More and more people don't type their question into Google, but ask it to ChatGPT, Gemini or the AI overview that appears above the search results. And those don't return ten blue links for you to pick from, they give one answer, with at most a few sources underneath. If you're not among them, you simply don't exist for that user. The good news: you don't have to build a separate 'AI channel'. Much of what makes you findable in AI is the same solid foundation that makes classic SEO strong, plus a few specific things. Here's what they are.
From ten links to one answer
Search is changing. Where you used to get a list of links and choose for yourself, an AI assistant now gives you one summarised answer straight away. Handy for the user, but it also means there are far fewer places to stand out.
Whoever gets to supply the answer wins the trust, and often the click too. So the goal is no longer just 'top of Google', but 'the source the AI cites'. That calls for content a machine can easily read, understand and quote with confidence.
AI reads your site literally, make sure it can
An AI crawler usually doesn't run heavy JavaScript. If your text only appears after clicking, scrolling or loading, there's a good chance the AI simply won't see it. What sits in the source as plain, readable HTML counts; the rest often doesn't.
So keep the site technically clean: content lives right in the page, with clear headings and a logical structure. Speed and a good mobile view help here too: a site that's slow or messy is harder to process.
Write answers, not brochures
AI picks the paragraph that answers a question most clearly. So name the question your customer actually asks, and give a clear answer to it right away, in plain language, no detours.
This works best when you make it concrete:
- Put frequently asked questions on your site verbatim, with a short and complete answer
- Explain jargon in a single sentence, so it can be quoted on its own
- State concrete facts: starting prices, lead times, service area, what you do and don't do
- Put the essence at the top, the nuance below, not the other way around
Make your business a recognisable entity
An AI trusts information it sees confirmed in several places. When your name, address, phone number and what you do are identical everywhere (your website, your Google Business Profile, social media and trusted directories), your business becomes a clear, recognisable entity instead of a loose piece of text.
Structured data (schema.org in the code) helps with this: it literally tells search engines and AI 'this is a business, this is the address, this is the author, this is a frequently asked question'. Invisible to the visitor, but it makes your content easier to understand and reuse.
Let the AI bots in
You can have the best content in the world, but if you lock the AI crawlers out, you won't appear in the answers. Many sites block bots like GPTBot or Google-Extended without realising it. If you want to be found in AI, you need to allow them in your robots.txt.
An extra tool is an llms.txt: a simple text file that gives AI models a clean roadmap to your most important pages and facts. It's no guarantee, but it makes it easier for the models to represent you well.
Check what the AI says about you
This channel changes fast, so treat it as something you keep an eye on, not something you set up once. Just ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity what they say about your business or field. Is it right? Are you missing? Is there outdated or wrong information?
You don't correct it in the AI itself, but through your own content: make sure the right answer is clear and findable on your site, in the places the models use. That's how you steer, step by step, how you're represented.