Getting onto the pages engines pull names from

If you only did one thing for your AI visibility, this would be it.

An engine asked for three names leans heavily on pages that already name several. Your site tells your version. A third-party page that lists you alongside your competitors tells something else, and the model treats it differently.

Which leaves the question of which pages, and how to get onto them without spending a year on it.

Find the pages before you work on them

The usual reflex is to buy three listings in generic directories. Bad starting point: those directories are rarely the ones engines read, and you will never know whether it helped.

The right method starts from the answer itself. Ask an engine that cites its sources the questions your customers would ask, and note which domains keep coming back. Not once: ten or so questions, and a core emerges. Three or four domains show up almost every time, often the same ones across a whole sector.

That is your working list. It is short, and it is specific to your trade: an accounting firm's list looks nothing like a machine manufacturer's.

The Scan does that survey automatically across five questions, and the source list is often the first thing clients look at.

The four families that keep coming up

Serious sector directories. Not link farms. The ones a buyer in your field would actually consult: federations, trade bodies, specialised marketplaces, certification schemes. They usually have a profile to fill in, free or cheap, and almost nobody fills it in properly.

Comparison articles and "top X" lists. Written by publishers, specialist media, sometimes competitors. You get in by contacting the author with something to say: a figure, a client case, a real distinguishing feature. A generic email goes nowhere.

Trade press. A feature, an interview, an opinion piece. Slower and more demanding, but a mention in a title your sector respects carries weight for a long time, with engines and with humans alike.

Forums and communities. Reddit, trade forums, specialist groups. Engines go there because people answer each other honestly. You do not get in by promoting yourself: you answer questions, under your real name, without forcing a link in.

What to write on those pages

A classic mistake: writing a marketing blurb. The model can do nothing with it, has no way to verify it, and every profile reads the same.

What works is factual and specific. The area you cover, named. The exact type of service. Something verifiable: founding date, headcount, certification, a reference. A narrow speciality rather than a broad promise.

A model is looking for something to distinguish on. Give it an angle where you are the obvious answer to a precise question, rather than a vague position in a wide category.

A matter of cadence, not a campaign

This work does not happen in one push. It resembles press relations more than search optimisation: you advance through follow-ups, relationships, and pieces you offer.

A realistic cadence for a small company: two or three pages worked per quarter, starting with the ones engines already cite. Three solid entries on domains that keep coming back beat thirty listings nowhere.

And it is measurable. Not in links acquired, which is the wrong metric here. In how often the engine cites those domains in an answer where you appear. Slower to move, and the only number that tells you whether it worked.