A lot of businesses are chasing AI citations right now.
Adding schema markup. Updating robots.txt. Submitting to llms.txt directories. Hiring someone to run a "GEO strategy."
They all add up to be great outcomes but some are fixing the wrong thing.
I've audited over 40 sites in the past year. The ones missing from AI results aren't being blocked by a technical setting. They just don't answer questions clearly.
Here's what's actually happening.
AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity don't read your content the way a human does. They extract what they need to complete a task. If the useful information is buried three paragraphs into a page, surrounded by context-setting and background that humans appreciate, the model might skip straight past it.
The sites getting cited consistently have one thing in common. They get to the answer fast. They use specific numbers, not vague language. They structure content so the key point is findable without reading the whole page.
That's not a new SEO trick. That's just clear writing.
The pattern I keep seeing.
A business has a well-written page. Good structure. Ranks well in Google. But when you ask ChatGPT the same question that page answers, it either cites a competitor or gives a generic answer from nowhere in particular.
The content works for humans. It just doesn't work for how AI systems extract information.
The difference usually comes down to a few things.
The answer is buried. Most pages open with who the company is and why they're great before getting to anything useful. Move the actual answer to the top.
The language is vague. "Many businesses find that..." and "it depends on a range of factors" signal to an AI system that this page doesn't have a concrete answer. Use real numbers. Take a position.
The structure doesn't help extraction. If your useful information is spread across long paragraphs without clear headings, it's hard for any system, human or AI, to pull out the key point quickly.
The practical fix.
Pick your three most important pages. Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity the question that page is supposed to answer. See what comes back.
If your page doesn't get cited, read it back to yourself and ask: where is the actual answer? How long does it take to get there? Is there a specific, direct response to the question, or is it mostly context?
That's where to start. Not schema. Not technical audits. Just clearer writing that answers the question directly.
If you want help identifying which pages have the biggest gap between their search visibility and their AI visibility, that's something we look at as part of our Content Strategy service. Or if you want to understand how your content stacks up more broadly, start with a free 7-day trial and we'll take a look.
Tom Galland is the Managing Director of SEO Growth, a Sydney-based SEO and Google Ads agency. If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe here.
