Every AI search engine publishes advice for site owners, and most of it agrees. None of Google, OpenAI or Microsoft asks for secret markup. A page gets quoted when it can be crawled, says plainly what it is, and answers a question in sentences an AI can lift whole.
This checklist turns that advice, and what we've measured on small business websites, into 30 checks you can run on any page. It's ordered the way a page reads, from what a crawler sees first to what sits under the page. The diagram below shows where each part goes. LovedByAI runs most of these checks automatically on WordPress sites; you can also do every one of them by hand.
How a GEO-ready page looks: the anatomy
Each callout names the source behind it: Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, or what LovedByAI's scanner checks and our own data shows. Everything on the page is ordinary HTML: a specific title, an answer at the top, question headings, facts in a table, an FAQ and a clear next step. What makes it work for AI search is that each part says one thing in plain text. The 30 checks below cover every callout, in the same top-to-bottom order.
Watch: how to rank in ChatGPT, the 14 parts walked through
Video transcript
00:00How to rank in ChatGPT (it isn't a secret tag)
You don't need a secret AI tag to rank in ChatGPT. When ChatGPT recommended a local business for a specific need, 117 times out of 135, it described that business with exactly that need.
So what does ChatGPT need from a page? LovedByAI read what the AI companies tell site owners: Google's guide to AI features, OpenAI's publisher FAQ, Microsoft's advice for Copilot, and Anthropic's crawler page.
None of them asks for special markup. What they describe is one ordinary page, done properly. Here it is: an example page for a plumber in Leeds, with 14 parts. Joe's Plumbing is made up. The parts are not.
00:45Is your site blocking OAI-SearchBot?
Start under the page, with the crawlers. ChatGPT search reads pages through OAI-SearchBot, Claude through Claude-SearchBot, and Perplexity through PerplexityBot. Your robots.txt should let all three in. GPTBot and ClaudeBot are training crawlers, which is a separate decision.
Then check what robots.txt can't show you. In LovedByAI's study of 314 live websites in August 2026, 43% refused at least one AI crawler. 112 of them refused it at the server, through a firewall or a security plugin, while robots.txt said nothing.
01:26How to write a title and H1 ChatGPT can match
Now the top of the page, which AI search reads first and quotes most. Microsoft's guidance says the title, the H1 and the description should agree. So the title tag names the service, the place and the business. Emergency plumber in Leeds, 24/7, Joe's Plumbing. Not Home.
The H1 says the same thing, in the words your customers use. Not Welcome. A page with two H1s, or none, leaves the topic for the AI to guess.
01:55How to answer the question in the first two sentences
Then the part that matters most. Answer the page's question in its first two sentences. Joe's Plumbing repairs burst pipes, leaks and boilers across Leeds, day or night. Call or book online, and an engineer comes to you. Business, service, place.
Microsoft says AI systems break a page into sections and lift answers that make sense on their own. That's why the exact words matter: burst pipe repair, not plumbing solutions. Then say who wrote the page, their credential, and when it was last updated.
02:28How to optimize for AI search with question headings and tables
Below that, write your headings as the questions customers ask. How fast can you get to me? What does a burst pipe repair include? Microsoft calls headings chapter titles. Learn more gives an AI nothing to match.
Under each heading, one short answer that stands on its own. Put the facts in a table: what each job includes, prices, hours. Facts beat adjectives. Same-day call-outs across Leeds beats fast, reliable service.
Add proof someone could check: real jobs, reviews, and photos of your own work, with alt text that says what each one shows. Write out the areas you cover, town by town. And keep all of it in the page's text. Microsoft warns that AI systems may not render hidden content, like text in an image, a PDF or a closed tab.
03:18How to add an FAQ and schema AI can read
Near the bottom, an FAQ with the follow-up questions people ask, each answer complete and already in the HTML, not loaded on click. Then one next step: Call Joe's Plumbing. And the name, address, phone number and opening hours, written as text.
The last part only machines read: structured data. LocalBusiness schema, with your name, address and same-as links to your real profiles, ties the website to the same business everywhere else. Google's rule is that it must match the visible page.
03:50How to rank in AI Overviews: what Google actually asks for
For AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google is blunt. There are no additional technical requirements. A page has to be indexed and eligible for a snippet. No new machine-readable files, no AI text files, no special markup.
