Six things, in order of importance: a plain-text email address on a crawlable page; capabilities, materials and certifications written as HTML text in the vocabulary buyers' briefs use; regions served as text rather than a map image; Organization schema with a contact point; a robots.txt that does not block AI crawlers; and dates and company details that are current and consistent across the web. Everything else is secondary.
Why This Matters
A buyer's AI agent does not browse a website; it reads it, matches it against a brief, and looks for an address it can send a request to. Content that only a human can interpret, such as a PDF brochure, a scanned certificate, or a map graphic, is invisible to it. A contact form is not an address. Businesses map only about 60% of their supplier networks (QIMA, 2026), so agents are increasingly the way buyers find suppliers they do not already know.
The Six Elements
| Element | What the agent needs | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Contact | A plain-text email on a page that loads without JavaScript | Form only, phone only, or address as an image |
| Capabilities | Processes, materials, tolerances as HTML text, in buyer terms | "Precision solutions" copy; details only in a PDF |
| Certifications | Standard number and scope as text, e.g. "ISO 9001:2015, scope: castings" | A JPEG of the certificate |
| Regions served | Countries or states as words | A shaded map |
| Identity | Organization schema with name, address, contactPoint, sameAs | No schema; three name variants across the web |
| Currency | Recent dates, valid certifications, live links | News from 2022, expired certificate, dead directory links |
Vocabulary is the element suppliers most often get wrong. A brief says "aluminum die casting, ISO 9001, Midwest, 5,000 units a year". A site that uses those nouns matches; a site that describes itself in brand language does not, however good the work is. For the terms a well-written brief contains, see what to include in an aluminum casting RFQ, which is the buyer's side of the same exchange.
What You Can Skip
An llms.txt file is currently unread: 97% of such files received no requests in May 2026 (Ahrefs). Retail checkout protocols such as the Agentic Commerce Protocol and Google's Universal Commerce Protocol are about consumer transactions, not industrial discovery. Directory listings help only if they point to a site the agent can read. The reasoning behind each of these, and a one-hour checklist with five-minute tests, is in the guide to how to be found by AI buying agents.
How Buyer24 Helps
Buyer24's Supplier Agent matches suppliers to a buyer's brief by industry, region, capabilities and certifications, then pulls a reachable email from the site before an RFQ is drafted. A site that exposes the six elements above is what that agent can find and act on. How the agents work →
FAQ
Should I remove the contact form?
No, keep it for humans. Add a plain-text email address beside it, on the same page, in the HTML rather than as an image. The form serves visitors; the address serves agents. Both can coexist.
Do I need a separate page for AI agents?
No. Agents read the same pages humans do. The work is making the existing capabilities and contact pages readable as text, not building a parallel site. A dedicated "for AI" page that duplicates content adds maintenance without adding visibility.
How much detail should capabilities include?
Enough to match a brief: process, materials or alloys, typical tolerances or standards, lot sizes and lead times if you are willing to state them, and certifications with number and scope. Specifics match; adjectives do not.
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