Making your website readable by AI search starts with the same foundations as good SEO, applied with more care. Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Copilot and Perplexity all read web pages, pick out the clearest answers and summarise them for the person asking. If your pages are hard to read, the summary uses someone else’s.
This guide covers eight practical checks you can run on your own site, with an example from ours. None of them need a new website, and most take an afternoon.
In short: use a proper heading structure, answer questions early and plainly, make sure crawlers can reach your pages, and make it obvious who you are and why you can be trusted.
What AI search does with your website
AI search tools work in two steps. First they find pages, using the same crawling and indexing as traditional search. Then they read those pages and pick out passages that answer the question directly.
The second step is where structure matters. A page with clear headings, short paragraphs and direct answers is easy to quote. A page that buries the answer halfway down a long paragraph, under a heading that says nothing, is easy to skip.
Google’s own guidance is that there is no special trick for AI features. The practices that help a page rank are the same ones that help it appear in AI Overviews.
Eight checks to prepare your website for AI search
1. Use a real heading structure
Headings are how machines work out what a page covers and where each answer starts. Each page needs one H1 (the page title), H2s for main sections and H3s for sub-sections. Headings should describe the content, not decorate it.
We found this problem on our own site. More than 200 older blog posts used H6 tags for their main sections. H6 is the smallest heading level, so to a search engine each main section looked like a footnote, even though it looked fine to a reader. We promoted those headings to proper H2s across the blog, and new posts now use H2 and H3 as intended.
2. Answer the question near the top
Put a two or three sentence summary at the start of your important pages and posts. A page that answers the question in its first paragraph has a better chance of being quoted than one that builds up to it.
3. Define terms where they first appear
If a page uses a term your customer might not know, define it in one plain sentence the first time it appears. For example, print management means one agency handles specification, proofing, production and delivery on your behalf. AI tools lift definitions like that straight into their answers.
4. Add FAQs with direct answers
A short FAQ section gives AI search clean material to work with. Write each question the way a customer would ask it, with a one or two sentence answer beneath. Keep the answers factual and specific rather than salesy.
5. Check crawlers can reach your pages
AI tools can only use pages they can access. Your robots.txt file tells crawlers what they may visit, so check it isn’t blocking search crawlers, including AI ones such as OAI-SearchBot, which ChatGPT search uses. Confirm in Google Search Console that your key pages are indexed. Make sure important content is written on the page itself, not locked inside images or PDFs.
6. Add structured data
Structured data, often called schema, is code that labels the information on a page. That might be your organisation’s name and address, an article’s author and date, or a list of FAQs. It helps machines understand what they are reading. Most WordPress SEO plugins can add the basics without custom development.
7. Keep your business details consistent
AI answers about local businesses can draw on your website, your Google Business Profile and directory listings. If your address, phone number or services differ between them, the answer may be wrong or may leave you out. Check that they match, and keep your Google Business Profile up to date.
8. Show who is behind the content
Google describes content quality in terms of E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. In practice, that means named authors, real examples, dates on posts and a clear about page. Content that shows first-hand experience is more useful to readers and to the systems summarising it.
A quick way to test your own site
Ask ChatGPT, Copilot or Google a question your customers ask, and include your town or sector. See who gets quoted. Then open your own page on the same topic and check three things:
- Is the answer in the first paragraph?
- Do the headings describe what follows?
- Could someone copy a two-sentence answer straight from it?
If any answer is no, start with checks one to four. They are content changes rather than technical ones, and they help human readers as much as machines.
What this means for you
Most of this is housekeeping, not a rebuild. We can review your site against these checks, fix the heading structure and other on-page issues, and restructure content so it answers the questions your customers actually ask. Design, content and SEO sit in one team, so the fixes don’t bounce between suppliers.
FAQs and quick answers
Do I need a new website for AI search?
Usually not. Most of the improvements are to headings, content structure and technical basics on the site you already have.
Is AI search optimisation different from SEO?
Largely no. Google says the practices that help pages rank also help them appear in AI features. The difference is that clear, quotable answers matter more.
How long before changes make a difference?
It varies. Search engines need to recrawl updated pages, so allow several weeks before comparing performance in Search Console.
Where should I start?
- Fix your heading structure.
- Add a short summary to your top 10 pages.
- Check robots.txt and your indexing in Search Console.
