How to get your business cited by AI assistants
Apr 18, 2026 8 min read
What changes when the answer is written by an assistant instead of clicked from a list, and the page structure that makes yours the source it quotes.
Short answer
Assistants quote passages, not pages. To be cited, answer the question directly in the first two or three sentences, use the question itself as a heading, keep each answer self-contained, and publish specifics — numbers, formulas, named steps — rather than general advice. Structured data and a crawlable site make the passage findable; the passage itself is what gets quoted.
Somewhere in the last two years the job changed and a lot of sites have not noticed. When the result is a written answer rather than ten blue links, ranking only gets you into the room. Being quotable is what gets you named — and a page can rank beautifully while being completely unquotable, which is the modern version of being on page two.
Write the answer first
Put a direct, complete answer in the opening lines under the heading that matches the question. Assistants extract passages, and a passage that only makes sense after three paragraphs of preamble cannot be lifted.
Make every section self-contained
Each section should stand alone without the ones above it. That is unusual for essay writing and essential for extraction.
Be specific enough to be worth quoting
Numbers, formulas, named steps, explicit trade-offs. Generic advice is already in the model's weights; a specific figure with a stated source is not, and that is what gets attributed.
Use the question as the heading
Headings phrased exactly as people ask make the match obvious. An FAQ section with real questions and complete answers is the single highest-leverage block on most pages.
The mechanics still matter
Be crawlable, render content server-side, mark up FAQs and articles with structured data, and keep the page fast. None of it makes you quotable, but all of it makes you eligible.
What not to do
Do not write pages whose only purpose is to be scraped by an assistant. Thin, templated content at scale is exactly what both search engines and assistants are getting better at discounting.
What changes when the answer is written, not clicked
| Classic search | Assistant answer | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of value | The page | The passage |
| Wins by | Ranking | Being quotable |
| Rewards | Depth and authority | Specificity and self-containment |
| Punishes | Thin pages | Preamble before the answer |
The checklist
- Answer in the first two or three sentences, under a heading that matches the question
- Make every section stand alone without the ones above it
- Publish specifics — numbers, formulas, named steps — not general advice
- Phrase headings the way people actually ask
- Serve server-rendered HTML, mark up FAQs and articles, keep it fast
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my website cited by ChatGPT or Perplexity?
Publish specific, self-contained answers under headings phrased the way people ask, put the answer in the first two or three sentences, and make the page crawlable with server-rendered content and FAQ structured data.
Does SEO still matter for AI search?
Yes. Assistants draw on indexed content, so crawlability, structure and authority still determine whether you are in the candidate set. What changes is that being quotable now matters as much as ranking.
What content gets quoted by AI assistants?
Passages containing specifics — numbers, formulas, step lists, explicit trade-offs — that stand alone without surrounding context. Generic advice is already in the model and gets no attribution.
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