ai-search-optimization
Optimizes for AI assistants and AI-generated answers — being retrievable, being cited, and being represented accurately when a model answers on your behalf. Use this when traffic is shifting from links to AI answers, when a brand is misrepresented or absent in AI responses, when planning content for retrieval rather than ranking, or when deciding how AI search changes an existing SEO program.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cbrock84/headcount /tmp/ai-search-optimization && cp -r /tmp/ai-search-optimization/plugins/demand-generation/skills/ai-search-optimization ~/.claude/skills/ai-search-optimizationSKILL.md
# AI search optimization Classical SEO optimizes to be *clicked*. This optimizes to be *quoted* — often with no click at all. That changes what a good page looks like. ## What gets cited - **Self-contained passages.** A retrieved chunk arrives without the surrounding page. Each section must make sense alone, with its subject named rather than pronominalized. - **Direct answers near the question.** Bury the answer under three paragraphs of context and the passage retrieved will be the context. - **Specific, checkable facts** — numbers, dates, named methods, stated conditions. Vague claims are neither retrievable nor quotable. - **Attributable expertise.** Named authors, stated credentials, dated content, and cited sources. Anonymous undated content is weakly weighted. - **Structure that survives extraction** — real headings, real lists, real tables. Layout implied by styling disappears. ## Practical moves - Answer the question in the first sentence under each heading, then elaborate. - Write headings as the questions people actually ask. - Define your own terms on your own pages, so the model's definition traces to you. - Keep facts consistent across your site. Contradictions get resolved against you. - Maintain the boring canonical pages — pricing, comparisons, specifications, FAQ. These are heavily retrieved and usually neglected. ## Being represented accurately Assistants assemble an answer about you from whatever is available, weighted toward third-party and structured sources. Where those are thin or stale, the answer will be wrong. Audit periodically: ask several assistants what your company does, who it is for, what it costs, and how it compares. Note the errors and trace them to a source. The fix is almost always publishing or correcting the source, not the assistant. ## Measuring Click-through will fall on informational queries even as influence rises. Track citation and mention frequency, and downstream branded search and direct traffic, rather than judging this program on organic sessions — that metric will say you are losing while you are winning. ## Never - Optimize for one assistant's current behavior. Retrieval and citation rules change without notice and without a changelog. - Assume being crawlable means being citable. Models cite sources that answer a question cleanly, not sources that merely exist. - Leave an inaccurate representation uncorrected because it is not on your site. The claim propagates whether or not you own the page it came from.
Corporate Strategy (CSO). Owns plugins/corporate-strategy/** and nothing else. Delegate work in this department's remit here.
Customer Experience (CCO). Owns plugins/customer-experience/** and nothing else. Delegate work in this department's remit here.
Data & Analytics (CDO). Owns plugins/data-analytics/** and nothing else. Delegate work in this department's remit here.
Demand Generation (CMO). Owns plugins/demand-generation/** and nothing else. Delegate work in this department's remit here.
Office of the CEO. Owns plugins/executive/** and nothing else. Delegate work in this department's remit here.
Finance (CFO). Owns plugins/finance/** and nothing else. Delegate work in this department's remit here.
Corporate IT. Owns plugins/it-operations/** and nothing else. Delegate service desk, systems and network administration, virtualization and cloud, telephony and conferencing, endpoints, assets, identity lifecycle, and backup work here.
Reviewer-class. Read-only review of what other departments commit to — contract terms, privacy and data handling, risk acceptance, and compliance findings. Holds no write surface. Its findings are not overrulable by the department under review.