Use this checklist to make sure your site is ready to be found and cited by the AIs, not just Google.
Getting cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity comes down to three things: being quotable, being trusted, and being readable by machines. This checklist covers all three so you are not invisible on the channel buyers increasingly use first.
Make it quotable
- Clear, self-contained answers near the top of pages
- Short paragraphs, descriptive headings and lists
- Facts stated plainly, not buried in long sentences
Build trust
- Real author names and credentials on content
- Citations and sources for any claims
- Mentions and links from trusted sites
Help the machines
- Structured data (schema) on key pages
- Accessible to the search/retrieval bots you choose, with training-bot controls reviewed separately
- An FAQ block on pages that answer common questions
Start with this: Make the main answer easy to find and support it with evidence. This improves usability, but no format guarantees snippets or citations.
Using it in practice
Run it against your highest-value pages first, the ones you most want an AI to name. Much of this overlaps with good SEO, so a page that is quotable and trusted tends to win in both Google and the AIs at once.