A share of people have stopped searching and started asking. Instead of opening ten results, they ask an assistant and get an answer with a few sources cited. If your site is not one of those sources, you do not exist in that conversation.
How an assistant chooses what to cite
Simplified, three things weigh:
- Is the answer easy to lift out? A page that answers in one short, direct paragraph is quotable; a page that meanders for six paragraphs before saying anything is not;
- Does the format help? Marked-up questions and answers, lists and tables are easier to read than a solid block of prose;
- Is the source corroborated? Sites cited in several different places are preferred — the same logic as backlinks, applied to another system.
Answer before you contextualise
Start each page with a paragraph of forty to sixty words that answers the question. The context comes after. That paragraph is what an assistant quotes, and it is also what a search engine uses for a featured snippet.
Use questions as headings
A heading in the form of a question matches directly what the person asked the assistant.
Mark up your frequent questions
A question and its answer marked as structured data are read far more easily than the same information loose in the middle of the text.
Be specific and checkable
A number, a deadline, a concrete example. Vague text does not get cited, because it adds nothing to the answer.
The part that is not on your page
Being mentioned elsewhere remains decisive. A site that turns up in several directories and search sites in its field has far more chance of being treated as a reliable source than an isolated one. It is the same work that has always paid off in search, and it now pays off with assistants too.
How long it takes
Format changes tend to show up within days or a few weeks in some systems, and more slowly in others. It is faster than classic search work, and just as free of guarantees.
