Writing quotable pages: paragraph structure that LLMs lift into answers

When an AI assistant uses your page in an answer, it does not read the whole thing and write an appreciation of it. It finds a passage that answers the question, lifts the facts from that passage, and moves on. Whether your page is cited therefore depends less on how good it is overall and more on whether it contains at least one paragraph that is complete, specific and self-contained enough to be lifted.

Most business pages contain no such paragraph. This post is about writing them.

The extraction test

Take any paragraph on your site. Copy it into a blank document with nothing around it. Ask: does this still make sense, and does it still tell the reader something they could not have guessed?

Most marketing copy fails on both counts:

We understand that choosing the right provider is an important decision. That's why our dedicated team goes above and beyond to deliver exceptional results, every time.

Out of context, it tells you nothing: not who "we" are, not what is provided, not where, not at what price. There is no fact to attribute. An assistant reads this, finds nothing, and uses a competitor's paragraph instead.

Now the same business, rewritten:

Example Accountancy is a Leeds firm of chartered accountants that prepares year-end accounts and tax returns for limited companies with turnover under £2m. Fees are fixed in advance; a typical small company pays £1,200 a year for accounts, corporation tax and confirmation statement. Work is completed within six weeks of receiving records.

Every sentence carries something checkable. Lift it anywhere and it still works. That is the target.

The structure that gets lifted

A quotable paragraph has four parts, usually in this order.

1. Subject named in full. Not "we" or "our team". The business name, or the thing being described, in the first sentence. Pronouns lose their referent when a paragraph is extracted.

2. The claim, stated plainly. What it is, what it does, who it is for, where. One or two sentences.

3. A specific. A number, a date, a standard, a named place, a duration. This is the hook an assistant attaches a citation to.

4. A boundary. What it does not include, when it does not apply, or what happens next. Boundaries make a claim feel checked rather than promotional, and assistants weight that.

Here it is applied to a dental page:

Example Dental in Norwich offers Invisalign clear aligner treatment for adults and teenagers. Treatment costs from £2,400 for mild cases to £4,200 for complex ones, including retainers, and takes six to eighteen months. It is not suitable for patients with active gum disease, which is treated first.

Subject, claim, specifics (price range, duration, inclusions), boundary. Four sentences.

Headings that match questions

Assistants rewrite user prompts into search-like queries, then match them against page sections. A heading phrased as the question the customer would ask is a better match than a label.

Label heading	Question heading
Pricing	How much does a boiler service cost?
Our process	What happens on the day of installation?
Areas covered	Do you cover Wokingham and Bracknell?
Guarantees	How long is the guarantee on a new boiler?

Then put the quotable paragraph directly under the heading. Not after an image, not after a sentence of throat-clearing.

Length, density and order

• Keep quotable paragraphs to three to five sentences. Longer ones get partially extracted and lose their boundary.
• One claim per paragraph. Mixing price and process in one paragraph means neither is cleanly liftable.
• Put the most asked question first on the page. Extraction systems weight early content; so do readers.
• Repeat the entity name across the page, at least once per major section. A paragraph on the pricing section that starts "Example Dental charges..." is self-contained; one that starts "We charge..." is not.

Before and after: a service page

A typical trade page before:

Emergency Plumbing

Burst pipe? Boiler packed up? Don't panic! Our friendly, reliable team are here to help 24/7. We've been serving the local community for years and pride ourselves on fast response times and fair prices. Give us a call today!

After:

How quickly can you attend an emergency in Reading?

Example Heating & Plumbing attends plumbing emergencies in Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell within two hours, 24 hours a day, including bank holidays. The call-out fee is £75 and includes the first hour of labour; parts are charged at cost plus 15%. Gas Safe registered (no. 123456). Jobs outside the three towns are quoted individually.

The second version is shorter, less friendly in tone, and far more likely to be lifted into an answer, because it contains six facts and no filler. You can add warmth around it; just keep the fact paragraph intact.

Where to apply this first

You do not need to rewrite the whole site. Start with:

1. The first paragraph of the homepage (who, what, where).
2. The first paragraph under each H2 on your top three service pages.
3. The About page, rewritten as a fact sheet.
4. Every FAQ answer: one to three sentences, fact first.

Those four changes cover most of what an assistant will ever retrieve from you.

A short checklist

[ ] Each key paragraph names the business or subject in full, not "we"
[ ] Each contains at least one number, date, standard or named place
[ ] Each states a boundary (not included / not suitable for / outside area)
[ ] Headings on service pages are phrased as customer questions
[ ] The answer paragraph sits directly under the heading
[ ] No paragraph mixes two claims (price and process, area and guarantee)
[ ] Facts match the fact card, structured data and Google Business Profile

Does it work for people too?

Yes, and that is the point. Readers skim for the same things assistants extract: what, where, how much, how long, what is excluded. Pages written this way tend to convert better because the answer is on the page rather than behind a phone call. The warmth and personality belong in the second paragraph, the photos and the reviews, not in place of the facts.

Seoptist's audit flags pages whose key sections fail the extraction test (no entity name, no specifics, no direct answer under the heading) and, on Growth and above, drafts rewritten answer paragraphs from your fact card for you to edit. Run the free AI Visibility Check to see which of your pages assistants currently quote, and which they skip.