Free Resources
The Complete AI SEO Checklist
30+ steps to get your site cited and recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Work through the master checklist below, or jump to a focused checklist for a specific task.
This is the master AI search optimisation checklist we work through with clients. It covers everything that determines whether an AI assistant can find, understand, trust, and cite your content. Start at the top — the order is roughly by impact. Once the basics are in place, measure progress with our AI visibility metrics & KPIs.
1. AI crawler access
Allow GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended in robots.txt
Confirm key pages return 200 and full HTML without requiring JavaScript to render core content
Check server logs to verify AI crawlers are actually fetching your pages
Publish an llms.txt file summarising your most important pages for AI systems
2. Content structure for AI
Lead each page with a direct, self-contained answer in the first 1–2 sentences
Use descriptive H2/H3 headings phrased as the questions users actually ask
Write standalone passages — each section should make sense if quoted in isolation
Add a concise FAQ section answering the real questions in your category
Include specific facts, numbers, and dates rather than vague claims AI can't cite
3. Structured data
Add Organization and WebSite schema sitewide
Add FAQPage schema to pages with question-and-answer content
Add Article/BlogPosting schema with author and datePublished on editorial content
Add Breadcrumb schema to reinforce site hierarchy
Validate every schema with Google's Rich Results Test
4. Entity & authority signals
Define your brand as a clear entity — consistent name, description, and sameAs links
Earn mentions on third-party sites AI systems already trust (industry press, directories, Wikipedia where eligible)
Show real author expertise with bylines, bios, and credentials (E-E-A-T)
Keep cornerstone pages current — AI systems down-rank stale information
5. Technical foundation
Ensure fast Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) on mobile and desktop
Use clean, canonical URLs and avoid duplicate/near-duplicate pages
Keep an accurate XML sitemap and submit it in Search Console
Fix crawl errors, broken links, and redirect chains
6. Measure & iterate
Define a prompt set and test whether AI assistants cite and recommend you
Track AI citation rate, share of voice, and recommendation rate monthly
Monitor AI crawler frequency in server logs
Re-run the checklist quarterly as AI models and guidelines change
Focused checklists
Deeper, task-specific checklists for individual parts of AI SEO.
AI SEO Audit Checklist
A comprehensive checklist to audit your website's visibility to AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
ChatGPT Optimization Checklist
Step-by-step checklist to optimize your website for discovery and citation by ChatGPT and OpenAI's AI systems.
Structured Data Implementation Checklist
Complete checklist for implementing structured data (JSON-LD) to improve how AI systems understand your content.
Programmatic SEO Launch Checklist
Pre-launch and post-launch checklist for deploying programmatic SEO pages at scale.
AI Content Optimization Checklist
Checklist for creating and optimizing content that AI systems can easily understand, cite, and recommend.
Robots.txt for AI Crawlers Checklist
Complete checklist for configuring your robots.txt file to allow AI crawlers while maintaining control.
Why Use These Checklists?
AI search optimization can be overwhelming. These checklists break it down into actionable steps you can complete one by one.
Actionable
Every item is a specific task you can complete
Prioritized
Tasks ordered by impact so you start with what matters
Comprehensive
Cover all aspects of AI SEO optimization
AI SEO checklist FAQs
What is an AI SEO checklist?
An AI SEO checklist is a step-by-step list of the technical, content, and authority tasks that make a website visible in AI-generated answers — being cited and recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and similar assistants. It extends traditional SEO with crawler access for AI bots, passage-level content structure, structured data, and entity/authority signals.
How is AI SEO different from traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO optimises for ranking positions in a list of links. AI SEO (sometimes called GEO, generative engine optimisation) optimises for being cited inside a generated answer. The fundamentals overlap — crawlable HTML, fast pages, clean structure — but AI SEO adds explicit access for AI crawlers, self-contained answer passages, heavier structured data, and entity authority so models can confidently quote you.
Which AI crawlers should I allow?
At minimum allow GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI/ChatGPT), ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), and Google-Extended (Gemini and AI Overviews). Blocking them in robots.txt is the most common reason a site never appears in AI answers.
How long does AI SEO take to show results?
Technical fixes like unblocking AI crawlers and adding structured data can be reflected within days to a few weeks as crawlers re-index. Authority and citation gains — earning consistent mentions across AI platforms — typically take two to three months of sustained work, since AI retrieval indexes update on their own cadence.