The short answer
Give the question a clear, direct answer near the top of one page, back it with facts that can be checked, make sure crawlers can read it, and get your business described accurately on other trusted sites.
That improves your chances; nobody can guarantee a citation, because assistants do not publish how they pick sources.
Six steps
- Pick the questions worth winning. Choose the handful of customer questions that lead to real work. Check how assistants answer them today, so you have a baseline.
- Answer each one plainly on one page. Give each question a clear answer near the top of a relevant page, in two or three sentences, before the detail. Use the words customers use.
- Make the facts easy to check. State who you are, what you do, where, and for whom. Add dates, named sources and specifics an assistant can verify. Keep the same facts on your site, profiles and directories.
- Let crawlers read the page. Make sure the page loads without a login, is not blocked in robots.txt, and shows its main text without needing a click. Add schema markup that matches what the page says.
- Earn mentions on other sites. Assistants often lean on third-party sources: trade bodies, local press, reviews, comparison pages. Being described accurately there matters as much as your own site.
- Re-check the same questions later. Ask the same questions the same way after the changes have had time to be picked up, and compare with your baseline.
What a quotable answer looks like
A good answer can be lifted out of the page and still make sense. It:
- Names the subject.
- Answers the question in the first sentence.
- Adds the condition or limit in the second.
For example: "A boiler service takes about an hour. If parts need ordering, we book a second visit." That is the kind of line an assistant can use and credit.
What does not help
- Pages stuffed with keywords or repeated questions with thin answers.
- Dozens of near-identical town or service pages.
- Claims you cannot back up. Assistants and customers both notice.
- Hiding the answer behind a form, a tab or a long introduction.
Next steps
Before changing anything, take a baseline with the six-step check. For the technical side, see whether schema markup helps and what llms.txt is. The wider picture is in GEO vs SEO.
GEO Agency's page analysis scores a page across seven areas, including answerability and crawlability, and drafts FAQs and schema markup for you to check. It runs on Google Gemini, so results are estimates. See the tools.
Common questions
How long does it take to get cited?
There is no fixed timescale. Assistants pick up changes to the web at different speeds, and some questions are more competitive than others. Re-check on a schedule rather than expecting a date.
Can I pay to be cited in AI answers?
We cannot sell you a citation and nobody can honestly guarantee one. What you can do is make your pages the clearest, best-supported answer to the question, and earn accurate mentions elsewhere.
Is this different from SEO?
Much of it is the same groundwork: useful answers, technical health and trust. The difference is the goal, being named or linked inside a written answer, and the way you measure it.
Which page should I start with?
The page that should answer the question most likely to bring you a good customer. One strong page beats ten thin ones.