--- date: 2026-01-15 --- Here are the 5 that are actually new enough to matter in 2026 and worth operationalizing ASAP: 1. **Let AI crawl you on purpose (or explicitly don't).** This is now a C-level decision, not a hidden robots.txt line. 2. **Write in quotable, self-contained fragments that include your brand by name.** Every "pull quote" should carry both the proof *and* you. 3. **Map 'AI prompts we want to win' the same way we used to map 'keywords we want to rank for'.** And measure share of voice in AI answers across platforms, not just Google SERP share. 4. **Explode your surface area with ultra-specific, high-intent mini pages.** Feature pages, integration pages, "for [scenario]" pages, "under $X" pages, "for [city/weather/industry]" pages. Generic catch-all pages do not get quoted in AI the way they used to rank in Google. 5. **Ship authoritative evidence, not fluff.** Original stats, mini case studies with numbers, side-by-side tables, expert validation, clear dates. LLMs prefer citing concrete, recent, low-liability facts. Fluff dies.