The AI SEO checklist for a readable site.

Key takeaways

• AI reads your site's text and markup — design, video and images don't count.
• An audit of 1,700 businesses found 88% didn't appear at all when ChatGPT was asked for a recommendation.
• The 12 signals fall into four groups: be readable, be structured, be reachable, be trusted and current.
• Most items are quick, one-off fixes once you know which you're missing.
• To see your own gaps in about 30 seconds, run the free scan.

Short answer: a website is AI-ready when its title, heading and text state plainly what you do, where and for whom; when it carries structured data, an llms.txt file and open crawler access; and when it's backed by fast pages, real answers and off-site trust. Work down the 12-point checklist below, fix the gaps, and an AI has what it needs to read, understand and cite you.

Why "AI SEO" is now its own checklist

For two decades the job was to rank on Google. That's shifting. People now ask an assistant a direct question — "who's a good accountant in Adelaide?" — and act on the answer, rather than comparing ten links. AI-referred visits have climbed sharply year on year, and AI Overviews are already reducing the share of searches that end in a click. If a machine can't read and verify your business, you're simply not in the answer — and the customer never learns you exist.

The gap is real. When 1,700 businesses across 32 industries were queried in ChatGPT, 88% didn't appear at all — not rejected, just not readable enough to name. The checklist below is how you land on the right side of that number.

How the 12 signals break down

It's less daunting when you see the shape of it. Every item belongs to one of four jobs:

The AI SEO checklist: 12 things to get right

1. A clear page title. The title tag is the strongest label an AI reads. Make it state what you are, where and for whom — "Bookkeeper for tradies, Newcastle" beats "Numbers, sorted."
2. One honest H1 heading. Each page gets a single main heading that names its subject in one line. A clever tagline in the H1 slot tells a machine nothing.
3. A real meta description. One factual sentence summarising the page. It's frequently the line an assistant or search engine quotes when previewing you, so make it earn its place.
4. Structured data (schema.org). Hidden, machine-readable facts — business type, location, services, hours — that turn "we think this is a plumber in Perth" into confirmed detail an AI can cite.
5. An llms.txt file. A plain-text summary at your domain root written for AI crawlers. Only around 10% of domains have one, so it's a cheap edge. Here's how to write one.
6. Open crawler access. Check yourdomain.com/robots.txt — and your CDN and firewall — aren't turning bots away. About 27% of sites block AI crawlers by accident. If they can't read you, nothing else on this list matters.
7. Fast mobile pages. Slow pages get crawled less often and abandoned more. Speed on a phone is table stakes, not a nice-to-have.
8. Genuine FAQ content. Real questions with plain answers, in text. It mirrors how people ask assistants and gives a machine tidy passages it can lift wholesale.
9. Answer-first copy. State the answer in the first sentence of a section, then explain. Assistants favour passages that stand on their own — the way this guide opens each part with the point.
10. Sensible internal links. Link your key pages to each other with descriptive text, so crawlers can find and relate your content. ChatGPT leans towards sources that are thorough and well-connected.
11. Reviews and off-site mentions. Google reviews, directory listings and citations verify you beyond your own words. Directories and review sites show up in roughly a third of AI citations, so they carry real weight. More on the trust half.
12. Freshness. Recently updated content and visible dates signal an active business. Perplexity in particular leans towards recent, varied sources, so stale pages quietly cost you.

That's the twelfth — freshness rounds out the list. None of these is exotic, and most are one-off fixes you make once and keep.

Where to start if the list feels long

Don't try to do all twelve at once. Work in the order the four groups suggest:

• First, be reachable. Confirm crawlers aren't blocked (item 6). It's the cheapest thing to get wrong and the one that silently voids everything else.
• Then be readable. Rewrite the title, H1 and first paragraph to state the facts (items 1, 2, 9). This is fast and entirely in your control.
• Then be structured. Add schema, an llms.txt file and a real FAQ (items 4, 5, 8) so a machine has verified facts and your own summary.
• Finally, build trust over time. Reviews, citations and freshness (items 11, 12) are the slow, compounding layer — start now, expect months not days.

Being readable makes you eligible to appear; being trusted and current is what turns eligible into named. If you're not sure a machine can even reach your site yet, start with how to check if AI can read your website.

Turn the checklist into a report

Rather than grade all twelve by hand, let the scan do it. You'll get a clear read on the signals AI can and can't see on your site, plus the assistant's own words about your business — in about 30 seconds, free.