9 Content Formats AI Search Tools Actually Cite (The One Most Derbyshire Businesses Skip)
Most businesses find out they're invisible to AI search the hard way, a competitor gets recommended by ChatGPT or Google's AI Overviews and they don't, and nobody can say why. AI tools don't crawl a site the way Google search used to. They pull specific, quotable chunks of content into an answer. Here are the 9 formats we see AI tools actually cite when auditing Derbyshire businesses, with a straightforward fix for each. Run your own site against this list. Most businesses are missing at least four.
1. No direct-answer paragraph for your most common questions
If someone asks an AI tool a question about your industry, it needs a short, self-contained answer to lift, not three paragraphs of scene-setting first. This sits under the AI pillar of the BIG12 framework.
Fix: Write a 40-60 word answer for your ten most-asked customer questions and place each one near the top of the relevant page.
2. An FAQ section with no schema markup behind it
Most sites either have no FAQ section, or one with no structured data, so AI crawlers can't read the question-and-answer format directly even though it's sitting right there.
Fix: Add FAQPage schema to any FAQ section you've already got. It's usually under an hour's work for a developer.
3. No comparison table for the choices customers are weighing up
If people naturally compare your options, packages, tiers, "DIY vs done for you", a paragraph making that case is harder for an AI tool to parse and quote than a simple table.
Fix: Build one table for your single most common "which option is right for me" question.
4. How-to content written as a story instead of numbered steps
Genuine step-by-step instructions get lifted cleanly. The same advice wrapped in a flowing narrative doesn't, because there's interpretation required to extract it.
Fix: Rewrite your top three "how to" pages as clearly numbered steps with one outcome per step.
5. No checklist or self-audit content anywhere on the site
Checklists do double duty: they're citable in the same way as how-to steps, and they give a reader a reason to keep coming back.
Fix: Turn one existing guide into a numbered checklist your reader can actually tick off.
6. No plain-English glossary for your industry's jargon
People ask AI tools "what does X mean" constantly. A glossary entry, written simply, is often the cleanest source going for that answer.
Fix: Build a short glossary page defining the ten terms customers ask you to explain most often.
7. No original data or first-party statistics anywhere
AI tools increasingly favour a specific, sourced number over a generic claim. "2,500 page-one keywords" is citable. "We help businesses grow" is not.
Fix: Find three real numbers from your own results and put them in writing on your site, not just in conversation.
8. No pros-and-cons breakdown on service pages
A clearly labelled pros-and-cons list gives an AI tool a balanced summary it can quote without needing to editorialise.
Fix: Add a short, honest pros-and-cons section to your top two service pages.
9. No credible author behind your advice content (the one almost everyone skips)
AI tools weigh up who's behind the content, not just what it says, when deciding what to trust. That's the E-E-A-T signal, and it's why we built a proper author page for our own founder, separate from a generic "About Us." Most small businesses have a team photo and a paragraph of platitudes, if they have anything at all.
Fix: Build a real author bio, name, experience, photo, for whoever's advice actually appears on your site.
What to do with this list
These are the same 9 checks we run under the AI pillar of a full BIG12 audit, alongside SEO, Local and Lead Generation. Fixed together, they compound, Avon picked up 2,500 page-one keywords after theirs.
Score your site free with the BIG12 Scorecard →
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