How to optimize your website for AI search: a checklist

People now ask AI tools the questions they used to type into Google: “Who builds websites for manufacturers in Illinois?”, “What should website maintenance include?”, “Is WordPress good for a law firm?” The answer they get may name a few businesses and link to a few pages. Being one of them is the new version of ranking on page one.

We see it in our own analytics too. Visits from ChatGPT and Perplexity are still a small share of the total, but they have started to arrive. This checklist covers what you can do about it today.

What “AI search” means

AI search covers any tool that answers a question in its own words and cites web pages as sources. The main ones today:

• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, which appear inside Google Search.
• ChatGPT search, when ChatGPT looks things up on the web.
• Perplexity, an answer engine built on web search.
• Microsoft Copilot, which draws on Bing.

You’ll also hear the work called GEO (generative engine optimization) or AEO (answer engine optimization). The names are new, but the work underneath is mostly the same.

Google says there’s no special trick

Google’s guidance on AI features and your website is clear: there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, no special structured data and no new files to add. A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet in normal search. Everything else is the same SEO fundamentals: crawlable pages, good internal links, a good page experience, important content in text, and structured data that matches what’s on the page.

So if your site is weak in ordinary search, start there. Our guide to Google rankings and SEO covers the basics.

1. Let the AI crawlers in

AI tools can only cite pages their crawlers can reach. Check your robots.txt file and any bot protection on your hosting or CDN, because some security settings block these crawlers by default.

• Googlebot crawls for Google Search, including AI Overviews. Google’s robots.txt guide explains the rules.
• OAI-SearchBot is how ChatGPT search finds pages. OpenAI’s crawler documentation says sites that block it won’t be shown in ChatGPT search answers.
• PerplexityBot finds pages for Perplexity’s answers. Perplexity recommends allowing it if you want to appear.
• Bingbot crawls for Bing, which Copilot uses. Bing Webmaster Tools shows how Bing sees your site.

Training is a separate choice. OpenAI’s GPTBot and Google’s Google-Extended setting control whether your content may be used to train AI models. You can block those and still allow the search crawlers. Google says Google-Extended doesn’t affect your inclusion or ranking in Google Search.

2. Make sure your pages can be indexed and quoted

• Check indexing. Search Console’s Page indexing report shows which pages Google has and hasn’t indexed, and why.
• Put the important words in text. Answers buried in images, PDFs or videos without transcripts are harder for any tool to use.
• Watch your snippet settings. Settings such as nosnippet stop Google from quoting a page, and that includes AI features.
• Keep pages fast. A page that times out for a crawler may as well not exist.

3. Answer the questions buyers ask, in plain words

AI tools answer questions, so pages that answer questions clearly are easier to cite. For each important question:

• Give it a page or a clear section, with the question, or close to it, as the heading.
• Put the short answer first, then the detail, the way this guide starts.
• Be specific: who you serve, where, what is included, what it depends on, and how long it takes.
• Use the words your buyers use. Search Console’s Performance report lists the searches that already find you, and your sales emails are full of the rest.

Service pages matter as much as blog posts. If someone asks for “a WordPress developer who can take over an existing site”, the page that says plainly that you do exactly that has the best chance.

4. Show who you are and why you’re credible

Google’s guide to helpful, reliable, people-first content asks whether it’s clear who wrote a page and whether they know the subject well. AI answers lean on the same signals.

• An About page with real people, real roles and a real address.
• Case studies that describe the actual work and its results.
• Reviews on Google and independent sites, linked from your own site.
• Original information: your own process, examples and data, not a rewrite of what everyone else says.

5. Keep your business details the same everywhere

AI tools cross-check facts about a business from many sources. If your name, address, phone number or list of services differ between your website, your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, Bing Places and review sites, the tools have less reason to trust any of them.

Pick one version of each detail and use it everywhere. Update every profile when something changes. For local searches, Google says its results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, and a complete, accurate profile helps with all three.

6. Add structured data that matches the page

Structured data is a short block of code that labels the facts on a page: your business name and address, an article’s author and date, a product’s price. Google says you don’t need special markup for AI features, but it does ask that structured data matches the visible text. Our guide to structured data explains how it works.

7. Earn mentions on sites AI tools already trust

An AI answer about “the best web design companies in Chicago” draws on more than your own website. It reads directories, review sites, local news, industry associations and other businesses’ sites. You can’t buy your way in, but you can:

• keep your profiles on review sites complete and ask happy clients for reviews;
• join and get listed by the associations in your industry;
• ask partners and clients to credit and link to you where it’s natural;
• share useful knowledge in places your buyers read.

8. Measure what you can

• Search Console includes visits from Google’s AI features in its normal web search totals, so watch the Performance report as usual.
• Analytics shows visits referred from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sources.
• Ask new enquiries how they found you. Many people read an AI answer, then search for your name.
• Check the questions yourself every month or two: ask the main AI tools what your buyers would ask, and note who they name.

What not to bother with

• Special AI files and markup for Google. Google says you don’t need new machine-readable files or special schema.org markup to appear in its AI features.
• Mass-produced pages. Publishing hundreds of thin, AI-written pages to catch every question is what Google’s spam policies call scaled content abuse. Fewer, better pages win.
• Keyword stuffing. AI tools read for meaning. Repeating a phrase doesn’t make a page more useful.

Questions we hear

Is optimizing for AI search different from SEO?

Mostly no. The foundations are the same: crawlable, fast pages that answer real questions and come from a business people can verify. AI search puts more weight on clear answers and on what other sites say about you.

Should we block AI crawlers?

Block the training crawlers if you don’t want your content used to train AI models. Allow the search crawlers, such as Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, if you want to appear in AI answers. They are separate settings.

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?

OpenAI and Perplexity both say changes to robots.txt can take around a day to be picked up. Being cited takes longer and depends on the same things as ranking in Google: useful pages and a trusted name. Think in months, not days.

How did ChatGPT change search?

We wrote about that when ChatGPT first arrived, in how ChatGPT and other generative AI are changing search. This guide is the practical follow-up.

Want to be found in AI answers?

We build websites that search engines and AI tools can read easily: fast pages, clean code, structured data and pages that answer what buyers ask. See our SEO and AI search work, or configure your website and get a quote.