Are Your Pages AIO-Ready? A 15-Minute Technical Checklist

If your content isn’t being cited even when it ranks, the issue may not be what you wrote. It may be how your site is built.

AI systems powering Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs), ChatGPT, and Perplexity retrieve, extract, and cite specific sections of content that answer a user’s question. But they can only reuse what they can access and understand, which means your site needs to be fast, accessible, and clearly structured.

The good news is that you don’t need to overhaul your entire site. In just 15 minutes per page, you can identify technical barriers preventing AI citation and find quick wins to make your content more retrievable.

In this article, I’ll walk you through:

• Why technical readiness affects AI citation likelihood.
• A 15-minute per-page checklist to identify retrievability barriers.
• Workflows to help content teams, SEOs, and developers implement these practices consistently.

Why Technical Readiness Matters for AI Retrieval

AI systems need to access, parse, and understand your content before they can cite it. Technical barriers reduce the likelihood of citation, and severe issues can prevent AI retrieval completely. 

Technical barriers impact AI citation in three main ways:

1. AI platforms can’t retrieve what they can’t access.

For Google and RAG-enabled LLMs to cite your content, they need to be able to read it. Technical barriers like slow loading times (over 3-5 seconds), robots.txt that block crawling, noindex tags that prevent indexing, content hidden behind JavaScript, or broken website code can keep AI platforms from even seeing your content.

2. Poor page structure reduces citation likelihood.

RAG-enabled LLMs rely on semantic HTML elements to parse and understand content hierarchy. Without proper heading tags, paragraph elements, and logical markup structure, AI crawlers may have difficulty “reading” your page’s content or identifying relevant sections, making your pages less likely to be cited.

3. Technical quality may affect trust and confidence.

AI systems often have stricter technical requirements than traditional search crawlers, including tight timeout constraints when retrieving content and limited JavaScript processing. Additionally, technical problems may signal to AI systems that content is unreliable, similar to how search engines use page speed and mobile-friendliness as quality indicators.

The following checklist addresses each of these barriers systematically.

Run This 15-Minute Technical Checklist Per Page

You don’t need a full technical audit to improve AI visibility and increase AIO citations. A focused check can flag critical issues and surface easy-to-fix items.

The following checklist covers factors that impact whether RAG systems can retrieve and extract your content. Each step takes under two minutes. Note which items need to be addressed for each URL you audit and share it with your content, SEO, or web team.

1. Confirm crawlability and index status.

• Why: If Google can’t access and index your page, AI systems can’t cite it in overviews or AI mode.
• How: Use Google Search Console’s URL inspection tool to confirm your page is accessible and indexed.
• What to look for:
  • “URL is on Google” status with green checkmark.
  • Successful indexing timestamp showing recent crawl.
  • If not indexed, check if crawl errors, noindex meta tags, or robots.txt restrictions are preventing access.

2. Verify mobile accessibility.

• Why: Many AI systems crawl using mobile user agents, so poor mobile rendering can prevent content retrieval.
• How: Test your page on mobile devices or use browser developer tools’ device emulation.
• What to look for:
  • All important content is visible without requiring user interaction.
  • Text remains readable without zooming or horizontal scrolling.
  • Mobile version displays the same core information as the desktop version.
  • If content is missing on mobile, check for collapsed menus or elements that are hidden on smaller screens.

3. Check page speed and Core Web Vitals.

• Why: Fast pages get parsed and processed more reliably by AI systems with tight timeout constraints.
• How: Use PageSpeed Insights to assess your Core Web Vitals for both Desktop and Mobile. 
• What to look for:
  • Largest Contentful Pain (LCP) under 2.5 seconds.
  • Interaction to Next Paint (INP) under 200 ms.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) less than 0.1.

4. Inspect and simplify HTML. 

• Why: Clean markup helps AI systems parse content more reliably and extract key information.
• How: Right-click and select “View Source” to examine your page’s code.
• What to look for:
  • Main content (headlines, paragraphs, key text) is visible in the HTML source.
  • Content doesn’t require JavaScript to load and display.

