AI SEO Checklist: The Items That Actually Move Citation Share

AI SEO is broad. This checklist narrows it to the items that consistently move citation share in our US engagements. Work through it in order. The earlier items gate the later ones.

Foundations: classical SEO health

AI engines retrieve from search indexes. If the foundation is broken, nothing downstream works.

• Site is indexed in Google and Bing without errors.
• Core Web Vitals on top pages: LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1.
• Sitemap submitted and current.
• Canonical URLs set correctly.
• No broken internal links or long redirect chains.
• Mobile-friendly across all primary templates.

AI readiness: bot access and llms.txt

Most US brands have at least one item wrong here. Fix this in the first week.

• robots.txt allows GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot.
• robots.txt allows ClaudeBot and Claude-Web.
• robots.txt allows PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User.
• robots.txt allows Google-Extended and Applebot-Extended.
• CDN, WAF, and bot-management rules do not silently block the above.
• Server-side rendering on marketing pages, blog content, and documentation.
• llms.txt published at the root with a curated list of priority pages.

Schema completeness

Schema is one of the most underused AI SEO levers. Each type below should be present and complete.

• Organization schema on the homepage with sameAs links to LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Wikidata.
• Article or BlogPosting schema on every editorial page (author, dates, publisher).
• Product, Service, or SoftwareApplication schema on commercial pages.
• Person schema on author and team pages.
• FAQPage schema where the page contains real Q&A content.
• HowTo schema on instructional content.
• BreadcrumbList across the site.
• All schema validates in Google Rich Results Test with no errors.

For a deeper dive, see our schema markup for AI search guide.

Content quotability

Quotable pages get cited. The patterns are consistent across engines.

• Direct answer to the page's main question in the first 100 to 150 words.
• H2 headings written as plain-language questions or claims.
• Defined entities (products, people, methods) on first mention.
• Short paragraphs of 40 to 80 words.
• Lists, comparison tables, and definition callouts where useful.
• Cited sources for any factual claim.
• Visible published and updated dates on editorial content.

Entity and authorship

Entities tell AI engines who you are and what you cover.

• Wikidata entry claimed and complete (where notability allows).
• Crunchbase, LinkedIn company page, and industry directories current.
• Real author bylines on editorial content with Person schema.
• Author bios link out to verifiable profiles (LinkedIn, institutional, credential databases).
• Consistent off-site descriptions of the brand across earned media.
• Topical clusters with strong internal linking. See our topical authority guide.

Authority and citations

Off-site signals tip competitive prompts.

• Mentions in trade publications relevant to your category.
• Original research or named frameworks published this year.
• Contributor bylines from your team in respected venues.
• Strong G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, or industry-specific review presence.
• Analyst coverage where relevant (Gartner, Forrester).

Freshness program

Stale pages lose citation share. A simple program prevents this.

• Quarterly refresh cadence for top 20 to 30 pages with material edits.
• Visible last-updated dates on every editorial page.
• Last-modified HTTP headers set correctly (many CDNs strip them).
• Active publication cadence at the domain level.

Measurement

Without measurement, every investment is a guess.

• Fixed prompt set of 30 to 100 priority questions, tracked monthly.
• Citation share by engine: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews.
• Branded prompt accuracy across LLMs.
• Referral traffic from AI engines via UTM tagging.
• Pipeline attribution where the CRM supports it.

For the deeper version of each item, see our AI search ranking factors breakdown.

AI SEO is not magic. It is a focused checklist done with care, refreshed quarterly, and measured monthly. Brands that work through this list consistently outpace competitors that chase tactics in isolation.