Week 0 — Baseline your visibility
Before changing anything, log a baseline. Build a 20-prompt set of buyer queries in your category. Run them in ChatGPT (with web tool enabled), log: are you mentioned, position, citation source. This is your before-state. Re-run monthly.
Weeks 1-2 — Ship on-site infrastructure
Do these in parallel:
- Publish llms.txt at site root
- Add FAQPage + Article + Organization schema to top 10 pages
- Rewrite H1s as questions or topics buyers search
- Add a 1-3 sentence quick-answer paragraph in the first 100 words of each top page
- Add author bylines with Person schema + sameAs LinkedIn
- Update dateModified across evergreen content
Weeks 3-6 — Build entity consensus
This is the bottleneck for most brands:
- Complete profiles on Clutch, GoodFirms, UpCity, G2, Capterra
- Earn 5+ verified reviews on each
- Pitch HARO/Qwoted 4x weekly
- Publish 1 branded listicle in your category
- Answer 15+ Reddit/Quora threads
- Get on 1 podcast in your niche
Weeks 7-12 — Compound and measure
Re-run your prompt set monthly. By week 10-12 most clients see first ChatGPT citations on long-tail queries (e.g., 'best [service] in [city]'). Brand-level recommendations on head queries follow in months 3-6. Keep shipping HARO + Reddit + listicles indefinitely.