Optimising your website for AI search

Executive summary

This guide provides practical advice to help you optimise your website for AI search. It will help you improve visibility across search engines and AI-driven platforms like large language models. This is sometimes called Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). The guide also identifies how meeting PIF’s standards for trusted health information can help you succeed in the new search environment.

Why this matters

The way people search for health information – and get answers to their questions – is changing. With organic traffic declining, organisations need to adapt to increase visibility and become a recognised authority if they are to continue reaching users effectively.

E-E-A-T – Google’s search guidelines

To decide whether your information is trustworthy, Google looks for signs of what it calls E-E-A-T:

• Experience – Is the advice coming from real-world experience?
• Expertise – Do you have the knowledge or qualifications to talk about this topic?
• Authoritativeness – Is your organisation recognised and respected in this field?
• Trustworthiness – Is your information accurate, transparent, and safe?

It is important to add clear trust signals to your content. This can include named authors, details of how you source evidence, whether you are PIF TICK certified and your AI-use policy.

Quick wins

• Make sure every page has a meaningful title, correct use of headings and metadata.
• Fix broken links.
• Add meaningful review dates to every page of health information.
• Link to sources.
• Explain how information is created.
• State if you are PIF TICK certified.
• Check your system is not blocking AI crawlers.

What has changed since 2025?

AI is a rapidly evolving area. To keep this guide as relevant and useful as possible we have:

• Updated information on how to help search engines find and prioritise content.
• Added new actions for your web developer or SEO manager.
• Expanded our glossary.

This guide supports the following PIF TICK criteria:

1. Systems: Information is created using a consistent and documented process.
3. Need: Resources meet a genuine need.
4. Evidence: Information is based on reliable, up-to-date evidence which is communicated clearly.
5. Involving users: Users are involved in the development of information.
6. Health inequalities: Information is written to meet health literacy, digital inclusion, language and accessibility needs of the audience.
10. Impact: The impact of information is measured.

Published: September 2025. Reviewed: September 2026. Next review date September 2027.