A patient who asks an AI assistant "which dermatologist should I see in Tunis?" no longer browses ten links: they receive a written answer, sometimes with a few sources. For a doctor, this opens a new visibility surface, called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Nobody can guarantee appearing in it, but you can make your site easy to understand, quote and recommend.
How AI Builds Its Answers
Generative assistants rely on two main sources. The first is their training: general knowledge drawn from large amounts of public text. The second is live search: many assistants browse the web at the time of the question, retrieve pages, then summarize the relevant passages.
For a local doctor, the second source is the more actionable one. If your site is accessible, understandable and cited elsewhere, it can be selected as a source. If the information about you is contradictory or hard to find, the AI will ignore it or get it wrong.
To be honest, these systems evolve quickly and their inner workings are not public. The best practices below are principles of clarity and reliability that also serve classic search optimization, which limits the risk of working for nothing.
Allow AI Crawlers in robots.txt
The robots.txt file tells crawlers what they may explore. Some sites block AI assistant crawlers by default, often unknowingly, because of a security plugin or a hosting setting. If these crawlers cannot read your site, they cannot cite it.
- GPTBot (OpenAI)
- ClaudeBot (Anthropic)
- PerplexityBot (Perplexity)
- Google-Extended (a setting tied to Google's AI products)
Check that your robots.txt does not forbid these agents, while keeping useful blocks (admin pages, internal search results). Depending on your content policy you may also decide to restrict them: it is an editorial choice, but it should be a conscious one, not an accident.
The llms.txt File
llms.txt is a proposed file placed at the root of the site, in plain text, that presents the important pages of your site to language models with a short description. It acts a bit like an annotated map.
For a practice, it can contain: the practitioner's name and specialty, the city, the list of procedures with the link to each page, the contact page and the languages offered. Its adoption by assistants varies and nobody guarantees its effect, but it costs little to create and forces you to clarify the structure of your offering, which has value in itself.
Semantic HTML and Server-Rendered Content
A crawler reads the code, not the screen. If most of your content only appears after JavaScript runs in the browser, some crawlers will see an almost empty page.
- Serve the main content directly in the HTML (server-side rendering or pre-rendering)
- Use semantic tags: a single h1, ordered h2 and h3 levels, lists, tables for tabular data
- Avoid hiding key information in images: put the text in HTML and use useful alt descriptions
- Keep a stable, readable URL per page
This is something we watch from the design stage of Codini medical websites: a site that is pleasant to look at must also be readable by a machine.
FAQ Blocks That Answer in One Paragraph
AIs like passages that answer a question directly. A good FAQ asks the question the way the patient would phrase it, then answers immediately in two to four self-contained sentences, understandable without the rest of the page.
- Question as h3, direct answer in the paragraph that follows
- First sentence = the answer, nuances come after
- No references such as "see above": every answer must stand on its own
- General, cautious content, never personalised medical advice
These blocks serve the patient, Google's featured snippets and AI assistants all at once.
Structured Data and a Consistent Entity
schema.org markup (Physician, MedicalClinic, FAQPage) describes unambiguously who you are. It should come with a simple rule: one name, one spelling. If you appear under three different variants across sites, the AI may think they are three different people or, worse, associate you with the wrong information.
Choose the exact form of your name, title and specialty, then apply it everywhere: site, Google listing, directories, social networks, conference biography. Link these profiles together with explicit links.
Being Cited by Third-Party Sites
An AI that hesitates over a piece of information looks for independent confirmation. Being mentioned on serious third-party sites is therefore a major lever: reliable medical directories, medical council or learned society, press, congress sites, review platforms, universities or hospitals you are affiliated with.
Focus on real mentions consistent with your site, rather than low-quality listings. An identical presentation across a handful of recognised sources outweighs a dozen obscure directories.
What Patients Really Ask AIs
Before optimizing, you need to know which questions you want to be cited for. Patients ask assistants three types of questions: orientation ("which specialist should I see for this problem"), preparation ("how does a consultation of this kind go") and comparison ("which clinics offer this procedure in this city").
Your content should target the last two types, which fall within your legitimate editorial scope: explaining a patient journey, describing an organisation, presenting your practice. Never try to make an AI say a treatment suits a given person: that is a medical act, which belongs to the consultation.
Writing Pages That Are Easy to Cite
An AI summarizing a page appreciates text where each section has a clear purpose. A few writing habits make a real difference.
- A precise heading per section, announcing exactly what the paragraph contains
- Short sentences, naming the subject rather than using vague pronouns
- Important facts (city, specialty, languages spoken, booking procedure) written out in text and not only in an image
- A visible last-updated date on educational content
- An identified author: the doctor or a reviewing colleague
These practices also serve human readers, which is a good test: if a page is clear to a hurried patient, it is generally clear to a machine too.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
A few pitfalls recur among practices discovering this topic.
- Betting everything on AI and neglecting Google: both feed on the same foundations, and Google remains the main entry point for many patients
- Publishing mass-generated content without medical review: it lacks real experience, all looks alike and weakens trust
- Promising a ranking: nobody controls an assistant's answers, beware of offers that guarantee it
- Leaving outdated information online: an old number or address can be picked up in an answer and cost you a patient
- Neglecting languages: if your patients search in French, Arabic and English, your site and listings should exist in those languages with the same basic information
What all these mistakes have in common is the same thing: AI reflects what it finds on the web. A consistent, honest and up-to-date web presence about you is the best long-term strategy.
Measuring Without Fooling Yourself
Regularly ask several assistants the questions your patients would ask: specialty plus city, procedures, comparisons. Note whether you appear, whether the information is accurate and which sources are cited. Then fix the gaps at the source, by updating your site and profiles.
Do not rely on a single answer: they vary from one attempt to the next. Look for trends, not isolated results.
A Realistic, Lasting Approach
The field moves quickly, and it is tempting to chase every novelty. A calmer approach relies on foundations that hold whatever the tool: accurate information, a fast and readable site, useful content written with doctors, credible third-party mentions. These investments stay profitable if assistants change how they work, because they also serve patients and classic search engines.
Plan a regular review of your main pages: check the information, reread the FAQ answers, fix what has changed. A living, maintained, dated site inspires more trust, for a human as for a machine, than a site published once and left aside.
Conclusion
Appearing in AI answers is not a trick, it is a consequence: a readable site, direct content, structured data, third-party mentions and a consistent identity. Doctors who prepare these foundations now will be best placed, whatever happens to the tools.
Want your site to be visible to search engines and AI assistants alike? Contact Codini for a no-obligation conversation.