Microsoft Copilot is on the entire Microsoft ecosystem, from Bing Chat to Edge, Windows 11, and Microsoft 365 apps. It’s an AI system that’s changing the way Microsoft users interact with search, content, and productivity tools.
For website owners, this means less traffic. Copilot can provide direct answers to user queries, removing the need for traditional search engines. This marks a huge shift in how we generate organic traffic.
Instead of focusing on ranking #1 on the SERPs, you must now shift to AI citations, or, in this case, Bing Copilot SEO. This will allow your website to appear in AI-generated results from Copilot, allowing you to still get seen by your target audience.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered assistant developed by Microsoft. They use it across their products, including Bing Chat, Windows 11, Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, etc.) and Edge. It uses an OpenAI integration (GPT-4) combined with Bing’s web index to generate conversational, context-aware answers, suggestions, and summaries.
How Does it Use Bing?
When a user asks a question in Copilot, whether on Bing Chat, Edge, Windows, or their Office apps, it uses Bing’s web database to extract data related to the question. This data is then passed to GPT-4 and put into a conversational, direct answer for the user.
How Bing Copilot Chooses What to Cite
Getting cited by Copilot isn’t just a matter of writing “good” content. You must structure it in a way that the AI can understand, trust, and retrieve instantly.
Structured Content with Schema and Semantic HTML
Bing’s AI relies on semantic clarity. Therefore, it’s important to use proper HTML tags, for example, <h1>, <h2>, <section>, <article>, etc., as these create a simple structure for the AI to parse effortlessly. This type of semantic formatting also improves pass-level retrieval.
Adding schema markup is also just as important. By using structured formats like FAQPage, HowTo, Article, or BlogPosting, it helps Microsoft’s AI to understand what each section of your content is meant for.
Focusing on both is highly important for passage-level retrieval. This is how Microsoft’s AI pulls content from websites to produce answers. Instead of page-level retrieval, which extracts the whole page, passage-level retrieval only extracts the relevant information.
Therefore, pages with clear, well-structured code are more likely to be recognised as a trusted and credible source.
E-E-A-T Factors (Experience, Trust, Authority, Experience)
E-E-A-T is short for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and it was a framework originally created by Google.
Bing uses a similar framework to rank content. The higher the E-E-A-T, in the eyes of a search engine, the more trusted and credible the content is.
- Experience: Show first-hand knowledge, especially for YMYL content.
- Expertise: Attribute content to subject matter experts.
- Authority: Build domain-level trust through getting high-quality and relevant backlinks.
- Trust: Cite sources that increase the credibility of your content.
In short, E-E-A-T is a way for traditional and AI search engines to determine how credible and trustworthy the content is. By focusing on E-E-A-T, your AI citation visibility will increase.
Fast-Loading, Mobile-First, Clearly Formatted Pages
Microsoft’s AI fetches content in real time. Because of this, website speed and clarity are essential. If a page takes too long to load, uses heavy JavaScript, has a confusing layout, etc., the AI may skip it for a faster, cleaner alternative.
First, a website should have good Core Web Vitals. Having a good score from Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a great indication that your website is fast and user-friendly.
Second, it should be mobile-friendly. Search engines like Bing now prioritise mobile experiences over desktop experiences. The better the mobile experience, the better the crawlability and indexability. If this improves, the chances of being cited also increase.
Third, remove anything like excessive ads, pop-ups, overlays, etc. Anything like this can increase load time and confuse the AI, which may cause it to parse other websites instead.
Strong Internal Linking and Entity Context
A lot of AI systems thrive on entity recognition and topical relevance. Here, creating clusters works really well. These clusters internally link content together, helping cover topics comprehensively.
AI loves this type of comprehensiveness. By covering topics in this way, they can parse all content from a single website instead of multiple, reducing the resources required to provide an answer.
Formatting Your Content for Citation in Copilot
Becoming a featured source with AI answers, content formatting plays a big role. When developing content, make sure to:
Write Short, Answer-Ready Paragraphs
Copilot extracts answers on a passage level. This means they don’t extract from entire pages. Therefore, you need to create content for this type of extraction.
