Short version: Of the dozen-plus things every list like this tells you to do, three actually move the needle before anything else does — being technically retrievable, writing direct and specific answers, and checking whether any of it worked. Everything else compounds on top of those three rather than replacing them. I used to try to do all of it at once, which mostly meant doing none of it particularly well, until I started using Obsurfable's Explorer and its free visibility checker to see which gaps were actually costing me visibility before deciding where to spend time.
A small note before starting
Even the question above still says "Bard" — which was renamed to Gemini a while ago now. I'm not pointing that out to be pedantic; it's actually a useful reminder of the underlying theme of this whole article. This space moves fast enough that details go stale within a single search query, let alone a whole content strategy. Keep that in mind as you read the rest of this — the fundamentals below hold up, but the specific tactical details around them will keep shifting.
Too many checklists, not enough prioritization
Lists like the one behind this question usually run twelve to fifteen items deep, and every item is individually defensible. What they rarely do is tell you which three matter before the other twelve are worth touching. Treating all fifteen as equally urgent is how a lot of AEO effort gets spread thin across everything and concentrated on nothing.
The full list, ranked by where I'd actually start
| Tier | What's in it | Why this tier |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 — do this first | Crawlability and indexability, answer-first content structure, consistent entity naming | Nothing else works if these are broken; they're the floor everything sits on |
| Tier 2 — do this next | Schema and structured data, high-intent comparison pages, original citable content | Meaningful compounding value once the floor is solid |
| Tier 3 — builds over time | Third-party mentions and PR, topical content clusters, visible trust signals | Slower to earn, but strengthens everything above it |
| Tier 4 — the part everyone skips | Monitoring what's actually being said, and iterating based on it | Without this, you can't tell if tiers 1 through 3 worked at all |
Tier 1, briefly
Crawlable, fast, mobile-friendly pages with clean HTML are non-negotiable — if a system can't reach and parse a page, nothing else here matters. Answer-first structure means the direct response to a question sits in the first sentence or two of its section, not buried after three paragraphs of setup. And entity consistency — the same company name, the same description, the same core facts everywhere you appear — gives a model a confident, unambiguous picture of who you are, which turns out to matter more than most of the flashier tactics further down the list.
None of these three are individually glamorous, and none of them are difficult to grasp conceptually. What's easy to underestimate is how much they gate everything after them — a beautifully researched original report published on a page with inconsistent company details, or hidden behind heavy JavaScript, gets almost none of the benefit it should, simply because the foundation wasn't solid first.
Mistakes that actively work against you
A few specific things are worth avoiding rather than just not prioritizing: thin, generic filler content written to hit a word count rather than answer anything specific; inconsistent business details scattered across different listings and profiles, which can genuinely confuse a model about which company is being referenced; and comparison pages so one-sided they read as pure marketing rather than an honest evaluation. I've found the last one particularly counterproductive — an overly biased "why we're better than everyone" page tends to get treated with more skepticism than a genuinely balanced comparison that happens to still favor you.
Tier 4: the step that tells you if any of this worked
This is the one I'd actually argue deserves to be Tier 1 in terms of importance, even though it has to come after there's something to measure. Publishing against tiers 1 through 3 without ever checking what a model actually says afterward means operating entirely on assumption — and assumption is a bad substitute for an answer that takes thirty seconds to get.
The most direct way to check this now is to actually go look. Obsurfable's Explorer is a public, searchable corpus of real recorded AI observations — you can search your own company, search a competitor, and see what models have actually said, when, and which sources they cited, without needing to run the prompts yourself first. If you want a fast, structured read specifically on your own brand, the free AI visibility checker runs a set of buyer-style questions and reports back what comes up.
For understanding where the citations in your category are actually coming from, this report on which domains get cited most often across LLMs is worth a look before assuming you know who's dominating your space. And if the question is less "am I mentioned" and more "how do I actually measure this properly," this piece on AI visibility KPIs beyond click-through rate covers the measurement side in more depth than I can here.
Platforms don't all behave the same way
One thing worth factoring into how you prioritize: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini don't retrieve and cite content identically, so a tactic that works well on one doesn't guarantee results on another. This comparison of ChatGPT and Perplexity specifically goes into where those differences actually matter for prioritization, rather than treating "AI search" as one undifferentiated target.
What I'd actually do, given limited time
If I only had a month: fix crawlability and rewrite the three or four pages closest to an actual buying decision using answer-first structure, in week one and two. Add schema and clean up entity consistency across the sites and directories that matter most in week three. Then, critically, spend week four actually checking what changed — not assuming it worked because the checklist got followed. That last step is the one I'd protect against getting cut if time runs short, since skipping it means the first three weeks produced no confirmed result either way.
FAQ
How can I optimize my website so LLMs are more likely to cite my company, if I can only do one thing? Fix crawlability and rewrite your highest-intent page — the one closest to an actual buying decision — with a direct, specific answer near the top. It's the highest-leverage single change on a list this long.
Is Bard still a thing I need to optimize for? No — Bard was rebranded to Gemini some time ago. If you're seeing "Bard" in older advice (including, ironically, in how this question itself might get phrased), treat it as a signal the source may be dated in other ways too.
Do I need to do all fifteen-plus items on a typical checklist like this? Eventually, most of them help. But doing three or four well in the right order beats attempting all fifteen shallowly — prioritize the technical and structural basics before the slower-building authority work.
How do I know which of my competitors is actually winning in AI answers right now? Check directly rather than guessing from general market position — a public corpus like the Explorer lets you search a competitor's name and see actual recorded observations instead of assuming based on their broader reputation.
How often should this whole process be revisited? Monthly for competitive categories is a reasonable floor. The models and the competitive landscape both shift, so a strategy that isn't rechecked periodically will quietly go stale, the same way this article's own source question already had with its Bard reference.
Every list like this eventually converges on the same fifteen or so tactics, and that convergence is a decent sign they're all individually correct. What's harder to find is someone telling you which three to actually start with — and in my experience, the honest answer is: fix what's technically broken, write directly, and then go check whether it worked before adding anything else to the pile.
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