HubSpot SEO Certification study plan

Define AI citation in your own words and list the three signals you believe most influence whether an answer engine quotes a page

Audit five of your own pages and label each as citation-ready, citation-weak, or not citable, with a one-line reason per page

Rewrite one introductory paragraph so the core answer appears in the first two sentences, then compare the before and after side by side

Build a checklist of at least eight on-page elements that make a passage easy to extract and quote

Convert your citation checklist into a repeatable template covering headings, answer-first paragraphs, definitions, and source lines

Apply the template to three pages and record the exact edits made to each

Draft a schema and structured-data plan that names the entity, the page type, and the properties you will mark up

Write a short internal note explaining how crawlability and rendering affect whether an answer engine can read your content

List every place an AI citation can surface for your brand and note how you would detect each one manually

Design a citation-tracking sheet with columns for prompt, engine, date, cited URL, position, and sentiment

Run ten representative prompts across at least two answer engines and log the results

Identify two prompts where a competitor is cited instead of you and write a hypothesis for why

Separate AEO metrics into visibility, citation quality, traffic, and business outcome buckets

Define one primary metric and two guardrail metrics you will report on weekly

Build a simple dashboard or spreadsheet view that refreshes from your tracking sheet

Explain in writing how answer-engine visibility changes the traditional ranking-and-clicks model

Map the shift from ranked links to synthesized answers and list three implications for your content strategy

Identify ten question-shaped topics your audience actually asks, sourced from sales calls, support tickets, or search data

Cluster those topics into four content briefs organized around a single clear question each

Prioritize the four briefs by business value and estimated citation difficulty

Draft one full piece from a brief using answer-first structure, scannable headings, and explicit definitions

Add internal links and entity references that help an engine connect the page to your brand and topic

Review the draft against your week-two template and log every gap you close

Publish or stage the piece and confirm it is indexable and renders correctly without scripts

Re-run your ten tracking prompts and compare results against week three

Attribute any new citations to specific page changes and note where attribution is uncertain

Calculate a simple citation rate and a share-of-answer figure for your tracked prompts

Write a two-page readout aimed at a non-specialist stakeholder, leading with the business implication

Consolidate your templates, tracking sheet, and readout into a single AEO playbook document

Rehearse the exam blueprint by writing short explanations of each domain's core idea from memory

List the three weakest areas from that self-test and schedule a focused review for each

Define your next 30 days of AEO work with owners and dates