SaaS Strategists,

The SEO game is changing fast.

Yesterday, everyone rushed to rank on Google.

Today, everyone wants to get cited by ChatGPT.

And I see it every day. The same question.

“How do I rank my startup on ChatGPT. Where do I actually start?”

The truth is, getting cited by AI isn't magic. There's a repeatable formula behind it. And most founders are missing 2-3 foundational pieces that take less than an afternoon to fix.

So today, I’ll walk you through 3 actionable step-by-step strategies you can implement TODAY to start getting cited by AI tools tomorrow.

Let’s dive right in 👇

We humans navigate websites through navbars.

You instantly see the information you’re searching (Home, About, Pricing, etc.)

However, agents are different.

Agents love it when they can understand things instantly. 🧠

Right now, your website is designed for humans.

But when ChatGPT or other AI tools search for relevant information, they search through APIs, not through UIs.

Even if ChatGPT finds your website’s domain, it might skip it entirely if it can’t find a clear sitemap and navigation.

llms.txt fixes this.

Here’s an example of llms.txt file you can use today:

Boom. That’s it.

You just gave a navbar to your agent. 🤖

Just copy and paste this template to your public_html folder, and change the link structure to support your website.

ChatGPT is hallucination-averse. It actively avoids citing sources that make vague, unsupported claims.

What it loves?

Fact density.

Research from the Princeton GEO study (the foundational paper on this stuff) found that content with a high ratio of specific facts, numbers, and citations is 40%+ more likely to get cited by AI models.

So how do you write for fact density? 🧪

❌ Don't write like this: "Many companies are seeing great results with automated SEO tools."

✅ Write like this: "Of the 23 B2B SaaS companies we analyzed between Q2 2025 and Q1 2026, those using automated SEO pipelines saw an average 27% increase in organic traffic within 90 days."

Same claim, but totally different weight for an AI model.

1️⃣ Add specific numbers: not "a lot," not "many," not "significant." Give exact percentages, sample sizes, or timeframes. 📊

2️⃣ Cite primary sources, not other blogs: link to the original research paper, the SEC filing, the government report. AI models trace citations. Link to Wikipedia before a random Medium post. 📝

3️⃣ Use direct-answer formatting: open sections with a one-sentence answer to the implicit question. Then expand. AI models love content they can grab a clean quote from. 💬

4️⃣ Add FAQ sections with schema markup: this is a massive cheat code. ChatGPT's search feature heavily pulls from FAQ-structured content. Use JSON-LD schema to make your answers machine-readable. 📖

5️⃣ Include named experts with credentials: "According to Dr. Sarah Chen, former head of SEO at HubSpot..." beats "according to industry experts" every time. 🤵‍♂️

The goal is simple: make every paragraph a potential pull quote for an AI model.

To be completely honest, the previous two strategies get you on the map, but to actually get cited, you need something AI models care about: domain authority, topical depth, and fresh content.

Translation: you need to be publishing SEO-optimized content consistently, and you need real backlinks from high-DR sites.

And this is actually the part no one likes to do (including myself). 🤷

For months, I paid agencies and freelancers to get a high reputation for my content and rank #1 for certain keywords.

And I literally wasted thousands of dollars. 💸

Then I discovered Outrank.

It's the first tool I've used that actually handles the entire SEO → GEO pipeline on autopilot.

Here’s what Outrank does for me on autopilot:

→ Finds high-traffic, low-competition keywords my competitors are missing 📖
→ Builds backlinks from real, high-domain rating sites (many have 90/100 range) 🔗
→ Publishes SEO-optimized content directly to my site while I sleep (the best part) 💤
→ Ranks you on ChatGPT throughout the process 🏆

And because ChatGPT heavily weighs domain authority + fact density + structured content when deciding who to cite... this stack does double duty.

I've been using Outrank for 2 months now and am already seeing results.

It's the single tool that moved the needle most for both my Google rankings AND my AI citations out of everything that I tried so far.

It’s still early for me to share exact results, so don’t just take my word for it.

Moonb went from 13 to 36 domain rating in 4 months, their traffic doubled, and people started reaching out to do backlink collaborations too.

If you want to rank your website on autopilot, use this link to 👉 Try Outrank For Free.

And use code SAASSTRATS to get 10% off your first month.

These are the 3 strategies I’m betting on in 2026 & beyond.

But the picture is clear, and SEO & GEO are tied.

It all starts with SEO.

I’ll catch you next week.

Ognjen Gatalo

Chief SaaS Strategist ☁