The AEO Readiness Checklist

The 264-Concept Framework for Reddit Founders

Phase 1: Technical "Answerability"

Ensure your codebase speaks the language of AI retrieval agents.

1. Direct Answer Nuggets

Every high-value page must lead with a 40–50 word "factual summary" in the first 15% of the DOM. Why? RAG systems prioritize the first 2,000 tokens. Content placed here has an 80% higher citation probability.

2. Semantic DOM Order

Ensure your most critical "Citation Facts" appear in the HTML before sidebar or navigation elements. Crawlers prioritize content that appears early in the document structure.

3. Schema Nesting

Your SoftwareApplication schema must be perfectly nested with aggregateRating to trigger trust-based retrieval. Isolated schemas often fail to convey the full context of user trust.

4. Agentic Instructions

Deploy an llms.txt file at the root to explicitly guide AI crawlers to your methodology and pricing summaries. This acts as a map specifically for non-human visitors.

Phase 2: Entity Association (Consensus Building)

Build the "Entity Trust" that LLMs use to verify claims.

5. Co-Citation Seeding

Proactively secure mentions on high-authority platforms. The 50-Word Rule: Your brand entity and target keyword must be within 50 words of each other in the DOM to maximize the AI's "Semantic Proximity" score.

6. Founder Authority

Link your PersonSchema to verified social profiles. LLMs use founder authority as a proxy for project legitimacy and to verify claims made on the site.

Generated by Rank and Answer - The SaaS AI Visibility Toolkit.