How do you make WordPress AI-citable (AEO setup)?

JSON-LD + llms.txt + speakable + 50-word answer blocks. With code.

Why this matters in 2026

AI search assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) are now a non-trivial source of B2B referral traffic. Sites optimised for traditional SEO can show up in their answers, but the citation rate is 3 — 5× higher for sites with structured AEO setup.

Four-part setup

1. JSON-LD per content type. FAQPage for FAQ entries, Article for insights, HowTo for tutorials, Service for service pages. speakable property on the 50-word answer block.
2. 50-word answer blocks. Every long-form post starts with a 50-word answer block that completely answers the question. Crawlers and AI agents lift this as the citation.
3. llms.txt at the root. A markdown index of your highest-quality content with summaries. Some agents read it; the rest will soon.
4. Refresh-date metadata. Visible in the UI and in JSON-LD. AI agents weight freshness heavily for cost / regulation / pricing queries.

What I don’t recommend

“AEO plugins” that promise instant citation. They generate boilerplate JSON-LD with no semantic structure. Hand-write the schema; it’s not that much code.

Full essay with the schema templates ↗