One way you can do this is by creating concise content. Use short, self-contained paragraphs (something like 30 to 60 words long) that directly answer common user queries. Ideally, it should read like a standalone answer that makes sense even out of context.
Use FAQ, HowTo, and Article Schema
Structured data provides signals to Copilot about the purpose and format of your content. If you match these correctly, it’s easier for the AI to understand what the content is, what it is for, etc.
- FAQPage schema works great for FAQ sections
- HowTo schema is excellent for step-by-step guides
- Article or BlogPosting schema suggests it’s a blog or article
When applying schema, make sure to use JSON-LD. This is the simplest and quickest schema format. Also, once applied, verify whether it’s set up correctly using Schema Markup Validator.
Format With Bullet Points, Lists, and Clear Headings
AI answers often mimic content formatted in lists or clear section headers. Therefore, you should match this to make the retrieval and formatting easier for the AI.
This isn’t only good for AI parsing, either. Using these formats aids scannability, which could have a positive impact on user experience on your website.
Adopt a Voice- and Chat-Friendly Tone
Microsoft Copilot is a conversational-based search engine, so the tone you write content in should also be conversational. When writing, write in a way that feels natural, conversational, and user-centric, similar to answering a real person’s question.
Technical SEO for Bing and AI Discovery
For Bing Copilot SEO to work, your content must be technically accessible. If Bingbot cannot crawl, render, or interpret your site, the chances you’ll get cited drop considerably.
Because of this, you should:
- Ensure Crawlability for Bingbot: Use Bing Webmaster Tools to verify whether or not the Bingbot can access your content.
- Use Robots.txt and Sitemaps Properly: Maintain a clean robots.txt and submit updated XML sitemaps regularly to guide Bing’s crawling and indexing.
- Address JavaScript Rendering Issues: Make sure that important content loads quickly by limiting JavaScript requirements. Use server-side rendering when possible.
- Optimise for Core Web Vitals and Mobile Performance: Ensure fast load times, responsive design, and visual stability by scoring high on Core Web Vitals.
These are the core areas you should focus on. Alongside this, make sure your website is mobile-friendly to ensure your content gets indexed.
Tracking and Leveraging Bing Copilot Mentions
Making sure your content is optimised for Copilot is one thing. Tracking and optimising citation performance is another.
Unlike traditional search, however, this is pretty difficult. This is because we’re dealing with prompts, for example, in Edge/Office Copilot content. Hopefully, however, more tools will become available. For now, though, there are only a select few.
Tools to Use
| Tool | Purpose | Use Case |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Crawl stats, indexing insights, and page performance | See how often Bingbot visits your pages; detect crawl issues; monitor indexed content |
| Google Analytics 4 | Referrer tracking (e.g., microsoft.com, copilot.microsoft.com) | Track traffic from Bing Copilot via source/medium reports or UTM tagging |
| Brand Monitoring Tools(e.g., Brand24) | Social listening, web mentions, AI citation sightings | Detect when users share Bing Chat answers that include your citations |
| IndexNow API Logs | Shows which URLs were submitted and indexed | Track whether updated or new pages were successfully submitted for indexing |
| GPT/Copilot Testing | Manual prompt testing in Bing Chat or Edge Copilot | Ask Copilot questions related to your content, and check if your site appears in citations |
| Microsoft 365 Admin Logs (Enterprise only) | Plugin behaviour and usage stats in Copilot across Outlook, Word, Teams | Assess how often internal users see or interact with Copilot suggestions referencing your domain |
Final Word
Copilot is changing the way people search online. Instead of traditional search, where users type in keywords and click on websites, it provides users with complete answers based on intent without them needing to click on any website.
This new type of zero-click search environment means that appearing in AI citations is the new number one spot. Being mentioned here can boost brand awareness and has the potential to filter traffic to your website.
Because of this, SEOs and content strategists need to move away from traditional, keyword-based content and more towards passage-level answers, schema, and AI-first formatting.
