Home › Blog › AI Findability
AI Findability Checklist: 12 Points to Get Cited by AI (2026)
Updated August 2026 · 8 min read · By MintShovels Team
"Findability" means being easy for both people and machines to locate and understand. This 12-point checklist turns vague advice about AI search into concrete edits you can make today.
The checklist
- One clear target question per page. If you can't write it in 10 words, split the page.
- Answer in the first 40 words. Models lift the earliest clear statement.
- A title that matches real phrasing. Mirror how people actually ask, not how you'd brand it.
- Descriptive H2s. Each should read like a question someone would type.
- Short paragraphs. Under three sentences each, so snippets are clean.
- Real facts, not filler. Dates, numbers, and named sources are quotable; fluff is not.
- FAQ section with genuine questions. Pair it with FAQPage markup.
- At least one schema.org type. Article, FAQ, Product, or HowTo — enough for a model to label your content.
- A visible author and publish date. Trust signals AI uses to filter.
- Internal links with descriptive anchor text. Helps the crawler understand page relationships.
- A readable URL. Short, lowercase, and containing the topic word.
- Recently verified. Open the page, confirm the facts are current, update the date.
Why this works
AI assistants don't rank pages the way Google does — they compose answers from the clearest available fragments. Every point above increases the chance that a fragment from your page is the one the model picks. None of it requires paid tools.
Score yourself: Run your main pages through the
free audit. The AI Search Visibility score covers most of this checklist automatically, so you start from a report instead of guessing.
Score your own findability from 1 to 10
Before adding anything, rate yourself honestly: can a stranger find you from one branded search (1 point), does a relevant non-branded query return a page of yours (2), is that page clearly the best answer (2), does it load fast on mobile (1), is it marked up with basic schema (1), does it earn links or mentions (1), and do AI assistants cite it (2)? Most small sites land at 3–4. The checklist in this post is the path from there to 8+. Pick the lowest-scoring item and fix only that this week.
The five fixes that move the needle fastest
- One clear H1 and a descriptive title — states exactly what the page is.
- A 50-word answer up top — the summary AI and skimmers both grab.
- Basic schema — Organization plus Article on every post.
- Internal links — connect each page to two related ones.
- Mobile speed — under 2.5s LCP, because most discovery is on phones.
None require a budget. They require consistency — which is why most competitors skip them.