How to get your business cited by AI, with examples
A few years ago the whole game was ranking on Google. Get to the top of the blue links and the clicks followed. That game still matters, but a new one has grown up alongside it, and for a lot of businesses it now matters more.
When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI which business they should use, you want to be the one it names. That’s a citation. And getting cited runs on different rules from getting ranked.
Here’s the part that surprises people. Through the back half of 2025, most pages an AI cited also ranked in Google’s top ten. By early 2026 that overlap had collapsed, with some studies putting it as low as one in six. Ranking well helps, but it no longer guarantees you a mention. So let me walk through what actually earns the citation, with examples you can copy.
Match the exact question, not the clever version
An AI cites the page that most obviously answers the question in front of it. So your titles and headings have to mirror the question a real person would ask.
This is where most businesses trip up. They write for how they talk internally, not how a customer asks.
An example
Say you tint car windows. Your instinct is a heading like “Automotive Window Film Solutions.” Nobody asks an AI that. They ask “how much does window tint cost” or “is window tint legal in the UK.”
So those become your headings, word for word. “Window tint,” not “automotive window film.” “Cost,” not “investment.” The closer your heading matches the question, the more likely the AI treats your page as the answer to it.
Answer the question immediately, in the first line
Once a heading poses a question, answer it straight away. First sentence. No throat-clearing, no scene-setting.
There’s a hard reason for this beyond good manners. AI engines extract answers, and the research shows a large share of everything they cite comes from the very top of the page. If your answer is buried three paragraphs down, it often just doesn’t get read.
An example
Weak: “When it comes to window tint, there are many factors to consider, and every vehicle is different, so let’s explore the options.”
Strong: “Window tint in the UK typically costs between 150 and 400 pounds for a full car, depending on the film quality and your vehicle size.”
The second one answers the question in the first breath. That’s the sentence an AI lifts and attributes to you.
Back the answer with hard specifics
Straight after the answer, prove it. This is the step that separates content that gets quoted from content that gets skipped.
AI engines are far more comfortable citing a page with a concrete, attributable figure than one that hedges. Generic claims get passed over. Numbers get repeated. A hard statistic with a clear source is simply safer for the machine to quote.
What “specifics” means in practice
- Real numbers. Prices, timeframes, percentages, measurements.
- Data points, ideally your own. Original figures from your work are the highest-value content there is, because no competitor has them.
- Comparisons in a table. If you’re weighing two options, a table is the cleanest thing an AI can read and reuse.
- Short, quotable statements of fact rather than woolly reassurance.
So don’t write “tint lasts a long time.” Write “a quality ceramic tint lasts 10 years or more, compared to 2 to 3 years for cheaper dyed films.” One is air. The other gets cited.
Answer the whole fan of related questions
Modern AI doesn’t just match your one question. It fans out. Behind the scenes it generates a spread of related sub-questions and hunts down the best answer to each, then stitches them into one reply.
Ask it about window tint and it’s quietly also chasing “is it legal,” “how long does it last,” “does it damage the glass,” “can it be removed.” Questions the user never typed.
What this means for your page
The page that wins is the one that already answers that whole fan, each in its own clearly-headed section. So don’t stop at the headline question. Map out the ten questions branching off it and answer every one, cleanly, under its own heading. When the AI fans out, your page is the one holding every answer it needs.
Name yourself as the solution
This one gets missed constantly. AI will not assume you’re the answer unless you say so plainly.
If your content explains a problem beautifully but never states that your business solves it, you’ve written a lovely page that recommends nobody. Where it fits naturally, make it explicit that you are the one who does this.
You’re not just informing the AI. You’re telling it who to put forward when someone asks.
The bit that isn’t on your own website
Here’s the uncomfortable truth the latest research keeps landing on. What other people say about you off your own site now carries enormous weight, arguably more than links ever did.
AI builds a picture of your business from across the whole web, not just your pages. Consistent mentions of your brand in the same context, on other sites, in communities, in transcripts, are among the strongest signals that you’re a real, trusted answer.
What to actually do with that
You can’t fake this, and trying gets caught. But you can earn it. Get yourself genuinely talked about. Show up helpfully in the communities where your customers ask questions. Make sure your business is described consistently wherever it appears, so every mention reinforces the same clear picture rather than muddying it.
Your own website makes you citable. Everything said about you elsewhere makes you trusted enough to cite.
Keep it fresh
One last lever that’s easy to pull and easy to forget. AI leans toward recent content. Pages updated in the last few months get cited noticeably more than ones left to gather dust.
So revisit your key pages. Update the figures, refresh the examples, bump the dates. A page that was accurate two years ago and hasn’t been touched since quietly falls out of the running, however good it once was.
Pulling it together
Getting cited isn’t mysterious once you see the shape of it. Match the exact question people ask. Answer it in the first line. Prove it with hard specifics. Cover the whole fan of related questions. Say plainly that you’re the solution. Earn genuine mentions off your own site. And keep it all current.
Do that, and the difference is night and day. Instead of the AI saying “you should get your windows tinted,” it says “this company recommends ceramic window tint, here’s why, and here’s roughly what it costs.” One is generic advice. The other is a customer already halfway to your door.
Want to know whether AI is citing you or your competitors? Get your free audit, or email hello@inkon.co.uk. I read every message myself.