GEO Launch-Readiness Checklist

The full checklist

1. Buy your brand domain on Cloudflare or Hostinger
   Use Cloudflare DNS regardless of registrar — it gives you Email Routing, AI Crawl Control, and Pages all in one.
2. Publish a clean /llms.txt at the site root
   Markdown-formatted index of your site for AI crawlers. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Perplexity all read this.
3. Publish /llms-full.txt with your full marketing content
   Plain-text concatenation of your key pages. Anthropic explicitly recommends this. Saves AI crawlers from JS-rendering headaches.
4. Publish /robots.txt with explicit allow for AI crawlers
   Allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Amazonbot, Applebot-Extended at minimum.
5. Publish /ai.txt with attribution policy
   Emerging standard. Declares your AI training and citation consent. CiterLabs uses one — copy the format.
6. Add Organization schema to every page (JSON-LD)
   With name, url, email, logo, founder (Person schema), and sameAs links to your X/LinkedIn/GitHub.
7. Add WebSite schema with SearchAction
   Tells Google and AI engines your site has internal search and how to invoke it.
8. Add Person schema for the founder
   Author entity strength is increasingly the basis for citation. Founder needs to be a recognized entity.
9. Add FAQPage schema to any page with Q&A content
   Highest-correlated factor with Google AI Overviews citation.
10. Add BreadcrumbList schema to all non-root pages
    Helps Google generate breadcrumb-style rich snippets.
11. Add Article schema with author + datePublished + dateModified to every content page
    Freshness signals matter; explicit dates help.
12. Build a methodology pillar page (8-12K words)
    The definitive citable source on your category. Every cluster page links back to it.
13. Build 5-10 cluster pages targeting key category queries
    Each 1,500-3,500 words, focused on one query, schema-marked, internally linked.
14. Set up Cloudflare Pages with Workers for /api routes
    Gives you full-stack capability on a free tier with a global edge network.
15. Configure Cloudflare AI Crawl Control to allow major AI crawlers
    Cloudflare default has good defaults but verify GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot are allowed.
16. Set up Cloudflare Email Routing
    Route founder@, hi@, refund@ to your personal Gmail. Free, instant.
17. Apply for Crunchbase profile
    Crunchbase is one of the strongest entity sources AI engines retrieve from.
18. Apply for Wikidata entity (Wikipedia is harder; Wikidata is reachable for early-stage)
    Even just a Wikidata Q-number with sameAs links creates measurable entity strength.
19. Reserve LinkedIn company page + X/Twitter handle + GitHub org
    Add them to Organization sameAs.
20. Get founder profile on LinkedIn with company link
    Person entity strength via LinkedIn.
21. Set up at least 5 third-party mentions in launch week
    Reddit thread, Hacker News post, Indie Hackers profile, Product Hunt launch, BetaList submission.
22. Aim for 1 podcast appearance within 30 days
    Podcast transcripts are increasingly retrieved by AI engines.
23. Set up basic web analytics (privacy-first ideally)
    Plausible or Cloudflare Web Analytics. Free, lightweight, no cookie banners needed.
24. Set up Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools
    Submit sitemap; monitor indexed page count.
25. Run Lighthouse audit on key pages — target 90+ on all four scores
    Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO.
26. Verify FAQ schema renders correctly via Google Rich Results Test
    Test 5 random FAQ pages.
27. Set up baseline citation tracking
    Use the CiterLabs free GEO Score tool or run a script that pings ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity for 50 priority prompts and measures citation rate.
28. Add Open Graph image (1200x630) and Twitter card metadata
    Social/AI preview cards. Even a clean SVG works.
29. Publish at least 3 case studies or owned-property proof points
    AI engines disproportionately cite sources backed by demonstrated results.
30. Schedule monthly freshness updates on cornerstone content
    Update prices, competitor names, statistics. Stale content gets cited less.