AI SEO Checklist
The complete checklist for optimizing your website for AI search. Every action item you need to appear in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.
6 Steps to AI SEO Success
Audit Your Current AI Visibility
Before optimizing, understand where you stand. Test ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude with queries related to your business. Document when you appear, when competitors appear, and identify gaps.
Build Your Content Foundation
Create comprehensive pillar content for your main topics. Each pillar should be 2,000+ words, definitively answer key questions, and include statistics, examples, and actionable advice.
Optimize Content for AI Consumption
Structure content with clear headings, use natural language, include specific data points, and format for scannability. AI systems favor content that clearly and authoritatively answers questions.
Implement Technical Best Practices
Add schema markup (FAQ, HowTo, Article), ensure fast load times, mobile-friendly design, and clean URL structure. Technical excellence supports both traditional and AI SEO.
Build Authority Through Links
Earn quality backlinks from industry publications, get featured in listicles and comparison articles, and create linkable assets that naturally attract citations.
Monitor and Iterate
Regularly test AI assistants with relevant queries, track your visibility over time, and continuously improve based on what's working. AI SEO is an ongoing process.
Complete AI SEO Checklist
Work through each section systematically. High-priority items have the biggest impact on AI visibility.
Content Foundation
Content Optimization
Technical SEO
Authority Building
Brand Presence
Monitoring & Analytics
Where to Start
Week 1-2: Foundation
Focus on high-priority content creation: pillar pages, FAQ content, and comparison articles. These are the most impactful for AI visibility.
Week 3-4: Technical
Implement schema markup, optimize page speed, and ensure all technical SEO basics are covered. This amplifies your content efforts.
Ongoing: Authority
Link building and brand mentions are ongoing efforts. Start outreach, guest posting, and community building to compound your authority.
Automate Your AI SEO
Don't do it all manually. FirstSearch automates content creation, backlink building, and AI visibility tracking—30 optimized articles per month for $99.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does AI SEO take to show results?
Perplexity results can appear within days since it searches in real-time. ChatGPT results take longer as they depend on training data updates. A comprehensive AI SEO strategy should show measurable progress within 1-3 months for Perplexity and 3-6 months for ChatGPT visibility.
Should I prioritize AI SEO or traditional SEO?
Both. They're increasingly interconnected—good traditional SEO directly improves Perplexity visibility, and the content practices that help ChatGPT rankings also help Google. A modern SEO strategy addresses both simultaneously.
What's the minimum content needed for AI visibility?
There's no magic number, but aim for at least 10-20 comprehensive articles in your core topic area. More important than quantity is quality—a few excellent, definitive resources outperform many thin articles.
Can I use AI to write content for AI SEO?
Yes, but strategically. AI-generated content works well as a foundation, but should be enhanced with original insights, proprietary data, and expert perspectives. The goal is authoritative content that AI systems want to cite—not just more words.
How do I know if my AI SEO is working?
Monitor three things: 1) Direct mentions in ChatGPT/Claude responses for relevant queries, 2) Citations in Perplexity search results, 3) Overall organic traffic growth. FirstSearch provides dashboards tracking all three metrics automatically.