What does matter sits off the page. Keep your Google Business Profile current. In the same 50-question test, on 13 October 2026, 283 of the 284 local businesses ChatGPT recommended came with a listing card or a Google Maps link.
04:22How to get recommended by ChatGPT: which pages to fix first
Which pages should you fix first? The ones ChatGPT already sends people to. Across 23,740 ChatGPT visits, from 14 September to 13 October 2026, the average service business got 42% of its ChatGPT visitors on the homepage, and 18% each on service pages and blog posts.
Online stores are different. 37% landed on product pages, and 23% on the homepage. So start with your homepage, and the pages your own data shows.
Does the work pay off? In LovedByAI's study of 108,834 pages, optimized pages earned 173.5 AI referral visits per 1,000 pages over 90 days, against 15.8 for untouched pages on the same websites. 11 times as many. But unevenly: it did nothing for thin, low-priority pages.
05:19How to track ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics
How do you know it's working? ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to its links. In Google Analytics, open the landing page report, and filter the session source to chatgpt.com. Compare the same pages before and after, over at least a month.
LovedByAI is an AI search optimization platform for small businesses. It does this on-page work across a whole WordPress site, and reports the AI mentions and AI referral visits that follow. The full checklist, 30 checks with every source, is on lovedby.ai.
GEO checklist part 1: can AI crawlers reach the page?
Nothing else on this list matters if the crawler never gets the page. Google's guidance for AI Overviews and AI Mode is blunt about it: a page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet.
- Let the AI search crawlers in. Allow OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), Claude-SearchBot (Claude), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), Googlebot and Bingbot in robots.txt. The training crawlers, GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended, are a separate decision; blocking them doesn't take you out of search answers. Sources: OpenAI's publisher FAQ, Anthropic's crawler article, Google's AI features guide.
- Check the firewall and CDN, not just robots.txt. In our study of 314 live websites in August 2026, 43% refused at least one AI crawler, and 112 of those refused it at the server while robots.txt said nothing. Your security plugin or CDN bot settings can block ChatGPT without you knowing. How to check if your site is blocking AI crawlers has the step-by-step test.
- No noindex or nosnippet on pages you want quoted. Google only uses pages that are indexed and snippet-eligible, and OpenAI uses noindex to keep pages out of ChatGPT search.
- Put the words in the HTML. Your key text and headings should be in the page source, not loaded later by scripts. Google asks site owners to keep important content available in text form.
- Answer fast. Aim for a server response under a second. Google lists page experience among its best practices for AI features.
- One URL per page. The canonical tag, the sitemap and the robots directives should all say the same thing about whether a page is indexed and which URL is the real one.
- List the page in your XML sitemap, with a real last-modified date. AI crawlers use sitemaps heavily: across 82 million crawler requests on about 1,600 WordPress sites, they requested sitemap XML 177,353 times in May 2026 alone (our llms.txt study).
GEO checklist part 2: the title, H1 and first answer
This is the part AI search reads first and quotes most. Microsoft's guidance for Copilot and Bing says titles should summarize what the page delivers and that the title, H1 and description should agree.
- A title tag that names the service, the place and the business, in about 50 to 60 characters. "Emergency Plumber in Leeds, 24/7 | Joe's Plumbing", not "Home".
- A meta description that says what you do, for whom and where, in plain words, under 160 characters.
- One H1 that matches the title. Not "Welcome!" A page with two H1s, or none, leaves the topic for the AI to guess.
- Answer the page's question in the first two sentences. Put the takeaway first, as a self-contained statement that still makes sense if it's lifted out alone. Microsoft's guidance asks for answers that are short and self-contained enough to be lifted.
- Use the words your customers use. Name the exact service and need: "burst pipe repair", not "plumbing solutions". In our test of 50 local questions on 13 October 2026, 117 of the 135 businesses ChatGPT recommended for a specific need were described with exactly that need.
- Show who wrote it and when. A named author with a relevant credential and a visible "last updated" date. Microsoft lists freshness among what its systems look for, and a date in the text is one a reader can check.
