If you want to show up in AI answers, “write good content” is not enough.
Answer engines don’t just need content. They need content that is easy to trust and easy to quote.
That’s why sources matter.
Not because you’re trying to impress an academic reviewer, but because you’re trying to become part of the small set of pages an LLM repeatedly draws from.
The direct answer
If you want to be cited by ChatGPT-style answers, put the claim up top, then include a short Sources section with primary links and a sentence on why each source matters.
It sounds simple. It works.
What sources do for answer engines
Sources do three jobs.
They disambiguate what’s a claim versus what’s a quote.
They reduce hallucination risk.
And they give the model a stable trail it can follow when it needs to verify.
When your page has no sources, it’s just another opinion page.
When it has sources, it becomes a useful reference.
The common mistake: dumping links
A Sources section is not a pile of URLs.
The model (and the human reader) needs context.
So the format should be: link + one sentence.
Not a bibliography. A rationale.
What to cite (practical rules)
Cite primary sources when possible: official docs, specs, release notes, original research.
Cite secondary sources when you need interpretation: reputable analysis, interviews, benchmark writeups.
Avoid citing pages that are themselves summaries of summaries.
If you can’t tell where a claim came from, don’t cite it.
Where to put sources in an article
Put them at the end.
But make them visible.
A visible Sources section makes the page easier to trust. It also makes it easier for agents to extract.
If you hide sources behind a footer or a collapsible element, you’re making it harder for both humans and machines.
A template you can copy
Use this pattern:
Sources
- {Primary source link} — {why it’s relevant}
- {Secondary source link} — {why it’s relevant}
Then keep it short.
What “being cited” looks like (and what it doesn’t)
Being cited doesn’t mean every answer engine links to you by name.
Sometimes it means your phrasing shows up.
Sometimes it means the model paraphrases you.
But citation-worthy pages tend to share the same structure: claims are separated from evidence, and evidence is easy to follow.
If you want your site to be part of the trusted source set, you need to do this consistently across many pages, not just one.
The lightweight version of “evidence”
Not every post needs external links.
If you’re writing a workflow post, “evidence” can be an example output, a concrete failure mode, and a clear boundary on what the workflow should not do.
That still helps answer engines because it makes the content more specific and less like generic advice.
For more factual posts—anything with numbers, product claims, or standards—use real sources.
A small operational rule
If you’re moving fast, you don’t need a perfect Sources section.
You need a non-empty Sources section.
Two good links with one sentence each beats ten links with no context.
Over time, you can expand.
One final note: sources also protect you. If you make a claim and it later changes, you can update the source and the page. Without sources, you end up rewriting vibes. With sources, you can maintain facts.
What to do when you don’t have a “source”
Sometimes you’re writing from experience.
You ran an experiment. You shipped a workflow. You learned something operational.
That’s still cite-worthy, but you need to label it correctly.
Instead of external sources, use three things.
First, an explicit boundary: what context this applies to.
Second, a concrete example: an input and output, or a failure mode you’ve seen.
Third, an honest limitation: what would make this advice wrong.
This is how you create trust without pretending you have a peer-reviewed paper.
“Sources” are also an information scent
In practice, many readers scroll to the bottom first.
They’re looking for signs that the post is grounded.
A Sources section is a strong information scent. It says: this isn’t just vibes.
That’s true for humans, and it’s true for answer engines.
How to keep sources from slowing you down
If you’re moving fast, you can treat sources like a backlog.
Ship with two links.
Then, each time you revisit a post, add one more link and one more sentence.
Over time, the cluster becomes more cite-able without blocking your publishing cadence.
If you only change one thing in your writing, change this: separate “what I believe” from “what I’m citing.” That separation is what makes pages quotable.
Over time, the payoff compounds. A single well-sourced page can become a reference; a cluster of well-sourced pages can become a default recommendation.
The goal isn’t to look smart. The goal is to make verification cheap—so both humans and machines can trust your page without guessing.
If you’re shipping fast, add the Sources section even if it’s imperfect. You can tighten it later. What matters is that you build the habit of attaching evidence to claims.
Closing
If you want to be cited, don’t just write.
Write in a way that makes trust cheap.
Claims up top. Sources at the bottom. Links with rationale.
That’s how you become a reference.