Get your store found on Google — and cited by AI

A practical guide for Salla merchants: what actually gets your pages indexed and ranked, how to be cited in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity — and what Salla already does for you, with no extra apps.

1. 1

   Turn on your own domain

   A store on its own domain builds authority that belongs to you. A sub-path builds it for the platform. This is the first and most consequential long-term decision.

2. 2

   Submit your sitemap to Search Console

   Marketing Tools → SEO → Sitemap. Copy the URL, add it in Search Console, and verify ownership. Salla generates and updates the sitemap automatically as you add products.

3. 3

   Set your homepage title and description

   Title: store name + what you sell + city or market. Keep it under 60 characters so it isn't truncated; the description runs 120–155 characters and must give a reason to click.

4. 4

   Review your robots.txt

   Salla lets you edit robots.txt from the dashboard. Make sure you aren't blocking product or category pages — and aren't blocking AI crawlers. A mistake here costs all of your traffic at once.

5. 5

   Connect Analytics and Tag Manager

   You can't tell what's working without measurement. Connect early so data accumulates before you need it.

1. 1

   Product titles: descriptive, not clever

   Use: [product type] + [key attribute] + [category/use] + [brand]. "Automatic 15-bar espresso machine with built-in grinder — De'Longhi" beats "Your morning companion". Nobody searches for a clever name.

2. 2

   A unique description that answers buying questions

   At least 150 words, written for this product alone. Cover: who it's for, size/capacity/materials, what's in the box, shipping time, return policy. Copy the questions you actually get on WhatsApp — those are your keywords.

3. 3

   Fill in brand and GTIN/MPN

   Salla exposes MPN and GTIN fields at product level. These identifiers are what let Google and AI match your listing to the same product elsewhere and compare it on price. Leaving them empty makes your product anonymous to machines.

4. 4

   Images and alt text

   Add alt text that accurately describes the image — it opens up image search and helps screen readers. Give the file a meaningful name before upload, not IMG_2931.

5. 5

   Product URL (slug)

   Salla supports Arabic URLs natively. Keep the slug short and matched to the product name, and avoid changing it once indexed — Salla does not yet offer 301 redirects from the old URL.

6. 6

   Turn reviews on, and ask for them

   Reviews aren't decoration. In an analysis of ChatGPT shopping results, top-ranked products carried roughly 124% more reviews than the rest. Ask once, briefly, after delivery.

1. 1

   Put real copy on category pages

   A category page with no text is just an image grid to Google. Add 150–300 words explaining how to choose within the category, the differences between types, and price ranges. Category pages target "buy X" queries — the highest purchase intent there is.

2. 2

   Build topic clusters, not scattered articles

   Search engines and AI expand one question into several sub-questions (query fan-out). A store that covers a topic from every angle gets cited more than one that published a single article.

3. 3

   Write the way people actually ask

   "How long does perfume last?" not "Fragrance longevity duration". In Arabic, Gulf dialect phrasing in question headings matches what people really type — the gap between formal Arabic and dialect is real for retrieval matching.

4. 4

   Put the direct answer in the first 60 words

   Generative engines extract a passage, not a page. Lead with the plain answer, then elaborate. Princeton's GEO study found citing sources lifts citation by 40% and statistics by 37%, while keyword stuffing drops it by 10%.

5. 5

   Add an FAQ block to every page that matters

   FAQs are the single most citable content format: a clear question, a short self-contained answer. Put them on product and category pages, not only on a separate FAQ page.

1. 1

   1 · Make your structured data complete

   Salla emits JSON-LD for your store and products automatically — but how rich it is depends on you. A product with no brand, no GTIN and no reviews produces thin structured data. Fill the fields and the data fills out with them.

2. 2

   2 · Connect Merchant Center and keep the feed clean

   This is the highest-leverage action available today. Priority order: real-time price and availability accuracy (the top cause of disapprovals), precise descriptive titles, GTIN/MPN/brand, product category, high-resolution images.

3. 3

   3 · Don't block AI crawlers

   Check robots.txt and confirm you allow GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and Bingbot. Blocked content cannot be cited. It really is that simple.

4. 4

   4 · Build presence off your own site

   Brands are cited via third parties several times more often than via their own domain. In Saudi and the Gulf that means: genuine activity on X, Arabic YouTube reviews, a Google Business profile, Maroof registration, presence on Amazon.sa and Noon, and local media coverage.

5. 5

   5 · Write citable content

   A direct 40–60 word answer, comparison tables, specific numbers with their source, a visible last-updated date. Vague, sprawling content offers nothing to extract.

6. 6

   6 · Keep your brand identity consistent

   Same store name, same description, same address across your site, Google profile, social accounts and marketplaces. Engines assemble an "entity" from these signals — inconsistency takes it apart.

Automatic, no setup

1. 1

   Search Console: start here

   Since August 2026 it shows generative-AI performance reports. What it gives you: impressions. What it doesn't: the queries that surfaced you, clicks, an AI Overviews vs AI Mode split, or anything outside Google.

2. 2

   Watch branded search as a proxy

   The core measurement problem: someone who hears about you in ChatGPT rarely arrives through a link from it — they search your name or type it directly. Branded search rising without an ad campaign is the best available evidence that AI is mentioning you.

3. 3

   Segment AI referrers in Analytics

   Create a segment for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. Volume will be small, but purchase intent is high.

4. 4

   Add "how did you hear about us?" at checkout

   The simplest and most accurate instrument you have. One optional field reveals what no analytics dashboard will.

5. 5

   Test manually — and repeat each query five times

   Pick 20 queries that matter, run them across three platforms, repeat each 3–5 times and record a rate ("cited 3 of 5"). AI answers are non-deterministic; a single run is an anecdote, not a measurement.

Start from a store that's configured from the ground up

Structured data, sitemap, Arabic URLs and sharing tags work from the first moment. You just add the products.

Free trial · no credit card

Sources & verification

Salla capabilities above were verified by direct inspection of a live Salla storefront's output and from the Salla Help Center. Other platforms' capabilities come from their published official documentation as of 21 September 2026. Figures on AI engine behaviour come from published studies and are inherently subject to change.

• Salla Help Center — SEO tools in your store
• Salla — information for AI assistants
• Google — AI features optimization guide
• Google — generative AI performance reports
• Ahrefs — llms.txt study
• Princeton — GEO study