Technical Foundations

Semantic HTML Structure

Semantic HTML is the foundation of machine-readable content. AI systems and their retrieval pipelines rely on HTML structure to understand the hierarchy and relationships within your content. Proper semantic markup is not optional — it is the baseline requirement for AI content evaluation.

• Heading hierarchy: Use a single H1 per page that clearly states the page topic. Follow with H2 sections for major subtopics and H3 elements for supporting points. Never skip heading levels (e.g., jumping from H1 to H3). This hierarchy tells AI systems how your content is organized and which concepts are primary versus supporting.
• Lists and tables: Use ordered lists for sequential steps and unordered lists for non-sequential items. Use HTML tables for comparative data. AI systems extract structured information from lists and tables more reliably than from paragraph text. If your content contains comparisons, steps, or feature sets, format them accordingly.
• Semantic elements: Use <article>, <section>, <nav>, <aside>, and <main> elements to define content regions. These elements provide AI systems with contextual signals about the role each content block plays on the page.
• Paragraph structure: Lead each paragraph with its key claim or conclusion. AI retrieval systems often extract the first sentence of a paragraph as a summary. Front-loading important information increases the likelihood of accurate extraction.

Schema.org Markup

Schema.org provides a standardized vocabulary for describing content to machines. For AI visibility, four schema types are particularly important.

• Article: Use on all content pages. Include headline, description, datePublished, dateModified, author, and publisher properties. This schema helps AI systems attribute content to your entity and assess recency.
• FAQPage: Use on pages that contain question-and-answer pairs. FAQPage schema is directly extractable by AI systems and increases the likelihood of your answers appearing in AI-generated responses.
• HowTo: Use on pages with step-by-step instructions. Include each step as a separate HowToStep with name and text properties. AI systems favor structured instructional content for procedural queries.
• Organization: Use on your homepage and about page. Include name, url, logo, sameAs (linking to social profiles), and description. This schema establishes your entity identity for AI systems.

Ensure your schema declarations match your visible content exactly. Discrepancies between schema and on-page content can reduce trust signals rather than enhance them.

Performance Requirements

Page performance affects AI visibility in two ways: it determines whether AI crawlers can efficiently access your content, and it serves as a quality signal that correlates with content reliability.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Target under 2.5 seconds. AI crawlers and retrieval systems have timeout thresholds. Slow-loading pages may not be fully indexed or may be deprioritized in favor of faster alternatives.
• First Input Delay (FID): Target under 100 milliseconds. While AI crawlers do not interact with your page, FID reflects overall page efficiency and code quality — signals that correlate with content quality in AI evaluation models.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Target under 0.1. Layout stability indicates a well-built page, which correlates with content trustworthiness in AI quality assessments.
• Time to First Byte (TTFB): Target under 800 milliseconds. Server response time directly affects crawl efficiency. AI retrieval systems making real-time requests are particularly sensitive to TTFB.

Crawlability and Accessibility

If AI systems cannot access your content, nothing else matters. Crawlability is the gatekeeper to AI visibility.

• XML Sitemap: Maintain a complete, up-to-date XML sitemap that includes all pages you want AI systems to evaluate. Submit it via Google Search Console and reference it in your robots.txt. Include lastmod dates that accurately reflect content changes.
• robots.txt: Ensure your robots.txt file does not block AI crawlers. Common AI user agents include GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, Google-Extended, Amazonbot, and ClaudeBot. Review your robots.txt regularly to verify you are not inadvertently blocking AI access to your content.
• Internal linking: Build a clear internal linking structure that connects related content. AI crawlers use internal links to discover content and understand topical relationships. Every important page should be reachable within three clicks from your homepage.
• Canonical URLs: Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues. AI systems that encounter multiple versions of the same content may attribute authority to the wrong URL or dilute your entity signals across duplicates.