The AEO Checklist Every Site Needs
Most teams want a list. So here is one. Twelve items, in priority order, that move the needle on whether AI engines cite your site. None of these require a redesign or a new agency. They are configuration changes, schema additions, and copy adjustments that you can finish in a couple of working sessions if you have a developer on call. Where a step is technical, we link to a deeper guide. Where it is editorial, we give you the rule and an example.
Crawler access and discovery
Start at the front door. Open your robots.txt and confirm that GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and Applebot-Extended are not blocked. Many sites have inherited rules from 2023 that explicitly ban these crawlers by name. Remove those rules. Next, add an llms.txt file at the root of your domain. This is a short plain-text manifest that gives AI crawlers a fast summary of who you are and what pages matter. Finally, submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and to Bing. If you do not have a sitemap, generate one. The crawler will not guess your URLs.
Structured data foundations
Add Organization JSON-LD to your homepage. At minimum: name, url, logo, description, and sameAs links pointing to your verified profiles on LinkedIn, X, and Crunchbase. Add FAQPage schema on any page that has a real question-and-answer block. Add LocalBusiness schema if you have a physical address and serve local customers. Add Product schema if you sell products. Validate everything in Google's Rich Results test before you ship. Broken schema is worse than no schema because it tells AI engines you tried and failed.
Entity clarity that AI can resolve
AI engines need to be confident that the business they are reading about is one specific entity. That means your name, address, phone number, and business category should be consistent everywhere you appear online. Audit your Google Business Profile, your social handles, and any directory listings you have. If your name is spelled three different ways across the web, fix that first. Add an About page that names your founder, your founding year, your office address, and the work you do. AI engines treat About pages as the canonical source of brand identity.
Content patterns AI engines actually use
Lead with the answer, then explain. The first sentence under any heading should answer the obvious question. The next two or three sentences justify it. Avoid hedging like "it depends" without giving the if-then. Use real numbers, names, and dates wherever you have them. Add an FAQ section to your most important pages and write the answers in complete sentences rather than fragments. AI engines extract whole sentences for citation. Fragments rarely get pulled.
Trust signals AI can verify
Add a byline with a real person's name and credentials on any content piece. Link the byline to an Author schema entity. If you have certifications, awards, or press mentions, list them with dates and links you can verify. Display your customer review aggregate (AggregateRating schema) if you have at least a few dozen real reviews. Do not invent any of this. AI engines and Google's quality teams cross check claims against the open web. Made up testimonials and inflated review counts will hurt you, not help.
Verify with a free audit
Once you have shipped the list above, run the free Engagemii AEO scorer. It evaluates your site across six categories and returns a score out of 10 with a per-issue fix list. Aim for 7 or higher. Most sites enter the audit at a 3 or 4 and reach 7 after a focused week of work. The audit is at engagemii.com/aeo. Re-run it monthly. AEO is not a one-time setup. AI bot priorities shift, and your score should be tracked the way you track Core Web Vitals.
Ready to improve your AI visibility?
Run a free audit and get your score across 6 AEO categories.
Run the free AEO audit