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, treat an llms.txt as a side issue, 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. One thing has changed: since 7 May 2026, Google no longer shows the questions that used to unfold under a search result. Since 14 September 2023 it had already shown them only for well-known government and health websites. Both are in the Google Search Central changelog (entries of 14 September 2023 and 8 May 2026). FAQ structured data still describes what is on the page; only use it for questions that appear on the page in the same words.
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 · An llms.txt: handy, not required
An llms.txt is a short overview of your site in a fixed location, written for language models: who you are, your core pages, your languages. Google does not use it, as Google itself says in its guide to AI search (updated July 2026), and other assistants rarely request it. It takes an hour and does no harm, but expect nothing from it. Your time is better spent on steps 5 and 6.
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 block of questions and answers isn't a leftovers page, it's GEO material: it helps readers and AI assistants, even now that Google no longer unfolds the questions under a search result. On the site of Sittard Taxi, such a block is on 60 of the 64 pages.
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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