Insights · 2026-11-08
Writing pages that AI search can quote
Short answer: open every page with a direct answer to the question it targets, and close it with a short summary that restates the key facts. AI search tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers lean heavily on those two passages.
The structure
- First passage: one or two sentences that answer the question outright, with the most useful numbers.
- Body: the detail, broken up with plain headings that match how people phrase questions.
- Last passage: an "in short" or "key facts" block that repeats the answer.
Let the crawlers in
None of this matters if AI crawlers are blocked. Every site we run keeps its robots.txt open to search and AI crawlers and publishes an llms.txt file describing the site. Many sites block these bots by default without realising it.
Examples
Trusted Forklift Certification answers the two questions people ask first, how long online forklift certification takes and whether it is accepted, in its opening line. Speedy's Cash For Cars opens each city page the same way, with how fast you can sell your car there.
In short
Answer first, summarise last, use question-shaped headings, and keep robots.txt open to AI crawlers. That is most of what it takes to be quoted by AI search.
Disclosure: Integrity Marketing SEO owns and operates the sites linked in this article.