The WordPress GEO Checklist: 15 Steps to AI Visibility

A step-by-step checklist for WordPress site owners who want their content cited by AI search engines. Ordered from quickest wins to deeper work.

Quick Wins (Under 30 Minutes)

☐ 1. Create an llms.txt File

Place a plain Markdown file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that lists your 10–20 most important pages with one-line descriptions.

Time: 10 minutes
Impact: High — AI systems use this as a discovery shortcut
How: SSH to your server, create the file in WordPress root. Or install Zitably and use the built-in editor.

☐ 2. Check Your Heading Structure

Open any page in your browser, right-click → Inspect, and search for <h1>, <h2>, <h3>. You should see:

Exactly one H1 per page
H2s for main sections
H3s for subsections
No skipped levels (H1 → H3 without H2)

Time: 5 minutes per page
Impact: Medium — clean hierarchy enables better chunk extraction

☐ 3. Verify Schema.org Is Present

Check yoursite.com/any-page → View Source → search for application/ld+json. If nothing shows up, you have no structured data.

Time: 2 minutes to check
Impact: High — pages with schema get cited 3.2× more often

☐ 4. Test Content Without JavaScript

Disable JavaScript in your browser and visit your pages. Can you read the content? If not, AI crawlers can't either (most don't execute JS).

Time: 5 minutes
Impact: Critical — no JS = no content for many AI crawlers

☐ 5. Check robots.txt for AI Bot Rules

Visit yoursite.com/robots.txt. Are you accidentally blocking AI crawlers?

# These block AI visibility:
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

# Only add these if you intentionally want to block training

Time: 2 minutes
Impact: Critical — blocking bots = zero AI visibility

Structural Work (1–3 Hours)

☐ 6. Add Direct Answers to Section Openings

For each major section (H2), ensure the first sentence directly answers the question the heading implies. Don't build up to the answer — lead with it.

Time: 15 minutes per page
Impact: High — improves Answerability score significantly

☐ 7. Convert Prose Data into Tables and Lists

Find paragraphs that contain comparisons, specifications, or multiple data points. Convert them to <table> elements or <ul>/<ol> lists.

Time: 20 minutes per page
Impact: High — tables and lists are extraction-optimized

☐ 8. Increase Fact Density

Review your top 10 pages. For each, count concrete facts (numbers, names, dates) per 500 words. Target: 12+.

Replace every vague claim with a specific, verifiable statement.

Time: 30–60 minutes per page
Impact: Very high — 3.4× citation increase above threshold

☐ 9. Add FAQ Sections to Key Pages

Add 3–5 frequently asked questions at the bottom of your top pages. Use proper FAQ format:

<h2>Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<h3>What is [topic]?</h3>
<p>[Direct, factual answer in 2-3 sentences]</p>

Time: 20 minutes per page
Impact: High — FAQ format maps directly to how users query AI

☐ 10. Implement Article Schema on Blog Posts

Add JSON-LD with @type: Article, including headline, datePublished, dateModified, author, and publisher.

Time: 30 minutes (or install Zitably for automatic generation)
Impact: Medium-high — establishes authorship and freshness signals

Technical Implementation (3+ Hours)

☐ 11. Enable Markdown Content Negotiation

Serve Markdown when AI agents send Accept: text/markdown. This reduces token consumption by 80% and increases context fit.

Time: 2–4 hours (manual) or 5 minutes (install Zitably)
Impact: Very high — Cloudflare measured 80% token reduction = better AI extraction

☐ 12. Add Alternate Link Headers

In your HTML <head>, add a link to the Markdown variant for discovery:

<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown" href="/blog/my-post" />

Time: 30 minutes (theme modification)
Impact: Medium — helps AI agents discover the Markdown format

☐ 13. Install AI Bot Detection

Track which AI crawlers visit your site, which pages they read, and how often. You can't optimize what you don't measure.

Time: 5 minutes (install Zitably) or 2–4 hours (custom implementation)
Impact: Foundational — informs all optimization decisions

☐ 14. Set Up a Content Refresh Schedule

AI citation rates decline after 13 weeks without an update. Create a schedule:

Update dateModified in Schema.org
Refresh statistics and data points
Add new developments or context

Time: Ongoing (30 minutes per page per quarter)
Impact: High — freshness is a ranking signal for AI citations

☐ 15. Register WordPress 7.0 Abilities (If Applicable)

If you're on WordPress 7.0+, your content can be callable by AI agents — not just readable. Install the MCP adapter and register content abilities.

Time: 30 minutes
Impact: High on 7.0+ — opens the agentic channel

Priority Matrix

Step	Impact	Effort	Do First?
1. llms.txt	High	Low	✅
3. Schema.org	High	Low	✅
5. robots.txt check	Critical	Low	✅
6. Direct answers	High	Medium	✅
8. Fact density	Very high	Medium	✅
11. Content negotiation	Very high	Medium-high	✅
4. JS-free content check	Critical	Low	✅

Start with the low-effort, high-impact items. Most sites can improve their GEO score by 20–30 points in a single afternoon.

Measuring Progress

Run your Zitably Score before and after implementing these changes. The 7-axis breakdown shows exactly which improvements moved which numbers. Track over time to see citation trends.

Check all 15 boxes faster with Zitably — automated scoring, Markdown serving, Schema.org, llms.txt, and bot detection in one plugin. Install free →