Checklist
Audit your website for AI visibility
Check crawl access, business facts, answer clarity, evidence and measurement. Use a downloadable worksheet to prioritize improvements without promising AI citations.
Reviewed by Agency Pilot ·
Download the AI visibility worksheetMake important information accessible
Review the HTTP status, canonical URL and crawl directives for important pages. Put essential facts and links in the delivered HTML where possible. Identify which automated services you intend to allow and review their current documentation before changing bot rules. Access is a prerequisite for retrieval, not a guarantee that a service will use or cite the page.
Write answers that retain their evidence
State the business’s services, locations and contact details clearly. Give useful answers early and support specific claims with visible evidence. Show authorship or organizational responsibility where relevant, and date material that genuinely changes. Keep structured data aligned with visible content. Do not add fabricated ratings, citations or authority signals to imitate a competitor’s marketing.
Measure observations separately from outcomes
Choose representative queries, record the engine and collection context, and inspect mentions and sources. AI answers vary across prompts and sessions. A mention is not necessarily a recommendation, and a citation is not a sale. Use the worksheet to retain observations, proposed corrections, owners and follow-up checks so the next review has a meaningful baseline.
Sources and further reading
Frequently asked questions
Does valid schema guarantee AI citations?
No. Structured data can describe supported facts, but neither valid markup nor a completed checklist guarantees inclusion in an AI answer.
Should I create an llms.txt file?
It can serve as a readable site index, but it is not a substitute for accessible pages, internal links or a sitemap. Do not treat its presence as proof of AI discoverability.
What should I fix first?
Prioritize confirmed incorrect business facts and access problems on important pages. Then improve the clarity and evidence of answers that matter to customers.