AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, Claude and Perplexity copy chunks of the open web, weigh them, and weave replies in real time.

They reward sites that are fast, clear and machine‑readable.

Use the steps below as a living checklist and revisit it each quarter.

1. Allow GPTBot, Bingbot & other AI crawlers

If an AI crawler cannot fetch your HTML, it will never cite you. Open the gate in robots.txt:

You can use Airefs to check if actual AI crawlers and bots crawl your page.

2. Index content ASAP

LLM‑powered results surface fresher pages first. Push every new or updated URL to IndexNow, Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Example:

This pings IndexNow within seconds of deploy.

3. Use a clean URL path

Tokens matter. Shallow, readable URLs waste fewer tokens and tell the bot what the page is about.

Example: /blog/ai-search/technical-setup → good. /index.php?id=1234&cat=9 → bad.

4. Serve server‑side rendered or static HTML

Several AI crawlers skip JavaScript. Provide HTML they can parse immediately.

5. Serve content fast

Slow pages drop out of the training set. Target <1 s TTFB and <2 s LCP.

Example: Deploy to a global edge (Cloudflare, Fastly), defer non-critical JS and lazy‑load images with <img loading="lazy" ...>.

6. Add structured data

Schema.org markup turns prose into machine‑ready facts. For blog posts use Article, for Q&A sections, use FAQPage/ Question/ Answer , etc.

Example:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "10 Technical SEO Steps to Maximise Visibility in AI Search",
  "datePublished": "2025-06-26",
  "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Your Name" }
}
</script>

7. Implement hreflang and regional tags

Provide localized version of your content with hreflang.

Example:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="https://yoursite.com/uk/article" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="https://yoursite.com/us/article" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://yoursite.com/article" />

8. Keep an up-to-date sitemap.xml and llms.txt

List every indexable URL for both classic and AI crawlers. Learn more about llms.txt.

Example llms.txt:

9. Implement crawl priorities

Guide crawlers to spend time on valuable pages with priority.

Example sitemap entry:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/product/widget-3000</loc>
  <priority>1.0</priority>
</url>

Thin pages can be noindex, nofollow.

10. Secure everything (HTTPS, HSTS)

Security signals quality to bots and users alike. Enforce HTTPS and HSTS site‑wide and audit for mixed‑content leaks.

Wrap‑up

The reality is simple: AI engines want the same thing we've always valued – fast, clean, helpful content.

Get these foundations right and you'll see your content getting cited more often.