The Technical AEO Checklist: Is Your Site Ready for AI Crawlers?

The Digital Foundation for AI Visibility

While content and authority are the stars of the AEO show, a solid technical foundation is the stage they perform on. If an AI crawler can't efficiently access, render, and understand your site, even the best content in the world will remain invisible. The crawlers that feed LLMs are even more resource-intensive than traditional search engine bots, making technical performance a critical, non-negotiable factor.

A slow, clunky, or insecure website is a major negative signal. It suggests a poor user experience and a lack of trustworthiness, both of which are red flags for an AI trying to find reliable information. Use this checklist to ensure your site's technical health is an asset, not a liability.

Your Essential Technical AEO Checklist

1. Site Speed & Core Web Vitals

• [ ] Fast LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Your main content should load in under 2.5 seconds. Use a CDN and optimize your images.
• [ ] Low FID (First Input Delay) / INP (Interaction to Next Paint): Your page should be responsive to user interaction quickly. Minimize heavy JavaScript.
• [ ] Stable CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Ensure your layout doesn't jump around as it loads. Specify dimensions for images and ads.

2. Mobile-Friendliness

• [ ] Responsive Design: Your site must provide a seamless experience on all devices, from phones to desktops.
• [ ] Readable Fonts: Text should be large enough to read on a small screen without zooming.
• [ ] Tap-Friendly Targets: Buttons and links should be easy to tap with a finger.

3. Crawlability and Indexability

• [ ] Clean robots.txt: Make sure you aren't accidentally blocking important sections of your site from crawlers.
• [ ] Logical XML Sitemap: Maintain an up-to-date sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console. This is a direct roadmap for crawlers.
• [ ] Simple URL Structure: Use clean, descriptive URLs (e.g., /blog/technical-aeo-checklist instead of /p?id=123).
• [ ] Internal Linking: A strong internal linking structure helps crawlers discover all your important content.

4. Security and Trust

• [ ] HTTPS Everywhere: Your entire site must be served over a secure HTTPS connection. This is a basic, mandatory trust signal.

5. Structured Data (Schema Markup)

• [ ] No Errors: Use the Rich Results Test to validate your schema and ensure it's free of errors. Faulty schema is worse than no schema at all.

Technical AEO isn't about chasing algorithms; it's about building a high-quality, user-friendly website. By focusing on these fundamentals, you create a better experience for your human visitors and make it effortless for AI assistants to recognize and reward your content.