How to Get Cited by AI: The Complete Guide
The exact citation-building process we use to get clients recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews.
What is an AI citation?
An AI citation is a mention or recommendation of your business inside an AI-generated answer. When Perplexity answers "Who's the best HVAC company in town?" and names your business, that's a citation — and it carries the implied endorsement of the AI the customer already trusts.
Step 1: Make your business machine-readable
AI crawlers rely heavily on structured data. Implement JSON-LD schema — Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, HowTo, and Review schemas — so models can unambiguously understand who you are, what you do, where you operate, and why you're credible.
Step 2: Build citations where AI looks
AI models retrieve from authoritative directories, review platforms, community discussions, and trusted publications. We create and distribute authoritative content to those sources — business citation submissions plus Community Authority Posts — so your business appears in the data AI models actually use.
Step 3: Target the exact prompts
Prompt Targeting identifies the precise natural-language questions your ideal customers ask AI engines. Optimizing for "plumber" is guesswork; optimizing for "Who is the best plumber in Las Vegas for emergency repairs?" is a strategy.
Step 4: Test, measure, close gaps
We test the five major AI platforms monthly to verify citation presence, run competitor gap analysis to see who is being cited and why, and track share of voice — how often you appear in AI answers versus competitors. Then we close the gaps, month after month.
See how visible your business is to AI
Get your free 0–100 AEO score across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews.