Review pages for what an AI assistant can do with them, and you see the same patterns come back in very different sectors. A title that says what something is called internally. A first paragraph that welcomes instead of answers. A figure that only sits in a table. A sentence that's correct but could have been about any company.
Below are the ten principles I use to write and rewrite pages, followed by the part most guides skip: what happens to the pages around your page. The examples deliberately come from two worlds without a single word in common: energy and fire safety. Tariffs and contract plans on one side, standard numbers and inspection certificates on the other. If a rule works in both, it isn't about the sector.
I. A passage without a page
One observation sits under all ten. AI systems building an answer often work with pieces of text rather than full pages. What falls outside such a piece, the heading, the logo, the button, the paragraph before it, isn't always there when the answer is put together. As a writer you don't know which piece will be picked. You can make sure every piece holds up on its own.
In an earlier piece I described the four gates a page has to pass before it ends up in an answer. The ten principles work on the last three, translated into what you control as an editor: can the right passage be found, does it hold a usable answer, and is it clear from that passage alone who provides it?
None of this is a new demand. A customer scanning your page does roughly the same. The difference is that a system doesn't scroll back up to see what you meant.
II. At the top: the task, its words, the answer
1. One page, one main task, and the title says which. A page serves one thing the visitor wants: to know something, choose, buy or get something done. The test I use: finish the sentence "On this page, the visitor wants to …". If you need "and", check whether it's one task or two. "Compare tariffs and pick a plan" is one decision and belongs together. "Pick a plan and report a move" are two tasks. An overview page has one task too, choosing, as long as the title says so. "Maintenance & inspection" is a menu label. "How often does a fire hose reel need inspecting?" is a question someone asks. "Our plans" doesn't say what you came to do. "Fixed or variable: which energy contract suits you?" does.
2. Use the word the customer types. This is plain search engine optimisation too, and it still holds. Nobody searches for "periodic maintenance of portable extinguishing equipment". People search for "fire extinguisher inspection". Nobody searches for "supplier transfer", but plenty search for "switching energy supplier". If only the technical term is on your page, there's no bridge between what's being asked and what you offer. The technical term or the standard code can be there, as a second name. You find the words in your own site search, in the questions your customer service gets, and with whoever talks to customers every day.
3. The answer is in the first paragraph. Two to four sentences that answer the question, with the condition needed to understand that answer correctly. No introduction on the importance of fire safety, no "discover our rates below". The test: read that first paragraph apart from the rest of the page. If the answer still holds, you're good. The same goes, on a small scale, for every table: put one sentence above it that already says what matters most.
III. Figures and limits
4. A figure sits in a sentence, with its condition. Not every answer can be exact. A price sometimes really does depend on the situation. But "it depends on several factors" isn't an answer. Say which two or three, and put the link to the quote or the simulation in that very sentence, so the reference stays close to the answer. A figure that only sits in a table cell also loses its context. A price per kWh: fixed or variable, with or without VAT, for which plan? An inspection price: per device or per visit? Put it in a sentence that carries that. And where the same figure appears on more than one page, it's the same value with the same condition everywhere. One standard in two spellings or a tariff in two versions makes it unclear which one is right for anyone laying pages side by side, person or system.
5. Say who it doesn't apply to. "Required by law" without saying for whom is a sentence that's right for a company with staff and wrong for the private individual asking. If that limit isn't written anywhere, whoever assembles the answer has to guess it. At an energy supplier the same thing plays out with a welcome discount: for new customers or for everyone, the first year or every month? And with what isn't included in a contract or a price. If the answer only lives in the terms and conditions, it's unlikely to come along. Put it on the page, in plain language.
IV. Who provides it, and why you
6. Your name belongs with the fact, not only in the logo. This is the principle that's missing most often, and it follows directly from section I. "Our technicians inspect your equipment on site" is a correct sentence that could be about any inspection company. "You submit your meter reading in the app" could be about any supplier. If such a passage is used on its own, your name isn't with it. That doesn't mean your name in every sentence. It means: wherever a fact belongs to you, it also says who you are. "[brand]'s technicians", "the certificate from [brand]", "in the [supplier] app". Read every paragraph as if someone reads it aloud without the heading and without the logo. Is it still clear who does it? If not, put the name with the fact.
