AI Search · 5 min
Write so that any single passage can be lifted out and still make sense. State the answer before the argument, use headings that match how questions are asked, keep claims specific, and make the publisher unambiguous.
How it works
A system selecting material for an answer takes a section, not your whole article. Every section therefore has to be self-contained: readable with no knowledge of what came before it, with pronouns resolved and the subject named rather than implied.
Marketing writing conventionally builds toward a conclusion; extraction rewards the opposite. Put the direct answer in the first sentence or two after the heading, then use the rest of the section to qualify, evidence and expand. A reader who stops early still has the answer; a system that lifts the opening still has something complete.
'Pricing model' is a label; 'How much does technical SEO cost?' is the question someone actually asks. Question-shaped headings with direct answers underneath are what allow a passage to be matched to a query in the first place.
Vague claims about being trusted or leading are not attributable: there is nothing in them to quote. A concrete statement about how something works, what it costs, or when it fails is the kind of material a model can use and credit.
Invented statistics are increasingly easy to check, and a claim contradicted by better sources damages the credibility of everything around it. Where a figure is needed and not available, say what is known and what is not.
Consistent organisation details, structured data referencing one canonical entity, and author or organisation attribution that agrees across the site. Attribution requires the system to know who it is crediting.
Less than structure. A long page of vague prose is weaker than a shorter one where each section answers a specific question completely. Length that adds distinct answers helps; length added to hit a word count does not.
Only where the questions are real and the answers are not already covered. FAQ blocks added mechanically repeat the page in a different shape, which adds nothing for a reader or a retrieval system.
Write so that any single passage can be lifted out and still make sense. State the answer before the argument, use headings that match how questions are asked, keep claims specific, and make the publisher unambiguous.
Connected
You have read what we think. If you want to know what it means for your case specifically, describe it and we will tell you which parts of how to prepare content for ai search actually apply — and which do not.
