mercury.com
Weak AI visibility with 30 of 48 criteria passing. Biggest gap: llms.txt file.
Verdict
Below-average AEO readiness at 47/100 - multiple areas need attention. Key strengths include Table & List Extractability, Fact & Data Density, and Canonical URL Strategy. Priority gaps: llms.txt File, RSS/Atom Feed, and Speakable Schema. Topic coherence is 3/10, which caps the overall score at 50. Focusing content on core expertise areas is the single highest-impact improvement.
How to Improve
Add a machine-readable llms.txt file at your domain root that describes your site, services, and key pages for AI engines.
Create a comprehensive llms-full.txt with detailed page descriptions, content summaries, and topic taxonomy.
Update robots.txt to explicitly allow AI crawlers and include sitemap directive.
Implement hreflang tags and lang attributes so AI engines serve the correct language version when answering queries.
Optimize compression, cache headers, redirect chains, and HTML payload size for faster AI crawler access.
Minimize blocking scripts and stylesheets in <head> to improve content availability for AI crawlers.
Trim oversized HTML, excessive DOM nodes, and large inline payloads that slow AI crawlers.
Ensure clean, well-structured HTML with proper meta tags, HTTPS, and parseable content for AI crawlers.
Generate a comprehensive sitemap with lastmod dates for all important pages.
Top Opportunities10
Ensure blog content consistently covers your core expertise areas rather than scattering across unrelated topics. AI engines build authority models - a site about "Medicare coverage" that also publishes about humidifiers and groceries dilutes its topical authority.
Ensure every question-format heading (H2/H3) is followed by a direct answer paragraph. This pattern is ideal for AI engine snippet extraction.
Sections within pages contain identical or near-identical text. LLMs may flag this as low-quality or thin content, reducing citation authority. Rewrite duplicate blocks with unique angles.
Write concise, standalone answer paragraphs (2-3 sentences) immediately after question headings. These "snippet-ready" paragraphs are ideal for AI engine citations.
Include "our analysis", "our data", "our testing" phrases backed by original research or proprietary data. 52.2% of AI-cited posts contain owned data signals.
Include dateModified schema, visible last-updated dates, and time elements on content pages. Fresh content signals help AI engines prioritize your pages over stale alternatives.
Expand articles to 1000+ words with structured H2/H3 sections, comparison tables, and expert analysis. Thin content (under 300 words) is rarely cited by AI engines. Deep, well-structured articles demonstrate expertise.
Place a concise 40-80 word answer block in the first 300 words of each page. Avoid throat-clearing openers like "In this article..." and lead with the answer.
Write 20-25 word self-contained answer sentences immediately after each H2 heading. 72.4% of AI-cited posts use this pattern - it gives engines a ready-made snippet to quote.
Add question-based headings (H2/H3) throughout your content. Use "What is...", "How does...", "Why should..." patterns that match how users query AI assistants.
Fix It With AI42
Score Breakdown
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