AEO ScannerHow to get your brand cited by ChatGPT (a 6-step playbook)
A practical 6-step playbook for getting your brand into ChatGPT's recommendations. Concrete actions, not theory.
Most AEO advice is theoretical. This is the opposite: the six concrete actions that, in our customer base, move a brand from 0% visibility to 20–30% visibility in about 60 days.
Step 1 — Measure
Run a baseline scan. ~30 buyer queries against ChatGPT and Claude. You need this number for two reasons: to know what to fix first, and to have a before/after delta when you ship work.
Step 2 — Identify the canonical sources
Look at which domains were cited when ChatGPT recommended competitors and not you. There will be 3–6 domains that dominate. These are your targets.
Example: for project-management software, the canonical sources are usually Forbes Advisor, TechRadar, ClickUp's own blog comparison pages, G2, and Zapier's category roundups.
Step 3 — Build comparison pages
For every competitor you lose to in ChatGPT, write a "You vs Competitor X" page. Real comparison, not marketing fluff. FAQs at the bottom (use FAQPage schema). These pages do triple duty: they rank organically, they get cited by ChatGPT, and they convert at 4–7x your blog content.
Step 4 — Get on the directories
For your category, identify the 3–4 directories that LLMs reliably cite. Submit listings. This is unglamorous work but it's the highest-leverage lever in AEO.
Step 5 — Pursue listicle inclusion
Find every "Best [category] in 2026" listicle on a high-DR domain. Reach out to the author. Pitch inclusion with a concrete differentiator. Even if they don't include you in the next refresh, getting cited in one Forbes-class listicle is worth ~50 normal backlinks.
Step 6 — Implement schema
Add FAQPage schema to your homepage and 3–5 key pages. Add Product schema if applicable. Add HowTo schema if you publish guides. LLMs disproportionately pull from pages with structured data because the structure makes extraction reliable.
Measuring progress
Re-scan every 1–2 weeks. Look for queries where you went from "not mentioned" to "mentioned" — that's a leading indicator. Visibility % typically lags 7–14 days behind the actual content shipping.
AEO Scanner tracks this loop automatically: scheduled re-scans, score-change alerts, and a per-query view of which fixes paid off.