulls up candidate pages and builds the answer from the passages that cover the question most directly. Whoever delivers the most usable passage becomes the source.
That explains a shift researchers are measuring widely this year: the sources in AI answers overlap ever less with the classic top of Google. Ranking well gets you onto the candidate list; being cited you win with the passage itself.
So the opening of your page is no longer a warm-up. It is your application for the answer slot.
The AI does not cite pages. It cites paragraphs. Write that paragraph.
The anatomy of a quotable opening
Start with the answer in one paragraph that reads on its own: subject named, question answered, without references to anything still to come. Exactly like the short answer at the top of this article.
Put an own fact into it: a date, a measurement, an experience from practice. Facts give the system a reason to take your version instead of the ten paraphrases next to it.
And make the source visible: who writes this, from what experience. Demonstrable expertise weighs heavily, and AI systems lean on those same signals.
What has to come after the opening
The rest of the page proves the opening: elaboration with clear headings, real examples, and a structure that is readable without scripts. Question-and-answer blocks like a good FAQ match how people ask assistants things.
Do not forget the classic base. Internal links that carry the topic, correct structured data, and load time without ballast: it stays the same foundation, with a new roof on it.
Now do the test above with your most important page. Seven ticks are no promise of citations, but fewer than four are a promise of invisibility.
Frequently asked questions
Does every page need such an answer block?
Every page that answers a question does, and that is more than you think. A service page answers a question too: what is this, for whom and why here.
Does this work differently for ChatGPT than for Google?
The accents differ per system, the principle does not: direct answer, own facts, clear source. Whoever builds on that stands better in every system.
Does this not come at the cost of my writing style?
No. Putting the answer up front is simply good writing; newspapers have done it for a century. Your voice sits in how you say it, not in how long you circle around it.
Is your opening ready to be quoted?
Send the page you expect the most from. We rewrite the first 200 words as a trial, so you see the difference in black and white.