What gets a brand recommended in AI answers?

Short answer: The 4 experts here each point somewhere different. Andy Crestodina and Ross Hudgens point to the homepage: brands that state specific facts there, like reviews, case studies and named customers, get recommended more often. Chris Long focuses on page format, with key takeaways up top, tables and verified stats, while Maja Voje says about 85% of AEO is won on sites you don't own.

What the experts say

85% of AEO is won offsite

Maja Voje (GTM Strategist) · Nov 6, 2026
Citing AirOps research, Maja and Josh Grant, Webflow's former VP of Growth, say only about 13% of AEO is influenced by your own site. So they'd spend less on publishing to your site and more on winning citations on third-party sites, YouTube, creators' content and communities.
→ Read Maja's newsletter

LLMs are more likely to cite verified stats

Chris Long (Nectiv) · Nov 5, 2026
Chris built a Claude skill from AEO studies. It puts key takeaways at the top, since Kevin Indig found 44.2% of ChatGPT citations come from the first 30% of a page, and adds tables, verified statistics and definitive language. He says to adopt only what fits how you write.
→ Read Chris's post

Facts on the homepage get brands recommended

Andy Crestodina (Orbit Media) · Nov 4, 2026
Orbit Media's study of 704 websites and 8,771 AI recommendations found that as homepages went from 15 to 60 specific, checkable facts, the chance of being recommended rose from 5% to 30%. Word count made no difference, and Andy notes it's a correlation study.
→ Read Andy's study

Credibility statements bring 62% more AI visibility

Ross Hudgens (Siege Media) · Oct 26, 2026
In Siege's study of 520 tracked companies, mid-authority brands with 5 or more "credibility statements" on their homepage, like review ratings, case studies and analyst placements, had 62% more AI visibility than similar brands with none. The effect flattened out for high-authority brands.
→ Read Ross's post

SaaS Marketing Experts collates expert opinions from around the web. We have no affiliation with any of the experts cited here. If you're one of them, ask us to correct or remove your take.