5. Audit heading hierarchy.

• Why: AI systems rely on headings to understand content structure and identify citation-worthy sections.
• How: Scan through your page content and examine heading tags in the HTML source or with a Chrome extension like HeadingsMap.
• What to look for:
  • Only one H1 tag per page.
  • Use of H2 tags for main sections and H3 tags for subsections with no skipped levels.

6. Evaluate schema markup.

• Why: Structured data helps AI systems understand content type, intent, and format for better retrieval.
• How: Use Google’s Rich Results Tool to test your page’s structured data.
• What to look for:
  • Appropriate schema markup for your content type (Article, FAQ, HowTo, etc.).
  • Valid JSON-LD format with no syntax errors.
  • Key properties filled out completely (for example, headline, author, datePublished for articles).

7. Review canonicalization and reduce duplicate pages.

• Why: Duplicate content reduces trust and splits citation opportunities across multiple URLs.
• How: Right-click on the page, select “View Source,” and search for “canonical” in the HTML.
• What to look for:
  • Self-referencing canonical tag.
  • If the canonical points to a different page that’s a duplicate or near-duplicate of the page you’re auditing, work with your content and marketing teams to determine if pages can be consolidated or eliminated.

8. Confirm readability.

• Why: Readable content ensures AI systems can easily parse and extract key information for citations.
• How: Test with readability tools like Yoast plugin (WordPress/Shopify) or online Flesch Reading Ease calculators.
• What to look for:
  • Flesch Reading Ease score above 60.
  • Short paragraphs, active voice, minimal jargon.

9. Assess internal links.

• Why: Strategic internal linking reinforces semantic relevance and helps AI systems understand content relationships. 
• How: Review links within your page content and navigation.
• What to look for:
  • Links to related, relevant content with descriptive anchor text.
  • No generic phrases like “click here,” “read more,” or “learn more.”

Extra Tip: Check Your CloudFlare Settings

At the end of June 2025, CloudFlare began rolling out the ability to block AI systems from crawling sites. New websites using CloudFlare will default to blocking AI bots, and some companies may opt to block AI crawlers. If your site uses CloudFlare, check your settings to verify AI search platforms can read your content.

How To Use This Checklist in Your Workflow

This checklist works best for auditing existing pages and ensuring new content meets technical standards before publication.

For Existing Content

• Content refresh projects: Run the full checklist when updating important pages.
• Quarterly audits: Systematically check high-value pages every 3-6 months.
• Performance troubleshooting: When otherwise strong content isn’t getting AI citations.
• Competitive response: When competitors appear in AI results, but you don’t.

For New Content

• Pre-publish QA: Content teams integrate items 5, 8, and 9 (headings, readability, and internal links) into their QA workflow before publishing. For additional content advice, share this article about content structure and retrievability with them.
• Publishing workflow: Technical teams add items 4, 6, and 7 (HTML, schema, and canonicalization) to upload/CMS setup workflows.
• Post-launch audit: Dev teams verify items 1-3 (crawlability, mobile, page speed) after the page goes live.

Implementation Tips

1. Score Pages Systematically

Use the checklist with this spreadsheet to score existing pages. If a checklist item needs to be implemented, give the page a zero for that item. If the page doesn’t require implementation of a particular item, give the page a one. 

Prioritize page updates by focusing on high-value content with a low checklist score. 

2. Align Teams and Assign Ownership

Share the checklist across departments and assign clear ownership: 

• Content teams for readability and structure. 
• SEO for technical factors. 
• Dev teams for performance issues. 

Host a short team training to explain each item’s impact.

3. Use the Checklist for New-Hire Training 

Compare a page before and after it passed the checklist with new team members. Include it in onboarding for content strategists and technical SEOs to build shared standards.

This checklist only works if your team uses it consistently. Add it to your systems, train your team, and make retrievability a priority in your content workflow.

Beyond Rankings: Building for AI Retrieval

Search visibility is more than just ranking well for key terms. If you want AI search platforms to cite your content, invest in making it retrievable. 

Remember: Traditional SEO gets you ranked; AI retrievability gets you cited. Use this checklist and update your workflows to verify that each of your important pages meets retrievability standards in addition to SEO best practices.