7. Say why someone chooses you, with facts. Many questions to AI assistants are about who can do something, not just how it works. What you put on the page is the part of that answer you control. "Your trusted partner" contributes nothing to it, and neither do "fast", "affordable" or "certified" as long as nothing says what shows it. Replace each of those words with the fact behind it: how scheduling works, what can be done on site, which certificate, from which body, with which number. If there's no fact, cut the word. And the final test: could a competitor write exactly the same sentence? Then make it more concrete, or leave it out.
V. Choosing, follow-up questions, closing
8. Help people choose, not just understand. Many questions to AI assistants are choice questions: which extinguisher for a kitchen with a deep fryer, fixed or variable contract, maintenance contract or a one-off inspection. A page that says per option who it suits, and when the alternative suits better, supplies the building blocks for such a comparative answer. A page that only lists what exists doesn't. One sentence per option is enough, and it has to be as precise as the rest. With a fixed contract your price per kWh is fixed for the term. What you end up paying still depends on your consumption and on costs that aren't in that price. Choose variable if you want to move with the market, up and down.
9. The FAQ is for the next question. The main text answers the question someone came for. The FAQ answers what logically follows. What does it cost, who's allowed to do it, what if a device fails inspection? Start every answer with the answer itself, and make sure it stands on its own. "See our service page" isn't an FAQ answer. It gives the reader nothing, and nothing to a system that only has that answer in front of it.
10. Close recognisably, with the button that fits the question. Every page ends the same way: who we are, where we're based, who certifies us. And not every page asks for the same action. A quote button belongs with a question about a service, not under an article explaining which fires a hose reel is suited for. A page explaining how to submit your meter reading is not the place to sell a new contract.
VI. One good page isn't enough
Say you write one page that follows all ten. An AI assistant can still give a wrong answer, or leave your name out. A system answering a question can combine several of your pages, and what others write about the subject too.
Take an inspection company whose service page correctly says that fire extinguishers in the workplace are checked at least once a year. A blog post from three years ago says "every two years". The web shop says nothing. Someone asks how often it's required, and the answer may carry either figure, blend them, or fall back on a cautious "it varies". The service page was perfect. That doesn't make the answer perfect.
Three things follow that have to hold across all pages. Every answer, figure and condition has one home: one page where it's complete and maintained. Other pages summarise and link, and whatever they repeat (a figure, a product name, a condition) they repeat with the same value, not necessarily in the same words. And pages refer to each other logically: the overview to the product, the product to its own follow-up questions, the exception back to the rule.
This doesn't argue for more pages, it argues for fewer. Every extra page on the same question is one more chance that two pages contradict each other. And a page nobody maintains keeps talking: an old promotion, last year's tariff, a brand name that stopped existing long ago. What's online can be read, even when nobody looks at it anymore.
VII. What you have to fill in yourself
The principles travel well. Three things each organisation has to fill in itself.
The first is how you keep one value the same everywhere. If your content system has central fields, you enter a tariff once and let it appear wherever it's needed. Then never type a figure. Without fields, every figure gets one source page, and wherever you repeat it, you use a fixed sentence. Not because a system demands it, but because when it changes, one search finds every place it appears.
The second is the pitfalls. Every sector has its own way of writing against the principles: at an energy supplier, plans that were renamed while the old name still sits on ten pages; in fire safety, standard codes in two spellings. You make that list per domain, with the people who get the questions every day.
The third is the line between informing and acting. It exists everywhere, but it's always somewhere else: between a service and a product, between an explanation and a contract. Where you draw it is decided per organisation.
The principles you can adopt, the checklist you can't.
VIII. What this doesn't promise
A page that follows all ten isn't guaranteed to be cited, let alone recommended. GEO measures and improves how AI systems find, mention, describe and recommend a brand. Optimisation doesn't determine the outcome. What you do control as an editor is whether a page makes it easy or hard for a system to use it correctly. And everything on this list also helps the customer who simply reads, the customer service team that has to explain what's written, and the search engine that has been asking for it for years.
Almost every principle comes down to the same thought. A piece of text you write can leave your page without a heading, without a logo and without the paragraph before it.
Write every sentence as if it travels alone. You never know which one leaves.