GEO checklist: how to get found by AI assistants
AI assistants now answer questions that used to be search queries. Those answers only have room for a handful of sources. This is the checklist that makes your site one of them.
GEO in eight steps: give each page one direct answer at the top, use structured data, allow AI crawlers in robots.txt, publish an llms.txt, write factually with sources, keep your business details identical everywhere, structure questions as real questions, and build authority beyond your site. None of this is magic, all of it is work.
1 · Open every topic with a direct answer
AI models prefer to cite a passage that answers the question in two or three sentences. So put a short, factual answer block at the top of every important page, what it is, who it's for, roughly what it costs, and develop the nuance afterwards. Bury the answer in paragraph seven and you won't be cited.
2 · Use structured data
Schema.org markup (Organization, Service, Article, FAQ) translates your page into a format machines understand without guessing: who you are, what you deliver, where you're based. It's no ranking magic wand, but it is the cheapest way to prevent machines from misreading you.
3 · Let AI crawlers in
Check your robots.txt: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended need explicit or implicit access. Blocking AI crawlers means choosing not to appear in AI answers, which can be a deliberate choice, but then make it deliberately.
4 · Publish an llms.txt
An llms.txt is a short, curated overview of your site in a fixed location, written for language models: who you are, your core pages, your languages. It takes an hour and gives AI systems exactly the summary you want them to use.
5 · Write factually, with sources
Models are trained to ignore vague superlatives and repeat verifiable facts. “Founded in 2014, five specialists, three languages” is citable; “your go-to partner for everything digital” is noise. Every claim with a source makes your site more trustworthy, to machines and to people.
6 · Keep your business details identical everywhere
Name, location, phone number, description: AI systems compare sources. If your site, your business profile and your listings contradict each other, trust in all three drops. Consistency is a ranking factor in the most literal sense.
7 · Structure questions as questions
People ask AI assistants full sentences: “what does it cost to have a website built?” Pages with literal question headings and compact answers map onto that perfectly. A good FAQ isn't a leftovers page, it's GEO material.
8 · Build authority beyond your own site
Models weigh how often, and in what context, your brand appears elsewhere: mentions, reviews, trade publications. On-page you control everything yourself; off-page authority has to be earned. It's the slowest item on this list, and ultimately the one that weighs most.
Want to know if your site is citable yet?
We measure where you stand on exactly these eight points and show you the fastest wins. Measured, not polished, findings with a source.
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