LLM Best Practices

SEO & AI Search Optimization

4 min read

Search and agent discoverability as one coherent surface. Start at the foundation (technical), then layer content, structured data, and the discoverability files agents expect. Each row is one rule.

Foundation

The technical baseline. Get these wrong and nothing else matters.

  • glossary: Comprehensive SEO glossary; every term defined and grouped by category. Start here if any term is unfamiliar.
  • technical: Crawlability, canonicals, sitemaps, URL hygiene, rendering choices.
  • content: Topical authority, intent matching, internal linking.
  • e-e-a-t: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
  • helpful-content-update: Google’s Helpful Content System: the site-wide quality classifier and how to pass it.
  • algorithm-history: Timeline of major Google ranking updates (Panda through HCS) and what current updates target.
  • audit-checklist: Master single-page audit framework: pre-launch and quarterly.

AI search and agent readability

How to be quotable by AI engines and discoverable by autonomous agents.

  • ai-search-optimization: Optimize for the specific AI search engines: Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Bing Copilot.
  • llm-seo-best-practices: Pillar playbook for LLM SEO: topical clusters, literal-query titles, answer-first openings, structured metadata, and llms.txt.
  • generative-engine-optimization: What GEO is, how it differs from SEO and AEO, and the levers that move citation share in AI answers.
  • discoverable-by-ai-assistants: The end-to-end playbook for making a site discoverable, parseable, and citable by AI assistants.
  • answer-first-content: Lead every page with a direct, self-contained answer so LLMs can extract and cite the opening chunk.
  • structured-data-for-ai-crawlers: Which JSON-LD schemas help AI crawlers parse and cite a page, and why unbacked markup earns nothing.- answer-engine-optimization: Become the cited answer inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini.
  • ai-overviews: Earn inclusion and a citation link in the Google AI Overviews SERP feature.
  • llms-txt: The /llms.txt standard for agent-facing site indexes.
  • ai-txt: The ai.txt standard for AI training opt-out.
  • discoverability-files: Master catalog of every special file a public site ships at the root.

Site architecture

URL hierarchy, redirects, scale.

  • site-architecture: Silo structure, URL hierarchy, breadcrumbs, depth-from-home.
  • internal-linking: Anchor text, link depth, orphan audits, three-click rule.
  • redirects: 301 vs 302 vs canonical, chain depth, query handling.
  • hreflang: Multi-language and multi-region site setup.
  • pagination-and-facets: Large-site pagination and faceted-nav SEO.
  • crawl-budget: Crawl budget for sites over 10k URLs.
  • indexnow: IndexNow protocol for sub-hour change notification.
  • sitemaps-deep: Sitemap index, per-format sitemaps, news and image sitemaps, lastmod hygiene.

Off-page and verticals

Link earning, and the vertical content types that need their own playbook.

  • backlinks: Backlinks and link building: referring domains, original research, broken-link rebuilding, disavow.
  • video-seo: VideoObject schema, transcripts, hosting, video sitemaps.
  • news-seo: Time-sensitive ranking, NewsArticle schema, Publisher Center, AMP retirement.
  • ecommerce-seo: Product schema, OOS handling, faceted nav, review schema.

Content strategy

What to write, how to cluster it, how to keep it fresh.

  • content-clusters: Pillar pages plus cluster pages and the rules that bind them.
  • keyword-research: Tools, intent classification, long-tail terms.
  • title-tags: Title tag SEO as its own discipline: length, brand placement, click-magnetism.
  • serp-features: How to win featured snippets, People Also Ask, and knowledge panels.
  • content-refresh: When and how to refresh existing pages without triggering HCS downweight.
  • cannibalization: Detect and fix two pages competing for the same query.
  • author-entities: Connect authors to Google’s knowledge graph to strengthen E-E-A-T signals.

Structured data

The markup that turns pages into rich results and AI citations.

  • structured-data: JSON-LD schemas worth shipping, and which still earn rich results.
  • schema-markup-deep: Product, Course, VideoObject, DefinedTerm, plus the retired HowTo and FAQPage types and what they are still good for.

Performance and rendering

Core Web Vitals, page speed, and the JS-side fixes.

  • core-web-vitals: LCP, INP, and CLS thresholds and fixes.
  • page-speed: TTFB, FCP, image optimization, font loading, JS deferral. What CWV does not cover.
  • javascript-seo: How crawlers render JS, render-budget reality, SPA pitfalls.
  • mobile-first: Mobile-first indexing, viewport, touch targets, responsive.

Images and social

OG cards, image SEO, and the social-sharing surface.

  • og-images: OG image sizing and dynamic generation.
  • image-seo: Filenames, alt text, dimensions, formats, lazy loading, sitemaps.

Local

Geo-bound discovery.

  • local-seo: Google Business Profile, NAP, reviews, LocalBusiness schema.

Howtos (step-by-step)

When you need the procedure, not the rule.

Glossary anchors

Atomic definitions you can link to from any page.

46 items under this folder.