It is reasonable to ask whether your website needs to change as people use more AI-assisted search. It is less useful to start by buying a promise that a few special words will put the business into every answer. A practical review can ask three ordinary questions: can the intended systems reach the public page, does the page answer the customer’s question, and what evidence will show what happened afterward?
Begin with the page you would want a customer to read. Name the service, explain the location or territory, describe what is included and make the next step clear. Add the experience or evidence you actually have: a labeled owned-brand example, an approved client case study or a specific explanation of the process. Avoid invented credentials and results. These are our recommendations for a useful business page, rather than a recipe for guaranteed AI citations.
Google says established SEO practices still apply to its AI search features, with no special AI schema required. We interpret that as a reason to improve the information and foundations first. No provider can promise inclusion. See source 1.
Check crawler settings with the site owner’s actual goals in mind. OpenAI distinguishes OAI-SearchBot, used for ChatGPT search, from GPTBot, used for content that may support model training. The settings are independent: a site owner can allow search crawling while declining training crawling. This is a concrete reason to review an old blanket bot rule carefully instead of assuming every AI-related setting does the same job. See source 2.
That review should protect things intended to stay private. A staging site, customer portal or private document is not a marketing page just because it has a URL. Keep access controls in place. Ask the responsible owner or technical administrator to approve any change to crawling or security settings. An accessible page can still be absent from an answer; permission to retrieve information is not a placement guarantee.
Keep essential explanations in readable text, with clear headings and links. Check that any structured data matches the page. Treat those as documented maintenance checks, not a way to control an AI answer. See source 1.
Measurement deserves the same care as the page. In February 2026, Bing introduced its AI Performance public preview to report citation activity across supported Microsoft experiences and selected partners. Its page-level figures describe how often content is cited; they are not a count of customers or a ranking of the importance of a page. See source 3.
Bing’s June 2026 update added preview tools including Intents, Topics, Citation Share and Compare. Microsoft describes Citation Share as an observational measure, not traffic share or a quality score. That limitation matters: a change in citations can reflect many influences, so an upward chart after a content edit is not proof that the edit caused more sales. These features are still described as preview capabilities, and a particular account’s access or data coverage needs checking. See source 4.
For a small business, the sensible reporting plan may be a dated record of page changes, the available search/citation reports and actual inquiries with their sources where reliably known. Keep test submissions separate. Distinguish a citation, a visit, an inquiry and a paying customer. If the account has no useful reporting data or access has not been granted, say that clearly instead of producing a confidence-looking score.
Our recommended first update is deliberately small. Pick one service page. Confirm today’s business facts, the next action and the technical access settings. Agree the changes, use staging and a restore point, then test what you changed. Review the evidence later with its limitations intact. A website can become clearer and easier to use without anyone promising that Google, Bing or ChatGPT will recommend it.