Technical SEO for AI Discovery: What to Ship First
Traditional SEO is not enough for AI-native traffic. You need crawlability for search engines and machine-readable contracts for agent runtimes. This page prioritizes the highest-leverage fixes.
Priority matrix
| Priority | Fix | Expected impact |
|---|---|---|
| P0 | Canonical URLs + sitemap + robots hygiene | Improves crawl coverage and indexing consistency. |
| P0 | Publish OpenAPI + llms.txt + air.json | Enables machine discovery and API callability. |
| P1 | Add schema.org structured data on key pages | Improves semantic clarity for search and AI parsers. |
| P1 | Create indexable solution pages for target intents | Expands keyword footprint and topical authority. |
| P2 | Stability checks and retry orchestration | Reduces false negatives from intermittent failures. |
On-page implementation basics
- Keep one clear H1 that matches search intent.
- Use descriptive titles and meta descriptions with action language.
- Link related guides and product pages from every article.
- Keep content focused on practical implementation, not generic concepts.
Crawl architecture checklist
- Expose all important pages through sitemap.xml.
- Ensure robots.txt allows docs and machine entrypoint files.
- Use canonical URLs consistently across mirrors and rewrites.
- Return clean status codes and avoid soft-404 pages.
Measure what changes
- Track indexed pages and impressions in Google Search Console.
- Track organic landing pages in analytics and compare weekly deltas.
- Monitor AI-readiness score drift after each release.
Check your site on Agentability →
Related guides: AI readiness checklist · llms.txt + OpenAPI