AI Search Readiness Checklist: Prepare Your Website for AEO Success

AEO doesn’t start with content.

It starts with a simpler question:

Can AI systems access, understand, and trust your site?

If the answer is no, you’ll lose even with great writing.

TL;DR: The 6 readiness buckets

1. Technical access (crawl + render)
2. Page clarity (structure + schema)
3. Trust signals (sources, authorship, freshness)
4. Entity clarity (who you are, what you do)
5. Off-site proof (mentions, reviews, credibility)
6. Monitoring (prompts + drift)

How to use this checklist

• Run it quarterly (minimum)
• Assign owners (SEO, engineering, content)
• Fix “blocking” issues first (anything preventing access)
• Re-test your highest-value prompts after changes
  
  

1) Technical access checklist (can AI reach you?)

• Key pages are crawlable (no accidental blocks)
• Pages render cleanly (important content isn’t hidden)
• Canonicals are correct (no duplicate confusion)
• Sitemaps are clean and current
• Performance is reasonable (slow sites lose crawls)

2) Page clarity checklist (can AI parse you?)

• H1 matches what the page is truly about
• Atomic answer in the first screen
• H2s are scannable (ideally question-shaped)
• Short, focused paragraphs
• Bullets/tables where comparisons matter
• FAQ block for long-tail variants
  
  

Clarity is a ranking factor now.

3) Structured data checklist (only when true)

• Article schema on articles
• FAQ schema on real FAQs
• HowTo schema on real step-by-step content
• Product / Offer / Review schema on product pages
  
  

Schema isn’t magic. But when it’s correct, it reduces ambiguity.

4) Trust checklist (does this look cite-worthy?)

• Real author + credibility
• “Updated on” date (and true freshness)
• Sources for important claims and numbers
• Methodology for recommendations (“How we evaluate”)
• Clear policies where relevant (shipping, returns, safety, guarantees)
  
  

If your content looks like a hot take with no evidence, it won’t be cited.

5) Entity clarity checklist (does AI understand your brand?)

• About page is specific (not generic marketing)
• Contact info is real and consistent
• Brand name and positioning are consistent across your site
• You have topic hubs that anchor your authority (guides, FAQs, comparisons)

AI needs to know what “bucket” you belong in.

6) Off-site proof checklist (what does the internet say about you?)

• Third-party mentions exist in credible places
• Reviews exist and are readable (not hidden)
• Community discussion exists (and isn’t dominated by misinformation)
• Buying guides and comparisons include you (where appropriate)

A lot of AI answers are built from third-party content.

7) Monitoring checklist (can you catch drift?)

• You have a prompt list (25–100 prompts that matter)
• You track changes over time (not one-off screenshots)
• You can tell when visibility drops
• You know what action to take next (refresh, clarify, earn mentions)

AI answers change constantly. The only durable advantage is a system.

30-minute quick start

If you want quick wins today:

• Add an atomic answer to your top 5 pages
• Add a short FAQ section to those pages
• Add an author + updated date
• Add one comparison table (if the page is “best / vs / choose”)
• Re-test your top prompts across two assistants

Where Meridian fits

Meridian turns readiness into an ongoing workflow:

• Crawling insights (see when AI crawlers visit)
• Technical optimization recommendations
• Content performance and gaps
• Visibility trends and alerts

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