GEO checklist part 3: headings and content AI can quote
AI systems don't rank whole pages the way a results page does. Microsoft describes Copilot breaking content into sections and judging each one on whether it answers a question clearly.
- Write H2s as the questions people ask. "How much does a burst pipe repair cost?" rather than "Pricing". Microsoft calls headings "chapter titles"; vague ones like "Learn more" give nothing to match.
- One answer per section, 100 to 200 words. Open with the direct answer, then explain. Long walls of text blur ideas together.
- Facts, not adjectives. "Same-day call-outs across Leeds" beats "fast, reliable service". Microsoft's guidance warns against unanchored claims like "next-gen" and "cutting-edge".
- Tables and lists for steps and comparisons. Prices, what's included, opening hours and step-by-step instructions read best as a table or numbered list.
- Proof someone could check. Real jobs, real numbers, named clients where you're allowed, photos of your own work.
- Nothing important only in an image, a PDF or a closed tab. Microsoft notes AI systems "may not render hidden content". If you use accordions or tabs, the text still has to be in the page's HTML. Text that only appears after JavaScript runs is invisible to most AI assistants too, which is the gap dynamic bot rendering tries to fill.
- Alt text that says what each image shows. "Burst copper pipe repaired under a kitchen sink", not "IMG_4821".
- Descriptive links between related pages. "See our boiler repair prices", not "click here". Google asks for content to be findable through internal links.
- Clean HTML structure. One H1, then H2s and H3s in order, real lists and tables, and the main content inside a single
<main>element. A table of contents helps on long pages.
GEO checklist part 4: FAQ, proof and the next step
The bottom of the page answers the follow-up questions and tells the reader what to do.
- An FAQ with the follow-up questions customers actually ask, each answer complete on its own and present in the HTML, not loaded on click.
- Contact details in text: business name, address or service area, phone and opening hours, written on the page and not only inside an image or a map embed.
- One clear next step. A single call to action that says what happens: "Call Joe's Plumbing", "Book a survey".
GEO checklist part 5: schema and the invisible layer
Structured data is the part of the page only machines read. Google's rule is that it has to match the visible text, and that no special schema is required for AI features.
- Organization or LocalBusiness schema with your name, URL, logo, description, address and
sameAslinks to your real profiles (Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, Facebook). It ties your website to the same business everywhere else. - Schema for the page type, matching what's visible: Service, Product, Article or FAQPage. Microsoft's guidance recommends schema to label what a page is, such as a product, review, FAQ or event.
- Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image), so links to the page carry the right title and image wherever they're shared.
Schema is a confirmation layer, not a lever on its own. An Ahrefs study published 11 May 2026 found AI-cited pages were almost three times as likely to carry JSON-LD as uncited pages across 6 million URLs, but when 1,885 pages added JSON-LD, their AI citations over the next 30 days did not rise against matched controls (AI Overviews fell 4.6%; AI Mode and ChatGPT changed by amounts indistinguishable from zero). Add schema because it states your facts precisely, and expect the gains from the visible page.
GEO checklist part 6: beyond the page
Two checks sit off the page but decide whether the rest pays off.
- Keep your Google Business Profile and Merchant Center up to date. Google names both in its AI features guidance. ChatGPT leans on listings too: in our 50-question test on 13 October 2026, 283 of the 284 local businesses ChatGPT recommended came with a listing card or a Google Maps link.
- Track AI visits by page. ChatGPT adds
utm_source=chatgpt.comto its links, so Google Analytics 4 shows those visits in the landing page report, and Google counts AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic in Search Console under the Web search type. Watch for ChatGPT visits landing on 404s too: 36 of 4,053 did on small business websites between 30 September and 9 October 2026. If the ChatGPT numbers look too low, see why ChatGPT traffic is not showing in Google Analytics.
