AI search
How do you get cited by an AI assistant?
What does it mean to be cited?
Generative engine optimization, or GEO, means being a source an AI assistant mentions when someone asks a question in your field. The assistant needs a sentence it can lift and a page it can point to.
A homepage slogan is a poor source. A page that states a concrete fact, who is saying it, and when it was updated is a better one.
Which pages are worth writing?
Write the pages that answer a buyer's question without asking them to book a call first. Service pages, definitions and short explanations of how you work are the usual set.
Keep the useful text in HTML. Text that only exists inside an image, a video or a script is easy for a person to miss and easy for an assistant to skip.
What makes a sentence quotable?
Name the thing, say what it is, and stop. “AEO means writing a page so it is the answer in search and voice results” can be quoted. “We take a holistic approach to digital” cannot.
Use the same company name, the same description and the same authors everywhere. Assistants distrust a business that describes itself three different ways.
How do you keep it current?
Put a date on articles and review the pages that carry claims. An assistant can quote an old sentence long after you have changed your mind.
Publish an llms.txt file that points to the pages you want read. It does not replace good pages. It tells a careful reader where to start.