People no longer type a question and scan links, they get an answer directly. The model writing that answer picks a handful of sites as sources. The new goal is being one of them.
Ask the question, then answer it
Models prefer to quote text that answers a clear question clearly. Writing the heading as a question and giving a self contained answer in the paragraph right below it noticeably improves the odds of being cited.
Structured data is no longer optional
Structured data describes the page to a machine. It is invisible to a human reader but decisive in how a model understands the page. Organisation details, service definitions, frequently asked questions and article metadata should all be declared.
Leave a door open for agents
Sites are no longer visited only through a browser. Leaving machine readable descriptor files at standard locations gives agent based clients a direct account of what the site offers.
Speed still matters
Pages that load slowly, or arrive empty without JavaScript, are frequently read incompletely by crawling systems. Pages rendered on the server, with their text present on first load, come out ahead with both people and models.
