AI Content Strategy:
What to Publish So AI Can Cite You

An AI content strategy is a plan for what to publish so AI search products have specific, checkable material to cite, and a way to measure whether they do. In practice it is regular content strategy with one stricter filter: each page must contain something unique, such as your own data, examples or opinions that a rival cannot copy.

Google’s guidance supports that and rules out the tricks. Optimizing for generative AI search is, in Google’s words, still SEO. There is no ideal page length, no need to chop pages into small pieces, and no special markup. Scaled content made to manipulate AI responses and inauthentic mentions are spam. What is left is original, useful pages, and comparison and best-of pages are one good example because buyers ask comparison questions directly.

Our own experience: askairank.com publishes /compare/ pages against other trackers and states the criteria on each. We treat the table as a dated document and recheck it, because a comparison with stale pricing is worse than none.

Why it matters for AEO. AI answers are built from pages that say something specific and checkable. A content plan for AI search is a normal content plan with fewer filler pages and more pages only you could write, such as your own comparisons, data and decisions.

1. List the questions your buyers ask before choosing: what is it, which is best, X vs Y, how much, does it work with Z.
2. For each question, check whether you own an answer page. Write the missing ones first, starting with the ones where you have first-hand knowledge.
3. Make each page unique: your own numbers, screenshots, examples or decisions. Google's guidance asks for unique, non-commodity content.
4. Publish honest comparison and best-of pages. State the criteria, include competitors where they win, and put the facts in a real HTML table with a date.
5. Do not split pages into tiny pieces or hit a target length. Google says there is no requirement for either.
6. Do not mass-produce pages to steer AI answers or plant mentions elsewhere. Google names scaled content made to manipulate AI responses and inauthentic mentions as spam.
7. Measure: check Search Console's Generative AI performance report for impressions, and track your brand across assistants with a repeatable prompt set.

How to verify. For each priority question, search it in two assistants. Your page should either be cited or at least be as specific as the pages that are. If a cited page has a number you do not, add one you can defend.

Comparison page checklist (ours: askairank.com/compare/askrank-vs-*)
- Criteria stated up top (engines covered, pricing model, reporting)
- Table with a "checked on" date
- A row where the competitor wins
- One sentence on who should pick which