Content that gets cited

Engines quote passages. The passage most likely to be quoted opens with the answer: a one-sentence definition or verdict under a heading phrased as the question, followed by the explanation. Pages that bury the answer under a long introduction are retrieved and skipped.

A heading hierarchy that mirrors an outline, lists for steps and options, tables for comparisons and prices, and an FAQ block with FAQPage markup. These are not style preferences; they are the shapes retrievers and models handle well. Comparison tables in particular are quoted almost verbatim.

Named author, publication and modification dates, first-person evidence ("we tested twelve tools"), specific numbers with sources, and outbound citations to authoritative pages all raise the probability of being cited and lower the risk of being paraphrased wrongly. Freshness matters: engines prefer recently updated pages, and a visible "last updated" date with matching dateModified markup is read.

Your tracking tells you which prompts you lose. The pages that win them are usually of a few kinds: honest comparisons with named competitors, "best X for Y" pages that include competitors, use-case pages that answer one job completely, and fact pages (pricing, integrations, limits) that engines can quote without guessing.

A brief built from the winning answers (what they cover, which sources they cite, which sub-questions appear) keeps the writing targeted. The writing itself should stay with a person who knows the product.