The term “quality content” is changing because of AI search.
Back in the day, it was a numbers game—quality meant length. The longer the content was, in Google’s eyes, the more in-depth it was.
However, now, with AI search engines, they want more than length. They want depth. They want content that actually helps the reader from start to finish in the quickest and smartest way possible.
Step 1: Understand What “Comprehensive” Means Today
Regarding content, “comprehensive” means topic depth, not just length.
A long 500-word article that wanders off topic and repeats itself isn’t comprehensive; it’s just long. An in-depth post means covering all relevant aspects of a topic, so the users don’t need to look elsewhere (or, now, the AI search engine).
Therefore, when creating content:
- Avoid fluff and repetition.
- Be factually complete and clear.
- Don’t just make it long, make it in-depth.
- Cover the user intent from multiple angles.
Doing this ensures that users (and AI search engines) can go to your page, extract all the information they need, and then don’t need to go elsewhere—that’s comprehensive.
Step 2: Structure Content for AI Visibility
The comprehensiveness of content is important. However, even the most in-depth content will be overlooked by AI if it isn’t structured properly.
Therefore, you need to follow the best practices for AI-friendly formatting as well as making it friendly for humans. You can do this by:
- Using Clear Headings
Headings break up your content into logical sections. They also act as “signposts” for both readers and algorithms to skim through your content and to quickly understand its contents.
Because of this, all your content needs to use proper heading tags, like <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc. They should also be descriptive, so readers and AI models immediately know what it’s about.
- Leveraging Bullet Points, Lists, and Tables
As humans, reading a block of text isn’t only boring, it buries important information. This is the same for AI. It makes the content harder to read and parse.
Therefore, make it more user-friendly and machine-friendly. Use bullet points, lists, and tables to get points over easier.
For example, for a step-by-step, how-to guide, use lists, for key features of a product, use bullet points, to display unique data, consider making a table, etc.
- Applying Internal Links Logically
Internal links should be used to guide readers (and crawlers) to related information. It shouldn’t be random. It should add to the content.
For example, with this post, we could add internal links about “understanding AI citation mechanics” or “how to perform AEO”. We wouldn’t add links like “how to perform technical SEO” or “how to build backlinks”. It just wouldn’t make logical sense.
By using internal links logically, it adds context, reinforcing the semantic structure of your content network. This “semantic SEO” helps signal relationships between topics, helping the AI to develop a better understanding of the relatability and trustworthiness of your content.
- Implementing Schema Markup
Schema markup is like a universal language for non-human entities like crawlers, AI search engines, etc. It suggests to them, in a language they understand, the context of the page.
For example, the article schema suggests that the page the AI is parsing is an article, the FAQ schema means that that particular area is an FAQ section, etc.
There are tons of different schema applications, and we recommend you use all of them when appropriate. You can see all of them on schema.org. This is like a library of schemas.
Step 3: Build E-E-A-T Into Your Pages
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, and it’s a framework used by Google to establish credibility.
Despite being Google’s framework, those wanting to optimise for AI search engines, even if they aren’t from Google, should focus on satisfying E-E-A-T.
At the end of the day, any search engine, regardless of whether it’s AI or not, will prefer some sites over others. This is because the sites they suggest are trusted and credible.
Therefore, despite being an SEO technique, those wanting to perform AEO shouldn’t forget about it.
How to Establish E-E-A-T on a Website
- Showcase Author Experience and Credentials
Every content piece should have a clear author (or set of authors). They should also have a complete bio, mentioning their credentials, years of experience, awards, and other qualifications.
- Demonstrate First-Hand Experience (Especially for YMYL Topics)
Showcasing experience in your content is always a good practice. However, for YMYL topics, topics that are about medical, legal, or financial advice, it’s mandatory.
For such topics, they can impact the reader’s life significantly. Therefore, Google, as part of its E-E-A-T framework, requires authors to incorporate personal experiences into the content—for example, personal anecdotes, case studies, experiment results, testimonials, etc.
This, in general, isn’t only excellent for meeting E-E-A-T requirements. It also makes your content more unique and engaging for the reader (and AI), so it’s a win-win.
- Cite Trustworthy Sources and Evidence
If you mention a bold claim, present a fact, statistic, etc., it must be backed up by personal research or a trustworthy source.
A lot of people mess this up. They get a stat or statement, add it to their content, and then link to whatever page they found it on. This isn’t necessarily a “trustworthy” source.
Not all sites are trusted. That’s just how it is. When looking for trustworthy sources to add to your content, think industry leaders, governments, massive news websites, etc.
- Ensure Accuracy and Recency
Once you create content, don’t leave it. Come back to it and update it when needed. This ensures it’s fresh, up-to-date, and accurate (or, in other words, more trusted).
Don’t just update it either, mention when the update occurred. Users, search engines, and AI search engines love this. It indicates to them that the content has been reviewed and updated to ensure recency.
- Add Editorial Transparency
This is a bit of a broader point, but worth mentioning. Beyond all of the above, stating how the content was created can help with E-E-A-T more.
For example, some sites add disclaimers like “Medically reviewed by X” for health content, “based on X study” for analytical pieces, or “assisted with AI”.
It just screams credibility, and that’s actually what you want your website to do. This way, you’ll appear in many more AI citations.
Step 4: Use Content Clusters and Semantic Mapping
Topic coverage is essential. We established this above. However, it doesn’t need to be on a single page, especially if it doesn’t make sense to the main topic or user intent.
Because of this, it’s vital to use topic clusters. These are topics that include a pillar post, like “AI Search Engines” and several supporting “cluster” pages that explore subtopics in detail, like “AI Search vs Traditional Search”, ”Benefits of AI search”, etc.
With the pillar page, you link to the cluster pages. Some cluster pages can also link to each other. This then creates a semantic map that helps users, crawlers, etc., navigate your website, improving user experience, trust, and lots more.
Step 5: Format for Passage-Level Retrieval
AI search engines use passage-level retrieval. This means that, in most cases, only a part of your web page will be extracted to present an AI-generated answer. Therefore, by creating content that abides by this type of retrieval, you can rank higher in AI citations.
You can do this by:
- Writing in concise, self-contained segments: Keep paragraphs 2-5 sentences long, focus on a single idea per section, include examples, context, and definitions.
- Using clear and factual language: Make it easy to read, explain terms if they’re unknown to the reader, and provide references.
- Embedding references and explaining relationships: Include citations, clarify entities, studies, or tools when mentioned, etc.
- Ensuring clarity and consistency: Stick with a language that makes sense to the reader, uniform data formats, etc.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
The way we create content is changing. We not only need to create it for humans and search engines, but we also need to create it for AI understanding and extraction.
Luckily, a lot of the best practices from SEO also apply in this new form of optimisation. There are just some areas that have changed.
For example, schema, though it was important, is now even more important, almost mandatory. Traditional SEO is more page-level optimisation, however, AI search is passage-level ranking, etc.
But fundamentals, like E-E-A-T, still remain essential. This is excellent for those who have previously optimised their websites to this framework.
Now, you should go to your website and perform a content audit. See what’s missing and ask yourself, “Is this content helpful from a user and machine perspective?” and work from there.
