To optimize for generative search, do eight things in order: let the AI crawlers in, make sure your pages render as plain HTML, answer each page’s question in its first 60 words, replace vague claims with specific facts, make your business information identical everywhere, add structured data, earn mentions from sources that are not you, and track mentions the way you track rankings. None of it is exotic. Most of it is housekeeping that was optional for Google and is not optional for an engine that has to decide whether to quote you.
This is the working list we use. For the why behind it, read how generative engine optimization works first.
1. Open the door to the AI crawlers
Check robots.txt for the user agents the engines use: GPTBot, ChatGPT-User and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User (Anthropic), PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, and Bingbot, which feeds Copilot. Then check the places that block without telling you: Cloudflare’s bot settings, the security plugin, the hosting firewall. A country-level challenge rule can block crawlers that run from outside the United States. If a crawler cannot fetch the page, nothing else on this list matters.
Publish an llms.txt file at the root of the site: a plain-text summary of who you are, what you do and where your key pages are. It is a proposed standard rather than a confirmed input to the big engines, but it costs an hour and gives any crawler a clean map. Ours is at spectruss.com/llms.txt.
2. Put the content in the HTML
Some crawlers do not run JavaScript. If your headline, your service list or your numbers are injected by a script after the page loads, the engine sees a blank. View the page source, not the rendered page, and make sure the words are there. Animated counters that start at zero are a common trap: the crawler reads “0 clients”.
3. Answer first, then earn the rest
Every page and post has a question it exists to answer. Put the answer in the first 60 words, as a complete sentence a stranger could quote. Then use the rest of the page to earn it with detail. Headings should be the questions people actually ask, and the first sentence under each heading should answer it. If a section needs 300 words of context before it says anything, cut the context or move it down.
A test: paste the first paragraph of your service page into a chat and ask “what does this company do and for whom?” If the model has to guess, rewrite.
4. Replace claims with facts
Engines cite specifics. “Award-winning, full-service, results-driven” gives a model nothing to repeat. “Founded in 2012 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. More than 250 companies. Two Silver ADDYs. Took Basement and Crawlspace Solutions from #8 to #1 in under 12 months with 317% more conversions” gives it five things. Go through every page and swap each adjective for a number, a name, a date or a place. Where you cannot, delete the adjective.
Write the business facts in the third person at least once per page, with the name attached, so the passage still makes sense when it leaves the page: “Spectruss is a marketing and advertising company in Chattanooga” survives being quoted. “We are a marketing company” does not.
5. Make the facts identical everywhere
List every place your business appears: Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, Clutch, industry directories, the chamber of commerce, old press releases. Check the name, address, phone, website, category, hours and description on each. Fix every mismatch. An engine that finds two addresses treats both as doubtful and quotes the competitor with one. This is tedious, and it is the step with the fastest payoff for local businesses.
6. Add structured data
Schema markup turns the facts on a page into fields a machine reads without inference. The ones that matter for most businesses: Organization (name, founding date, address, sameAs links to your profiles), LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService for each office, Service for each thing you sell, FAQPage where you answer questions, Article for posts with an author and date, and Person for the people whose expertise you are claiming. Keep it honest: schema that says something the page does not say is ignored at best.
7. Earn proof from sources that are not you
Engines cite the sources other sources cite. Your own site is one voice. Reviews on Google and the industry review sites, a client naming you in their case study, a podcast appearance, a local news story, a trade article, a speaking slot, an award listing: each is an independent page that says the same thing about you, and each is a page an engine can retrieve and quote. Pick a target, ten new independent mentions a quarter is realistic for most companies, and work the list.
8. Track mentions, not just rankings
Write down the ten questions a buyer would ask before hiring you. Once a month, ask each engine each question and record whether you are named, whether you are cited, and who else is. Google Search Console reports impressions from AI features in Search; Bing Webmaster Tools reports Copilot citations and which pages earned them. Add “how did you hear about us” to every lead form with “an AI assistant” as an option, because a share of generative traffic never clicks and shows up only as a phone call that already knows your name.
What to expect, and when
Steps 1, 2 and 5 can change what an engine says about you within weeks, because the engines retrieve live. Steps 3, 4 and 6 improve how often you are quoted for questions you already appear for. Step 7 is what moves you into answers for competitive questions, and it takes months, the same way links do in SEO. If the mention count climbs before the traffic does, that is the normal order.
Where to start today
Run the free GEO scan; it covers steps 1, 2 and 6 in about a minute. Then read what to include in a GEO audit for the full checklist. If you would rather hand it over, the work is SEO and GEO at Spectruss, and the overview is in our generative engine optimization guide.