Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): The 28-Point Checklist

Walk a target URL against the 28 items below. Score 2 for a clean pass, 1 for partial, 0 for miss. Perfect score = 56; realistic-good = 42-48. Anything below 30 almost never gets cited. Pair this with Menra's automated AEO scorer (app/features/content-aeo) which runs the same 60+ signals in under 30 seconds and ships per-paragraph recommendations. The manual checklist is for editors; the automated scorer is for scale.

1. **Organization schema** on every page (sitewide). Name, URL, logo, sameAs array linking social profiles. 2. **Page-type schema** matching content (Article, Product, FAQPage, HowTo, Review). Use the most specific type that fits. 3. **FAQPage schema** on pages with Q&A sections. Each question/answer pair encoded - AI engines heavily favor these. 4. **Breadcrumb schema** on deep-nested pages. Helps AI understand your site hierarchy. 5. **Author schema** with person entity linked to real author profile (LinkedIn / Twitter). AI weights content with named, verifiable authors. 6. **Structured data validator passes** - test at validator.schema.org. Red warnings = invalid markup AI may ignore.

7. **Single H1** matching the page's primary intent. No multi-H1 pages (breaks AI's hierarchy parsing). 8. **H2 questions.** On high-intent pages, H2s phrased as questions (or direct-statement answers). AI pulls citation-worthy blocks from these. 9. **First paragraph direct answer.** For queries like "What is X?", the first sentence answers directly. No throat-clearing. 10. **Logical section order.** Background → How it works → Examples → Edge cases. AI parses top-down. 11. **Short paragraphs (<120 words).** Longer blocks fragment poorly in retrieval. 12. **Descriptive anchor text** on internal links. "Learn more about AEO scoring" > "click here".

13. **Brand name in first 100 words.** Canonical spelling. Avoid acronyms until defined. 14. **Category anchoring.** State the product category explicitly ("Menra is an AI visibility monitoring platform…"). AI uses this for disambiguation. 15. **Named entities.** Mention relevant people (founders, key customers), places, competitors. AI builds relationship graphs. 16. **Internal link depth.** Link to your About, Pricing, Docs from every marketing page. AI follows to build context. 17. **External authority links.** Cite Wikipedia, industry reports, peer-reviewed studies where relevant. AI treats pages with authoritative outbound links as more citation-worthy.

18. **Definition blocks.** If your page is the canonical "What is X" for your product, make that definition explicit and near the top. 19. **Bullet-point lists for enumerable answers.** "5 benefits of X", "3 types of Y" - AI loves parseable lists. 20. **Comparison tables** for "X vs. Y" content. Clear markup > prose comparisons. 21. **Numeric claims with citations.** "40% of users report…" with footnote or inline citation. AI quotes numbers more often when backed by a source.

22. **Last-updated date visible.** Users and AI crawlers both favor current content. 23. **Historical refresh cycle.** Top pages refreshed every 6 months at minimum. 24. **Author authority.** Author profile pages on your site + verified external profiles (LinkedIn, Twitter). 25. **E-A-T signals.** Expertise (credentials), Authoritativeness (citations of your content elsewhere), Trustworthiness (contact info, legal pages, consistent NAP).

26. **Fast page load.** Core Web Vitals green. AI crawlers have timeouts too. 27. **Mobile-responsive.** Broken mobile layout = crawler confusion = skipped citation. 28. **Canonical + hreflang tags** for multi-locale pages. AI pulls the right regional version.

Run 10 of your top pages against this checklist manually. Tally your average. Then spot-check: - Which single item hurts you most across all pages? That's your first fix. - Which pages scored highest? Use them as templates for the rest. - Which pages scored lowest? Probably the ones AI never cites. Test in ChatGPT / Perplexity before and after your fixes. Then instrument with Menra's AEO Score feature: get the same grade in 30 seconds per URL, with per-paragraph recommendations. Fixes compound over 4-6 weeks as AI engines re-crawl and update citation preferences.