Founded by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence that can chat with users, answer follow-up questions and challenge incorrect assumptions. Image credit: OpenAI
By Mike Ford
In traditional SEO, the playbook was clear: write for humans, optimize for Google. You chased rankings with keywords, backlinks and clean technical setup. If you landed on search page one, you’d get the clicks.
AI search doesn’t work that way.
Tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s SGE don’t rank your content. They use it by scanning trusted sources, lifting key details and weaving them into a single answer.
That means your content now has a second audience: the machine itself. And machines don’t “read” like humans. They scan for facts, structure and clarity that they can drop directly into a response.
This is the new skill: AI-citability, making your content easy for an AI to find, trust and quote.
If your content makes the model work too hard, it’ll simply choose a competitor who makes its job easier.
Why AI-citability matters
When an AI assistant builds an answer, it isn’t browsing your entire site. It’s looking for:
- Direct, concise answers to the prompt
- Structured, easy-to-parse information
- Multiple confirming sources that repeat the same key facts
- Content on trusted, reputable sites
If you bury your answer in a long intro, use vague language or scatter your facts across multiple pages, you’re creating friction. Friction leads to invisibility.
AI models are trained to surface the clearest, most consistent, most supported information they can find.
Mike Ford
Three pillars of AI-citable content
Structure: Make it easy to extract
An AI model can’t guess where your answer is hiding. It relies on page elements that signal what matters.
- Lead with the answer in the first paragraph.
- Use clear headings that map to likely prompts.
- Break down details in bullet points or tables.
- Include FAQ sections that literally mirror the questions people ask.
Think of your content as a buffet for the AI: neatly labeled, portioned out and ready to grab.
- Social: Be where AI scans
Large-language models (LLM) rely heavily on earned sources to validate information. That means your facts, claims, and positioning should be echoed on:
- Third-party review sites (Trustpilot, G2, niche review blogs)
- Reddit and Quora threads
- YouTube videos and walkthroughs
- Industry publications and news sites
The more your message is repeated across reputable sources, the more likely the AI is to view it as reliable and, therefore, use it.
- Signals: Build trust and authority
LLMs learn which domains to trust from patterns in their training and retrieval data. You can strengthen your signals by:
- Earning backlinks from high-authority domains.
- Maintaining accurate, consistent business profiles (Google Business, Wikipedia, etc.).
- Using schema markup (FAQ, HowTo, Product) to add machine-readable context.
- Publishing original data, stats, or case studies that others cite.
Trust is cumulative. Every mention, citation and backlink reinforces a credible source.
Common AI-citability mistakes to avoid
- Long, fluffy introductions: If your key facts are buried under 300 words of storytelling, the AI might never see them. Lead with the answer, then add context.
- Overly promotional language: World’s best, revolutionary, game-changing … These mean nothing to AI assistants that favor objective, fact-based statements they can repeat without bias.
- Burying details in images or PDFs: If your specs only exist in a graphic or a PDF download, there’s a good chance they’re invisible to the AI. Put critical data in HTML text where it can be parsed.
- Inconsistent facts: If your pricing, features or product names vary across your site, press releases and partner listings, you send mixed signals. Models will favor competitors with cleaner, consistent data.
AI rewards are easy to lift. Strip out the friction and your chances of being cited go way up.
Making AI-citability part of your process
AI-citability isn’t just a content tactic, it’s a mindset shift. You’re no longer just asking, “Will this rank?” You’re asking:
- Can an AI lift this answer in seconds?
- Would the same fact appear in other trusted places online?
- Is my content presented in a way that builds trust and supports a clear recommendation?
By embedding these questions into your content process, you make every page more likely to surface in AI answers, without sacrificing human readability.
Mike Ford is founder/CEO of Skydeo, Austin, Texas. Reach him at [email protected].