How to test whether ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini know your business
The checklist covers the page. These eight prompts test the result from the outside, in about twenty minutes. Fill in your real business name and city, run each one, and note where the answer is wrong, vague or missing.
| Test | Where | Prompt | A pass looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does it know you exist? | ChatGPT | "What can you tell me about [business name] in [city]?" | Your category, location and one specific detail, all correct |
| Can it say what you do? | ChatGPT | "What services does [business name] offer, and who do they work with?" | Your real services, not a generic label |
| Are you on the shortlist? | Perplexity | "What are the best [category] in [city]? Give me 3 to 5 recommendations." | Your name appears, with a cited source next to it |
| Do the facts agree? | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | "What is the address and phone number for [business name] in [city]?" | All three return the same, correct details |
| Is there third-party proof? | Perplexity | "Is [business name] in [city] reputable? What do reviews say?" | At least one external source cited, such as reviews or a directory |
| Does a specialist question find you? | ChatGPT | A question only your kind of business answers, with your city | You are named for the specialism you actually offer |
| Is the reputation answer coherent? | ChatGPT | "What do people say about working with [business name]?" | A specific, balanced answer with no hedging |
| Does a referral question resolve? | Gemini | "A friend recommended [business name]. What do they do?" | The right category, services and location |
Two more checks need no AI tool: whether AI crawlers can reach the site (part 1 above, or the free GEO checker) and whether the pages carry structured data (part 5). Fix those first, because the eight prompts cannot pass while a crawler is blocked. Rerun the same prompts monthly: answers change, and one result is a sample, not a verdict.
What Google, OpenAI and Microsoft say AI search needs
The official guidance is short, and it lines up with the checklist above.
| Source | What it says site owners should do |
|---|---|
| Google: AI features and your website | Be indexed and snippet-eligible; allow crawling in robots.txt and your CDN; keep important content in text; make structured data match the visible text; keep Merchant Center and Business Profile current. No new AI files or special markup needed. |
| OpenAI: publishers FAQ | Allow OAI-SearchBot to appear in ChatGPT search; GPTBot is the separate training crawler; noindex keeps a page out; referrals carry utm_source=chatgpt.com. |
| Microsoft: content for AI search answers | Consistent title, H1 and description; headings as chapter titles; short self-contained answers; lists and tables; schema; avoid hidden tabs, PDFs, image-only facts and vague claims. |
| Anthropic: crawlers | Claude-SearchBot indexes for search, Claude-User fetches pages for a person's question, ClaudeBot collects training data; all follow robots.txt. |
Companion pieces. The same checklist, written for different readers:
- On Medium, for business owners: SEO for AI search: what to change on a small business page, top to bottom
- On Substack, the bigger picture: GEO vs SEO: what Google, OpenAI and Microsoft actually ask of your website
- On dev.to, for developers, with a tested script: How to run a GEO audit on any URL with one Python script
- On X, the page drawn part by part: How to get cited by ChatGPT: steal this 10/10 business page
What's not on this GEO checklist, and why
- An llms.txt file as a must-have. It's cheap to keep, and LovedByAI generates one, but AI crawlers barely read it: 31 fetches by AI bots in six months across about 1,600 WordPress sites. Google says no AI text files are needed. Treat it as optional.
- "AI-only" markup. Google, OpenAI and Microsoft all describe ordinary HTML, text and schema. Nobody publishes a special tag that gets you quoted.
- Word count for its own sake. Sections that each answer one question beat a long page that circles the topic.
- Keyword stuffing. Microsoft calls it out by name in descriptions; repeating a phrase doesn't make a section easier to lift.
Which pages to run the GEO checklist on first
Start where AI search already sends people. In LovedByAI's data on 23,740 ChatGPT visits between 14 September and 13 October 2026, the average service business website got 42% of its ChatGPT visitors on the homepage and 18% each on service pages and blog posts, while online stores got 37% on product pages and 23% on the homepage (where ChatGPT referral traffic lands). Run the checklist on your homepage and your top service or product pages first.
Does the work pay off? In our 108,834-page study, optimized pages earned 173.5 AI referral visits per 1,000 pages over 90 days, against 15.8 for untouched pages on the same websites: 11 times as many. The effect was uneven, and did nothing for thin, low-priority pages.
How LovedByAI handles the GEO checklist on WordPress
LovedByAI is a generative engine optimization platform for small businesses, built around WordPress. It automates the on-page work on this list, including question headings, answer-first sections, FAQs with FAQPage schema, Organization schema and an llms.txt file, checks crawler access and robots rules, and reports AI mentions and AI referral traffic back. The parts that need you, such as proof from real jobs and keeping your Google Business Profile current, it flags rather than invents.
