6 Steps to Get AI to Recommend Your Brand

Every SEO investment you make — content, links, authority — depends on one thing working first.

Technical SEO

Before search engines can rank your pages, they need to find them, crawl them, render them, and trust what they say.
Now, AI search systems rely on those same foundations.

If your content is blocked, hard to interpret, or technically unreliable, it’s less likely to show up in AI-generated answers.

This guide covers the technical SEO fundamentals you need to get right. Plus, the AI-specific layers that now belong in the same checklist.

Technical SEO Fundamentals

Technical SEO is really about one thing: Removing the obstacles that stop machines from finding, accessing, understanding, and using your content.
That includes search engines. And increasingly, AI systems.

What Is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the process of improving your website so search engines and AI systems can crawl, render, index, and reuse your content.

Key components of technical SEO include:

• Website architecture
• XML sitemaps
• Robots.txt
• Internal linking
• Core Web Vitals
• Mobile usability
• Structured data
• Site performance
• Content extractability
• And more

Why Is Technical SEO Important?

Technical SEO is important because it directly affects whether your pages get discovered, how they rank, and how users experience them.

Technical SEO…

• Protects the user experience: Fast-loading, secure, mobile-optimized pages keep readers around (and satisfy Google’s Core Web Vitals standards)
• Consolidates ranking signals: Fixing duplicate content and canonical issues keeps your ranking signals from splitting across competing URLs
• Improves your odds of being ranked highly and cited: Clean, consistent structure makes it easier for AI systems to extract your content and reuse it in answers

Site Structure and Internal Links

Site structure is how your pages are organized and interlinked.
A clear structure helps people and machines find your pages, move through your site, and understand how each page relates to the others.

Get this right, and the rest of technical SEO falls into place:

• Crawlers can discover important pages more efficiently
• Internal links help distribute authority and context
• Search engines and AI search systems get clearer signals about what your site covers and which pages matter most

Build a Hierarchical Website Architecture

A hierarchical architecture organizes your site into clear levels, with pages nested under logical parent sections.
Your homepage sits at the top.
Under that, your main categories. Each category can branch into subcategories, which can then branch into sub-subcategories as needed.

The ideal number of levels depends on the size and complexity of your site.

Optimize Click Depth

Click depth is the number of clicks it takes to get from your homepage to another page on your site.
Your most important pages should ideally be reachable in three clicks or fewer.

Strengthen Internal Links

Internal links are any links from one page on your site to another.
A strong internal linking structure makes important pages easier for users and machines to find.

• Link high-traffic posts to relevant commercial pages
• Link commercial pages with supporting guides and proof content
• Make sure every important page has at least one link pointing to it

Use Breadcrumbs to Confirm Page Relationships

Breadcrumbs help search engines understand your site structure by showing how pages relate to one another.

They also improve technical SEO because they:

• Create crawlable internal links
• Connect deep pages to key categories or hubs

Make URLs Descriptive and Consistent

URLs help search engines and AI systems understand what a page is about before they read and interpret the content.

Use Canonical Tags to Clarify the Preferred URL

A canonical tag is a snippet of code in a page’s that tells search systems which URL you’d prefer as the primary version.

Crawling, Rendering, and Indexing

Configure Robots.txt and Crawler Access

Robots.txt tells crawlers which parts of your site they should crawl and which to avoid.

Here’s an example of Walmart’s robots.txt:

Build a Reliable XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap tells crawlers which URLs you want them to discover.

Don’t Hide Content Behind JavaScript

Many AI crawlers don’t fully render JavaScript.
Google search can render it, but the extra rendering step can delay indexing.

Find and Fix Important Pages That Aren’t Indexed

If a page isn’t discoverable, accessible, or indexed by the systems that matter, it’s unlikely to rank or appear in AI search.

Site Performance and Reliability

Search engines and AI systems regularly crawl your pages to keep their information up to date.

Improve Page Speed and Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals (CWV) are Google metrics that measure real user experience on a page.

Optimize the Mobile Experience

Google predominantly uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking.

Use HTTPS to Make Your Site Secure

Site security is a foundational requirement for technical SEO.

Keep Your Site Stable

When crawlers request an important page, your site should deliver it reliably.

Semantic HTML and Structured Data

Use Semantic HTML

Semantic HTML tags describe the meaning and structure of each part of a page.

Implement Structured Data

Structured data is standardized, machine-readable labels you add to your code.

Technical SEO Maintenance and Monitoring

Technical SEO is not a one-time setup.
Your site changes over time, and those changes can create new issues that affect how search engines and AI systems access and understand your content.

Analyze Log Files

Log files show how search and AI crawlers interact with your site.

Audit Your Technical SEO Health

Technical SEO issues are easier to fix when you catch them early.

Technical SEO Is Your AI Search Foundation

AI search hasn’t made technical SEO less important. If anything, it’s raised the stakes on getting the basics right.

Use our free Technical SEO Scorecard to identify your biggest gaps.