AEO/GEO Part 2: Make Your Website Easier for AI to Find and Cite

Take the Part 1 reports, the URL you want to improve, and the customer question you care about, and put them in the same chat. We use Codex for this, but you can use Claude Code or another AI harness.

For example, the target question for The Arlington Bagel is: "What local newsletters should I subscribe to for events and local business news in Arlington, Virginia?" That question gives the audit a real job to do.

Quick refresher: AEO is about making information easy to find, understand, and use in an answer. GEO is about how that information shows up in AI responses, including mentions and citations.

Ask the AI harness to inspect the public homepage, About or Authors page, recent editions, and any available robots.txt or sitemap. Have it list the URL and the specific thing it found for every recommendation, separate actual problems from optional improvements, and avoid inventing rankings, traffic, visibility scores, or citations.

**Pro tip:** If you skipped Part 1, have your AI harness run the audit first. You can also give it a public GEO audit as an input and ask it to turn the result into website-specific tasks.

The output should answer three questions:

• Can the page be reached and read?
• Can a reader quickly understand what the business or publication is, where it operates, and what it offers?
• Can someone verify who publishes it and which sources support its claims?

The score is just a diagnostic. The thing you need is a list of specific changes you can make and check.

Ask your AI harness to turn the audit findings into a task list in Google Sheets. You can use our workbook as an example. Excel or a CSV works too.

At minimum, include columns for:

• Task ID and priority
• Status and owner
• Workstream or page location
• Proposed change or acceptance criteria
• Effort and verification link

Keep the sheet simple. Each row should tell you what needs to change, where the change belongs, how important it is, and what still needs to be checked.

Go through the workbook and separate immediate fixes from longer-term plans. Check that each task actually fits your website, then fill in the owner, due date, and status.

For The Arlington Bagel, one immediate fix was clearer homepage copy. The existing copy said:

Your weekly rundown on events and local business in Arlington, VA!

The proposed revision made the format, location, coverage, and next action clearer:

H1: The Arlington Bagel: Your Weekly Arlington, VA Newsletter

Introduction: The Arlington Bagel is a weekly newsletter covering events and local business in Arlington, Virginia. Browse past editions to see what we cover, then subscribe for future updates.

CTA: Subscribe to The Arlington Bagel

Keep proposed changes tied to facts you can check. Do not add subscriber counts, delivery days, reviews, prices, or other claims that the audit did not confirm. For publisher information, link to the existing Authors page, public archive, and subscription form instead of creating a second identity story. "Bagel" in a name does not justify inventing restaurant hours, a storefront, or bakery details.

If the workbook is missing evergreen content ideas, ask your AI harness for the five pages that would best answer questions your customers ask. Have it add those ideas to the Google Sheet, then fill in the page purpose, owner, status, and next step.

For example, a realtor might add pages about neighborhoods, buying or renting in the area, and the questions clients ask before a move. A local newsletter might add evergreen pages about the area it covers, how to find local events, and what a new subscriber can expect.

Keep these pages separate from time-sensitive updates. A page about events this weekend needs regular updates. A page explaining the area or your service should stay useful between updates.