Short answer: to get your website cited by ChatGPT and other AI assistants, make sure their crawlers can reach your pages, answer real buyer questions in the first sentence of each page, state your facts plainly and consistently, add structured data, and get your pages indexed by the search engines AI tools draw on. That is answer engine optimization (AEO). Below is exactly what we did on our own site.

Why does AI search need a different approach?

A classic search result is a list of links. An AI answer is a written reply with a handful of sources. To be one of them, a page has to be found, read and judged to be a clear, reliable answer to part of the question. Google says its AI Mode uses query fan-out, splitting a question into several related searches, so focused pages on narrower questions get more chances to be picked.

Step 1: Let AI crawlers in

Each AI company runs its own bots. OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot finds pages for ChatGPT search, and OpenAI says sites that block it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. GPTBot is a separate crawler for training data. Anthropic and Perplexity have their own. See AI crawlers for the list.

Our robots.txt allows every crawler. Framer pre-renders each page to HTML, so bots that don’t run JavaScript still get the full text, and it serves a markdown version of each page to AI tools that ask for one.

Step 2: Put the answer first

We rewrote our key pages so the first sentence answers the question the page exists for. Our cost guide opens with the starting price and timeline. Each service page says who it is for, what it costs and how long it takes before anything else. Headings are written as the questions buyers actually ask, and each page ends with a short FAQ.

Step 3: State hard facts, the same way everywhere

AI assistants repeat what they can verify. Vague claims get skipped, and conflicting facts get mixed up. We wrote down the facts we want assistants to repeat and used them word for word on the site, in structured data and on external profiles:

• Who we are: a Swiss Framer agency, head office in Wil (SG), office in Zürich, working in English, German and French.

• What we do: marketing websites for SaaS and hardware scaleups, in 6–10 weeks.

• Proof: official Framer Pro Agency Partner, and Framer’s Best Big Site 2025 award for miro.com in 17 languages.

• Prices: from $25K for a marketing website, $15K for a 5-day Landing Page Sprint, with CHF prices for Swiss clients.

We also found outdated facts about us on third-party sites and started correcting them, because an assistant that reads two different prices may quote the wrong one.

Step 4: Add structured data

JSON-LD tells machines what a page is about. We added Organization data with our locations, founders and services, FAQPage data to every page with an FAQ, DefinedTerm data to each glossary entry, and CollectionPage and BreadcrumbList data to our comparison hub. Every value matches the visible text on the page.

Step 5: Build pages that answer narrow questions

Buyers ask AI assistants specific questions: “Webflow or Framer?”, “What is hreflang?”, “How much does a SaaS website cost?”. We built pages for exactly those:

• A glossary of the website, Framer and AEO terms we use with clients, each starting with a one-sentence definition.

• 12 honest platform comparisons, each saying plainly when the other tool is the better pick.

• Guides on cost, Webflow to Framer migration and hardware startup websites.

Every page links to related pages, so crawlers can see how the topics connect and build a picture of what we know.

Step 6: Add an llms.txt file

An llms.txt file is a short markdown summary of a site for language models, with links to the pages that matter. Ours lists our facts, prices, key pages, guides and comparisons. It is not an official standard, and no AI company has confirmed it affects citations, but it takes an hour and gives any AI tool that reads it a clean summary. In Framer, you upload it under Site Settings › Hosting › Files.

Step 7: Get indexed, on Google and Bing

An AI tool that searches the web can only cite pages that are in an index. After launch, we resubmitted our sitemap in Google Search Console and requested indexing for the new pages. Search Console only accepts a limited number of manual requests per day, so we spread them over several days and checked first whether Google had already picked a page up from the sitemap.

We also set up Bing Webmaster Tools. Importing from Search Console brought the site over, but the sitemap still had to be submitted separately, and we submitted every URL through URL Submission. Bing’s AI Performance report shows how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing’s AI answers, which makes it one of the few direct ways to measure AI visibility.

Step 8: Measure, then repeat

• Ask the questions your buyers ask in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot every month, and note who gets named and cited.

• Check that what assistants say about you is correct.

• Watch referral traffic from AI tools in your analytics.

• Use Bing’s AI Performance report and Search Console’s performance report.

We will update this post with our own numbers once there is enough data to be meaningful.

What should a SaaS team do first?

Start with what costs least and matters most: allow the search crawlers, rewrite the first sentence of your five most important pages so it answers the question directly, and make your prices, locations and product facts consistent everywhere. Then add structured data and focused pages for the questions your sales team hears every week. We build all of this into every Framer marketing website we launch.

FAQ

How do I get my website mentioned by ChatGPT?

Allow OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot in your robots.txt, make sure your pages are indexed, answer buyer questions directly in the first sentence of each page, state your facts consistently on your site and external profiles, and add structured data. ChatGPT can then find, understand and cite your pages in search answers.

What is the difference between AEO and SEO?

SEO aims for a ranking in a list of search results. AEO aims for being the source an AI assistant quotes or recommends. AEO builds on SEO, because assistants still need crawlable, indexed, well-structured pages.

Does llms.txt help with ChatGPT?

It may help AI tools understand your site, but it is not an official standard and no AI company has confirmed it affects citations. Treat it as a quick, optional extra, not a replacement for clear pages and structured data.

How long does AEO take to work?

Assistants that search the web can pick up new pages within days of them being indexed. What models know without searching changes more slowly, because it depends on training updates.

Can I see if ChatGPT cites my website?

Not in one official report. Track it by asking the questions your buyers ask, watching referral traffic from chatgpt.com in your analytics, and using Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report for Copilot and Bing’s AI answers.

Want your site set up this way? See our Framer agency services, read the AEO glossary entry, or book a discovery call.