Getting started is quick. You add your brand, confirm the questions you want to win, and set your brand guidelines. Cited audits how AI answers those questions today, then starts publishing within about 48 hours. From there you watch your dashboard and give feedback. Most of the work is done for you; your part is setup and direction. This guide walks through each step and what to expect in your first month.
Step 1: Check your starting visibility
Before anything else, see where you stand. The free AI visibility check on gocited.ai scores one brand across all six AI engines in about a minute, with no signup. It shows you how often AI mentions you today.
This is your baseline. Everything that follows is measured against it, so it is worth doing first. For most brands the starting number is low, and that is the gap the service works to close.
Step 2: Add your brand
When you start, you set up your brand profile. This is the core information Cited uses to do the work: your brand name, website, what you sell, and the basics of how you describe yourself.
Keep it accurate and specific. The more real detail you provide, the better the content represents you and the less guesswork is involved.
Step 3: Confirm your questions and keywords
Next, you confirm the questions your buyers actually ask, the prompts you want to show up for. Cited maps a set of high-intent queries for your space, the kind someone types into ChatGPT or Perplexity when they are close to choosing.
Your input matters here. You know your buyers, so review the suggested questions, add the ones that matter most, and drop any that do not fit. These prompts become what your dashboard tracks and what the published content targets.
Step 4: Set your brand voice and guidelines
This is where you protect your brand. You provide your tone, your messaging, and your do-and-do-not list: claims you want made, topics to avoid, competitors not to name, anything off-limits.
Set these clearly at the start. They shape everything that gets published, so a few minutes here saves back-and-forth later and keeps the content on-brand.
Step 5: Publishing begins
Once your setup is in, the work starts fast. Cited aims to publish your first citations within 48 hours, across the channels AI engines read: Reddit, Quora, X, Substack, press, and authority blogs.
You do not write or post anything yourself. The editorial team handles the writing, formatting, and publishing within the guidelines you set.
Step 6: Read your dashboard
Your dashboard is where you watch progress. The main numbers to know:
- Citation count: how many times you are cited across your tracked questions.
- Share of voice: how often you appear compared to competitors on the same questions.
- Query coverage: how many of your tracked questions return a mention of you.
- Per-engine view: the same metrics for each of the six AI engines and Google Search.
Check it regularly, but do not expect a straight line. AI citations move around week to week, so look at the trend over weeks rather than reading too much into any single day. Most brands see measurable AI visibility growth within 60 to 90 days, and because citations compound, month 3 is typically much stronger than month 1.
Step 7: Review what's published and request changes
Every published placement appears in your dashboard with its live URL, so you can open and read each one. If something is off-brand or you want it adjusted or taken down, you request that and it gets handled.
This is your feedback loop. Use it early. Flagging what you like and what you do not in the first weeks helps tune the content to your brand faster.
Managing your plan
Your plan covers how many brands and prompts you track and how many mentions get published each month. You can adjust your plan as your needs change, and there are no contracts, so you can cancel anytime.
If you want daily AI-written posts on your own website on top of the external work, the AEO Blog Posts add-on covers that for $99 per month per brand, and you can attach it to any plan.
How to get support
For data and privacy questions, the direct contact is [email protected]. For everything else, support is reachable through your account and the gocited.ai website.
What to do during the free trial
The 14-day free trial needs no credit card. It gives you a full AI perception audit plus the tracking dashboard for one brand and five prompts across all six AI engines, so use it to learn your real starting position. A good way to evaluate Cited in the trial:
- Look at your baseline share of voice and which brands the AI names instead of you.
- Check which of your key questions you are missing from entirely.
- Note which engines are weakest for you, since they differ a lot.
That gives you a clear, honest picture of the gap before you decide to start publishing. The trial is for tracking; the publishing work begins on a paid plan.
The takeaway
Setup is fast and mostly about direction: add your brand, confirm your questions, set your guidelines, and let the publishing begin within about 48 hours. Then watch the dashboard over weeks, not days, and use the feedback loop to keep content on-brand. Start by checking your baseline, so you can see the change you are paying for.
For what happens behind the scenes, see how Cited works. For timing, read results, timelines and what to expect.
